There are so many events that have or will happen that I just can't narrow down what to talk to you guys about! So here is a little snippet of various events with a short blurb about how to think about what's going on.

Superbowl

 
After the Ravens won the Superbowl, Baltimore held a parade and then a ceremony at the football stadium. There were so many people who wanted to go to the parade and the ceremony, but there wasn't enough room in the stadium. The fire department closed the gates to the stadium, but as you can see in the picture, so many people wanted to just even get a glimpse of the Ravens that they started scaling the walls of the stadium to get in. Hearing this, it reminded me of a story in the Bible where Zacchaeus, a tax collector, wanted to see Jesus so badly because he had great faith that Jesus was a great man, that he climbed a sycamore tree even to get a glimpse of Jesus. Read Luke 19:1-10 for more details on the story and see if you can find the parallels!

Valentine's Day
Last year I told you the history of Valentine's Day, but this year, I want you to take time to think about what true love is. Is love buying gifts for someone on Valentine's Day? Is it being nice to someone? Is it helping someone? While yes all of these things are examples of how we can display our love, we must understand that as a Christian, the truest love we will ever experience is from God when He gave up everything that is good to take on everything that is bad/evil so that we could have access to anything good. So remember this Thursday as you experience good things (candy, dinners, or presents), that you would not even have a chance to understand good things had it not been for God showing you love first.

Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday, and Easter
Don't forget that the Easter season is starting today. Today is the first day of the 40 days before Easter. Easter represents the time when Jesus died on the cross to take on our sins (as mentioned in the Valentine's section). More to come on this topic but just to keep it on your radar!

Lunar New Year
This Sunday, I know many of you will be participating in Tet or Lunar New Year. For Eastern cultures, this is one of the most important holidays of the year. They take the whole week off and instead of working, they are celebrating! Sometimes in life, we need to take a break from all the things that we are doing to spend time with God. Instead of celebrating a new year, we can celebrate the work that God has already done in us and take time to focus on what He wants us to be doing. This break can be a week if you really need it, a day, an hour, or a few minutes--take as much time as you need to pray and seek God's wisdom for your life.

I hope you enjoyed this extra long post to cover the last few weeks with so many events!! I would love to hear from you, so please email me what you think and what's going on in your life.

Until next time,

Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." Mark 9:35

What does the verse say?
- The verse showed Jesus meeting with the 12 disciples, trying to explain to them that He will die on the cross soon. The disciples do not understand what Jesus means, so He tries to explain by using this verse--that those who will be first, will be the very last and a servant to all.

What does it mean?
- The verse says that we should prioritize others over ourselves. We can prioritize other people by serving other people. We want to be the first in what God calls us to be ... first in (loving others, serving others, praying, and worshiping God). We also have to know that Jesus chose to be the absolute very very least of us all by dying on the cross, serving all of humanity, but He is now at the right hand of God and has become first.

What does it mean for me?
- Because Jesus died for us, served us, and chose to be the very last, we should also follow what the example He has set. Here's an example about how you can put this idea into practice: Say you were the first in line for lunch, but you let everyone else behind you go before you...even if that meant you didn't get the good desserts-- that's what it means to serve all and being the very last.

What ways can you choose to be the very last, serving all others, so that you can choose to be first in God's eyes and not the world's eyes?




Until next time,

Sorry that I haven't had a chance to send a newsletter in a long time. I have moved back to Baltimore, moved into a new room, and started classes!

Some of you have mentioned that you would like more fun information and shorter newsletters, so I will be condensing my message (hopefully). Other than when I do special newsletters, I will generally choose a verse, explain what it says, what it means, and why it's important to us.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."
Matthew 7:7-8

What does it say?
- The verse gives us three examples of when we reach out, we are given an answer. If we ask, we get an answer; if we try to find something, we will find it; if we knock on a door, the door will be opened.

What does it mean?
- The verse does not necessarily mean that we will get everything we want, exactly as we want it. However, it shows us that when we feel like we are in need, when we feel like we don't have an answer, and when we feel lost, we can always ask God for an answer. And God never ceases to give us what we request--He just sometimes decides to do it in a way that He thinks is best.

What does it mean for us?
- The verse means that when we understand, believe, and have faith that God can and does answer, we are never afraid to ask Him for help. This is known as prayer. When we pray, we should praise God and confess our sins, but we can also ask God for His help or His provision. We may ask for more video games and never receive them, but instead God may change our hearts so that we can live with a smaller desire to play video games. He always gives an answer to those who ask.
- He can even answer bold prayer requests. For example, we can boldly ask Him to bring more people to the church, and if we really believe that He can do it, He may answer with more people.

Until next time,

It's finally a new year! How did you celebrate the new year? Did you stay up until midnight? Did you watch fireworks? Did you hang out with family and friends?

Around this time, many people start making new year's resolutions. These are things that allow us to have a fresh start to a new year. January 1 is a clean slate. A time to improve upon mistakes and build upon the great things that happened in 2012. Have you made any resolutions?

In  the same way that we make resolutions to start the year anew, we can find the same clean slate when we accept Jesus Christ into our hearts. What that means is that when we accept that we are sinners and that Jesus (a human who never sinned because He was also God) came down from heaven and conquered death, signifying that He paid for our sins (since a sinless sacrifice was needed to repay all the sins that humans have and would commit), we are given new life. We are given a clean slate, we are white as snow, we are starting a new.

The Bible  promises us that we have new life in Christ, and that is like the new year. As  each year is a time to start over, accepting Christ is a time to restore what had been tainted by our sins. We then take on the righteousness of Christ and are able to live in freedom from our sins. Yes, we may still sin and we may still mess up, but that's not how God sees us after we have accepted Him.  Instead, He sees something new!

So since we are given a new year and a new life in Christ, let's make the most of it. Let's make plans or resolutions to follow His commands, to love others, and to live a life that is pleasing to  Him.

Romans 6:4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new  life.

Until next time,

Here's a funny cartoon about Christmas

We can get very wrapped up (pun intended) with Christmas gifts and Christmas trees and Christmas traditions during this time of the year, but one thing that we may or may not remember is to have a heart of giving.

Imagine if your parents got you an IPad 1, 2, 3, and 4 and then an IPad mini; all the video games that you could play on your DS PLUS a brand new DS with multiple stylus pens in different colors; money to last you a life time, and all your favorite foods. BUT instead of you keeping all of those amazing gifts, you, instead, gave them to a child who was needy because you knew that the other child would never be able to experience the joy of having these gifts on their own. Would that be logical? Would someone in their right mind do that?

Probably not a human, but that is exactly what God did for us on Christmas Day.

God gave us Himself in the form of a man, His Son, Jesus Christ. What do you think that meant for God to give Himself to us? It means that God, a perfect being, the Creator of the world, the most powerful thing in existence, the King of all the kings in the world, the one who knows all things for all of history became a mere human, with weaknesses and sins with flesh that would wear away and was breakable with no way of seeing in the future or far off into the past. God gave every good thing that He had so that He could take on every bad thing we experience on earth because He knew that we would never be able to experience any good thing without Him giving it to us. 

17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17

With that in mind, cultivate a heart of giving during this Christmas time. Maybe it means that you donate to a food bank, volunteer at a soup kitchen, give gifts to your friends who you know can't afford them, give homeless people a blanket to keep them warm, pray for your non-Christian friends, help your parents around the house. Whatever you think you can give, and whatever you can give (even if you may not want to), give! Give because the best gift in the world has already been freely given to you. 

Until next time,

Can you believe it is December already? The year has flown by!

The Christmas season has officially started with Christmas songs being played every other song on the radio, Christmas lights and decorations going up in homes and stores, and Christmas trees being sold around town.

While you might have heard the Christmas story told over and over again, for the next 4 weeks, I will be going through some key themes that can be found in different parts of the Christmas story that you may have never noticed before.

This week I will start with Matthew 1:18-25. I would encourage you to open up a real, physical Bible so that you can grow the habit of reading the Bible, but an IPad Bible will do just fine!

The Birth of Jesus Christ 18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[a]because he will save his people from their sins.”

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”[b]—which means, “God with us.”

24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

In this passage, we see so many instances of obedience--and obedience through faith and trust in God. 

In verse 19, when Joseph finds that Mary is to be with child, the culturally correct thing for him to do is to divorce Mary. He was being obedient to the law of the land. However, in verse 20-21, we learn that the angel of the Lord tells Joseph to obey another command to take Mary as his wife because it was a part of God's plan. In verse 24, we see that Joseph did what the angel commanded while still following the customs in verse 25. All throughout this passage we see Joseph's continued obedience to God because he has the faith and trust that God's way is the best way--even if it doesn't make sense or seems really hard to follow.

So what can we learn from this?

We can learn that:

a) Joseph was a man who studied the Bible and who knew God well. He understood immediately when he found out that Mary was to have Jesus that the law says he should divorce her. Only a man who studies God's Word and spends time with God would know what to do in a very difficult and tough situation.

b) Joseph was also a man who had a personal relationship with God aside from just studying God intellectually. The angel was able to speak to Joseph because he had a personal relationship with God, and he was able to obey the message because of his personal relationship with God.

c) Joseph was able to obey in both of these circumstances because he had faith and trust in an Almighty God. Because He knows that God's way is sovereign over his own understanding of the world, Joseph trusted that if he did what God wanted, God would provide for him--even if that meant doing things that were scary, difficult, or hard to do. It wasn't easy to face the shame and humiliation of marrying a woman who was already with child, but he knew that God would deliver him from any harm and that this would glorify God in the long-run.

I hope that you've been able to learn something new this week about the Christmas story! I look forward to writing more things that might surprise you.

Until next time,
 

I am so glad that I was able to come home last weekend to see many of you! Each time I come home, I am amazed at how much you are all growing and maturing. I continue to pray that your growth wouldn't just be in age or height, but also spiritually.

I subscribe to a daily devotional that I read to remind me of God's truth. If you are interested, you can always buy a devotional book or find a Bible study book to go through the Bible. You can probably even download it on your IPad! I subscribe to John Piper's Daily Devotional, and it's a good, short read. If you have any questions about it, feel free to email me!

In the last two days, the devotionals have been about thankfulness. It has been reminding me that even though America officially celebrates thankfulness one day out of the year, that every day and moment should be an outpouring of thankfulness to God. For everyone, we are usually not very thankful for the things we have. We always want more. We want the newest IPad or the newest game or to watch the newest show. We want better clothes or friends or gadgets. We are never satisfied.

As a Christian, we are called to believe that our God is sovereign and is in control of everything. We are also called to believe that He alone gives good gifts. If we understand that, we must know that any good gift has been given to us by God--not because of anything we have done but because of what He has freely given to us. If we understand that only God gives us good things, we know exactly who to thank, and we realize how much and how often we need to thank God.

However, we often fail to give thanks to God because we often want to glorify ourselves. We think that we have done something to deserve the good and the bad things we have in life. We forget that God is sovereign and is in control. He has a plan. 

And what about non-believers? What happens to them? Many non-believers (if they give thanks at all), thank their friends or families or teachers, and most of the time themselves. They can never give thanks to God because they do not know who God is They do not realize how much God has given them and how much God loves them. However, I have hope and faith that God still works through a thankful heart of a non-believer to seek after where all these good things can come from. Hopefully a heart of thankfulness will spur them to understand who they should give thanks to.

So as a Christian, we have two tasks: 1) Give thanks to God for EVERYTHING because He has given blessings to us without our merit and 2) Share with those who do not believe in God, how amazing and generous our God is so they can know who to thank for everything in their lives.

Until next time,
 

We have finally made it to the end. This is the fourth and last installment of the Bully series that I will be doing for the newsletter. We have learned about what bullies are, what it may look like, and how we may potentially be bullies. The last thing I hope to share with you is about how to respond when you are being bullied.

First, I would like to restate the Gospel in hopes that we can bring it all back to Jesus and learn from His reaction.

Right before Jesus died on the cross, He was bullied. People wanted him to die, spit at him, beat him, yelled insults at him, mocked him, took away his clothes and made him wear ragged outfits that would humiliate anybody, put a thorny crown upon his head that pierced into him, forced him to drink bodily fluids, and made him carry the heavy, wooden cross that he would be crucified on. Jesus had to endure things we may never have to experience in our lifetimes.

Yet how did He react? We have to understand that Jesus has all the power in the world, that He could have easily decided to strike down all the people who bullied him and wanted him to die. He could have done it in an instant. But what did He do instead?

Because Jesus is all-knowing and LOVES us, He, instead, decided to be arrested, be bullied, be beaten, and die on the cross. He knew that He had to die on the cross as a sacrifice for all of our sins. What is the payment for sin? Death. What sort of death can repay a sin? A sinless death. Who can have a sinless death? Only God, the Father and creator.Therefore, Jesus' ability to resurrect and conquer death shows that He was in fact a sinless being and therefore God in man form. He knew that because He was sinless and God, He was the only person who could die the death to repay all of our sins. Even though everyone bullied Him, He loved us so incredibly much that He decided to choose a harder path and endure the bullying to show a greater love. 

This is exactly how we should respond when we are bullied. This does NOT mean that we must die in a physical sense to show them greater love because we are not sinless nor God. Instead we must die in a spiritual sense to our natural desire to prove our bullies wrong, seek revenge on our bullies, or respond in a hateful, unloving manner. We decide to set aside our natural, yet sinful reactions and instead choose to react in a loving, godly way.

Why do we have to do that? Because Jesus died that death so that we could show love to others here on earth. The love we show on earth lasts for eternity and means much to God Himself. 

Think twice before you respond angrily or hatefully to someone who bothers you, makes fun of you, causes harm to you, or hates you. Be safe and protect yourself, but never hate them back!

Luke 23:34 "Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.'"

Until next time,
 

 Bullies aren't always the biggest, scariest, meanest person we know.

Sometimes even we can have bullying tendencies. Many times bullying occurs because of hurt from past experiences or even natural personality tendencies. Regardless of why anyone bullies, we have to get to the root of the sin to explain why bullying occurs. Getting to the bottom of our sin not only stops us if we are already bullying but also prevents us from ever falling into becoming a bully in the future. As a sinner, we are all capable of being a bully, and we need to fight against our sinful nature to choose to love people as Christ has loved us.  Here are some reasons/steps to how we may become a bully:

1) Lack of trust in our identity in Christ: When we do not understand that we are completely loved by Christ, we start to find our value in other things. It might be that we find our worth in how well we do at school, how well we play a sport, how many instruments we can play, etc. For parents, you may find that your identity is wrapped around how well your children do in these areas as well. When we begin to find our identity in these temporary things, we realize that our value is easy to lose. There is always a threat that someone will be smarter, more talented, more athletic, etc. than we are. We will never be "good enough" or the "best" at any of these things. When we realize we can never be the best, we try to find ways to make ourselves feel better than we are, by putting other people down. Feeling like we are better than other people allows us to feel more secure about ourselves. This is the start of bullying. 

 2) Pride: As we start to find ways to make ourselves feel better, we also begin to find pride in what we think we have accomplished or what we think we have earned. We begin to feel superior to other people. When we feel we are superior over another person, then we are tempted to look down on them. We build pride and attribute our "awesomeness" to something we have been able to achieve rather than blessings from God. We take the glory for ourselves instead of glorifying God.

  3) Need to be in control: When we build pride over others, we may want to control them. This may come off as if we know better than they do, trying to impose our ideas on them, or making fun of them when they do something differently than we do. Because we want to maintain our standing as better than they are, we want to control them to maintain dominance or superiority. We do not want them to be better than us.    So then what? How can we be saved from this cycle?   Through Christ, of course! We must know that Christ came down because He loved as just as we were. There is no need to feel insecure about who we are, and therefore no need to have pride about where we stand in front of other people, and therefore no reason to feel like we have to control anyone else. Christ redeems us and delivers us from becoming a bully.

1 John 4: 9-11 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Until next time,
 

Imagine going to school, you bring a bunch of cupcakes, cookies, and brownies for your friends, classmates, teachers, and principals—and they really love it!  In the middle of class, your classmate next to you realizes he doesn’t have a  pencil, so you give him your favorite and only pencil so that he can use it  while you wait to use it later. At the cafeteria, someone falls and drops all of  their food. You help them up and you also help the custodians to clean the mess. You are always on time and you pay attention in class. You are always in dress code, and you never pick a fight with anyone. After school, you stay back to  help your teachers clean the room or file papers. You also go to the front office to help direct traffic or clean the hallways.  Then you go to the library to tutor a classmate.

You are the star student! You don’t expect anything from anyone else either. You are doing all these nice things so that others can have a nice experience at school

The next day you get to school, and the friend who you gave your pencil to, trips you so that you fall flat on your face. The other person who tripped in the cafeteria the day before starts to yell insults at you and makes fun of you in front of everyone. Your classmates who you gave the cupcakes, cookies, and brownies to start to gang up on you and want to beat you up. The teachers and the principals who you helped the other day decided to look away when people start to beat you up.  They want to expel you from school forever. They want you  gone.

Sounds like a clear case of bullying, right?

Last week, I introduced a new newsletter series that I am doing on bullying. Bullying can happen
anywhere—on the playground, on the Internet, on Facebook, at school, after school, even at home.
The reason that I feel that it’s important to talk about bullying from a Christian perspective is because it is a huge issue facing youth today in very impactful ways. Eventually I will want to explore how bullying is a direct result of sin and how our reactions to bullying are examples of our brokenness because of sin. But I first want to show you that the situation I described above is exactly what happened to Jesus.

Jesus Christ was bullied, and bullied in the most dreadful way. He came to the earth, gave gifts and blessings and healings to everyone around Him, and then everyone turned their backs to Him. They wanted Him dead and gone. They wanted to put him on the cross.Jesus was being bullied by the people He came down here to save. What if after they expelled you from school, beat you up, and made fun of you, all you wanted to do was make sure that they were all okay? You still wanted to help them. You still wanted to give them blessings. You probably wouldn’t want to do that. But  Jesus did. He still wanted to shower blessings on us.

That is the beauty of the gospel. Jesus was bullied and had no reason to love the people who bullied Him. But He did because of his surpassing love for all of us. Every time we sin or go against God, we are in a way “bullying” God and yet He still chooses to love us each day. 
 
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:4-5

 Until next time,