Good evening brethren and Happy Sabbath.  I hope everyone has enjoyed the beautiful weather this week!

Please continue reading "Jesus Christ: the Real Story."  If you already have the booklet and have been reading, you should been on schedule to finish the last three chapters of the booklet, "Who Killed Jesus," "Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God" and "Your Date with Destiny: Meeting the Real Jesus."

You're out of line!

"You're out of line!" It sounds like a quote from a movie, where a superior officer is yelling at one of his underlings for something they said or did.  It carries with it a tone of anger, malice and intense correction, doesn't it?

But the thing is, if we stop and take a close look at ourselves - which we will soon be doing in preparation for Passover - I think we'd all see that we are indeed out of line.  Out of line with what? God's way of thinking of course!

A little goes a long way

Think about being out of line with God in terms of geometry (sorry all you non-math people out there).  You know what parallel lines are, right?  Two lines that run next to each other and stay that way no matter how far you might draw them on a piece of paper.  

But what happens if one of those lines is just a little bit off?  Maybe only 1/2 of 1 degree?  It might take awhile, but eventually, it will get so far away from the original line, it will fall off the edge of the paper.

The spiritual parallel is obvious.  God is the original line - the one that goes perfectly straight forever.  You and I are the other line - the one that goes off at an angle at times.  The angle is analogous to sin.  It might only seem like a 'little sin,' but eventually, it carries us so far away from God that if left unchecked, we too might just fall off the edge!

Are you out of line?

None of us are perfect.  We simply can't be, not in this lifetime anyway.  But we strive for perfection.  A part of the effort to obtain perfection is self examination, something we should do constantly, but especially as the Passover approaches.

In the coming weeks, make sure you set aside some time for self examination, including a personal fast.  By doing so, we can more clearly see God's will, and understand where it is we might be out of line with Him, and how to resume that parallel course!