Thursday, May 29, 2008

LOST my inspiration

I am watching the season finale of Lost right now. I am at a loss for words to describe it. And the scary thing is, it's not over yet. There is so much more to it. There were 71 known survivors of Oceanic Fligth 815 at the time of the crash. Then there were only 6 of them. (For those of you who are trying to get into the show, I don't recommend reading this). Through a very twisted and confusing series of events, 6 people total from the original crash make it off the island alive.

For a long time, I believed the island to be purgatory. The place that people await judgment before they go to either Heaven or Hell. Unfortunately, this is a warped perception of reality, because there is no mid-point in between Heaven or Hell, there's no looking back, there's just one stop.

It's sad to think that there are actually people that believe that you can wait for your judgment to be decided by God.

This life is fleeting by the minute, and it only comes down to a choice, Heaven or Hell. Rejection or Acceptance, Jesus' arms are wide open and waiting for you to jump into them (or not). The choice is yours, which one, is up to you.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Trust in the Lord

How hard is it for me to say that statement these days? I find that becuase I am still 3 weeks into the summer without work, it makes my dependance on God kind of hard. God has everything in this universe under control, but I find it so hard to trust his judgment in my life sometimes. God can do whatever he wants in my life, so I will just continue to leave this up to him.

Right now I am watching the anime TV show, Wolf's Rain. It takes place 200 years in the future. Wolves have been extinct, and now, somehow, they have come back to life, and the end of the world has begun. Somehow, the wolves know how to find "Paradise" and are disgusing themselves as human beings to make them less noticable. If they were to be caught, they could be sold for high prices, after they had been killed and stuffed. The 2 protaganists of the story, Higa and Kiba are traveling to paradise together. They encounter all sorts of people, all trying to find Paradise too.

In a way, Wolf's Rain reminds me of the Christian life. Its a struggle for people to find their way into the Paradise that waits for them at the end of the road. God wants us to go through with our struggles because there is a great reward waiting for us at the end.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Japanese Obsession

It's only going to grow more and more, as I travel further down the road. Japan has become everything I can think of. I love to watch Anime, I love Japanese things, and I love to read about Japan. Since I've been home from school, I've taken 6 books out of the library and I've already read one of the them, and am now working on a second one. I must confess, since I started going to Boyce 2 years ago, I barely had the time to do any reading for fun, so being able to pick up a book to read it was a great thing for me, I'm really enjoying that. In addition to the book "Japan: A Modern History" by James L. McClain, I am reading a great series of books by Paul Meier called the Millenium series. It is the story of a family of Jewish believers who were Left Behind and left on earth during the end times. Don't confuse them with the Left Behind books, because this author's theology on the end times is different. LaHaye (the Left Behind author) believes in a pre-Tribulation period rapture, and Meier's idea is a mid-trib rapture. Confusing I know, but I am a believer in the Pre-Trib Rapture. The teachings on this theology are very clear, although many hold to different views.

Besides doing reading, I am watching lots of TV and movies, just whatver I can to pass the time these days. So my reading and learning has been all about Japan.

One thing I did do when I got home was take a look at a discipleship plan that I had put together when I was in Personal Evangelism class this past semester. I updated it and put in the books I would have my class read.

"Desiring God" by John Piper

"Spiritual Discipleship" by J. Oswald Sanders

"What's So Amazing about Grace?" by Philip Yancey

These are some of the boosk that I have read in the past view years to help strengthen my walk with the Lord. I hope you read them yourself and study God a little bit deeper because of it.

I will blog again soon.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Titanic

It's late on Saturday night, and I happened to watch that movie on TV, and it helped me think about a concept a youth pastor once told me about salvation. Picture Titanic as the World as we know it. We get on board, we go through our lives, eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, have a few parties, and then the end of the world hits (the iceberg). People everywhere are saying "No! Titanic will never sink, it's impossible!" And yet, the boat hit the iceberg, and within 2 hours, it was at the bottom of the ocean. Because the designers saw it unfit to put such a large amount of lifeboats on the deck, they only managed to put 20 boats, each designed to carry the weight of 70 grown men. There was a total of 2200 people (including the crew) onboard the ship. If you do the math, if all the lifeboats were filled with 70 people, there was only enough room for 1400 people. When the lifeboats were lowered, it can be seen as the offering of salvation. People get into the boats, and accept the free gift that Jesus is their Messiah, and believed it to be true. There were crewmembers too. They start to panic and pull out guns trying to keep people away from the lifeboats that can bring them salvation. They try to fight off people from knowing the truth, and can't even save themselves, and they die.

The point is, this sounds too much what the world is like. We have salvation in Jesus, and we have the ability to tell people to get onboard the boat that could save them from death in the icy waters of sin, and yet we can even fight them off like the crewmembers did the passengers with our arrogance and pride. We have to show people that we aren't going to let people stop us from warning people of the dangers that are to come in this life, and what awaits them if they don't get on the boat.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Unwanted Secrets

What would you do, if you heard that everything you ever knew about Japan now, and then there was this whole other side to the Japanese people that you knew absolutely nothing about. I never knew some of the things that I've heard. The Japanese have been hated by the Chinese, Koreans, and Philippinos. How is it, that this country who has the world's biggest city and the most advanced technology around. Yet, like other nations, they have a reason to be hated. The Germans are hated by the Jewish people because of the Holocaust. But there was forgiveness for that. Recently, the Chancellor of Germany met with Israel's Prime Minister and issued a formal apology for the Holocaust. To this day, it is a crime for a German person to deny the Holocaust. They would go to jail for that.

But the trouble is, the things that I've heard about Japan, I just have trouble believing that it ever happened. The Japanese taking people and making them into slaves and stealing Korean girls and making them into prostitutes for the Japanese soldiers. It sounds horrible, but there are somethings that are better left unknown in our lifetimes.

We have to constantly look past the bad things in this world in order for people to see the love of Jesus in our lives. If we didn't do that, people would be dying and going to Hell without ever hearing the name of Jesus. Everything we do in life has to be about Jesus, and that's the only thing that should matter to a true believer.

2008 Boyce Spring Banquet







These are just some pictures from the 2008 Boyce College Spring Banquet. The school has an end of the year celebration ever year. This year (2008) marks the 10th annivesary of the school's inception from the Seminary. We had the banquet at Claudia Sander's Dinner House in the small town of Simpsonville, Kentucky (about 20 minutes outside of Louisville). I've already seen a lot of pictures from some friends' blogs. So I have a lot of excessive catching up to do. So this is just the start of some greater things to come. I don't even think MySpace has this kind of blogging power. Crazy isn't it?

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The Beginning...

Okay here it goes. I know I have a MySpace and everything, but I want to have a specific blog to deal with my ideas of doing ministry. I haven't had much chance to talk about what I want to do with my life as far as ministry is concerned, but here's how I see it.

God has given me a desire higher than anything I could ever attest to. I want to move to Japan. I love Japanese people. I love their culture, I love the country, and I am heart broken for their lostness. Because of the very bizarre religious practices of Japan, there aren't many believers in the country. Less than 1% of all the people in Japan are evangelical Christians. That's why there is such a great need for the people there. There needs to be people to come into the country who have the desire to see people come to Christ.

This is why I want to devote my life to the Lord in Japan. I will be heading over to Japan in the summer of 2009, to work as an intern for the International Mission Board. This blog will be around to tell people about what I'm doing with my life for the Lord, and to give people ideas about how to practice ministry in a way that will win people to Christ.