απαρνουμαι με - I Deny Myself (Me)

Last year around this time, I decided to get a tattoo on my chest saying "απαρνουμαι με" (refer to the picture). It means "I deny myself" or "I deny me" and comes from Mark 8:34 which says, And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

I love this tatt and it has been a good reminder for myself to daily take up my cross and follow Jesus every time I look in the mirror. And whenever a Christian sees it and asks what it means, they understand it immediately. The whole meaning of it sinks into them and they get it! Although it has prompted gospel conversations with non-Christians, I realised recently that I do a really poor job in explaining what it really means to me. When they ask me what it means to deny yourself, I usually opt out and say "It's a Christian thing". Sometimes something that simple opens opportunities to talk about Spiritual things, sometimes it doesn't...in the end, whatever happens, happens. But I'm just so dissatisfied with my answer. It just seems so...careless...so I decided I will put thought into this and spew here :)

As a person, one thing that has become so apparent to me is how much I love myself. Sure, I may not seem like the most self-centred person you know, but I think selfishness can manifest itself in many different ways. Okay, just to be clear, I think there is a difference between caring for yourself and being selfish. It is important to care and love yourself, but when that is the most important thing and other people or things around you matter less, it becomes selfish, in my opinion. As a Christian, it becomes difficult. There's this constant struggle of you wanting to do whatever you feel like and you wanting to do what God wants, because you love him (John 14:23). To be clear, I am not saved/a Christian because of what I do or how I love; I am a Christian because of what Christ has done for me. He took the punishment I deserved and I believe in Him as my Lord and Saviour. To really believe this, you sort of have to love him...haha and it is because I love him that I strive onwards to be more like him. Also, as Christians, we are not called to be perfect...that is impossible...we are called to strive towards it (Philippians 3:12) and follow Christ (Mark 8:34)...not impossible but still difficult. To make an analogy about this tension i was talking about earlier, when you are married or dating or even just have a close friend or pet you love, you won't just do whatever you feel like. You will consider their thoughts and express your love for them by putting their needs ahead of yours...it's that deep sacrificial love I'm talking about. It's not easy to always love...it's hard and it takes effort. Loving when things are good is easy. Still loving someone after they hurt you or if you just aren't feeling it...unconditional, sacrificial love...is hard. I don't just randomly love God, I love him because he first loved me...he sacrificed himself  for me when he died on the cross for me even when I did not deserve it (Romans 5:8). That is the kind of love I am called to as a Christian. I am called to love him and others around me with that love (Matthew 22:36-40). 

In a recent My Utmost for His Highest post, Chambers says, "The passion of Christianity comes from deliberately signing away my own rights and becoming a bondservant of Jesus Christ." This reminds me so much of my tattoo and 1 Corinthians 9, when Paul says how he lays down his rights for the gospel! This is so important when it comes to being a Christian but also one of the hardest things to me. This tattoo is meant to be a reminder to me of what I mean when I say that I am a Christian...and how I should be living...Denying myself, putting God and others before me, and living a life of humility. The Bible talks about Christ's humility in Philippians 2:1-11 and essentially defines humility as considering other's interests, and putting them ahead of your own interests. I believe one aspect of love is expressed through being humble.

This tattoo is a reminder for me to take my faith seriously. It is a reminder to deny myself and take up my cross. It is a reminder to love God and others. It is a reminder to be humble. It is a reminder to rely on his help instead of my own. It is a reminder for me to press on and not live a nominal Christian life. It is a reminder to be disciplined.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified."

I know my thoughts were kind of jumbled, but I hope you got the gist :)

Temptation

"But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today,' that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin."

- Hebrews 3:13 (ESV)

Some thoughts I had just now is that temptations in your life are really a result of doubting the goodness of God. We are called to consider all things rubbish in comparison to knowing Christ (Phil 3), but how often can we say that? Or even, how often can we say that we are even striving for that? We are called to strive and called to persevere in our faith no matter what, yet I would say temptations always come into play to try and wreck your faith.

There are 2 ways I see temptation:

1. Seeing the crap in your life and doubting God's goodness
2. Seeing the good/pleasures in the world and doubting the need of God's goodness

It's a nasty little thing! In Hebrews it talks about exhorting each other daily so that we won't be deceived by sin! It is a deceitful thing, and if left untouched, can bore deep holes into your heart that can shipwreck you! Therefore brothers/sisters, put on that armour of God! haha (eph 6)! It will help you fight! One thing I realized recently is that when you put on armour and go into battle, you don't just stand there hoping that the armour will protect you from everything/anything. You fight still! You defend yourself still! You could fight without armour, but you will also be easily slain too. So while we put on this armour to fight sin, remember that your role isn't one of complacency but one of diligence and vigilance!

Colossians

So today, I decided to read through Colossians! It's a good letter haha! I realized I need to keep my blogposts short to make this a sustainable thing so I'm going to be...super brief on what I learned/stuck out to me today! haha

1. Perseverance in your faith - Colossians 1:23
2. We are to warn people! - Colossians 1:28
3. Do not be deceived/deluded by things of this world even if they are plausible arguments - Colossians 2:4, 8
• We have died to these elemental spirits so we should not submit to them! - Colossians 2:20-23
• note (elemental spirits = elemental principles)
4. Since we have been raised with Christ, we must seek things of Christ - Colossians 3:1-4
• What does this look like? Putting to death and putting away Col 3:5-10, and putting on Col 3:12-4:6
5. Walking in wisdom and grace - Colossians 4:5-6
6. I want to be like Epaphras!! Colossians 4:12-13

Okay cool!

Also, listened to a little seminar thing! And one thing I wanted to point out was that when making spiritual goals, it is important to always think about and specify the "How?" and "When?" and to have someone keep you accountable with these measures. And that it is always important to continue striving and there is a godly dissatisfaction with where you are spiritually...basically, knowing that you are not already perfect, and strive towards the goal God has placed for you (Phil 3)!
It's not about knowing more about God, but knowing who He is.

Matthew 18

So i decided i'll just write down a quick reflection of what I learned while studying the bible with my friends in small group!

Last week we went through Matthew 18...particularly v21-35 on the unforgiving servant.

Some things we talked about was the following:
1. Can you forgive if the other party didn't ask for forgiveness?
2. What does it mean to forgive?
3. What does v35 mean?
4. Does a plea for forgiveness demand forgiveness?
5. What does it mean in v17 when it says treat them like a Gentile/tax collector?

Initially, I found the first question really interesting because if you look at our relationship with God, we don't receive salvation unless we repent first. But here, Jesus says to forgive 70x7 times (aka a lot). Even if that person hasn't asked for forgiveness and sinned against you, you need to forgive. If you look at the previous paragraph, it talks about how to go about doing that. Which leads the the last question. Treating them like a Gentile has nothing to do with being unforgiving, but rather, the opposite really. We treat them as an unbeliever who needs to hear the gospel and who has a need for Christ in their life.
So, what does it mean to forgive? I think it has to do with making peace with yourself and that other person and reconciling it and not holding on to the past. There really is wisdom in that whole "forgive and forget" thing! Obviously, be wise and learn from the past, but learning to see past things and learning to give the person a chance to build back their trust from you. Even if the other person doesn't seek forgiveness, we are still called to forgive them in our heart and wait for them. Kind of like the prodigal son's father...who waited at the window every day for his son to come back and just embraced him when he came back...and just loved him where he was at! (that story always gets me...every time!)
What does v35 mean? Basically it's saying that we ought to forgive like God forgave us. God forgave us a way greater debt...a debt that was impossible (like in this case, 10k talents...which means 10000 x 20 years worth of wages!) If someone did that to us and we were truly grateful, we'd do the same to others because we would have been moved by what they did to us!

Okay, just for fun, google says in Australia, the average income before tax is $74724! lol okay so to do the math... 74724x20 years = $1494480 = 1 talent! This guy owed 10000 talents...so lets just add on 4 zeros to that number to get...$14,944,800,000!! omg... that is almost 15 billion Australian dollars!!! (which is around 11.2 billion USD...just to keep things standard)! that is crazy!

One thing I really liked that we brought up was that forgiveness hurts. This guy who forgave this man the 10k talents...that's a lot of money! That hurts to just say, I forgive you, you owe nothing! In the same way, for God to forgive us this impossible debt, Jesus had to die on the cross for us.
So, we forgive because God forgave us! But does a plea for forgiveness demand forgiveness? Not really, but we should! Demand is the wrong word. It really comes back down to the whole, we forgive because he forgave us! If we really are changed by it, we should forgive. That doesn't mean we need to forgive immediately...but make an effort and try actively to forgive. Some things are hard to forgive...some things we'd say is impossible to forgive...and that is when we need to rely on God for strength for those things.

Jireh

Hard to hope

Sometimes you see your world as you want it crashing down around you and there is literally nothing you can do. At these times its so hard to hope because we think we need to have some sort of control. We want to hope in God, but even that is hard sometimes cos tho God is personal to me, He's also abstract. God I need your help to hope in you!  I know I can do nothing without you and I'm actually here...I can do nothing but come before you and hope that you will provide! I know I can hope in you because I know you are the one sure thing in my life!

True Love Waits

So, I haven't blogged in a while aha so this may be a little crazy but I was talking to a friend and she was saying how she missed reading my blog sometimes and I realized that I legit never blog anymore and if any ideas came to mind, I'd blog haha

Recently, I randomly found this ring I my gym bag!! And although it's not the original one that I got, it's my purity ring! I used to wear it all the time and take it off sometimes but recently I have just completely forgot about it til I found it! Anyways, I looked at it and thought "true love waits" and I'm like...yah, I totally like this! Haha not just for the original meaning (keeping yourself sexually pure for your wife) but also because True Love waits! Love is what? Patient, kind, doesn't boast, doesn't envy, not arrogant or rude, doesn't insist on its own way, not irritable or resentful, doesn't rejoice in wrong doing, but it rejoices with the truth! Love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. Okay yah that was totally a quote from 1 Corinthians 13! But it's so true! Love is patient! Love waits! Okay so the other perspective I wanted to bring in was the fact that as Christians we wait in hope of glory! We believe that true love waits and is worth it! We believe that the amazing things of this earth are rubbish in comparison to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. God's true love is worth the wait for us!
That being said, this ring represents not only my sexual purity for my future wife but more so my spiritual purity for my God! It's not a wedding ring...Iuno why people say that! Yes it's an engagement ring to Jesus! He's the groom and we (the church) are his bride! We will suffer with him but we will also be glorified with him and it's worth the wait! This stuff honestly reminds me so much of the Jacob and Esau story! When Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup! How worth it was it for Esau?! Sure he felt great for maybe like 2 mins while scarfing down the food, but he chose that over his birthright...and that was foolish! Can't say we don't do it all the time ourselves (sinning/choosing to disobey God) when these pleasures or whatever makes you feel comfortable is not worth it and really considered like garbage in comparison to knowing Jesus! It's crazy! Anyways, this is probably a short blog, I don't knew...I'm typing this on my phone haha so I have no perspective but I wanted to encourage anyone out there to remember that true love waits and is worth the wait! As Christians we are called to go and make disciples of all nations! And you know what's amazing about that verse?! This: "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."! He will be with us!!!! That is just so encouraging! Press on fellow Christians! Endure and persevere because God is worth it! Though there are so many things on earth that may be amazing like a bowl of soup, don't forget to remember that knowing Christ is the surpassing worth! And that we are called to make disciples and if we are going through hard times we know that Christ is always with us, to the end of the age!! :)

Jireh!

Jesus Wept

So today, while I was reading the bible, I was so moved. I went through John 11; the story of Lazarus.
For context, his sisters told them that their brother Lazarus was dying and Jesus loves them. His reply is interesting: "This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God (Jesus) may be glorified through it." Alright, at first glance, this seems comforting! Jesus has told me that my brother's illness will not lead him to death! Yay! He will recover!! right?! FAKE! after he heard this, instead of rushing to Lazarus to heal him, he stays for 2 more days where he was. Honestly, I don't know how you can do that without freaking out LOL it actually didn't seem like he HAD to stay, from what the passage says, it seems that he stayed so that Lazarus could die. Okay...think back...Jesus said that this all happened for the glory of God! At the time, when Lazarus died, it didn't really seem like a glorious time! Jesus tells his disciples that Lazarus is dead and it was all part of the plan. "Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe." For OUR sake? So Lazarus' death isn't only for the glory of God, but also for the disciples sake, and for everyone around him!
Okay, so they go and Jesus finally comes to the place, and Lazarus has been dead in the tomb for 4 days already...rotting and smelling bad! people are weeping and it's sad. Jesus will full confidence in His Father's will and stuff, goes there and tells Martha "I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die." Here, Jesus is talking about Lazarus, but I also believe that he is talking about us as well! Through Jesus, though we are dead in our sins like Lazarus was dead, we can have life if we believe in Him. Right after, he talks to Mary (the other sister) and she has a similar response "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." She was crying and same with everyone around. And check this out..."he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled...Jesus wept." Jesus was greatly troubled!! from this passage, it seems that troubled means that he was sad and loved Lazarus and his sisters! Okay, for you Christian veterans out there, ur probably like, *yawn* heard this a million times! BUT, just think more about this! Jesus is God! He is fully God and fully man! He knows what will happen with Lazarus! If anyone knew what God's will for Lazarus, it was Him!! haha! He knew with uttermost certainty that it was part of the plan. He knew that Lazarus would be raised to life! He knew that this was meant to glorify God! He knows that this is meant to help the people believe! Even though He knew all this with UTTERMOST CERTAINTY, He wept! It made me think about those times when a friend is troubled and you want to comfort them and you say "God has everything in control" or talk about the sovereignty of God like it will make them feel better. Jesus still cried! thats crazy! still kind of blows my mind! Jesus...literally the most relatable God of history! So amazing how he can fully be God and at the same time, feel everything a regular person would feel! I love watching Him do His thing!
In the end, he raised Lazarus from the dead and many people believed, and some hardened hearts went to tell the pharisees! God was glorified through this! Jesus' power was made known! People believed! in the end, everything came to fruition the way it was supposed to! But to say that if you fully trust God you won't get sad or w/e is a lie. Jesus had ultimate faith and knew what was to happen! Even He wept! I think the important thing here is to be able to press on and not get stuck in the weeping! Just wanted to point this out because I thought it was a pretty amazing thing! :)

Jireh!

Jan 27

Honestly, I feel like I am so sinful that I need more than just grace sometimes. I know that it always says things in the Bible that we should press on and not let sin increase and stuff...but sometimes it's so easy to take advantage of that. Why is it so easy to take grace so lightly? Jesus DIED for me...i'm like nothing but He loves me and died for me. I'm literally like a red mite in comparison to Him. he has no need for me, yet He chooses to love me and die for me. I don't know why...and because of that I should be pushed to be so in love with Him that I would not desire to sin against Him anymore! Although my salvation is sealed by His Spirit, and himself, I shouldn't just dismiss everything He has done for my by rejecting Him every time I screw up. Why is sanctification so hard? lol It's actually really weird! because I want to get to grow closer to God, but my flesh is so extremely weak that it's ridiculous...like it's sad. I really do wonder sometimes that maybe my flesh is weak because I take grace way too for granted! we always say these things, but do we truly believe that we do? what are we doing to change that?
I sort of came to this conclusion when I was thinking about myself at school. I remember when i was in first semester, I was so motivated to do well in school! it was a mix of things: I had a vision of what I wanted to do in the future, I wanted to prove to myself I could do this, i wanted to show my friends and family that I can get decent marks, I wanted to glorify God with the gifts He's given me and all that. But now, after I feel like it's actually within reach to get into physio, after I showed myself I can actually do well in school, after my friends and family know that I can be disciplined my motivation decreased severely. I used to think that I was driven with Godly discipline last semester, but maybe in the end, it was just selfish ambition...to make a name for myself that felt unreachable. But now that I can obtain these things, it feels so easy to just sit back and relax and be selfish again by only caring about my body and letting myself be a lazy bum (though i still go to class and stuff).
I need God to really do some heart surgery for me! He has revealed to me how selfish my heart can be! I want to excel in school for Him! I want to be a physio for Him! I want to get married for Him! everything for His glory alone! I want to want this! I am reminded of that time when this father was like "Lord I believe, help me in my unbelief"..."Lord I want to glorify you, help me with my selfish desires of glorifying myself" "To live is Christ, To die is gain"...or paraphrased as "Jesus, I want to live my life for your glory and I want to know you. When I die, I can be with you and that is far better!" Am I even saying that? at small group yesterday they asked, Fill in the blank, "to live is ___".  I said for others! which was true at the moment! but as i think deeper and stuff, it is true, but I also live for myself! Yes, it's human nature, but it doesn't mean that it's good. God I want you to be sufficient for me. I need to depend on myself less and more on you! In the end, I don't know what will happen, but I pray that God will fix this broken/evil heart of mine and help me love Him the most! Godly discipline...it's not just the power of will, but it is a change of heart as well which only the Spirit can fix. God, i pray that you would heal me that I would be able to love you more.

GRM Day 10, May 14, Coach Carter

I was watching Coach Carter today (a basketball movie) cos i rmb it being a good movie, and cos i wanna learn how to play bball!!! i was also sorta missing a friend who said she liked this movie in passing haha annd she like never watches movies so yah! anyways just decided to watch it! :) haha

I have watched it before.. like actually, i've watched it MANY times...it's kind of ridiculous! but this was prob the first time I've watched in the past 4 years and man.. it was good!

I remember watching the movie, and this one character named "Cruz" always sort of annoyed me! and when i was watching it today, yes, he was annoying and irrational, but watching him was interesting!  

In the beginning of the movie, Cruz sees coach carter, and the contract he's making the whole team sign and says "I'm out"!!! Although the contract was for HIS benefit, he didn't want to have to follow the rules...he just wanted to have fun playing basketball and have freedom to do whatever he felt like doing! Sort of like us! How we see the gospel, we know deep down it's good for us... but we just say.. no way man, the bible is so restricting!... getting to know God is too much work... I want to be my own ultimate authority... God is not just/loving...etc...! and we ditch, we go like "I'm out"!!! 

Later on, Cruz goes to their first basketball game, to see how crappy they do, but instead, they win!!!! and he wants to get back onto the team! not because he sees value in the contract or future, but because he sees that the team is doing well and he shouldn't have left it!  He goes to practice and finds out he has to do an impossible task!! 1000 suicides and 2500 pushups.. or somethign like that in a limited amount of time! He does as much as he can and eventually doesn't finish! But with the help of his teammates, he makes it back into the team!  This sort of reminds me of the person who sees Christianity through the eyes of the prosperity gospel! They see some Christians doing well off and go like "i wanna be part of that" and just like Cruz, they'll "do" things so that they can be part of the church or christianity...but their roots are shallow!

Once cruz really realizes the intensity of the contract, he ditches again! he says "i did all this for you (talking about the suicides)" and talked about how he like... died...and how the contract was bs because he didn't care about doing well in school! Going off those legalistic/prosperity gospel-minded people, when trials happen, when they realize that CHRIST suffered and we will suffer as well, when they realize that the world HATED Christ and the world will hate us too, they say "I did this, I did that for YOU, and you give me this!?" and instead of going into prayer, and preparing themselves for the battle, they fall and break! they don't think they deserve what they are getting because of everything they did! Their hearts resist and they "fall away"...their soil was shallow (Mark 4)

Now we are getting to the beautiful part of the story. Cruz starts to take pleasure and find joy in drugs instead of basketball.  He relies on his cousin and falls away.. then his cousin gets shot! He then realizes that he doesn't want that life! He realizes that everything he's been pursuing is meaningless and won't bring him anywhere except to jail or even death.  He goes to Coach Carter's home at night and starts begging!!! he goes like "WHAT DO I GOTTA DO TO BE ON THE TEAM?!" and at that point, Coach Carter embraces him with a hug and says, "nothing, just come in!" He doesn't deserve to be on the team, if anything, it'd be something like 5000 suicides and 10000 pushups in 1 day or something, but that didn't matter to Coach Carter at the time! He extended grace, embraced this young man, and told him to come in! and booom!! the Gospel! The point when God changes our hearts and we are like, GOD, I want to know you, I want your gift, "what do I gotta do?" and he says, "My Son has already done everything for you.  You don't need to do anything! You just need to confess your sins and believe in me"! that point when we realize that there is nothing we can do for God! We can do all the good we can think of for an infinite amount of time, and that would not be enough to cover for our smallest sin! We deserve punishment/death!!! (Romans 6:23) yet, God extends grace to us, and embraces us with a hug!! :)

ya! sorry if it's not very succinct, but yeah! just a lot of jumble in my mind!

Prayer: To continually be reminded of the gospel and what Christ did for us! To be reminded of His grace and that knowing/loving Him would be my number 1 priority in life!

Jireh!

GRM Day 9, May 13 fighting for joy

one thing i've been thinking about recently is how we need to fight for our joy! We have joy in Christ right? He's the one that satisfies! We have hope in Him! because of what he's done for us, we can have hope of eternal life...something we totally don't deserve! But, when we are far from God, I find that we become less and less joyful!as christians, we are called to FIGHT for our joy in Christ! our joy doesn't just randomly come! it comes from actively pursuing God and fighting...putting on the whole armour of God that we may stand agains the schemes of the devil!! (Ephesians 6:11)

Prayer: That I would use every opportunity to pursue Christ and to fight for joy in Christ!  That I would put on the whole armour of God daily!

GRM Day 8, May 12

So today, I read about Noah! And read Genesis 9!
The part that sort of always sticks out to me was the part when he was naked LOL  i guess it makes sense that it would stick out! I get confused sometimes, just cos it seems not that bad? I don't see why its weird to lay naked on ur bed but then I guess there was more to that.  He was drunk before too and it probably just wasn't decent and stuff.  So ya, then Noah's son comes in, sees it, tells his bros who then put a garment over Noah. Anyways, it was sort of intense... how Noah cursed Ham/his son Canaan (the one who told his bros) but honestly, it's just like that I guess sometimes!  I guess the reason why I feel like it's intense was because Noah was in sin and because of his sin, sort of caused Ham to do what he did. But, now that I think of it, that is a worldly way of thinking about it!  We are called to honour our parents! and stuff! Ham could have clothed his father himself! Even though he was not in the right, doesn't give Ham an excuse to follow and make a spectacle among his bros.
Now that I keep thinking about this, it reminds me of how we are to treat one another, not like Ham, but like Shem and Japheth! When a brother sins or is in sin, we are not called to tell others, "oh look, our brother is in sin!!!" but we are called to bear with one another! We are called to help one another, and build each other up!
Galatians 6:1-5 puts what's in my mind into words nicely!!
"Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbour. For each will have to bear his own load."

Prayer: That I would be a Japheth and Shem!  That I would bear with my brothers when they are in sin, and restore them with a spirit of gentleness!  That as a body of Christ, we would bear with one another, and encourage each other, and spur one another on towards love and good deeds! Seeking God always and encouraging others to do so.  That I would not be prideful when I see other brothers in sin!

Jireh!

GRM Day 7, May 11, patience...

ALRIGHT! I am super annoyed right now! This whole day, I've sort of had allergies to my 2 dogs, which I LOVE, but yea! none-the-less, allergies! and I went to church today, and it was in mandarin! lol so I really didn't understand anything! :( they talked about jacob and esau for a bit cos that was for the kids and that was in english!  I think i'll talk about them later... when I get to it in my Genesis reading!... only in Noah atm, so i'll get there soon enough! anyways, today doesn't really have much to do with the bible... moreso just how I need to be patient!!! and that the REASON I'm being patient has to be much bigger than myself, or just the people I'm around, or just w/e! because if it's small/insignificant... if the reason isn't rooted in Christ, when things start annoying, you, it will be hard to stay patient during those times!

Today, was just really something really small!! since I'm allergic to these dogs, I toook reactine this morning and stuff and my sneezing and stuff went away.. which was great.. but i found that my airflow really lacked! even now, it feels like someone took a towel and stuffed it down my lungs/face! really can't take it! or its like.. breathing through a couple straws.... or 2 straws or w/e! essentially, i can't breathe normally and every breath I take, I hate, because it's just not enough! My stomach also feels kind of bloated atm, which makes everything worse!! ahah you know how its hard to breathe when you are super full, add that on top of a towel in your face and that is exactly how i feel! i could only run on the treadmill for 5 mins and i was done! Just so frustrated because I can't workout when I'm irritated! cos i find working out usually helps! anyways, I realized that even in these times, I need to realize that I need to still be patient wtih my parents and still love them the same! Just cos i'm feeling uncomfortable, gives me no right to get irritated! it's really just selfish! Christ suffered so much worse! and he never seemed irritated during his beating, lashing and dying on the cross!  Anyways, I need to step back and realize that there is so much more!! than just breathing nice! I need to invest in eternal things! instead of being stuck in the present and just feelings!

Prayer: that I would be able to breathe with more ease LOL. That I would go to God in times of irritation! That I would be patient and loving even with physical annoyance, because Christ did so much more than just that!

GRM day 6, May 10, Defense and pride

So today, I learned that as Christians, we neeeed to be on defense!  If you look at the armour of God, all of the things are defense! the only thing that attacks is the sword (His word). But yah! We need to be on guard all the time! and be fighting our flesh and the devil!
ONE sort of counterintuitive thing we need to do tho, is to break down walls to increase defense! What I mean by breaking down walls to increase defense is that we need to be transparent with other brothers/sisters in Christ! We need to to be transparent so that we can help one another out!  When one falls, many can come to help! We are not called to be a legalistic, judging community! We are called to love and to rebuke and to urge each other to grow in Christ! Anyone can "do the right things" at church and seem like everything is going perfect, but that isn't what we're called to do! We need to break down our pride and REALIZE that "HE MUST INCREASE, but WE MUST DECREASE" (John 3:30)! What part of "keeping face" or "keeping my image" or caring what other people think of you have anything to do you with Jesus increasing and us decreasing?! nothing! except for the fact that they are polar opposites!  God is strong in our weaknesses! We are called to bring forth our weaknesses to Christ! that He may help us through them and that He will be made known through it! We aren't called to bring our best and hide our worst....we bring everything to Christ! and He heals us! Even our best is worse than Christ's worse! There is nothing we can do to earn anything...we have nothing impressive about ourselves...EXCEPT JESUS! He is the only thing we have a right do boast about! and What HE has done!  I did nothing! I deserve nothing! Actually, I deserve eternal punishment! But God extended His grace to us and that is something we should be taking pride in! and Joy in! Galatians 6:14 puts a lot of what I'm thinking really well into words! "But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the wold has been crucified to me, and I to the world."
Anyways, back to the whole defense thing, we need to break down walls, that Christ may enter! He must increase and we must decrease! We are not called to live this life alone! we are called to bear with one another's burdens and help restore one another! (Galatians 6) We need to build defenses to guard our affections! Our affections for Christ should be so strong that we would be repelled from anything that is against it!

Prayer:  That He may increase in my life, and that I would decrease.  That I would not be afraid to let my walls down and being transparent with brothers in Christ that we would build each other up! That we would boast only in Christ. Also, that my affections for Christ would overpower anything that seems tempting here! That I would put on the whole armour of God to defend and fight (Ephesians 6:10-18)!

GRM day 5, May 9, Satisfaction

Today I was pretty alone at home and had a lot of time to myself! Sort of just chilling, making food for tonight and working out!  The more I am alone, the more bored I get! haha my mind actually sort of goes crazy! and then I realized that sometimes, I depend on others to find joy! or I depend on others to feel good!  Just really trying to learn to have full satisfaction in Him! It's hard, but I know that it's something worth working towards!  I don't really know where to start, except through more alone time with Him and more prayer time! And I guess just learning to wait on God again! I used to literally just spend an hour or somethign a day listening to Christian music on a sofa/bed or even in silence, praying and relaxing! It could be mistaken as sleeping sometimes, but it was great! I hope I can do something like that again! just being fully satisfied in His presence and not desiring anything else!
Sometimes, I do realize that because my desires for things on earth, I get bored of God, or I just get tired of thinking about Him and I wanna do something else! whereas if i just started a new tv series, I can probably watch it for literally half a day (12 hrs) haha i guess I'll feel pretty brain-fried after that, but that desireee... "to live is Christ, to die is gain"...Can I actually say those words? I WANT to, but when I look at my life, it does not reflect that!! 2 Corinthians 12:9 "But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." Man, this is what I strive for! it is hard, and almost weird cos you don't really know where to start.  From experience, I've learned one of the best places to start is on your knees...

Prayer:  That Christ would be the one thing in my life that I desire the most!  That everything else on this earth would seem meaningless compared to knowing Him!  That my life would reflect 2 Corinthians 12:9! and that God would continue humbling me, and reminding me of how much I need Him.

Smile :)

Jireh!

GRM Day 4: May 8, small things

Today God's been teaching me how to have joy in the small things in life! Nice weather, awesome friends, running, being outside, working out, spending time with close friends and just treasuring the small and large things in life!  God has made everything and it is all wonderful and beautiful! God created my friendships, he created the world, he created love...everything...and it is all so beautiful and great!
Today, I was humbled lol my running is terrible! pros to being 215lbs is I can lift heavy, cons: CAN'T RUN! even tho I couldn't run, I enjoyed it esp cos I was doing it with on my most dear friends! :) I need to train all parts of my fitness!

Prayer:  To have joy in the small things! and to live life with a thankful heart!! and being continually reminded of the gospel! Col 1:27b (christ in you, the hope of glory) That I would find all hope of glory in Christ and that the taste of the hope to come is greater than anything this world can offer me!

GRM: Day 3, May 7, Faith, trust, surrendering

Mann, today God has really been teaching me the value of patience and trust in him!!!  Sometimes I really want to have control of a situation and I realize that it means it's because I have a lack of trust in God!
Recently, I've discovered that I am a relatively emotional individual!... growing up with a fairly emotional family and having emotional close friends, made me seem not too caring about things.. or just more laid back and stuff.. but i realized, that when something I really really care about is out of my control, that is when I get emotional!  Recently a friend rebuked me! She was telling me how that just shows that I lack faith in God!  When I first heard that from her, I was confused... I was like (in my head) "Faith is one of my strengths!" at least when it comes to just surrendering things to God!  But after i sat down and thought about it more, my pride broke down and I realized how truly correct she was!  I realized that those things I care about the MOST, I should leave in God's hands and surrender!! What is the point of worrying about them?! Nothing that I do will fix or make things better!  Everything is in God's control! I realized the smaller things I had "faith" in wasn't really faith! If I don't care a lot about it in the first place, giving/surrendering it to God isn't a big deal!.. it's not even faith!... its apathy!  In the same way how sacrifice isn't sacrifice unless it's something valuable! or how lost isn't lost unless it's valuable!  I hope that makes sense!
so yah, I've really been learning to give up the thigns I value in my life to God... this doesn't mean I don't care about it, but rather, knowing fully that God is working and everything is under His control. Everything I have is His and the Lord gives and He takes away!

Here's an excerpt from "My utmost for His highest" that really spoke to me
"We are living in a time of tremendous enterprises, a time when we are trying to work for God, and that is where the trap is. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus, as the Master Builder, takes us over so that He may direct and control us completely for His enterprises and His building plans; and no one has any right to demand where he will be put to work."
- Oswald Chambers

Prayer:  That I would surrender to God the things in my life that I value, that i may know him! That I would not be like the rich man in Luke 18:18-29, but be willing to surrender my life to God for the sake of knowing Him and following Him.
To value the small things! and not just have "faith" because I don't care. Learning to have faith in the small things as well

Smile :)

Jireh!

How is God's love so deep? I have no idea! I still don't understand how He can continue loving us after we have rejected Him so many times...it's ridiculous!! it truly is crazy love!...man that hurt, when you try to reach out to someone and they make it seem as if they don't care, or reject it or something...how does God bear with that every single day that I live?
Every single day, I sin, I disobey God, I reject God, I am ashamed of God, I dishonour God, I hurt God...yet everyday, He loves me infinitely! I was going to say more and more, but what more is there than infinite when His love already is infinite?!
Man, my heart is so heavy right now...I don't understand God's love for me.  I don't understand other ppl sometimes... But i need to learn how to love those people with God's unfathomable love...and I really pray that the love He has poured out on me can be poured out onto others even when it's hard...The cross was no joke! It was not easy!  Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might be us to God!

then i prayed

Jireh!

I think feeling hurt is okay.
Just gotta stay JoyfulJireh even when times are difficult and confusing and when life sort of throws curveballs at u yah know? haha :)
Gotta love even when it's hard!  And gotta persist no matter what!

I think this is sort of what defines us as christians! taking joy in trials when all you wanna do is feel sorry for yourself.  And loving when you don't think ppl deserve your love.

Thinking of Christ always humbles me and reminds me of who I need to be.  Sometimes I see that gap...how far I am from being a good imitator of Him, then I remember to just press on and persevere because it is not for me, but for Him.  God is sovereign and knows what's best so I must press on and live my life to bring Him glory!  It's so true that we don't deserve to have God's love...but His grace is so abounding and His love never-ending.  He chose me and it brings me to my knees in worship with thanksgiving.  Things of this earth are so temporary...pain, money, pleasure, suffering, happiness, sadness, w/e...temporary things.

I really pray that God will use me to be a light.  1 Peter 2:12 - "Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us."

As the deer pants

Psalm 42:1
"As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God."

For those that want to know the definition of "pant" it is the following:
to wish for or want something very eagerly
to long eagerly
to breathe quickly, spasmodically, or in a laboured manner

I just finished running for 30 mins with my close friends and it's always a great time for just reflection and thinking!  Although I really do hate running, LOL, i do miss it at the same time! cos honestly, when I'm doing crossfit, there is no way I am pondering on things or w/e...LOL i'm just dying!  Whereas when ur doing cardio, it's like nice and tiring, but so repetitive and not super tiring that it's so great to just think.
Anyways, yeah, this song was in my head the entire time...like what it means to pant...and I was sort of reminded! LOL not that I was dying or anything after the run (i'm a lot more dead after crossfit and stuff) but, I really longed for water!! I was eager for it! I was panting for water! and it just sort of became so real to me that as a deer (or me after a workout) pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God! or... so I want my soul to pant for God!! just interesting! and i have many thoughts but i got to do work now!! oh well! :)

Smile :)

Jireh!

So I just realized that I really like controlling things!! :/ it's really weird!! haha honestly, I thought of myself of more of a chills kind of guy, but honestly, though I'm chills, I like to at least feel like i have some sort of control of situations in general! it's weird!

For example...when I meet someone new who doesn't know about the gospel and I share it with them, I friggin want their contact!!! so i can follow up!! which isn't bad, but at the same time, isn't necessary! When my friend is struggling in their faith, I want to be the one helping them out of it! for some reason, I feel like...uneasy in placing faith in other people...even though we may have the same goals and things!  What i quickly realized this past week was that my problem is lack of faith in God.  I know i am not meant to reach out to every single one of my facebook friends at a personal level and care for them so obviously, in the end, I can only really focus on a few! and those few can focus on their few and so on and so on!  And i have to realize that if God wants to save someone/bring them closer to Him or just in general..if God wants something to happen, it will happen whether I do something or not!  I need to just focus on what God has placed in my life and go all out in those ministries and have faith that God will take care of the rest!  (okay, to be clear here, this is not an excuse to do nothing...I only think these things because I want to do too much/have a heart for things that God hasn't necessarily opened the doors for me yet...if you knwo what I mean)

In the end, I really liked last weeks sermon on the vine and the branches.  The thing that stuck out to me the most (related to this topic) was that we are branches and our purpose is to bear Christ's fruit! and we shouldn't be worried about how effective or how tasty the fruit is, but just worry about bearing the fruit and having faith in the Vine, Jesus, that the fruit will be effective!  and yah! this was encouraging to me! because I sometimes find myself caught in a thing where I think so much about the effectiveness of something that I don't bear it anymore...and that's the wrong mindset because God has His own plans and knows exactly whats happening and knows what is most effective even though we don't!

Faith...is just one of those interesting things that you can't learn enough about!
sry if everything was mumble jumbled up here! LOL haven't blogged in a while so my mind is like spaghetti atm! LOL