Man, I'm not as good at blogging as I thought. It's so much harder to keep up with this than I thought, which is ironic because you'd think you'd have no problems doing something that you enjoy. I keep an mp3 player on me while I explore Ann Arbor and I must say my surrounding seem profusely richer when it is accompanied by the right soundtrack. Of course attaining this meticulous synthesis of sound and sight is a sufficiently formidable task. But, when I get it right I'm high on life. Every genre of music that I spontaneously grow an affinity for is like discovering a wad of cash in a pair of pants you haven't worn in awhile. The capacity of my mind literally expand out half an inch in giddy euphoria.
Screw proper transitions. I just saw a documentary called "Youth Knows No Pain". It wasn't jaw droppingly amazing or anything but it was still pretty interesting. It's about the America's obsession with anti-aging and documents Americans desperately clinging to their already depleted youth. In a particularly superficial and vain society it's a good reminder that nothing lasts forever. One gentleman in the film was hit a little too hard by the reality train and was sobbing on camera. Do I feel bad? maybe a little....ok not at all. Sorry if I'm being insensitive but it was extensively amusing...holy crap someone in the fish bowl near me just farted hardcore..omg that is some raunchy egg...
Ok where was I? Ah I don't know it's too cold in here now anyway. You know when your fingers get numb that you need to leave the bowl (right under the AC FTL).
Filled in for a tigers game, ate amazing Greek food, met new friends, said goodbye to old ones, got my first flat bike tire, played Frisbee in the reflection pool, and finished it off watching "I Love You, Man". This weekend was pure spontaneity just the way I like it. Although everything didn't go the way I planned it could't have been better. Being in Ann Arbor year round for the past 5 years had me hating this place and longing for home, but after a big vay-kay in the Chi, it's not that much better than I had it in AA. Don't get me wrong though, home was definately amazing, but in the midst of hating and comparing I guess didn't realize how schweet my Michigan experiences (both good and bad) really were.
Man that summer went by real quick. So much has happened but honestly I'm to lazy to mention everything and when posts get long the don't get read. Time with the family was great but still not enough, I'm beginning think that all families are at least partially dysfunctional and when people mention some "model" family, they have a nasty and gritty underbelly. My minds been like a bomb straight up, and ideas, hobbies, plans, and such have been exploding every which way and I've only just begun to hone it back down. Speaking of which, never though I'd get into fixed gear but I was looking for a bike to get me onto campus (now that I live off campus) and at that exact moment in time Baekkyoung teetered me towards getting a fixie. So yea I guess I'll be doing 2 things this year.
1. Guitar 2. Biking everywhere
I think I calculated that if I ride 150 miles (practically) I pay for the bike with saved gas money. Dropped a lot of dough on the bike (although to bikers it's maad cheap) and it's coming in tomorrow so I'm excited. So if anyone wants to RIIIIIDE while the weather is NIIICE call me up.
*Prototype of what I kinda want the bike to look like in the future.
*Disclaimer – I know very well everyone is at different stages in their spiritual walk, and that I can’t expect everyone to understand immediately and act instantly. I’m not trying to condemn or judge anyone in any way so please believe me when I say that this is all out of love and I have the most sincere of intentions. God has been pressing this conviction on me so hard and for so long so what can I do besides pray and share these feelings I have. (Sorry if I’m repeating things you already know, I know this post is really long!)
I’ve been looking around our church and listening to many peoples’ experiences this year and I see that our church, HMCC Ann Arbor, is not doing so well and all of us are to blame. The problem I see is that our church (a unified body of believers) is not fully devoted and surrendered to God. It seems as though we don't have the kind of love for our Lord that the Gospel message should elicit. Our church along with many other churches across the globe have fallen so far from standard of what church should be as stated in Act 2:42. This was the type of maximized church that God was thoroughly pleased with and “added to their number daily those who were being saved” (All of heaven rejoices when just one person comes to know Christ, can you imagine the ruckus in heaven in this situation?). They were fully devoted to His teachings, loved God and each other, and joyfully served with all their heart and soul. This church basically lived out Matt 22:37-40. And obviously in order to create a church that is fully devoted to God, the Christians that make up the church need to be fully devoted to Him. I feel that the modern church especially in the west has fallen under the “consumer mindset”. We treat church (myself included) like a spiritual medicine cabinet, coming every Sunday for a daily dose of God to alleviate our trouble, aches, and pains we endured that week. Faith without works and love without obedience are oxymora. Whatever happened to the “surrender and obedience in worship” aspect of our Christian walks?
YES, let me reassure you that salvation is indeed a gift from God; given to us purely out of His love and grace, but at times I feel we forget what this ACTUALLY means. We are quick to remember Eph 2:8-9 and completely forget Eph 2:10. As James 2:26 says, “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.” In a world where obedience, surrender, and full devotion to God have lost all appeal, I just want to remind everyone of the beauty of a life fully committed to Christ.
In my experiences there are 3 basic reasons why we as believers should obey God. These reasons are as follows: because He is God, because we are rewarded, and because it is (or should be) our desire. (I’ll try to keep this as short as possible)
1. We should obey God because He is God and He commands us to obey. - I feel that this point needs no explanation if we fully understand the concept of who God is, and what we are in comparison to Him.
God = The one Supreme Being, the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator, creator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship.
- We are merely creation, the formed, man. Although I don’t want to use the word insignificant here (because God doesn’t regard as so), but we are INSIGNIFICANT and infinitely beyond miniscule in comparison to God.
- As man who are we to disobey God? Need I mention the numerous times in the Bible calls us to obey? The book is RIDDLED with it! Our attitude shouldn’t be “what do I get out of obedience?” but rather “how dare I disobey an Almighty God”.
Verses – Lev 18:4, Dt 30:11-14, Ro 9:20, 2 Tim 2:20-21
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. We should obey God because we are rewarded when we do so. - Whenever we “suffer” in our obedience, why is it that we always feel that we are LOSING something? Every time we give a hefty offering, struggle to love/serve people we dislike, or sacrifice a few hours a week at a soup kitchen, why do we focus so much on what we are “losing”? Losing time and money or enduring frustration and pain is absolutely NOTHING compared to the reward we will receive. We are getting the better end of the deal!!
-Ex. = Picture this, you land an unpaid internship at Nike and they work you to the bone with degrading tasks. The CEO comes to you one day while you’re in half delirium and sipping his café latte he pompously and “empathetically” says, “Man...We got it rough, don’t we?” Personally, my reaction would be “Shut your mouth you’re getting paid billions and doing almost nothing for it!!”
- I see no difference between our service/works for the Lord and this CEO. Any hardship in obedience pales infinitely in comparison to the rewards God promises for our devotion. We’re really doing almost nothing when we think about what we’re getting in return. I almost feel guilty that I’m obeying with a partial ulterior motive of heavenly reward. How can we think of obedience as charity or suffering when we gain SO MUCH from it? Again, the Bible is saturated with promises of rewarding those who are fully devoted and obedient to God.
Verses: Ro 8:28, Rev 22:12, 2 Ch 16:9, Jos 1:8, Ps 37:4, 2 Ch 31:21, Dt 28:1, Heb 11:6
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. We should obey God because it is our desire (the most important imo) - It should be our utmost desire to obey God. Even if He didn’t tell us to we should be longing for a life fully committed to Him. And this desire should come from our faith in the Gospel message! Every time we are reminded of the “Good News”, our reaction and response should be ECSTATIC, JOYFUL, and ZEALOUS obedience and devotion to His will.
- If this isn’t our reaction then maybe we should spend this Lenten season REALLY reflecting on what the Gospel message means to us as Christians.
- Ex.1 = you forget to look down the street and obliviously cross a busy street. As you are about to get hit by a bus, some guy tackles you out of harm’s way and saves your life.
- Ex. 2 = It’s finals week and graduation is on the line, but because you squandered all your time partying all month you fail each final and thus flunk each class…that is until your professors decide to (although you don’t deserve it AT ALL) drop all your finals’ test scores enabling you to ace every class and graduate with honors.
- If you put yourself in those positions what would be your reaction? Would it be “Oh cool! Thanks a bunch man, I think I’m gonna go home and take a nap.”? HELL NO!!!
I’d be like, “Holy *&@^#!!! Oh my freaking goodness!! What the HECK is going on?!?!!? Hey man you literally just saved my life!! Is there anything I can do?! I owe you my life!! Holy mothercrapper this is INSANITY!! AHHhhhhhh!! *inhale* Ahhahhahhahhahhaha!! Whatever you want, whenever you want I’ll do it!! Just ask!!!”
- Even if the guy/professor refused I’d throw myself at his feet, and I DEFINITELY wouldn’t shrug it off and take a nap. But when the stakes are greater and the recipient is the King of Kings we do exactly that.
- Jesus went through the worst crap fathomable to save our SOULS from ETERNAL DAMNATION even though we did NOTHING to deserve it, and yet many times we “shrug it off and take a nap” or worse, we choose to live in disobedience and rebellion. WHY?!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIDEO: Here is a video clip I found of the isolated Mouk tribe of Papua New Guinea. A missionary group has been living there for years trying to learn their language from absolute scratch (literally grunts and body language) and finally they learned enough to share the Gospel message for the first time. This was their reaction to the “good news”.
After watching this, I finally grasp the meaning behind what Paul says in 1 Th 1:3
“We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The church mentioned in Acts 2:42 is very possible in our time! Let’s pray for revival!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IN-A-NUTSHELL
For those who don't want to read the wall of text here is short summary.
To restore church to the what it's supposed to be (Acts 2:42), the members of the church need to pray (1 Th 5:17) and obey these commands (Matt 22:37-40) out of love for God (1 Jn 5:3) which comes from a true understanding of (Jn 3:16).
So as you have already seen by now e-communications are back online (facebook wall and gchat have been enabled). The reason I stopped these modes of communication in the first place was because I felt that it was dehumanizing (if that's even a word) people in social settings. It was causing people to become more physically isolated while not feeling that way. Face to face conversations were becoming mere monosyllabic dialogues and humans were forgetting how to interact in the "real world". Yes I know that there are many benefits to theses express modes of e-communication but I'd rather live without these benefits if it was going to extract emotion and life from everyday communication. However a recent turn of events has caused me to think otherwise. The fact of the matter is the world is moving towards that direction. But I realized that to use the chat/text phenomenon for a greater purpose would be much more powerful than to merely rebel by abstinence. More thoughts on this later, but for the time being see you on "the net".
<----the film
