15 + 1

Billy and I were chatting the other day and he said "Dang I didn't expect this much work for missions training. I have to memorize so many bible verses!" And I had an epiphane... memorizing verses is just like loading bullets into your gun!

It may be tedious. But you don't want to go to the frontlines and find yourself with an empty cartridge. Whether it's for defense or offense, we gotta lock and load:

1) Defense - Jesus was tempted 3 times by the devil. Each time, Jesus defended Himself and fought against Satan with Scripture.

2) Offense - The Bible tells us to put on the whole armor of God: the belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of readiness, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit. Only ONE offensive weapon--and that's "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Eph 6:17)"

*In gangsta terms, they call that 15 + 1. That means your 9mm handgun is locked and loaded. 15 bullets in the clip, and 1 in the chamber... ready to fire and kill someone at any moment. Be ready to kill Satan at a moment's notice.

Lock and load baby. 15 + 1.

I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

[Psalm 119:11]

give the devil an INCH, and he'll become a RULER

When a little hole is opened to the devil, through which, it seems to you, he can hardly pass with his head, he has all he needs and slithers in with his entire body. [Martin Luther]

Watch yo self.

i FEEL ya tozer

O God, I have tasted Your goodness,

and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.

I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace.

I am ashamed of my lack of desire.

O God, The Triune God,

I want to want You;

I long to be filled with longing;

I thirst to be made more thirsty still.

Show me Your glory, I pray,

so I may know You indeed.

Begin in mercy a new work of love within me...

Give me grace to rise and follow You up from this misty lowland

where I have wandered so long.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

if only there were SOMEONE...

Job says in Ch. 9:
³³ If only there were someone to arbitrate between us,
to lay his hand upon us both,
³⁴ someone to remove God's rod from me,
so that his terror would frighten me no more.

Hmmm... if only there were...

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. [1 Timothy 2:5-6]

Just wasn't the proper time for you yet Job, haha. I'm on the other side of the cross, but you know what's cool? We still have the same Arbitrator! :D

i don't understand GRACE

I don’t understand grace. Not at all.

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. [Romans 5:7-8]

I am that sinner. And I am wickedly sinful. I am a super prideful, sexually lusting, attention loving, power hungry, greedy, brash, unloving, quick tempered, bigoted, self-glorifying, hard-hearted SINNER! And that's only the tip of the iceberg. You can't even imagine the evil thoughts that go through my mind/heart. And I sin daily, hourly, almost every few minutes. All the time.

And then... THE GOD, Almighty maker of the heavens and earth, comes to be humiliated as a man. Beaten to the point where his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness—And DIES a horrible death on the CROSS for ME?! FOR ME?! A wicked sinner...

Think about that. It doesn't even make sense. I feel like just saying "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!"

From disgrace to amazing grace. Sometimes I feel like it's too good to be true. I believe, but help my unbelief Lord.

slowly but SURELY

By perseverance the snail reached the ark.
[C.H. Spurgeon]

ICY HOT

The same sun that melts the ice, hardens the clay.

Likewise...the same Son that melts a believer's heart, hardens the heart of an unbeliever.

The ice begins hard and becomes weak. The clay begins weak and becomes hard. The more you hear the gospel, the closer you will be with Christ or the more numb you will be to it. Hate it or love it.

When you hear the gospel, which is it?

We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. As has just been said: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion."

[Hebrews 3:14-15]

we're ONLY on the cover and title page

"And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures... had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."

C.S. Lewis
The Last Battle

1 is a 100, and a 100 is 1

Don't be overly impressed nor disappointed by the turnout. Numbers don't mean crap. Whoever is there is there.. So give the gospel with a 100% of your heart. To an audience of 100, do so as if it were an individual. And if it's just 1 person, give the gospel like you would to a crowd of 100.

Dudes with helpful insight:
1) Charles Spurgeon once said that when you pay attention to the seat that is empty, you are paying a disservice to the one that is filled.
2) Mark Driscoll comments "even if there is one person, that one person is someone God has brought for us to minister to and if they are willing to come we must be willing to love them with Jesus love."

a BEAUTIFUL mind, a BEAUTIFUL savior

In the movie A Beautiful Mind, John Nash is a genius mathematician who develops paranoid schizophrenia. Throughout the movie he goes into these delusional hallucinations-- which are inhabited by an old man in a hat (Parcher), his 'friend' (Charles), and a young girl (Marcee) who lead him into ruin. He indulges in his imaginary life, and the deeper he gets into it, the more painful the loss and burden his condition brings to his wife and friends. The breaking point is when Parcher urges Nash to even kill his wife. He suffers immeasurably, and it seems like there is no solution... until, his wife Alicia looks him in the eye and says she'll love him until the end. From that point he doesn't pay attention to the imaginary characters, but instead focuses on the love of his wife. Even at the end of the movie, Nash and Alicia are about to leave an auditorium when John sees Charles, Marcee, and Parcher standing by and watching him. Yet he lives life freely because he no longer indulges on them but instead on the love of his life, Alicia.

I see an eerie resemblance between John Nash and ourselves as Christians. I especially see an eerie resemblance between A Beautiful Mind and Romans 6-7. We were once slaves of sin, but we are now free in regard to righteousness. Our flesh still dwells in us, but it does not control us nor is master over us. Just as John Nash used to indulge himself in his delusions, I once indulged in my sinful flesh. And while he broke his wife's heart as he indulged in his schizophrenia, so we break God's heart when we fall into sin. John Nash's solution was to focus on the love of his wife. And my solution-- the love of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. Parcher, Charles, and Marcee (our flesh) dwelled within him, even until the last day. But they were no longer master over him. Likewise, we will be struggling with our sinful flesh until the day we die, but our master is no longer sin, but Christ. So just as he gazed into his wife's eyes, let us just gaze directly into the eyes and love of God. That is our only Solution.

the great EXCHANGE

We don't get what we deserve.
We get what we don't deserve.

That exchange is made upon the cross.

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf,
so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

[2 Cor. 5:21]

HUNGRY again?!

So on Friday night I had "dduk-boh-sahm", or in English, "all-you-can-eat-korean-bbq". And it was delicious--I ate so much that I had trouble walking back to the car! I went to sleep thinking I don't need to eat for the next week. However, when I woke up on Saturday morning... I was sooo hungry again. Funny how that works huh? You go to sleep with your stomach about to explode, and then you wake up even hungrier the next morning.

I feel that's how it is with Bible reading. The more you read, the more you desire and hunger for the Word. Your spiritual stomach stretches...meaning, if you read a lot daily, you're going to need to read a lot on a daily basis in order to keep you fed spiritually. Vice versa, if you barely eat anything the whole day, your stomach shrinks and you don't really feel too hungry. If you barely read the Word, your need for it will never grow. Which means you will never grow spiritually either. So eat up fellas!

Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
[Matthew 4:4]