I got a kindle 2 weeks ago. (Battery life is amazing; haven't ever charged it yet, and it's still more than 50%)
Anyway, let me know if you're reading something interesting or would like to join me. I like to read many books at once because I get bored reading just one book in a sitting. And I have a kindle now, so it's easy to do that. (Must be easy to read... not written very boringly or dully. ie. I have trouble reading some books by old authors)
So, a few I'm already starting to read are:
Shame Interrupted (which RC is also reading);
The Radical Reformission: Reaching out without Selling out. (the intro was quite interesting; I figured it would help me figure out how to find a church, as well as what the Christian life and Church should look like)
Hosting the Presence: Unveiling Heaven's Agenda. (just because i've always wanted to know how that "works", why in some prayer meetings or worship events, God's presence is so strong and in others, it is not as strong... always wanted to know more about "Hosting" God's presence. Never read a Bill Johnson book, but figured he would have some deep insight/revelation on this subject)
--
Still can't believe I'm done with college. Probably won't fully realize it until late August. Gah.
But I thank God for blessing me so much in so many ways. Yay for life. At these reflective points in time, Ecclesiastes is always a good reminder. That everything we are insecure about will pass away and is meaningless. God is our rock, our savior and our foundation forever.
Generations come and generations go,
but the Earth remains forever
Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books. It talks about all kinds of meaninglessnesses and all kinds of pain and unfairness in life. In the end, you know what? It doesn't matter. Only God remains.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
A Change of Perspective
Only old friends can tell you that you've changed, because they know who you were before.
And they know how you've changed, and usually they can pick out why as well.
Only family will keep reminding you the same things over and over again.
Impatience and annoyance of the reminders only show us how far we are from God's love and understanding
Only God can give you true love that makes you secure, that helps you see things outside the drama, instead of being caught up in it. Instead of being caught up in worldliness and competition and insecurity and manipulation, knowing God's love helps you see a bigger perspective and get out of yourself. It helps you be okay with things, because His love covers over a multitude of sins.
And other mature Christians also help give you that Godly perspective, help pull you out of that ungodly perspective on life. Someone told me today how much I've changed and become more worldly, compared to previous years. I knew I was worldly last semester, but I thought I had changed back this semester. I guess not completely. Grateful for the body of Christ that tells me things I can't see, and encourages me in the right direction.
--
It's so hard to find time alone when I'm home. Only when my brother sleeps... do I have alone time. It's like I have kids already or something. I remember Brian Johnson saying to spend as much time as you can with God when you're single, because after you get married and have kids, your time is not really your own. Yes, you can still and should spend time with God, but not as much. He says after he got married he did rely a lot on the foundation of relationship he built with God when he was single. It kind of makes sense. When my brother is awake, I can't even play a worship song without him asking me questions. And I'm always nervous that someone will interrupt my time with God and that I won't be able to really focus. But maybe I'm also being too selfish with my time as well. Even though I'm single, my time is still not my own. It's God's. And maybe heeding interruptions is more pleasing to God sometimes. But anyway, time with God is necessary and precious. Quality time.
And they know how you've changed, and usually they can pick out why as well.
Only family will keep reminding you the same things over and over again.
Impatience and annoyance of the reminders only show us how far we are from God's love and understanding
Only God can give you true love that makes you secure, that helps you see things outside the drama, instead of being caught up in it. Instead of being caught up in worldliness and competition and insecurity and manipulation, knowing God's love helps you see a bigger perspective and get out of yourself. It helps you be okay with things, because His love covers over a multitude of sins.
And other mature Christians also help give you that Godly perspective, help pull you out of that ungodly perspective on life. Someone told me today how much I've changed and become more worldly, compared to previous years. I knew I was worldly last semester, but I thought I had changed back this semester. I guess not completely. Grateful for the body of Christ that tells me things I can't see, and encourages me in the right direction.
--
It's so hard to find time alone when I'm home. Only when my brother sleeps... do I have alone time. It's like I have kids already or something. I remember Brian Johnson saying to spend as much time as you can with God when you're single, because after you get married and have kids, your time is not really your own. Yes, you can still and should spend time with God, but not as much. He says after he got married he did rely a lot on the foundation of relationship he built with God when he was single. It kind of makes sense. When my brother is awake, I can't even play a worship song without him asking me questions. And I'm always nervous that someone will interrupt my time with God and that I won't be able to really focus. But maybe I'm also being too selfish with my time as well. Even though I'm single, my time is still not my own. It's God's. And maybe heeding interruptions is more pleasing to God sometimes. But anyway, time with God is necessary and precious. Quality time.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Never counted
Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.
I've always read through that without it really hitting me.
I am that person, whose sin the Lord will never count against me.
Yes, sin is bad, and this is not an excuse to sin or anything. But sometimes we need to put those defensive theological thoughts down and just focus on that verse, and really get it. Sometimes we try so hard to balance the bible, that we don't see the fullness of each side. The fullness of grace, and at the same time, the full capacity of God's hatred for sin and how it destroys us. We need to see the complete intensity of both. Balancing them out in our head/minds sometimes just leads to not seeing/feeling/getting the depth of each part.
I've always had the balancing-it-out-with-other-verses-in-the-bible mentality, so I didn't catch how serious and strong this verse in Romans 4 was. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him. Then I would think: yea, it's because we are righteous through Jesus. And then if I think deeper (which I probably didn't before), then I might think: but remember, although this verse is true, sin is bad; don't discount that. And then I would totally miss what the verse is saying.
Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him. I read this a couple days ago, and I became SO EXCITED afterwards. I felt so loved. Imagine what kind of love it takes to say that. Blessed is the person whose sin I will never count against him. God chose to send Jesus because He wanted my sins to never count against me. Because He doesn't ever really want to be against me. He wants to be with me. It's amazing.
Was Jesus punished enough? Was Jesus judged enough? There's no way he could have been punished or judged more. It was the perfect and ultimate sacrifice. And it was finished then. And now:
Blessed are we, because God will never count our sins against us. Because that's what He wanted for us and Him.
I've always read through that without it really hitting me.
I am that person, whose sin the Lord will never count against me.
Yes, sin is bad, and this is not an excuse to sin or anything. But sometimes we need to put those defensive theological thoughts down and just focus on that verse, and really get it. Sometimes we try so hard to balance the bible, that we don't see the fullness of each side. The fullness of grace, and at the same time, the full capacity of God's hatred for sin and how it destroys us. We need to see the complete intensity of both. Balancing them out in our head/minds sometimes just leads to not seeing/feeling/getting the depth of each part.
I've always had the balancing-it-out-with-other-verses-in-the-bible mentality, so I didn't catch how serious and strong this verse in Romans 4 was. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him. Then I would think: yea, it's because we are righteous through Jesus. And then if I think deeper (which I probably didn't before), then I might think: but remember, although this verse is true, sin is bad; don't discount that. And then I would totally miss what the verse is saying.
Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him. I read this a couple days ago, and I became SO EXCITED afterwards. I felt so loved. Imagine what kind of love it takes to say that. Blessed is the person whose sin I will never count against him. God chose to send Jesus because He wanted my sins to never count against me. Because He doesn't ever really want to be against me. He wants to be with me. It's amazing.
Was Jesus punished enough? Was Jesus judged enough? There's no way he could have been punished or judged more. It was the perfect and ultimate sacrifice. And it was finished then. And now:
Blessed are we, because God will never count our sins against us. Because that's what He wanted for us and Him.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
To be in the world, but not of it
This has been on my mind a lot more, since Shanghai.
Sigh.
It's so hard to be in the world and not be worldly. Sometimes even talking a lot about clothes and appearances and worldly values/things like wanting your kid to be cool and play sports, really distracts me. Sure, during the conversation, I agree with everyone. Yea, I want my kid to play music and sports. Yea, I think that actress is pretty. Yea, I have no idea what brands of jeans exist. Yea, so how much muscle can guys gain in a month? blah blah. It's not what you say or ask, but your overall attitude, or the overall attitude/tone of the people in the conversation. Sometimes the conversation just becomes very worldly--not just because of what we say and talk about, but the attitude/motivation behind it, and then I just feel gross afterwards. And then later I think about the truth of the whole attitude of the conversation, and I realize it's so wrong. I was wrong. Dude, it's not about how cool your kids are, or how smart they are. This life is so fleeting. In the end, it doesn't matter. Your kids' value is not on how cool they are. Your value is not on how cool your kids are. We should love people who aren't cool. who don't play sports or music. who are awkward and not classy.
I'm not saying that we didn't know that. The people in the conversation were simply stating what they thought was cool. It's totally fine. It's just me; I haven't been deeply rooting my security in Christ...because I came out of the conversation feeling quite self-conscious about how uncool I was, and how un-worldly-savvy I was (how little I knew about the world and its values)
Sigh. I think the problem is that the more time you spend in the world, the more time you will have to spend renewing yourself with the truth afterwards because of how the worldly mentalities will inevitably affect you.
The more you want to be in the world and change the world, the more (quality) time you have to spend with God, renewing yourself. Or else you'll just get sucked in.
Another related tangent: On the cruise, there was some crude humor. I didn't know how to react to it. I just got a bit upset, and I thought that was good that I got upset. But at the same time, I wasn't sure if I was being "too religious", as the saying goes.
But yea, in summary, god-filled conversations are the best. Sometimes Christians have conversations about godly concerns , yet it still seems like God is not in the conversation.
Monday, May 7, 2012
"Christianity and Sex"
Some Pastor, Mark said (in this): "There are only two religions: Christianity and Sex".
When I heard that... I just smiled and was kind of like: LOL, Mark is funny. He says funny extreme things.
But then today I read Romans 1:21-24, and I was like WOAH. He's right. The two religions are God and Sexual Immorality. Seriously.
verse 21: "For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him..."
verse 24: "THEREFORE God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity..."
They ditched God, and thus were handed over to the "god" of sexual impurity. In fact, they ditched God FOR the sinful desires, namely sex-related sinful things. And sure verse 23 briefly mentions idols and images and such, but the key religions are 'sexual impurity' and 'God'. The "images" are just that. Images. Just a pretense for what they are actually worshiping, which is sexual perversion.
So, in some sense, I do agree with this dude Mark. The main two religions in the world today are that. Sexual Immorality, and true Christianity.
Man, I just remember a month ago, when I took that "Are you psychic?" psychology experiment and got freaked out by how creepy and "spiritual"/occultish it was. I felt like my relationship with God was being threatened in the spiritual realm, and I was overly dramatic and alarmed. I went immediately to worship God afterwards.
I realized that I should be more alarmed more often. about my relationship with God. There are way more things that endanger my relationship with God than just creepy psych experiments that play new agey meditation music and ask you if you have often felt an evil presence around you. I need to be alarmed by other threats to my relationship with God. Sometimes, it's just easier to be alarmed when it is clear that the spiritual realm is in play (like when occult is mentioned). But I have to remember Ephesians 6, that it is ALWAYS spiritual realmy... always fighting against the principalities, spiritual dark powers of this world, etc. Even when it looks very down-to-earth and non-spiritual. Like day-to-day conversations and activities and thoughts. Habits. It doesn't have to be something like encountering a witch doctor who tried to recruit you.
When I heard that... I just smiled and was kind of like: LOL, Mark is funny. He says funny extreme things.
But then today I read Romans 1:21-24, and I was like WOAH. He's right. The two religions are God and Sexual Immorality. Seriously.
verse 21: "For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him..."
verse 24: "THEREFORE God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity..."
They ditched God, and thus were handed over to the "god" of sexual impurity. In fact, they ditched God FOR the sinful desires, namely sex-related sinful things. And sure verse 23 briefly mentions idols and images and such, but the key religions are 'sexual impurity' and 'God'. The "images" are just that. Images. Just a pretense for what they are actually worshiping, which is sexual perversion.
So, in some sense, I do agree with this dude Mark. The main two religions in the world today are that. Sexual Immorality, and true Christianity.
Man, I just remember a month ago, when I took that "Are you psychic?" psychology experiment and got freaked out by how creepy and "spiritual"/occultish it was. I felt like my relationship with God was being threatened in the spiritual realm, and I was overly dramatic and alarmed. I went immediately to worship God afterwards.
I realized that I should be more alarmed more often. about my relationship with God. There are way more things that endanger my relationship with God than just creepy psych experiments that play new agey meditation music and ask you if you have often felt an evil presence around you. I need to be alarmed by other threats to my relationship with God. Sometimes, it's just easier to be alarmed when it is clear that the spiritual realm is in play (like when occult is mentioned). But I have to remember Ephesians 6, that it is ALWAYS spiritual realmy... always fighting against the principalities, spiritual dark powers of this world, etc. Even when it looks very down-to-earth and non-spiritual. Like day-to-day conversations and activities and thoughts. Habits. It doesn't have to be something like encountering a witch doctor who tried to recruit you.
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