Blog Adventures in the time of Covid-19 with Pastor Mick

2021.06.15

The masks are coming off! It has certainly been an interesting month. After a long 15 months, it seems like the traffic is back, everywhere. Rush hour once again feels like rush hour. But the thing that has really shaken me up lately has been seeing people’s faces everywhere. Masks have become so much a part of our lives that it has really felt very strange to see mouths and noses, everywhere. And I’m still sort of uncertain whether or not I should continue to wear my mask. When you have signs everywhere saying if you haven’t gotten your vaccine, please continue to wear a mask…and then you do wear a mask then everyone stares at you like you didn’t get your vaccine and you’re somehow dangerous. It doesn’t help that I’m asian. But, with the news constantly reporting new variants to the Covid virus, I don’t know if its safe enough to not wear a mask. Essentially I have to trust that all those who are not wearing a mask got their vaccines. But I live in a country wear people fought not to wear masks in the first place. (I think I used the word everywhere, everywhere in this paragraph.)

So the end is near. (Fingers crossed.) And inevitably we have to ask ourselves, so what was it all about? This past year, this virus, this pandemic, what was it all about? I ask because somewhere out there are people who claimed God was responsible for Katrina hitting New Orleans. God was responsible for the tsunami that hit Indonesia. I’m not saying He wasn’t or was. All I am saying is that in situations like this, where man is put in his place and made to understand how little he is, you have to talk about God and the purpose of major catastrophic events.

Some people got rich, like whoever got in early on masks and hand sanitizers. Others got poor, unfortunately too many families who really needed those jobs and paychecks. I personally wish I could have had those drive thru graduations. Apparently, a lot of people stayed in school but a lot of people also didn’t go to school either. Finals were done away with and so were standardized testing. But most importantly I think a vast majority of the earth’s 7 or 8 billion people lived the past year in their pajamas. Oh yeah, did I mention Zoom? I hope they made plenty of money because they are about to lose users at a record pace.

Churches really had to change. And so did we. But here’s what we found out. We found out if you had any faith. Many people who just went to church without faith, they packed it in this past year. No eyes pressuring you to make offerings or to pretend you’re listening to the sermons. In fact no one would know anything, other than God of course. So you saw churches with ten thousand members having only a thousand or so views on youtube. But you also saw churches that got a whole lot more views than members as well.

So where’s God in all this? I have absolutely no idea. I know He’s still the same. I know that nothing has changed, He’s still God and He still loves us. Did He allow this to happen just like He allows babies to die by the millions in Africa each year? For some reason, we demand free will and yet do whatever we can to put the blame on God when things go wrong. We are such sinful creatures. By the end of this…we may be looking at four million deaths. In the twentieth century alone, over a 100 million lives were killed because of wars. I don’t remember too many people asking about God then?

God commanded us to take care of this earth. No, we haven’t been doing a very good job of it. He created the earth and everything in it. We clean our churches because its God’s temple and yet we treat our bodies like dung and treat this planet even worse. Ironically the only thing that God didn’t create is the church building and yet we revere that. The masks are coming off and I think its high time that we take a good look at ourselves in the mirror. God has remained the same from the beginning. God’s agenda has not changed nor his feelings toward us. The very reason Jesus died on the cross has not changed. The reason we live has not changed. So much may appear to have changed yet so much has not.

If you’ve stopped praying or reading the Bible. If you’ve stopped going to church or Bible studies, I’m certainly talking about online options, if any. If you’ve stopped doing your QTs. If your faith, if your walk with God… who are you blaming for this failure? If God has not changed, if God is still the same, whose fault is it? I think we’ve made enough excuses to how or why we’ve fallen away. Am I saying you are the problem? No. I am saying you have a problem. And that problem isn’t that you had long year of weakness, its that we continue to let it be just that. We’ve for some reason allowed this Covid thing to be bigger than God. We’ve allowed it to be a worthwhile excuse to be lazy in our walk with God. We’ve allowed it become a justifiable excuse. And by that we are saying that this is bigger than God. That somehow this Covid thing is a problem too big for God to solve. We’ve allowed it to keep us away from God.

Jeremiah says that God created the heavens and that nothing is too hard for God. Matthew says that with God nothing is impossible. John says that we can do all things with God. And that’s the mentality that we need to get back to. We need to stop letting Covid be an excuse for us. I don’t know where you go to church but I hope I see you there this Sunday. I’m not saying don’t take precautions. Don’t take your masks off and let someone cough on you. But, be safe and know that God is waiting to see you.

2021.03.09

The title on some news article read, “Will Gasoline or Electric Cars Rule When the Pandemic is All Over?” In fact with all the EV boom talk of the past couple of weeks, someone actually asked me if I thought it was still worth buying a gasoline powered car. Its not outlandish to think that considering another article stated that Biden plans to replace the entire government fleet with electric cars. And they gave us the count: 245,000 various federal agencies, 225,000 in the USPS and another 173,000 in the military. That’s a whopping 643,000 cars, trucks, and vans. Once that news hit, Tesla stock gained 700% and Workhorse (an EV van company) gained 976% in the S%P 500.

But wait a minute… will OPEC just let this happen? I mean we just celebrated Abu Dhabi finding another 24 billion barrels of oil just last Thanksgiving? That put them one ahead of Kuwait on the Top Ten List. I don’t know what will happen and but it made me think of just one thing… Sometimes, doesn’t it seem like the rich just can’t stop getting richer while the rest of us just get ever more left behind? And I feel like there’s a lot of us that feel this way, especially because of the pandemic. And far be it for me to have to worry about the other 6 emirates of the U.A.E. but when the average person can’t even name the 3rd emirate behind Abu Dhabi and Dubai… And just to let you know just how far behind everyone else is… out of the 116 billion barrels of reserve the U.A.E. has together, Abu Dhabi has 110 billion, Dubai has 4 billion and Sharjah at third has 1.5 billion. That means the rest has a half a billion?

When we’re consistently exposed to a world like this, its very difficult to think that life is fair, that God is fair. Its like that kid in school who seems to have everything, the hair, the brains, the friends, the parents, and even the love. And now, it seems like they get the vaccine first as well. So the virus is blind to money, power, and influence and yet the cure doesn’t seem to be does it. Rich people seem to be flying all over the world to get their vaccines while I’m stuck hoping that someone makes a mistake and calls my name.

However, God has a different story to tell. He tells us that we are also privy to his blessings. So exactly where are those blessings? I think we can look at for them in two places. The first is to stop thinking about just this life. When this is all said and done, we still have an eternity to account for. And all the money in this world won’t matter in the next. In fact here’s what the Bible has to say about that. In Revelation 21, it says that God’s dwelling place will be with us. “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.” So all that bitterness over the guy who has everything… doesn’t matter. All those nights spent lying awake wondering why me… doesn’t matter. God’s got that taken care of.

But if you look further down the chapter, it says that the foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The twelve pearly gates were made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold. You get the picture? No amount of wealth can measure what’s waiting for us in heaven. So what if the heiress to the Walmart fortune owns a $150 million yacht. (Heaven has no oceans!) But this kind of reasoning has to begin with the fact that all the rich people in the world won’t make it to heaven. And that’s just simply not true. There are plenty of people who have everything money can buy and also love God.

So then the question becomes how do I console myself in this world when it really seems like the world is just so unfair and the God that I love who is the almighty sovereign God simply chooses to not endow me with material blessings. Well, this is the reason why the Bible warns us about money so much. So many parables and stories and verses about serving two masters and about finding our hearts with our treasures. And the truth is, the second place to look for those blessings is God. Its not easy. But anyone who has tasted God’s spiritual blessings can attest to the fact that its far more valuable and enjoyable than anything that money can buy. In fact, its incomparable. Yes, its incomparable.

One caress from the Lord, one voice, that one moment that lets you know that God is alive and He cares and He’s there for you, its such an overwhelming feeling that it outweighs anything that this world has to offer. But imagine that being a regular part of your life. Imagine God speaking to you on a daily basis. Imagine God letting you know not to worry about tomorrow because He’s got it and He understands. That’s what comes with walking with God everyday. But it takes time and hard work to get there. It takes hours of praying and reading the word of God. It will mean that you will be broken and left crying at the devastating realization that you truly are a sinner. It will mean that you will finally realize that the beating and the torture and the cruelty and finally the death of Jesus Christ on the cross was for you and you don’t come anywhere near deserving it. It will mean that you will want to hide in a corner and be soaked in shame at how arrogant you were to dare raise your head in prayer. It will finally mean that you realize what God’s love means. But when you get there, then it won’t matter who lives where and who drives what and who anything. It won’t matter because none of that will matter to you anymore. It won’t matter because you will know for a fact that none of that means anything.

There’s a reason why true believers of Christ can live modestly and still have a smile on their faces as if they own the world. Its because the love of God put that smile on their faces and nothing of this world will ever come close to replacing that.

2021.01.12

Happy 2021. I think I pretty much skipped Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Not that I didn’t realize it was happening nor partake in it but I suppose in a way, I felt like I was in a fight. I was in a fight to keep my eyes on the Lord. How do we glorify God during these holidays? How do we stop being distracted by what’s going on in this world? How do we keep our focus on God when the storm is all around us?

The storm is definitely all around us. Let’s take Christmas for example. Most churches are used to doing a little celebrating during this time of the year. Sometimes it’s a Christmas Eve service or at other times it’s a three day musical, nevertheless, the point is always on celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Now, understandably in some years the fight is to keep that focus on Jesus and not on the actual celebration. However, this year, I felt like I was fighting against something else.

I was fighting against the need to do something. It seems that because we are all trapped in this Covid pandemic, otherwise known as Groundhog’s Day, we feel the need to do something, anything resembling the way things used to be. Thus, instead of focusing on God the best way we can, we seem to be fixated on motion. We seem to be focused on what’s on the outside instead of what’s on the inside.

And we’ve been warned about this time and time again. Isaiah chapter 1 is just about this. It says that God wants our hearts. He’s tired of us just going thru the motions. He doesn’t want our meaningless sacrifices and offerings. He wants our hearts and He will accept our sacrifices and offerings only when they come from the heart.

But its not just the pandemic that’s got our attention. The rest of the world is a storm as well. It’s snowing in places that haven’t in a long time. If not floods then fires. Pop culture is tired of pushing its gay agenda and is now onto bisexuality and transgenderism. And did you get a look at what happened on Capitol Hill? All this while we are under quarantine right?

None of this has to be a problem but it is. It’s a problem because that’s what we’re staring at. Our attention is on this world and its problems. And the entire time, God is asking us to just look at Him, focus on Him. At some point we have to stop looking at our smartphones while God’s talking to us.

215ministry.com has come up with Practical Steps to Keep Your Eyes on Jesus.

1. It goes without saying that you should begin your day with God. When you do, you’ll find that your day goes much better than when you miss out on that time with Him. Besides, you have too much to do not to spend time with Him. You need Him!

2. Begin each day with an attitude of thanksgiving and prayer. This will help keep you focused on God.

3. Turn off your social media or limit your time there. Simply don’t browse through it as much as you used to.

4. Don’t feed on the news channels as they fill people with fear and trepidation. Besides, the news is usually one-sided as they favor one political party over the other.

5. Since you now have “found” more time, why not spend this time in the Word of God? Find the promises of God that speak of what He will do for you and stand on them. This will help you to keep your eyes on Jesus and stay focused on God.

6. Remember who you are in Christ. Your identity is who God says you and not what the world teaches.

7. Focus on being Christ-like rather than doing what everyone else is doing. In other words, don’t follow the crowd as you strive to keep your eyes on Jesus.

8. Hope in God as you focus on Him and what He will do for you. He specializes in doing the impossible.

9. (https://215ministry.com/practical-steps-to-keep-your-eyes-on-jesus/)

You remember the story about Jesus walking on water? Well, don’t forget Peter did, too. And the point isn’t that Peter began to sink once he took his eyes off of Jesus. The point is that he walked on water when he kept his eyes on Jesus. The storm is all around us but if we are focused on Jesus, the only thing you’ll notice is Jesus.

2020.11.06

Rack up another first for 2020. I cannot ever recall not knowing who the next president will be so many days after the election. I used to just leave the TV on from around supper time until I saw all the crying from the concession speech and the balloons falling from the rafters for the winner. Speaking of which here’s another first for 2020, I believe Trump is the first president to not concede as well. The point being it seems there’s a lot of worried people out there. There’s rumors of riots and law suits, stocks fluctuating and lots of pouting, and a bunch of old angry republicans and young angry democrats who were too young to vote.

Now, America is supposed to be a country of God fearing Christians. Supposed to be because a long time ago, 90% of the population claimed such a belief where as now, less than 70% do so. It is still a majority. But then… who’s doing all the worrying and looting? You can’t tell me that the 30% that make up the non-Christian population is behind all the ruckus. Of course not. But if that’s the case, then I’m lost. I’m lost because how can someone who believes in the sovereignty of God be so consumed with angst and ire in the results that they resort to such mischief. A nation in which 7 out of 10 people believe in God, 6 out of 10 believe that the coronavirus epidemic is a message from God to man to change the way we live, is a nation where 8 out of 10 believe that things in the country are out of control. So much for God’s sovereignty.

Here are some more interesting facts for you:

• A person, attending every service in an evangelical church for 2 months straight, would have less than a 10% chance of hearing a phrase that included the words “hell” or “redemption,” 2 of the most distinctive words that characterize evangelical beliefs.

• The majority of churchgoers (56%) say they pray for opportunities to share their faith, but in the last month, less than 10% had a conversation about the Lord with anyone.

• 57% of regular churchgoers say they have never had a religious experience that changed their life.

• More than 20% of Evangelicals are not sure that heaven is a real place.

• Only 8% of regular church attenders believe that sharing their faith is “very important.”

• 69% of churchgoers believe that everyone will go to Heaven.

• 52% of all “Christians” believe that non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life.

• 65% of all “Christians” believe there are multiple paths to Heaven.

• Almost 50% of all Evangelicals, 18 - 29 years of age, favor same sex marriage.

The joke is… this goes on and on and on. We as Christians do not know what we believe and thus live accordingly. Life is simple. You live by what you believe. If you believe you cannot breathe underwater, then you don’t try. The problem is, we simply do not believe. I would go as far as to say put it on the pastor but even the most cynical of us would surely preach it. And so the problem is we do not believe. We have heard but not listened. We have read but somehow we have managed to keep God out of our hearts.

There must be hundreds, thousands of verses in the Bible that directly or indirectly describe the very nature of God. In fact, God my definition has to have certain qualities to Him. He has to be all knowing and all powerful. If He weren’t, then how could He be God? And this God loves us. Anyone who is a parent would understand how great this love is. It’s a love far greater than we can understand because no parent would willingly watch their child be tortured and murdered on the cross for someone else.

God also created us. That’s right, He created us, the world, the universe, everything. And yet we have an incredible time believing that He is in control. So many times in our lives we fail to understand that simple fact. If we did, then why would we worry? Why would we ever worry about anything? Clearly God loves us and wants only the best for us and clearly He knows best, and yet we worry about what will happen. We worry about who is going to be the next president of these United States because of what? It can’t possibly be because we are afraid of what’s good for us. We shout and pout not because we worry about what’s best for us. We do it because its not what we want.

And that’s what it all comes down to. We struggle to make God’s will ours. Despite the fact that His will is better for us, we struggle. But what of freedom? Do we not have the freedom to decide what we want? Of course we do, its called not being a Christian. When we declared ourselves a follower of Christ, we declared to God, mold me for I am clay, make me into a vessel that you can use. We didn’t give up our rights to do as we wish but we did in essence give God rights to steer us in the right direction even if it means a little kick in the butt every now and then.

I suppose what I am saying is let’s not go crazy just because the rest of the world has. The world holds us to a higher standard and we have an obligation to oblige it.

2020.09.22

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on Friday. I remember first hearing about her in high school because of her decision against VMI and its male only admissions policy. I had recently visited VMI to watch a wrestling match against Citadel and wondered why would any woman want to come here. The bathroom stalls had no doors and were made of brick just high enough to cover your head when you sat down on the throne.

She would continue to champion gender equality and women’s rights. Truth be told, I have never heard a single bad word said against her. Which seems to be about right considering the outpouring of donations to the democratic party since her death.

Here are the figures. $95 million from Friday to Sunday. 1.5 million contributions. $6.3 million within the first hour of her death. $100,000 a minute at its peak. Why? To honor her wishes. To take back the senate from the Republicans and block all justice nominees from the Trump Administration.

Put your money where your mouth is. That’s essentially what a great number of people did this past weekend. How about you? Did you show your commitment this weekend? I’m not talking about politics nor money. I’m talking about your walk with God. The world is a constant reminder about how passionate we can be. There are people doing incredible things each and every day solely based on their passions. There are people climbing Mt. Everest for the nth time. There are people developing apps in their dorm rooms that will forever change the way we communicate. There are even people training to eat the most hotdogs at Coney Island next July 4th.

The point is, we are built to accomplish great things. And yet, yet, we find it so very difficult to show God our passions. Why is that? Why is it that we fall asleep within the first 5 minutes of opening the Bible. Why is it that our phones ring or we get an important text the moment we close our eyes to pray? Why is it that we find it so difficult to concentrate during the sermon or pour out our hearts to God during praise? Why is it so very hard to do great things for God or at least show Him the very best that our hearts have to offer?

I’m reminded of a line from The Usual Suspects, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.” Ladies and gentlemen, spiritual warfare is real. Satan is very passionate about keeping you from God who showed already showed You His passion for you when He gave us His only Son to die on the cross for our sins.

There have been quite a few great revivals and one of them is the 1907 Korean Revival. Here’s part of an eye witness account by Pastor Graham Lee who was there in Pyong Yang in 1907.

“Tuesday noon at our prayer meeting we missionaries met with hearts full of thanksgiving for the wonderful meeting of the evening before, and again we asked God for greater blessings on the Tuesday evening meeting. We conducted the service in the same way as on Monday. After an address by Mr. Kil, our most gifted Korean preacher, we dismissed all those who wished to go home, and again nearly six hundred remained. The meeting was much the same as the Monday evening meeting, but the manifestation was greater. Some of us were praying for two men, especially Mr. Kim and Mr. Chu, for we felt that these two men had things in their lives that needed to be confessed. The climax came when Mr. Kim gained the needed strength. He was sitting on the platform, and suddenly he arose and came forward and was immediately given an opportunity. He confessed to hatred in his heart for the other brethren and especially for Mr. Blair and then he went all to pieces. It was terrible beyond description the agony that man went through. He fell to the floor and acted like a man in a fit. When he broke down the whole audience broke out in a perfect storm of weeping and they wept and wept and wept. We missionaries were weeping like the rest, and we simply couldn't keep from it. While they were weeping Mr. Kang got up to pray, and that poor man agonized in prayer and then he broke down completely and wept as if his heart would break. The brethren gathered around put their arms about him, and soon he became quiet, then it was beautiful to see him go to Mr. Kim, put his arms lovingly about him and weep with him. When Mr. Kim broke he turned to Mr. Blair and said: "Pastor Blair, can you forgive me, can you forgive me?" Mr. Blair got up to pray, said the word "Father" twice, and he could go no further; he was beyond words. The audience kept on weeping, and it seemed as if they could not stop. At last we had to sing a hymn to quiet them, for we feared that some might lose control of themselves. During the singing they quieted down and then the confessions began again, and so it went on until two o'clock. One of the most striking things of the evening was a prayer by one of the college students. He asked that he might be allowed to make a public confession to God and was given the opportunity. In a broken voice he began to pray, and such a prayer I never heard before.

We had a vision of a human heart laid bare before its God. He confessed to adultery, hatred, lack of love for his wife and several other sins that I do not remember. As he prayed he wept; in fact he could hardly control himself, and as he wept the audience wept with him. We all felt as if we were in the presence of the living God.”

Every time I think about Jesus and His apostles preaching in the Bible, it simply amazes me. They are preaching for hours and hours. They don’t have world class musicians or any modern tech to add oomph to their events. They also don’t have 2,000 years of commentaries and training. And yet, thousands and thousands of people are their with their families to listen to the Word of God. I’ve even wondered what would happen if I just decided to read from the Bible one Sunday.

Clearly we have the aptitude for passion and the material for we have the Word of God. Yet, its so very difficult to find passion for God in our lives. But everything has a beginning. Nobody gets excited about something without first getting acquainted with it. And I can guarantee you if you can get acquainted with God, you will have a passion for Him. And that all starts with giving Him some real genuine time. A time to really just to get to know Him and His relationship to you. It all begins with the first step and I pray and hope that you will all take that first step in getting to know God.

2020.09.02

I suppose in some aspects, I am a little oblivious to the outside world. I mean I still go to work everyday. And the stores that I visit to buy groceries and what not are still open. Even though schools are either operating online or in some hybrid form, I had forgotten that many people are still working from home. You would think with all the empty parking spaces I would have noticed but its the traffic that somehow still exist that throws me off.

I ran across another version of this poster and it came with the message that we shouldn’t give up. It said that some of today’s biggest companies started in the garage. So what’s making you quit?

Its a great line for today. So many of us are working from home. And there’s even a greater population who didn’t get to stroll into their new jobs after graduating. Not to mention that no one’s moving out of their parent’s homes anymore. There’s got to be a huge population that is working away at a future in their parent’s garages.

And so how many? Just how many startups are there in the world? According to the web, there’s close to a 100 million startups opening each year. And somehow I am suppose to use this poster as motivation? 100 million each year and this poster has the nerve to ask what’s making me quit? Well, how about the ability to do some simple math. The odds are definitely not in anyone’s favor.

But we still work at it. We invest our youth, our talents, our money, but most importantly, we give it our hopes and dreams. We believe. But to what end? There’s got to be a reason. It can’t be about the money. I think one of the saddest stories I heard was about how Steve Job’s new $250 million yacht was completed 6 months after his death.

When people get rich, the next logical thing that they think about is leaving a legacy. Once you have everything, you think about how you want to be remembered. Which is probably one of the biggest reasons why its so important to have a PR person. One of the very first things Bill Gates did was to get a PR person. He didn’t want to come off as a geek. So, they started dressing him up. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But does anyone really care about Rockefeller or Carnegie? I’m sure their descendants do but does the public really care? I don’t think the average person even knows how they made their money. Has anyone really gone out of their way to visit a presidential library?

This isn’t a rant against being passionate or having a goal. This is about the fact that we all have one chance at this thing called life on earth. And because of it, don’t you want to do it right? And doing it right has a pecking order. The first is to secure our future. Not retirement in Florida or Arizona, but a future in Heaven. If you can fight the urge to play with your friends, then you can make it to the ivy leagues. If you can fight the urge to party on campus, then you can land yourself a career. Its basically about sacrificing a few years for a better long-term future. Well how about sacrificing a hundred years for eternity? If you can fight the urge to live just for yourself, then you have a place in Heaven.

And if you have a place in heaven, that means you’ve met Jesus your Lord and Savior. It means you’ve met your Father who gave you life. It means you’ve met your Helper who gives you the Peace of God. And if you’ve met all three, how can you not live for God? How can you still just be passionate about being successful in this world? If you’ve met God who loves you so much, how can you still just chase after this world?

I want all of you to be passionate. I want all of you to be excited. I want all of you to have goals and dreams. However, if you have truly met God, don’t stand there and tell me that your goals and dreams have not changed. Don’t tell me that your motivations have not changed. Don’t tell me that your expectations have not changed.

We’re suppose to look at pictures of people’s garages and get excited about the beauty of possibilities. How about taking a look at the cross and getting passionate about the beauty of hope? Because that’s what Jesus gave to each and every one of us when He died on that cross for our sins. He gave us a chance to hope for a future. He gave us eternal life.

And if you believe that, then believe God knows you best. Believe you are worth more. Believe God has great plans for your future. And yes, it may start out in the garage, but with God, I guarantee you it won’t end there. It will end in Heaven.

2020.08.25

There are certain things that you just wouldn’t expect to see happen, pretty much every change brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. And then there’s things that potentially signal an end to an era. ExxonMobil was kicked off the Dow Jones this week. It was replaced by Salesforce, a CRM tech company.

I know some of you are thinking what’s the big deal? Isn’t Exxon just a gas station? And with pretty much everyone and their fairy godmother shopping online, about time ain’t it?

I don’t think we have enough pixels to adequately discuss Exxon and the Dow Jones, not to mention my limited wisdom and knowledge. Exxon and pretty much any oil company worth anything (US made that is) all started out as Standard Oil under Rockefeller. Lets just say, about a hundred years ago, they controlled 90% of the market. And they didn’t do it nicely. Sure, the Rockefeller name now comes with some sense of altruism but that’s pretty much from decades and decades of equally hard work to wash the name of all the blood and gore it spilt to get 90% of the market.

Anyway the government blew up the monopoly and years later, after more mergers and acquisitions, the real big name still standing was ExxonMobil. Even as recent as 2011, this was the largest company in the world by market cap or by stock value. It was worth close to $420 Billion dollars. That same year, Tesla was worth around $3 Billion. I mean sure we love our Teslas but there’s still a gas station around every corner.

As for the Dow Jones, it tracks the 30 most relevant and large blue chip companies listed on the Nasdaq and the NYSE. In simpler terms, it tells average people like me how the market is doing. By kicking ExxonMobil off, its letting me know that they aren’t that relevant to the market any more. And why should it be? Today, ExxonMobil is worth $127 Billion dollars. 9 years ago, it was number 1 at $420 Billion. But its actually much, much worse than it looks. Because the number 1 American company today is Apple at over $2 Trillion dollars. Yes, that’s a T not a B. Of course these numbers are constantly fluctuating especially with the Covid pandemic, but the bottom line is, things change.

I first learned to type in middle school. There wasn’t a reason for it before because nobody had computers and nobody expected kids to use a typewriter. I remember I hated my handwriting because it was so messy. I couldn’t tell you how many times I heard people say to me that I should be a doctor because my handwriting was so bad. But now, my daughter doesn’t know how to type and I don’t know if she ever will because its all touch screen. Her handwriting is just as bad as mine because once again its all touch screen. I wouldn’t be surprised if they started writing code with their thumbs on tiny keyboards. Its all 1s and 0s right?

Things change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. And churches may change, too. Certainly many pastors and churches are thinking really hard about the future of worship. But having a personal relationship with God will never change. Praying will never change. The Word of God will never change. Sure, we may use tablets and Bible apps but its still the same Word of God.

I remember watching a video about the Hubble Telescope. Someone wanted to take a picture of the empty space. And of course many were against it. Why? Because it was expensive stuff and they didn’t think it was appropriate to waste it by taking pictures of the empty space. Somehow that guy won and what they got were pictures of billions of galaxies. Now we knew we weren’t the only galaxy in town but no one could have imagined how many were out there.

I know that sometimes it seems like having a personal relationship with God is exactly like looking into that deep empty space. You don’t think He’s there. You don’t think there’s anything there for you to have. But time after time, God has proven us wrong. He’s become a personal God to billions and billions of people throughout the course of mankind. And you may have gone on so long just going to church thinking that there’s nothing to expect or change. But think about this, in the United States, there are almost just as many cars as there are people. Yet, we’ve decided this week that there is no value in following the stock price of any oil company.

If you have the courage to take a chance just as they did with the Hubble Telescope, you too can discover the beauty that lies in meeting God as your personal Lord and Savior.

2020.08.12

Why is it so difficult to wear a mask? I understand that it is uncomfortable. But do you really have to go out of your way to not wear one in this time of Covid-19? I live in a state that has made it mandatory to wear a mask indoors. Apparently, that is not the case for every state. Thus far only 34 states have put a mandate in place.

It seems that most of those in our city are pretty good about it. I have only seen one person not wear a mask indoors. And that one person should have been the one to wear one. He was in a gas station playing scratch lotto and like many gamblers, he didn’t just play once. He stood there for a good long time. I saw him before I started pumping gas and he didn’t seem like he was planning on leaving anytime soon even when I was finished. The store had multiple signs stating that there was a state mandate to wear a mask but it didn’t seem like the store clerk was going to enforce it.

I bring this up because it seems like I’m always seeing something, somewhere about this being an issue. I saw the news of the girl who got suspended from a Georgia high school for posting a picture of the crowded hallway with almost none of the students wearing any masks. Then the teacher who resigned because she was afraid of the conditions that she was forced into. Another picture of dozens of parents in the principal’s office (not wearing masks) to complain about their kids having to wear masks in school. And then a recent youtube video where a guy starts a fight with the hotel front desk because they wanted him to take his temperature before checking in.

The reasons for not wanting to wear a mask or have their temperature checked…anywhere from not believing that the Coronavirus exists to constitutional rights being violated to the cold water killing the virus. Isn’t this sometimes our attitude to the Bible? I think there are many people who do not believe that Jesus ever existed let alone is the Son of God. Many people are offended by Christians proclaiming that Jesus is the only way to Heaven.

During the protests against Chick-fil-A, I asked a non-Christian friend why he was so angered by the chicken franchise. I thought it was going to be something about the company being anti-gay considering that the protests were about that. However, he said something to me that I would never have guessed. He told me that he didn’t like the fact that Chick-fil-A made him out to be a bad person. And I didn’t understand. He elaborated that by closing their stores on Sunday, they were telling him that he was a bad person because he didn’t want to spend Sundays at church or with family.

He didn’t have anything against the church or his family. He just didn’t like the fact that they made him feel bad for not going to church on Sundays by closing their stores and making it seem like that was the right thing to do.

So what does chicken stores closing on Sundays have anything to do with people not wanting to wear masks? I think we don’t want to be made to feel like there’s something wrong with us. Wearing masks and having our temperatures taken makes it seem like there’s a possibility that we are not right. The truth is, we aren’t. We are all sinners and come short of the glory of God. Some of us have accepted that fact and have repented and accepted Christ as our Lord and savior. But, others, would rather not. Perhaps its out of guilt. Perhaps its because they don’t want to face the truth. Perhaps its from insecurity or self-loathing. The fact is, none of us want to face the ugly truth. And I think when we behave violently or negatively to that, we are actually saying, we need help but don’t want to admit it.

The Bible says that looking at God’s creation, you cannot help but accept the fact that there is a creator. And in the same way, deep down we cannot help but admit that we are sinners in need of salvation. We have this gaping hole in our hearts that cannot be filled but with God. We try our best to fill it with the world. But the world is no replacement for God. If you look at the typical church, you can almost see the truth of that statement.

Most churches are filled with kids from babies to high school. They are usually there because of their parents. However, its usually the moms, not the dads. And in most churches, you won’t find many college age kids or even those in their 20s to their 30s. And then all of a sudden, there’s a big crowd of women in their 40s and then out of nowhere, men start showing up in their 50s. And then its a pretty much a mix bag when it comes to anyone beyond their 60s.

Moms and some dads bring their kids to church for obvious reasons. Psychologically, even if they aren’t worried about themselves, they are worried about their kids. The college kids and the young adults tend to disappear because they are chasing after their dreams and they feel like God won’t let them have any fun. Dads in their 40s are usually busy trying to make something of their careers before its all over. Mothers by this time have matured in their faith and are busy serving the church. And then dads reach their 50s and realize that the dream that they been chasing since college…its not much of a dream. They feel that void again. And then they start to follow their wives to church, searching for something real to fill that hole.

The truth is, we are all made in God’s image and when we look into the mirror, some of us focus on the maker and some of us focus on the image. And we spend our lives trying to make that image pretty, not realizing that, that’s all it is, just an image.

2020.07.31

We take a lot of things for granted. It’s difficult to imagine exactly how much because many of us grew up in present day America. But, a few months back, we lost some of those privileges. We couldn’t go to school nor to our jobs. We couldn’t even go for a haircut. We stopped visiting friends and all those movies about living in a virtual bubble seemed to have come true. Now only if someone actually saw a zombie or two we’d be all set.

When foreigners first come to Seoul, Korea, one of the strangest sights they will witness is the incredible number of red crosses that outline the night skyline. Churches seem to be everywhere. Considering though that only about 20 to 25% of the population is Christian, perhaps we don’t have enough. The point is, even this is a gift that many countries throughout the world will never know.

This pandemic has given countries like China an excuse to take down crosses from their churches. China has a unique policy when it comes to religion. They call it freedom of religion but its practiced in the absolute form. This freedom means that no one can evangelize to anyone because then that act in itself would violate another’s right to freedom of religion. Thus, you may believe what you choose just as long as you don’t try to convince others to do the same. It makes sense if it applied to everyone, but it doesn’t. The communist party isn’t out to get Buddhists or Muslims or even Hindus. They just don’t like Christians.

It may seem hard to believe considering how fast and how rich China has become, but a vast area of China is still very much like the backwoods of West Virginia or the hills of Kentucky, meaning there’s a lot going on under the radar. And one of those things is open persecution of Christians under the direction of the Communist Party. And now under the auspices of the Covid-19 quarantine, the Communist Party is openly taking down the crosses from its state churches. They first closed the churches much like most of the world but then took a step further and used this opportunity to take down the crosses. Its an excuse they will use to permanently close those churches.

China has 3 types of churches. The first is the church for the foreigners. Only foreigners are allowed meaning Chinses nationals and foreigners are not allowed to do church together. It’s not too strange of a sight to see guards and police checking for passports in front of these churches, not to mention the Communist Party spies that are inevitably in every church. Most of the churches are not given legal status and thus they usually congregate in hotel conference rooms.

The second type are the underground churches. These churches are for Chinese nationals who meet together in secret because they fear persecution and/or do not want to attend the government churches for various reasons. One of the reasons might be because the government churches are controlled by the Communist Party and are only allowed to preach on selected topics. Those topics mainly involve being a good human being and contributing to the society much like Buddhism.

The last type of churches are of course the government run three-self churches. They are called the three-self churches because when foreign missionaries first came to China back in the 18th century, there was a great hatred for foreigners at the time. The missionaries and the newly Christian Chinese leaders believed that in order for Christianity to take root in China, it had to be self governed, self supported and self propagated. Then in the 1950s when Mao Ze Dong and the Communist Party came into power, it forbid the churches to have any connections to America and pretty much took control. Thus, while the three-self churches are the only legal option for Chinese nationals, its no surprise that there are so many underground churches where true faith is developed.

Satan looks for any and every possible way to take our faith away. The cross is the symbol of Christianity. While it should not become an idol, it also should not be ignored. How are you doing church lately? Many of us are doing it online. Gone are the days of dressing up for church, sitting upright in the pews, standing up for praise and kneeling for prayer. I imagine most of us are in our most comfortable clothes, barefoot, and lying across the sofa as we listen to our pastors on our smartphones or TVs. Why is that? Is it because we can? Is it because no one can see us? Or is it because we think God’s not with us?

The truth of the matter is, God is with us and where God is, it should be treated as holy and that goes with our bodies as well. Don’t let the cross be taken away from your faith. While our opportunities to come together in worship may have been temporarily taken away, God remains with us all the time.

2020.07.21

Cause and effect, it’s quite simple isn’t it? We hear of a new viral disease that’s coming to the States and we begin to worry. This worry leads to the obvious conclusion, how will we wipe our backsides with this new virus running amuck? Thus, we begin to buy up all the toilet paper in the lands, some of us buy sanitizer and antibacterial wipes on the way out just in case. Then we realize something, we won’t have a need for toilet paper if we’re not eating meat. Surely enough, a shortage of meat follows, eggs and milk too because well the chickens and the cows are gone so… goat milk and cheese anyone?

Cause and effect, I suppose one of the most unexpected but should have been expected shortages was the webcam. Everyone began to work from home and even do church from home. I was on the verge of buying a webcam myself but at the time, early March, I hadn’t realized how serious and how long this pandemic would last. About a week later when I did finally decide to buy a webcam, it was too late. Amazon was sold out and the only ones left were hundreds of dollars more than they should have been. I had to wait till mid-June for the restock and of course for the prices to come back down. I was not willing to pay over a hundred dollars for a webcam which had been advertising for $29.99 just a pandemic ago. More interestingly, I didn’t realize that so many of us still had desktops because laptops come with webcams. Alas, then it dawned on me how could we possibly engage in virtual combat without 32 inch monitors.

National coin shortage, now this was unexpected. It makes sense. We stay home, order everything online. So, the coins aren’t circulating like they used to. But why just coins and not paper cash? Why isn’t there a shortage of paper money if the coin shortage is caused by the change in our spending habits? I suppose there’s reasonable explanation out there, I’m just not willing to find out just like I’m not willing to find out what’s actually missing in all those empty isles in the supermarkets.

What about the cause and effect in our faith? How has being physically away from the church affected you? Imagine if you were part of a church that had communion every week, would you feel less connected to God if you didn’t eat of the bread and drink of the wine each week? What about confessions or having your pastor physically lay his/her hands on you to pray for you? Would you feel like your sins were piling up or perhaps you lacked God’s anointing? What about attendance? The worship services are live but also uploaded for later viewing. Does this mean that we don’t have to have service together? What if I want to watch the services on another day? Does that mean Sunday isn’t the Lord’s day any more?

What about the role or authority of the church in your life? Do you still fear God? Do you still love Jesus? Is your pastor still a guiding force in your spiritual life? The person who delivers God’s message to you every Sunday may seem a bit smaller on screen. But does that make God smaller in your life? In this day and age of online sermons and Bible apps, do you know where your paper Bible is? Does it even matter? Are God’s Words less alive on apps than it is on paper?

What about our churches? The Catholic church has reported a new found appreciation for women workers considering how much of the work is being done by nuns. Offering anyone? It most likely has gone down in every part of the world. Not everyone is comfortable with online banking and others probably just don’t feel the need to because they are not physically at church. Still, many may just could have been laid off. Cause and effect? What can the church afford? Do we really need a youth pastor or a director of music? What about the mortgage on this 1,000 seat building that the church just moved into? Will we ever need the kitchen again or what about this hundred thousand dollar sound system that we just ordered? Basically it all comes down to the essentials.

What are the essentials of our faith? And that’s a question that begins with trust. Do you trust God in this time of shortages? Do you believe that He will provide for you and your family? Are your dreams still viable?

There are a great number of things that we can learn from the 40 years that the Israelites spent wandering in the desert. And the one clear thing that we all can agree on is that God provided for His children. For 40 years God gave them manna to eat. And it wasn’t just to a few people. The Israelites numbered between 2 and 3 million. He fed them all each and every day for 40 years. And God didn’t just want them to survive, He led them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. And while it may have seemed like a never ending wandering, God never forgot His promise to bring them into the Promise Land. God will provide for you and He will not forget your dreams.

Many of us are in survival mode. However, this isn’t just a time to survive. This is a time to be led by God. But that begins with putting our trust in God. Romans 8:28 tells us, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

2020.07.16

Look familiar? There have been a lot of reporting in the news about how Asia managed to curb this Corona Virus pandemic because unlike America and the rest of the West, Asian countries didn’t have a problem with wearing masks in public. Apparently its a cultural thing. I have to admit, I faced the same problem. Whenever I was sick or if it was too cold outside, I wore a mask. Of course, that was in China and Korea. But when I came back to the States, I stopped because people kept staring at me as if there was something wrong with me. And, eventually, I started to do the same thing. Whenever I saw someone wear a mask, usually an Asian woman, I looked at them as if they had something that I didn’t want to catch.

Now, we have government orders posted on every store to wear a mask. And it looks like they had the same idea back in 1918 during the Spanish Flu epidemic.

Do you remember the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918? It killed over 675,000 Americans and close to 50 million world wide. It infected about 500 million people as well. That was about 1/3 of the world’s population at the time. And it didn’t kill the young and the old, it killed those between the ages of 20 and 40.

What about HIV/AIDS? It has killed 36 million people world wide thus far and annually kills close to 2 million since 1981. Hong Kong Flu of 1968? Killed 1 million. Asian Flu of 1956? Killed 2 million. Don’t remember any of these? I grew up when everyone was afraid of the HIV virus. At the time, it seemed like a death sentence. Some how, over the years, we stopped talking about it. Did people stop dying from it? No. I suppose then the question is, how long will it be before we forget 2020 and the Corona Virus?

I suppose some things are harder to forget than others. I remember the flood of 1984 in Korea, I was 6 years old. I only remember 2 scenes. I remember watching our house float way and then a few days or weeks later I remember watching my father and a bunch of people carrying it back. It was made of tents and poles but the only thing left were the poles. But I can’t remember where or how we lived in between those 2 scenes. Eventually we were back to living in our old house but I don’t remember how it happened. Life just continued.

We live in a vastly different world now. Cars and telephones were for the rich in 1918. Commercial flights didn’t become mainstream till the 1950s. We are so connected in today’s age, I find it improbable that we will ever forget what we went thru this year. But that also means we are constantly fed new information. Everything becomes old news in an instant. And we just keep on going adjusting to the new changes in our lives.

I used to love going to the airport. I just liked sitting around the airport watching people come and go. Observing the stories that they told by where they were going or coming from, who was there to greet them or see them off. And then 9/11 happened and I didn’t have access to the terminals anymore. And of course if we ever wanted to go anywhere, we had to wait in line till our five o’clock shadows became full beards and yes, the strip search, can’t forget that we have to bare our souls before we are allowed into the terminals.

The lone constant thru life, death, and all the reckoning, is God. He has watched us since creation and at every stop, or pandemic, I can’t imagine the pain that He feels. Unlike us, God can’t just forget. He can’t just not remember. He can’t just park himself in a corner somewhere and not have to deal with it. Every single moment, God endures the death of His creation, the loss of a loved one. We worry about how we die and when we die but I suppose God thinks about who will be with Him in heaven after the fact. We worry about who will catch the virus and the heartache that comes with having to worry about it. God has to deal with the possibility that another one of His children might be separated from Him for all eternity.

And to this God, we dare ask, why? Why do you allow suffering? If you are really in control, why is this happening? Why are you letting good people die? Why are you messing up my plans? Why are you not helping me? What have you done for me?

Would we ask a grieving mother why she let her child die? Yet, that’s what we do every day. We praise God for his grace and mercy and yet we offer Him neither. We thank Him for giving us His Son and yet we give Him nothing of ourselves. And our excuse is because we are human and He is God. But lest we forget, God created us in His image. We have these emotions because God has them, too.

The scriptures tell us that God is a loving God, that He is a jealous God, that He, too, feels grief, and anger, compassion and joy. God knows how we feel today not just because He is God, but because He created us in His image. Jesus wept upon hearing the news of Lazarus’ death. He had lost a friend.

And so I urge you to open your hearts to God, today. Because He understands better than anyone what you are going thru. And because He knows your needs, He is waiting for you. 1 Peter 5:7 tells us,  Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

2020.07.10

None of us have gone thru this before. So we are left with questions without answers. How long will this last? Will we ever find a cure? Is life as we know it… over? The closest thing that I ever came to was the SARS virus while living in China about 20 years ago. Was it just as scary for us living in Beijing at the time? I would say even more so. We knew people that were dying and died. Every foreign country evacuated its citizens. The streets were empty. But the scariest part of it was that we were in China. A China that was much scarier than it is now. When the police started stopping us in the streets and it seemed like we had to dig in for the long haul, I left.

Unfortunately, there is no leaving for us today. We are living in a full blown pandemic that is affecting everyone, every where. And so who do we turn to? Where do we get our answers? Martin Luther, of course?

And it seems like quite a lot of us are having the same thought. It appears that for some reason, many of us had “Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel” lounging around the bookshelf for precisely this occasion. And we all just happen to remember a chapter titled, “Epidemic and Famine”. Yeah, its not an easy title to forget.

Yes, Martin Luther lived in the time of the Plague. The second wave, at least. Have you heard of the plague? The Black Death? The Bubonic Plague? It would eventually go on to kill between 75 to 200 million people world wide. That’s 30 to 60% of the world’s known population at the time.

In “Epidemic and Famine”, a priest working in a heavily hit area asked John Hess to get him some counsel from Martin Luther about what to do? The priest wanted to know if it was right for Christians to flee in the face of such danger. I have to say that although I do not know who this priest was, he is certainly deserving of our praise. How many of us would even ponder that question? Martin Luther goes on for several pages about what is the proper thing to do in such a situation.

Luther’s point seems to be... It depends on your faith. If you have strong enough of a faith to accept the fact that death is the consequences of our sin then stand your ground. If not, if you are weak in faith, then run. To illustrate his point, Luther reminds us of what happened to Peter. When Peter was without doubt, he could walk on water but when he doubted, he sank. However, having said that, Luther does mention one obligation that no Christian can run from and that is the obligation to the fellow man. Christ asked, where were you when I was sick? Obviously the obligation isn’t to every single person in town. But its to those around you. If you know they need help and you can help, then as a Christian, you are obligated. Outside of that… get going.

It doesn’t answer much. And of course the question wasn’t intended explain our situation nor was Luther’s reply intended for our ears during this unforeseen crisis. However, Luther does give us something to chew on. And that’s the undeniable certainty that we as Christians have an obligation to those that need our help. This fact is not determined by our situation nor our surrounding. There are needs that can be met by us while doing church together in person just as there are things that we can do while we do church online. We don’t stop being a church because the world has changed. And even the weakest, the littlest of us can do that one thing which is the greatest and that is to pray for others. They do say that when man works, man works, but when man prays, God works.

Another thought that Luther leaves us with is that we should not be controlled by fear. He tells us to not act in fear. Fear is the devil’s playground. It makes us cowards. It makes us feel helpless and useless all because fear permeates the lie that we have to do it alone without God. It makes us think and act against the will of God. And the will of God is comprehensive, pervasive to all but at the same time, it is subjective to the individual. I thank God for that. He knows us as individuals. He knows our needs, our fears. He knows us.

Thus the Lord our God says in Matthew 6: 31-34, “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

2020.07.07

When I was in high school, I was fortunate enough to take a school trip to Europe for 2 weeks. And because I was young and stupid, I missed out on most of the important “art & culture” moments. However, I do remember being in Greece for about 3 days. And I remember looking up at the stars the first night there and seeing the Milky Way for the first time. At the time, I really didn’t know we could actually see the Milky Way from Earth. And because I’ve never seen it since then… I wonder if I actually saw it at all. But it was beautiful.

Like many people, living in the Greek Isles is a dream. I even had the perfect house picked out. It was an old brick house on a hill but it had a small observatory about 40 yards away. They were asking 1.3 million for it about 20 years ago. I think the view is worth it, don’t you?

I still think about that house from time to time. Especially in times like these. I like to think that the Corona virus doesn’t exist in a place like that. I suppose it would be my own private heaven.

Then I think to myself, what heaven would that be? Where would my passion lie?

I know none of you wanted this. A life on hold. It’s as if every day is just another day in waiting and the most that we can do is just to live it. And that’s not why we are here. We aren’t here to just live. We’re here to breathe and to dream. We’re here to sweat and to persevere. We’re here to live the life that God has planned for us.

And it’s not over. One day we will get thru this and one day we will get back to breathing and sweating and living. But meanwhile this is our address. And every day I try to think of ways to get to you. How do I get you to experience God, every day? How do I get you to see the light in this darkness?

My motivation is simple. I want you to have something that I didn’t. I didn’t get to experience God when I was younger. God existed, yes. But was He alive in me? He might have been but it didn’t feel that way. To me and my friends, God was just an invisible force that punished you when you were bad and rewarded you when you were good. We lived by the Bible but not the Living Word of God. We thought in terms of sinning and not sinning. We thought in terms of I’m going to do my best to be successful so that others will want to be a “Christian” like me. We thought of God like some law of physics. You can’t see it, touch it, or even understand it, but it’s there guiding the universe.

And when all that changed, when God came alive in me, I knew my passions were misplaced and I knew that this life wasn’t just about going to school, getting a job, and buying my parents a nice house. That’s the God that I want all of you to meet. A God that you fall in love with every breath. A God that makes this picture so pale in comparison. Because when I met that God, this wasn’t heaven for me anymore. This just became a bathroom break.

I have to tell you that all over the world, pastors and churches are pulling out there hair trying to come up with ways to reach out to you in this time of mask and hide. I’m getting bombarded with emails and texts from organizations and celebrity pastors about how their churches are still growing despite the circumstances and that I should pay and learn. Because somehow some book or curriculum is going to change the way you feel about God. And if that’s all it took, then I would gladly forfeit my salary for you.

While the way we go about our daily lives may have changed, the way we come to God has not. You still have to pray and read the Word of God. I think most of you know that nothing in life is ever easy. You want to be good students then you have to study hard. You want to be good at sports, then you gotta sweat some more. We’re willing to spend the time and money to learn how to play the piano or play football and yet, yet, we cannot get ourselves to believe that it takes just as much to be good at being a disciple of Christ.

And if you believe it, and you still can’t. Then its because you can’t find any value in it, at least not yet anyway. Is God worth it? I want to read for you the words of Apostle Paul from Philippians 3:8. “What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.” The Apostle Paul, a man who in this day and age would have been either a Kennedy or a Rockefeller, gone to some Harvard prep school, graduated from Harvard with honors, and worked at some prestigious law firm where a single suit costs more money than it would take to feed a small village in Africa for a year, said that he would gladly give up this Italian suit wearing, espresso slurping life just to know Jesus.

I do not believe that I can force or coerce you to invest the time to get to know Jesus. Making you sit down with me to study the Word isn’t going to accomplish anything if you are not there with an open mind and a willingness to be changed by God. However, I am always praying for you. I am always waiting for you. And I am always hoping that today will be the day that you are willing to give God a real chance to be a living part of your life. Give Christ a chance to light the fire in you, to understand what it means to be passionate about something.

We have bible studies, fellowship meetings, and even 1 on 1 discipleship meetings all thru Zoom each and every week. If you would like to get together to study the Word, pray, have Q&A sessions, or even just to talk. I am always here for you.