Finals Pressure

Greetings everyone.  I am extremely busy now that we are down to a week and a half left of this quarter. I have to finish my exegetical of Psalm 82, write one more history paper, and take two tests.  I have my sermon wrote, now I just have to keep practicing it so I can preach it Sunday.  I will preach it first, make any adjustments I decide upon last minute to the manuscript and post it up here on Sunday.  So preview alert, sermon will be up Sunday, I promise.  My exegetical on Psalm 82 is really fascinating because it is one of the most controversial Psalms written.  Before you say, "Why did you pick the most controversial one?", realize I was assigned it and did not pick it.  However, it has been a fun project, I just need to turn all my notes and highlights into a ten page academic paper, which will take some time yet.  I did receive two care packages this week, so that was an amazing blessing for finals week.  One was from my field work church and the other was from a church in Minnesota.  Why the church in Minnesota you ask?  Because the fourth year student from my field work church last year took a call there last May and is now the pastor there.  His LWML group sends these packages out to all of their college students and in their sweet note told me I qualified.  They sent me post-it notes, a pen, and then cookies, bars and candy, and last but not least a tooth brush and toothpaste.  They aren't helping me lose any weight, but they are helping me take care of my teeth against all of that sugar.  I thought it was very sweet of them and sent them a thank you letter.  Other than that I am just going about my normal life.  We lost in the IM Championship Flag Football game today, but it was against a fun team so it wasn't that bad.  We are in the IM Championship Ultimate Frisbee game on Thursday.  This is my last week with the sixth graders so I am trying to plan some fun projects for them.  I am going to miss them after this quarter.
In New Testament Lectionary, we discussed some pretty powerful and amazing stuff over our eschatological theology while translating 1 John 3:1-3 from the Greek.  If you are not sure what eschatological means, it is all of the end time stuff like death, second coming of our Lord, resurrection of the body, and how it will all happen.  I will try to get that discussion up here when I have more time. Dr. Gibbs is the eschatological guy on campus and he has some really amazing views on the subject.  The best part is they are all scriptural based.  However, what I do want to give you to think about is 1 Corinthians 13:13.  This is most commonly used at weddings and the previous verses as I'm sure you all know give a great definition of love.  However, in this verse it gives use the three great blessings the Lord gives us: faith, hope and love.  Love is the greatest of these three.  Dr. Gibbs, the eschatological guy, told us how he understands this verse.  Paul here is writing this as an eschatological view that when the Lord comes back the second time and every knee bows and every tongue confesses He is the Lord, love is the greatest of these three blessings.  It is the greatest because it is the only one left.  Faith will give out to sight as we kneel in the glory of our Lord, hope to will give out to reality since we will then have what we have been hoping for all this time, and love is the only thing left.  The love our God freely shows us, even though we do not deserve it.  The love that caused Him to send His Son as our Redeemer from sin, death, and the Devil.  The love that will cause Him to send His Son the second time to call all believers home, restored in their resurrected bodies and ready to enter the new creation.  This amazing and powerful love that He gives us is all that is left.  So it truly is the greatest and what comfort that gives us that even when faith and hope are gone because we have our Savior in front of us, we know we still have His love upon us as His called and redeemed children.  All Praise be to Him who gives us this love, the greatest  blessing He gives us, for it is out of this love that He created us, redeemed us, and calls us His own.  Amen.
Dear Heavenly Father, 
We thank you so much for the gift of the faith you have called us into, the hope you give us through that faith, and especially the love you freely give us at all times.  We do not deserve to be called Your children, but because of Your love for us, we are just that.  Give us Your Spirit to strengthen our faith, keeping us in the one true hope of Your Son's return, and help us to love You as the one true Almighty God that You are.  In Jesus name we pray, Amen.