Loving the Least

Investing? Investing now? Has your last month been full of great investments in the kingdom? If you are discouraged, watch this video. If you are encouraged, watch this video. The message is precisely what we are talking about.

Investing in the Right Stock?

Walking towards home? No, the real home. The home we all are walking towards. Whether we are heading toward an eternity apart from or with God, we are heading to our eternal destination, our eternal home. As discussed in the last meeting, our destiny is impossible to avoid. As Abraham journeyed from Ur to the promise land, we are journeying towards our death. Each one of us. No one escapes. Are you afraid? You should be, as ultimately we journey alone. At the end of our life, seemingly, it's just us The journey towards death is lonesome. But are we really alone? That's where the gospel penetrates us like an arrow through the heart. Jesus promises to be with us. Not only is Jesus present during this life when we need him, but he says he will be with us til the end (Ps. 23).

My wife said something interesting the other day. As we were talking about the afterlife she said, "It's interesting that people work their entire lives for the comfort of this world, seeking riches and a higher standard of living. But when they are faced with death, the only thing they ask for is what is truly important. Yet in most cases, people fail in their life to invest at all in the thing they ask for at the end." It's simple, but brilliant. Our money, fame, mind or anything that we invested in this life matters at all when faced with death. Simply the relationships we built are the only thing that matters at the end.

Here I see a dilemma. If relationships are what ultimately matter, why are we investing so much time into so many things that are totally unrelated. If the ultimate relationship is with Christ, the true Love, why don't we pour our soul into Him? Here the treasure lies. As stated in the sermon, we must invest in heaven, and the shortcut to that is investing in strengthening our relationship with Jesus. During the sermon, I talked about three practical ways of building treasures in heaven. Now, I give you the ultimate, Love Jesus with all your mind, your muscles and your being. This way, you will change so much that you will only make perfect investments, eternal investments. Hmm, this sounds awfully like a verse I know in a book somewhere...

Carl's Dusty Corner: Too Small to Lift His Head

I know the Christmas season is over, but I went to America for the holidays and couldn’t write anything until now. And, besides, is it ever too late or too early to talk about the Christ-child?
I think it must have been an awful thing for Christ. Colossians tells us that it was through Christ that the world was created (Col. 1:16). He formed the stars like clay and flung them into the vast and expanding black. He spun planets and set them on their courses. He forged atoms and set their elections in motion. And, for hundreds of thousands of years, and to this day, He sustained it all. He kept everything spinning and wheeling and burning and crashing. That is, until one day, when He stopped and did something else.
I’m not sure how the universe went on spinning once Christ was born. The One through Whom all things were created and are sustained was for thirty three years like one of His creations. And on the day He was born, the God that created universe had barely enough strength to lift His head.
A while back I heard a legend about that silent night that, after Christ was born, He was immediately able to speak and gave profound and wise words to those in attendance. Perhaps this story was started in order to show the Christ-child has being something other than normal, perhaps, better. That of course misses the entire point of the Incarnation. Christ’s birth was not God descending as God, but God descending to Man. It is like a king, throwing off his robes, tossing aside his scepter, and going to live as his subjects live. God threw off being God for a while.
I also heard another story that claimed that Mary was morally perfect. This was told to explain how Christ could have been born without sin. If that is the case, ours is hopeless. If Mary were perfect, then God bestowing His blessing upon her makes sense. She deserved and we can all hope to be like her someday. Except, we can’t. No one in this whole wide world can say he or she is morally perfect. That’s why we justify and rationalize. It’s why we have moral relativity, because people have gotten tired fighting against themselves. Their fortitude has failed and they can either accept that they are imperfect, or find a way around it. However, Christianity makes a startling claim in the image of a young peasant girl. Without earning it, without deserving it, she was chosen. Mary wasn’t chosen because she was special. If anything, she was chosen because she wasn’t. Because of that fact, her being with sin, we can rest assured that God can still work through us. He will find ways to use us, even though we fall very far short of Christ’s model.

Really Jesus

The stillness eases my soul. The tree stands proud, its branches garnering the family memories. The snow catches the sunlight reflecting the warm glow, truly a white Christmas. The constant smiles of family members remind me of Jesus, the Christ that was born. The season is finally reaching its apex as people all around the world, Christians or non, celebrate. But is it really Jesus?

There seems to be a disconnect, a separation of the God we believe and the Christ that was born. How do you picture Jesus? Many will describe a scene of angels singing in the fields. Many will recall the manger and the serene display. Mary, Joseph and the three wise men are a staple. Yes, these are part of Christmas. Yes, these remind us of the God we worship, which is a good thing. But no, this is not really Jesus. Jesus was simply a baby, the one and only God, but a baby: A helpless infant with no power to talk or crawl. Nothing about him was anything of a man who came to save the earth. Nothing that makes a man great was apparent. Born in a manger, a son of a carpenter. Simply a baby. Do you realize this?

None the less, he was real. The historical account, the authoritative biblical nerrative and non-biblical, ancient sources say so. He was really born, a baby, God. He smiled, pooped, spoke baby language and cried. He grew older, crawled, stood and eventually ran. He learned motor skills, learned to read, to make crafts. He was man.

But God. The almighty God who spoke to create, who spans the universe. The God whose power moves stars and creates gargantuan explosions like Super Novas. The God who mixed carbon and breathed to create life. The God who set nature to build upon one another. He was God.

He experienced everything we do. All the "goo-goos" of a baby's voice to the curious questions of a youthful mind. He lived to die, a death of a martyr, a savior. Over two thousands years ago he lived thinking of you to give glory to God. His awesomeness contained in one little baby. God is real. Jesus is real. A real man who lived, a real God who lives. 

Is He real now?

When Santa Gives You the Wrong Present

What is your wish from God? Do you find yourself disappointed sometimes that the answer to prayer wasn’t exactly what you had hoped for? Here is an interesting insight I recently shared on Facebook on unanswered prayer.

“First, I find that the modern interpretation of prayer focuses too much on the intercessory genre. As though this is the only prayer, science and other critics weigh much of its “debunking” on this particular type. The Bible is full of other types of prayer that it is hardly fair to base all prayer on this one category. Intercessory prayer is only part of the vast array of prayer and to focus on that and proclaim its seeming inadequacy is rather hasty.

Secondly, who are we to hurry God?  Modern man has made God into a vending machine. We pray one thing and we expect it to be answered in a few seconds (compared to eternity or even the old age of the earth, which I believe). God is not under any constraint to operate under our time line. I propose that prayer has been answered, he has given man the ability to cure small pox, construct buildings resistant to earthquakes and many more things which we take for granted. Many people, including me, proclaim he answers miraculously. However, our western mindset has deemed it inadequate because simply because it does not happen under a microscope. I would gently suggest that the reason prayer is not measureable is precisely because God wants man to have “faith” and not believe in a thing we can measure and see (Hebrews 11:1). Thus, the proclamation that miracles seem to happen in third world countries might carry more weight than we give it. I am willing to accept the many witnesses of people, including non-Christians, that state they have seen a miracle. I can certainly expound on some of real life examples, but that probably would not add to the discussion as critics might undermine those experiences as it did not occur in labs. Who am I to judge their senses as inadequate? I believe in the proclamation of scientists who I have not met as much as the average man who have experienced miraculous things.

Finally, I think the purpose of prayer is skewed. God is not Santa Clause. To utilize a verse from Matthew 7:9 and proclaim God gives us if we ask is elementary in the understanding of the Bible. 1 John 5:13-15 provides a perfect “if” clause to intercessory prayer. It is only when we are praying for things that coincides with His will, is it answered. There is no clause to when the prayer be answered. It is simply answered according to his will. I might add, in his timing. I propose that the purpose of prayer lies somewhere else. It lies in our relationship and our deepening relationship with Him. God does not necessarily care for what we pray, but that we do pray. Just as I enjoyed a cup of coffee with my dad discussing theological topics and drawing our relationship even closer, God invites his followers to draw closer to him. If the answer is a “no” all the more are we to go to God and seek what it is he ultimately wants.”

Check what you are praying for. Many times, the only prayer we pray are ones of want. We wish for something to happen in hopes that God will make our lives a little better. We are disappointed when it is not answered right away as though we know what is best for us! Christmas season has turned into a “getting game” where our goal has become acquiring things as fast and much as we can. Check your prayers; don’t let it follow the same path as Christmas.

Carl's Dusty Corner: God Goes Boom

In this first article written for “The Dusty Corner,” I want to do something incredibly stupid. I’m going to disagree with my pastor. In his sermon in November, he wrote that one of the sins of the ancient tower builders was to build a tower in order to bring God down to our level. Because, he said, it is wrong to bring God down to us.

                I disagree. I don’t think it’s wrong. In the exact same passage, right after the haughty declaration of the tower builders about their intentions, the Bible says that God came down to see what they had done. God actually came down to inspect what they had accomplished. The Trinity (as clearly seen in God’s use of ‘us’ in verse seven) did exactly what the people wanted them to do. They built an enormous tower “…with its top in the heavens…” and they did indeed “…make a name for themselves…” The only thing they failed to do was stick together.

                If Mike is right about their intentions (and we have no reason not to believe him) then the tower builders said, “Let’s pull God down to our level,” and God said, “okay.” That was the fatal mistake. They threw their rope around God and, rather than stubbornly refusing to yield, he submitted, he came down, and he wrecked everything.

                That’s the point, I think. Bring God down to our level may be sinful, but it is definitely stupid.

                You see, this universe was not created for God. He didn’t make it to contain Himself. He made it to contain us. That’s why, wherever we go, we can create beautiful things, because we are simply mimicking, in a very small way, God’s own acts of creation. He built the universe by the words of His mouth; we build worlds with the words of our pens. He paints with brilliant colors upon a canvas sky; we paint with brilliant colors the sky upon a canvas.

                Because of this, this universe is too small for our God. God is a doll maker who has built a big, beautiful dollhouse. Of course, we all know what would happen if a doll maker tried to live in his tiny house. He would tear the tiny timbers to pieces. He would destroy everything he made. This is our God and this is what happened at Babel. The tower builders built a bridge to heaven and God came down, but He broke the furniture.

                But, it doesn’t end there, for what God destroys by His presence, He rebuilds with His hand. There are no longer acts of creation. That ended on the seventh day of creation. From that time until now, God has only recreated. When God came down into the garden after Adam and Eve sinned, He broke His relationship with man. Never again would He and Adam wander through the garden like they used to. But, God had to break that relationship, in order to repair it. For, if He had allowed Adam to stay, Adam never would have chased after God. God separated Himself from Adam in order to reunite with Him later.

                Again, look at the Flood. The world was corrupt and evil. God saw this and sent a massive flood, destroying all but a handful of people. Why? So that He could re-establish a godly world afterwards. In fact, I think you will find, where ever God goes, chaos either precedes Him (as it does in 1 Kings 19) or is with Him (as in when God visited the Egyptians and killed their firstborn), but, in both of those cases, as in many others, God rebuilds after. When Elijah experiences earthquakes, strong winds, and fire, God whispers His instruction to him. After God lays Job down low, He builds him back up better than He was. This is because God must break before He can rebuild.

                The ultimate expression of this process is to be found in Christ’s very life. Christ was not a peaceful man. He used a whip to drive out business men and was constantly getting into arguments with various people. Nor was He a violent man, for He often sat with children and had a tender heart to those who are hurting. However, despite all that, God had Jesus’ body torn to shreds and His relationship snapped like a string. Why? So that through Christ, God could rebuild our bodies into what they used to be and to make our relationship with Him what it was back in the garden before all this ridiculousness began. Jesus came to Earth and His presence has not ceased to be felt.

                God came down to the ancient tower builders and broke their little town into pieces exactly so that He could rebuild a world from it, a world he intended to redeem through the breaking of His son.

                Now, of course, I don’t actually disagree with Mike. He wasn’t wrong in any sense. I merely wish to point out that not only is it sinful to bring God down to our level, it’s ill advised, because, when you do, you’re inviting destruction to reign down upon you, because that’s the only way God can rebuild you.

And Christmas Begins

Rarely is the word “thanks” enough. In fact, our gratitude must be expressed in something other than simply stating the obvious. It must be expressed in a motion, an outflow of our emotion. Sometimes all we can do is simply stand facing the creator God. Our hands raised in awe of the one who made it all. Join me this Christmas season and stand, our hands raised and our hearts abandoned. Praising the baby who gave it all.