Whenever you feel small… …remind yourself that God thinks the world of you. Whenever you feel down… ….remind yourself that God things you are to die for. Literally. God sent his own son to die for your so you had a way to spend eternity with him. Joyfully. God did not save you grudgingly. He saved you in his joy. Lovingly. God loves you. He is not going to take his love back. There’s nothing you can or leave undone…
We can’t force holiness on people. No matter how we would like to do it. There’s no way we can dictate how people should act. That’s not how grace works. That’s law all over again. That’s living like Christ had not died for our sins. That’s like saying Christ died in vain. When we force outwardly changes on ourselves or others, we have not truly understood grace. If we could create a living relationship with God by good behavior, then…
Do you remember the Bible story of Jesus coming back to separate people from each other like a shepherd separates his sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:31-)? At the first glimpse it looks like the reason why some are saved is based on their works when Jesus reveals ‘I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you…
The sad truth is that we can’t get ourselves pre-qualified for God. We sure are a bunch of sinners and we can’t save ourselves. But the happy news is Christ has already gotten all of us pre-approved on the cross! God’s righteousness comes through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who have faith in him. There’s no distinction. All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory, but all are treated as righteous freely by his grace because of…
Don’t worry if you can’t understand the suffering of Jesus. You can still embrace Jesus. Don’t worry if you can’t figure out the mystery of faith. You can still enter the mystery of faith. Don’t worry if you can’t analyze the happenings of Good Friday. You can still trust that Jesus carried your sins on the cross. Carrying his cross by himself, he went out to a place called Skull Place (in Aramaic, Golgotha). That’s where they crucified him—and two…
As we approach the Holy week my mind has started swirling around the sacrifice of Jesus. I am in awe of vastness of God’s love. And then I think if God loved us so immensely … how should we respond to him? We can’t save ourselves but we can’t help but love God in return. How could we love God more and more? So, brothers and sisters, because of God’s mercies, I encourage you to present your bodies as a…
Too often people are satisfied with spiritual comfort food. Or even worse: junk food. But as we know, we don’t stay healthy that way. Junk food of comfort food may give us great experiences for our taste buds or give us an illusion of being well fed but we stay -in long run- malnourished. Then we don’t even crave for real food anymore. There will come a time when people will not tolerate sound teaching. They will collect teachers who…
Did you know that there are more biblical prophecies on the second coming of Christ than prophecies on the first coming? The central theme in Christianity is to wait for the second coming of Jesus Christ to complete his saving work. Come, Lord Jesus! Therefore, stay alert! You don’t know what day the Lord is coming. But you understand that if the head of the house knew at what time the thief would come, he would keep alert and wouldn’t…
I have always wondered why people insist that Christianity is about being good. That all decent, good people are going heaven. Hence our salvation would be based on works or our behavior. But the Bible is telling us the polar opposite: You are saved by God’s grace because of your faith.This salvation is God’s gift. It’s not something you possessed. It’s not something you did that you can be proud of. Instead, we are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus…
Even though the world around us is full of marks of death and dying we try to deny our own mortality. We like to live in La-La Land and pretend we are not aging and our life will go on forever. But the sooner we face the reality: we are dust and we will return to dust, the better we can embrace living fully. Like a parent feels compassion for their children— that’s how the LORD feels compassion for those…
