Made by God

I'm finding more and more that I am appreciating the life that God has given me over the years. Sure, I've had some struggling moments, but those were where I needed to grow more deeply. I'm also finding a great appreciation for the beauty around me, both in nature and people. I was thinking about this after reading through Psalm 139; in particular, this verse was what has been impacting me this morning:

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;  your works are wonderful,  I know that full well." -Psalm 139:14 (New International Version, or simply "NIV")

I find that this verse is very powerful; if it could touch me into feeling more intimate with my Creator, how much more could it impact others, people who don't know Jesus yet? By reading this verse, I am reminded that I was born for a reason, a purpose, that I'm not just an accident. It shows that there is someone greater than what this world offers, someone who loves me so much despite my flaws and failures. As the loving father that He is, God will always catch me as I fall so I can be brought back to my feet and try again.

I understand how hard it is to feel that you are beautiful or amazing as I have struggled with this (sometimes, I still do, though not as much). Many teens and young adults have this problem. But I am grateful for friends and family who love Jesus and are filled with His Spirit; many of them have helped in shaping who I am today, a friend of Christ and a warrior for heavenly peace. This also reminds of of Proverbs 27: 17, which says (again, from the NIV): "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." Without the people whom God brings into our lives, we probably would be in more turmoil.

If you feel like you cannot see yourself as beautiful, I just want to let you know that God loves you; He made you to be who you are and wants to show you how beautiful you are on the inside. He wants to perfect you more into a diamond out of the rubble of sin and despair. I also want to say that you are not alone. God had promised that he will never leave nor forsake us (Joshua 1:9). We also have friends and family to count on when we are at our lowest points.

I think a song would greatly sum up my point. The song in the video below is called, "Made," which is performed by Hawk Nelson off of their new album of the same name. I hope that this song and what I said brings you encouragement today.

-Alex

Faithfulness and Risk-Taking

Here are some more thoughts as I have been thoroughly studying Chapter One of Simon Guillebaud's More Than Conquerors...

Discussing about faith, I believe that I am rather confident in believing God's faithfulness; nobody can be as faithful as he is. This gives me some assurance that my life is in awesome hands. Though I would admit, it isn't always so easy to put your faith in Jesus. But I had to spend time with him, gradually allowing him to take up more of my heart. I pray that God will be able to mould me more into who he wants me to be, and use me to my best potential.

I’m continuing to learn more about how to handle failure. Failure doesn’t always mean that it’s the end of the line for me; it does however allow me to stop, look back, learn from it and move on to becoming better than how I was in the past. I believe that because of this, I have now become a better person and I am continuing to trust God more when I fall down. Sure, it’s often discouraging to fail and it has often made me question my beliefs and faith, but in the end, I just need to continue learning more about giving Jesus control; after all, he has greater plans set out for me (see Jeremiah 29:11 for context). By focusing more on him, I’ll have a more exciting and intimate relationship with him; I’ll be able to gain a better perception about how my life with Jesus has been an adventure. Speaking of adventure, this whole journey that I’ve been going through with Christ so far has been rather interesting, even though there were some moments that weren’t all too exciting, and some even dark ones; however, God has always managed to get me through it all stronger than before. I’m glad that I am covered by his grace and mercy.

I think God is urging me toward evangelistic and knowledge-based pursuits. This appears to be both appealing and risky to me as it is within my areas of interest and giftedness, and I don’t fully know what kind of outcome will arise from it all. I’m hoping that he will continue to shape and use me as I enter this set of endeavors that he has set out toward me. I also pray that the Spirit will enlighten the path that I am to take next (make it more clear on my next direction to go, as to clarify what I am saying). I know that eventually, things will make sense to me; until then, I’ll have to trust that God is going to be with me every step of the way. I hope that all of this encourages you as you continue on your walk with him everyday.

Take care and God bless you!

Alex

Love Has Come for Me (and Everyone Else)

I was checking around through my Facebook news feeds when I stumbled upon a video of Colton Dixon performing live on American Idol. The song he performed was an original called, "Love Has Come for Me," which talks about yielding our lives to Christ. I find this to be a remarkable song, and it has encouraged me to continue in my growing journey with God, despite all of the struggles that I am facing and what is yet to come.

The song reminds me of a few verses in the Bible. 2 Corinthians 5:17, which talks about how we are now a new creation through Christ, rings throughout the song as a major theme. Another theme-ringing verse is found in the book of Romans:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8 NIV)

As you can see, love, sacrifice and new beginnings are the main themes of the song. I love how it expresses how little we understand of God and our current situation, but since God had first loved us, we are now able to truly love others and life, and more importantly, God himself. Here is the official lyric video for the song. I hope that it rejuvenates and encourages you as it has for me.

-Alex

Jesus to the Nations 2013: Lessons in Missions

This past weekend was the weekend of Jesus to the Nations. In case you don't know, this is a missions conference held in Halifax on an annual basis. This was the fourteenth year that this conference has been happening in Atlantic Canada, and has been my second experience attending so far. I definitely enjoyed last year's conference, learning a bit more about what missions are all about and how to intercede on behalf of others. Not to mention the fun concert put on by Fresh IE.


This year, I checked out two different seminars at J2N 2013: one was on indigenous missions, which discussed the differences and similarities of working both cross-culturally and non cross-culturally, and how both methods can coincide with each other to make an impact on places about which Jesus has not been heard. The second seminar that I checked out was conducted by Simon Guillebaud of Great Lakes Outreach (in Africa, not North America), and he talked about some of his more recent and life-changing experiences while working in Burundi. His seminar was rather interesting, as he discussed about this war-torn country plagued with AIDS and other diseases, as well as hearing some of the rewards that has come to him as he ministered in there. He was also one of the plenary speakers during the weekend, the other two being Nik and Ruth Ripken, who go out to areas of persecution. Through these speakers, God has given me a bit of a clearer picture as to what the ministry of the Apostles was like during the beginning of the Early Church, and how it applies to us today.

The music for this conference was also quite phenomenal. We had Chelsea Amber and Fraser Campbell join us that Saturday for a concert night. Both had quite some amazing talents and were aiming to worship God. One of the coolest things that I noted was that they were both from opposite coasts of the country, Chelsea being a Haligonian and Fraser, a Victorian. But they were very good, both separately and together. God was definitely working through them.

In short, I'd just like to say that I had enjoyed the weekend. It definitely gave me some new insight about missions and some more thinking to do. I'm hoping to apply more of what I learned from the weekend on campus and see what God will do through me.

Saint Patrick: A Man on a Mission

This image can be found on Wikipedia.

With today being Saint Patrick's Day, I thought that I would share a few things about who Saint Patrick was. I know this seems to be rather unrelated to the book, but bare with me.

Saint Patrick was originally from Great Britain but first arrived to Ireland as a slave at sixteen years of age. At this point, while tending his master's flock, he prayed to God for salvation and freedom. This came in a rather unusual way when sometime around his early twenties, he hears a voice that tells him to go on a ship, which he did after fleeing his master's house; he returned to his hometown and family, and he studied to become a priest, later becoming a bishop. Sometime when he's in his forties, he receives a vision from God to return to Ireland and preach around the country. He remained Ireland up until his death on approximately March 17, 490, though this date may be wrong.

Why bring up Saint Patrick? I believe that we can learn a few things from Patrick. For one thing, he is probably the most well-known of all the Irish saints. It is through people like him that Christianity had expanded further from England. Patrick was known for travelling around from town to town, preaching the Gospel as the Apostles had done in the past. Essentially, Patrick is continuing on the Great Commission as Jesus gave out to his disciples here:

"He said to them, 'Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation'". -Mark 16:15, NIV

Like Patrick, we need to have faith and trust in God in order to complete his will for our heart. We need to have a life built with prayer and devotion to him. Evangelism is not very easy to do, but it is rewarding when we do that which we are called to do.

I hereby encourage you, this Saint Patrick's Day, to look further into the history and and wonder of this man and this holiday, so that you too can see an appreciation of what a "man of God" can do. If this inspires you to share with your friends, feel free to do so. I pray that you will remain blessed to know that God loves you and has a plan for your life.

Take care!

-Alex

Banquets and Speaking Life

         This evening, I went to an interesting Bible study that focused on Luke 14: 15-24 for a little while, and we got to learn what it means to get a taste of God's banquet. A lot of times, someone would start preparing a banquet or a potluck and invite their friends out in advance, but as soon as the event comes, the invited guests come up with little excuses. I don't know about you, but I think that they either get easily distracted or are trying to avoid the host because of their contentment. At least now I can understand why it would be better to start bringing in the poor and/or broken people; it would be easier for someone who has very little to accept something like attending a meal. I guess I can relate with both crowds in a way or two; I often see myself at times as not being worth for God to put up with me, while at other times, I might feel rather great and not want to bother doing something (I relate a bit more with the poor and broken people, though). But it is the choices that we make that determine whether or not we get to enjoy God's reward in Heaven. We choose whether or not we accept Jesus as our Saviour and Lord; he did give us free will, right?

         I find that this passage can also relate to some other aspects of our behaviours toward other people. In particular, I'm thinking more towards the words we say. We often don't realize what kind of power words can have until we see the kind of damage that we cause (I know, I have done it before many times and have also received it from the other end). We can choose to use our words as a way to build people up or tear them down, and I find that if we show love with our words, then we would have peace with the people around us, and they can get to know about God by him working through us. So I thought that this video would be a great fit for all of this; it's the official lyric video to the song, "Speak Life" by TobyMac, and I feel that this is a very relatable song.

         I hope that this inspires you and gives you something to think about. I believe that God will always find a way to get us to learn something. If you'd like some extra information, feel free to take a look at the links available.

-Alex

Crazy Love: My Post-Valentine Thoughts

         I thought that today would be a good day to talk about love. No, I'm not referring to being in love with a girl; I'm talking about this crazy, unconditional love that God has for all of us, the same love of which he had reminded me this past Valentine's Day. The past couple of days have been rather empowering for me and my relationship with him.

         The past little while before Valentine's Day, I had been having doubts about Christianity at times: doubts about whether what I am doing is right or in vain, whether or not I fully agree with what people are doing. I think I also resonated a little from the book that I had been reading, asking myself and God, "if there are plenty of Christian students here on campus, why isn't there such a lasting impact of goodness to show it? Are we actually influencing our campus, or has the influence of the campus created our perpetual downfall?" Part of this fit of questioning had arisen from emotional troubles caused by my surrounding environment, namely how people may have treated me. It was with that happening that I started wrestling, started feeling that maybe I had been a fool to believe in all of this.

         I had expressed about all this to a friend, Brian (a staff worker for Power to Change), who helped steer me back in the right direction. He went over a tract with me that discussed about the role of the Holy Spirit. It seemed that I had allowed my emotions to take a stronghold of me, and that had been my downfall. As we went through the tract together, I started to understand better about how the Spirit helps mediate our relationship with God the Father as the "other counsellor" about which Jesus had mentioned to his disciples (John 14: 16-17). I also learned that I had not been so dependent on the Spirit as my guide, and that by faith, I could get back on track and out of the valley. I believe the last time something like this happened (which was last March), I was given help from a couple of Inter-Varsity friends at the Mount, notably Kaleigh and Rachel (the friend with whom I am studying "More Ready Than You Realize"). If it hadn't been for friends like them, I don't know what I would have done next.

         Now that I feel rejuvenated by being filled with the Holy Spirit, I can now grasp more about Christ's love for me, as though I have found the significance of the cross to be deeper than before. I understand that I mustn't let my feelings control me, that I must live in faith in order to be part of God's plan for change in Halifax, as Jesus expressed in John 14: 21, 23-27.

         Love is very mysterious, and no matter what we do, God is always going to love us; this is what we call unconditional love. 1 Corinthians 13 is an entire chapter in which Paul talks about what love looks like. It's quoted often during wedding ceremonies, which are also love-driven. I definitely find it rather suiting. Love and faith truly go hand in hand with each other, as written here: "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV)" Hopefully the next time I find myself going downhill, I will cling on to my faith and ask God for strength, and he will continue to pour out his love for me so that I can continue on this journey called life with him.

God bless you all until next time!

Finding Our Identity in Christ: Kristen's Note

Hey!

So, I was browsing through Facebook this morning when I noticed that my friend Kristen wrote a new note about finging our Christian identity. It was a lot of information that sounded so inspiring that I figured that I'd share it with all of you. You can click here to read what she had to say. I hope that this will inspire you all, and don't worry, I'll write another entry about what I am learning through the book sometime soon.

Peace!