Why do you pilot an Eva?

It's hard for me to tell which is my favorite anime of all-time since there are so many good there in different genres. I often group them in tiers, and in my top tier I include shows like FMA, Rurouni Kenshin, and Evangelion (Eva), I specially like Eva because it catalyzed my interest into watching anime.

I recently watched the rebuild series of Eva (which is a set of movies that is re-telling the story of the old anime from 1996). The Eva 1.0 was solid, no new plot but it reminds me of the younger me when I watched it for the very first time. Eva 2.0 is on another whole level, with the freshness of a new plot, flashy animation, and breathtaking scenes made me like this show even more. I watched it during the Christmas holidays by myself (a bluray DVD that I bought like almost 1 year ago), and there were a couple of scenes that I actually yelled out of the dramatic pinnacles from the plot. It is an anime masterpiece.

Evas are basically a biological robot that are piloted to fight against some indestructible monsters called angels. And there are 3 main characters that pilot the Evas, and each of them are faced with this question "why do you pilot the Eva?", and this is kinda their response:

• Shinji: my dad wants me to even though I hate it.
• Azuka: I want to show I am the best pilot.
• Rei: no reason particularly, this is the way it has been.

This particular question actually made me think of a more personal question, "why do I follow Jesus?". After living as a Christian for many years it is easy to let the Christian activities become a routine and forget the reason of why I am pursuing God if I don't reflect frequently on the marvelous goodness of the gospel. 

In the case of Rei, she is like the brainwashed type who doesn't know exactly why is piloting the Eva because she has been doing so for long, and she doesn't question it at all. She represents people who often fallen to routine. These are people who have been in church for a while, and get involved in gatherings and activities without much thought since it is a routine.

Asuka is about showing off, people who value their success because they can get recognition from others. She represents people who get involve in many ministries, but often it is done because it gives them an image of better people, and they get praised.

Shinji is the guy who dislike what he does but wants approval from his dad. So he represents people who are constantly doing things because their performance will get the approval from parents, and he finds his value in their approval. This is like people who goes to church because their parents go and kinda force them to go, but really they don't want to go.

In the summer of 2010, CCF emphasized in "taking ownership of your faith". We as Christians understand that we are saved by grace alone (Ephesians 2:8-9), but we are also made to do good works (Ephesians 2:10) and to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in us to will and act accordingly to His good purpose (Philippians 2:12-13). It is true that it is God who initiates, but we are to respond to His calling consciously to live in the way that is pleasing to Him. 

Christianity is not about a set of rules that makes us morally superior, it is not a set of rituals that we do frequently, it is not about pleasing others, it is not about working to earn, but it is about Jesus who loves us first and showed us how to live, died for our transgressions on the cross, conquered death on the third day, and whoever have faith in Him will live eternally with Him. We follow Jesus not because we are forced to, but because we are humbled by His grace and we are transformed to desire to follow Him. We must take ownership of our faith, and make a conscious decision to pursue God.

Further reading: The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer.

ps. At the end of the film, Shinji's character developed and he takes a conscious decision to want to pilot the Eva.

Have you decided?

(My article from CCF Insight Fall 2011)

Since around two years ago, CCF Friday nights present a “question of the week” to encourage deep discussion among brothers and sisters after the Friday program. This question also served to make people think and reflect. I remember one of the questions was geared towards the definition of being a Christian. It started as “What is a Christian?” but it was changed to “Are you a Christian?” which became a lot more personal and bothering. But it was an excellent question to reflect upon what truths constitute a disciple of Christ, and whether our lives are actually consistent with these truths.

I want to look at the passage on Luke 9:57-62 to present some common misunderstanding of what a disciple of Christ is.

1) Not understanding the cost of following Christ

“As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’

Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.’” – Luke 9:57

The first person came and exclaimed that he will follow Jesus wherever He goes. This is definitely a very bold statement that we desire every brother and sister to say. But when we read Jesus’ reply, He talks about the difficulty of following Him, that even wild animals have a place of refuge but that the Son of Man (Jesus Himself) has no place to lay his head. I think Jesus is referring that to follow Him is not like a nice walk in the park, but there will be valleys and deserts; meaning suffering, trials, and uncertainty will certainly be part of this path.

Being a Christian is not about consistently attending church and fellowship, being nice to everyone, and avoiding doing any visible bad things; but it is about giving up our lives to Christ [1], to believe that He is Lord of our lives [2], to follow Him in all circumstances [3], no matter how good or how bad they are.

This decision is not something that others can impose on you, but you have to make it your own by understanding the implications of following Christ [4]. For those who have attended church your whole life, how did you come with the decision of following Christ? Can you verbalize why are you following Christ? Do you understand the cost of following Jesus?

2) Placing culture and traditions above following Christ

“He said to another man, ‘Follow me.’

 But the man replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’

 Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’”
 – Luke 9:59-60

This time, Jesus calls a man to follow Him, but the man wants to bury his father first. This sounds like a very legit reason so far. It seems that Jesus is slightly harsh by saying that the man should go and proclaim the kingdom of God instead of fulfilling a parent-honouring deed. After all, we are called to honour our parents [5].

To bring some cultural context, honouring parents is a big deal for the Jews and properly burying his father is considered a very important last act in honouring him. Therefore, this man seems to have a valid reason to wait before following the call from Christ.

So what was the issue? Some commentators say that if the man’s father was really close to death or if he just died, the man should be accompanying his father at this very moment instead of being there with Jesus. So it can be speculated that the man’s father has been dead for a while. The Jews observe a tradition of mourning for 30 days after the person’s death, so this man might be referring that he needs to attend to this matter. The other speculation is that the man’s father is alive, not close to death at all, and with many years to live. So it is likely that he is making some sort of an excuse to postpone following Christ.

The point is that obeying the call of God is more important than cultural traditions and values [6].

The way I live my faith is sometimes influenced by the Chinese culture, which highly values school success and job stability. There are times when the pursuit of these things takes precedence over obeying the call of God. For example, there are decisions about whether I should spend more time in getting good marks versus committing to serve in the fellowship. I have heard reasons supporting not serving in the fellowship because people want to glorify God through school. I do agree that the pursuit of doing well in school can bring God glory and create opportunities to witness Christ. My challenge to this reasoning is whether the person is pursuing academic excellence because he is obeying God’s call or because he is driven by what the culture values. There is a danger of using this type of argument that sounds nice, but it is not rooted in obedience to Christ. The same applies for people who focus only on serving in the fellowship, because this pursuit of serving can become idolatry if it is not rooted in obeying Christ.  

The pursuit to obey the call of Christ should be what a disciple of Christ values the most.

3)  Imposing their own terms about Christianity

“Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.’

 Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’” – Luke 9:61-62

This person offers to follow Jesus, but he wants to go back and say farewell to his family. This sounds very reasonable, but it also sounds that he is imposing his own terms and conditions before obeying Christ. Perhaps there are things of his old ways he is not willing to give up, which makes sense when Jesus replies and talks about how people who look back are not fit for service in the kingdom of God.

To follow Christ is to surrender every single aspect of our lives to Him. We know Jesus is our Saviour, but He is also the Lord of our lives. We cannot surrender Fridays (fellowship) and Sundays (church) to Christ, but live in our own terms during other days.

Every disciple of Christ is called to proclaim the gospel and serve just as Jesus did [7]. In occasions we might have to go beyond our comfort zone, like being bold to share the gospel to a friend. And it is easy to make an excuse that we don’t need to say a word about the gospel because actions alone are enough. But Jesus did not just show actions but he also preached the kingdom message boldly. Another example is regarding stepping up for a leadership position which can be intimidating for many. It is easy to say that “I am not good enough” or “I don’t have enough time”. In some cases these are valid reasons, but in most cases it is easy for us to make these excuses because we are imposing our own conditions in how we spend time or in how much we want to be challenged. If God calls us to serve, we have to trust and rest assured that He will provide what we need.

Christianity is not about us, but about Christ who graciously call us to follow Him. He is the Master [8], and we are His followers.

Conclusion

A Christian disciple is someone who follows Christ. To follow Christ is to leave everything behind and surrender our lives to Him. It’s true that there are things that are very tough to give up. But Christ calls us graciously, saving mere sinners like us [9]. To follow Christ is to place Him as our most precious treasure [10], and we find our sense of worth in Him because Jesus Christ died for us in the cross.  He lived the perfect and righteous life that we cannot live, and suffered the punishment of our sins [11]; so that anyone who believes and receives Jesus Christ will be saved [12] and regenerated into a new person [13], who is enabled to do good works by following Jesus. All this is given by sheer grace alone [14]. All this is for the praise of God’s glory.

God who calls, will provide and empower us, we just need to yield and obey. It is either following Christ or not following Christ, there is no middle ground.

"I have decided, to follow Jesus,
I have decided, to follow Jesus,
I have decided, to follow Jesus,
No turning back, no turning back." [15]

Reference

[1] Luke 14:33
[2] Colossians 2:6-7
[3] Luke 14:27
[4] Luke 14:25-34
[5] Deuteronomy 5:16
[6] Matthew 15:1-9
[7] Matthew 28:18-20
[8] John 15:20
[9] Romans 5:8
[10] Philippians 3:8
[11] 2 Corinthians 5:21
[12] John 1:12
[13] Titus 3:5
[14] Ephesians 2:8-9
[15] “I have decided to follow Jesus” song by William J. Reynolds

Where to draw the line?

新年快樂! (Happy Chinese New Year!)

I have been going slow on updating the blog. I hope that the I can get rid of the "holiday mode" I am in, so that I can work harder. Let me use this post to talk a bit about the SWORD (Studying the Word On Radical Discipleship) ministry I am co-leading with other three brothers.

We started last term with bible study techniques, such as sentence structure, looking at different bible translations, researching the meaning of certain key words in its original language, understanding the context, etc. This term we are focusing on being more discussion-based (instead of lecture style), and we have decided to engage in controversial topics about Christian-living, church, and theology. This include topics such as "can Christians gamble with money", "can Christians swear", "can Christian take part of non-spiritual leisure activities (eg. movies, games)", "can there be female pastors at church", "problem with evil and suffering", etc. The cool thing is that Simply Church is covering similar issues in Sunday School.

Some of the topics are morally black and white, as in I think they are clear-cut right/wrong answers. For example, "is homosexual practice a sin?", I certainly believe it is a sin, but not any different than stealing and telling a lie. Other topics are morally neutral, as in either choice are not biblically wrong. For example,the debate in worship between the multi-generational Chinese churches about traditional vs contemporary worship. I have heard from people that bringing a drum set to a Chinese church is quite the drama.

And there are other topics that are very "grey" where it is hard to draw a line what conditions make a particular activity a sin. For example, the issue of downloading media content (music or video) online. At first glance, the common answer is  that we should not download any copyrighted material. In Canada, it is illegal to upload copyrighted material, but it is legal to download this material for personal use. So if downloading is legal in Canada, can we as Christians just go ahead and download? We are called to submit to authorities (Romans 13), but we are also called to follow God's moral standards, so we need to determine whether downloading is stealing or not.

Another example is swearing (saying profanity). We actually talked about it during the first CCF, and the general conclusion was that profanity is unbiblical (Ephesians 4 and 5 tells us to say edifying words to one another, and to not have obscene and foolish talk). But most of the words that are considered profanity are morally neutral, and they can be used fine in other cultures and generations. It's just that they are associated in our current society with derogative or sexual connotation. So then, we can proceed to ask whether a Christian can speak these words without any intention of profanity.

These are merely just two examples, and there are a lot more. In general, this practice of asking ourselves where a Christian should stand in these issues is very beneficial as we have to dig into the bible and search for principles that applies. And not every time is easy, sometimes it is quite hard to find the correct answer, to the point that churches have split because they can't agree with each other.

For the "grey"  topics I have discussed so far, is very natural for us to want to determine where we can draw the line before that specific activity is considered a sin. Assuming that we are able to find that line, I think we should not be satisfied with just walking carefully enough to avoid crossing that line. I think the discussion should not stopped with "where to draw the line?", but it should be continued with "what does God desire for me to do in that situation?" and "how can I glorify God?".

Instead of just wanting to avoid breaking those rules and boundaries, our focus should be to seek God and living to please Him. God has called us to be holy (1 Peter 1:16) because He Himself is holy. We should not be conformed by the standards set by rules, but to raise our standards even higher, and especially for leaders we are called to be "above reproach" (1 Tim 3). When our focus is to pursue God, it will become natural for us to want to do good.

"We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, 'I know him,' but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did." - 1 John 2:3-6

Knowledge influencing faith

Happy New Year 2012

I pray that this year will be one of much learning in the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ our Lord, and that God will use each of you in the work of His Kingdom!

I will try my best to share my random insights and some aspects of my walk through this blog.

I was surprised while I was reading one of the recent chapters of Full Metal Panic (FMP) manga that the name of "Guatemala" showed up. Yeah, I was born and raised in that country, but not a lot of people really know about this country, so it was very amusing and funny when I read it:

Unfortunately, the mention of Guatemala has a negative connotation here since it talks about "guerrillas" that were in the civil war during the last century.

Talking about FMP, it is one of my top-tier favorite series. It has a combo of the many things I enjoyed: solid and interesting characters, action, comedy, romance, unique story, character development. One aspect of the unique story is that there are some people called the "whispered" which by some weird reason gets highly advanced scientific information whispered into them, and these people are very smart and have the knowledge that can contribute to the advance of technology. In many ways, this can help in a positive way to make advancement in the medical field. At the same time, this causes military technology to advance as well in creating better weapons. So the knowledge this "whispered" have can impact society both in a positive and negative way.

So in a Christmas party, I had a very good conversation with a brother about how theological knowledge can affect your faith. The conversation started by talking about sermons at church, and how some sermons are more like a theological lecture, while others are more application-based, etc. We are both similar as in we have an engineering degree, we enjoy learning facts, and we like to dig in deeper in many topics of theology and church (eg. Calvinism vs Arminianism, Soteriology, Discipleship, Church History, Mission of Church). I told him that I like sermons that have much theological content, and then he asked me how does this knowledge help in building up my faith.

We talked about the dangers of knowing more theology. One of them is pride. Like the Pharisees, it is easy to feel prideful when you know more than the average member of your fellowship, when you can answer much of the questions that people have, when you can "show off" in deep discussions. And this a struggle I have, that when I learned more theology I start seeing myself better than others. Another struggle I have is that I have less of the "child-like" faith in God. So I tend to scrutinize everything with the framework of knowledge I have (which is not bad thing to do), but I rely too much on it and don't really trust wholeheartedly that God can work despite the imperfection of men.

So how does more theological knowledge can help in growing my faith? I really enjoy reading Paul's letters, and they are usually structured with: greetings and thanksgivings, exposition of some deep theological truths, and practical behavior that comes from believing these truths.

I think that applications of Christian living comes from being convicted of the Christian theological truths. For example, the command "love your neighbors" is something that many other religions would agree on, and it is like a moral standard for much people. So how is the Christian faith different then? As Christian, I know that I am sinful and that innumerable times I failed to love my neighbors. And that it is only because Christ lives in me, that I can love my neighbors unconditionally and imitate the way Christ loves us.

I believe that the theological truths should convict me about how much more glorious our God is, and how a wretched sinful man I am. For example, every Christian believer knows that Christ died for our sins, and this truth convicts me that I am sinful, and I need the grace of God. But understanding more about the word "propitiation" (which is the action of turning aside the wrath of God and appease Him so that we can find ourselves in a favorable position in God's eyes) convicts me even more of how much gracious and glorious our God is, and how much more sinful I am.

And we concluded that the theological truths should encourage and challenge us to worship Christ more, so that our lifestyle will reflect the implications of these truths. So I do encourage the pursuit of learning the Christian theological truths, but don't let that pursuit be what you worship, but the knowledge gained should point us towards the worship of God.

"Now, The­ol­ogy is like the map. Merely learn­ing and think­ing about the Chris­t­ian doc­trines, if you stop there, is less real and less excit­ing than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doc­trines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the expe­ri­ence of hun­dreds of peo­ple who really were in touch with God-experiences com­pared with which any thrills or pious feel­ings you and I are likely to get on our own are very ele­men­tary and very con­fused. And sec­ondly, if you want to get any fur­ther, you must use the map. You see, what hap­pened to that man in the desert may have been real, and was cer­tainly excit­ing, but noth­ing comes of it. It leads nowhere. There is noth­ing to do about it. In fact, that is just why a vague religion-all about feel­ing God in nature, and so on-is so attrac­tive. It is all thrills and no work; like watch­ing the waves from the beach. But you will not get to New­found­land by study­ing the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eter­nal life by sim­ply feel­ing the pres­ence of God in flow­ers or music. Nei­ther will you get any­where by look­ing at maps with­out going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea with­out a map." -  23rd chap­ter of Mere Chris­tian­ity by C.S. Lewis