” SIN IS LAWLESSNESS.” (1 John 3:4) Good morning. I am at youth camp. Thanks for your prayers for our teenagers and hundreds of others from around the state. I am teaching (in the evening sessions) on the 10 Commandments. In our first session (last night) I noticed a pronounced heaviness. Many or most of these teenagers have never thought or talked about “the Rules” that God set down for our welfare. Consequently, they frequently have never considered the regular resistance that we all express toward God’s commandments. We are lawless. We do not like to be told what to do.– This week we are reading the book of Amos. The prophet says that “the Lord ROARS”. (1:2) It is an unfamiliar image. A terrifying sound. Menace. Danger. It speaks our failure. It speaks His anger. When the Lord taught us to pray “forgive us our sins”, He was thinking of this same reality. To receive God’s mercy, we must first recognize our failure.
