Unmemorable Memories

It is widely accepted fact that in the business world, it’s not what you know that will get you rising to the top. More often than not, it’s who you know that will get you there.

The same thing is true about the spiritual realm. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. We can know all we could about the Bible, Jesus Christ, the nature of God, biblical Prophecies, and so on… But if we do not know Jesus, all this knowledge is not going to get us anywhere.

And what’s more important than knowing Jesus, is Jesus knowing you! Why do I say that? In the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25:1-12, the bridegroom (which represent’s Jesus) denies the five foolish virgins entrance into the wedding feast by saying, “I do not know you.” So in the end, when Jesus comes, and takes his people home, only those whom he knows will go home with him.

Many claim that they know Jesus. But according to Matthew 7:21, ““Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.”

How can you ensure that Jesus will in the end say “I know you”? By having a genuine friendship relationship with him. This is a relationship that must encompass all aspects of your life. And when you have this kind of close relationship with him, your whole life will be transformed. You cannot have a relationship with Christ without being transformed. If you don’t experience transformation, then your relationship with Him is dead. Your relationship with Christ will transform you so that in all aspects of your life, Christ will be in control. Your dealings with everyone will be controlled by Christ. Your thoughts, your words, your actions, will all be controlled by Jesus.

In the end, when Jesus comes to take home his own, will he say to you, “depart from me for I do not know you” or will he say, “I know you, you are my child. Come join me in my kingdom”?

-- Posted in Bible, Religion and Philosophy

As bible believing Christians we are required to return the tithe, and give offerings. The question begs to be asked: why?

Why do we give tithe? Why do we give offerings?

It is easy to agree that tithing is required since that is plainly stated in Malachi 3:10, but are offerings required?

Why does God want us to give offerings? And how does this relate to my salvation?

Here’s how:

1. Those that will go to heaven are those that have accepted Christ.
2. Those that accept Christ are Christ-like.
3. What does it mean to be Christ like?

• meek
• humble
• trust the heavenly father wholely
• loving
• kind
• stands firm for the right

what about:

• unselfish
• generous
• gave all to the work of the God
• a good steward

In John 3:16 we read, “For God so *LOVED* the world that he *GAVE*…”

Because God loved us, he *gave*

Do you love God?

Do you love God’s people?

Do you love God’s church?

Do you want to be like Christ? Christ’s way of showing love was to *GIVE*.
If we love God, we must *GIVE*
If we love God’s people, we must *GIVE*
If we love God’s church, we must *GIVE*

Give what?
Talents
Time,
Treasures,

It’s easy to give your talents. Talents are easily given in the form of service. For example, someone who speaks well in public may be very willing to preach a sermon. Someone knows how to sing well, may sing at church or at evangelistic meetings.

Time and money on the other hand are probably the hardest to give.

We tend to say, “I don’t have enough for myself, how can I give?”

“I’m so busy with work, school, house chores, etc… that I don’t have time to devote to personal bible study, or for evangelism.”

“I have so many expenses that I don’t have enough money to give to the Church.”

Let me remind you that those are *VERY SELF CENTERED* reasons. It’s a *ME FIRST* reason. I don’t have enough for *SELF* so I can’t give to *GOD’s CAUSE*

Remember that God owns everything. We are merely stewards! A steward is one entrusted with the possessions of someone else. We don’t own our time. We don’t own our money and possessions. Those are God’s. We are merely managing ti for him.

If we are managers, we do not do what we want with what we manage. We simply do what the owner wants. If he wants us to throw it away, we throw it away. If he wants us to use it for ourselves, we use it for ourselves. If he wants us to give it away, we give it away!

What is your purpose in life? God has placed you here to be a blessing to those around you. You must use all that God has given you to help in God’s cause.

You are managing his resources. He wants his resources to be used for spreading the Gospel, paying the pastors, teachers, evangelists, missionaries. he wants his resources to be used to pay for proper christian education, to pay for running the schools, medical centers, and churches.

Christ teaches selflessness. He uses the principle of stewardship to fight against selfishness to teach us selflessness. We are to consider God first, others second, and ourselves last. Same with giving: We give to God first, then to others, then ourselves last. Tithe first, offerings next, our own expenses last.

If you do not follow this method, you are in violation of God’s plan.

The more you give, the less selfish you become. Your giving is therefore a measure of your selflessness. The more you give, the easier it is to give again.

The more you give, the more you realize your need of God. The more faith you will have that God will provide for your needs. Faithful stewardship therefore is a measure of your faith.

And now we have come full circle. Salvation is brought about by God’s grace through faith. Without faith we cannot take advantage of God’s grace. Faithful stewardship therefore is important in developing that faith that will allow us to accept God’s gift of grace.

-- Posted in Bible, Religion and Philosophy

Never open the door for the enemy to walk in. Once you let him in by just a little bit, an inch, a millimeter, or even less than that, he’s going to walk all over your life and you will lose control.

Recently, my office moved locations. Being a System Administrator, I would normally be in charge of moving all of the computer systems and bringing them back online with a minimum amount of downtime. Our company serves many clients who cannot afford to have their web services down for any amount of time. It was difficult to try to get them to agree to service disruptions during our move. The problem was that the move was schedule for Friday night thru Saturday. And certain systems was scheduled to go offline by 9 p.m. Friday and online by Saturday morning. There was no way I could possibly coordinate or help in any way on this move since it falls on the Sabbath.

Weeks before the move, I planned the execution of the move so that whomever will be doing the move, will have to do minimal reconfiguration and everything would work out. I tested my plan, refined it, re-tested it, refined it again until I was sure that the systems would just plug in and things would all work normally. Well, Murphy, or should I say the Devil, had different plans. 2 a.m. Saturday morning I received a call on my cell phone from work. I did not answer inspite of repeated calls. I picked up the message in the morning when I woke up. I was being called in to work as soon as possible to bring the systems online. I called back explaining that this was my Sabbath and that it would not be possible for me to work. Later that day, I received 3 more calls, from varying levels of management in the company requesting that I go in and bring the systems up.

Pressure was mounting. The request came from someone high up the command chain, who just a week before granted me my request. I felt like I was letting them down. I was feeling a mix of fear, anxiety, embarrassment, and defiance. However fear was what was growing. I started to think of ways to justify working. Could I just login remotely from home and fix the problem from there? After all I am not at work. I’m at home. I could also drive to work, and fix it. The problem is really simple and it would only take me 5 minutes to fix. That wouldn’t be working, right? Could I just phone the other sysadmins and walk them through the process of trying to get the systems running? That wouldn’t be work right? As I thought about it, I still could not convince myself that it was right. Yet I had this big fear of possible repercussions if i did not work. I started thinking, “God would understand. He is a merciful God after all. He will forgive me.” By the time Divine Service started at our Church, I was already praying continously. I was praying for anything. The prayers went from “God, please perform a miracle and get those systems running” to “God show me whether or not I should go and fix it”. If there ever was a time for me to claim the promise in 1 Corinthians 10:13, it is now.

For years, I’ve been preaching sermon upon sermon about how not to compromise our beliefs, about the importance of the Sabbath, about having faith that God will take care of you. Now is the time to put those sermons into action.

To make a long story short, I refused to succomb to the temptation to work. I kept reminding myself that my God is bigger than my bosses. My God can and will take care of me.
I made one final call on Saturday afternoon to a company VP (yes it has escalated that far up the chain). (God must have known my fragile condition at this point because this VP who had called me less than an hour ago and left me a voice message, did not pick up the phone, so I left him a message). I explained to him one more time how this is the Sabbath day, and I will not work on the Sabbath.

After Sunset, I went to work, got the systems up and running in 10 minutes. (It turned out that everything was already working as planned, it’s just that the sysadmin who did the move did not understand how to test if things were working correctly. Not his fault since I may have assumed he knew and I may not have communicated the test procedure to him).

It dawned on me that since everything was already working, this must have been a test of faith.

Two weeks later, there was another project that required my services on Friday night, thru Saturday. It made me nervous that this is the second time they are asking me to work an a project during Sabbath hours, which I will once again refuse. It was easier to refuse this time.

Later that week I was in a car with the individual who requested my involvement in that project. Enroute to a customer meeting he asked what my religious affiliation was and why I could not work from Friday evening to Saturday evening. He was simply curious.

I was able to share my beliefs openly with him.

If I had not stuck to my personal convictions, how effective would my life be as a witness? For one thing it would be very difficult for me to get out of the second request to work on the Sabbath. Further, my explanation of the Sabbath to my co-worker would not hold (if I was willing to violate it, then it why should he even consider it as an absolute truth?).

Lessons learned:
1) Stick to your guns. It gets easier the next time around.
2) Don’t open the door the slightest bit to the tempter. Once you do, it bursts out completely open, and you will be left vulnerable to him.
3) It is easy to talk, and preach about things, but living what you preach is difficult.
4) Only through constant/continuous communication with God through prayer and recitation of his promises, was I able to stand my ground. It is He, who gives me power to overcome temptation, and the power to live what I preach.
5) It is vital to safeguard ones integrity. Integrity gives your witness credibility.

-- Posted in Journal, Bible, Religion and Philosophy

… is a quotation from French philosopher Descartes attempting to prove that he existed. Usually translated as ‘I think, therefore I am’.

When asked the question, “How do you know you exist?” many people struggle to answer the question. Some who have had some exposure to philosophy will quote the above line without really understanding the reasoning behind it and without understanding how or whether it does or does not prove your existence.

One night, I asked Chris the following question while staring at her collection of teddy bears: “those bears, they don’t think. So do they exist?” A very interesting discussion ensued, which kept us up way past our bedtime.

How would you answer that question?

-- Posted in Bible, Religion and Philosophy

I asked Chris this question one afternoon while I was carrying Caitlin Ema in my arms. She was fast asleep, seemingly without a care in the world. But even during her waking hours, as long as she can see or smell one of us within a room, she seems happy and content. It’s as if all her troubles, problems, concerns (if babies have them) go away when her parents are around. I believe she does trust us.

Caitlin’s trust is probably based on her experience however limited that is. She trusts us because in the past we have consistently come to meet her needs.

Trust in God develops the same way. God provides for us in many aspects: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. If we can only be as observant as a baby, we can see that God is consistent in caring for us.

Caitlin’s life experiences are limited due to her very young age. Yet she has learned a lesson that many adults could learn. She has learned that she can trust us not only in things that we have done for her in the past, but for all her future unforseen needs. She sees beyond her experiences and has developed that trust into faith.

Many today only trust God but refuse to let that trust grow into faith. Many trust God to do for them only what He has done for them in the past. Their trust is limited by what they have experienced. They refuse to extend that trust into uncharted territories, into future events that they have never encountered or experienced, that may be even vastly different from those they have experienced. Only when we extend that trust into things that transcend our experience can that trust grow into faith.

-- Posted in Bible, Religion and Philosophy