On the Highest Good

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"Our hearts our restless until they find their rest in thee"-Augustine

God, please do not leave me or forsake me. Satisfy my soul with your steadfast love. Humans will desire lesser things when they are not satisfied in you and I feel that temptation. Please remove my false idols, things that I think that would make me happy when they are broken cisterns. Refresh my spririts and renew me.

Why is the Christian Life so hard?

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I wonder at this sometimes. Discipleship means dying to yourself, everything, even if it means being martyred for the faith. Why do our hearts get so complacent and lukewarm? I am realizing more and more that the Christian life involves a great deal of suffering. We follow a crucified Savior and there is a cross before a crown. I have been meditating recently on enduring harship. So many times, I endure hardship for my own stupidity and folly. But there will also be hardship when you live righteously. Jesus said if they hated him, will people not hate me? Jesus has come into the world to testify that we are rebellious sinners, and the fallen mind is offended by that. My heart has been hurting deeply for my failures as a leader lately and I think Christ is humbling my arrogance. God opposes the proud but grace to the humble. Loving people means throwing yourself out there to be hurt. I think so many times that I am not called to lead anyone because you can only lead when you have died to yourself. I am still so selfish, foolish, and arrogant still. The opposition gets stronger and stronger as you want to draw near to Christ. I am so tired of my complacency. I am so sorry for ignoring you Lord. Renew me and revive me. I want to feel your presence everyday in my life. If I know you are walking with me, whom should I be afraid of? If I am zealous to see your name glorified, what is there to be afraid of. Guilt and Despair have been overwhelming me lately. I'm sorry to the people I have failed to shepherd to the Great shepherd. My sin has been a hinderance to the gospel and I need to be restored in the grace of Christ. Would you renew me Lord this coming Holy week.

Some People I Want to Know Before I Die

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  1. JESUS through the WORD of God
  2. Jesus through the life of C.S. Lewis
  3. Jesus through the life of Francis Schaefer
  4. Jesus through the life of Augustine of Hippo
  5. Jesus through the life of John Calvin
  6. Jesus through the life of John Piper
  7. Jesus through the life of Martin Luther
  8. Jesus through the life of Tim Keller
  9. Jesus through the life of Thomas Aquinas
  10. Jesus through the life of J.I. Packer

The Bad Shepherd and the Good Shepherd

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God judges the false shepherds of the Bible: "Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep...The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them" (Ezekial 34:2,4)


I read this passage and saw my failures in these passages. Woe is me. I have failed so many times. I was expecting to get a pat on the back as a "good shepherd", but this passage really breaks my pride down. I have failed a lot in ministry. So many times I have put my education and my learning for myself, and not the people of God. HOW SELFISH! I have not strengthened the weak in the church, rather I have at times judged them. I have not healed the sick, but instead sought my own well-being. I have not brought back those who have strayed, but let them go their own way. I have been harsh and used force with my apologetic training. If anything, I have harmed the people of God rather than heal them.

However, I love the Word of God because God is the hero of the story: "I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice" (Ezekial 34:14-16).

It is assuring to know that in the midst of all our failures, God says "I have to do this myself." As humans, I see the image of God in me distorted as so many times I am self-sufficient saying, "I can do it myself." Here in all my failures, the Bible reminds me that "God has to do it all himself!" What wonderful news that I can rely on God! Only the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are sufficient in themselves, while I must be God-sufficient. God has to save his people, not I, not works, not charismatic teachers, but only Christ.

"I am the good shepherd because I lay down my life for the sheep"

Reflections on the Glory and the Love of God

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It is really convicting and comforting to listen to Piper preach. The questions are asked: Do you love God because you want him to make much of you? Or do you love God to make much of Him? Is your final joy in yourself? Or is your final joy in God? Is your final resting place in You or God alone? I am so scared sometimes that I can use God to make me the final ends, rather than God. Education, Partner, Church are meant to display the glory of God, not to make much of me. I feel the dangers of pride everytime someone praises me for something, or acknowledges my worth because of my education, or my faithfulness in the local church context. This has always left me empty, because you want more. I remember in the days of my professional career playing paintball, wanting to get my ego rubbed of how good I was. All this left me empty. I had no true friends because people loved my talents can gifts rather than me. Lord, if there is anything hidden in my heart that I have been using you as a means, please remove it from me. Help me see. Give me eyes to see. Open my eyes that I may delight in your greatness. You are Great already and I am the one who is blind. This world is truly blinded and we need you to do a work in our hearts to see Your glory, that is already displayed in all the earth. Both the wicked and the righteous are and will display your glory. You rule the nations. You laugh at the pride of man and you can bring him down at the snap of your finger and your word. Help me see you. Give me spiritual understanding and sight, not to make much of me, but to make much of you. Guard me from the evil one.

In Jesus Name,
Amen

Shepherd's Conference

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What a blessing and priveledge to attend Shepherd's conference this year. I am so encouraged to see true godly men, who love Jesus and his precious atonement. I saw glimpes of heaven as we sang praises and worshipped our God in heaven. There were tears in my eyes because I got to saw glimpses of the beauty of the cross. The gospel is so simple: Jesus died for MY sins, and he rose again on MY behalf. It is the love of Christ that compels me to serve Him. I am refreshed because I get to sit as a sheep and let's these faithful men of God shepherd me through the Word.

Rick Holland's Message
Luke 12:1-13
To be a faithful minister of the gospel, I show integrity.

Instead of pointing other's hypocrisy out, I should first be aware of my own hypocrisy.
Instead of fearing man, I should fear a God who sends people to eternal damnation and hell.
Instead of fearing temporal weakenesses, I should fear eternal rejection by the Holy Spirit through disobedience.
Instead of being anxious, I should look to the one who has my hairs all numbered.

A Philosophy of Student Ministry
Present Jesus Christ as the all-sufficient satisfying Savior
Proclaim Him, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ
Partner with the Parents
Encourage their own disicpleship

The kingdom of God is so vast, time is short, and there is so much work to do.

Memory Work Colossians 1-2:15

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Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ in Colossae,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father,

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you-as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing, as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made know to us your love in the Spirit.

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May he strengthen you with all power according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross.

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings on your behalf and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in You, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodecia and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. For though I am absent in the body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who he raised from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.