Thursday, January 13, 2011
Why People Don't Go to Church
I found this video very inspiring. Reminds me of what the church should be. Hope you enjoy it too.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
At the Pearly Gates
Standing outside the gates of heaven, Jack scopes out the ticket booth with the shortest line. When you finally reach the front of the line, he pulls out stacks of post-it notes from your pockets.
“What are these?” the ticket man asks.
“It’s everything nice I’ve ever done,” he says. “I’ve been keeping track.”
“I’m sorry, but you get in with these, young man”
The girl behind him nudges past him to the counter. She hands the man a ticket with big letters that say Admit One.
He pushes back to the counter. “You’ve made a mistake,” he pleads. “I’ve got all the proof I need right here. I’m good enough to get in to heaven.”
The ticket man turns back to the girl “Welcome, Sue. Go on in.”
The man glances at the Jack. “I’m sorry. You can’t buy tickets here,” He says. “The tickets were free. Back on earth.”
Jack snatches the ticket from the girl’s hands and stares at it, looking for a hint of where it came from. “Where did you get this? Who could possibly give you a free pass to heaven? I’ve been good my whole life just to get here.”
“Didn’t you hear?” the girl replies. “Jesus was giving them away”
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
There’s a danger of being a Christian and being devoted to God. It’s this: You might begin to think that your spiritual goodness scores you a friendship with God.
No. Jesus obviously does not hand out cheesy Admit One tickets to heaven or Get Out of Hell Free cards. But he wants you to be sure of one fact: He’s the one and only way you can know God and get into heaven.
Your total devotion doesn’t earn you anything. Your love for God is thanks for everything God has done for you.
Salvation is a free gift from God. It’s silly to think that our deeds will earn us a place in heaven because what are our deeds compared to a place in heaven. It’s like trading rags for riches.
God loves you completely and unconditionally. When you trust Christ, he “saves” you, forgiving you and promising you life in heaven. You can’t take credit for that salvation.
“What are these?” the ticket man asks.
“It’s everything nice I’ve ever done,” he says. “I’ve been keeping track.”
“I’m sorry, but you get in with these, young man”
The girl behind him nudges past him to the counter. She hands the man a ticket with big letters that say Admit One.
He pushes back to the counter. “You’ve made a mistake,” he pleads. “I’ve got all the proof I need right here. I’m good enough to get in to heaven.”
The ticket man turns back to the girl “Welcome, Sue. Go on in.”
The man glances at the Jack. “I’m sorry. You can’t buy tickets here,” He says. “The tickets were free. Back on earth.”
Jack snatches the ticket from the girl’s hands and stares at it, looking for a hint of where it came from. “Where did you get this? Who could possibly give you a free pass to heaven? I’ve been good my whole life just to get here.”
“Didn’t you hear?” the girl replies. “Jesus was giving them away”
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
There’s a danger of being a Christian and being devoted to God. It’s this: You might begin to think that your spiritual goodness scores you a friendship with God.
No. Jesus obviously does not hand out cheesy Admit One tickets to heaven or Get Out of Hell Free cards. But he wants you to be sure of one fact: He’s the one and only way you can know God and get into heaven.
Your total devotion doesn’t earn you anything. Your love for God is thanks for everything God has done for you.
Salvation is a free gift from God. It’s silly to think that our deeds will earn us a place in heaven because what are our deeds compared to a place in heaven. It’s like trading rags for riches.
God loves you completely and unconditionally. When you trust Christ, he “saves” you, forgiving you and promising you life in heaven. You can’t take credit for that salvation.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
What choices will you make?
School's starting again and the inevitable returns - homework, reading assignment, peer pressure, and loads of stress. Everyone faces difficulties in their life every day regardless if you are an employee, employer, stay-at-home parent, or student. Dilemmas eventually arise and we are forced to make decisions.
My teacher once told me that the choices we make every day will affect the course of our future.
She told me this story:
“Going through life is like being lost in the middle of a flowing river. You hang on to pieces of driftwood, hoping to survive. As your piece of wood sinks, you are forced to hold onto another piece of wood. The direction of the drifting sticks will determine where you will finally end at. If you make bad choices in your life, like taking drugs and lying, you will end up in a place that you don’t want to be in. Going back to the correct stream isn’t impossible, it just takes that much more effort to get there.”
God created human beings with free will. This free will, unfortunately, caused the fall of Adam and introduced sin into our world. Nevertheless, no one can blame God for creating the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God was creating the greatest creation ever devised, humankind, with the ability to develop righteous character by choice.
God loves us and wants us to make the right decisions. He wants us to become His people, holy and set apart for His purposes. He expressed his love by sending His Son as a manifestation of Himself to live and dies for us. This love is not like the love the secular world understands. It isn’t selfish and inward looking. This kind of love looks out for others and sacrifices itself to look out for others.
In the same way, the choices that we make should be of this kind of love.
God will forgive us of the sin that we commit. The sin, however, have consequences that will disrupt our relationship with God. Addictions can inhibit our relationships with God. Even after we have stopped our sinful activities (gossiping, stealing, lying), the temptation of it will continue to follow us. The best thing to do is to not start at all. That’s what people also say about alcohol, smoking, and drugs right?
It’s never too late to turn back; what choices today will you make?
My teacher once told me that the choices we make every day will affect the course of our future.
She told me this story:
“Going through life is like being lost in the middle of a flowing river. You hang on to pieces of driftwood, hoping to survive. As your piece of wood sinks, you are forced to hold onto another piece of wood. The direction of the drifting sticks will determine where you will finally end at. If you make bad choices in your life, like taking drugs and lying, you will end up in a place that you don’t want to be in. Going back to the correct stream isn’t impossible, it just takes that much more effort to get there.”
God created human beings with free will. This free will, unfortunately, caused the fall of Adam and introduced sin into our world. Nevertheless, no one can blame God for creating the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God was creating the greatest creation ever devised, humankind, with the ability to develop righteous character by choice.
God loves us and wants us to make the right decisions. He wants us to become His people, holy and set apart for His purposes. He expressed his love by sending His Son as a manifestation of Himself to live and dies for us. This love is not like the love the secular world understands. It isn’t selfish and inward looking. This kind of love looks out for others and sacrifices itself to look out for others.
In the same way, the choices that we make should be of this kind of love.
God will forgive us of the sin that we commit. The sin, however, have consequences that will disrupt our relationship with God. Addictions can inhibit our relationships with God. Even after we have stopped our sinful activities (gossiping, stealing, lying), the temptation of it will continue to follow us. The best thing to do is to not start at all. That’s what people also say about alcohol, smoking, and drugs right?
It’s never too late to turn back; what choices today will you make?
Monday, January 10, 2011
New Year’s Resolutions
It’s that time of year again: New Year’s Resolutions! Or maybe for other people it’s not such a great thing. Some people, like myself, have decided to give up on it altogether as we know that we’d probably forget our resolutions by the end of the week (or even the next day).
So let’s do a little thinking for one moment. Think of three New Year’s resolutions for the year 2011. Two of them are about whatever you want and the last one is what someone who cares for you (e.g. parents, best friends) would want you to write. It may look like this:
Yes. The last one sounds like a beast, but so do the two preceding ones. This brings us to our topic which is self-improvement.
Go to any bookstore and there you will find an avalanche of self-help and self-improvement books authored by people from all walks of life. But what does self-improvement mean to a Christian? What does the bible have to say?
In your mind, think of three resolutions that pertain to spiritual growth, anything that will help you grow closer to God. It could look somewhat like this:
Here’s a paraphrased real-life story I heard from a teacher who also heard it from someone else:
“I bought an old chair in a garage sale one day. It was so cheap that I decided to buy it and take it home to see if I could make use of it. The chair had so many layers of paint on it that I had to paint it with stripper paint repeatedly. Every time I painted it, it revealed a different color: green, red, yellow, pink. The chair turned out to be a beautiful wooden, oak chair. In the same way, God strips us off the ‘paint’ on ourselves until something beautiful beneath is revealed.”
Is this story true? Does something true and beautiful dwell in us? Or is the thing that lies in us filthy and despicable?
Romans 3:10 “There is no one righteous, not even one”
The problem with New Year’s resolutions or other resolutions is that they generally have to do with how WE can improve ourselves. We work hard to gain new skills or to improve our character but this isn’t exactly the way to grow spiritually.
Romans 6:6-7 “ For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin”
Through our baptism, we are free from sin. This doesn’t mean that we don’t sin anymore, it means that we are forgiven of the sins we have done. With the baptism in Christ’s death, our old selves die and we are a new body, free from the clutches of sin.
The way we can have victory over sin is not by suppressing ourselves (making legalistic rules that we should follow, e.g. be patient, forgive others), it is by expressing the full life that God offers. It means that we commit our lives to God and choose to die to our selves. We don’t choose to improve ourselves because we know that our condition is worthless without God. So if you are looking to grow close to God this year, I suggest these three resolutions:
Don’t make a bunch of rules for yourself and think that you are going to become closer to God. Choose to put on the new nature that you have received in Christ Jesus. God does miraculous things as long as we choose to follow His Way.
So let’s do a little thinking for one moment. Think of three New Year’s resolutions for the year 2011. Two of them are about whatever you want and the last one is what someone who cares for you (e.g. parents, best friends) would want you to write. It may look like this:
Yes. The last one sounds like a beast, but so do the two preceding ones. This brings us to our topic which is self-improvement.
Go to any bookstore and there you will find an avalanche of self-help and self-improvement books authored by people from all walks of life. But what does self-improvement mean to a Christian? What does the bible have to say?
In your mind, think of three resolutions that pertain to spiritual growth, anything that will help you grow closer to God. It could look somewhat like this:
Here’s a paraphrased real-life story I heard from a teacher who also heard it from someone else:
“I bought an old chair in a garage sale one day. It was so cheap that I decided to buy it and take it home to see if I could make use of it. The chair had so many layers of paint on it that I had to paint it with stripper paint repeatedly. Every time I painted it, it revealed a different color: green, red, yellow, pink. The chair turned out to be a beautiful wooden, oak chair. In the same way, God strips us off the ‘paint’ on ourselves until something beautiful beneath is revealed.”
Is this story true? Does something true and beautiful dwell in us? Or is the thing that lies in us filthy and despicable?
Romans 3:10 “There is no one righteous, not even one”
The problem with New Year’s resolutions or other resolutions is that they generally have to do with how WE can improve ourselves. We work hard to gain new skills or to improve our character but this isn’t exactly the way to grow spiritually.
Romans 6:6-7 “ For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin”
Through our baptism, we are free from sin. This doesn’t mean that we don’t sin anymore, it means that we are forgiven of the sins we have done. With the baptism in Christ’s death, our old selves die and we are a new body, free from the clutches of sin.
The way we can have victory over sin is not by suppressing ourselves (making legalistic rules that we should follow, e.g. be patient, forgive others), it is by expressing the full life that God offers. It means that we commit our lives to God and choose to die to our selves. We don’t choose to improve ourselves because we know that our condition is worthless without God. So if you are looking to grow close to God this year, I suggest these three resolutions:
Don’t make a bunch of rules for yourself and think that you are going to become closer to God. Choose to put on the new nature that you have received in Christ Jesus. God does miraculous things as long as we choose to follow His Way.
First Post
Hi everyone,
This is a new blog. I was inspired to seriously write down everything that I learn from the Bible and men and women who speak from the Word of God.
I will try to keep this blog updated as long as God continues to speak to me personally and through other men and women of God.
I take no credit for any of the written work as it is definitely from my own intelligence. All credit should be given to God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
Please feel free to send me your comments and tell me if you appreciate it or think that that it is incorrect.
This is a new blog. I was inspired to seriously write down everything that I learn from the Bible and men and women who speak from the Word of God.
I will try to keep this blog updated as long as God continues to speak to me personally and through other men and women of God.
I take no credit for any of the written work as it is definitely from my own intelligence. All credit should be given to God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
Please feel free to send me your comments and tell me if you appreciate it or think that that it is incorrect.
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