The Savior

And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
-1 John 4:14

When people are asked what does "Savior" mean to you, many times, they would say someone who is here to help, assist, lead, or teach a person. Let's say, someone is about to drown after falling off a boat and a lifeguard comes along and saves this person, immediately their reaction would be, "Whoa you're my savior!"



Many times this word is taken lightly. The Bible says that Savior means more than just a mere helper. The dictionary states that savior means, someone who saves, rescues, or delivers. Jesus Christ is the one who saves the world and everything in it. Isn't that amazing?

That means we have a person who had died on the cross for us, paid for our sins, and did it all because he loves us. That also means he will be here every step of the way, not just to encourage us and lead us in our Christian faith but be there in every part of it together with us.

So whenever we are afraid, Jesus is here to watch over us. If we are happy, he will laugh with us. He is just like a friend but more than one because he is our savior.

If only we knew the depth of our sins, we would just appreciate this gift of Jesus Christ even more, and really take our Christian living seriously.

Jesus Christ did not just die on the cross for us to save the people in His time, but even for people now and generations to come. This death was the most painful death and it was one no human would be able to bare, so we have to learn to take this seriously, really live the life according to His will, and praise God for this gracious gift.

Trust and Obey

We know that we live in Him and He in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. -1 John 4:13

Because God's spirit dwells in us, we can receive God's blessing, but when? We never know because it always happens during God's timing. The gift is given by God in His own way and time; this gift does not come of necessity at once. It is God's gift, and He knows when to give it and when to withhold it. On our parts, all we have to do is pray and stay consistent with his word, and just trust and obey.

The Spirit dwells in us once we accept him into our lives, and in time, he'll work in us and through us at any time of the day.

It makes me think of "The Heavenly Man", and brother Yun would pray for hours, weeks, months, and almost years, to ask for ONE Bible because he knew it was the truth. It didn't come to him when he wanted it, he had to fast, pray, cry, beg for the Bible and finally one day God revealed himself in the most miraculous way. But all he did was trust and obey, and wait.

I feel that in my life, the Spirit is already in me, he works through me all the time even without me realizing it. But there are still some things I need to stay consistently faithful to Him and to trust Him that he will make things happen. I need to live my life accordingly, and like Brother Yun, really be earnest and urgent about it. And until that day happens, I'm going to wait and be excited that God is going to work wonders because he dwells in not just me, but so many around me!

We're being dealt with.

Shining as Stars

12Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Are we aware of the fact that we are being dealt with; it is not that we decide to do things.

"Moralists and religious conformists are doing it all themselves, and that is why they are so proud of themselves. They get up on Sunday morning instead of spending the morning in bed, and they go to church. They do it because they have decided to do it, not because they have been moved. They are in control the whole time; and having done it, they preen themselves with their wonderful, ennobling ideals."

Sounds sort of self absorbed, they can do it on their own, independent kind of mentality, no?
For me, I know that God has been working through me and in me in all different ways possible these past couple of month. But in me, I still have that sense of I can do everything all by MYSELF mentality and I'm afraid to ask for help, or it's more like I'm too stubborn to. But from the quote above, I realized the mentality I had before, it was to dress up Sunday's best for God and I was letting God allow me to dress nicely for Him. He was my focus. More and more as months passed by I let the idea of God slip away from my mind and I get up on Sunday morning because I decided to do it and I decided to wear something nice. It no longer became a God thing but a me thing.

God said it is God who works in us to WILL and to ACT according to his good purpose.
That means we are aware of the power of God dealing with us, surging and rising within us, and we are amazed and astonished.

I don't want to be a moralist or a religious conformist, I want to be the one who can say, "In everything I do, God is working in me." He's the one who causes me to act the way Iact and he's the one who causes me to will also.

And out of all this, "It is not I. This is not the sort of person I am. It is God doing something; it is Christ dwelling within me; it is the Holy Spirit who is in me. I am taken up beyond myself, and I thank God for it."

Every time I see the work of God working in me, I get so moved, astonished and it just draws me into more mystery about why God would choose such a horrible person like me because I really don't deserve any of this, especially now.
I don't want to forget the Holy Spirit, I don't want to forget God and have him stop working in me, and in order to do that, I must let Him instead of letting myself walk in this journey called life. I'm willing to let God work, and I know many times I still want to do things my way, but I know that way would lead to disaster.

Lord, please let me know that you're the one dealing with me and let me allow you to because I know I can't do it alone and I know that if I continue to do it on my own, it's not going to look good.
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I thought this was kind of funny. Maybe Batman has even heard this verse, Phillipians 2:12 before, cus he used it the right way. If we want to damn ourselves, then we do it on our own.

In His Time.

"For you have need of steadfast patience and endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God, and thus receive and carry away [and enjoy to the full] what is promised." [Hebrews 10:36 (Amplified Bible)]

On Tuesday, 10/21, I was in school waiting to return a laptop. The line was so long, there was a shortage of workers, and it was just taking up too much of my time. I started tapping my feet and getting a little impatient.

Nichonar was standing next to me and said, "you need to be patient".
I said, "Well it's wasting my time and I'm going to get to class late."
He said, "You got to wait on God's timing instead of yours. Hebrews 10:36," and so he whooped out his pocket Bible and showed to me.
I said, "Haha, funny, God's timing is going to get me to class late"

It was something like that. But I just disregarded it and went along and did my own thing.

Later on during the day I was rushing somewhere, and George was walking extremely slow. I told him I like to get from place to place quickly, we're business people in a business world, I'm impatient. Everything he was doing was slow. He was thinking slow, walking slow, and it got me quite impatient because he was just taking too long. so I said George, you're taking too long, and he said something about being more patient. It was just small talk.

By the end of the day, around 6PM, Richard texts me and said "Patience and perserverance is key this week. Gluck studying."

Right away, something hit me and I was like, wtheck? Richard hasn't seen me or talked to me for a couple of weeks and that's the first text he sent me. Something must be going on. I must be crazy impatient. That was the end of it for the day, I just let it be and knew that I should be more patient.


On Thursday, 10/23, I went to 7:30AM IVCF Prayer Meeting. We were asked to for everyone to circle around and share something because that's something tha thasn't been done for a while.

It was funny because for that week I wasn't thinking too much, I didn't have much on my mind and I was just doing things to get things done. I didn't have much to blog about or post which is odd because on a weekly basis I always want to write about something but never have enough time to write about it, so it lays there, piled up in my forgetful train of thoughts. I was thinking really hard about what to share; nothing was really bothering me and severely striked me as of late. People were going around; some sharing very encouraging stories, others, about things they had to work on.

Finally the topic of patience popped into mind, so I decided to share, but what more about patience. God, you must've spoken to me about something this week. I know I learned something crazy this week. Help me out here.

So it started off like this;
I realize I am a very impatient person. Impatient in the sense that I don't like to wait for things to happen, I want it to happen soon.

Waiting for a laptop on a school line, I can't stand it, it takes way too long.
People walking way too slow or thinking too slow, it gets me just a little tense, I need to get to my destination and I want to get there quick.
Last but not least, I realized God is trying to teach me patience while waiting on souls to be saved.

The past month I've been extremely grateful for my friends to even STEP IN to a church building. It makes me so excited and happy that souls that I've been praying for have took action even if it is for the wrong motive. It just makes me glad to see that they don't mind being around this environment and they are not too much against it. Even if I don't see them change or see them realize that God is good, it still makes me glad that they are accepting what I believe in, well sort of, because they don't really care. But that's something else.

The past month gave me hope; that hope to know that God never fails me and I just have to hold onto his promises. It's hard because I know that he will bring my friends to him, but when? Because it's taking forever. The fact that my friend who never enters church for 10 years but just for once a year events, and another friend who comes to see her friends even if it is in a church building makes me know that I shouldn't give up, keep going, keep enduring, have patience and God will definitely work for the good of those who love Him.

God's tell me I have to be patient when doing His work and I have to do things in His timing and not mine. My feelings will never bring me far, but His plans will; but until then, I must presevere using God's strength because I cannot do this on my own.

"The Hebrews badly needed both conviction and perseverance to meet and overcome their problems. These virtues go hand in hand, and they really cannot be separated because we operate on a different concept of time than does God. Compared to God, we operate on fast time. Almost everything in our lives seems to have to be done or received right now, or faith begins to evaporate and we lose heart. True faith, though, operates in a rhythm closer to what God does because, due to conviction, it is more in tune with Him.
Therefore, a convicted person not only believes that what God says is true, but he also trusts and willingly endures trials in an attitude of realistic hopefulness. He does not restlessly complain to God to fix things right away on his schedule. A person develops conviction by thoughtfully processing a great deal of God's truth and yielding to the evidence He provides."
ref: http://bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Bible.show/sVerseID/30170/eVerseID/30170

Then, when I receive His promise, I will be the most JOYFUL person in the world. You have no idea.

God said is, and BANG it happened.

This is my Bible Study prep//disregard it - no need to read it.

Questions like 1) Why aren't dinosaurs mentioned in the bible,
2) What about cavemen?
3) What should you do in class if the teacher starts talking about how the world began?

We're going to learn how to answer questions like these using our number one source , The Bible, which we depend on for all the answers.

[Chapter 1]
Why Begin at the Beginning?

What do you think about the phrase: Everything has a Beginning. Is it true?

Stories, People, and Stuff do.

What about the universe?

Every effect has a cause.

If that's not true, then either, 1) You don't exist
2) You have always existed
3) You created yourself.

Think about the universe, if there was no effect, then, 1) The universe doesn't exist
2) The universe has always existed.
3) The universe created itself
OR 4) The first cause.

There has to be a "First Cause" because:
-Everything in the universe has a cause.

So either 1) The universe is the first cause or 2) God is.

God is the reasonable answer because he is only being who ever lived who is self existent.

Self existent: God has no beginning and therefore no cause. By definition, every efet must have a cause, but God is not an effect. He has always been and He will always be. God does not need outside support to exist. King David understood this when he wrote; "Before the mountains were created, before you made the earth and the world, you are God, without beginning or end. (Psalm 90:2)

So what if he's self existent and he is the beginning? What's the big deal? Why do we need to know this?
-You don't have to believe that the universe came here by accident or by chance.
- You can put your faith in a personal God rather than some kind of "impersonal force" or "cosmic energy."
-You can trust the Bible, because the Bible is the only "holy book" that correctly describes how the universe began.
-You can believe that God the First cause has unlimited capabilities, and that He chooses to use His power for your benefits and your future.

[Chapter 2]
So What's the Big Deal about God?