vegetables overload

So I was reading this post from desiring God about the battle against pornography: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/jesus-is-better-than-porn

A couple of thoughts:

And there are many "things" or "methods" a guy can do in order to fight over this struggle: having accountability partners, software that can block the sketchy sites, have someone lock your computer, etc... These are good methods to help for sure. But really the key is to focus on God, on His goodness and how He fills us with love and satisfaction. And that by the exceeding abundance of His grace displayed on the gospel, we should be overwhelmed.

And in general it is easy to point out that sins we commit are bad, and we are encouraged to flee from these temptations, but we should also encourage each other to run towards what is good and awesome. Running towards God, and understanding that His love is enough, that never fails, and that we based our identity as a child of His.

And there are some of us that struggle with just reading the Word consistently, and so we set up daily devotional time, a reading plan, or memorizing verse challenge, etc. Once again, I think these are great things to do (I am not trying to discredit them), but the key is to really understand and be convicted that we need God and His goodness. And sometimes, we might need some of these "methods" to get us started to run after God, but ultimately it is not these "methods" that will sustain our fervor for God, but it is the conviction that His love is all we need.

Similar with eating vegetables, some people don't like it, and sometimes it is forced upon them to eat because it is good, or blend the vegetables into the meat dish somehow. But it is really when someone understands the exquisite firmness of a well cooked "gai lan", then the love for vegetables will grow.

So our fridge is in chaos, and it has a unprecedented high amount of vegetables (and some of them are huge) haha

gospel: resurrection

Recently, we did a bible study on 1 Corinthians 15:1-21 in small group, just before Easter. This passage includes a condensed version of what the gospel is:

"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve." - 1 Corinthians 15:3-5

A major part of the discussion revolved around the verses 12-17, where Paul speaks about the importance of the resurrection in our faith (if the resurrection did not happen, then our faith is futile). So we were trying to determine why was the resurrection of Jesus so essential to our faith, and we came up with several points:

• we have faith in a living Christ
• Christ is our mediator (it does not make sense if He is dead)
• Christ overcame death (wages of sin is death) to makes us free
• Christ is supreme, even over death, so that proves He is God
• Christ resurrected with a living body, to give a foresight that we will also have resurrected bodies in the restoration

Then an interesting verse came to play:

" It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,  who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." - Romans 4:24-25

So the main question we struggled about was, how does the resurrection of Christ leads to our justification (to declare us righteous in front of God's eyes)? Many of us, understand that the death of Christ was necessarily as propitiation (taking away the wrath of God) for our sins. Christ is sinless, hence His sacrifice is perfect and sufficient to pay for our sins. The great exchange happens so that the Christ suffers the punishment of our sins, and His righteousness is imputed into us, making us righteous (justification).

But then, how does resurrection leads to our justification? Shouldn't the death of Christ be enough to accomplish this?

So we have to do some readings from theologians to understand more:

• Wayne Gurdem in Systematic Theology, points out that "When Christ was raised from the dead, it was God's declaration of approval of Christ's work of redemption. Because Christ 'humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross' (Phil. 2:8), 'God exalted him..' (Phil. 2:9). By raising Christ, from the dead, God the father was in effect saying that he approved of Christ's work of suffering and dying for our sins."
• R.C. Sproul writes an article "Resurrection and Justification": stating that the resurrection serves as a demonstration (so to assures us that He is God) but also as a vindication that God the Father validates the authenticity of Christ. And also that God the Father approves of the work of Christ.
• John Piper states on his book "50 reasons why Jesus came to die" on page 100-101: "The resurrection of Jesus is God's gift and proof that his death was completely successful in blotting out the sins of his people and removing the wrath of God. You can see this in the word "therefore". Christ was "obedient to the point of death, even on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him" (Philippians 2:8-9). From the cross the Son of God cried, "It is finished" (John 19:30). And by means of the resurrection, God the Father cries, "It was finished indeed!". The great work of paying for our sin and providing our righteousness and satisfying God's justice was finished in the death of Jesus."

Pretty awesome stuff, glory to God!

trip home

I had the joy to visit home recently, and it has been almost 3 years since I last went home. Actually it was surreal to me when I got out of the airport in Guatemala. I just could not believe I was home. One of my best friends came pick me up (because my mom was sick) and we went out to a local fried chicken place for dinner, and that was so good! As we drove to the streets and saw different places, many things were very familiar to me, but it seems foreign at the same time.

I am really happy from the trip.

From a logistical point, I was not stressed about scheduling my short week at home. Usually, I get many requests to meet up with different groups of people, and it can be very stressful to accommodate everyone. So this time, instead of saying "yes" to everyone,  I decided to just put people on hold, and consult with my mom first. As a result, my days were pretty relaxing, I got to meet up with everyone (family, church friends, high school friends, high school teachers) I wanted to see, and it was not rushed to go from a meeting to another one.

From a purpose-driven point, I wanted to focus on strengthening relationships with my mom and her side of the family. I have to admit that I am not too close to her, nor to her side of the family. So I wanted to talk to them more, to get to know them, and also to share with them about my life. I made a point to have meaningful conversation, but I wished I was more bold in certain times when I could share about my faith. Despite my weakness, I was happy to have a deep conversation with my mom about the gospel, and I can sense her desire to learn more about God. And that is very encouraging.

It was also neat to not have easy internet access, and that made more focused to think about things.

A realization I have after visiting my high school is that I am very blessed. The teachers were happy to see me, and happy to know that one of their students were able to attain some level of success in a foreign country. Most of them expressed that they knew I will get far in life. For more context, it is not easy for someone in Guatemala to go study abroad and find a job. I am reminded that I am very blessed to have the family support, the education, the skills, and the opportunity to study and work in Canada.

More so, it is really God who orchestrated all of this, and I am very thankful for what He has done.

And this linked to another lesson, which is that without God, I cannot achieve anything. I received many compliments from family and friends, and it is easy to lose sight that it is God who granted you all this. So I am reminded to be humble at all times. This is one of the fiercest battle in my life, and every day I need to learn how to humble myself as God can make you very successful, but He can also take it away in no time. So all the successes we have is to be attributed to our God.

And then, another realization came by because there were many talks about old anecdotes in school and in fellowship. And I am blessed that many people hold me in high regard because I was able to serve and help them in some way. This reminds me of the importance to live each day being very mindful on how you want people to remember you. Not because of self-glory, but because we are ambassadors of Christ. We want people to see that it is God who is enabling us to love one another sincerely.

ps. all these thoughts came around 2-3am haha

fellowship

Just came across a very good article about what fellowship is: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/learn-to-fly-in-the-fellowship

It resonates with me very much for what I appreciate about fellowship, which is not just the good times spent together with fellow brothers, but also the labor and service in the Kingdom of God. And the joy to witness a fellow brother loving the gospel that has save us... all these add to the richness of what fellowship is for a Christian.

music is nice

A couple of weekends ago, I went to Montreal with a group of friends to attend a concert from "Distant Worlds" which plays orchestra music from a famous RPG game series called "Final Fantasy" (FF).

I have only played FF7, FF10, FF12, and currently playing FF6, but I am growing familiar with the soundtrack of the other FFs. The first time I attended the Distant Worlds concert was about 2 years ago in Waterloo, and I really liked it since this is a game that I really enjoyed and music is great, and in the projector screen they show videos of the actual game.

On this second concert in Montreal, I was very excited because this time a choir was present (there was no choir in Waterloo) which makes a significant difference. While sitting down, we noticed some people cosplaying as FF characters (black mage, white mage, Fang, Aerith) which was kinda neat.

The concert started with the FF Prelude and I was ecstatic, and really realize how beautiful music (in general) can be, and what great music accompanies each version of this famous game. Other great songs that were played: Don't be Afraid (battle theme FF8),  Zanarkand (FF10), One-Winged Angel (FF7). One of the most memorable one was the arrangement of "Battle Medley" which include 2 of my favorites (Clash on the Big Bridge and Those Who Fight).

Then I started wondering how much does the music influence the game. Like there are times that I play the game in mute (so that I don't wake up my housemates when I played late at night), and it is still ok. But having this great music accompanying the game during the battle scenes, going in-and-out of towns, cut scenes, boss fights, etc... really make the game so much more enjoyable. Like the music is not the main component of the game, but it does make the experience much more better.

When I think about musical worship, I understand that it is very essential to focus on the lyrics of the songs that tells us truths about the greatness of God, because these truths touch our lives and made us want to sing more about how great our God is.

Though it is not the main aspect, the music that accompanies the lyrics can help make the worship experience better for the congregation. I was involved mainly with AV (Audio Visual), and it is easy to look down on AV because nobody really knows who is doing it, and the task seems that it does not require a lot of skill. Though those statements are true, I think that when an AV person does his/her job well (worship slides are readable, change of slides are correct, the vocals are clear, the volume of the instruments are not loud or soft) it makes a huge difference compared to when the job is not done correctly. So as a fellow AV, I encourage each of us to continue refining your skill to serve the church congregation to facilitate a better worship experience with God.

God is good

December is already here, and there are many great things to speak about this special month where we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

As Christians, we read the bible and learn more about our great God, and we always emphasize these attributes: God is love, God is gracious, God is merciful, because we often fall in sin, and experience at first hand that God is loving and gracious.

Sometimes we emphasize on the Holiness of God, on how we ought to be holy as we are set apart to live for Him. On occasions, we also speak about the wrath of God, as the great lyrics of "In Christ Alone" speaks about it:

"Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied "

Because we understand that our sin has offended the just God, and in order to satisfy His wrath, the death of His only Son was necessarily.

It's extraordinary how our worship to God is more refined when we know Him more and more.

A particular aspect of God that we should also speak is the "goodness" of God. I guess we often associate God with being good, and don't really ponder about it too much.

Recently I have been reading a Chinese manga series called "Feng Shen Ji" that takes place in the days of the last emperor of the Shang Dynasty (Chinese history oh yeah). In the story there are many gods that govern everything and puts mankind into slavery, so the emperor starts a rebellion against the gods to give dignity to the humans. It is a very cool fantasy with manly fight and honorable fight scenes. But it made me think about what would happen if our God is not good, and does not always intend to do good to us. The reason the emperor is starting this rebellion is because the gods of the story are only looking after their own interests, and treat humans as toys.

The classic passage of Romans 8:28 assures us that God works for our good no matter what the circumstances are. There is really no reason for All-powerful Almighty God to be good to us, but this is our God, and His goodness compels us to worship Him more.


 

for the epic moments

I really like to watch sports, and I enjoy a lot the Soccer (Futbol) World Cup and the Summer Olympics. I am not too athletic, but I often daydream about being a great athlete accomplishing something great. Hence, I admire great athletes and I am ecstatic about the epic moments, for example:

• Michael Jordan scoring the winning shot against Utah Jazz in game 6 of NBA finals
• Yelena Isinbayeva breaking the world record on Beijing Olympics in in pole vault
• A young del Potro beats the great Roger Federer on US Open 2009
• Nadia Comaneci scoring the first perfect 10 score on gymnastics in Montreal 1974
• Roberto Baggio carries Italy with a fantastic goal that beats Spain on 1994 World Cup Semifinals

For my anime friends, I also enjoy the epic moments of many anime/manga shows like:

• Double upgrade of Alice on Aria
• Homura reveals everything on Madoka
• The last fighting sequence on Teppen Toppa Gurren Lagaan
• Lelouch in his Requiem Zero on Code Geass
• Strauss reveals his intentions on the Record of the Fallen Vampire

Or in movies like:

• Gandalf standing on the bridge against the demon from the mines of Moria staying "You shall not pass!" from the Lord of the Rings
• Harrison Ford kicking the bad guy out of the plane saying "Get out of my plane!" from Air Force One
• Will Smith punching the alien staying "Welcome to earth" from Independence Day
• Hulk smashes the big alien thing from the Avengers
• Bruce Willis on his last decision on Armageddon

I could go on, haha. 

Reading on Acts, it's really crazy to see the great things that the early disciples did:

• Stephen's meekness when he was stoned
• Peter preaching the Word courageously
• Philip sharing the gospel when an opportunity opened up (via teleportation)
• Paul rejoicing in all his trials
• Many other great exploits of conversion, healing, preaching, and being bold despite persecution

I think that it would be really awesome to be able to achieve similar magnitude of greatness in my life. For many of us, we have the desire to be part of something big ministry for God, and we wish to be instruments and ambassadors to shine Christ towards others. We would love to speak about our faith boldly, to defend our views on the bible among skeptics, to love even if we are not loved, to be a role model in Christ for others.

It is easy to wish to become someone great, but to forget to hard work and time that is required to prepare us for that. The daily time we spend in the Scriptures and in prayer, and all the experience we get from the good or tough moments are actually useful in forming a stronger character in us and preparing us for God's work in the future. During the process, we might not see the point and we might even complain about the lack of clarity of where we're going, but God uses that to build you up and prepare for greater things. 

So let's not underestimate each step of the preparation, because God can do great things through you.