Neatly Cut Lawns

When you arrive to any third world country the **smells** are a little bit - well, overwhelming.  100+ degree heat, urine & other garbage in the street, cows & pigs roam freely (holy here), and that's not even to mention the 2.5+ million people.

WalMart

Anyway - my immediate thought as a westerner was an immediate offense.  It's like an onion when you are cooking - or smoke in your eyes - there's a repulsion that takes place.  And naturally since we humans are a narrow hair above a Chameleon - immediately there is a 'them' and an 'us' that is naturally formed.  Meaning - I'm good, they are bad.

But the book says that sin is sin.  It says that "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live ... All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved" and then again - it's **by grace** that you have been saved.

Sin is sin.  And just as the physical smells are repulsive to me - so the sins of those in NC are equally as offensive to God.  Envy, self-reliance, lack of forgiveness, anger ... all in the context of neatly cut lawns.  Objects of wrath the text says.  So what's the conclusion?

Anyone seen the raspberry cappuccino?

I pray that God allows me to see these wonderful people as He sees them.  And when I fall into the sinful legalistic mode I pray that God will send a steaming organic reminder for my shoe as I walk these streets.  These people are precious in His sight ... and by His grace our team will see their need for a Savior in an equal light.