Trafficking and Mercy Ministries Week - Journal Feb 15-21

Sunday

We played a game to get the two DTS’s more familiar with one another this afternoon; it was pretty crowded with over 50 people in the Underground milling around asking each other questions in order to fill in a bingo sheet.
I went to the pub in Steplefield - The Jolly Tanners. ‘Twas fun.

Photos: Sunday, Feb 15

Tuesday

We had our first outreach prep meeting today! Email me if you want to know the location I‘m bound for - we’ve been asked to avoid publicly announcing our outreach destination as it’s illegal to evangelize there.

Photos: Tuesday, Feb 17

Thursday

My birthday was most excellent! The girls surprised me with a big “Happy 19th Birthday” sign on my bunk - they put it up while I was down for breakfast. At lunch Peter announced that it was my birthday and all 60-odd students, staff, and guests sang happy birthday to me (with the usual thunderous table drumming between each verse) and my friends set off party poppers while Gina brought out my birthday cake. Then Peter announced that the schedule had been changed for the day - we’d have an hour of work duties then my DTS would meet in the classroom for a birthday party. Another excellent surprise!
We had jelly rolls, tea and coffee and played Pass The Parcel and I’ve Never (I’ve Never is really fun to play when you have a lot of inside information about people; you can target individuals).

Photos: Thursday, Feb 19

Friday

Today was the September ‘08 DTS’s official graduation day, so there was a huge banquet for lunch. My DTS and the staff ran it; the staff cooked, the guys washed up (I and a couple other girls helped - we’d rented hundreds of extra glasses, plates, bowls, and cutlery and even with 10 of us in the washroom it took several hours to get everything clean), the girls from my room served each person each of the four courses and the girls from the other room cleared the dishes away from the tables.
Around 4:00 I went with my outreach team (which is made up of Alex, Turid, Vetle, Ketsia, Melody, and Becky) to a nursing home to sing for the residents. We’d practiced the night before - we sang a couple of old hymns, “Love Me Tender” and “Those Were The Days”. The residents enjoyed it; we spent some time talking with them before giving an encore performance and heading home for dinner.
I went out with Nika, Shea, Felipe, Alex, Gert-Jan and Esther to Crawley for dinner at Pizza Hut and to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (which was quite good).
Nika, Dan, Ruth and I stayed up until 1:30ish hanging out in the Underground - we’ve been staying up pretty late lately.

Saturday

Someone burnt their toast and set off the fire alarm at 8:30 this morning, so everyone got to stand outside in their pajamas until all of the heads had been counted and the toast was confirmed as the culprit. A fitting start to the September school’s last day at Holmsted - the staff say that they accidentally set off the alarm once or twice a week while they were here.
I went with Peter and Anurag to run a few errands in the morning - we went to an Indian grocery store and returned the dishes we’d used for the graduation meal to Handcross Hardware, a cute mom-and-pop shop that carries a bit of everything.
This evening 17 of us split cab fare to Hayward’s Heath in order to spend a few hours at a nice pub called The Dolphin.

Photos: Saturday, Feb 21

Holy Spirit Week - Journal Feb 8-14

Tuesday

We found out our outreach location choices today - I’ll be telling you the choices and the location I chose as soon as the teams are confirmed.

Friday

Yesterday and today the September DTS came back from their outreaches - one team from Poland, one from India. A lot of us shifted from first and second level bunks to the third level bunks that are almost ten feet off the ground in order to allow the returning students to move in more easily - we knew a lot of them would be horribly jet lagged. It’s a bit nerve wracking sleeping up that high when there aren’t any rails to keep one from rolling off like one of the girls from the September DTS did during their lecture phase. It’s pretty crowded here having almost 50 students in the same house.
I’m on the planning team for Café Night - which is going on tomorrow - and I’d volunteered to make chocolate chip cookies for everyone, so I gave Gina the list of things I’d need and wrote out my recipe. Esther and Ruth helped me make them - we made 2 huge cookie pizzas and cut them into squares.

Saturday

This morning at nine o’clock Vetle came up to the girl’s landing, blew the brass horn that hangs in the stairwell, and announced that all of the girls from the January DTS needed to be down in the front hall bynine fifteen.
We had guessed that the guys were going to do something for us for Valentine’s day, but we weren’t sure exactly what. We were totally surprised when they came out into the front hall all dressed up in collared shirts and ties and escorted us into the Leather Room. They’d set a long table with lace table cloths, candles, and hand-written calligraphy place cards (Jon has many talents, apparently), and they had Norah Jones playing. Shea told us how the guys just wanted to show how they appreciate us, then they proceeded to take our drink orders and set plates before each of us. They’d made crepes, scrambled eggs, bacon, and hash browns. They kept our drinks full and cleared away our plates, then served us fruit salad. All of us girls were terribly impressed - these guys had gone all out!
This evening was our DTS’s first Café Night. The dining room had been rearranged and decorated for Valentine’s day and mics and a movie screen had been set up at one end of the room. There were about ten different acts put on by students and staff. I acted as emcee, which was a bit intimidating at first as I didn’t know about half of the audience, but it turned out to be fun.
Some people sang, some showed funny videos they’d made, Jon and Gert-Jan made a game with video clips - my small group read out 8 poems we’d written, one for each of the guys in our DTS. That was fun - they were lame poems, but they were made up of inside jokes so everyone got a good laugh out of them.
The act that stole the show was the last - it was Turid’s idea. She and Kayla got up and called Shea, Jon, and a staff member named Con up to the front and surprised them by asking them to complete a series of tasks and compete to be the most romantic guy.
They each had to show how they would ask a girl out, propose to her, and deal with her having a baby. The guys went up one at a time and didn’t get to see what the other two had done, so things got pretty funny - I haven’t laughed that much in a long time! Jon won, the gentleman.

Photos: Saturday, Feb 14

Me emceeing & making a funny face

Holy Spirit Week - Favorite Quotes

Favorite Quotes

“Humility is understanding who you are, your strengths and weaknesses, admitting to both, and going with it.” “Be who God sees you as - step out and do it. It’s sinful to live as someone you’re not - it keeps you from being able to have a progressive relationship with God and being who you really are.” “Let the character of God be formed in your character.” “If the earth were a golf ball, the star Canis Majoris would be Mount Everest - six miles in diameter.” “Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the long course of rivers, the vast compass of the ocean, the circular motion of the stars.... but they pass by themselves and don't even notice.” - Augustine “We are to represent Christ. Re-present - to show again.” “The Holy Spirit convicts - he never condemns.”

Evangelism - led by Jared

“Going through the ’God created man, man sinned, Jesus dies to take away our sins’ routine will just be hitting their heads against the wall. People don’t always connect with the whole sin and salvation thing. We‘re not trying to funnel people down a certain path - we‘re not cattle ranchers. Jesus came to bring people to God, and he did it differently for each person.” “What is the gospel? The gospel is the Bible - beginning to end.” “Jesus is like a doorway - he’s the only way to God, but if a man reaches out to God but doesn’t know Christ does he then not reach God? No, they reach Him without even realizing it’s through Christ.”

Father Heart of God Week - Journal Feb 1-7 (Cont‘)

Thursday

After several hours during which many of us shared any troubles we’ve been having and were prayed over by the entire school, we all went to Brighton.
We walked around the city in pairs, just getting a feel for it - we wrote down observations we made as we wandered, then talked about the impressions we got about the city back at home. The objective was to get an idea of what sort of city Brighton is and what the attitude of the people there is.
At the end Dan and I were the first pair back, so we hung out on the pebble beach and then Nika and I had a blast getting as close as we could to the waves without getting our feet wet - they ended up fairly soaked despite our best efforts.

Photos: Thursday, February 5 - Brighton

Friday

Every Friday morning we have student-lead worship. This week Hailey, Joel and Anne were leading - they had us do worship through fellowship. We all spent the time in the leather room eating bacon sandwiches and drinking tea while talking about each other’s families.
Friday is also note giving day - we write notes to whoever we want to compliment or otherwise encourage and drop them into a box throughout the week, then the staff distribute them. It’s always fun getting notes - some anonymous - from friends.

Saturday

I went with about half of the class to London today - it was cool to get a taste of the city. We saw Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, the parliament building, Trafalgar Square… you can’t see much in one day, but it was still fun.

Photos: Saturday, February 7 - London

Father Heart of God Week - Favorite Quotes

“’God loves you‘ has become just something you say…God doesn’t just love you - he likes you” “Like a father with the first attempts at art created by his small child, God simply loves us and our lives because of who made that life. Your life is like a drawing, and you cannot do a bad drawing.” “Trust is the courage to accept acceptance.” - Tillich
“Why was man created? To receive God’s gifts. Nothing was required of Adam. Man’s creative purpose is simply to receive what God offers.” “Maturity is understanding the gift that has been given - it makes us want to live differently. It’s realizing the degree to which we are loved and accepted and wanting to do those things for others. Not because we have to or want to earn something - we want to change simply because we understand so fully the gifts we’ve been given and want to show that to others.” “The history of man has been the story of our search for God‘s love. All of us inwardly long to be loved, to feel special. It‘s why we were created. But if we don‘t accept love from God, where will we receive it?” “If God’s grace doesn’t change our motivation we don’t fully understand the grace that has been given to us.” “When we say ‘I love you’ we’re really saying ‘I love the way you make me feel’. Or, ‘I love me, and you help.’ Real love is not a feeling, it‘s a choice. It doesn‘t say ‘they used to make me feel good. Now they no longer do.’ And break off the relationship. Feeling follows choice. Love never fails.” “Love contains no fear. Perfect love casts out all fear.” “We go through life looking for acceptance but we don’t believe that they love us when they say that they love us. We convince ourselves that they’ve not seen who we truly are.” “Mission exists because of love.” “God doesn’t love you despite your sin. He just loves you. He loves the wonderful creativity in us. He doesn’t love us despite who we are but because of who we are.” “It’s a man’s joy to overlook another’s faults.” “What drew people to Jesus? Love. He was a genuinely loving person, very down-to-earth and laid back. He would be just as comfortable at a black tie event as he would be with the homeless, and those two worlds were both comfortable with him.” “Jesus valued each person. If feel like you’re anything less than ‘The disciple that Jesus loved‘, it’s a lie.” “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the father” - Jesus “If your idea of God does not line up with the character of Christ, it‘s idolatry.”

Father Heart of God Week - Journal Feb 1-7

Sunday

Snow! I’d so hoped I’d escaped the stuff for a while, but about three quarters of an inch of it fell today. Allie was happy about that; since she grew up in Australia she’d never seen snow before today.
A bunch of the students and staff got together and Shea taught them how to play American football. I decided to skip playing in favor of taking pictures and going inside to write once I got too cold.
In the evening Peter and Paul set up a projector and screen in the Underground and we watched Remember The Titans in order to get all the different nationalities familiar with football.
Peter took all our pizza orders and I got half a jalapeno pizza from Papa John’s. Oh yes. It was quite enjoyable - eating junk food and watching the Super Bowl from 11pm to 2:30am!

Photos - Sunday, February 1

Monday

The first day of Father Heart of God week (or “’Gracious’ or ‘Generous’ Heart of God” the speaker says). Rob, our speaker, is a gifted storyteller - he uses stories to convey his ideas. His use of rich imagery truly puts you in the place and mood.
Right before Sport this afternoon I volunteered to be the one to carry out one of the plots us girls had thought up on Saturday. I snuck up the three flights of stairs to the guy’s floor (I had to scramble up into the prayer cupboard to avoid being spotted by Daniel) and set a tampon on the guy’s coffee table. We figured we’d start small in order to test the waters.
We all played football for Sport - in the snow. I was wearing Wellington boots, but I still managed to make a completion and throw a couple of good passes.
What was really a blast, though, was the hour-long snowball fight in the dark that happened on the walk back to the house. Alex and Deborah stuck their heads out of their window and were faced with a barrage of snow - they got so much in their room that they were able to gather enough snow to reply with a couple volleys of their own!

Photos - Monday, February 2

Tuesday

I’ve started sewing a knee-length skirt out of an old green pair of linen pants - we’ll see how that goes.
We had a “Theology Seminar” time when we were able to write down any questions we had and have Rob explain his point of view - it was pretty interesting; it reminded me of the couple of years where I spent way too much time debating theology. Don’t want to head in that direction again - it causes too much strife and not much good comes out of it (in my experience).
Today the guys finally noticed that there was a tampon sitting on the table in the middle of their room. Shea noticed it sitting next to Jonathan’s iPod and basically said “what’s with that?” then Gary picked it up and asked what it was - they chose not to tell him. At first the guys kind of kept it under the radar, asking around if there had been any girls in their room - eventually it got out what had happened and there were accusations flying thick and fast, but all of us denied having done it. Of course, once the guys were out of the room we were laughing our heads off at their expressions and descriptions of discovering the thing.

Wednesday

This morning at breakfast the morning people who bother to get up (Ketsia, Turid, Esther, Melody, Ruth, Alex, and I) were chagrined to find that there weren’t any spoons. We checked the kitchen, washroom, dining room, and Underground - not a single one. Then it dawned on us - the guys were getting us back.
Most of us were pretty sure that Shea was the culprit (his name does mean “spoon” in Norwegian, after all) but he kept denying it.
Turns out GertJan was the culprit, and Daniel was in on it. The sneak even came down to breakfast and ate his cereal with a fork to keep us from suspecting him. Oi.
Small group again today! We had more fun fellowshipping. We worked on memorizing the memory verse (or is it chapter?) 1 Corinthians 13, and we made a card for Rob, the speaker.
Esther, Ketsia, Ruth, Esther and I met in the Prayer Room to spend some time sharing whatever we needed to get off our chests and pray for each other - it’s been really great being constantly surrounded with people who want to share and hear what you have to say.
When I crawled into bed I found an anonymous card from one of the girls on the shelf beside my bed (I saw the other girl’s small group making cards - my powers of deduction are unparalleled). She just was saying how glad she is that I’m here and complimenting me on a couple of things - ‘tis a nice way to end the day.

Grace Week - Journal Jan 25-31

Wednesday

Today for sport we just all got together in the classroom and danced around to music from Deborah’s iPod instead of watching a Pilates video. We even had a bit of an impromptu square-dance. I have to say, prancing around looking silly informally is much preferable to having a video tell you how to prance around looking very silly formally. Much more fun.
We had our first small group meeting this afternoon! That was a blast - Alex is my leader (I swear one of these days I’ll put up information about the other people here!) and Nika, Esther, Ruth, and Ketsia make up the rest of my group. We sat in the other girl’s room drinking tea and eating snacks while we talked about how we’ve been doing this past week and how the teaching, other students, and general atmosphere have effected us. We talked about love languages and what languages each of us feel we use - it’s funny, just a couple of weeks around each other and we were already able to fairly accurately guess what each other’s love languages were.

Thursday

Today we each got a copy of the book Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne to read whenever we find time; every Thursday morning we have an hour or so set aside just for reading.
I’ve been devouring this book; the author’s got a pretty inspiring life story (do you know of many men who have worked with Mother Theresa in Calcutta, petitioned for peace both in America and Iraq, and helped start communities in inner city of Philly in which the homeless live side-by-side with lawyers and doctors?)
Some of the students went to a kebab shop for dinner. A guy waiting in line asked Kayla about why she’s here and how she likes England, then he left the shop for a bit. After a while he came back to pick up his order and as he was on his way out the door he paused, turned around and asked Kayla “May I kiss you?” and he leans in! Kayla leans waaay back and squeals “No thank you!” so he turns to Hailey and tries to kiss her too - luckily he left after that. Englishmen. Crazies.
We watched a Nooma video this evening - Lump. I thought of the home group while we were watching it; I remember seeing it with the whole gang. I miss you guys!

Friday

We had a student-led worship session this morning. Shea on drums, Kayla vocals, Gary on base, Vetle on guitar and Esther on keyboard. They played energetic songs - that was a fun way to get my energy up early in the morning. We also had prayer. We did it Korean style - everyone standing and praying aloud at the same time.
After quiet time we had some time talking over the lessons with our small group. We were able to make that a really constructive time; everyone was able to vocalize what they’d learned and sort it out in their minds. After the closing prayer Esther started laughing and when we asked her what was so funny she said she’d just randomly thought of parallels between Mr. Darcy and God, which we all thought rather funny. She explained it even more, and it was even goofier. If you were wondering why I’ve started a facebook group called “We’re Married To Mr. Darcy and Live With Him In a Manor”, yeah, that’s why. Inside joke.
During work duties we saw a cart of goodies being wheeled into Room 1 for a staff meeting, and we joked with Imon (one of the staff) about how some of those chocolates would do us good. What was really sweet was that, once the meeting was over, Imon brought us chocolates and cupcakes to eat while we worked. That he would be that considerate really struck me - it was just another way that the goodness of this community has impacted me. That favor was just one of dozens of little things the staff and other students have been doing for each other. There isn’t any meanness here - more than two weeks in constant contact with everyone, and not once have I seen anyone try to hurt anyone else.
Tonight was our first outreach. Ruth, Joel, Turid, Deborah and I drove to Brighton and met one of the workers at an outreach called Antifreeze. We split into two groups and walked all through Brighton giving out sandwiches, coffee, candy bars, and practical things like socks to the homeless. Meeting these people and learning about their passions (Mary writes poetry, John is trying to learn about computer software, Simon loves playing his guitar) really brought home the fact that God doesn’t want us to just give our spare clothing and food away to the needy, he wants us to build relationships with them and show them real love.

Photos - Friday, January 30

Saturday

Shopping trip day - we wandered through charity shops (YMCA’s version of Goodwill) pound shops (oddly enough, just like dollar stores), the mall, and music stores. I ended up shopping in H&M with Joel, GertJan, Jonathan, and Shea for quite a while. With Joel in the group I didn’t feel like the only one who liked looking through clothes! (Kidding, Joel)
We had a girl’s night sort of thing - after watching a couple episodes of friends all 14 girls hung out upstairs talking and snacking (naturally). We began plotting and scheming, thinking up pranks to pull on the guys…

Photos - Saturday, January 31

Grace Week - Addendum

Addendum

I was asked:

"Why, if we are made perfect by faith in Jesus and acceptance of what he’s done for us, does God still want us to follow the law/become more like the person he intended for us to be? If we are already perfect through faith, why does God want us to also be more like him through following the law? In other words, we want to because we know He wants us to, but why does He want us to? Why does sin still separate us from God once we believe in Jesus if that sin is forgiven and not counted against us, and we are not to feel guilty about it?"

I replied:

"Good questions - short answer, God doesn't want us to follow the law because it makes us more perfect in his eyes or anything (positional factor - having to do with salvation etc); he wants us to follow the law so that we can more fully experience Him and come closer to living the joyful, abundant life he originally intended for us (relational factor). Sin doesn't separate us from God, it separates us from being able to experience God fully."

If anything else I wrote seemed off, feel free to ask me about it!

P.S. I'll be putting up posts and pictures concerning the events of this past week as soon as I've got time! :)

Grace Week - Rules

Following The Rules

Alright, so - there isn’t anything you can do to earn God’s favor. No action you take can save you or damn you. Your salvation is based solely on whether or not you believe, not whether or not you dot all your i’s and cross all your t’s.
So why does the Old Testament have whole books describing what you should and shouldn’t do? Why does Jesus spend so much time telling stories of the righteous?
I’ve come to understand that though every man knows of God and the law, God also uses the Law and the example he set during his time on earth to show us what a godly life looks like.
That example isn’t there to make us feel guilty for falling short (we’re already perfect in God’s eyes - there is no need for any guilt). Rather, it’s there to show us if we’re growing closer to being the person we would have been.
When we’re saved and the Holy Spirit becomes a part of us, we come to the point where we want to do God’s will. Actions follow salvation, not the other way around. So, “If you teach people who they are, you don’t have to tell them what to do.” Once you truly understand the grace of God, that he loves you no matter what, you will want to do what is right.
Forgive the fact that this post is brief and in no way exhaustive; I've been writing for hours and am kind of slacking off on this last one!

Grace Week - Sin Nature

Sin Nature

A person is made up of three parts: Body, Soul, and Spirit. Body is easy enough to understand. The Soul is made up of our mind, will and emotions (also known as our personality). The Spirit is the eternal aspect of ourselves.
Before Adam and Eve willfully disobeyed God and broke God’s original covenant with us, we were by nature inclined to do good - to be godly, Body, Soul, and Spirit. When we chose to break away from God, our natures were corrupted - now man’s first inclination is to do sinful things.
Once you’re a believer, your corrupted spirit is indwelled by the Holy Spirit and so made perfect in God’s eyes. Daniel taught something that I had not heard before, though - (and he backed it up with scripture, too - just ask for the references) the sinful aspect of your Spirit, the sin nature*, is removed totally when you are saved. So, your Spirit is perfect. You still have to deal with the corruption of the Soul and Body, but it is now possible for sinfulness to be the exception, not the rule, in your life. The Holy Spirit gives you the power to overcome the inclinations to do evil.
Because our Spirit is perfect, God will always see us as perfect - there is absolutely nothing we can do to be any more loved by him. Positionally, our relationship to God will never change. We will always be loved by him, unconditionally. There is nothing we can do to make him love us more or less.
Throughout life, our Soul can be brought more toward godliness. Basically we’re trying to become the people we would have been had sin never been introduced to the world - to become the people God sees us as already.
We can improve our relationship with God by becoming more aware of his presence. Relationship is the most important thing in our existence - more on that another day, hopefully.
When we die and are given the perfect bodies we have been promised, Body, Soul and Spirit will be perfect again, as they aught to have been.

*Nature meaning “basic characteristic”.

Grace Week - Favorite Quotes

Some of my favorite quotes from this week:

“Stories are the language of The Kingdom” (Which is why Jesus told so many parables)
“Sin is the faithless rebellion of the creature against the just authority of the creator.” - Max Lucado
“The Tree of Life represented living under grace, the Tree of Knowledge represented living under the law. We were meant to live by grace, not the law.” - Daniel S
“Religion is man’s pursuit of God. Christianity is God’s pursuit of man.”
“The cross is about restoration - we limit the cross when we think of it as only being about forgiveness.” - Daniel S
“Jesus not only died for you, he lived for you. That is of equal importance. His death dealt with sin, his life with restoration.” Daniel S (I’ll likely write another mini essay on the topics of “position“ and “relationship” brought up in this quote)
“Oh the folly of trying to enter a room you are already in.” - Watchman Nee (This was speaking of Christians foolishly trying to do things in order to be more righteous when their spirits are already perfect because they have accepted the Holy Spirit)
“You don’t need a good self image, it’s about having a biblical image of yourself.” - Daniel S
“Discipleship is the process of learning to live consistently with who you already are in Christ.” - Daniel S
“If you teach people who they are, you don‘t have to tell them what to do.” (another essay on those three later)
“Embrace a formula or list in order to live a Christian life and you are doomed to a life of frustration.”
“There are a lot of spiritual cross-dressers in the church today - a lot of people who live like they’re sinners even though they’re saints.” - Daniel S
“Faith alone saves, but faith that saves is never alone.” - John Calvin
“Works will never save you, but works are evidence of salvation.” Daniel S
“There is no greater threat to the true Christian walk under grace than legalism.”
“If people are not abusing your message of grace, then you are not preaching grace.” - Martin Luther
“Grace is the heart and soul of the Christian faith.”
“To love a person is to see them as God intended them to be.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky
“The world can do anything as well or better than the church. There is only one thing the world cannot offer - grace.”

Grace Week - Salvation

Salvation has always been by faith alone

I’ve always wondered why it was that during old testament times it seemed like God told mankind that the only way you could have a relationship with him was through following a set of rules and giving offerings and sacrifices. Considering that the new testament God has made with man through Jesus is all about faith and nothing to do with works, the 1,300 years during which God’s people lived under Levitical Law seem pretty inconsistent with the fact that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” - Hebrews 13:8. I just figured that there must be some explanation, but kind of avoided the topic because I was unable to see any way it could be understood.
I thank God for Daniel Susenbach and his exhaustive explanations. I ask him “What about people who believe in God but not in Jesus?” and he spends more than an hour giving me my answer. The following is a condensed version of what I learned - I have a bunch of other points he made and scripture references for various assertions made here, so if you’d like to hear more just let me know.
“Abraham believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” - Genesis 15:6. It wasn’t until 400 years after that that God made the rules and regulations by which one was supposed to live, and it wasn’t until 1,300 years after that Jesus came to earth to remove that which has separated man from God since Adam and Eve first took things into their own hands. Yet Abraham was made righteous in God’s eyes simply because he believed in him. If salvation has always been about through faith, why did Jesus have to sacrifice himself through his suffering and death?
“God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood - to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished - he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” - Romans 3:25-26
That verse is pretty remarkable - I can’t believe I never realized what it meant before. “He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished” - so, Jesus’ sin-erasing sacrifice was credited to people both before and after his death simply because they believed. God exists both within and outside of time, so that adds up.
That makes sense, but then why did the believers ever have to live under Levitical Law in the first place? If we are justified* through belief alone…
Daniel explained it this way: the law served several purposes - it identified sin, intensified conviction, (“Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.” - Romans 3:20) and pointed to the hope of Jesus (“The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” - Hebrews 10:1-4).
So, I’ve come to learn that God isn’t inconsistent. Man has always had the ability to have a relationship with God simply by believing in Him.

*Justified - to render righteous or as one aught to be, to render innocent; to be acquitted.