Too much of this world

Movies. Television shows. Internet sites. Food. Hangouts. There are too much of these in my life. Before I thought these were harmless. They say too much of anything is not healthy. I always believe that. The problem is, the world lowers and lowers its standard of the concept of too much. So what is too much?

Too much of anything is when you get more than what you need. “Too much” is worse when that ‘anything’ is not something that you need. Later it can be an addiction. These change my perception of life over and over. I just realized how they blind my spiritual eyes to see the truth, and to deafen my ears to hear God’s voice. I lost the balance between seeing the Kingdom of God as of greater importance and the worldly perishable pleasures. Oh, no, I’m wrong. I mean, I lost the way to see the way to see that since I was, by default, blinded before. Real things, like my new life in Christ, death and resurrection, heaven and hell, God and such become more and more of an alien to me as I indulge myself to these seemingly harmless activities that fall into the category of ‘too much.’ Now I act like those people I watch in the movies. I feel like I am living in fiction. Whenever I am with my friends, life is as if it revolves around friendships, or delicious foods that my stomach idolizes. They ALL lead me away from living in the truth. They were not even obvious to me enemies. I usually avoid too much of anything, but I sock of defining what too much is, or when is something too much. So as I think that I am okay with doing these, little did I know I am already being led astray into the world again. Now I have forgotten my mission, my service for God, my destiny as a minister of God to the people of the world. I have to go back to my identity, to my purpose everyday and remind myself why I am here. I have to let go of these too much and allow God to help me and use me for His glory. I have to learn how to discipline myself and strive to be changed by God to the point that the world will be able to know that I am of God, and I am not of this world.

World, I forsake you!

The evil that is in me

Do I really have faith? Is my love for God real? have I really understood the reality of the gospel of grace, the gospel of Christ?

When I look at myself, I see an unbelieving individual. A man full of flaws, without love, filled with evil desires and a worshiper of numerous idols. When I see myself in the mirror, I see a reflection of the world - faithless, dirty, godless. I do not desire any of these, but they just don't go away easily.

I am evil.

When I sin, I am evil. When I do good, I am evil. How could I ever be able to save myself from all of the corruption that is in my flesh, from all of the darkness that devour my soul, from the hardness of my heart? Everything about me is darkness and death. I will never be numbered among the righteous by myself. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:24,25).

Remembering the Savior of the world, I am encouraged. How impossible this Christian life can be apart from His divine work in me! Today I see the desperateness of my condition, and how much I need pure grace and mercy from the Living God who is enthroned in heaven forever.

I am never strong, unlike some people think. I am weak and needy of help. I may be a leader, and sometimes speak words of wisdom. I may look like I am okay but deep inside I am not. I have struggles, the same ones that you experience - struggles with sin (those sins that keep on coming back and seem hard to defeat), struggles with doubt, struggles with theological questions, and all the struggles concerning faith. I am tempted to fall back, to give up, to shrink back, so backslide, or whatever you call it, for so many times. 

But in all of these defeat and weaknesses, I just can't let go of my grip on the glorious work of Jesus Christ, who being God, made Himself a man so that He may experience death for me, take away all my sins, and be resurrected by the God of the universe. This truth is just so awesome that every failure, every shortcoming does not seem important anymore. There are fiery lies of the enemy that always pull me down. There are the struggles that discourage me to go on. Condemnation comes close in every failure. But this Christ always and always changes the situation. He is a full package. Everything that I need I find in Him. 

"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Romans 10:13

I plead to God everyday to save me from myself, to keep my eyes open, and my heart able to understand His Truth, always willing to hear and believe and turn to Him and that the deceiving sins and the shouting world may not prevail in hardening my heart and make me lose my stability. I may be weak, but His Spirit is strong in me. My flesh may fail, but my God, He never will!

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I pray that in your own battles, you will always strive to gaze upon the glory of Christ, our God, on the cross, and that you will remember everyday that it is all done for your sake. Be strong, brother. You are not alone in this war. We will fight, clothed with the power from on High and we will come home victoriously in His Name!

Renewing our minds

We are told to renew our mind. It is an instruction from God. It is important because we are bombarded with, molded by, and exposed to different kinds of lies ever since we were born. Lies became truth to us. Our whole mind was under the influence of lies. Our perception of what love is, what life is, who God is, or what's good or not, and every thing else was grounded to a certain degree of lies. And our minds were darkened until the gospel of Christ was preached to us and the Holy Spirit enabled us to believe. We learned the truth for the first time. And every lie in our minds should be exposed to the Word of God so that it may be aligned to His truth, sparing us to live our lives blindedly and uninformed. 

But it is a process. It takes effort and initiative. And there are things that we need to be doing and making a habit to allow God to renew our minds. Here are some:

• Reading the Bible - It is the Word of God. The whole world always speculates about something they do not know or understand, just like how they speculated who God is, which birthed to false religions. But the Bible records the very words that came from the mouth of God. He revealed to us everything that we have to know so that we may not need to speculate or grope in the dark, unsure of what the truth is. 
• Praying -  We are not just thinking of God, we are actually talking to Him. Communicating with God is a very great thing to spend time, than use it for some other things. It is also making us attentive of God's presence, that He is alive at this moment and He hears us.
• Fellowshipping -  It is the way believers share their lives to one another. Like prayer, it helps us see the reality of God not only in our life but also in the lives of other believers. And it helps us influence each other in a very good and godly way.
• Listening to sermons, preaching - It is like we allow a leader to help us understand and apply God's truth in our lives.
• Filtering media -  We know that when we watch a movie or listen to songs or read a book, it means we are allowing them to influence our minds or even reprogram it.For example, after we watching horror movies, we noticed that we became easily scared of things we were not scared of before. So we should always ask ourselves if we are going to allow this movie, or series, songs, books to influence our mind and pollute it. Read godly books instead, more of Christian songs and movies that, you know, not as worldly as almost all the movies of this generation. 
• Renouncing sins - Definitely. We are already forgiven in Christ but  if we befriend our enemies (sins in these context), they will lure us away from following Him. If we continue sinning, it will come to a point that doing it doesn't seem wrong anymore. 

There are many other things, but I think these are some of the basics. Our mind is so important. I don't know if I read it in the Proverbs but It says that our thoughts direct the course of life. Let us desire to fill our minds with Godly thoughts and with the knowledge of His truth, not compromising any single area of our lives to worldliness and deceit. I think it is enough reason to exert effort in allowing God to renew our minds.

The Always Present Grace

This year of 2012 has not been really good to me (in my perspective). Yes. Actually it's kind of discouraging to see people posting on their dashboards about how blessed they are this year. I am blessed by my God, of course. I thank Him for all the things that He did in my life, because He did it out of His love for me. But in my limited and self-centered perspective, I see that the majority of happenings in my life this whole year were not okay. There were struggles where I deeply felt that God's grace was not present, and until now it still does not make sense to me why things happened in ways I did not expect. But in all of these, I do not nullify the the promise of God that His grace would be sufficient in all situation, so even though I do not understand, I accept the fact that grace is always present. Afterall, it is not about how good life is to me, but how my life brings glory to God. 

But it does not mean I won't ask God for more blessings this year of 2013. He wants me to expect for it and I am excited! I have so many things to pray for and our annual week-long fasting next week excites me so much. I am also making a list of my new year's resolutions in which the majority is all about spiritual disciplines. (Yes. Because I badly need to be disciplined Haha)

Struggles and problems will always come, but I look on God who is not intimidated by any of these. Grace and mercy always abound through Christ. I pray and claim for a deeper revelation of God in my life. Blessings upon blessings in my life! In Jesus' name. Amen.

Clouds of doubt

Dated: Midnight of Nov 7, 2012 at my room

I fear that the time will come when my faith will fail to believe, my wisdom to discern the truth and my eyes to see the light. I honestly do. There are so much confusion that is happening in my life right now, concerning faith. Major foundations of faith are being questioned in my mind. The more I comprehend how important knowing the truth is, as by knowing it determines real life and death, the more I get to question every belief that I have. I feel like, if I missed the truth, as if missing the bull's eye, I will live my life being deceived. Who wants to be deceived? 

I dunno if I am the only Christian who is as doubtful as a skeptic. I question almost everything. I always ask the infamous doubtful question "what if?" According to a prophecy about me last March, God will use me to influence those who are doubtful, skeptics and atheists. Maybe that's the reason why I have to be the most doubtful of all - to be able to answer their questions once I have been enlightened. 

I want to come to a point when I will be willing to die for Jesus. That's scary. But I want to be strong enough to carry that burden. There are so many requirements before anyone will be qualified to do the work that God call us to do. Of course, it is still He will change us to be qualified, but the process are always difficult and painful. And there is no shortcut. 

I believe I am in a major make-over. I feel like I am being disciplined under the strictest observation. I have never been in a place of darkness this long, or this intense to the point that prayer is truly the only option left. The fiery arrows of the enemy fly everywhere and I don't even know how long I can endure. 

"We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead." - 2 Corinthians 1:8-9

I thank God for reminding me of these verses just now while writing this. That is exactly how I feel sometimes. And I know at least once, every Christian will experience that. I realized how dependent I am on myself in terms of keeping myself in the faith. I did not actually realized that before! Now I am being disciplined by God. He's telling me that it is He who will sustain this faith. I will definitely lose my strength to hold on for I am just a human being, and that's exactly what I think God wants to happen: that I may know that He is faithful, not just through the words that He say, that I may experience it. 

"Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life." (ESV)

"But God is my helper. The Lord keeps me alive!" (NLV)

"Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me" (NIV)

Different versions of Psalm 54:4

He keeps me alive, whether it's physical or spiritual. I might have been trying to save my life by holding on too much to my faith. I thought I got it all covered. I have already researched all that I have to know about the scientific and historical evidences of Jesus and the Bible when I was a baby Christian, I have seen God worked miracles through people (even through me, once) or through my prayers, I can see how He planned the details of my life to lead me to a church. I have convinced myself that I can sustain my faith with logic, knowledge and experience. But for some reason, they seem not too convincing to me anymore. I mean, they are. But my heart still is not at peace as if I needed more resources but I have nothing left. 

I knew I need more than what I have. I need God to intervene. How impossible this Christian life is apart from God! 

From dead, through Christ He made me alive forever. And since He is the One who wanted me to be saved, then He is the One who will sustain me till the end. 

Trust in God; trust also in Me.

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." - Jesus, John 14:1

(This is one of the verses that greatly comforts me in time of trouble)

This was the time when the original disciples of Jesus were troubled by so many things. There were so many problems, uncertainties. And Jesus comforts them.

Whenever I find myself troubled in my heart, this is the verse that I keep reminding myself of. It is like God is telling us that whatever troubles our heart, whether it is a problem in academics, in family, in relationships, or sin struggle, fear, doubt, anxiety, uncertainty, weakness, or we feel like we're in the midst of wilderness or darkness, He is in control. It doesn't matter how severe or impossible we, human beings, think the problem is to solve. It doesn't matter how incapable we are to solve or even alleviate the problem. It is God who matters, His sovereignty, His ability, His willingness to help us, and His perfect plans. 

He is telling us that He is trustworthy, that we can rely on Him about everything. He is giving us a promise that He will act. We just have to have an attitude of surrender and faith. 

God loves us. Looking to what Jesus did on the cross for us, I am convinced that He cares for me greatly and I can trust in Him.

Awakening

It's the theme of our Leader's Camp this year.

Last year, it was different. The theme's title was "Go fish" and that was about making disciples. Honestly, It was not as moving as I expected it to be, not because the message is not great, but because I just graduated from Training for Victory just few days before that. Training for Victory is a course in our church that tackles about being a disciple and how to make disciples, which is the theme of the last camp.

I remember months before last year's camp, I was not yet fully known as a Christian in my home. So I had problems before I got to attend the camp:

1. My parents wouldn't allow me to join that event. It's a "born-again" church.
2. I have no money. If ever my parents would allow me, I was still unable to go

But I prayed for these and God made a way. My parents allowed me to do and they even gave me money for it. (It was difficult for me to ask them, though)

Team Yellow: (From left to right) Julio (Team leader), Me,
 Jeje, Jelay, Anne, Arla, Aaron and Jcel.

This year's camp was different, entirely different. My only problem is the budget. I did not bother to ask my parents for allowance because we were really struggling financially. So I got to pray for my allowance and step out in faith. 

Doms and I planned to do F.R.A. (Fund Raising Activity). We sold chocolates to our friends. It was my first time to fight for my destiny in this way so I was very hopeful that I would see God working with me. In my dismay, I found out I am not good in this. Doms was already telling me excitedly how much he's earned from the activity while i struggle from it. I was tempted to feel envious of him but thank God I gave me faith not to. I reminded myself that it was not we who work in us but God. Despite the discouragements, I continued believing in God for His provision.

I was forced to used my own money for the camp, because of my eagerness to join it. But God is good. he surprised me. After paying the 50% of the payment for the camp, Alxis, one of my Victory groupmates, asked me how much is left to pay for the camp. He told me he was going to pay for it. Thank God! Ate Xane and my Mom also game me additional allowance at the end which made my budget overflowing. I have even gone ahead of Doms in terms of raising funds. I am not competing with my friend, I just want to emphasize that God has His own ways of blessing His children. Who would have thought of any of this will happen from the start? I certainly don't! 

So the camp begins. As early as the worship service before the start of the first session begins, I already got a revelation from God. Hebrews 12:1-3 has always been in my mind but I could not understand clearly what God was trying to say me.

The second session is the most amazing. I have been struggling with so many things this previous semester and I was asking God to do something about them. But I felt like I was waiting in vain. I have in my mind what I needed. And God is faithful. The thing that I needed is what the camp is all about. I felt like God designed the whole camp just for me. 

Many wrong mindsets have been broken by God's truth that day and we were liberated from the bad effects in our lives. One of the greatest wrong mindset we had is prioritizing our reputation of being a leader than our devotion to God. It greatly struck me. I realized I have always tried to be a perfect, "struggle-less", mature Christian and I wanted everyone to see that I have all things in my life under my control. But God knows how broken I am deep inside. I prioritized more how people see me, rather that doing what is more pleasurable to God. I chose the world rather than the truth of God. I did not even realized before that that I was a victim of this horrible thinking.

But I thank God for He has shed His light on us, His children. now I feel free from any reputation I was trying to maintain in the sight of people. I can now humbly accept my weaknesses that I always deny from myself and others. I have been too proud of what I have become, even if I am actually nothing. Now I am back to the simplicity of following God, of following Jesus.

I was sleeping, and not paying attention of myself. I thank God that He included me to a church like this, and that I have leaders who shepherds us very well. Now I am awakened.