Even though it was sort of cold today, I decided to walk over to McDonald’s and get a cone during my lunch break. When I arrived at the door, there was this guy who followed me in. He told me this sob story about how he got robbed last night, and that the robbers took everything, including his tools. He said he was too ashamed to tell his girlfriend, so he needed money for bus fare to New York, because he was from New York. The story didn’t really make sense to me, and I could smell the liquor on his breath while he was saying it. I told him I didn’t have cash, (I almost never do) but I offered to buy him a meal. I asked him what he wanted. When he replied, “Get me a combo,” he sounded really pissed off.

I’m usually all for helping those in need. On Alhambra Blvd there are actually a lot of people in need. Pretty much every day I am asked for spare change. I will usually just give them a sandwich or a portion of food if I have it on me. If I have nothing on me, I will just tell them that I don’t have any cash. I have learned from many experiences in the past that it’s better to give food than cash. And most people are genuinely thankful to receive a sandwich or a McD’s hamburger.

What I hate is being taken advantage of. I felt like this guy was trying to take advantage of me, and I didn’t want to deal with that. So when my cone arrived, I gave him the receipt so he could pick up the combo meal and started to walk away. As I was walking out the door, I could hear him tell a different sob story to another person who had just walked in.

I thought of this verse, which a friend of mine used to quote often…
“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. -Mt 10:16

I used to think that he was taking the verse out of context. Jesus says this as he is sending the disciples out to the towns in Israel to proclaim the message, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” Nowadays I’m not so sure. I can see how it could apply in every day situations. We are in some ways sheep among wolves, so we do need to live with a fair bit of shrewdness while still being innocent…

The gardening got me thinking. I am a terrible gardener. Good gardeners constantly take care of their plants, weeding, watering, fertilizing and pruning on a consistent basis. I basically do gardening work once a year (probably not even that much) so my plants are under nourished, overgrown and surrounded by weeds. Despite my neglect, they still grow and thrive and actually provide me with fruit.

The lemon tree outside my window is teeming with lemons. They used to be really dry and tasteless, but for some reason in recent years they have been really juicy and pretty tasty. Last year I actually cut back the tree a lot, since it was really overgrown and blocking the pathway in my side yard. The tree is about half the size it used to be, but it’s still giving me more lemons than I know what to do with.

When I first moved into this house about five years ago, my dad planted this mandarin tree. This is the first year that it’s actually started to grow some decent fruit. They actually look really good. I’ll probably wait and let them ripen a bit more before eating them.

There’s also a navel orange tree in my side yard. I call this the Mike Hong tree, because it’s lazy like me. This year it produced a grand total of four oranges. Here’s one of them. The tree bears really juicy and tasty fruit, I just wish it grew more than four. How do you motivate a fruit tree?

Along the edges of my yard is a planter box. It was overgrown with weeds, which I pulled this past weekend. Surprisingly the the lily plants in the planter box are still alive. At least I think they are lilies– I know very, very little about flowers. I remember they grew some nice flowers. This reminded me of this passage, which is one of my favorite passages in the bible.

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. -Matthew 6:28-34

The sermon was on a very familiar passage, Mark 12:28-31, which talks about the greatest commandment, which we all know is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Jesus also replies with the second command to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

The pastor tied the two commands together, saying that the two are intwined, basically that a passionate love for God will automatically lead to loving your neighbor.

Then as application he mentioned three things that suck your passion for God that you should watch out for in your life.

• Unbalanced life- If we are too busy with work, school, etc we will not find time to renew our passion for God, we cannot train ourselves to be godly as in 1 Tim 4:7
• Unconfessed sin- If we are filled with guilt we cannot bring ourselves to God Ps 38:4-6
• Unsupported lifestyle – It’s easier to be passionate along with others who have the same passion (he gave the awesome example of mountain biking) Heb 10:25

Sometimes we read too much into a verse, meaning sometimes we look for meaning in bible verses that may not be there. Or sometimes we twist a verse to suit our own purposes, creating meaning that isn’t really there. One verse I’ve heard used in this way is Romans 8:37 “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” I’ve heard it used somewhere along the lines of, “Because God loves our team we will destroy you on the basketball courts today…” I’m pretty sure basketball did not exist in the Roman empire in the first century A.D., so I’m pretty sure that’s not really a great interpretation of that verse.

But then sometimes I wonder if it’s good to read a little bit out of context for some verses. One verse I’ve been thinking of lately is Galatians 1:10- “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

It’s pretty clear from the rest of the chapter what the context is. Many believers in the Galatian church are turning away from Christ because they are being taught a false gospel. This verse comes smack dab in the middle of Paul’s defense of the gospel that he has taught. It’s a gospel he taught not to win approval from people, and not to gain fame or followers for himself, but out of obedience to his calling as missionary to the Gentiles. It’s a gospel that can seem unpleasant to some, because it says that we are all sinners and that we are all in need of a savior. It’s a gospel that polarizes people as much today as it did when Paul preached it. If you were trying to please people, you would not preach the gospel.

So it’s clear that this verse was about why Paul teaches the gospel. Yet I wonder if this is one of those verses that would be helpful if taken slightly out of context. It’s interesting that all the bible translations that I read separate this verse into it’s own paragraph, standing on its own. I like to call these verses that can sort of stand on their own loaded verses.

So this is why I think this loaded verse is useful. For some reason many Christians seem to be somewhat shy about their faith. Some may be shy about praying in public, some may feel weird about having bible studies in coffee houses, others may feel weird about bringing their friends to church events. I am very guilty of these myself. Others are shy about what they say, wanting to look good in front of others. I am sometimes very guilty of this too. (Although nowadays I’m more inclined to need to remember the lessons from James 3 about taming the tongue. I’m sure I say a lot of stupid stuff that I don’t even remember saying…)

So I guess this loaded verse is important for me to remember. It’s very easy to want to be a people pleaser– to say the write things and do things that don’t draw attention to myself. But I need to remind myself that I am not trying to win the approval of people, but of God.

Boasting About Tomorrow

¹³ Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷ If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

I’ve been thinking about the future a lot lately. I guess the big three-oh approaching has made me more introspective, even more introspective than I already am (which is probably already too much). Some of my closest friends are turning 30 in the next few months. For me, fortunately, it’s later on in the year– I still have almost three fourths of a year before I turn 30. I had a bunch of goals set up which I wanted to complete before that fateful day comes, and although some of them are probably now out of reach, a lot of them are still doable in the 9 months I have left.

Now I’m realizing that a lot of those goals aren’t all that important, or even really worth achieving. While not ignoble per se, I could see how they could fall into the category of arrogant schemes, especially some of the financial goals I had. And they could easily lead to boasting– it’s really easy to start boasting about how much money you’ve saved up, or how much money you’ve made in stocks. So I guess I shouldn’t focus too much on these goals, and not worry too much if I don’t achieve them.

Missionary work is kind of along the lines of something I know I ought to do. I actually sort of planned out my life to be able to do it in the future. My basic plan was to try to retire at the ripe old age of 50 and spend the rest of my life overseas as a missionary. The passage made me realize that I should have a shorter term horizon on these sorts of things, because it’s true, we really don’t know what will happen tomorrow.

The last thing I came to realize from this passage is to be more mindful of praying. I tend to just plan out a basic framework for things and just go and do them. It’s like that when I travel, I have a make up a list of things that I want to do, then hit the ground and start doing them. My life is sort of like that too, I set up a list of things that I want to do and just start doing them, without much reflection beforehand. There’s no real thought of, “If it’s the Lord’s will…” So I guess that is where the prayer should come in for me.

Over the years I’ve come to realize that there are really two types of leaders. There are leaders that set the vision and overall goals of an organization. They are the face of the organization, the ones that most people would think of when asked, “Who is the leader?” I call them the ‘generals.’ In the church/fellowship world they are the pastors and the core leaders of a fellowship. Then there is the second type of leader, the type that I most identify with and admire. I call them the ‘sergeants.’ They don’t really have a high position, but they lead by example. They put themselves in harms way along with the soldiers under their command. I don’t know if they really have a parallel in the church/fellowship world. I guess they are the ones that you kind of gravitate towards and look to for advice, even though they are not really a leader per se.

Anyways, that was sort of a random spiel. I’m not sure why I started writing about leadership. I guess my thought is that in a world where everyone wants to be a general, there aren’t enough sergeants. And what we really need are sergeants.

This post was titled ‘two worlds’ because I’ve been thinking about this recently– that it’s almost like Christians live in two different worlds. We have the secular world– for most people this world revolves around work or school. And then there’s the so called Christian world– the church, the fellowship, the bible studies, etc.

I see that in my own life too. It’s even apparent in my blogs. I have two of them, DT and MT. They originally stood for something. I think DT stood for ‘devotional thoughts.’ I think I originally was going to try to read a bible passage every day and write a short devotional every day. That was obviously way too ambitious a goal for a lazy person like me. I think MT stood for ‘miscellaneous thoughts,’ sort of all the rest of the junk that flowed in my brain, my empty thoughts (get it? MT = empty? bwahahaha….) Although I try to incorporate my faith into my empty thoughts once in a while, it’s pretty obvious that these blogs are two different worlds.

There are those who are able to bring both worlds together every day. They are the ones that I truly admire, although there are very few of them in my life. I don’t think I’m at that level yet. And so I will continue with both of these worlds. What I will try to do is be more consistent in DT, at least as consistent as this empty MT world. And who knows, maybe these worlds will cross from time to time.

Two worlds
http://mt.dahhh.com
http://dt.dahhh.com

It seems like it’s been forever since I’ve led a bible study.  I actually kind of miss the days when Acacia was smaller, when the leaders could lead a study on whatever was on their heart.  That seems like a really long time ago.  But I guess that’s what our small groups are for.  Anyways, what’s been on my heart lately is the subject of joy, or lack of it. So I guess I will lead on that.

In truth, it seems a little bit weird to study joy. It seems like something we either have or we don’t. We can describe what it feels like to have it, but it’s kind of hard to qualify it in words. But I guess I will try. Usually the very first thing I do when I lead a study is to google the subject. That seems like a good start. Here’s what I learned today that’s applicable to the study…..

When I did a search on the NIV version of the bible on biblegateway.com, I came up with 242 different verses. There are 10 Hebrew words and 7 Greek words used in the bible to describe joy. There’s obviously a lot on the subject.

Here are the Hebrew words:

• giyl/giylah – rejoice, be glad
• duwts – to leap, dance, spring
• chedvah - gladness
• masows - exultation, rejoicing
• rinnah/ranan/rannen – ringing cry of entreaty, supplication, proclamation or praise
• suws - to exult, display joy
• samach - to cause to rejoice, gladden, make glad
• simchach - mirth, gladness, pleasure
• sasown - exultation, rejoicing
• teruwah - alarm, signal, shout

Here are the Greek words:

• agalliasis - exultation, extreme joy, gladness
• euphrosune - good cheer
• kauchaomai – to glory on account of a thing
• oninemi - to receive profit or advantage
• skirtao - to leap
• chairo - to rejoice exceedingly, also used as a salutation in beginning of letters
• chara - joy received from you, cause or occasion of joy

Anyways, that was probably a pointless word study, because I will probably not remember it.  But the thing I got out of it was that joy is a very important part of the bible, it shows up in many places, and there are many different words for it.  The importance of joy comes up in Galatians 5:22.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness….

Joy is a fruit of the spirit.  In fact it is the second fruit of the spirit, mentioned after love.  We talk about biblical love a lot, but it seems like seldom that we talk about joy, but it’s obvious that joy has a very important place in the life of a believer…….

For the past few years it’s been Acacia’s tradition on Valentine’s day for the guys to cook for the sisters.  This year, to go with that, we had a short message.  The typical message in these situations seems to be from Ephesians 5, which has the command, “husbands love your wives…..”

Love is many things.  First Corinthians 13 makes that very clear.  Love is also about service, as I pointed out in the last post, Jesus showed the full extent of his love through the amazing service of washing his disciples feet.  So I guess if we take Jesus as the example for manliness, I guess that would mean my definition for manliness would be this.

“A manly man sets an example of love through serving.”

Of course this love is not just the love between husband and wife, and it manifests itself in different ways with different relationships.  The way you love/serve your wife would be different from your friends and from your coworkers for sure… but the basic concept is the same.

Anyways, recently I was reminded of that study again.  This month I started going to BSF (which stands for Bible Study Fellowship I’m guessing) and ironically the first week’s study is on that very same passage.   But strangely the study doesn’t focus too much on the obvious act of service shown by Jesus, instead it focuses on the love that Jesus showed in his last hour. The first few verses show of John 13 show that Jesus was fully aware that his time was coming soon.  He fully knew the hardship that he would soon face, but until the end, what shows is his love for his disciples.  The first verse sets the stage for Jesus’ famous act of service and why it really is an act of love.

It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having LOVED his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his LOVE.

The act of service shown by Jesus was an outpouring of His love, and it was a precursor to Jesus’ greatest act of service and also his greatest outpouring of love, his death on the cross.  In verse 14, Jesus tells his disciples that they should be washing each others’ feet.  He doesn’t explicitly say it in this passage, but he says it in so many other places, that we should love each other.  Jesus’ act of service is really an outpouring of that love.  Maybe that’s what I messed up in that study last year…. Service is not something that is forced, separately on its own, service really is the practical outpouring of love.  If we are to love one another, we are to serve one another.  If we serve one another, we are showing that we are loving one another.