Justified or Incarcerated

Most of Americans where shocked seeing the tragedy of Connecticut shooting.  20 children among 26 victims were pronounced dead at the scene.  It grieves me just writing about this.  Today, four firefighters responded to a fire outside Rochester, NY.  At the scene all four were shot by a gunman, only two were pronounced dead.  Also today, in Houston, a police officer was killed by just doing his job.  Men who serve the people by people are being targeted.  There was another man who came to serve two thousand years ago, but by his own people was murdered.  His name is Jesus Christ.  "He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him." (John 1:11).  It looks like people have hard time receiving help when they really need it. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/police-officer-fatally-shot-houston-18057335#.UNjJWqWiwiU http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/firefighter-shot-at-scene-of-blaze-in-western-ny-2-homes-burn...

http://wallpaperscristaos.com.br/christianwallpapers/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/faith-God-wallpaper_1920x1200.jpg “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen"—Heb 11:1 Friend of mine recently asked me what I knew about faith.  Right away I made an attempt explaining him faith since I’ve been a Christian for few years now.  After a long discussion, we both decided to study faith and get back to this topic.  Faith is a word often heard in churches; when reading the Bible, just in New Testament we find 243 verses that mention the word faith.  When I began reading all these verses and thinking about them, I understood that I had little knowledge of faith.  Faith is a general and practical topic in Christianity, but I knew little about it.  So the question I want to ask is this: what is faith? Studying the scripture, the best description we find is in Hebrews chapter eleven verse one: “Now faith i...

Today me and my wife (Ira) are celebrating our first year marriage anniversary.  What a year! God has been so gracious towards two of us in brining us together in this world.  So I decided to share what I faced being a husband during my first year of marriage.     Before I continue writing my experience, I want to say that I am not a perfect husband (it's hard to know this unless you are my wife), but everyday I find my self in need of God's grace to be that husband.  I rely not on my ability to reason and lead, but I rely on the scripture and it's ability to lead me where God want's me to be.  In the humblest way, there are great man who love God and their wives, and I am honored to learn from them towards how to be a godly husband.   In my fist year being a husband, I found myself being challenged in three areas: I was a man who needed to understand my wife, know where to lead our family, and show genuine care towards her.  I tell ever...

Trusting in God's Sovereignty – Grace Bible Church You can get more sermons here:   http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Audio-and-Multimedia/Speakers-Lectures-and-Sermons/Jerry-Bridges/

Four reasons why I think the men's hiking was a blessing to our church.  Since God calls men to lead, the men's hike contribute towards the biblical understanding in who is a man. Here's my reasons: Leader who trusts God One of the events that we had at this men's hike was to look at the life of Joseph.  We observed how Joseph was sold to slavery by his brothers, how he was slandered by Potiphar's wife.  But through his life, even the circumstances that were unpleasant and hurtful, he remained trusting and fearing God.  Joseph, looked at the evilness of his brothers and saw the good in it.  "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today" (Genesis 50:20).  For the man to lead, he needs to put his trust in God and live the life to the fullest no matter how others treat him, no matter how different are the circumstances—a thought that was in my m...

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.  And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.  And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.”  And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.  Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”  And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.  Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.”  So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the e...

The thing about the piano guys is that they don't only play good music, but they bring as much emotions and the art of performing to the viewers.  There use to be time that the only way to hear music is only go watch someone play the instrument.  Phonograph and radio invention brought music from theaters to peoples home, then tape player, then cd player, the music switched from live performance to the speakers.  Even these days, from an iPad people can perform a music piece, just using technology.  The live music performance slowly faded away.  The Piano Guys brought not only the professional skills, but also emotions and the art that the song brings.  The refreshing scenes and the performance really come together beautifully.  I haven't seen anyone do that good of a job as these guys—a hard work blesses others. Proverbs says, "The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing...

http://honeyandlocusts.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/pointing-finger.jpg Discipleship leads towards a healthy life before God. Recently, one of my friends asked me about how to work with a person who has a pattern of expressing cold, critical, judgmental, and defensive responds when confronted with corrections. Eventually, the cold, critical, judgmental and defensive behavior at the end of the day only hurting the person who acts this way. Discipleship is not focused on cultivating friendship, which friendship plays a roll, but on sharpening the areas that are sinful, unhealthy, and destructive for the soul. Proverbs says, "A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool" (17:10). Another words, Proverbs says there are two people at the end of those who are rebuke, a person who understands and a person who is a fool, (none of us reading this, think ourselves as a fool, but do we accept the rebuke from others?). Fool can hear hundred...

"Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.  And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth . Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.  While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” (Genesis 8:20-22) The whole earth was under the flood because men was wicked.  The intention of men's thoughts were only evil continually; therefore, every creature that took a breathed and was not on the ark, died.  God's continuing mercy prevailed men's continuing evil.  God kept life on earth through Noah and by stating that the major flood will never be repeat.  At some point, his continuing mercy will only have to stop a...

http://www.teenjury.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/freedom-of-speech.jpg What is marriage? A debatable question between a religious groups and homosexuals.  A biblical view on marriage is when a man and a women (opposite sex) become a husband and a wife consensual and contractual recognized by a law.  Where, the culture and the support from the government define marriage as "the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage, same-sex marriage" (Merriam-Webster).  For few years now, media, the influential people in Hollywood and in businesses, and few people in government were pressuring the biblical definition of marriage to redefine so homosexual can be accepted in the community. The debate arose when the law, "Don't ask, don't tell," that "was the official United States policy on homosexuals serving in the military from December 21, 19...

One of the verses that keeps me back to the scripture would be First Peter 3:7: "Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered." It puts me from being religious since service to God flows out from how me and my wife live.  I think that the popularity or pressure from others pushes man to compromise on their relationship while continuing praying and serving God.  By taking this verse literally, I understand that my prayers are empty if my relationship with my wife is broken.  The whole act of serving God becomes religious and vein if I depart from understanding my wife and honor her as a weak vessel.  

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures ,  that he was buried , that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,   and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.   Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.   Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.   For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.   But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.   Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.  (1 Corinthians 15:3)

Every person has his or her story how they met their love one. Especially singles have a high interest in knowing how two people come together and started a family. It's an interest to them because in the stories like that, singles look for directions towards their own personal life. I am writing this on my seven months of marriage anniversary, no I am not going to explain how we met and the drama began, I just want to point out few thoughts that fill my mind as this day approached since every story is God's story. "What.. God has joined together, let not man separate" (Mt 19:6). When I think of me being together with my wife, I think of God's grace. Grace is something that we don't deserve, it's Gods goodness and kindness in our everyday life. None of us deserve grace, it is a gift. That's how I see my story with Ira, she's a gift. There was a time in my foolishness I was ignoring her, if fact I was running away from her (that's a...

Gospel as a phase can be over used. People are very vague when it comes to give a brief description on the gospel. “Jesus died for my sin,” or, “a story about redemption” common phrases we speak or hear. Nevertheless, gospel is the essential truth that saves a sinner, saves us. When we talk about the gospel, there are truths like an anchor that holds the story together. Gospel is not the gospel without an understanding of who is God, men, Jesus Christ, and how that truth applies to our life. When we speak of the Gospel, the conversation always begins with a phase, “God…” —God— God is the center being of why our universe exist. Nothing would exist if it wasn’t for God who spoke words into reality. This makes him the only creator and the only God who has full control over the our universe. In addition, when God created the world, God had a purpose for every matter that be found, this includes a human life. He is the Creator Universe came into existence as God said, ...

Most of us take the passage Matthew 18:8-9 and apply it to the separation of sin.  Which to say it is true. "If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.  And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell."   However, looking at why Jesus said these words gave me a different view of Matthew 18:8-9. This chapter starts when Jesus called a child and placed him in front of the disciples.  "He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them.  And he said: 'Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in th...