Pharisees

A pharisee to me is someone who appears christian but their actions speak otherwise. The definition I found online states "A hypocritically self-righteous person." I think its about the same thing, they're basically hypocrites. 

Not many things in life can actually make me angry to a point where my heart is in so much discomfort but this...this pisses me off. Before you start thinking "oh you're being a hypocrite, you're hating on them, God calls us to love..etc." My anger really has nothing to do with the people but everything to do with the action. I even get mad at myself for the same things some times. So don't worry, I don't think they're bad people nor do I hate them.

What bothers me the most about modern day pharisees is pretty much summed up with the cartoon up there. These people try to portray this image of being a "perfect" christian. They go to church every sunday, talk to all their friends about Jesus, pray before every meal and snack and drink and...piece of candy. They're probably serving God as a leader somewhere.

But these very people are also the ones who go out and bully the gays. They're the ones who go up to people and tell them they're going to burn in hell. They're the ones who think its ok to act on God's behalf and punish those who sin. These are the very people who claim to love God and yet they're the very reason why other people don't want anything to do with Him.

I went to a conference last year and we were told to go out and outreach to people we meet on the streets. My team and I met this guy outside of our hotel. He was just sitting there in the cold so we bought him some hot soup and talked to him about Jesus. He had this sense of anger in his voice when he said "the reason why I don't want to believe in God is because of how messed up the history of Christianity is..think about the crusades, why would I want to be a part of that?"

It breaks my heart to know that christians are the very reason why people detest God. The crusades happened so long ago and yet the consequences of their unloving actions are affecting people to this day. It's not fair to Him. God didn't do anything wrong, we're the ones who do bad yet everything we do reflects who he is. We really are his ambassadors. Us, as christians, represent God on this earth (we're NOT God though). Our unloving actions really can affect the way others view Christ. I'm not saying we all need to act as perfect as we can. We're not perfect, we're human and we will sin. God knows that and he forgives us. But what I am saying is that we should strive to live and love the way God wants us to. It's not easy, people can be so un-loveable sometimes but this is what God has called each and everyone of us to do.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing." 

                                                                          -1 Corinthians 13:1-3

The problem with some christians today is we claim to be doing all these things for God. But if we forget to include LOVE in the equation, can we really say its what God wanted us to do? He called us to love people, even those who are different from us. He loves us all the same and he wants us to love people in that way too. A genuine love and concern for the people in this world. Billy Graham put it really well when he said this "It is God's job to judge, Holy Spirit's job to convict and my job to love." Let God do his part, and let us focus on ours.

"We love because he first loved us. If anyone says "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: whoever loves God must also love his brother."

                                                                        -1 John 4:19-21

Lesson of my Life: Count Your Blessings

I like to believe that I'm a simple person but as I try to figure out myself more and more...I realize I'm quite complicated. I'm quite insecure, I feel loved easily but at the same time I lose that sense of love just as quickly. It's a constant battle for me to remain joyful in all situations.

I seem to find myself stuck in the same situations over and over. I feel like God is trying to teach me something and because I didn't quite learn it the first time, he's giving me the same problem again so I can learn to solve it the second time. As I analyze and evaluate my fleeting emotions, I realized the problem has always been me being unable to count my blessings. The little struggles in my life always seem to outweigh the great blessings God has given me. 

God calls us to rejoice no matter what we're going through, struggles mold us into the great beings God has created us to be and blessings are given to us by God's grace. He won the battle, gave up his son for us...what do we have to complain about? What is it about life that makes us so unsatisfied when he has already paid the ultimate price? This is a lesson I'm still struggling to learn but I hope this post serves as a constant reminder to always count our blessings because God surely blessed us more than what we think we've suffered through. 

Lesson of the day: faith

As you know, I applied to transfer to Queens College last month. I know it takes 8 weeks for them to tell me whether I got in or not but I was really hoping that I can see whether all my documents were received by them. I signed in on the site and somehow I stumbled upon the deadline to apply for Fall 2013 and it was February 2nd. So basically I applied late. I freaked out for a few seconds and all these thoughts came in my head. What happens if I don't get in? What if I have to take the semester off? What do I do? But right when I started to get scared, I remembered the story of Peter walking on water. A gust of wind blew and he got scared and almost fell in. "You of little faith" thats exactly whats happening to me right now. I'm walking on water trusting that this is what God wants me to do, a little obstacle comes my way and I got scared and questioned God's ability.

We fail to realize during these struggles that if God brings you to it, he will surely bring you through it. He's not just gonna let you blindly go on your own, He will provide everything you need to get there. All you have to do is...believe.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

-Philippians 4:6-7

I Surrender

"All to you, I surrender 

Everything, every part of me

All to you, I surrender

All of my dreams, all of me

No turning back, I made up my mind

I'm giving all of my life this time

Your love makes it worth it all."

You know that feeling you get, when you're so sure that God is calling you to do something extremely outrageous and you've been questioning it for the longest time...well that happened to me this past week.

Since freshman year I've been thinking about transferring to a different school. All for the wrong reasons of course but the thought was there nonetheless. This year, it was brought up again...transferring to a school closer to home. I wasn't for the idea at all, in fact I didn't even give it time to sink in, I was convinced that God wants me to stay where I am at right now. There were a lot of things I really wanted to do with my fellowship here, there are people I really came to love here..I mean I finally came to a point where I was willing to break certain comfort zones so I can be a light for my campus...why would God want me to leave right when I was just starting to make progress?

But here's the thing, Stony became a comfort zone. My faith was comfortable here, even though I thought I was being challenged, everything that I do here doesn't require much any faith at all. It may seem like it on the outside but I know in my heart that even the comfort zones that I break at Stony Brook is within my comfortable boundary. It was nothing compared to stuff I was running away from. It was an escape and for the longest time now, I really didn't want to acknowledge that.

I kept asking God for an answer, a CLEAR answer. One that would just slap me in the face, do you want me to stay or do you want me to go? I kept asking and begging but my own desire blurred out the answer God had already given. Finally during my spring break, God made it clear to me how I'm too comfortable at Stony and how I've been running away from situations I didn't want to face by going there. I know for a fact that he wants me to transfer and I made up my mind about it too but even up until the very last minute I asked God for a sign.

The night I wanted to apply for the transfer, I wasn't able to get on the site. Idk I think the site has work hours to it or something but it told me to come back an hour later a million times so I told God if this is really his will, make the website work whenever I remember to fill out the application tomorrow. I randomly remembered the next day, went on the website and whatdoyaknow...it worked.

Quite honestly, I'm still not too happy about the transferring thing. I'm sad about having to leave IV, I'm sad about having to leave my suitemates, all the freshmans I really wanted to get to know and all the friendships I made here. I am really upset about it but something in my heart is so sure that this is what God wants. For the first time in my life, I am 100% positive about something God wants and that reassurance is keeping me going. Not many people support my decision and even though that bothers me, it gives me even more strength to fight because I know this is what God wants. I finally get to understand what people mean by God makes you do outrageous things that sometimes even the people closest to you wouldn't understand.

This song started randomly playing today and I felt so comforted by the lyrics. I'm not transferring because of other people or because I want to run away, my reason is actually God and God alone. For the first time, I feel it in my heart that God is all I'm relying on right now and I'm basically giving everything I have to follow him.

This may just be the first time I'm surrendering all control...everything... and stepping out in faith alone. 

"No Turning Back, I made up my mind, I'm giving all of my life this time"

RIP 3/11/13

"Rest in peace"

Reality. Hits.

About 2 hours ago today, I was just scrolling through facebook when I came upon a wall post from 2 of my friends. I wasn't reading it but as I just scrolled past it the words "rest in peace" caught my eyes. "Rest in peace"..why are those words used? I looked at the post, I couldn't believe it. I went on his wall "why are so many people saying they love him and they miss him? This doesn't make sense, it can't be true." I was freaking out. I messaged people I haven't spoke to in years wanting an answer and I got it, one of my good friends in middle school took his own life this morning.

Is this for real? Do stuff like this really happen? No, it doesn't..not in my sheltered little Christian world. I'm not stupid, I know there are people hurting everywhere, some might even be friends of mine. But never to a point where it'd be like this. Never have I thought I would be placed in a situation where a friend of mine would pass away. I had the whole "Stuff like that only happen in papers..." mindset and I had no idea.

But reality hit me...finally. I keep thinking about how different this world would be if Christians actually did as they were told. How many broken hearts would be comforted by God? How many lives wouldn't be lost? What if I made the extra effort to reach out to him, what if I cared enough to share the gospel with him, what if he knew that someone loved him enough to die for him? I know its not my fault this happened, but this was definitely a wake up call to me. Tomorrow might not come for some people and we need to understand that. The battle is real and its happening right now. We need to stand up and fight, we need to feel that urgency to fight right here right now. 

God wants us to share the gospel with others because he wants them to understand that Jesus is the only way to heaven. His death on that cross made it possible for us to be cleanse from our sins, the sins that bounded us to a horrible place. We need to feel the urgency to share that with others so that they can also live in eternity with him. Don't be like me and live sheltered from the world, step out into the world and bring back the lost. This will serve as my reminder (I hope yours too) and my biggest wake up call. There is no later...the time is now.

A Lesson of Grace

"Pass up your papers."

Crap! My heart was racing as I gave in my quiz which was a full page full of words...words that didn't answer the quiz question.

I had thought the recitation teacher was giving us the full class time to write an essay so I spent the 20 minutes given writing up the mishaps that led up to the topic I was suppose to write about. I handed in my paper and pulled out another one. I spent a quick 10 minutes writing up the right answer and anxiously waited for class to end to ask the teacher to take it (I am almost confidant I have anxiety issues). 

I told him about what happened and how I messed up. The teacher wasn't willing to take my paper...but he was willing to give me a second chance. A chance, quite honestly, I didn't deserve. 

The teacher was showing me grace, the same grace God has shown me throughout my life. Even today, this second chance was an answered prayer. (you would've thought I would go through such anxiety without asking God for help)

God is faithful to all of his children. He is willing to give us that second chance no matter how un-deserving we are of it. And that's because he loves us unconditionally. 

No matter what we do, no matter what stupid decisions we make, he still loves us.

Break My Heart til it Makes Me Move

Human Trafficking has become a huge thing within my fellowship here at school. For the past 2 years, we've planned (or in this case, is planning) large events to raise awareness for the cause. This cause is also something that God has specifically placed in my roommates heart.

Just last week, there was a human trafficking screening held by some other club on campus.My roommate invited me to attend and I decided to go to gather more information for the event we're planning. As we were coming out from there, my heart was in pieces. My heart broke for all those girls in the documentary, hearing their stories. I was talking to my roommate about how badly my heart hurted for those girls and she asked me if it was because I didn't expect it to be that intense coming to the screening. And it's weird because that wasn't the case. I went there knowing exactly what I was going to see. I did a lot of research on the cause for our last event, I've shed many tears learning about this reality but my heart still broke as if it was the first time I heard about it. I asked my roommate if she was just numb because she has done so much research.

She said "No, I'm just past the point of just having my heart break for them, I want to do something about it."

Having our hearts break for what breaks God's isn't enough.
Sitting here just feeling bad does nothing for the sins of this world.

I understand not everyone will be called to go out and put their lives at stake for human trafficking or live in a 3rd world country building up a church. But God did create all of us to share the gospel, to tell others about him, to LOVE the people he created. How can we say we love someone when we are the ones refusing to show them how amazing our God is? To let them know that Jesus is the only way they can have eternal life? To watch them lead a life that may (I'm not the one to judge) just lead them to a place of eternal suffering?

What so many people fail to understand is, where they are right now is a missions field. You do not need to travel 5000 miles to touch the lives of the lost. There are lost people right here where you live. It can be your friends, your family, coworkers...there's so many people out there who haven't gotten the chance to hear about God. We have all been called to reach out to the broken and help God bring back the lost. We may not succeed, they may not be our's to save, but just planting that seed is enough. God will handle the rest.