21 When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."

-- Luke 3:21-22

This is one of those verses i come to when I'm having a bad day. When it feels as if the world has left you, and you're all alone (especially all by yourself in a large spacious basement of a dorm writing a paper).. or if it was just one of those days. It's a simple yet glorious verse. It's Christianity 101.. we know God loves Jesus. But it was to the extent that the heavens opened up and the voice of God embraced Jesus, His Son who was living an earthly life.

It's just exactly what everyone wants to hear from a parent: "you are my child and i love you."

:)

trying to fill in that God-shaped hole.

it's that vague feeling of emptiness you feel from time to time. you can't exactly say what it is, because you don't know. you mistaken it as something that you're lacking..maybe like you've lost touch with the social world, or even you're just physically hungry.. or maybe its even feeling a lack of doing something productive.. boyfriend/girlfriend.. the possibilities are endless.

so you try to fill in that gap, hole, that whatever..with your finger. just plugging it but only temporarily. because eventually, your finger will get tired of filling in that hole. so then you try other things..like worldly stuff.

i'm so caught up in the world and myself sometimes, i forget to closely look to see what that hole looks like. maybe for some, that hole is in the shape of money, cars, boy/girlfriend, food even.. but i think i realize what mine is in the shape of.

that hole i feel is the shape of God. i'm missing God..and it doesn't feel right. i thought i had it all down, my spiritual life and the like.. but God's telling me that i'm still not doing it right. i'm not doing it for the right reasons..for the right person. i'm not living right, yet. i wish there was just this plug from reality that we can plug/unplug ourselves from so that we can do some deep soul-searching. knowing this world, maybe some crazy (but genius) person might come up with something like that. sorta like the matrix. but until then, i need to learn to fill that emptiness, that void, or longing with God. Bcus at least He won't get tired of filling my emptiness.

calling in the sick

13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. 15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the “sinners” and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” 17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

-- Mark 2:13-17

i think the most difficult part about being Christian is acknowledging that we don't deserve all this. we don't deserve anything that God gives us. we are all tiny specks in the world, and God still calls us His children. so that in turn makes us all proud and arrogant, and thinks we automatically gain the right to call non-believers, "sinners". well guess what. i'm a sinner too. you're a sinner, and all christians are sinners. a sin is a sin..there is no hierarchy of good/bad sins.. God sees a sin and sees it for what it is, a sin.

but why do we think we have the power to block others from getting to Christ? do you see healthy people walking into a hospital? Noo.. but why do we? God has already granted us salvation. He fished us out of sin, and told us to do the same to others.

"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." - Mark 1:17

we are fishers. when you think fishermen, you think smelly old men who carry large fishnets with them and sail out into the sea in hopes of catching a large amount of fish! in that same way, we are to fish others out of this sinful world. so many people are swimming around in sin, and we, who have already been saved, should do the same. so then why are we just standing on the dock, watching our friends and those who we know/love drown????

in the same way, we shouldn't be creating this bubble around ourselves. that bubble needs to be POPPED. it's not exactly their fault they don't want to come to church.. we just look intimidating and hypocritical to them.

i already talked about this during prayer meeting..
so i leave you with this.

picture all the aid that's being given to Haiti. how do you think you'd feel if you saw people like us jump in front of that line, and take all that's being donated? there are thousands and thousands of victims who have nothing, standing in line for a meal. and then you see a person who's well off cut that line and take all that food?

we are greedy greedy greedy sinners who like to call themselves Christians. God calls for the sick, not the healthy. it's time we do the same too.

this is OUR God.

this passage about how God sends an angel to protect Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from burning to death in King Nebuchadnezzar's firey pits is a great encouragement. Daniel 3 tells us a story about 3 (4 includin Daniel) people who were told to follow the ways of the world but didn't and were persecuted for it. persecuted is such an understatement..they were sent to death! they were told to bow down and worship King Neb's 90 foot statue, but they firmly stood their ground and continued to pray to our God. everyone bowed down to the statue when the music played, all except those three. when King Neb found out and threw them into the firey pits, it was their faith in the LORD which saved them.

this is OUR God.

OUR God protects and cares for those who trust in Him, have faith in Him, and worship none but Him. OUR God protects those who abandon the world to follow him. when the world throws us into the furnace for not following the ways of the world, OUR God saves us. He sends us an angel to comfort us, protect us from whatever the world tries to do unto us. when the world tells us to worship the world, we continue to pray and have faith for deliverance.

this is a good reminder to us all how we don't need to be afraid of the world. as Jesus told us to abandon everything and follow Him and take up the cross, that's when the world will see that OUR God is the only God worthy of our praise.

no title.

14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

-- Matthew 6: 14-15

yesterday during prayer meeting, a few of us were talking about Pigs & Pearls and i saw this verse. i felt like a huge weight was just pressing down on my heart once i read it, absorbed it, and realized it. the first thing i felt was, yup- this is ME.

how can i expect/ask God to love me and repeatedly forgive me for the sins i commit day to day, when i can't even do that? it's not that someone's sinned against me and i'm having a hard time forgiving..i'm just having a hard time loving. loving it so hard. honestly there are very few people i love enough in this world that i would jump in front of a bullet for them. but God loved us, he loved us enough to send his one&only Son to die on the cross for us. for ME! and here i am, stressing because of my own personal issues. stupid, dumb, useless issues. what have i done that is so great, that puts me on top??

hopefully, this isn't what the scripture is actually saying, but i felt like it was saying that God won't love me until i love back. and not loving God, because i have that part down. it's loving other people that's got me stumped. but if i'm having such a hard time with the latter part, then do i really love God? how do i learn to not love selectively. that is the real question.

Psalm 119: Aleph

1 Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord. 2 Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart. 3 They do nothing wrong; they walk in his ways. 4 You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed. 5 Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees! 6 Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands. 7 I will praise you with an upright heart as I learn your righteous laws. 8 I will obey your decrees; do not utterly forsake me.

this psalm is so beautiful. i think in this little section, it pretty much describes everything that i want to be. you just can't go wrong by following God's laws. david blesses those who obey God wholeheartedly, seek him with all their hearts, and praise Him with an upright heart... it's so pure, clean, and i get a tingly feeling up and down my spine.

and the last part; pledging to follow God and asking him with all that david is not to forsake him. it's like the perfect icing on the cake. as followers of Christ, these are the things we should be striving for everyday. David is so passionate in writing this psalm, i want to be like him. i want to devote 1000% of my heart to God, until every cell in my body is screaming out to God and His ways.

i still have a long way to go.

it's a scary road out there

In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

-- Proverbs 16:9

sometimes i just can't help but come back to this verse. i can't remember how many times that i or someone else have asked a question that begins with, "how do you know if God wants you to do this?" or "what if God doesn't want you to do that?" these are typically the questions that pop into our heads before or during the course of making a huge important, maybe even life-altering decisions.

lately i've been awake at night, trying to think what i'm going to do with the rest of my life. if i was a person of the world, then i probably only need to worry about where i'm gonna live, what am i gonna do, how much do i wanna make/strive for,..etc. but that's not exactly the case.

i like to think that i'm a person of God, and so other factors need to be included. like, what path should i take so that i'll still be happy with what i do but in the end, returning all the glory to God..? you know, those kinds of questions. i often find that while i pray for my future, i can't pray sometimes because i don't really know what i'm supposed to pray for! and that. is one of the most frustrating things i've ever experienced. if we pray from the deepest, most bottom-est places of our hearts, then God will surely answer.. but what if you don't even know what in the most deepest, bottom-est place of your heart?

and then i come to this verse. i can plan my future, but God will determine how i get there. ultimately, He is going to be the one who decides how i will live the life that i chose for myself. God did give us that freedom of choice..the whole notion of Free Will. i can technically choose to do anything i want, but then he'll take the reins at some point, and just guide my life down the path that he has planned for me.

scary, but comforting. because to some extent, my future is in my own hands too. but then God has control of my hands.

His seeds

22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23 for you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

-- 1 Peter 1:22-23

i find myself often hating. sometimes, i'm so consumed by hate, it eats me alive. Peter tells us that we have been reborn through Christ. we first was born into sin, but through the blood of Jesus, we were born again and this time in the word and love of God, making us new.

someone told me to picture it this way- before we knew Christ, our heartbeats were dead..just a flatline. but after salvation, our hearts start beating again. like we wake up from a deep coma, but only this coma is what we started out from.

so now that i am reborn in Christ, i have to love like He does. but a lot of times, i can't do that! i just find myself hating, and i hate hating. it's so tiring, mentally and spiritually and emotionally draining, and most of the time, those people don't even know it. they have no idea that i have this consuming, firing hate for them, and they haven't even done anything. personally to me.

i hate that i hate. i wish i could love. Jesus loves me, and so why can't I? a farmer plants a seed expecting it to grow a certain way. my dad used to plant his own garden, and he'd plant various vegetables... when he plants a tomato seed, he expects to see a tomato the next season. God planted me as his seed expecting me to grow up to love and live like His son. but i am such a bad tomato. i'm rotten, all moldy and yucky, only good enough for the little animals to feed off of.

i don't wanna be a bad tomato. i wanna be a good ripe, red tomato. i pray and pray continually that God would soften my heart, but my pride sometimes stops me even in the midst of prayer! wow Satan. great move. He's just creeping in through the backdoor like always.

1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

-- 1 Peter 2: 1-3

i wonder how many times i used the word 'hate' in this blog.

i don't really wanna know.