Grace Alone

I think I'm too "preachy" lol.  Here's a blog post that's less "preachy."

So we've been going over the book of Galatians in our weeknight college group meeting.  It's just really been an encouragement to see my salvation as a gift of faith, and not an obligation by works.  I've hardly ever thought about my salvation as an adoption (I mean, I "knew" it was, but it wasn't something I'd meditate on). Just like the child who was adopted by foster parents not out of anything that child has done, but the overwhelming desire for the parents to love that child.  Now that is grace.

Oh the sinner that I am, thinking that my salvation is much more than that!  I'm glad my works doesn't grant me salvation, because I would never attain it.

Now here's a mathematical equation that puts it all in perspective:

Jesus + something = nothing

But...

Jesus + nothing = everything.

"Be Who You Are"

I'm not sure if the current generation still gives this answer, but before when someone would ask a friend, "Hey, how do I get this person to like me?" they would probably say, "Just be yourself!"  At the time, that was pretty much the holy grail answer, but reflecting on that advice, I realize that's horrible advice!  Obviously being yourself doesn't work because if it did, that person would like you already, right?  Nowadays, that type of answer wouldn't suffice for me, at least not when it comes to attracting someone from the opposite gender!

I'm currently reading this book called The Hole in Our Holiness by Kevin DeYoung -actually I only read this book when I remember I'm reading this book- and the author talks about the reasons why our holiness seems to be lacking, even though we know we have been saved through faith.  He lists some of the reasons why this hole in our holiness is there: we don't know what holiness means, we think that holiness is something that can never be achieved because of our continual sinfulness, holiness is for "those" people but not for me, and other reasons.

In one particular chapter that I've been meditating on a lot recently, the title of it is "Be Who You Are" as an encouragement on how to pursue the holiness we are missing, and it reminded me of the scenario that I started this post about.  "Be who you are" sort of sounds like the mindless, cop-out answer you would tell your love-stricken friend smitten over the girl with the cherry-red curls and bright smile.  "Oh, just be yourself!"  Initially, I thought Is DeYoung trying to set me up for a fall?  Do I attain holiness by approaching my sin, telling it my name, age, birthday, and occupation, try to make it laugh a little, and hope for the best?  But upon immediately reading the chapter, you notice that this is not his point at all. The way to attain holiness is not be who you are, the rotten sinner, but be who you are, the sinner saved by grace.  He encourages us to be who we are in Christ.

Our union in Christ spurs us to be holy.  We receive all our spiritual blessings because of our union in Christ (Ephesians 1:3).  Because of this union, we are able to participate and enjoy the benefits of Christ himself.  Because we have been spiritually engrafted into His body, the Holy Spirit -which binds our bodies into His-works in us to make ourselves more Christlike and produces in us a holiness that comes only from Him.  His joys become our joys; His strength becomes our strength; His will is made known to us so that we can carry it out; we get to reap the eternal benefits of our salvation in Him.

But also our union in Christ helps and encourages us in our spiritual walks.  The pursuit of holiness is the pursuit of Christ.  Being holy really only means one thing, and that is taking on the characteristics of Jesus - after all we are made in God's image.  The pursuit of holiness is the understanding of our justification and the working out of our sanctification.  In a sense pursuing holiness puts these two theological truths in the proper perspective.  We desire to be holy because we are justified by grace alone and we want to be more like the loving and merciful Savior who saved us and we want to please the Heavenly Father who sent His Son to justify us.  In effect, we are sanctified and made more like Christ when we understand our justification and carry out God's will.  The pursuit of holiness binds these truths together as "different sides of the same coin."

The Bible gives us a lot of imperatives or commands because those are things we are to do as Christians.  I'm not preaching a works-based salvation, I'm preaching a works-after salvation.  Good works should be a fruit of our salvation, but since we are still sinners we need to be reminded what holiness looks like, and that's why the Bible gives so many imperatives.  When the Bible says to love your enemies, don't be angry, don't throw curses at your neighbors, or even saying an encouraging word to someone, we do all these things because it is the character of Jesus Christ.  We do it because we want to be more like Christ, and it pleases the Father when we become conformed to His image.

A few weeks ago during Youth Group Worship, I had picked a song set that dealt with the benefits we have because of our union in Christ.  "Be who you are in Christ" was what I was going for.  But who are we in Christ?  In Christ, we are dead to sin and alive in Christ (Amazing Grace - My Chains are Gone).  In Christ, we are justified and considered righteous (Nothing but the Blood of Jesus).  In Christ, we are called to holiness (As the Deer).

To fill the gap in our holiness, we ought to be who we are in Christ and live lives that demonstrate the newness of life we have in Christ Jesus - freed, cleansed, and called.

Worship Leading

I've been the youth worship leader now for about 3 months now, which has definitely changed my perspective on worship, and has caused me to grow in certain areas to say the least.

Worship is such a general term, but is usually associate with music worship.  But that's not how it should be.  Worship is the act of giving glory to God, and praising His name, and music isn't the only means to do this.  With the way we talk, the way we walk, even the way we spend our time is an indicator of worship.  It is the use of the members of our body in a way that honors Him.  Romans 12:1 says to present our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship.  It's a presentation of your newly renewed members, renewed by the blood of Christ, to our God who deserves to be praised.

But not to diminish the role of musical worship, as it plays a specific part in worshipping our God, musical worship readies the heart for the reception of God's word, either through sermons or personal Bible reading times.  It makes us sensitive to the truths hidden between each lines, because as we sing, we shouldn't just say the words, but contemplate on the meanings, to look for the goodness of God between each beat, which will soften our hearts to the gospel.  Musical worship is also effective in responding to the Word.  After hearing the truths of the Word from sermons or quiet personal times, it is appropriate to since a response to show that the Word has truly convicted you, and your desire to raise your voice and praise Him should overwhelm you.

The role of a worship leader shouldn't just to sing songs about how great God is - though this is true, that should be the content of all the songs we sing - but as one who prepares the congregation for spiritual worship. Worship, as a term, should not be a stand alone term, but a whole-encompassing term that includes song and sermon and other components of a worship service.  Each song should be meaningful and relevant for that particular day, not random.  The songs should prepare the hearts of the congregation for what they are about to hear from the sermon, as to keep their hearts and minds on the same topic so that it becomes a theme throughout the whole service.  A theme that lasts from beginning to end, without breaks, so that the mind of the congregants would be aligned with the Word of which they are about to participate in.

My goal during my time of being the youth worship leader is to promote this unity between musical worship and the message.  So it's not two different messages that the congregation hears, but one.

Boolean Operators and Salvation, Faith, and Works

This came across my head recently:

In programming, if you want to compare the values of two different things to see if they true or false, you can use what's called "Boolean operators" in programming.  They consist of AND (&&), OR ( || ) , and NOT (!) as a modifier.  Lately I've had some trouble getting past some programming problems because logical operators can be a hassle to work around, especially the && operator.

Usually boolean operators are found within if-else statements.  It works the same way you would think: IF this is true, then do these things.  ELSE, do these things.  To determine which statements get executed, you use boolean operators.

For instance (in pseudocode):
IF the sky is blue
      it is a sunny day;
ELSE
     it is a rainy day.

If we look up and see that the sky is blue, it is most likely a sunny day, no?  Else, that is to say, if the sky is NOT blue, then it is probably raining.

Well sometimes you want to combine two different tests:
IF the sky is blue AND there are no clouds
     it is a good day
ELSE
     it is not a good day

If the sky is blue and there are no clouds, I would consider it a good day.  Or else it would be a bad day.

Now the trick with the boolean operator AND is that for it to be a good day, BOTH tests must pass: the sky must be blue AND there must be no clouds.  If any of them are false, then it is not a good day.
Also, another kink with AND.  It tests the arguments in order, so it will check if the sky is blue FIRST, then it will check if there are no clouds.  So if the first test fails, then it automatically skips to the ELSE w/o having to test if the sky is blue.

I was thinking how this pattern is like our salvation.  Let's say that we think we are saved.  Of course, we learn from the Bible that by grace and faith alone are we justified, and that our good works is a product of our faith in Jesus.  But during our struggles and inner conflicts with sin, how do we know if we are genuine Christians or not?  That's a natural question to ask yourself.

I put that question in the form of an if-else statement, and it actually fit quite nicely.  If we have faith in Jesus' death and resurrection and our faith produces good works, then we are mostly likely genuine Christians.  If not, then we are not genuine Christians.

Faith is followed by works.  If any of these is false, then our ELSE statement gets executed, and we conclude we are not genuine Christians.

Interestingly though, but shouldn't come to a surprise, the order of which faith and works is evaluated is the same way the boolean operators in an if-else statement are evaluated.

This is the way the evaluation is:
IF we have faith in God AND our faith produces good works...
     we are genuine Christians

Let's suppose we have faith in God, but our good works fails the test, then the statement that we are genuine Christians is not true, because BOTH faith and works must be there.

Now let's say we have good works, but we DON'T have faith in God.  Earlier I said that the first check will get evaluated first, and if it fails, the whole statement fails by default.  If in our lives our faith fails to meet the test, then we automatically are not genuine Christians.  It doesn't matter if you have good works; a lot of unbelieving people in this world have good works, but because they are without God, they are not Christians.

This is a call for us to check our own spiritual walks more closely to determine if we pass this if-else statement.  If we have faith and no works, then a reminder that James tells us that faith without works is dead.  You have faith in God, but do not carry out His will, and therefore that's just like not believing Him in the first place.  Because God has put you here on a mission to save souls, and not trying to accomplish that is rejection of His purpose for you.  We are called to work out our salvation.

On the flip side, if you don't have faith to begin with, then this is a call to repentance, to realize your depravity before a holy God, and to come before Him with humility and brokenness so that He may reconcile you to Him.  Your works isn't good enough to be reconciled to God. Isaiah 64:6 says, "For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment."  It's not enough.  We must have faith.

For those who know people in these situations, that's what accountability and evangelism is for; surely these are the will of God.

Recursion and Faith

When I was at Glendale, my programming teacher did spend a little time in recursion.  In programming, recursive algorithms involve method calls to itself, basically creating a chain of method calls until the it accomplishes its tasks.  My teacher at Glendale was not fond of recursion, because as someone who worked/works on video games, recursion uses up a lot of memory...and you don't want a lot of memory being taken up in games.  So she never emphasized using it.


However my programming teacher this semester at CSUN loves recursion.  The idea behind it is simple: you break down a difficult problem into smaller, easier problems.  But if you actually run through the code step by step, there are a lot of things going on and lots of things to keep track of.


My teacher assures us that recursion is easy to understand, because all you have to do is have "faith" in it.  As long as you understand the general big picture you want to accomplish and code to that end, just have "faith" that it'll work.  He said it's way to difficult to try to understand what is happening behind the scenes in recursion, but says that we need to have faith and trust that everything will work out.  If recursive algorithms are basically method calls to itself, creating a chain, questions like "When do recursive algorithms end if it just keeps looping into itself?" arise.  Again, our professor says to not worry so much about what's going on, but have faith that it will work.


I actually have quite a chuckle every time he talks about recursion like this; I think it's pretty funny when he says to put "faith" in recursion, to put faith into something that is so visually hard to understand.  But I thought that it sounded a lot like our faith as Christians.


Faith is a tremendous component in our walks.  There are a lot of unknowns we recognize as we continue in our walks.  We may pray things to God for Him to answer for us, but we're not even sure if it's in His will to answer it now, at a later time, or answer it at all.  We don't know how God works, and at times it is really frustrating because the question arises, "How do we know God is there at all?" even "If God works."  If you're a Christian, you've definitely struggled with that in your hearts; I definitely have.


But that's just a reminder of what faith is.  The writer of Hebrews tells us "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of the things not seen." (Heb. 11:1 - ESV)   Faith will only exist in our hearts if we undoubtedly know that God is there. If our faith in Him slips, so does our recognition of His presence. But the very essence of faith is what the author of Hebrews describes, the assurance of the things hoped for, of the things unseen. Even if we don't know how God is working, we do know he does work, because we've seen Him work throughout the ages, and His character never changes.

I may not know how what goes behind the scenes in recursion; having faith in it is pretty difficult because it's difficult to visualize what's going on. But I know it does work, why? Because I've seen the end result, and it proves to me that it does work. God shows us His works all the time, through answered and unanswered prayers. Most importantly, you've seen Him transform your own life.

So even if we don't know how He works, just look at the finished result. That's proof enough, and reason enough to continue to have faith.

System.out.println("Hello World!");

I haven't programmed in Java in maybe 3 or 4 semesters.  My data structures class isn't about Java programming, but Java is the language of choice to implement our programs.  I feel so far behind because I don't remember a lot of it.

Oh the troubles of forgetfulness, haha.  I can't even remember how to do copy constructors or what they are used for.  Oh well, that's what the internet is for.

class Riel
{
    private String height;
    private int weight_pounds;


    public Riel()  //default constructor
    {
        height = "5'7"";
        weight_pounds = 120;
    }

    public Riel(String new_height)
    {
        height = new_height;
        weight_pounds = 120;
    }

    public Riel(int new_weight)
    {
        weight_pounds = new_weight;
        height = "5'7"";
    }

    public Riel(int new_weight, String new_height)
    {
        weight_pounds = new_weight;
       height = new_height;
    }

    public int getWeight()
    {
        return weight_pounds;
    }

    public String getHeight()
    {
        return height;
    }
}

//main function

import java.util.*;

public class RielisCoolium
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in);
        Riel info = new Riel();
        String choice;
        boolean coolness;

        System.out.println("Riel's height is " + info.getHeight());
        System.out.println("Riel's weight is " + info.getWeight());

        System.out.println("Is Riel cool?");
        choice = keyboard.nextLine();
        if (choice == "Yes" || "yes")
       {
            coolness = true;
       }
     
       else if (choice == "No" || "no")
       {
           coolness = false;
       }
 
       else
      {
          System.out.println("You have entered an incorrect response.  Please go away.");
      }
   }
}

//end

Through the Fire and Flames

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
   -James 1:2-4


He found him in a desert land,
and in the howling waste of the wilderness;
he encircled him, he cared for him,
he kept him as the apple of his eye.
   -Deuteronomy 32:10

He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
   -Psalm 147:3

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
   -Romans 8:28

...Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
   -2 Corinthians 4:16-18

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
   -1 Peter 1:6-7


Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
   -Philippians 3:13-14


For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.  By his wounds you have been healed.
   -1 Peter 2:21-24



What sweet words.