I will be partnering in the gospel with a group of about 60+ other members/youth of my church to go on missions in Little Rock, Arkansas for the next week. We're going to be doing this through "World Changers."
Please pray for the 60+ of us from CBC participating in World Changers this year. Pray for all involved, all ministered to, etc. Pray that we'd have the humility of Christ this week. It's going to be a tough, scorching hot week. Pray that we would be "firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by [our] opponents" (Philippians 1:27-28).
"So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
-Philippians 2:1-11
About Me
- JonLau910
- "The good, bad, ugly, Lord use it. I just want You to be glorified through it." -Andy Mineo
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
All or Nothing (Revisited)
It's weird to how God's working on me in this season of life. He's opening my eyes, ears (heh ironic), and heart to a bigger view of life. That's so ambiguous but ... It's one thing to always focus on the micro level of life (you, what you see, who's around you) vs. the macro level (the world, what you don't see, who's out there on the opposite side of your setting) ... And how Jesus collides with this world of ours. It's easy to get lost in this secular worldview but thank God for God.
And as much as God has been stretching me and breaking me, the question I'm always left to face with is a foundational one.
This past year of college, God has planted in me this phrase ... "All or nothing." It's translated into a lot of things ... "You either hit or miss," "Win or go home," etc. I've blogged, preached, etc., on it a little bit in the past but I'm revisiting it ... And I think I will continue to do so for the rest of my life.
I've been reading the book of Acts for myself ... And on top of that going through Philippians with a group of brothers as well. The one thing I keep resounding the whole time in Paul's voice, in the apostles' voices is a tone of genuine, passionate urgency and a preaching that is unapologetically all or nothing. There is no life outside of what they do. Sure they're persecuted, arrested, mocked, rivaled against, betrayed, confused, etc., but it always ends with something along the lines of "Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name" (Acts 5:41). I crave for this type of life.
This whole Jesus thing, I don't possibly see how there can be some kinda compromise or decision in between. You're either betting your entire life on it or you are not. You can try to do both but in the end that falters. This is where you get religion, aka moral behavioral modifications with Jesus' name attached to it.
God's really planted a certain, very serious urgency in me right now. It's a mess. My emotions range way too far from one spectrum to the other even for me. It gets to a point where I can't even walk away from movies without having my heart stirred or grieved in some way. It's gotten to a point where I just feel distant from my peers. It's gotten to a point where I don't even fear death. I can say that with all genuineness. I wanna be selfish and say that this is only me and to be honest I don't know if it is or isn't. Most of those around me I'm sure can tell I'm in a weird learning season of life but don't get this same urgency that I'm wrestling through.
All or nothing. There's no in between. Hot or cold. There's no lukewarm. Jesus or no Jesus. Religion is Christ-less. Life or death.
Am I the only one in this??? I don't know what to do other than to pray for boldness to speak up for what I know God's put in me to say to my peers.
All I know is that nothing tastes as good as before. Nothing pleasures or satisfies like it used to. Just talking sociologically, everyone seems to be chasing something or someone and no matter what happens, it feels like we hit a ceiling and we're confused because we feel like we should be able to go beyond it. We feel like we should be able to get over the sun but we can't. There's got to be more than this. There's got to be. So everyone really is on some savior search. It doesn't matter whether we've grown up in church or not. Everyone is searching for someone or something to get to that point but I think that the tragic true story is that most continue to blindly run this route of life, constantly frustrated with their inability to get over that hump that they feel they were created for.
Here's something I read in Acts earlier this morning. It's towards the end of Paul's sermon to the congregation at Antioch (In Pisidia, not the the Antioch in Syria where the phrase "Christian" was first used). It was preached on a Sabbath day after the readings of the Law and the Prophets. The rulers of the synagogue asked Paul and his companions "Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it." ...
"For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but he whom God raised up did not see corruption. Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets come about: 'Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish; for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.' As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath. And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who, as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace of God. The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord."
-Acts 13:36-44
The stories and lives of the apostles and leaders of the first churches has been my most consistent comfort these past 2 weeks. I'm thankful that God has grown in me a love for the scriptures. I'd pray that He'd continue to do so and to seek to see what they mean. I can no longer preach and talk of what I don't know for myself. I've got to "work out my own salvation with fear and trembling."
I know pride lies deep within me. I'm praying that God would continue to expose it.
Love you all BASIC. May we continue in the grace of God. God help us.
-Jon
And as much as God has been stretching me and breaking me, the question I'm always left to face with is a foundational one.
This past year of college, God has planted in me this phrase ... "All or nothing." It's translated into a lot of things ... "You either hit or miss," "Win or go home," etc. I've blogged, preached, etc., on it a little bit in the past but I'm revisiting it ... And I think I will continue to do so for the rest of my life.
I've been reading the book of Acts for myself ... And on top of that going through Philippians with a group of brothers as well. The one thing I keep resounding the whole time in Paul's voice, in the apostles' voices is a tone of genuine, passionate urgency and a preaching that is unapologetically all or nothing. There is no life outside of what they do. Sure they're persecuted, arrested, mocked, rivaled against, betrayed, confused, etc., but it always ends with something along the lines of "Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name" (Acts 5:41). I crave for this type of life.
This whole Jesus thing, I don't possibly see how there can be some kinda compromise or decision in between. You're either betting your entire life on it or you are not. You can try to do both but in the end that falters. This is where you get religion, aka moral behavioral modifications with Jesus' name attached to it.
God's really planted a certain, very serious urgency in me right now. It's a mess. My emotions range way too far from one spectrum to the other even for me. It gets to a point where I can't even walk away from movies without having my heart stirred or grieved in some way. It's gotten to a point where I just feel distant from my peers. It's gotten to a point where I don't even fear death. I can say that with all genuineness. I wanna be selfish and say that this is only me and to be honest I don't know if it is or isn't. Most of those around me I'm sure can tell I'm in a weird learning season of life but don't get this same urgency that I'm wrestling through.
All or nothing. There's no in between. Hot or cold. There's no lukewarm. Jesus or no Jesus. Religion is Christ-less. Life or death.
Am I the only one in this??? I don't know what to do other than to pray for boldness to speak up for what I know God's put in me to say to my peers.
All I know is that nothing tastes as good as before. Nothing pleasures or satisfies like it used to. Just talking sociologically, everyone seems to be chasing something or someone and no matter what happens, it feels like we hit a ceiling and we're confused because we feel like we should be able to go beyond it. We feel like we should be able to get over the sun but we can't. There's got to be more than this. There's got to be. So everyone really is on some savior search. It doesn't matter whether we've grown up in church or not. Everyone is searching for someone or something to get to that point but I think that the tragic true story is that most continue to blindly run this route of life, constantly frustrated with their inability to get over that hump that they feel they were created for.
Here's something I read in Acts earlier this morning. It's towards the end of Paul's sermon to the congregation at Antioch (In Pisidia, not the the Antioch in Syria where the phrase "Christian" was first used). It was preached on a Sabbath day after the readings of the Law and the Prophets. The rulers of the synagogue asked Paul and his companions "Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it." ...
"For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but he whom God raised up did not see corruption. Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets come about: 'Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish; for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.' As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath. And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who, as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace of God. The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord."
-Acts 13:36-44
The stories and lives of the apostles and leaders of the first churches has been my most consistent comfort these past 2 weeks. I'm thankful that God has grown in me a love for the scriptures. I'd pray that He'd continue to do so and to seek to see what they mean. I can no longer preach and talk of what I don't know for myself. I've got to "work out my own salvation with fear and trembling."
I know pride lies deep within me. I'm praying that God would continue to expose it.
Love you all BASIC. May we continue in the grace of God. God help us.
-Jon
Friday, June 26, 2009
I Boast No More
No More My God, I boast no more
Of all the duties I have done
I quit the hopes I held before,
To trust the merits of Thy Son
No more my God
No more my God
No more my God
I boast no more
Now, for the loss I bear his name,
What was my gain I count my loss
My former pride I call my shame
And nail my glory to His cross
Yes, and I must, I will esteem
All things but loss for Jesus' sake
O may my soul be found in Him
And of His righteousness partake
Amen, amen
The best obedience of my hands
Dares not appear before Thy throne
But faith can answer Thy demands
By pleading what my Lord has done
-written by Isaac Watts, titled "Hymn 109," based on Philippians 3:7-9
Of all the duties I have done
I quit the hopes I held before,
To trust the merits of Thy Son
No more my God
No more my God
No more my God
I boast no more
Now, for the loss I bear his name,
What was my gain I count my loss
My former pride I call my shame
And nail my glory to His cross
Yes, and I must, I will esteem
All things but loss for Jesus' sake
O may my soul be found in Him
And of His righteousness partake
Amen, amen
The best obedience of my hands
Dares not appear before Thy throne
But faith can answer Thy demands
By pleading what my Lord has done
-written by Isaac Watts, titled "Hymn 109," based on Philippians 3:7-9
Weird Season
I'm at a weird season in life. It kinda seems like half of my friends are and the other half is oblivious to it altogether. What that's translated to is a lot of feeling of distance.
I've noticed that I blindly and ignorantly jump into things without counting the cost. I'm not sure if I pawn it off as some kind of faith thing but there's something very not right about it.
A good measure of where our hearts lie is to look at your day and see what most of it is focused on/what you spend most of your time doing. It's been what I call a "kick in the crotch" for me.
I'm praying and asking for prayer for all of us to repent of thinking that the good things we do somehow are what justifies us. I think a lot of us could recite the message of "grace" and how it's all about Christ and it's "all for his glory" but why does there seem to be a disconnect in the message of God in the flesh nailed and bloodied on a cross and 3 days later resurrected, and how the version of us outside of church, outside of religious gatherings like bible study does life? Shouldn't there be an unnerving self-denying humiliation of self and a broken thanksgiving towards the merciful God? I'm praying and and asking that you and I pray for each other and ourselves to have an affection and aggressive clinging for Jesus. Before salvation, we are the passive ones who are dead in our trespasses and it's all God that intervenes out of mercy. But if we're really born again into life, if we're being made more and more like Christ everyday, then aren't we sposed to be going in the direction of Christ himself? We're not passive anymore if we're of Christ. Our salvation rests on him completely but we're not just sitting in our complacency pitying ourselves and waiting for some other person to kickstart us towards a spiritual high are we?
God, stir our hearts. Tear down the walls we think we can hide behind. You see right into our hearts. Expose us. Bring to light our darkness. Grant us mercy. No matter how much we grow in You, we can't ever say we deserve You. We can't ever base our justification on our goodness because there is no such thing outside of You. Would you destroy the religion in us? Help us God. Grant us a soul that yearns for You. Detach our clinging to people and things. Draw us to You. I pray that you not let the apathetic drown in their complacency and passiveness. Expose them. Expose me. Help us please Father. Hear our prayers.
-Jon
I've noticed that I blindly and ignorantly jump into things without counting the cost. I'm not sure if I pawn it off as some kind of faith thing but there's something very not right about it.
A good measure of where our hearts lie is to look at your day and see what most of it is focused on/what you spend most of your time doing. It's been what I call a "kick in the crotch" for me.
I'm praying and asking for prayer for all of us to repent of thinking that the good things we do somehow are what justifies us. I think a lot of us could recite the message of "grace" and how it's all about Christ and it's "all for his glory" but why does there seem to be a disconnect in the message of God in the flesh nailed and bloodied on a cross and 3 days later resurrected, and how the version of us outside of church, outside of religious gatherings like bible study does life? Shouldn't there be an unnerving self-denying humiliation of self and a broken thanksgiving towards the merciful God? I'm praying and and asking that you and I pray for each other and ourselves to have an affection and aggressive clinging for Jesus. Before salvation, we are the passive ones who are dead in our trespasses and it's all God that intervenes out of mercy. But if we're really born again into life, if we're being made more and more like Christ everyday, then aren't we sposed to be going in the direction of Christ himself? We're not passive anymore if we're of Christ. Our salvation rests on him completely but we're not just sitting in our complacency pitying ourselves and waiting for some other person to kickstart us towards a spiritual high are we?
God, stir our hearts. Tear down the walls we think we can hide behind. You see right into our hearts. Expose us. Bring to light our darkness. Grant us mercy. No matter how much we grow in You, we can't ever say we deserve You. We can't ever base our justification on our goodness because there is no such thing outside of You. Would you destroy the religion in us? Help us God. Grant us a soul that yearns for You. Detach our clinging to people and things. Draw us to You. I pray that you not let the apathetic drown in their complacency and passiveness. Expose them. Expose me. Help us please Father. Hear our prayers.
-Jon
Saturday, June 20, 2009
My story.
So I was required to write this up in preparation for a week long mission trip that I'll be participating in for the week of July 11-18. Please keep us in your prayers.
Testimony of Jon Lau:
The other day I had been posed with a scenario that God used to frighteningly expose my heart. The scenario was that the day of judgment had come and I was standing before Jesus and he asks me “Why should I let you into heaven?”. The frightening thing was that the first word that came to mind was “grace.” Now before I get too high on myself for giving the “correct” answer, the part that God really busted me in was my following thought: “Grace. I know what grace is. I could tell you what grace is.” So though my mind is preaching a doctrine of unmerited favor, my heart was proclaiming a cowardly fear that worked itself out in merit-filled insecurity. It was like I was praying to God, thanking Him of all the good I’ve done, all the knowledge I’ve gained along the way, and I was using that to justify the haunting, relentless feeling that I deserved to stand before God condemned. What God showed me was that unless I’m not crying out “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” then I won’t go home justified (Luke 18:9-14). Though my mouth and mind can be on the same wavelength in proclaiming “grace,” if my heart and soul are apart from Christ, then I have nothing (John 15:5). The gospel of Jesus Christ has been wrecking my life in similar ways for quite some time now. I thank God for though it hasn’t always brought me happiness, it has brought me abundant joy.
Before Christ took hold of my heart, I lived a fairly happy life. I had my Pokémon cards. I had basketball. I had a family that loved me. I had a good amount of friends. I wasn’t necessarily the worst kid, though I will admit I wasn’t a “good kid.” I thought that’s what life was. Fill yourself with things that you enjoy and relax. Oh, and thank God for the food on the table every night. That’s what my philosophy on life was after a little more than a decade of living and growing up as a Pokémon-loving, basketball-adoring, second-generation, American-born Chinese boy who attended a Chinese, Baptist Church since birth. Attach “do quiet time” somewhere between middle school and freshmen year of high school.
Church was just church to me. It was another place to meet new people and make new friends. And come to think of it, church was just a really big hobby for me honestly. It had everything I loved in my first decade or so of life. My whole family attended. Most of my friends were there every Sunday and they brought their Pokémon cards to play with me. There was basketball after Sunday School. Sometimes the food there wasn’t half bad either. It had everything I could ever want. So having everything I thought I needed, the need for God, the need for a Savior, was not. I mean, I was happy already with all the pleasures that a 12-year-old could have right? I concluded that since I was more often happy than sad (translated in those times … I got what I wanted a fair amount of the time), I was happy. However, it’d take another 5-7 years before I would discover what joy was.
I was content, so why did I need a Savior? I was decently moral and “good.” I mean I was at church every Sunday after all. All that Jesus stuff really didn’t appeal to me from a young age. I mean, I could tell you that “Christ died for my sins” and I could tell you that “Jesus” always was the answer to every question in Sunday School. But when it came to what all that meant to me, I was apathetic. I wouldn’t know what that word meant at that age, but I really had no concern, thought, or affection for God, why the cross is important, why I memorized Bible verses for AWANA, why I prayed before meals, or why I claimed to be a Christian. I figured that as long as I didn’t kill anyone or cuss in public, I was set for heaven, a place I wanted to be, not because of good things I’d heard of it, but more because of the bad things I had heard of hell. Hell scared me. I wanted to be in heaven with all my family, friends, and the things I adored. So when I first “accepted Christ,” and declared that I “believed in Jesus,” I was baptized! All I had to do now was continue to keep on with abiding by (at least trying to obey) the “do not’s” list of morality. That was enough right?
It wasn’t until a then 15-year-old Jon Lau prayed for God to break him in the middle of a mission trip (his first) which he didn’t feel he was ready for, that God unveiled his eyes, took hold of his heart and Christ became a reality, rather than a rumor. Little did I know that God would continue to break me and strip me of the things that clung to what He had made, rather than Him, ever since. To this day, I haven’t recovered from it.
It’s been a real struggle from that post-freshman year of High school summer on to what is now post-freshman year of college. Unlike basketball, finding a rhythm has been a lot more rare. One week I’m relishing in the “joy of my salvation” and the next week I feel like I’m in the Sheol. After many more instances of God having to show me my need for Him, thus leading me to repent, and then finding joy in Him, only to get proud and then God having start the cycle over again, I am who I am today. I don’t expect for God to stop breaking me. I’ve come to find more joy when I pray for Him to continue to do so and to see that prayer fulfilled because I know my tendency to violently cling to creation rather than Creator. I’m just thankful that God is more relentless after my heart than I am for His stuff. What a wretched heart I have. Praise God that I have a more beautiful Savior … That despite my disgusting arrogance, pride, and lust for God’s creation rather than God himself, “that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Though I am an offender of God, though I am accursed, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13) … That “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
I hope and pray that I will never think that I don’t need this gospel anymore. I cringe upon the thought that I would ever think that I don’t need this gospel that proclaims the message of a Savior who by his wounds, we have been healed. Without this good news, without Christ, I am nothing. If not for Christ alone, if not for grace alone, everything else is bad news.
I could go on to share about all this new world of college at Baylor and how it’s just a whole new monster from the trials I had to face in High School. From how I am to do ministry in a community that grew up with the same first half of this testimony, to big career decisions, I could share how God’s grown me. But in the end, It always seems to go back to this overlying message in the Bible that can be summed up as: “He must increase but I must decrease” (John 3:30), “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself with be exalted” (Luke 18:14).
From these 19 years of life, I have come to know my shortcomings and failures darn well. I’ve learned that on my own, I’m a loser in every sense of the word. I can’t do anything good. I can’t save myself, lest anyone else. I am a selfish offender of God who deserves nothing but the just punishment of sin. I deserve to die. I have never been able to successfully pull off being good enough. But I have peace in knowing that this me that relies on himself to do good, find purpose, to be saved, was “crucified with Christ. And it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20). Praise God for being more than enough.
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).
Testimony of Jon Lau:
The other day I had been posed with a scenario that God used to frighteningly expose my heart. The scenario was that the day of judgment had come and I was standing before Jesus and he asks me “Why should I let you into heaven?”. The frightening thing was that the first word that came to mind was “grace.” Now before I get too high on myself for giving the “correct” answer, the part that God really busted me in was my following thought: “Grace. I know what grace is. I could tell you what grace is.” So though my mind is preaching a doctrine of unmerited favor, my heart was proclaiming a cowardly fear that worked itself out in merit-filled insecurity. It was like I was praying to God, thanking Him of all the good I’ve done, all the knowledge I’ve gained along the way, and I was using that to justify the haunting, relentless feeling that I deserved to stand before God condemned. What God showed me was that unless I’m not crying out “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” then I won’t go home justified (Luke 18:9-14). Though my mouth and mind can be on the same wavelength in proclaiming “grace,” if my heart and soul are apart from Christ, then I have nothing (John 15:5). The gospel of Jesus Christ has been wrecking my life in similar ways for quite some time now. I thank God for though it hasn’t always brought me happiness, it has brought me abundant joy.
Before Christ took hold of my heart, I lived a fairly happy life. I had my Pokémon cards. I had basketball. I had a family that loved me. I had a good amount of friends. I wasn’t necessarily the worst kid, though I will admit I wasn’t a “good kid.” I thought that’s what life was. Fill yourself with things that you enjoy and relax. Oh, and thank God for the food on the table every night. That’s what my philosophy on life was after a little more than a decade of living and growing up as a Pokémon-loving, basketball-adoring, second-generation, American-born Chinese boy who attended a Chinese, Baptist Church since birth. Attach “do quiet time” somewhere between middle school and freshmen year of high school.
Church was just church to me. It was another place to meet new people and make new friends. And come to think of it, church was just a really big hobby for me honestly. It had everything I loved in my first decade or so of life. My whole family attended. Most of my friends were there every Sunday and they brought their Pokémon cards to play with me. There was basketball after Sunday School. Sometimes the food there wasn’t half bad either. It had everything I could ever want. So having everything I thought I needed, the need for God, the need for a Savior, was not. I mean, I was happy already with all the pleasures that a 12-year-old could have right? I concluded that since I was more often happy than sad (translated in those times … I got what I wanted a fair amount of the time), I was happy. However, it’d take another 5-7 years before I would discover what joy was.
I was content, so why did I need a Savior? I was decently moral and “good.” I mean I was at church every Sunday after all. All that Jesus stuff really didn’t appeal to me from a young age. I mean, I could tell you that “Christ died for my sins” and I could tell you that “Jesus” always was the answer to every question in Sunday School. But when it came to what all that meant to me, I was apathetic. I wouldn’t know what that word meant at that age, but I really had no concern, thought, or affection for God, why the cross is important, why I memorized Bible verses for AWANA, why I prayed before meals, or why I claimed to be a Christian. I figured that as long as I didn’t kill anyone or cuss in public, I was set for heaven, a place I wanted to be, not because of good things I’d heard of it, but more because of the bad things I had heard of hell. Hell scared me. I wanted to be in heaven with all my family, friends, and the things I adored. So when I first “accepted Christ,” and declared that I “believed in Jesus,” I was baptized! All I had to do now was continue to keep on with abiding by (at least trying to obey) the “do not’s” list of morality. That was enough right?
It wasn’t until a then 15-year-old Jon Lau prayed for God to break him in the middle of a mission trip (his first) which he didn’t feel he was ready for, that God unveiled his eyes, took hold of his heart and Christ became a reality, rather than a rumor. Little did I know that God would continue to break me and strip me of the things that clung to what He had made, rather than Him, ever since. To this day, I haven’t recovered from it.
It’s been a real struggle from that post-freshman year of High school summer on to what is now post-freshman year of college. Unlike basketball, finding a rhythm has been a lot more rare. One week I’m relishing in the “joy of my salvation” and the next week I feel like I’m in the Sheol. After many more instances of God having to show me my need for Him, thus leading me to repent, and then finding joy in Him, only to get proud and then God having start the cycle over again, I am who I am today. I don’t expect for God to stop breaking me. I’ve come to find more joy when I pray for Him to continue to do so and to see that prayer fulfilled because I know my tendency to violently cling to creation rather than Creator. I’m just thankful that God is more relentless after my heart than I am for His stuff. What a wretched heart I have. Praise God that I have a more beautiful Savior … That despite my disgusting arrogance, pride, and lust for God’s creation rather than God himself, “that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Though I am an offender of God, though I am accursed, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13) … That “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
I hope and pray that I will never think that I don’t need this gospel anymore. I cringe upon the thought that I would ever think that I don’t need this gospel that proclaims the message of a Savior who by his wounds, we have been healed. Without this good news, without Christ, I am nothing. If not for Christ alone, if not for grace alone, everything else is bad news.
I could go on to share about all this new world of college at Baylor and how it’s just a whole new monster from the trials I had to face in High School. From how I am to do ministry in a community that grew up with the same first half of this testimony, to big career decisions, I could share how God’s grown me. But in the end, It always seems to go back to this overlying message in the Bible that can be summed up as: “He must increase but I must decrease” (John 3:30), “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself with be exalted” (Luke 18:14).
From these 19 years of life, I have come to know my shortcomings and failures darn well. I’ve learned that on my own, I’m a loser in every sense of the word. I can’t do anything good. I can’t save myself, lest anyone else. I am a selfish offender of God who deserves nothing but the just punishment of sin. I deserve to die. I have never been able to successfully pull off being good enough. But I have peace in knowing that this me that relies on himself to do good, find purpose, to be saved, was “crucified with Christ. And it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20). Praise God for being more than enough.
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).
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