I had put aside this blog for a while to focus on some projects at home and changes to our family with our new addition. I'm planning to write a few more articles again that hopefully encourage you to think honestly and biblically about ourselves and our Lord. The next set of articles will be a return to original theme of this blog - Thoughts of a sinner saved by grace to help incite others to consider and ponder issues and topics we don't often think about or dare discuss openly.
For the next few articles, I'd like to encourage you to ask the question: "Is there any good we can do?"
Think about it. Consider the scriptures. Look honestly at yourself.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Friday, September 24, 2010
Daily Battle - Around Us and Within
"Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: To whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." - Gal 1:3-5
Do you find the battle against this present age just as exhausting as the battle against our own flesh? I do. Most days, I am so frustrated with the weakness of my flesh that I wonder if I have any faith left to battle against the temptations of the world. Thanks be to Jesus who gave Himself up for our sins and is constantly delivering us from this present evil world and from our own flesh.
Jesus's beauty in the eyes of the Father is greater than my sins. The sufficiency of His work overcomes my weaknesses. His glory is greater than the power that overcomes this world.
Brothers and sisters, when you are defeated by your own self-serving, law-keeping flesh and frustrated by the world that does all things contrary to Christ, look to the very Savior who is satisfyingly sufficient.
Do you find the battle against this present age just as exhausting as the battle against our own flesh? I do. Most days, I am so frustrated with the weakness of my flesh that I wonder if I have any faith left to battle against the temptations of the world. Thanks be to Jesus who gave Himself up for our sins and is constantly delivering us from this present evil world and from our own flesh.
Jesus's beauty in the eyes of the Father is greater than my sins. The sufficiency of His work overcomes my weaknesses. His glory is greater than the power that overcomes this world.
Brothers and sisters, when you are defeated by your own self-serving, law-keeping flesh and frustrated by the world that does all things contrary to Christ, look to the very Savior who is satisfyingly sufficient.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Losing a Friend in Christ
We lost a friend this weekend to cancer. (I'm omitting his name for the sake of privacy.)
My friends know me as stoic and emotionally even keel. Hence, sadness when losing a friend or family member (an event that has happened more in the last few years) rarely brings me to tears but it did this time around. I wondered, "Why?"
My friend and I spent no more than 2 hours combined speaking one-on-one in 3 years. We've spent maybe a few more hours combined speaking together amongst others. He and his family have been to our house once and we have been to theirs also only one time. Our children don't go to school together or play at church together (different ages). Yet, I found myself in tears when I heard the news. I wondered, "Why?"
I've lost family members that I've spent significantly much more time with. I have friends that have been to our house dozens of times and I've spent hundreds of hours with which I no longer see and don't expect to yet sadness does not overcome me when thinking of them. The loss of my friend this weekend brought me to tears. I wondered, "Why?"
I look back at the short discussions I had with my friend and the time our families spent together. The memories are overwhelmed with discussions about our Lord, His work in our lives, our honest sinfulness and need of Him and our desire to know Him more. I knew very little about his professional life, but I knew about his life in Christ. I heard very little detail about his children and wife, but we often talked about our common desire for our families to grow in Christ. I never heard about his feelings, but we often shared about the joy of knowing our Saviour.
I knew my friend during his latter months when he would bear the strength to come to church to hear and gospel of our Lord preached. I would ask him, "How are you holding up?" With a genuine smile but with an honest admittance of the pain and troubles in his face, he would respond with, "Blessed to keep seeing Christ."
A few months ago, as he was walking out of the children's church having just shared the gospel with them one last time, he told me that the Lord has made His grace more evident and his own sinfulness more real. "I must decrease and He must increase," he once told me.
My friend has magnified Christ more at the end of his life. I did not know him well, but our Saviour did. And since we are in Christ together, we are intimate, close friends. And so, I cried when I learned of his passing this weekend.
Farewell, friend! We will see each other in glory praising our Lord together.
My friends know me as stoic and emotionally even keel. Hence, sadness when losing a friend or family member (an event that has happened more in the last few years) rarely brings me to tears but it did this time around. I wondered, "Why?"
My friend and I spent no more than 2 hours combined speaking one-on-one in 3 years. We've spent maybe a few more hours combined speaking together amongst others. He and his family have been to our house once and we have been to theirs also only one time. Our children don't go to school together or play at church together (different ages). Yet, I found myself in tears when I heard the news. I wondered, "Why?"
I've lost family members that I've spent significantly much more time with. I have friends that have been to our house dozens of times and I've spent hundreds of hours with which I no longer see and don't expect to yet sadness does not overcome me when thinking of them. The loss of my friend this weekend brought me to tears. I wondered, "Why?"
I look back at the short discussions I had with my friend and the time our families spent together. The memories are overwhelmed with discussions about our Lord, His work in our lives, our honest sinfulness and need of Him and our desire to know Him more. I knew very little about his professional life, but I knew about his life in Christ. I heard very little detail about his children and wife, but we often talked about our common desire for our families to grow in Christ. I never heard about his feelings, but we often shared about the joy of knowing our Saviour.
I knew my friend during his latter months when he would bear the strength to come to church to hear and gospel of our Lord preached. I would ask him, "How are you holding up?" With a genuine smile but with an honest admittance of the pain and troubles in his face, he would respond with, "Blessed to keep seeing Christ."
A few months ago, as he was walking out of the children's church having just shared the gospel with them one last time, he told me that the Lord has made His grace more evident and his own sinfulness more real. "I must decrease and He must increase," he once told me.
My friend has magnified Christ more at the end of his life. I did not know him well, but our Saviour did. And since we are in Christ together, we are intimate, close friends. And so, I cried when I learned of his passing this weekend.
Farewell, friend! We will see each other in glory praising our Lord together.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Scriptural Synergy - He Alone Is Righteous
A co-worker recently encouraged me with the following:
God delights in the earnest prayers of His people.
To which I responded in order to point him to Christ:
Thank God that Christ is the one of whom the Scripture says "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" [James 5:16] since He "knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" [1 Cor 5:21] because "all have sinned" [Rom 3:23] and "there is none righteous, no not one" [Rom 3:10].
I love the synergy of Scripture making available to us the wisdom of God.
God delights in the earnest prayers of His people.
To which I responded in order to point him to Christ:
Thank God that Christ is the one of whom the Scripture says "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" [James 5:16] since He "knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" [1 Cor 5:21] because "all have sinned" [Rom 3:23] and "there is none righteous, no not one" [Rom 3:10].
I love the synergy of Scripture making available to us the wisdom of God.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Political Correctness - Healthcare, Taxes & the Gospel
"And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's." - Luk 20:25
There was a time when I actually enjoyed discussing politics with friends, family and coworkers. I became a regular listener of conservative talk shows and the cable news programs. Debates were mostly fun because of the challenge of trying to convince the other person of the positions I shared with others and/or had personally taken.
In the recent years, God has shown me how to redirect political discussions not to the right nor to the left but rather to God. I've found that political discussions - whether with believers or unbelievers - produced no fruit and did not open doors for the Gospel but rather often closed them.
Christ was faced with the same dilemna when the chief priests had sent spies who pretented to be sincere [Luk 20:20-21]. Christ's wisdom was greater than men's wisdom because His purpose was greater than theirs. They purposed to trap Him so that they might deliver to the chief priests what they needed to accuse Him. However, Christ was purposed to give glory to His Father.
Christian, don't get caught up in the cares of this world and troubles of men that lead not to God but rather to man-centered solutions. That is all that politics is - men searching solutions in man rather than God. God has instituted it to govern our sinful souls to create order but has never been the means by which the Gospel is preached. Therefore, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God what is God's - the souls of men being saved through the preaching of His Word for His glory!
There was a time when I actually enjoyed discussing politics with friends, family and coworkers. I became a regular listener of conservative talk shows and the cable news programs. Debates were mostly fun because of the challenge of trying to convince the other person of the positions I shared with others and/or had personally taken.
In the recent years, God has shown me how to redirect political discussions not to the right nor to the left but rather to God. I've found that political discussions - whether with believers or unbelievers - produced no fruit and did not open doors for the Gospel but rather often closed them.
Christ was faced with the same dilemna when the chief priests had sent spies who pretented to be sincere [Luk 20:20-21]. Christ's wisdom was greater than men's wisdom because His purpose was greater than theirs. They purposed to trap Him so that they might deliver to the chief priests what they needed to accuse Him. However, Christ was purposed to give glory to His Father.
Christian, don't get caught up in the cares of this world and troubles of men that lead not to God but rather to man-centered solutions. That is all that politics is - men searching solutions in man rather than God. God has instituted it to govern our sinful souls to create order but has never been the means by which the Gospel is preached. Therefore, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God what is God's - the souls of men being saved through the preaching of His Word for His glory!
Sunday, June 21, 2009
A Father's Role - Planting The Seed
"And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also." - Gen 38:8-10
The father's primary role in these New Testament days has not changed from the days of the Old Testament. We have been and always will be called to proclaim Christ and God's salvation in Jesus as the Messiah (the Anointed One) for we know that there is "no other name under heaven by which a man may be saved".
In the days of the prophets before Jesus, they were called to preach the promises of the covenant of God to His people. However, that was not their only duty. They also, in faith looking forward to the Messiah, were partakers in the procreation and proliferation of the seed knowing that one day the seed would bruise the head of the serpent and defeat death which had entered through Adam's sin. [Gen 3:15]
Today, the seed is no longer the way in which the Messiah would come in the person of the Lord Jesus. However, our role fathers has not changed in principle. We are still to plant the seed, but that seed is now the planting of the Gospel into the hearts of our families. Let us do it in faith by the power of the Spirit rather than defiance and shame as Onan had done.
Happy Father's Day to my fellow brothers out there. Praise God for revealing to us our sin and His righteousness.
The father's primary role in these New Testament days has not changed from the days of the Old Testament. We have been and always will be called to proclaim Christ and God's salvation in Jesus as the Messiah (the Anointed One) for we know that there is "no other name under heaven by which a man may be saved".
In the days of the prophets before Jesus, they were called to preach the promises of the covenant of God to His people. However, that was not their only duty. They also, in faith looking forward to the Messiah, were partakers in the procreation and proliferation of the seed knowing that one day the seed would bruise the head of the serpent and defeat death which had entered through Adam's sin. [Gen 3:15]
Today, the seed is no longer the way in which the Messiah would come in the person of the Lord Jesus. However, our role fathers has not changed in principle. We are still to plant the seed, but that seed is now the planting of the Gospel into the hearts of our families. Let us do it in faith by the power of the Spirit rather than defiance and shame as Onan had done.
Happy Father's Day to my fellow brothers out there. Praise God for revealing to us our sin and His righteousness.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
My Daughter, The Apologist
Sitting with me as I was listening and critiquing a Mark Driscoll sermon, little Izabella (my 7-yr-old daughter) blessed me by displaying the fruit of our labors to teach her not merely to memorize scripture but rather to understand and apply them.
BELLA: Is he a false preacher or a good one?
PAPA: He's not preaching Christ in the message.
BELLA: Really? But isn't everything in the bible about Jesus because "in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God"? That's John 1:1, right?
PAPA: Amen!
What a joy to see God answering our prayers in her bearing such fruit and producing the very thing we strive for in teaching her - an understanding of Christ through the scriptures.
Here is another dialog that Bella had with Leilani that I just found out about...
BELLA: Hey Mommy, you know what? Taylor really wanted to win this notebook today in class and so she kept saying, "Please God, if you let me get this, I'll do anything for you."
MOMMY: Oh did you think that was weird?
BELLA: Yeah, God doesn't need her to do anything for Him! Because the bible says, "I am the vine you are the branches, you can't do anything apart from Me."
Christian, if you have been blessed with children, let us not raise them to be intellectual, religious zealots but rather to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus. May we raise up a new generation of evangelists in this dark world in need of the "light of the world" - our Lord Jesus.
BELLA: Is he a false preacher or a good one?
PAPA: He's not preaching Christ in the message.
BELLA: Really? But isn't everything in the bible about Jesus because "in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God"? That's John 1:1, right?
PAPA: Amen!
What a joy to see God answering our prayers in her bearing such fruit and producing the very thing we strive for in teaching her - an understanding of Christ through the scriptures.
Here is another dialog that Bella had with Leilani that I just found out about...
BELLA: Hey Mommy, you know what? Taylor really wanted to win this notebook today in class and so she kept saying, "Please God, if you let me get this, I'll do anything for you."
MOMMY: Oh did you think that was weird?
BELLA: Yeah, God doesn't need her to do anything for Him! Because the bible says, "I am the vine you are the branches, you can't do anything apart from Me."
Christian, if you have been blessed with children, let us not raise them to be intellectual, religious zealots but rather to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus. May we raise up a new generation of evangelists in this dark world in need of the "light of the world" - our Lord Jesus.
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