FYI

For the past few days I have been unable to get in contact with my family only to discover today that there is a massive hurricane in the region in the Caribbean where my family lives. I have reached them since then but please be in prayer for the neighboring islands such as Haiti that would suffer great loss if this hurricane would hit them.

In other news, my week of summer vacation will offically end of this week. Registration will begin over the weekend and classes will start next week. Summer went by quick but it had been fun and a full learning experience. I am eager for the Christmas break already. I want to see my family. Call me homesick.

But it is well with my soul! I want to see how God will enable me to live, learn and grow here. His way is always perfect. Thanks for your prayers and enjoy the rest of this week.

A Father’s Love

“And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”

Love never fails! It indeed covers a multitude of sins. Here the father was offended by his son and yet when his eyes behold the slum mold that was ashamed to call him dad, he quickly throws himself upon him. I really wonder how many nights did the father stayed at the door restless and anxious, hoping that his son will one day come home.

How much more does our God waits for us. He yearns to hear from us – just for us to speak with him. He is at the door of your heart today waiting for you to let him in. You have a Father that is longing to be with you.

Diversity Is Beautiful

My friends and I enjoying the Lego Land theme park in Denmark

People are like a puzzle: if we were all the same how could we match! Praise God for diversity. The world is full of beautiful people. Its awfully sad when men attack and discriminate each other because someone is of a different race or background.

Jesus loved all people. His ministry on earth was not limited by his ethnicity or class even though he offended many people whenever he did. For instance, He talked to the Samaritan woman (John 4): an outcast of the Jewish people; a reject among her own for her promiscuous lifestyle. But Jesus saw through all the walls and look into the need of her heart: redemption.

This is where all men meet a commonplace. We all have sinned and fell short of God’s glory (Rom 6:23). We are come to the same place of needing Christ and the shedding of his blood on the cross to cleanse our sins so we can be reconciled with God. Since we are all saved by grace, we have no position to condemn or judge each other for Christ sees us all as his beloved children He has purchased with his life. At the foot of the cross Christ brings the world together. We are all different yet we are all united under a banner of God’s great love!

Amnos: the Lamb was Sacrificed!

ἀμνὸς [ Greek Word, Amnos] that means  The Lamb was sacrificed! Jesus as the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29). My brother joked saying serve me some ἀμνὸς on a plate; I say give Him to me on an altar. Set him to be the propitiation for our sins. Make him the Mediator for us: to remove my judgment and restore my relationship with God. Come for redemption; Come for salvation. For he was despised for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon and by His stripes, we are healed (Isa 53:5)!

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain! To him be glory and honor and praise for thou hast created all things and for your glory they were created. Blessed be His name! In the name of Jesus, freedom is ensured to the soul in bondage. Healing is given to the weary and salvation to the lost. Behold he comes! Prepare the way for His coming! May we bless him by living in righteousness!

Becoming Christ Dependent

“Come unto me all who are weak and heavy burdened and I will give you rest.” -Matthew 11:28

Sometimes our greatest hindrances to us to draw closer to God is ourselves. God wants to mightily use us but he can’t if our lives are full of personal misfits and baggage. Jesus said that we can come to him with our loads and he will give us rest. But we are like the heavy burdened man at the shoulder of the road who was given a ride but remained weary throughout the trip for he was still carrying the load. We can experience life abundant when we become Christ dependent.

Failing Forward

Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you that this very night, before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.”. Matthew 16:24

Last semester, when we were in the middle of midterms, our guest speaker for chapel had the most fitting message for us students. He spoke on failing tests. The irony of it is that while we may fail tests, we don’t have to flunk the course. Peter failed a test. Jesus predicted that he will deny him three times. After the rooster crowed, Peter knew he had sinned and even worse he was warning about it. While this was a low point in the apostle’s career, it wasn’t the end of it. Peter went on to be a rock that Jesus prophesied will help build the church.

What can we learn from this simple fisherman? He learned to “fail forward”.

By this I mean Peter learned from mistake and determined to improve. After Christ rose again we find him eating on the beach with disciples over the miraculous catch. It is here Peter is given his second chance. Just as Peter denied our Lord thrice, Jesus asks Peter three times, “do you love me?” Christ knew that although Peter lost in his test, he never lost faith. Despite when we fail God, know God never fails us. The book of Hebrews defines Him as the Author and Finisher of our faith (Heb 11:2). He desires to see us complete every task that He has given us to accomplish.

At the Day of Pentecost, in the same city where he rejected his Master, Peter declares the name of Christ and His gospel. It reminds us that though we fail, Christ’s mercy remains continually over our lives and by that we shouldn’t feel condemned of our mistakes but rather strengthen to get back up and move forward.

Forts, Dads and the Relentless Love of God

How do you see the love of God in your life? One strong aspect where I see it is my personal father. Our family are missionaries in Antigua in the Caribbean and our first years there we lived near the ocean. Because we lived on the water, we spent a lot of our time on the beach. We swam, snorkeled, made bonfires and had picnics on the beach. Another fun thing we did on the beach was play in a fort our dad eradicated out of stones. My brothers and I would spend hours in the fort with our toy rifles and play soldier.

Being near the water we had a lot of storms. Whenever the stronger storms rolled in, they would leave our fort in shambles. We climbed down our man made ladder that lead from our house to the beach and glare dismayed at our destroyed playground. Dad is the hero in the story for he came down and rebuild the fort. Everytime we had storm rolled in and destroyed the fort, Dad would just put it back together again.

Thinking about it now, its pondering to imagine why my dad would this for us. Why would he build it again, knowing another storm would come by again to take it down. The only answer I believe frankly is our dad loved us. He knew exactly everytime he rebuild that fort what would happen in moments later; but he enjoyed us being happy. To him I feel it was worth it all the effort and time and labor.

How much more is the love of God for us His own. We are made as the very objects of His love. To be crafted in His image says a lot. He is obsessed about us. Your very next breath is a gift of God and yet it is something we take for granted. Christ even came to give us an abundant life (John 10:10). He saved us so we could enjoy life with God again and He could love on us more.

My dad had a lot of things he could busy himself with but this simple story of an investment he made in my life as a child reminded me that how much my father really loved me and much more God loves us. Take sometime today and express your love to God. Also it would be great after your shower of praise to find your earthly father and tell him you love him.

Love you Dad.

At Any Moment

“Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.” -Matt 24:42

Have you ever found yourself living outside the thought that at any moment Christ will return?

I was just shaken as I was reading a book, and it had mentioned it; immediately I had to stop reading and prayerfully search myself. “…the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matt 24:44). If Jesus were to come right now would he be pleased with the way I am living?

The Bible describes his return as a thief breaking into a house. When the owner of the house is unaware, the thief enters. No one knows the time of His coming. So what do we do? Keep living our lives the same way? I sure hope not! I pray this passage also scares you to examine yourselves and seek to make some radical changes.

If you take the Bible to be wholly true then at any time we could see Jesus. Maybe we don’t think about eternity as much as we should. I know have caught myself living too much in the “now”. I can’t say God would be pleased.

“Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.” Christ is coming back and we should want to be ready to meet Him. Watching is living in a wait for His coming. Ready is when He can come and look at our life, see it pleasing, and say, “Well done good and faithful servant.”

Starting Things Right, Right Mom

Last night, my parents were telling me that they had found my blog. Being as my loving parents, they complimented me and also took the time to show me all my misspells and grammatical errors. One comment my mom said was,”I wish that you had told me that you were making this blog so I could pray over it.” Once she said that, the verse that struck my mind was Psalms 127:1: “Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it”.

Doing things for God are great, but it is even greater that whatever we do, we see Him first. We can have an awesome plan for the cause for Christ yet Christ may have total different agenda in mind for us. Then our work is wasted. Wouldn’t be so much wiser to come to God at the start so that what we are doing is built on God’s authorization and counsel and of our course we need protection from our old enemy, the devil. Let’s make sure our plans match God’s.

I’m glad that I did pray before starting this project. But you know more prayer never hurt anything. Thanks Mom and Dad.

Just As If

“But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,” – Romans 4:5

Salvation is a free gift. Its something we cannot earn or work for. Its believing in the work Christ did on the cross. At this moment God justifies us. Justification is act of making the guilty sinner righteous. Its redeeming a person “Just-as-If” they had never sinned. Its like a judge erases the sentence of the condemned man. he is given a second chance to start again.

And that is what God has done for us. He has forgiven us of our disobedience and offers us the opportunity to be redeemed. We don’t earn this but we simply trust in Christ and what He did in the cross was for our need to be reestablish with the Father. God now imputes us as clean and removes from us all our guilty stains.