Jesus tells us (in Luke 24) that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name. Luke's gospel tells us about Christ's death and resurrection. Luke's sequel [Acts] tells us about the preaching part.
As we read through Acts, we see many similarities in stories between Jesus and Paul. They were both opposed by the Jews. They both did miracles. They both traveled around, preaching and forgiving sin, beginning in the synagogue. They were both arrested when innocent. But Paul does not die. (Well, yes, he died. Eventually. But that's not recorded in Acts.)
And that's because only Christ's death counts for our salvation.
Saturday, January 06, 2018
Friday, January 05, 2018
Towels
My dad came from a large family. When the family got together for Christmas at my grandma's house, it would be 40-50 people. Kids exchanged names for gift-giving. Teens and adults exchanged names. But Grandma's plan was to get a bunch of the same thing for everybody. One year she bought gobs of mittens and let all the kids choose a color. For several years, the adult-gift was towels. She bought lots of towels. Everybody could pick. Somehow Gary and I ended up with oddball colors that would never go with the color of our bathroom or with our other towels.
Our current towel stash still has some towels that we each bought when we went away to college. That would not be a big deal if I were in my 20s. But I am not.
Our current towel stash still has some towels that we received as wedding gifts, towels that were seldom used because they were in odd colors.
Our current towel stash has some nearly new towels (again, in colors that don't match) because of distributing the contents of deceased parents' homes.
This week I pulled towels out of the bathroom for the laundry, but washed only some before needing fresh towels for showers. Somehow, a pair of color-coordinated towels ended up in the bathroom. The towels matched each other and matched the color-scheme of the bathroom. It looked nice. It makes me want to go out and buy color-coordinated towels -- just for pretties -- just for fun.
And yet, I can't do it quite yet. I don't like the color of our bathrooms. (The previous owners choose a Packer-theme for the bathrooms.) When we paint and maybe even replace the flooring, then I will waste money on something that looks nice, just for the sake of enjoying the calm of having something coordinated and pretty. That's going to be a big step in embracing beauty and fighting over-frugality. But who knows how long until a bathroom color-remodel can be tackled?
Our current towel stash still has some towels that we each bought when we went away to college. That would not be a big deal if I were in my 20s. But I am not.
Our current towel stash still has some towels that we received as wedding gifts, towels that were seldom used because they were in odd colors.
Our current towel stash has some nearly new towels (again, in colors that don't match) because of distributing the contents of deceased parents' homes.
This week I pulled towels out of the bathroom for the laundry, but washed only some before needing fresh towels for showers. Somehow, a pair of color-coordinated towels ended up in the bathroom. The towels matched each other and matched the color-scheme of the bathroom. It looked nice. It makes me want to go out and buy color-coordinated towels -- just for pretties -- just for fun.
And yet, I can't do it quite yet. I don't like the color of our bathrooms. (The previous owners choose a Packer-theme for the bathrooms.) When we paint and maybe even replace the flooring, then I will waste money on something that looks nice, just for the sake of enjoying the calm of having something coordinated and pretty. That's going to be a big step in embracing beauty and fighting over-frugality. But who knows how long until a bathroom color-remodel can be tackled?
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