This Thing Called Grace

Grace is all God and none of me. Grace has nothing to do with what I have done or achieved, but it is a gift given by God. Grace is when God intervenes in your life as you are about to sin, but provides a way out. Grace is God using you even in all your weaknesses, your selfishness, your inability to love, your lack of desire to give your all. Grace is the strength God gives you to wake up, pray, desire for more of Him. Grace is the hunger God gives you for more of Him, a hunger for something to fill you and satisfy you infinitly more than any other pleasures found on this earth. Grace is answered prayers, desperate spirits, broken hearts, all wrapped up in His arms of love. Grace is us not getting what we deserved, but instead getting something we would never ever deserve.

This thing called grace is what carries me every day, even if I don't notice it.

Compassionate God

When we think about justice, it somehow always has to do with us getting the better end of the bargain. Justice is never us getting what we deserve, or us taking all the heat. Even if we do, it’s about us being the “bigger man/woman” and showing that we are “honest”, prideful things like that.

I’ve always struggled with God’s justice and His judgement on other nations. Why did He choose Israel? Is He showing favoritism? How can He judge other nations when He only revealed Himself to one?

Going through Romans 9 this semester, I’ve come to see that we cannot view God’s justice through our eyes. We are blinded by our own shallow perceptions of what perfection, holiness, and goodness is. If we view justice through the eyes of God (however limited we are in doing that), we’ll see that God is just. God is holy and He cannot contradict Himself. He cannot allow sin and evil to exist and so He must destroy it. God would be unjust if He did not destroy those nations that did not honor Him. But out of all those nations, God actually chose one nation to reveal Himself to. He didn’t even have to do that because nature and all created things prove God’s existence. Our God is not a god that is aloof and out there doing His own thing. He is a compassionate God. He puts up with the everyday sins that we commit. He gives us grace by allowing us to live, another breath of air in our lungs.

Our God is a compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love. And not only that, He has given us a new path to reach Him; one that doesn’t require works but faith. One that isn’t a set of rules that we must follow, but a person that we can follow.

All that we deserve is judgement. But the compassion of our God overflows.

Prodigal Son

"When the world ends, both sinners and good people will go to hell. Both unchurched and churched people. Only those saved by grace through Jesus will go to heaven."

Came back from GRACE, a conference in Chicago. The drive was pretty long, but not unbearable. David Choi was the speakers (not the Youtube sensation), and he preached on the prodigal son. I think it really put into perspective the intensity and scandalous-ness of the story when looking at the father's love for both his sons through the eyes of the 1st century listeners. I've always had a hard time understanding/explaining why "good" people would go to hell without Jesus. I mean, some of the unchurched people in the world are morally more upright than some of the Christians. But that's just it, isn't it? Jesus came for the sick, not the healthy. He came for the sinners, not the righteous. Pimps, prostitutes, criminals, murders, adulterers can go to heaven through Jesus but people who donate millions of dollars to charity and volunteer at soup kitchens will not without Jesus because our "good" works are just filth compared to the infinite holiness of our God.

We not only need to repent of our "bad" doings, but also our "good" doings done in our own self-righteousness.

I don't think I've ever heard a small group leader share so openly about their own struggles and sins. Almost scandalous, but more so authentic and transparent. Love it.

Looking Back

I recently (5 minutes ago) rediscovered my xanga and was reading through some posts. I realized a couple of things:

1) I wrote SO much better back then, probably due to 4 years of writing english/history essays, and now I haven't written a paper in over a year.

2) I had lots of dreams. Some came true, some didn't. Like how I was going to keep my long distance relationship going. Or how I was going to make amazing new friends at college whom I will be close to. Or how I was going to go to college with my best friend, and come out even better friends because of it, and yet, I barely see/hear from/talk to him now.

3) A lot of my views have changed. I thought going to college for God would get me an automatic in to the spiritual world. Or me "sacrificing" a better college (that's a lie) for Illinois and going to college for God would bring me on better terms with Him. Oh how naive I was. I think I thought I was so mature that I had it all figured out, when in reality, I have next to nothing figured out and didn't even know how to start figuring things out. I think I was more confused back then than I am now, which is progress I guess.

4) I've definitely changed. I was always looking for an easy way out, or a golden standard, or trying to put a positive spin on things. Now, I know some of the depths of my depravity. I've felt hatred turn into murder and lust turn into adultery. I've seen how deeply uncommitted I am to my God. But I've also seen that there is hope for me, hope that God gives from just being faithful. I've learned many things from CFC, about being a Christian.

Looking back, I see that God is good. In all the hard times, he was there. In all the good times, He was and is there. He wants the best for me, for me to experience maximum pleasure in Him, holding everything else back that could hinder me because He just loves me that much. Today I heard a sermon about Christmas and it's meaning. We make it out to be about presents and stress and decorating and partying. But it's really about "glory to God and peace and goodwill onto man". After thousands of years of man trying and failing to reach God, we thought we were goners. We thought God hated us. But Christmas is about God reaching down to us, something no other religion has, and making us know that we are valued and that He loves us. Looking back, I feel loved.

Early Post

It's 7:48 right now and I cannot believe I am up this early. Actually, I can't believe I'm saying that because for the past 4 years of my life, I would be in school right now, getting ready to go to class. I don't know how I did it for so many years, and I don't know how I will do it after college...there really is no time like college time.

November has officially started (actually it started yesterday...but w.e.) In 19 days, I'll be back in Jersey. Yay! Pretty excited. Miss my family and friends and can't wait to see them all again. That and I don't have to worry about classes and such. But knowing orgo, I'll probably have 3 quizzes to do...Anyways, complaining aside, here's some things I've learned this pass month.

1) Communication is about voicing out what you are thinking. Out loud. It's hard to communicate when half the time, the other person is trying to pry your thoughts out of your head.
2) Eating late = fat legs. Working out = no change in fat legs. What?? Gotta work out more.
3) Cramming something does work. I waited til Sunday to study for my Physics test on Monday and did surprisingly well considering I didn't know how to do 90% of the problems on the practice exam. But I wouldn't recommend doing it though...
4) Not having a facebook is GREAT. It's almost like an addiction you never knew you had until you stop having it. No more notifications, no more checking to see if people commented on your latest note/profile pix/status/wall post/comment. No more wasting hours and hours going through people's pictures. How do I communicate? That's what email's for!
5) Loving people is hard. It's harder when you realize the extent to which you don't love them. It's the hardest to do something about it.

Ok, that's about it. It's pretty early...and I'm pretty tired. Going back to sleep. More later! Or read more on my Tumblr. I update it more frequently I suppose.

Its been a while since I last wrote a serious blog post where I actually said anything substantial. Haven't had the time to think about what to write or to formulate any coherent thoughts. Been too busy studying organic chemistry everyday, or trying to keep up with biology, and at the same time, giving physics some thought. Haha, physics is the neglected child in this messed up family I'm trying to lead.

But seeing that I've got a few minutes to spend, I'll come up with a list of things that I've learned thus far, 7 weeks into sophomore year.

1. Sophomore year is NOTHING like freshman year. If you thought freshman year was hard/challenging, then please reconsider college, or maybe transfer to an easier one, because it will kick your butt if you think you can just waltz into sophomore year riding on your freshman year glory. Just joking bout the reconsidering college part.
   
2. Afternoon classes are great. You get to sleep in and waste a TON of time trying to get up in the morning. That, and you get to sleep late, like I will be doing today, and not worry about missing class (though one day I slept through both my 1PM and 2PM lectures. Don't know how I did that.)
3. Pastor Min's sermons are starting to make sense. I'm not saying that freshman year I didn't understand anything at all, but it was mostly just building up stamina and trying to stay awake during the sermon. This year, it's more about trying to understand the sermon, even if it's just on the surface level.
   
4. When you study organic chemistry, prepare to dive in and give it your all, or just drop the course. If you're not willing to labor on it til the crack of dawn and fail your first test, then you need to reconsider that dream of becoming a doctor. Orgo, though hard, is actually pretty fun. My mother said it's the killer of potential doctors' dreams. I say, yes, but it weed out all the bad ones.
   
5. When you're in a relationship, you learn many things. And one of the things that you have to learn is to go out of your way to make the other person feel comfortable, or to please them. Because it's not just about you. It's never about you. And when it becomes not about you, things become easier. But of course, if your significant other is a selfish, self-absorbed, me-me-me type of person, it doesn't really work out. Because it's not supposed to be about them either. Yeah I know, confusing.
   
6. Morning prayer meetings are great. I actually look forward to going to them this semester, mostly because I see how desperate I am for prayer. The beginning of this semester has really shown me a lot of my struggles within my heart, and I need a lot of prayer for that.
7. If you try to serve with a grudging heart, you tend to suck at serving.
   
8. If you let your emotions run and get the best of you, then hating your brother really is murdering him.
9. If you are not content with God, then nothing He gives you will satisfy your heart.
   
10. Time flies. So set your mind on eternal things. Because this second is gone, and so is this one, and this minute, and before you know it, 10 minutes has passed and you graduated college and going on to medical school and getting married and having kids and becoming a full fledged doctor and performing surgeries and paying bills and raising kids, and etc., etc.,.
    

So those are my top 10 things that I've learned so far. Better than my 2 sentence, emo, attempt at artsy-fartsy blog posts eh? God bless everyone.

Telling the Truth

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it." - CS Lewis

This is the truth: You can't expect to get much if you don't give much.