Life Spoken Inspired: December 2005

Saturday, December 24, 2005 

abandoned and delivered


        Alright, for once I shall post a pretty short article. I’m going to share a story. This is a story about a donkey in a well.

        One day, a donkey fell into an old well shaft. The village that this donkey belonged to weighed the effort of rescuing the donkey versus its value to them and decided to just bury him in the abandoned shaft. The villagers started shoveling dirt down into the shaft, but whenever the dirt fell down and hit the donkey, he just shook the dirt off his back and stomped it onto the ground. With each shovel-full of dirt the donkey was able to get lifted towards his exit. Eventually, he reached the top and walked out of his would-be grave. His would-be killers thought they would bury him but actually delivered him.

Are you getting buried these days?

Merry Christmas guys.

12:59 PM | |

Thursday, December 15, 2005 

Me? lie? never.


I'm living for this cause
I lay down my life
Into Your hands
I'm living for the truth
The hope of the world
In You I'll stand
'Cause all I want is You
    (ref. Hillsongs – For This Cause)

        Sorry, I won’t be putting up this song to play, but really just look at the lyrics. No better way I could have put that. I think I could write a couple essay on just those seven lines… sooo here I go!... No, just kidding =). But really, those lyrics hold so much value in them. Of course we reach one of the “controversies” of some worship songs. Should we really sing them? Because sometimes we just realize… we can’t stick by the words we say. I was asked this by a friend over the summer, and the answer I gave? Yes. We should sing these songs and we should sing them with all our heart, mind and soul. But won’t we have a full congregation of lying, sometimes off-pitch singers? How can we even call that worship? Regardless of whether it’s worship or not, how many times have we lied to God then? We lie to him every time we procrastinate, every time we say that he’s number one in our lives, every time we act as we shouldn’t, every time we just “don’t feel like going to church”, every time we love with our words but hate people with our actions, every time we’re on the altar and commit our lives to him, time and time again. We’re liars. We lie. The ironic part is that we believe he knows everything and yet we lie to him, maybe thinking that he won’t catch us when we break that promise.

        So finally we can draw some conclusions. As Christians we don’t just lie as we sing songs about things we’ll never commit to, we’re also great actors. We act as if we’re all spiritual and tight with God on Sunday, but on Monday its back to our normal selves. Christians aren’t better people. We’re just better liars and better actors.

        Now, seeing by the fact that I haven’t been struck by lightning yet… (looks up), I think God understands where I’m going with this. No, it wasn’t all sarcasm, it’s true. I accept it. I’m a liar and a faker, I’ve said things and I’ve acted ways that don’t live up in my everyday life. But we all have. And how can we even talk about “holy living” if that’s the case? Simple. It’s called the heart. The heart is mentioned in the bible just about as many times as the words “love” and “humble” are. Why? Because God cares about your heart. He wants to know what’s going on inside. Are you singing because the person beside you is singing? Are you clapping your hands because you don’t want to be the only one not doing it? Are you leading this worship song just because you thought it’d get the crowd going? Hopefully not. Because God looks to your heart. He doesn’t care much what you do on your outside, it’s what’s inside that counts (Intel… anyone?). What are your motives, your reasons, your incentives behind saying “I love you Lord, and I Lift my voice”, your motives behind giving that girl help with math, your reasons behind leading that cell group.

        I ask you to think now, because God knows now. How sad will it be on the day that you meet God face to face and you're asked to give an account of your life and he says that you did nothing to exemplify Him on earth. Yes, maybe you have led cell groups for all your high school life, maybe you were worship leader, maybe you are a pastor. God doesn’t care if you have your Masters of Divinity (MDiv, “thanks Aaron”), or if you’ve mastered the art of chewing gum while you walk. God cares about what’s driving your life. Is it because you want to love Him? Is it because you desire to follow Him? Is it because you want others to know of the amazing love you’ve received? I would surely hope so.

        Yes, being a Christian makes you a liar (still waiting for the lightning…), but God looks for why you’re saying such things. I’m so thankful that I follow a God with such great mercy. Although he knows we’ll say things with our lips, and turn and repudiate those things with our actions, He said that he’d love us all the same. I probably could go on about how God is merciful and how he gives us such an abundance of grace, but summed up, don’t get yourself down the next time you can’t stick to the promises you’ve made, just give it your all and God will be pleased with your efforts. He wants to see your heart, a heart pumping for Him. Where every beat of it pushes a desire to do something radical and unheard of, just so you can let everyone know: My God loves me… and I love him back.

        All this being said; I’m living for your cause. I’m laying down my life into your hands. I’m living for your truth. You are the hope of the world, and in you alone I stand. Because, my Lord, you are all I desire. Amen.




Extra: I would like to say thank you to Melissa. What you’ve written in your blog/livejournal/whateveryoucallit has inspired me in such an amazing and unexplainable way. Thank you for sharing the simplest of thoughts you had just because you felt the need to write it down. May God bless you and guide you on all your endeavors and on your journey to being the revolutionist God wants you to be. I encourage anyone else to go read her page (linked on the side). Just look for the “rant”.

2:27 AM | |

Wednesday, December 07, 2005 

feeling: broken


        Currently my brain has been strenuously overused from a day-long mixture of studying papers and staring at my laptop’s screen. It’s hard to think of things to say but I’m going to give it a try anyways. My room is extremely cold and my left eye is still a bit swollen from getting hit in the face during football yesterday (but was so worth it). I also have a limp right now because I strained one of my legs while footballing. My bed is looking so warm and comforting after a long day like this. I think that the only thing that’s keeping me going right now is my vanilla coke that I’ve been sipping at for the past hour. Once again I’m here typing out my thoughts/feelings/beliefs instead of cramming in more information for my management final tomorrow. I’m feeling pretty much dead right now. Body tired, brain hazy and no will power at the moment, sorta broken down and in the dirt.

        No, I’m not building this up to be a depressing blog, but going to share a bit about what I read in my book today. Right now I’m reading “Next Door Savior” by Max Lucado. He’s an amazing writer whom I wish I could write as well as sometime in the future. Reading the most recent chapter in this book it questioned me to think about Christ’s life. Of course I know about His life, what He’s been through, the pain, the suffering, the teaching, the losses, the gains, the pains, the battles won, and the feeling of helplessness. Mr. Lucado asks “why?” Why do we have heaven’s perfect son enduring the earth’s toughest pains? Natural reaction for Christians would be to say that we are saved because of his suffering on the Cross, for the up-taking of our sins and for our cleansing. He was the sacrificial lamb, the one of atonement. Our scapegoat. Yes, Lord we already have so much to be thankful for, but there’s still more. Everything Christ went through; the betrayal, the disappointment, the persecution, temptations, pains, losses, ridicule, hate, abandonment, fear, scorning, weeping, uncertainty, brokenness, dirtiness, depression, disease, and being spat on. Christ has seen it, felt it, experienced it. Even death He has experienced. And for what? Not only to save our souls in the end, but to save us today too. Today in our pains, our sufferings and our troubles. Christ has been there. It’s already so much that a God would become man and die the cruelest, most degrading death possible, but to go feel every single pain we’ve ever felt, is just, beyond words I can think of. For me, my uncertainty, my physical pains, my desire to call it a day and sleep my troubles away; Christ has been there. He held fear for the future, He experienced the worst physical pains, He wished he could “call it a day” but kept on pushing. "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." Matthew 26:39 (NIV).

        And for you, the suffering, the pains and the losses you feel. The depression, the loneliness and the weeping we all have. Christ has been there. He’s been there and he overcame. He overcame to show us: There is no summit to high, nor depth too low, that our Jesus Christ hasn’t overcome such that he could help you overcome your highs and your lows. “18Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” Hebrews 2:18 (NIV). Try replacing the word “tempted” with whatever you feel is holding you down right now. Christ was ridiculed, so he can help me when I am ridiculed. Christ was betrayed, so he can help me when I am betrayed. Christ was broken, so he can help me when I am broken. I am thankful for a loving God. A God so loving, that when I turn to Him for help, he runs to me to help. Why? Because he knows how I feel. He’s been there. He overcame death; just so I could overcome my own life. Amen to that, Lord. Thank you.

11:43 PM | |

Saturday, December 03, 2005 

Revolution ~


      This post is to be somewhat of a continuation of something my friend, Aaron, wrote about. If you have a lot of time… I suggest you to go read his post “Christian? Am I Worthy?” it’ll be a good starter to this. If not, just read it when you have time or not at all… up to you I suppose. Lol.

      It pains me so much to think about the world and where we are headed. I’m not personally sure whether you’ll all believe me, but a while ago, religion played a significant role in every single person’s life. At the least, whether a person was accepting of Christianity or not he had some basis of knowledge about who God was, and the story of Christ’s life. In today’s day and age it seems that the holy name of Jesus Christ is used more as a curse word than as something sacred. Now it just pains me to hear MY Lord and saviour’s name used in that way. Not only is it just used that way, it’s joined with the other favorite words which society decided to pick up. And oh, it doesn’t stop there. The most painful thing is that people picked up the habit of putting everybody’s favourite F word INBETWEEN His name, as if it was his middle name. Now I’m not writing to talk about my pet peeves of the lingo of those around me, because there really are bigger things out there. But just through this example, it’s easy to see that society and religious society really has gone downhill, more rather, off a cliff.

      Now, my beef today isn’t with general society. And when I say that I mean those who are in the dark, or non-Christians, for it is written “12For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? 13But those who are outside, God judges.” 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 (NASB). So, my beef is with you “Christians”. You guys who call yourselves Christians, but you’re still out, getting drunk, getting high, picking up and sleeping with girls/guys. Why I write is to comment on what I’m sure everyone, even outsiders, have noticed with Christians. So many of us are no different than the world. We believe that we have a secured future in heaven, but I say, don’t be so confident about that. No, I’m not blaspheming but I tell you that to truly accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and saviour, you’re at the same time accepting his teachings and his morals. Now if you don’t know Christ’s teachings or morals then you have some work to do, but if you do know it, why don’t you follow it? No, I’m not expecting anyone to be perfect, and I’m nowhere near it myself. But as a Christian we should be SOMEHOW different from the rest of the world. There has to be something different in our lives other than our Sunday morning schedule. A Christian should show change in his life, carry some sort of story of how Christ has made him a better person, or changed his life, and it should never stop. As a Christian you’re expected to change, there, I said it. You’re expected to lose the bad and take in the good, you’re expected to see change in your own life and see change happening in others who are real Christians. If you call yourself a Christian and others can’t see some sort of way in which you differ from the people who are not, then you really need to think if you are worthy to be called a Christian.

      Now I’ll tell you how to defeat this disease of being a “Sunday Christian”. At a point in their lives, every Christian will face this decision which will be the turning point in their spiritual walk. I believe it’s easy to say that all Christians have a desire to be “good” in their heart, whether they’ve been Christians for 5 weeks or 5 years. Now when I say “good” I mean following the guidelines of your own religion and faith. Now as Christians face this desire to be good in their hearts, they also feel an opposite force in them. One that tells them, being good is no fun, that getting high is much more fun, that it’s OK to sleep around a bit, that getting drunk is fine because it doesn’t “harm me”, that it’s just a phase and they have their whole lives to become good. This pessimistic voice which seems to follow us wherever we go is the other choice we have. Now this turning point I spoke of in each Christian’s heart follows that they have to choose between following the goodness they have in their heart or to submit to the voice and carry on with their lives as if nothing ever happened.

      The turning point is one similar to the choice of becoming a Christian. It’s the choice of becoming a good Christian. Of being a man or woman of God, to give your all, to lay it all down, to submit your life, to sacrifice yourself, to be the hands and feet of God. I call this the call for revolutionists. Those who are unable to live up to this call are people who are destroying the plans God had for them. Many of us become Christians when we decide to accept Jesus as our Lord and savior one day at an alter call, and those who are true continue to grow as a Christian until they hit a certain plateau. This plateau is something many people reach, and where most turn back. The way to get beyond this plateau and continue on with God is made by a simple decision. This decision is a pivot point in your life, the one moment in time when you finally decide to give it ALL up for God and be a real man of God, a real follower, a real Christian. I tell people that there aren’t many Christians who show ‘gradual’ growth into a strong Christian. Strong Christians are built up by those people who one day make the decision to give it their all and stick by it. So I’m tired of hearing the excuses from you people. It’s pointless to say that “I need to get some things straightened out first” or “There are some things I need to take care of first and then, I’ll get involved with God.” Because that is what God is there for in the first place. If he isn’t there to make your life better, to take up your burdens then what are you believing in?

      Once again, looking at the world, it’s hard to see much. To see a future, to see a way out, or to see any hope. With so many corrupt, fallen away, and lost it’s easy to see why I call this the call for revolutionists. The world is fading, everyday, every second; this is the cry for revolutionists to change the world, to bring back the reign of God. No more Sunday Christians and no more lip service. These are the times when the world is in need, the times when only those who stand up strong will remain, there’s no time left for waiting around and playing your juvenile games. The world is aching for help, for those who will stand up strong and firm and change their ways. This is the cry for revolutionists. You game?

4:13 AM | |