11/29/2016

I realize having food together with somebody is a great way to get close to that somebody. When you eat food together with one person, you can focus on that one person and talk to that person naturally while eating. I think I haven’t really fully used this opportunity to build deeper friendship with my friends. I don’t know why but suddenly tonight I felt like contacting my friends and asking them for lunch or dinner together. I don’t know how it will go, but I pray God that you would bless those times so that with my fellow Christian brothers and sisters we might grow together and I also pray that with my unbelieving friends I may show them love of Christ. Father God, I repent how I lived my life in a so self-centered way that I haven’t eat with them once. I pray that you would work in my heart through your Spirit through the gospel of Jesus Christ that I may be filled in Christ, who is the head of all rule and authority.

With all the friends and brothers or sisters in Christ that you have blessed, I will try to love them by talking to them, paying attention to them, and breaking bread with them. So, from now on, I pray for your help oh God. Help me please. In Christ’s name I pray to God my Father, Amen.

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
“You shall not murder.”
“You shall not commit adultery.”
“You shall not steal.”
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, wife, or his male and female servant, or his ox, donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

니체의 말

“살아 있는 물고기를 손에 넣기 위해서는 밖으로 나가 스스로 낚아 올려야 한다. 마찬가지로 자신의 의견을 가지기 위해서는 스스로 자신의 생가을 깊이 파고들어 언어화하지 않으면 안 된다. 그것은 물고기 화석을 사는 것보다 나은 일이다. 자신의 의견을 가지는 것이 성가시다고 생각하는 사람들은 돈을 지불하고 상자에 든 화석을 산다. 이 화석은 곧 타인의 낡은 의견이다. 그리고 그들은 돈을 주고 산 의견ㅇ르 자신의 신념으로 삼는다. 그런 그들의 의견은 살아있음의 생기가 전혀 느껴지지 않고, 언제까지나 항상 그 상태로 정체해 있다.”

“논리적이고 설득력 있는 문장을 쓰기 위해 문장의 기술을 아무리 배웠다고 해도 논리적인 글을 쓸 수 있는 것은 아니다. 자신의 표현이나 문장을 개선하기 위해선, 기술을 배우기 이전에 자신의 머릿속을 개선하는 일이 우선이다. 이것을 바로 이해하지 못하는 사람은 언제까지고 눈앞의 기술에만 사로잡혀 있게 된다.”

“자신의 생각을 말할 때 우리는 가지고 있는 언어로 표현한다. 가진 언어의 양과 깊이가 빈약하면 우리 사고의 폭과 깊이도 빈약하다고 말할 수 있다. 많은 언어를 아는 것은 많은 사고를 갖게 되는 것이다. 많은 사고를 가지면 보다 넓게 생각할 수 있고, 훨씬 폭넓은 가능성을 손에 넣을 수 있다.”

“대화. 생각 없이 하는 세상 살아가는 얘기나 소문의 응수가 아니라 정해진 무언가에 대하여 차분히 의견을 나누는 것은 매우 중요하다. 왜냐하면 그런 대화에 의해서 자신이 무엇을 생각하고 있는지, 무엇을 간과하고 있는지를 분명히 자각할 수 있고 문제의 요점이 어디에 있는지도 지금보다 더 명료하게 볼 수 있기 때문이다. 그럼으로써 하나의 사고라는 것이 만들어진다. 혼자서 우물쭈물 생각만 한다면 사고는 맴돌기만 할 뿐 아무것도 정리되지 않는다. 그때, 대화는 서로에게 사고의 산파가 되어 도움을 준다.”

“제대로 생각하는 사람이 되고 싶다면 최소한 다음의 세가지 조건이 필요하다. 사람과 교제할 것, 책을 읽을 것, 정열을 가질 것.”

“왜 고독한 것일까? 자신을 제대로 사랑하지 못하기 때문이다. 자신을 제대로 사랑하지 못하기에 인간은 고독한 것이다.”

Lord, in the eyes of the world, we are truly weaklings, lacking in wisdom and power. And Lord, we are not only foolish according to worldly standards, even after we became Christian, we are so far from being conformed to the image of you, oh Lord. Father, forgive us of our sins. Even though we hear and know the gospel of your Son, we do not live a life in praise to you, pleasing to you. Father I pray that you may forgive one and each of us for failing to love you and our neighbors. We are so underserving of your grace oh God. So we once again look up to Jesus Christ. Oh God you provided him for us. And we do not forget actually we cannot forget that verse of the first corinthians. It says “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus.” Because of God the Father, we are in Christ Jesus. It is God who made peace with us when we were at odds with God. It is God who took the initiative for our salvation and completed all that is needed. As a sinful creature who stands guilty before God, there was indeed nothing men can do to save themselves and make their relationships right with God. Instead, we increase our dept of eternal punishement by sinning against God’s just laws. And that’s exactly when God sent his only Begotten Son into this world which has been a stage where all the human efforts to accomplish salvation proved to fail. It is really completely out of God’s unconditional love and mercy and patience and kindness that he planned to save us. “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written,”Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” Nothing I bring to thee but oh Christ, I cling to thee. I cannot thank you more oh God. It’s thy grace too gracious to fully thank for. Oh God you sent your Son for us. Jesus my Lord, you have declared the gospel, the good news of grace. In you and you alone, I enjoy all of God’s favor. I do not and I cannot comprehend your grace oh God shown through your act of giving your Son to us as our mediator. Your grace of the covennt of grace in which you promised to be our God. How can it be that God who created us and judges us, assumed the human nature and lived and died to save the creatures. It was indeed only what you can do. It has to be that way. Jesus Christ, the God-man, who kept his laws perfectly, and received the cup filled with the eternal wrath of God against the sins of all the elect against the supreme majesty of God. Thanks oh Father, thanks oh Jesus Christ, thanks oh Holy Spirit who applies the work of Christ to my soul. In your name only by which my prayer will be heard by God, Amen.

11/22/2016

As hours pass by and days go by, it is so easy for us who live in temporal world that we lose sight of what is eternal and what is really important. Far often, we are so bound up with earthly matters that we pay no attention to heavenly matters. It is only when we are truly aware of the gospel and the knowledge of God’s will, that we can live this life with joy, peace, self-control and purpose. After all, out lives, we do not live to ourselves but to the Lord, who lived and died for us to be our Lord. Every decision we make, every minute we spend, do we really base all of our living based on the relationship we have in Jesus Christ? Do we really live this life to glorify God? Do we always focus our eyes on him? How sad and sinful that we cannot but say no we do not live like that. Father I once again repent how much I’m lacking of self-control that I live Godless life and do not trust upon thee through my whole day. I ask for your forgiveness in thy Son Jesus Christ who alone is my salvation and redemption. Day by day, until the perfection of my body and soul comes, I pray Lord that you may sanctify me to be prepared and ready for the eternal heaven where my holy and righteous God dwells.  We need you more and we seek you and hope to find you more fully through the illuminating and Christ-glorifying work of the Holy Spirit. Life eternal is to know one and only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. For us who are created in your image to enjoy and glorify God forever, Jesus is all we need for in Christ, we can have that spiritual blessings and fullness coming from God. Lord is the very image of the invisible God. Everything we ever need, we ever get hungry or thirsty for, Christ provides us with his true body and blood. Those things that all human kind so wholeheartedly longs for and desires for are found in all that God has to offer to us freely by his infinite grace. Affection, acceptance, freedom, and validation we enjoy these in fellowship with our great elder brother Jesus Christ. Once again thank you for your blessing Lord and I pray that you keep reminding me of these things through ordinary means of grace. In Jesus name,Amen.

The question is not what do you feel or what do you experience. Because if you look for these you go deeper within yourselves and you find darkness, emptiness, idols there rather than spiritual fullness that comes apart from ourselves

The question is what do you believe? What is true? What do I believe? Stable faith is only possible with the gospel. The doctrines of the bible are the firm foundations in which the Christ God 

11/20/2016

After hearing Rev. Mike Brown’s sermon, I start to think differently on the seriousness of my sin. I start to have a different perspective when I think about the death of Jesus Christ and salvation that I enjoy in him. Before, I used to take God’s salvation for granted. As going to church and hearing the gospel message become usual routine, I think I lost sense of the magnitude of God’s blessings bestowed upon my soul. Especially, I forgot that God is a just and righteous God who requires every sin to be punished according his law. The Heidelberg Catechism perfectly puts in answer to 10th question, that “God’s justice demands that sin committed against his supreme majesty, be punished with the supreme penalty–the eternal punishment of body and soul.” This implies that I always have to remind myself of the Lord who paid the claims of God’s justice. Christ had to be punished with the supreme penalty in our place, which is the eternal punishment of body and soul. Indeed, there was, is, and will be no one who can fully pay this debt we owe to God. This is because we are not only able to endure God’s judgment but also we rather increase our debt daily by sinning as a result of inherited original sin and pollution thereof. However, there is no one on this earth who can bear the weight of God’s wrath against sin. That is exactly why in assigned time, my Lord Jesus Christ assumed human nature and was born as the true God-man who had these two divine and human natures in one being. In this way, Lord could bear through his divinity the eternal wrath of God in his humanity so as to restore to us and earn for us the righteousness and life.
In application of this gospel to my soul, I always remember that Jesus had to pay the debt of the consequences of my sin, which is eternal damnation in hell. Since, just God is satisfied with the atonement of his Son, I can therefore be accepted by God and declared righteous by God. When we make love of God the most important thing of the gospel, and lose sight of God’s justice, we really make God’s grace cheap. The greatness and glory of God’s wondrous works of redemption would be belittled if we consist on holding fast only to God’s love and believing that he would cancel out any sins without punishment. God is glorified through the cross on which his justice and love coexist in his Son and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

11/20/2016-Lord’s day

Lord, it’s been really long time that I felt this kind of feeling again. I’m really not sure how to describe this emotion. I think it’s a result of having a community of people where I can be comfortable. Lord, help me not to make an idol out of it but enjoy it in you. Let me always lift my eyes of faith up to heaven where you dwell. Lord, I pray that your will be done. Your purpose would be accomplished. I pray that I may be conformed to your very image and sanctified that I may find more joy in you. Lord, thank you so much for allowing me to become a part of this community of yours and have fellowship with your people. Even though we are all sinners, we are bound together by the blood of thy precious Son, Jesus Christ. We indeed owe everything to you beginning from what we are to what we ever hope to be. Father, would you bless us so that we may become men and women of faith, firmly grounded on your teaching. So that we can continue in this relationship with you oh God, and always make most out of you. Amidst of all these happy and blessed moments, would you guide our affection to you so that through the gifts we may enjoy more of the giver? Lord, this people are your people. And you are truly our God. You committed yourself to us by the covenant of grace where you promised to become our God through the mediator Jesus Christ. Let us, O God, be filled with joy, comfort, peace, freedom, love and hope through understanding the knowledge of your will and glorious heavenly reality. Let us be filled with your Holy Spirit and let our communion be Christ-centered and Christ-exalting. Lord, we give thanks to you on this very Lord’s day where we celebrate thanksgiving day.

Sermon note – Jonah 3

Sermon is by Rev. Mike Brown of Christ URC in Santee.

Jonah – the worst qualified prophet. Loser, failure who disobeyed God. why God did choose him?
God can use anybody, he doesn’t need Jonah, but he chose him to do mighty work of God’s grace in his heart. Likewise, we are losers and failures and God shows his grace again and again.
Jonah – proud of being Israelite, self righteousness.
This book is about prophet himself unlike other prophet books.
God gives Jonah a second chance. God does not hold grudge against us. We are a lot less merciful and patient than God. Because of bitterness and grudges we hold, we say I’m done with you. But God is fully committed to us through the covenant of grace.
Jonah still needs more. Still disqualified. But still God uses Jonah.
Consequences for the sin. God continuing to show his mercy to Jonah.
“You hurt me, I’m done with you.” He placed all his grudges in his Son. His business is to save us now. God removes our sin, and welcomes us again and again every time we realize the only hope is to turn away from ourselves.
+Now God works in Nineveh people’s hearts. Repentant people.
Nineveh was the capital of evil empire, the most powerful city on the earth built on brutality, and evil of the Assyrians. Jonah’s disdain and hatred against Nineveh.
Our God is good, he is preparing us for heaven.
Word did the work. And reaches the king, merciless, ruthless king of Nineveh.
“Who knows?” You bring my message to the whole world. We don’t get to decide who will get mercy or not.
2 Cor 5. We are all like Jonah.

11/19/2016 – Sermon summary on Colossians 1:12-14

Sermon is by Rev. Mike Brown

Four things that God has already done for us Christians.
“What God has done for you lately?”
1.God has qualified you to be a saint (holy one).
We are qualified to belong to holy assembly of all those who are made perfect, righteous by Jesus Christ. The most difficult qualification is to become a saint. The standards of God to be meet. The righteousness that is as good as God’s righteousness. Because of the fall, we are automatically disqualified, sinning against God and neighbors. No one, except one that is Christ. The God-man who assumed human flesh, who met the whole qualification to be a saint. ‘We daily increase our guilt.’ By taking the righteousness of Christ and imputing to us, received by faith alone. God declares we are qualified. When Satan raises all of these accusations, God declares ‘qualified,’ for we have our mediator Jesus Christ.

2. God has delivered us from the domain of darkness.
The tyranny, control of darkness. Darkness comes in two forms. Intellectual and moral darkness. Light intellectually represents truth. Also moral light – purity and holiness. Through Christ we have deliverance. Sin is not our master and Satan is not our Pharaoh anymore. Deliverance – old testament background of Exodus 6. God has delivered

3. God has transferred us to the kingdom of his Beloved Son.
The joy of being transferred.
God is no longer my judge, he is my Father, Father in heaven. 4

4. Lastly, we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.
Redemption: buying slave out of slavery, buying somebody out of a position which requires a purchase (redemption price). Jesus paid the great price. We had a dept that God couldn’t cancel out, we couldn’t pay, It was paid by Jesus. It was finished (paid in full). Not one sin, that I committed stands against us Christians. Paid in full. The price is paid in full. The price of death which is signified through the blood of Jesus Christ.

In sum, what God has done is Christ. We have Jesus Christ. Sparing us, and sending him to save our lives. Resting happiness on things of the earth is vain. He is not saying ‘be thankful for things that are given to you on earth.’ Rather, the Holy Spirit is saying, focus on things that are unseen.

11/17/2016

Lord, I constantly need your grace and mercy. I fail every single day. I live in a sinful state. I need your gospel again and again. I want to grow spiritually, and I want to have a power to overcome evil within me. Father, I look up to your only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, who is my righteousness. Through his blood, Christ has bought me and I belong to him as a result. He is my representative for ever. Indeed oh Lord, that is my only hope in life and death.
I’m so quick to forget God’s grace and the gospel. I need to remind myself of all the blessings I have and the purpose of my life, which is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.