"But one day as I was passing into the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul: Thy righteousness is in heaven. And methought, withal, I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God's right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, he wants my righteousness, for that was just before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, 'the same yesterday, today, and for ever.' (Heb. 13:8). Now did my chains fall off my legs; indeed I was loosed from my afflictions and irons; my temptations also fled away; so that from that time those dreadful scriptures of God left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing for the grace and love of God." 

- John Bunyan, "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners"

People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

- D.A. Carson

 He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter….If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even when there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we keep complaining that everything is paltry and petty, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross … At the foot of the cross, we shrink to our true size."

 - John Stott

Devo Post #16

9/8/17

1 Cor 4:16, 1 Cor 11:1, phil 3:17

I urge you, then, be imitators of me.

Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.

Right now in Chicago, and probably all over the US and the world, there are many disciples who lack mentors or disciplers to look up to as examples of godliness. I think it was interesting I was talking about godliness with S the other day during lunch, and it was hard for both of us to pinpoint what godliness even means or looks like. For me at least, the 2 sections of the Bible that speak to godliness would be the book of James and Matthew 5-7, the sermon on the mount. But to get to godliness, which is somewhat a combination of holiness (what does holiness mean?) and knowing God, one must go through Christ and the Cross, the message of the Gospel.

I worry sometimes that COTB, as a church plant, doesn’t have elders who can disciple its members. I also worry that BCF also needs disciplers too, like how ACF in Pittsburgh, I can talk to D Song or P Chang and E Gan and how they were discipled by older ACFers or Pastor L or Elder G, or even how J Mao has a discipler in NYC. This is the church I’m used to, or got the privileged to see and experience. “Ah this is what true discipleship looks like,” I would say to myself. Now it feels like the blind leading the blind, instead of brothers and sisters like Paul who live out an example of godly living instead of a worldly kind.

Should I be worried? Or should I trust in God that He will raise up leaders like how I’ve been praying for the churches in the world? Or how God raised up so many leaders in Cornerstone, why can’t He do the same at COTB? Even COTB downtown is struggling, and Pastor L. Cruzat was pulled from STL to help with the Wicker Park church plant. God bless him and his family.

Better question: am I equipped to disciple people at COTB and BCF? Sure I have the scriptural and theological knowledge, but am I truly living a godly life? Am I representing Christ as an ambassador and foreigner in Chicago? Am I using work and health and sin (pride/envy/lust/lack of forgiveness) as excuses to not live a godly life and disciple others? Do I truly believe in the Gospel daily and rely on the Holy Spirit and message of the Cross to guide my daily footsteps?

Devo Post #15

4/12/17

Phil 2:12-13

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

If we stop at the end of verse 12, this passage would almost point towards works-based salvation. But the addition of verse 13 shows us that in the end it is still God, and always been God, who has been working our salvation for us and in us.

Paul is talking to his beloved, which is the Philippi church, but by extension we the modern church can gain insight as well. I wonder how obedient the Philippi church was, but seeing the lavish praise Paul gives them throughout the Letter to the Philippians, it would seem this was a group of strong Christians who understand the Gospel and are living out their calling to preach the Gospel and support Paul’s missionary journeys.

What does it look like to be as obedient as the Philippi church? That is what I want to know. That is seriously the question I want answered right now. We know the American church sucks. We compromise. We push against legalism but then fall into complacency and nominalism. We don’t trust God. We don’t trust Jesus. We want to live like the world and by the world’s standards. We want comfort, riches, acceptance by culture, the american dream of having a nice car, house, and family. But God doesn’t call us to that kind of life, and I see a distinction between how Paul describes the Church of Philippi and my own churches here in the US. At the very least, we don’t send young men to give missionary funds to imprisoned missionaries in dangerous countries (I mean...when your dictator Nero likes burning Christians on posts to light his garden or send them into the gladiator ring to get eaten by lions, that’s kind of a dangerous country to be strolling into).

I know the Gospel is very important. It is the most important news of our life. We are never to move from it, but come back to this message daily, using it to empower us to get through each day with fear and trembling as Paul writes in the passage. But to know the Gospel means we have the Holy Spirit in us, and Christ watching over us from above, and God the Father providing us with gifts and calling and direction to do ministry for His glory. Mission and obedience need to naturally (or supernaturally) flow out of the evidence of the Gospel in our lives. If there isn’t...then who can say we have the Gospel at all, but are just faking it. Paul has extensively written of people who fake the Gospel. Let us not be one of those people. Let us not be one of those who come before Jesus saying we did so many things, only for Him to say to our faces “I do not know you, away from me you evildoers.” It sounds like these people weren’t doing anything out of the Gospel, but only pretending to know Jesus but still continue to work their lives exactly like everyone else. To be Christian is to be called to a radically different life from those around us. We must not love the world, for we love Jesus, and then the world will hate us (should we hate the world too? I don’t know, but we should hate evil and Satan and the forces of darkness which the world embodies).

The Worship Experience

Worship is an action we do in response to God's Glory (infinite greatness and worth).

Let us replace the word worship with praise. At least in Protestant circles those words can be interchangeable. We give praise to our favorite musical bands or sports teams. We give praise to leaders who make good decisions. When we do, we aren't inherently focused ourselves but the object of our praise. When a baby coos, we respond by saying "awww". When a firefighter saves someone, we response by calling him/her a hero. Why then when we give praise to God, it all of the sudden requires the right mood, or song, or ambiance, or "experience"?

So our worship/praise/adoration is our response to God's Glory, and naturally if our worship is sincere and real, we will be filled with joy.

When you come to church, when you worship Him, you're not doing it for God really. You're doing it for yourself, because that's what makes God happy. - Victoria Oesteen (see the irony?)

With everything that has been going on within the last 2 years (and will continue), I am going to put this here:

Soon the activists, progressive movements, and humanitarian groups in the United States will turn on Christians en mass. It will mostly be because of false/fake Christians whom they use as the face of Christianity. We already see this with Trump and Republican "Christians." We saw this with Joel Osteen after Hurricane Harvey. Neither of them are anywhere close to living out the faith that Christ envisioned us to embody, but because they are now the face of Christianity in America, all Christians are going to suffer. Those who will suffer most are Christians who are truly filly with love and who wish for social justice in America and partner with the movements that will one day not discriminate and persecute all Christians. They are the ones who will be caught up in between lukewarm/fake Christians whom they've tried to distance themselves from, and the social justice movements they long to be a part of. I pray that they will not lose hope in Christ (as they will lose hope in humanity) when that day comes.

I guess I will use the words of Peter, Paul, and John...come quickly Jesus.

Edit: After meditating on this, I realize that God may be using this as an opportunity to unify the American Church, whether or not we want to be unified. The church will be smaller, but it will become more real, and we will start to rely on one another instead of being individualistic or combative, fighting against one another along lesser ideological points. I understand the history of the American Church, how there was a growth in fundamentalism, legalism, escapism, and fatalism. I understand that my generation is one that sees all of those things, along with the fakeness of cultural Christianity, and pushes back against it, and in many ways over-swinging to the other extreme of the spectrum to progressivism, liberalism, and compromising Scripture for culture. Yet Jesus has time and time again (and I guess Paul and others too...though my generation seems to be more Red Letter than anything) warn us that the world will hate us (because of Him). We saw this with the Woman's March, how Christian woman groups who wanted to stand for gender equality and stand for social justice were forbidden to march because they were Pro-life. We will continue to see more of this, whether we like it or not, and unfortunately for my generation, the world (the politicians, the rich, the activists, the scientists, and the humanists) will shove us back to our roots, and that will be at the foot of the Cross where the Jews crucified their own blood-related Savior. I just hope there won't be too great a hurt and distrust within my generation (and those after me) towards all people by then.

Definitely one of the most powerful endings in anime history.

An ending before its time.

One revealings the consequences of war, especially on children.

Every child here represents thousands in the real world.
In Syria, in Iraq, in North Korea, in Africa, in Chicago.

Children who are hungry.

Children who are in pain.

Children who long to be loved.

 These are the children I pray for every week.

Some I even know their names, their stories.

Lord have mercy on them.

I know that the horrors of the world will never end as long as humans sin,

so please, let Jesus come soon to end all of this forever.

http://notthatiknow.tumblr.com/post/95357620661/eureka-seven-ed-4-canvas-collection-of-ed-art
http://planetaryoratorio.tumblr.com/post/21185166687/eureka-seven-ed-4-canvas-collection-of-ed-art

  

Out of the Depths - Sovereign Grace

 

VERSE 1
Out of the depths, O Lord, I cry to You
When I am tempted to despair
Though I might fail to trust Your promises
You never fail to hear my prayer
And if You judged my sin
I’d never stand again
But I see mercy in Your hands
CHORUS
So more than watchmen for the morning
I will wait for You, my God
When my fears come with no warning
In Your Word I’ll put my trust
When the harvest time is over and I still see no fruit
I will wait, I will wait for You
VERSE 2
The secret mysteries belong to You
We only know what You reveal
And all my questions that are unresolved
Don’t change the wisdom of Your will
In every trial and loss
My hope is in the cross
Where Your compassions never fail 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmFPS0f-kzs

 Isaiah 21, 52, 62

1
When You lead me to the valley of vision
I can see You in the heights
And though my humbling
Wouldn't be my decision
It's here Your glory shines so bright
So let me learn that the cross
Precedes the crown
To be low is to be high
That the valley's where You make me
More like Christ
Let me find Your grace in the valley
Let me find Your life in my death
Let me find Your joy in my sorrow
Your wealth in my need
That You're near with every breath
In the valley
2
In the daytime there are stars in the heavens
But they only shine at night

And the deeper that I go into darkness
The more I see their radiant light
So let me learn that my losses are my gain
To be broken is to heal
That the valley's where Your power is revealed
Let me find Your grace in the valley
Let me find Your life in my death
Let me find Your joy in my sorrow
Your wealth in my need
That You're near with every breath
In the valley
Let me find Your joy in my sorrow
Your wealth in my need
That You're near with every breath
In the valley

Proverbs 23:17-18 Let not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the fear of the Lord all the day. Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.

Lord you know my heart, you know that many times I do envy sinners, of the life they have. I know I naturally long to sin, long to store up treasures here on earth, and long to be praised by men. Remind me of the hope that you have promised me, and teach me how to fear you above all else, and how to store up treasures in heaven. Let me not be jealous of my neighbors, and seduced by the world. As Christ resisted, let me resist the temptations set before me.

God is good.

After getting beaten and mugged, I met an exchange student from China at the Bank of America when I was trying to obtain a temporary debit card. He overheard me speaking in chinese to my parents about shipping my passport overnight so I can fly home. He then started a brief conversation with me, but at the end I forgot to get his contact information because I was still a bit traumatized and have regretted it since.

Today I bumped into him at the gym where he basically stared at me, saying "I've met you somewhere before...ah you are the taiwanese guy from the bank!" This time I got his wechat and hopefully something will become of this opportunity.

God is good.

[Some] Verses of Promise

I know that in times of pain and suffering, I am to hold fast to the promises of God to comfort me, to deliver me, to help me be steadfast. But if I don't know what the promises are, how will I find peace and joy? So I am going to list a few:

Psalm 23:6
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.

Psalm 84:11
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
    the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
    from those who walk uprightly.

Luke 6:23
Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

Philippians 1:6
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 4:19
And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:12-13
I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Romans 8:28
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:38-39
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died
My richest gain I count but loss
And pour contempt on all my pride
Forbid it Lord that I should boast
Save in the death of Christ my God
All the vain things that charm me most
I sacrifice them to His blood
See from His head His hands His feet
Sorrow and love flow mingled down
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet
Or thorns compose so rich a crown
Were the whole realm of nature mine
That were an offering far too small  
Love so amazing so divine
Demands my soul
Demands my soul
Love demands my soul
My life my all

Lord, when I sing this song that I truly mean it. Let me truly believe that the Love that flowed from the Cross is worth giving all my soul, all my life, my all in all.

May I never lose the wonder,
Oh, the wonder of Your mercy.
May I sing Your hallelujah.
Hallelujah, Amen. 

The skies lay low where You are
On the earth You rest Your feet
Yet the hands that cradle the stars
Are the hands that bled for me
In a moment of glorious surrender
You were broken for all the world to see
Lifted out of the ashes
I am found in the aftermath
Freedom found in Your scars
In Your grace my life redeemed
For You chose to take the sinner's crown
As You placed Your crown on me
And in that moment of glorious surrender
Was the moment You broke the chains in me
Lifted out of the ashes
I am found in the aftermath
And in that moment You opened up the heavens
To the broken, the beggar and the thief
Lifted out of the wreckage
I found hope in the aftermath
And I know that You're with me
Yes, I know that You're with me here
And I know Your love will light the way
And I know that You're with me
Yes, I know that You're with me here
And I know Your love will light the way
Now all I have I count it all as loss
But to know You, to carry the cross
Knowing I'm found
In the light of the aftermath

 For some reason, this hit me hard today, knowing that God is always with me.

''Enough'' stalks us.

Have we prayed enough?

Worked enough?

Loved enough?

No, never enough.

But Jesus says,

''I am your enough.''

At ACW today at UIC, I happen to sit down with an older Indian man and started having a conversation with him. It turned out that he was the father of the worship leader, and drove to UIC to support his son. We had a good introductory chat, though tbh I was slightly awkward and kind of broke away from him. Somehow I also won the extreme rock paper scissors game in a room about 100 (felt really weird having them all chant my name; I also only played rock the entire time), and the father rushed over to give me a strong handshake to congratulate me.

After ACW he found me and we started talking again. I asked him the question "how did you become a Christian?" I replied that it was a curious thing, since he grew up in an Indian Christian family, but he was an atheist. After his father died, he did everything he could to erase God from his life, going as far as to marry a Hindu woman. Turns out God wasn't done with him, and brought his wife to Christ. After that it was a losing battle and he turned back to God, along with his son and daughter.

He looked me in the eye and asked me a question, "after everything that has happened in your life, can you deny that God is in control?" It was like he was reading my mind, and I could only nod in reply. He followed up with, "everything that happened to me defied logic! Nothing made sense! That is how you know that God is real."

It was by God's grace that I was born. This miracle defied all scientific reasoning, and my mom's decision to keep me defied all logic.

After everything that happened to me in high school and college, any other person would have fallen away from faith. Anyone and everyone. I tried really hard to run away from God, even to go as far as hating Him and blaming Him for everything. Yet no matter how far I ran, He still found me. Where shall I go from your Spirit?
 
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence? 
  If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

After sharing his brief testimony, he gave me his business card and asked me to call him so he can share the rest of story, as well as his son's testimony. Needless to say that I was very blessed by the conversation, and really saw how the power of the Gospel and God's Spirit working in the students and student groups at UIC.

Philippians 4:13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength

Why is this verse so misquoted and misused in the Church? How many of us even know the context of this verse?

Paul is writing this to the Church of Philippi to reassure them that he is okay and “content” with his current situation, which would be house arrest in Rome. The Church of Philippi, founded by Lydia in a Roman colon, sent Epaphroditus on a 800-mile journey (random google source) to give missionary aid to Paul, and Paul in return sends back a letter that gives lavish thanks to said church in what I consider his most vulnerable epistle in the Bible. 

In no way does this verse have anything to do with winning a sports game or being successful in life, yet we often quote this verse in conjunction with some form of worldly success. Some even use it as a tagline for a Facebook profile or cover photo that has nothing to do with the Gospel and everything to do with themselves. It’s even misquoted on shoes…

When we quote this verse, we need to treat it as if we are quoting a scientific article and hold to the author’s original intent (with correct notation too: Paul of Tarsus, “Epistle to the Philippians,” The Bible, 4 (62 AD): 13.). That means when we quote this verse, we are standing in solidarity with Paul as he faced imprisonment, loss of many of his travel companions, and inevitable fate of death at Emperor Nero’s hands (Paul’s true fate unknown, but this is most likely outcome). He overcomes his suffering, persecution, and loneliness by the power of Christ, the Gospel. Let us be true to the testimony and faith of our predecessor instead of making it about ourselves!

Redemption (between a father and son)!

Only the foolishness of the Gospel can do that

Creativity and intelligence can certainly adorn the gospel of grace, but there is no amount of creativity and intelligence that can waken a dead soul. Only the foolishness of the gospel can do that (1 Cor. 1:18). Not even sacrificial good works and biblical social justice can wake a dead soul, for the law has no power to raise in and of itself. Only the foolishness of the gospel can do that. And it is a shame that there are an increasing number of churches(!) that are blanching at the foolishness of the gospel these days. But Paul knows that the hope of the church and the world is the alien righteousness of Christ announced in that scandalous historical headline. “For Christ did not send me to preach the gospel with words of eloquent wisdom,” he says, “lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power” (1 Cor. 1:17). - Jared Wilson

 

https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/gospeldrivenchurch/2016/10/07/what-the-church-needs-is-a-reclamation-of-biblical-supernaturalism/

Paradigm Shift

One of the missionaries from my missions organization went to Pakistan recently to preach the Gospel. There he met and made several brothers in Christ. Now in Pakistan there are rolling blackouts that conserve power for the country, and it was during one of these blackouts where the missionary asked these brothers if they would want to go to Iran to preach the Gospel. There was a long pause in the darkness, and the missionary wondered if he spoke out of line since Pakistan and Iran are not on the greatest of terms. At least one of the brothers spoke up, “We don’t have any money to cover the travel costs.” The missionary thought for a moment, and said, “Why don’t you walk there?” Another pause, and another voice was heard in the darkness. “Wow, why didn’t I think of that? Let’s go!” Other voices chimed in agreement in that moment, and 20 brothers went by foot to do missions in Iran.

While the brothers were on their way to Iran, the missionary brother emailed them asking if they needed prayer for the persecuted church there, and their reply really got me thinking (as well as the missionary). “Why do you call it the persecuted church? What is the church, if it isn’t persecuted?” That was when the missionary realized that the Western evangelical movement has got it all wrong, and a paradigm shift began in his thinking.

I write this as both an encouragement and reminder, for you and for myself. I have to remember to pray for these 20 very real brothers walking to almost certain death, but they don’t fear death because they know to live is Christ and to die is gain. I also need to remind myself that if the local church isn’t being persecuted for living for Christ, then what is its purpose?

Sigh I can't believe Naruto is almost over. I also can't believe I live in an age where if I post this online, not many will have seen it. So sad but so sweet! Father and son's last farewell.