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After writing that last post about love, I felt like God gave me a pop quiz. I've found it so hard to love Him and others these last four weeks. Whether it's asking him how these things could happen when I see my mom this way, or trying to love impossibly difficult people, or learning that I lean too much on G and not enough on my Lord and my God, God has been tender yet firm in reminding me that He conquered all my sins and my mom's sufferings by sacrificing His son. How simple a gospel message, and yet how hard it is for me to remember and accept it every day.

Morning and Evening
Charles H. Spurgeon
March 12, 2012

Morning Reading

Thou shalt love thy neighbour.

—Matthew 5:43

“Love thy neighbour.” Perhaps he rolls in riches, and thou art poor, and living in thy little cot side‐by‐side with his lordly mansion; thou seest every day his estates, his fine linen, and his sumptuous banquets; God has given him these gifts, covet not his wealth, and think no hard thoughts concerning him. Be content with thine own lot, if thou canst not better it, but do not look upon thy neighbour, and wish that he were as thyself. Love him, and then thou wilt not envy him.

Mayhap, on the other hand, thou art rich, and near thee reside the poor. Do not scorn to call them neighbour. Own that thou art bound to love them. The world calls them thy inferiors. In what are they inferior? They are far more thine equals than thine inferiors, for “God hath made of one blood all people that dwell upon the face of the earth.” It is thy coat which is better than theirs, but thou art by no means better than they. They are men, and what art thou more than that? Take heed that thou love thy neighbour even though he be in rags, or sunken in the depths of poverty.

But, perhaps, you say, “I cannot love my neighbours, because for all I do they return ingratitude and contempt.” So much the more room for the heroism of love. Wouldst thou be a feather‐bed warrior, instead of bearing the rough fight of love? He who dares the most, shall win the most; and if rough be thy path of love, tread it boldly, still loving thy neighbours through thick and thin. Heap coals of fire on their heads, and if they be hard to please, seek not to please them, but to please thy Master; and remember if they spurn thy love, thy Master hath not spurned it, and thy deed is as acceptable to Him as if it had been acceptable to them. Love thy neighbour, for in so doing thou art following the footsteps of Christ.

Love.

1 Cor 13:1-7 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

In the last two years, I've undertaken a lot of do-it-yourself projects. In this same length of time, I feel like God has been taking me apart and showing me what needs fixing, the biggest being that I needed to learn how to love. I can do my best impression of someone who cares, but what does that get me?

G "encouraged" me to memorize this famous passage before we got married. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I am forgoing so many God-given blessings by not loving others. What are those blessings? At the moment, I can only think of two and they seem to cycle back and forth between each other.

First, when I try to love others, God reveals the sin inside me that prevents me from loving. It varies from person to person, as Satan has plenty of reasons for us to not care. Pride is the biggest one for me, followed closely by impatience. When we desire to love, God shows us what's at stake and then gives us the strength to overcome it.

Second, when I try to love others, I experience more of Christ's amazing love. I realize how nothing would prevent Him from dying on that cross to show His love for all of us. And by all of us, I mean (that He died for) those that hated him, since we all hated him at one point in our lives. That realization and experience breaks down the barriers in my heart and so continue the cycle.

I've begun to see how love changes my work place, my service at church, in the community, my prayer life, my prayer life again. It will be interesting to see what else God takes hold of as I try to love others in His name.

Tebow and J-Lin. I am very late on posting about Tebow's captivating regular and post season play, but it seems I'm just in time for Jeremy Lin's heaven-sent career breakthrough. Just last night, he topped Kobe in MSG before an absolutely adulating crowd. Beyond the underdog theme that many love to see, and the "this could actually happen to me" (if I was 6'4" and had top .0001% athletic ability) aspect added by Lin-sanity, it's great to see Christ getting shout outs from players that truly mean it. I read that Kobe really liked the example that Lin's story was setting for kids, but somehow I think Kobe is more thinking "judgment" for next season. Who knew an ABC could do such a thing?
 

Football. Rebuilding year for our good ol' Orange and Blue, eh?

Rage/Machine. A few weeks before my exam, my smart phone slipped out of my pocket while I was sitting and the screen cracked. Fixing the screen would cost $90 so I opted to buy a refurbished Samsung Fascinate for $40. The phone is thinner, lighter, more aesthetically pleasing, has a better (AMOLED) screen, and has a ridiculous 16gb micro SD card included, but it's been a pain in the butt to root it and then find a glitch-free ROM. Given the hours I've put into it, I have a feeling that at some point in that not too distant future this will go the way of IMing for me.

Chicago. Had the opportunity to visit Chicago again and this time with G to celebrate our second anniversary. Here are some photos of our trip. Sorry in advance to all you pizza lovers.

Ruminating. Because I've been studying extra diligently these last few months, I haven't had time to do any off-syllabus reading, and for me this is a good thing because I have a tendency to hide behind a facade of "learning" in an attempt to not do what is right.

The worst situation is when I look to serve Him in my pride and neglect how sin taints every part of me. St. Francis of Assisi illustrated this idea well:

It is a meritorious thing and far more blessed to endure injuries and reproaches patiently, without murmuring, for the love of God, than to feed a hundred poor men, or to keep a perpetual fast. But what profits it a man, or  how does it benefit him, to afflict his body with many fasts, vigils and disciplines, if he cannot endure a little injury from his neighbor? And yet from this might he derive greater reward and higher merit than from all the sufferings he could inflict upon himself of his own will; for to endure reproaches and injuries from our neighbor with humble and uncomplaining patience, will purge away our sins more speedily than they could be by a fountain of many tears.

Blessed is the man who has ever before the eyes of his mind the remembrance of his sins and of the favors of God; for he will endure with patience all tribulations and adversities for which he expects so great consolation. The man who is truly humble looks for no reward from God, but endeavors only to satisfy him in all things, knowing himself to be his debtor; every good thing which he has he acknowledges to come from the free bounty of God, while every evil that befalls him proceeds from his sins alone.

So many things I would rather do than to confess my need of a perfect, loving savior who has already done everything for me. Still, I strive to do it on my own, bringing my good deeds that are but filthy rags before my heavenly father. Thank you, Lord, for giving up your son to suffer what we so rightly deserve. I pray your love will continue to work its way through my soul, purifying and preserving me until we meet face to face.

Taters in Heaven? This past weekend, my parents came up to visit so we decided to entertain them with a road trip through Helen, Brasstown Bald, and Dahlonega. While in Dahlonega, we stopped by the Smith House per Ian's recommendation.

Food is served "family style" as is common in the South, meaning you're seated with complete strangers. Though the family we ate with could not have been more different from us, we all amazing shared a common bond as Christians. By the end of our meal, we acted and talked as if we were life-long friends. Additionally, I learned that many in the south only refer to potatoes as "taters". I wonder if heaven will be something like our dinner at the Smith House. And of course, if taters will be served.

In Progress. Friend: "Hey, I wanted to talk to you! I was thinking you and I would go [insert activity] this weekend? Are you interested?"
Me: (I either sort of want to go or I don't really want to go at all, and either way I don't want to hurt this friend's feelings so I say...) "Sure, yeah. I'm interested! Let me know if you eventually go!"
Frank: "OK. I'll give you a call later!"

--Later--
Friend's text message: "Hey, are you still interested in [named activity]? It's tomorrow at..."
Me: (Oh crap, what have I gotten myself into? Now to think of a nice way to let my friend down...)
My text message: "Leaning towards not going after all. [Insert lame excuse.] Sorry, friend. :("

There are countless instances of this happening in the past few years. I'm not sure why I do this. Perhaps it's because I don't fully consider my own interest at the moment. Perhaps I have trouble turning people down for fear of losing friends. But after talking to a friend, I thought whether this bad habit is just due to a lack of vision. G made an analogy of how this has an impact in world politics as well, citing a recent Economist article about Germany's surprising abstention to a UN Security Council vote authorizing the use of force to protect Libyans from Muammar Qaddafi’s regime. The article's author writes


Discussing this with G has helped us confirm what we want to focus on and to think carefully before committing to or engaging in something outside of that vision.

Work. I found out last Thursday that I passed my latest actuarial exam! Praise God for His awesome faithfulness. I've never passed two in a row so this is a very unfamiliar feeling. Hopefully I can keep studying hard and humbly ask for help from God and others in order to get another pass this fall.

At a friend's suggestion, I started reading "The Heart of Mentoring" by David A. Stoddard. I have to admit I really didn't think this book was going to be that good, in part because the title seemed so cheesy but also because I am very picky with "God books", as G calls them. But I will say that I was pleasantly surprised with the book, with three ideas in particular really challenging the way I think about mentoring.

What mentoring is and isn't. Stoddard does a good job of helping me realize what I inwardly knew already. That is, mentoring requires Christ-centered love rather than quick fixes and emphasis on self discipline.

Work/Vocation. Stoddard spends chapter four on how to align passion with work. While I still think Dorothy Sayer's essay challenged me the most on this topic, Stoddard reminds us that part of the desire of our heart is finding the right calling/job, as it should be an extension of who we are.

Legacy. Stoddard uses the equation "Mentoring + Reproduction = Legacy" to emphasize the mentor's goal of the mentee being able to and desiring to care for someone else. This is the most challenging part of the book to me, and something I hope to improve on.

All in all, a good book that gives good practical advice without a legalistic process to follow. Definitely recommend to anyone interesting in discipling/mentoring.
  

C.S. Lewis wrote A Grief Observed to help him cope with the passing of his wife of four years due to cancer. As I was reading it, I couldn't help but think about grief with respect to community.


Based on these two passages, I could make three points about grief with respect to community.

First, living in a community reveals how truly superficial and selfish we are. Lewis realizes his own superficiality when he's shocked how deeply his own sorrow affects him. Caring for others (Rom 12:15) helps us genuinely share in people's sorrows.

Second, sharing the grief of others forces us to answer the hard questions about life. Lewis thought he was a mature Christian prior to his wife's illness, but when it struck and doctors determined it was cancer, Lewis thought back to how cancer took both of his parents and wondered aloud whether all his beliefs about God were really true.

Third, grief points one to discover the character of God. One of the hardest questions of life is whether there is a God or not. Assuming you do believe there is a God, the next question is, "What is he like?" Through his sorrow, Lewis began to wonder whether God was really a sadistic puppet master, luring each of earth's inhabitants around like rats to traps. But he thought too about how God gives us the opportunity to experience love and beauty and all of the positives in life, and how a sadistic creator wouldn't be so generous.

So then if God is good through and through, why would he allow us to go through such sorrow? One answer Lewis finds is to show us how frail our faith really is. God wasn't experimenting with his life, putting trials in his way to see if he would respond appropriately. Rather, He knew all along that Lewis' faith was on shaky ground but allowed Lewis to go through pain so he could realize how flimsy his faith really was. Only then could Lewis truly mourn and recover in the embrace of the One who gave him his wife, the same One who gave him His Son to die for all of our sins.

Here are some other passages that I really liked:
( Read more... )
    

Generational Sin. Granted this article was written last month but I had to post about it. Plus, some hack at CNN just repeated the same topic in his article a week or two ago, so it's still somewhat fresh in the internet.

Among other interpretations of this suggestive question, the following is full of teaching: "If the innocent substitute for sinners, suffer thus, what will be done when the sinner himself —the dry tree—shall fall into the hands of an angry God?" When God saw Jesus in the sinner's place, He did not spare Him; and when He finds the unregenerate without Christ, He will not spare them. O sinner, Jesus was led away by His enemies: so shall you be dragged away by fiends to the place appointed for you. Jesus was deserted of God; and if He, who was only imputedly a sinner, was deserted, how much more shall you be? "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" what an awful shriek! But what shall be your cry when you shall say, "O God! O God! why hast Thou forsaken me?" and the answer shall come back, "Because ye have set at nought all My counsel, and would none of My reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh." If God spared not His own Son, how much less will He spare you! What whips of burning wire will be yours when conscience shall smite you with all its terrors. Ye richest, ye merriest, ye most self-righteous sinners—who would stand in your place when God shall say, "Awake, O sword, against the man that rejected Me; smite him, and let him feel the smart for ever"? Jesus was spit upon: sinner, what shame will be yours! We cannot sum up in one word all the mass of sorrows which met upon the head of Jesus who died for us, therefore it is impossible for us to tell you what streams, what oceans of grief must roll over your spirit if you die as you now are. You may die so, you may die now. By the agonies of Christ, by His wounds and by His blood, do not bring upon yourselves the wrath to come! Trust in the Son of God, and you shall never die.

Last but not least, I really liked this Spurgeon devotional entry a few weeks back. It got me thinking to how God loves us so much that He did not spare even Jesus, His only and most beloved son, and not just to death but the most horrific suffering possible.Truly nothing will separate us from God's love if we believe.
 

My dad has this one homemade video of my mom caring for my then-baby brother and my then-cute sister (just kidding, still very cute), but I'm running around like an idiot screaming, "Look at me!! Look at me!! Look at me!!", trying to steal the show. I realize that almost a quarter century later, I really haven't changed that much.

I realized this last night as G and I discussed each person's chores around the house. I usually do the dishes and take out the trash, but I tend to magnify my contributions and consider them more important than her chores. G was kind enough to remind me that the reason I do those particular chores is because she's doing all the cooking, and that she would gladly let me do the cooking if I wanted. I politely declined.

This tendency is good old fashioned pride. It's scary how accurate the Holman Bible Dictionary's definition of pride is:
The Holy Spirit has been reminding me of my pride as our community group studies the gospel of Luke, with two passages in particular: the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the wedding feast. 

In the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus tells a synogogue of humiliated leaders and delighted laypeople that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that a man plants, and over time grows into a tree, providing a perch for birds. In the parable of the wedding feast, Jesus tells dinner guests similarly comprised that he notices how they have seated themselves according to their self-perceived importance. He says at a wedding feast you should not take a high seat for fear of being embarrassed when the host demotes you, and should instead take a low seat in hopes the host will upgrade and thus honor you. Both parables illustrate that the kingdom is pretty much the exact opposite of what I would think absent of His love.

Last week in community group, I asked my discussion group what each thought of how Jesus was describing the kingdom of God. I was extremely touched and humbled by one of the sisters when she said, "This makes me happy to know that even someone as little as me can get into His kingdom." God help me not magnify my work at the expense of others, and remind me that it's only through Jesus that I have a seat at His table.
   

Exam Results. A week before Christmas, I was blessed with finding out that I passed my fall actuarial exam. Even though the last exam pass was almost three years ago, I think God used these three years to humble me so that I might more lovingly serve others. I think the time has also taught me how to really work hard and be patient in one's endeavors. Hopefully the new year will bring more exam passes and more fruits of the Spirit.

Good Neighbor. Our Community Group recently studied the parable of the Good Samaritan, and I think I finally caught the main point despite having studied this passage in the past.

Often times I put practicalities first and find excuses therein to not care for people. The lawyer in the passage does the same thing by asking Jesus to define who his neighbor is. But Jesus doesn't respond with a definition but with an illustration of someone being a good neighbor. The issue at heart is not a lack of information but rather a lack of love.

I hope through this lesson I can be more honest with myself and love first in Christ's example on the cross, then consider the practicalities if even applicable.

Evening Wake-Up Call. I leave you with this wake-up call via Spurgeon's Evening Devotion -

If, O my reader! thou art merely a professor, and not a possessor of the faith that is in Christ Jesus, the following lines are a true ketch of thine end.

You are a respectable attendant at a place of worship; you go because others go, not because your heart is right with God. This is your beginning. I will suppose that for the next twenty or thirty years you will be spared to go on as you do now, professing religion by an outward attendance upon the means of grace, but having no heart in the matter. Tread softly, for I must show you the deathbed of such a one as yourself. Let us gaze upon him gently. A clammy sweat is on his brow, and he wakes up crying, "O God, it is hard to die. Did you send for my minister?" "Yes, he is coming." The minister comes. "Sir, I fear that I am dying!" "Have you any hope?" "I cannot say that I have. I fear to stand before my God; oh! pray for me." The prayer is offered for him with sincere earnestness, and the way of salvation is for the ten-thousandth time put before him, but before he has grasped the rope, I see him sink. I may put my finger upon those cold eyelids, for they will never see anything here again. But where is the man, and where are the man's true eyes? It is written, "In hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment." Ah! why did he not lift up his eyes before? Because he was so accustomed to hear the gospel that his soul slept under it. Alas! if you should lift up your eyes there, how bitter will be your wailings. Let the Saviour's own words reveal the woe: "Father Abraham, send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame." There is a frightful meaning in those words. May you never have to spell it out by the red light of Jehovah's wrath!

God, help me desire you this way...

This groaning is universal among the saints: to a greater or less extent we all feel it. It is not the groan of murmuring or complaint: it is rather the note of desire than of distress. Having received an earnest, we desire the whole of our portion; we are sighing that our entire manhood, in its trinity of spirit, soul, and body, may be set free from the last vestige of the fall; we long to put off corruption, weakness, and dishonour, and to wrap ourselves in incorruption, in immortality, in glory, in the spiritual body which the Lord Jesus will bestow upon His people. We long for the manifestation of our adoption as the children of God. "We groan," but it is "within ourselves." It is not the hypocrite's groan, by which he would make men believe that he is a saint because he is wretched. Our sighs are sacred things, too hallowed for us to tell abroad. We keep our longings to our Lord alone. Then the apostle says we are "waiting," by which we learn that we are not to be petulant, like Jonah or Elijah, when they said, "Let me die"; nor are we to whimper and sigh for the end of life because we are tired of work, nor wish to escape from our present sufferings till the will of the Lord is done. We are to groan for glorification, but we are to wait patiently for it, knowing that what the Lord appoints is best. Waiting implies being ready. We are to stand at the door expecting the Beloved to open it and take us away to Himself. This "groaning" is a test. You may judge of a man by what he groans after. Some men groan after wealth—they worship Mammon; some groan continually under the troubles of life—they are merely impatient; but the man who sighs after God, who is uneasy till he is made like Christ, that is the blessed man. May God help us to groan for the coming of the Lord, and the resurrection which He will bring to us.