To Fast or Not to Fast, That is NOT the Question

And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Matthew 6:16-18 ESV

I grew up in church, but fasting was not something we have been taught much about. So, there was a time when I asked "why? What is it that we are supposed to do when fasting." The Bible was not really helpful in giving clear instruction of what to do when you fast.

This passage sure point to how it would be done incorrectly, and what would be a right attitude. Jesus' instruction here is found in a teaching session He did for His disciples.

He began with how we should be so discreet with our giving, our right hand should not know what the left one is doing it. Last week I talked about how our mindset should be from the lesson on the Lord's Prayer. This week it's about how fasting is something intimate between us and God and not for anyone else to know.

To fast or not to fast would not make you a more, or less, sacred person. There are people who can have a perfect relationship with God without it. The right question is

Do you want to have an intimate relationship with God, or having people think you have is enough for you?

Hungry (Falling on My Knees)

Seek First

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Matthew 6:33-34 ESV

Jesus was teaching about how our attitude should be in our daily living. He started with our giving, then prayer, then fasting, then wealth, and now, in conclusion, Jesus summarized His teaching with these two verses.

When God's Kingdom is at the forefront of all of our concerns, we truly understand what it means to call God "our Father". We can get pass getting what we want, what we think is best for us, or even for others. We will not take what we have for granted or even have the delusion that it is our doing.

It is when we won't be so concerned about if we have been vindicated of wrongs done to us, temptation would have no hold on us, we will not need deliverance from evil, as we are preoccupied with what matter to God.

Sounds "too-good-to-be-true"? Is it because we treat prayer as a chance to let God know what we want, no matter how noble we are trying to make it sound? Is it because we spend ⅔ of our prayer in telling God who He is and rush through the ⅓ of our time chucking request at Him hoping God will fulfill them because you "kissed His 'behind'"? There is the problem: you are still "doing" YOU!

If we are determined to learn to seek first the Kingdom of God through our prayer, by putting the needs of others first, by casting aside what we desire for ourselves, being able to live a life of a Kingdom Seeker will just become that much easier.

The Lord’s Prayer

Reading God's Word

This week, our Lent focus is on the Spiritual Discipline of Scripture. I have come across people who question if we should read the Scripture on our own instead of reading what others are saying about God's word. It is wonderful that people want to think about what God has said, but it is more important that we read for ourselves what is said in the Bible.

Before I get into the nerdy discussion of "Reading the Bible for yourself", I would like to talk about something just as nerdy. I recently come across a video of someone presenting in a TED Talk that all these "Green Energy Effort" is not helping the environment. That led to a discussion I had with someone else that has something to do with our faith.

Solar energy is everywhere, but in order for us to harvest that energy, it takes a lot of solar panels. These panels essentially turn the sunlight into energy, but to-date, the technology is not there to efficiently convert that energy into substantial amount to supply a town, let alone a city. In order to even power a town, will take football fields of these panels to generate enough power to do so. The problem is that they would generate so much heat, birds has been known to be cooked alive while "accidentally" fly over these arrays.

However, if a collection of homes install small panels to cut down their demands on the grid by at least 30%, the demand on the grid is much smaller, which allows everything to become more efficient.

What does that have to do with our faith? If a Church body operates like that of the first scenario, Christians are relying on their weekly "filling" from the pastor, and the pastor has to blast them with a nuclear amount of teachings that hopefully will last them until next week. It is inefficient, and someone will get burn one way or the other.

If a Church is Spiritually Disciplined, they will be willing to generate that "energy" on their own which is supplemented by the weekly teaching of the pastor. When that happen, not only will they have more than enough energy for themselves, there is enough to share with those around them.

"Doing good" will only get us so far with those around us. Only when we live the life we learn from reading the Bible, knowing who we are, and where our centre is we can be more to the people around us.

Thy Word

Come Unto Me

²⁸ Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”Matthew 11:28-30 (ESV)

Sabbath is about rest. It is a day that God has set aside as a special day. It is a day of the week God has demanded to be His. It is so important to God, that it has its own place in the 10 Commandment.In Luke 6:1-11, Jesus, when faced with challenge by the Jewish leaders, made it clear that He is the Lord of/over Sabbath. God made it simple, but people has made it complicated. Why? Why are we people like to complicated things?Ever since the Fall, we have been trying to take charge of our fate. When Adam and Eve realized they were naked, instead of running to God to ask for His help, they tried to “fix” their predicament by putting pieces of leafs together to cover themselves. God search for them and gave them a proper solution: He clothed them with stitched skin of animal.Sabbath is not about rules. It is not about whether you “work” or not on a Sunday.Sabbath is about us coming before Him, yearning for Him, share our burdens with Him. He is the only One who can turn our burdens into His burden that is lighter. It is because, by us turning the control of our lives over to Him, He will do His work ahead of us.The alternative is that we try, and try, and try to take control. We will feel like we are doing something and have control over the situation; however, soon enough, you will find that burden have only become heavier and a bigger mess waiting for you at the other end. The only feeling we end up having is just feeling more exhausted.We need to trust Him and find rest amongst the storm of life.

Making Things Right

Yesterday, I visited a church in San Francisco, which meet, of all places, Treasure Island. It is a fairly diverse church, which I love. After singing a few praises, the Lead Pastor led us in prayer. One of the things that we were praying for is for some of its member who are touched or affected, directly or indirectly, by what was happening at the border. I love how the Pastor handled it. He did not scream and yell at the "injustice" of the government's action. He did not ask us to pray for the government to "do more" or "do better". He did not even condemn the government for doing what is "evil".Instead, he reminded us to pray for those affected by the circumstances leading to their situation. He reminded us to pray for those who have, effectively, become widow, widower, or orphans. He prayed for something to be done for them.I know my opinion on ILLEGAL "immigrants" has not been popular. Because in the past, my view have earned me many "titles" as well as being sworn at. Even amongst Christians, my view has been shunned upon.I know MANY Churches and Christian leaders has been very vocal in demanding the government to just pretend they are not illegals or simply change the rules to make their entry not illegal, period. The demands are trying to make the government behave like the church.That's not the job of the government.Government has only ONE job: rnforce rules that are fair and non- biased (mean no exception). They are not to play favourite, preferential treatment for any reason whatsoever.If something doesn't seem "fair", as in the case of these illegal immigrants, it is not the job of the government to be "humanitarian" unless it's a government with resource to spare and its own citizens have no needs. In the cases of Canada and the US, that is not the case.It is, JUST LIKE when there was the Vietnamese Refugee crisis, that the responsibility of bringing in and supporting them are on private citizens and groups. Which means it is, in "our" case, the job of the churches and Christians to work with the government to have a system in place for refugees to await sponsorship WHILE they remain in safe place they can safely arrive to.If churches and individuals want to criticize the "evil" policy over illegal immigrants, what are they DOING about it. Petitioning is not "doing" anything. It is simply doing "something" without "doing" ANYTHING at all.Doing the "right" thing may not be doing the right thing at all, while doing the "wrong" thing may just be the right thing to do.

Heeding to the Call

People sometimes wonder what the call of God sounds like. In a sense, I don't know. It's not that I never heard God's call before. It's just that He hardly ever "repeats" Himself. Let me clarify that. In my experience He never repeats Himself not because I'm so obedient that He doesn't repeat Himself. It is just that even when He needs to repeat Himself, He will use a different way.That's not why I'm writing. I'm sitting at one of the waiting area in Sick Kids because one of my best friend's new born son is here. When I was here last night, his brother and I went downstairs to get a coffee and he ran into someone he used to work with. They chatted and we moved on.Since my afternoon is completely open, as I'm just waiting for my wife to finish her conference, I just hung around in case there is something I can help my friend with. Ended up it was not my friend God wants me to help.First was a desperate father who is short $3.22 for his co-pay to grab the supplies he needs for his family to go home. Then, remember there guy I came across the night before? God wanted me to talk to him.His son has just been sent into the OR to do heart surgery and he was just on the way to check on his wife in Mt. Sinai. He walked by, saw me and just walked over to talk to me.He has it tough. He lost his father just a week ago, and the doctor just decided his son needed to come out yesterday and surgery today. He KNOWS this will pass. He KNOWS this is not it. He just needed someone to talk to. I am just glad he left to check on his wife with a smile on his face.Just thankful I was used by God. Any time, Father. Anytime.

Seventy Seven Times

If you do not recognize the name Yip Kai Foon, he was a notorious robber from Hong Kong. He died last month while in prison. Before he went to prison for the second time, he has no regard for other human being.He once joined forced with another notorious criminal trying to kidnap one of the sons of the richest Chinese in the world, Lee Ka Shing. It was unsuccessful and he was imprisoned for his part in it. He escaped prison and got his hands on a few AK-47. He used these weapons to hit a series of Jewllery Store and sprayed bullets everywhere.Remember the North Hollywood shootout? How the LAPD was powerless with their powerful 9-mm? The police in Hong Kong were, and still, carries only .38 revolvers. They do not even have any bulletprrof vest, and do not have police cars as shield. He was eventually captured by the, then, newly formed SWAT team.He became a Christian while in prison, and after he died, he was paraded as some sort of hero. During the funeral, the banner over his coffin says 「浩氣長存」(a noble spirit that mill never perish).A lot of people have issue with the term "noble" with this notorious robber.I have been reading a lot of non-Christians posting their disgust over how he is treated as some sort of hero, and famous Christians standing up for him. I believe their biggest issue with him is that he became a Christian, and the Christians treated him as if he has done none of the notorious acts before.I think they may have an easier time with him if he apologize for his crime, especially for the women he killed in one of the heists he pulled. He did none of that, and was even disciplined in prison for fight with an inmate after he became a Christian.What do I think of him? I have absolutely no idea. What do I think of the Christians who are part of the group adorning him? They should have done a much better job discipling him, and get him to apologize to everyone in Hong Kong for terrorizing everyone while he was on the run.

Newton's Third Law

In case you do not know what Newton's Third Law is

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The crazy part it, if the law is applied to human, then the law becomes "for every action, there is a greater and opposite reaction. That remain true to humans, too. The more we try to tell people they should not do something, the more they will want to fight back with reason why they should.Ever since I have joined the Wesleyan Church, I have been not had a zip of alcohol. It is not that I was even a social drinker before that. I enjoyed a lager here and there before, but I cannot remember even one time I actually finish one of those drinks. The frequency I drink a lager is probably about as often I drink pop. So, giving it up was not hard at all.The same cannot be said about those who drank in the 1700s, during the time of John Wesley. Drunkeness was a norm in society, and the biggest issue was the same man who got drunk also go home and beat their wives. That was the highest priority and most important reason for John Wesley to promote sober living.After John Wesley's time in North America, there was a sweep of the Holy Spirit across the country for around a decade. It was called the Second Awakening. It was spreading like wild flower and lives were being changed. Yet, alcoholism was still a problem.In the 1920s, the Methodist Church along with the Pesbytarians and a few other denominations decided to join force with the women who want to put a stop to the violence that associate with drunkeness. So, there was the Prohibition. Did that purge out the evilness of alcoholism?Not only did the Prohibition failed to root out the violence against women, it gave the mob bigger power, led to bloodbath between rival mobs, and created the dangerous practice of small scale moonshiners.Instead on focusing on the momentum of the Second Awakening to change the lives of people, Christians tried to use their still small number to force the rest to "convert". Like I said, when the people are forced against their desire, they push back just as hard. Have we not notice Jesus never, ever push people to change?Look at where we are at today. Some Chrsitians still think God has given them a mission to "beat" people into submission to change. Not only have we not get "them" to change their minds, they are coming after "us" with the same, if not greater, force.When are we going to learn that we are not going to win people by screaming down at them? We win them over by becoming their friends. John Wesley once faced a mob that want him seriously harmed or dead, but he not only managed to talk down their leader, the same bad-to-the-bone mob leader eventually became one of the most effective preacher of the area. 

A Divided Kingdom

Today, I was reading Mark Chapter 3. Verses 1-6 is about Jesus healing on Sabbath; verses 7-12 is about Jesus healing a growing crowd; verses 13-21 is about choosing the 12 Disciples among the growing followers and the growing needs for Jesus; verses 22-30 is the parables about blasphemes against the Holy Spirit; and, verses 31-35 is about Jesus' mother and brothers wanting to see him.Today, I received an email from one of the candidates for the Federal Conservatives leadership race. He's not the first one, and, while the other candidates wrote long emails explaining their position and vision for their version of the next Conservatives, this one is something else. He started his email with attacking the Ontario Provincial Conservatives leader for "Patrick Brown is no Stephen Harper". This candidate spent almost the entire email attacking a fellow politician who is not running in the same race, tried to throw dirt on the Provincial Party leader on, basically, how Brown is not a "true Conservatives" and, unlike him, is not as close to the last leader as he is (what does that have to do with anything?). He kept attacking how Brown is blocking Conservatives who are "true Conservatives" from representation of various ridings and forcing only fake Conservatives into those key positions.I have absolutely no idea where this candidate stand on any policies.He thinks it is more important for Conservatives to know how he "knows" Stephen Harper and the "fact" that he's a "real Conservatives" than for people to know where he stands in what Conservatives should stand for in the next election.He's nothing more a gossiper than a real leader material if this is the best he can do. His strategy for leadership is not to distinguish himself with a great vision of how he's going to lead the Conservatives and win over Canadians. His strategy is to attack a popular provincial leader to establish how only he is the "true Conservatives", how well he knows the last leader, and those are the only facts that matter.I'm from Hong Kong, and since 2014, it has become full-fledge chaotic. It all began with three fully grown adults who wanted to apply the "occupation" strategy to force the government into submission to their "democratic reform" demands. We were not dealing with "hey, let's talk how" but "this is what we believe democracy should be, so it exactly like we tell you or we will be trouble for you".What ended up happening is a bunch of hot headed student took over their idea and labelled themselves as "hero of democracy". What they mean is,"even we know nothing about anything, you must yield to our demands (which was never formed after 78 days of occupation).They equate themselves with the plots or characters of movies like V for Vendetta (which the real story was about the struggle between the Catholic Church and the Protestants), The Hunger Game (totally lacking in understanding of the original story vs. History of Hong Kong) and the Les Miserable (which they thought the French Revolution was an one-time event, but the correct question should be "which French Revolution" if they know History at all).

A divided Kingdom have no foot to stand on (Mark 3:25).

Okay, maybe you thought, "that's politics, the Church is not like that. Really? Think again.In Hong Kong, there are pastors and theologians who accuse anyone who is not against the government to be not Christian, as God will not allow an unjust and evil government to exist. They believe anyone who does not join this movement to be against God. I guess there must be another Gospels I didn't read where Jesus was telling His believers to rise up against the evil and unjust Roman Empire....oh wait....that Gospels doesn't exist. Yesterday, a friend of mine posted a very nice Hillsong song on his Facebook, and one of his friends immediately posted links to articles that accuse the entire Hillsong ministries as....just short of calling them the Antichrist....Hillsong is not the only target out there. There are many groups and preachers out there who love God and has been doing great works (another touchy subject) for God, and there are people who have made it their mission to "take them down" in what they believe to be "leaders who mislead God's people", but in reality to be nothing more than "theological differences".Often times these "crusaders" will take a few passages, take them out of context, turn them into theological measuring stick, and judge people based on that.Just like in Mark 3, they don't believe God will perform miracles on Sabbath because even God MUST take a vacation day. In their mind, it means anything extraordinary happens on Sabbath, it CANNOT be from God.In the early church time, unless a person become a Jews (circumcised for men), they cannot be a Christian. In the Post-anabaptist world, unless you are baptized by immersion as an adult, you are not a Christian (some even go as far as added meaning to the word baptizo to justify the immersion requirement). In certain circles today, unless you are a confessing Calvinist (whatever that mean), you are not a Christian.So, are we, with good intention, going to divide God's Kingdom just to satisfy our....psychologically based theological-correctness need?

It's 2017. But Is IIt "New"?

Last night, New Year's Eve, as I was driving home from hotpot party with most of the members of my Wedding Party, the first news I heard on the radio was the Terrorists' attack in Turkey.Just this week, I have come across this video that I posted on my Facebook page. The speaker talks about "failed parenting". As much as the terrorists are anti-West, or whatever they are "for", they are just much victims of the same "failed parenting" as the culture in the "West" that is represented by the "millenials".The terrorists are mostly by-products of the Cold War. They were rooted in the role they were forced to play during the chess moves by the brilliant minds of the USA and USSR. Their civilizations were destroyed so that there was not an all-out nuclear war between the two superpower.When the Cold War ended, while the two superpowers did not fire one shot against each other, at least not openly nor directly, the shots were fired mainly in the middleeast. They have now been trained by the best military minds of the superpowers and the weapons left behind which is constantly resupplied by the surplus that both sides were stockpiling preparing for a war that never happened.When your home is completely destroyed, you have nothing to look forward to. Or that's what you think is happening to you. When you are told that you can, not only get what your hearts desire, be a hero, why would you not jump at the chance? You are told that, by being a "radical" thinking person, you actually have a more clear mindset, a untainted message from God, and a "true" believer. Why would you not forsake your life to do what you need to do.That's "bad parenting"."Bad Parenting" teaches people "trust your heart". That's trusting the least trustworthy part of you.At Service today, the pastor preached on Acts 17:1-9, and some of the Jewish leaders trusted their heart so much so that they cannot accept the possibility that Paul and Silas were sent by God that they enlisted gangsters to create a riot, forsake their own faith (admit, in a way, to the Roman office that there is only one god, which is the Emperor) just to get rid of the two because they are more successful in reaching people.There is nothing new under the sun.Humans' sinful nature always had this desire to belittle the role of God. They don't belittle God himself,but what having God mean.It happened when Adam and Eve considered the Fruit; when Moses killed the Egyptian; when David murdered Uriah; when Rehoboam ignore advices from the advisors in favour of his peers; when the Spiritual Leaders rather kill the Message rather than admit the error in tradition and change the ways of a misled nation; when Saul saw it was his calling to kill as many Christians as he could; when groups call themselves Christians and killed each other for them believing in the wrong thing; when the White West considered the Africans not worthy of anything including the Gospel because they believe the Africans are devils based on their skin colour; when terrorists filtered and changed the Qu'ran to justify them killing anyone they do not like; when kids justify their bullying; and, when "activists" believe they can do no wrong just because they are representing the truth, whatever that means.What do they have in common? It is as if they know better than God, and all will fall apart if they don't handle things for God.It is 2017. A new year has begun. But, is there a chance that the same old pattern be broken?

Come, Holy Spirit, Come

Thursday, May 5, 2016 was Ascension Day, and I was given the opportunity to preach at my church's first Ascension Day Worship Service. Here is the recording of the service.Come, Holy Spirit, Come

Ask and You Shall Receive?

This is the [remarkable degree of] confidence which we [as believers are entitled to] have before Him: that if we ask anything according to His will, [that is, consistent with His plan and purpose] He hears us. And if we know [for a fact, as indeed we do] that He hears and listens to us in whatever we ask, we [also] know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that we have [granted to us] the requests which we have asked from Him.1 John 5:14-15AMP

This is probably the most misquoted, if not one of the top 10, New Testament passage.Prayer has become a Christmas wishlist for some Christians....or pretenders....for many. Some of these prayers have selfish motives. They may think, "if only God gives me this, then I am set"; or, "if so-and-so can have it, why wouldn't God give me?"; or, "doesn't God love me, why would He not want me to have this?"; or, "God, don't you love him/her and let her life a little longer" et cetera, et cetera....We want the miracles of answered prayers but did not want to read the "fine print" or choose to ignore it. Here is the fine print: "according to His will, [that is, consistent with His plan and purpose] He hears us." To be honest, I can't really say it is a "fine print" because it is part of the text, not some footnote somewhere.The only requests which He will grant are the ones that are inline with His Will, His plan, and His purpose. He is no genie that grants our wishes. If we consider Him to be our Sovereign Lord, then He is the Master, and we are the subjects. That is the fact. We are in His created world, not the other way around.Whatever we do not have and wish for are just that, something we do not have. If whatever we ask for and He has to give us or it means He does not love us or care about us only mean the following: (1) we are narcissistically spoiled; (2) we have been, is, and will continue to be ungrateful; and, (3) God is not the Lord of the universe, we are, because we can boss the God of the Universe around like He is our subject.If we know God enough, have a good enough relationship with Him, we know if whatever we ask for is according to His Will, we would not worry about if the prayer will be answered. If we know Him well enough, we should know how we ask for things and we will not sound like a needy child in the first place.That means, what we should first ask for, before asking Him for anything, is to ask God for a proper relationship with Him. A heart of knowing better to put Him first. How can we know that? Is there a "trick" to it? Not really.To pray to know His Will is easier than you think. We must acknowledge His sovereignty in our lives, want to see His kingdom to be a reality all around us. We must believe that whatever we have are gifts from Him and never take them for granted. We must also repent for what we have done wrong, and do so for those who have wronged us. Never to forget to confess that we are not righteous as we are fallible.Is that a lot to put into a prayer? Shouldn't be. Try it and pray with me.

Our Father in heaven,may your name be kept holy.May your Kingdom come soon.May your will be done on earth,as it is in heaven.Give us today the food we need,and forgive us our sins,as we have forgiven those who sin against us.And don’t let us yield to temptation,but rescue us from the evil one.

Matthew 6:9-13New Living Translation (NLT)

The Lord's Prayer is a little more than a chant. there is a very good reason Jesus taught us that prayer: we must be in the right place with God. If we can genuinely pray that prayer, then we have a glimpse of what the Will, Plan, and Purpose of God are. It is then, that we can expect that whatever we ask of God we will receive.

To Be Humble

Have this same attitude in yourselves which was in Christ Jesus [look to Him as your example in selfless humility], who, although He existed in the form and unchanging essence of God [as One with Him, possessing the fullness of all the divine attributes—the entire nature of deity], did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped or asserted [as if He did not already possess it, or was afraid of losing it]; but emptied Himself [without renouncing or diminishing His deity, but only temporarily giving up the outward expression of divine equality and His rightful dignity] by assuming the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men [He became completely human but was without sin, being fully God and fully man]. After He was found in [terms of His] outward appearance as a man [for a divinely-appointed time], He humbled Himself [still further] by becoming obedient [to the Father] to the point of death, even death on a cross.(Philippians 2:5-8 AMP)It was obvious that those who were always against Jesus, and, ultimately, those who got Jesus murdered, were wrong. They were wrong to ignore Jesus' teaching. They were wrong to assume they own God's Truth. They were wrong to "revenge" for God by killing a man. They were simply wrong, but rather than dealing with their wrongs, they rather get rid of the one whom they are reminded of their guilts.These same people often will come up to Jesus either to test Jesus, which is more like trying to trick Him, with really stupid misuse of God's Word. I can't imagine what I would have done. Actually, I cannot say that. I have come across similar situations. I wish I could report that I reacted just like Jesus. I reacted like a storm and let those "accusers" have it. The funny thing is, it was not even about me. It was about others.Reading through the Gospels, I often have this fire of anger toward the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes when they were recorded behaving badly. Then, there was Jesus. He was God. The very Word from Him were being misquoted to be used against Him, the issuer of the same Word. He could have said, "hey listen, you can try all you want, you are not going to beat the master." He could have whistle and the angels can come down to beat the daylight out of these idiots. But, He didn't. He didn't even use smart comments to rebuke them.In His gentle rebukes He was still trying to show His accuser the truth. If I were Him, there would be so much I would have done to those ungrateful people. Am I glad I was not Jesus, and so should everyone else....especially those Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes.Yet, that is not good enough excuse to excuse my blown fuses in those situations. Even though the "truth" was "on my side" is still not an excuse. It does not mean it would be easy, from now on, for me to hold my peace when I come across similar situation again, but it means I have something to aim for. Be like Jesus, be kind to your enemy. What a tough lesson to learn. Lord have mercy.

Lost and Found

⁸ Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “See, Lord, I am [now] giving half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone out of anything, I will give back four times as much.” ⁹ Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this household, because he, too, is a [spiritual] son of Abraham; ¹⁰ for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:8-10, Amplified Bible - AMP)Zaccheus was already a Jew, an Israelite, therefore, by default, he should be a son of Abraham, so how come Jesus called him "a spiritual son of Abraham"? Because he was working for the Romans against the Israelites, he was considered dead to his own people. He was no longer considered a son of Abraham.When Zaccheus saw that his way was wrong, he rectified it. It is not that he never knew he was sinning or that he was "lost". In order for him to function, he probably deny whatever he was doing was wrong, just "doing his job". Reading the story, all Jesus did was telling him, "hey body, I'm going to go to your house and will be staying with you." Jesus didn't preach to him, or even had a "heart-to-heart" with him when Zaccheus made the promise. Zaccheus just volunteer the change.To the Jews, Zaccheus lost his salvation when he lived a life of a "notorious sinner" because he was "doing his job". A simple declaration by Jesus to stay at his house was enough for him to change his way. By doing so, Jesus declared Zaccheus "regained" his salvation because Jesus came for people just like him.The fact that we have and will sin is not the end of the world, because just because we have decided to follow Jesus does not make us any less of a sinner, just a saved lost soul. What matters is for us to be determined to change our ways. That is the way Jesus has provided for us.

What is Worship

There are a lot of things I could be doing right now, but I think my ADD got the better of me right now. This is bothering me so much that I can't help but have to write about it. I may add more stuff later.It has been bothering me for a long time, but my recent experience at Teens Conference have actually created pain in me that has been hurting me for the last 3-4 weeks.The problem is how worship leaders are more obsessed with imitating "successful" churches or worship leader in what they do than why they do what they do. For example, when it come to prayer, kids starts to talk about "let's do the Korean Prayer", and I go like "what?" What they meant is the one stream of Pentecostalists' method of prayer, which is very popular among a few circle of Korean Churches. The motive is, since the Korean Churches are known for being a praying church, and the number of Korean who are Christians are unbelievable, so if we pray like them, God will answer our prayers.That is scary because that has made prayer just a pretending imitation act of a group of people rather than imitating the heart.At Teens Conference, a kid walked around the Hall screaming and yelling out prayer and telling people what they should be doing, etc. First of all, that should be the job of the Worship Leader, and should be done like that of a pastor talking to the congregation, and not like a Marine Sergeant yelling at the platoon at training camp.I don't even know where to start with what's wrong with this one.I have heard from a pastor friend that at a worship conference, "Asian Style" worship was filled with Hillsong songs. Then I look at worship at our churches and at Teens Conference. They are full of imitation of Hillsong (or other worship bands) CD performance.Their idea is that since Hillsong concerts are so moving and make you feel so close to God, imitating them would bring the same effect.All the above are MYTH embedded into our young people head, and the young adults are helping it, and a lot of adult, being afraid of being called unspiritual and unsupportive, refuse to do anything about it.Why are we doing or allowing imitation of action to lead us in worshiping our Lord? I have nothing against loud and fast music, and I have nothing against praying out loud; however, when we copy action other people without making it our own, we are just a bunch of disharmony gongs that just make noise that can kill.Worshiping with emotional only is a very dangerous thing, because our emotion is the most dangerous part of us, it is a part of us that is the most vulnerable to Satan's attack. If our worship is all about logic, then we are endangering our faith to become legalistic: you HAVE to worship a certain way to be proper and acceptable to God.Worshiping must be emotional (what? I thought you said...), or else we will be like robots, but, if our emotion is without reason, we are just going through the experience looking for the next "spiritual" high. That, in no way, is worship. It is because GOD IS NOT A DRUG DEALER.The Korean Church's "success" is not due to HOW they pray, but their attitude in prayer. If someone want to imitate them, then let's get together at 6 am and pray. I mean get together, not get up at 6 am. If imitation is desired, imitate that.Hillsong is great is getting people to connect with God, but not just with everything loud and fast and excited. They spend hours in planning a "service", and they use different kind of songs with Scriptures and sharing. They also spend hours rehearsing, and there is seldom any ad lib moment. EVERYTHING has been planned. If imitation is desired, imitate that.What is Worship? Worship is to give EVERYTHING we got to focus on the One who has given us everything. Worship is not "Simon Said" nor what we feel like. Worship is digging deep into ourself and clear out every self-centered thinking and emotion, and worship the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.