why Trinity

I was watching a video with Tim Keller, John Piper, and D.A. Carson about the Trinity which is quite insightful and good: http://thegospelcoalition.org/videos/44935725

I remembered on a Sunday school, this question was asked "would you stand up and die defending the truth of the Trinity?". It's interesting because the bible does not explicitly state the term "Trinity", and perhaps not many people think that the Trinity is one of those fundamental truths that we should defend like the death and resurrection of Jesus, salvation by grace through faith, or the authority of Scripture. Also, it is really hard to comprehend the Trinity.

But I think the Trinity is on-par in importance.

First of all, we are to grow in learning more about the God who we worship. So the better we know of who God is, the more accurate our understanding of Him is, the more accurate our worship towards the true God is. For example, we all know God is love, but not many know that God is wrathful. So people who lack understanding in the latter, will worship God because He is loving but will not comprehend why the cross of Christ was necessarily for our salvation, and not comprehend that the consequence of our sins is death. Having knowledge of both aspects of God (love and wrath), we can understand that His grace is actually a couple of magnitude larger than we thought, and we will realize that there is nothing else that we can do but worship Him.

The point I want to emphasize is the relationship among the persons of the Trinity (Father, Son, Spirit). Tim Keller in his "Reasons for God" book has a chapter dedicated to the Trinity, and it conveys the beauty of the truth of the Trinity. Basically, he describes it as a "dance", where each person of the Trinity is submitting and glorifying the other members of the Trinity, non-stop. There are examples in John 16-18, where Jesus submits to the Father, or when talks about the Spirit will glorify Christ. Also the statement of  "God is love" is profound. Because if God was just one person, then when we said "God is love", he can only love Himself, since love requires more than one member. So the fact that our God is three persons, the statement of "God is love" makes sense because the constant selfless act of glorying one another for each person of the Trinity is the essence of God's love.

Since God loves us first, we can also love Him and love our brothers and sisters. And by understanding the love within the Trinity, we can learn how to love one another by being selfless, gracious, submitting towards one another. God is so good.

fairly tactician

A regular thing that people like to say when making decisions is "follow your heart". Perhaps, not the wisest advice, taking into account that our hearts can be deceitful:


"The heart is deceitful above all things
    and beyond cure.
    Who can understand it?" - Jeremiah 17:9


There is manga called "Fairy Tail" which is a pretty light-hearted show with very good fighting and with themes of friendship, good beats evil, "who do you think I am?" attitude... it is a great show for guys. There is a character called Fairy Tactician "Mavis", who is looks like a little helpless girl but she is actually the founder of magic guild and she is known for her accurate planning when making strategies to combat the opponent guilds. She can accurately predict the enemies' moves so she can plan a proper counterattack.

(warning: possible spoiler if you plan to read Fairy Tail)
In one specific battle, Mavis needs to take down a key member of a enemy guild "Rufus", and "Gray" (one of her guild's members) requests her to set him up to fight Rufus because he has some personal stuff to settle with him. But Mavis declines because based on her analysis from their abilities, Gray is not the most compatible member of her guild to fight Rufus. But Gray insists, and Mavis decides to let him fight Rufus. So she is not able to predict the outcome of the battle, but she acknowledges that "feelings can sometimes surpass calculations". Eventually, Gray beats Rufus, and it is a happy story.

When we make decisions between two good things (like choosing what schools/jobs to apply, where to serve, implementation for a ministry), sometimes it is very hard to figure out what to choose. For example, on the Winter of 2008, I was struggling with deciding whether not running for the CCF committee (actually for the 3 years that I ran, I always struggled with the decision). Serving in committee seems to be a good thing, but also not serving in committee seems to be a good thing to me. It is always difficult to exactly discern what God wants you to do in regards of decisions like this.

Definitely, much prayer, bible reading, and counsel from mentors and peers are essential. On one hand, this can be an intellectual decision based on facts (example: pros and cons, doors that have been opened or closed, time budget, impact on existing commitments, etc). On the other hand, it can be a decision made by "sensing" (example: the Holy Spirit can give reassurance on a decision). Obviously, it can be a mixed of both.

I tend to be more on the intellectual side, and I remembered that I actually made a decision-matrix (something useful that I learned from a bad course in school). It looks similar to that:

Basically, I list the factors that I am considering for my decision-making, and weight them numerically, and then I analyze the choices, and see which option has the higher score. I remembered vaguely that the decision-matrix I made on 2008 had like 10 factors. And based on results, I should not be running for committee (it was a very close). But, in the end I decided to run because somewhat I felt that was the right choice to make despite the results of my intellectual analysis. And by God's grace, it was a great year in committee.

Based on this example, I am not trying to justify that "feelings" should supersede "intellect". I believe that thinking and analyzing thoroughly on the facts is very important as it gives you a better idea of the advantages and risks. But God can also work despite the eminent risks, and we should be opened to what He can do. I believe that our God is one who works in an organized manner but at the same time God can blow your mind, and go beyond your expectation.

And our God is good and sovereign, who is in control of everything, so it is hard to think that we can "block" His plans. That does not mean that we can make irresponsible decisions, but that we should do our best in seeking God to discern for the right decision, but also be reassured that He is in control. And once we have made the decision, we should go for it wholeheartedly trusting that God will work in you.

calling my mom

So I was calling my mom around 1am (since it will be 12am in Guatemala) to wish her a Merry Christmas. And the background noise was so loud that she could barely hear me. The noise is due to the non-stop fireworks and firecrackers, as it is part of the tradition during big celebrations like Christmas. She told me to call her back in 30 minutes (I guess that's how long the firecrackers usually last).

I kinda miss that type of festivity, it's way too quiet here in Canada =P.

Thank you Jesus

I have been reading the Old Testament starting from Genesis with the goal to go through the entire Old Testament. In the past, I often skipped the "boring" parts, so I have not read books like Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

So as I was reading a couple of days ago, there is this prophecy that Jacob made to his son Judah:

"The scepter will not depart from Judah,
    nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until he comes to whom it belongs
    and the obedience of the nations is his." - Genesis 49:10

It is a prophecy about the Messiah, who will come from the line of Judah. This is not the earliest prophecy about Christ, but I still think it is quite awesome that God has planned everything so perfectly according to His good will. There are many prophecies about Christ, that He will be born from a virgin, that He will be born in Bethlehem, that He will take away our sorrows and give up His life for our transgressions. It's just amazing that God planned this with such accuracy, showing that He is truly sovereign, in control, and all-powerful. But, God did not have to go through all this, and it will be ok to leave humans as they are, but God is rich in grace, that He sent Jesus to die for us. God is the one who initiated everything, we didn't do anything to deserve it. Intense.

As I was reading through Exodus, it is kind of disappointing to see the Israelites complaining against Moses (and eventually against God) when they were in the desert without water or food. God has just owned the Egyptians in the most spectacular way possible, and delivered them from the harsh slavery, but they tend to forget God's awesomeness so easily. But that actually reminds me of myself since it is so easy to forget about how good God is, and I start to complain about uncertainties in my life, and act sinfully even though He has just blessed me recently. The more I think about that, the larger God's grace becomes.

Christmas is a good reminder of the grace that is in Christ Jesus. It's definitely a great time to spend joyfully with close relatives and friends. I have chosen to spend some days in solitude because I really need the personal time with God, to ponder and be marveled at His immeasurable grace. It is a good time for me to rest, to get recharged, to reflect about my life, and to set goals for the near future. This is really helpful since work life has been considerably busy and draining. I have also set some time to catch up with family and close friends via skype since life becomes so busy that if one is not intentional, it is really hard to keep up with relationships.

Christmas is such a joyful times. All for the praise of His glory. Thank you Jesus.

Numbers numbers numbers

I found something interesting (especially if you like Chemistry) about arranging the books of the bible in a visual way: https://s3.amazonaws.com/Challies_VisualTheology/BooksoftheBible-2560x1600.jpg

Actually there are a series of diagrams about other Christian topics here: http://www.challies.com/resources/visual-theology-the-books-of-the-bible

Something that I learned in Simply Church Sunday School (we are doing a Old Testament survey), and there  are numerical patterns in terms of events or book arrangements, like for example:

Pentateuch - 5 books
Historical - 12 books
Poetry - 5 books
Major Prophets - 5 books
Minor Prophets - 12 books

The numbers 12 and 5 tend to repeat themselves quite often. Perhaps it means something more, but there is always a danger of over-analyzing. But I think this pattern helps me remember better the order of the books =P.

different roles

Here Pastor Mark speaks about  the three "offices" that Jesus has throughout the bible:

• Priest: offer sacrifices to God on behalf of people's sins
• Prophet: communicates to people truths about God
• King: with authority to reign over a group of people

As we are getting sanctified by the Spirit we are given gifts that would allow us to serve God effectively. Each of us are very different, given different gifts (1 Cor. 12), which will make you more suitable to specific leadership roles, and often the leadership roles are "categorized" into one of these offices. For example:

• Priest: serve others by caring for them, encouraging and support them (e.g. Caring Ministry, one-on-one encouragements)
• Prophet: serve others by speaking God's word to them, and rebuking them if necessary (e.g. Bible study leaders)
• King: serve others by being stewards of the resources to run the fellowship, and executing and planning events (e.g. Program/Event Coordinator)

There is one year when I was in committee, and there were three brothers (the more vocal ones), and the discussion of this came out because each of them were very different. One of them was really organized at planning and running events (so he was the king type). Whenever the other brother spoke about God, one was always inspired by his zeal for the Word of God, and it always brought conviction (so he was the prophet type). The other brother was the person who cares for the people of the fellowship and often made effort to talk as much people as possible and meet up on one-on-one with some of them to encourage them (so he was the priest type). I thought that was cool.

I just wanted to share this (not because I think this is like very important to know since it is kind of technical), but cause of two things:

1. We are sinners, so since we are different it is easy to come to disagreements and hurt one another. So it is important to know how to listen and understand where the other person is coming from. And also to forgive and offer grace when one is offended (just as God forgives and offers grace to us).
2. In the Old Testament, there are great servants of God that fulfills one of the offices of Christ, and I want to dedicate a great portion of my next blog posts to speak about it because it is a way that Christ was foreshadowed in the Old Testament, which is really neat because it gives us a better understanding of the overarching themes of the bible.

More reference for the three offices: http://carm.org/prophet-priest-king

Another reference for Christian leadership: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12913395/Christian_leadership.pdf

by Faith

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." - Hebrews 11:1

This coming week is a very busy one for me at work, and I really feel uneasy. I usually can handle stressful situations ok, but somehow this time I feel very vulnerable. The nature of the work I am doing now is fairly new to me, and definitely I feel quite inadequate. I think it is probably not a big deal in the big picture of things, but my weak self is stumbling at it.

I have the intellectual understanding that having faith in God will give us hope and reassurance, but to actually live it out is harder than it sounds. But in this weakness, I know that God's grace will be better demonstrated, so I just have to step it up by faith.

In grad cell, a couple of weeks ago we did a bible study on Hebrews 11, and it starts with a brief definition of faith, and then it includes many small stores of great characters like Abraham, Enoch, Noah, Abel, etc. I learn in Sunday school that Jewish people likes to define things with stories (as opposed to facts), so this is an example of how faith is explained with stories. If you look carefully at each story, you get to learn more about what faith really is.

As always, I randomly mentioned some illustrations on how to explain faith in other disciplines.

Engineering:
Engineers are really lazy so we like to explain things with formula, and just plug in the number and get the results. To be even more lazier, we can re-use an existing formula that starts with "F" (for faith), like the second Newton law:

F = ma (Force equals to mass times acceleration)
Fc = mac (small modification to centripetal force equals to mass times centripetal acceleration)

This can also translates into "Faith in Christ is equal to much assurance in Christ".

Science:
There is a condition called myopia (or nearsightedness) where the individual cannot see well things from afar because the light rays converges too early like in the first picture:

In the second picture a double concave lens is used to correct the rays so that the rays converges at the right point.

When we do not see things, we are uncertain and feel stressed. But faith is like the corrective lens that allows us to see that God is control and we reassured.

 Accounting:
So accountants have to balance long list of assets and liabilities. It is an arduous jobs, and many work overtime.

Most of the times, we don't know how it works or how they do it. But we know they will get it done. So faith is like this kind of trust.