Puerto Morelos, Mexico : Zone Meeting

This past Sunday we had the privilege of getting to attend the Mexico/Central America zone meeting via an internet feed. We all gathered at the Ruiz's home and watched the talks live streamed over the internet. Although only one talk was in English, it was a true joy to be 36 among the 1,325,226 in attendance. The talk entitled "Demonstrando que tenemos la mente de Cristo en todo lo que hacemos" or "Demontrating that we have the mind of Christ in all that we do" was given by a brother in English, Harold Corker from Brooklyn Bethel, and translated to Spanish. It was a fantastic talk with a lot of good information to think about. Here are a few highlights.

He walked us through Jesus activities during his pre-human existence as the "Master Worker" what he was involved in, what type of work he did. Jesus was involved in creating everything, other than himself, and Jehovah would exclaim that "it was good". But when disputing with the Pharisees at Matt. 19:4 he didn't take credit for this work. Rather he said "Did you not read that He that created them from the beginning made them male and female..." Here was an opportunity for Jesus to take credit for his work, yet he humbly gave the proper credit to his Father, setting a wonderful example for us to imitate.

When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane before his death, he was concerned about blaspheming Jehovah's name. He prayed to his Father for comfort, asking him to take this cup away... How did Jehovah comfort Jesus then? He sent an angel. We don't know what the angel told Jesus but it was possible that he reassured him that he wouldn't bring reproach on Jehovah but instead bring praise. But what is interesting is Jesus response to this angel, or rather what he didn't do. He didn't say "Who are you to comfort me? I created you. I'm older than you. What do you know that I don't?" Jesus was comforted by this angel. We may pray to Jehovah and ask for comfort or counsel, but Jehovah may use a brother or sister that we wouldn't expect the comfort to come from. Will we be humble enough to recognize it coming from Jehovah?

He also used a wonderful illustration to clarify what forgiveness means. If we picture our lives as a whiteboard, the ones used in offices with a dry erase marker. Our sins are like thousands of little red dot's on it. Many people view forgiveness as taking a black marker and marking an "X" over the red dot's. But if we do that what do we see on the whiteboard now? A bunch of "X's" over red dot's. That's not the way Jehovah forgives. He wipes our red dot's away so that all we have is a blank whiteboard. How do we forgive our Brothers and Sisters? And just as importantly, how do we forgive ourselves for past sin's? Jehovah has wiped them away, and we need to do the same.

The Ruiz family did alot so that we could meet together here. They cleared all the furniture out, rented all the chairs, and bought an small AC unit so we wouldnt be roasting, and helped prepare for the food.