Scott Jough was hit by lightening last week during vacation in Mass. He survived. Fortunately, the lightening was not a direct hit. It hit the ground, traveled and hit Scott near his shoulder, went through his organs and went out of his leg. Scott remembers nothing. He was instantaneously knocked unconscious. He suffered no organ damage and will be released within a day or two. The family is thankful to God. Had Scott been a few feet from where he was, or had it struck his son, Peter, whom somehow Scott covered, the story would have turned out differently. The family is thankful to God's protection.
In the mean time, God is demonstrating His power at JOY in different ways. Regular people are being filled with the Holy Spirit and used by God to heal one another, cast out demons and speak prophetically to one another unto inner healing and encouragement. This has been happening for four weeks now. At the Alpha retreat two weekends ago, I am told, everyone was touched by God through these people. I am very excited because this is exactly what happened in the Book of Acts--God using average people supernaturally.
I am reminded about St. Paul's statement: "My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power (1 Cor. 2:4, 5). Also, 1 Cor. 4:20, "the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power." Christian faith is not about arguing better, but about the demonstration of the power of God, and that is what's happening. We cannot be more thankful.
For next few Thu. nights, we will gather to learn more about the Holy Spirit and the ministry through spiritual gifts, and to answer any questions. We welcome all who is interested in what is happening.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Healing ual and Relational Brokenness
Andy was a homosexual. Annette was ually abused as a . Now they are married and leading a ministry dedicated to bringing healing in ual and relational brokenness. It is called Desert Stream.
If one area exists where probably just about everyone is broken, it is uality, my seminary professor once said. The brokenness is manifested not only in conspicuous things like homosexuality or ography, but also in subtle things like power struggle between a husband and a wife in marriage, or fear in dating scenes among singles. The confusion and distortion run the whole depth of humanity, from shallowest to deepest. What God in His goodness has created for beauty and joy has become a source of perversion and pain. How we wish we could restore it! We must restore it, and we can, by the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
I am reading Andrew Comiskey’s Strength in Weakness: Healing ual and Relational Brokenness. I hope you will read it also. To whet your appetite, I typed about 1.5 pages of his book below. A caution in reading it though: do not read it to accuse the other (male or female), but to acknowledge our own wrong in this relationship, confess and seek healing.
"The fallen pair set in motion a struggle for power that has raged since time's beginning. Whereas in Eden they complemented one another in wholeness, outside the garden the genders tend to merge in brokenness.
In the case of a woman, we see her greater relational capacity becoming a potential for sin. She now years for a man's love inordinately--a tendency that places her at risk of making a god out of a mere mortal. This occurs when she allows herself to be subject to the broken creation in a manner that eclipses the primacy of the Creator in her life. From this flow the sins of a woman compromising her dignity to satisfy a man's cruel demands. Her idolatry is paired with the sin of self-hatred.
Many men reinforce this idolatry through requiring much of a woman and yet giving little. They want leadership without the cost of serving a woman in love. They may even justify the imbalance on the grounds that men are superior… and thus entitled to receive more than she does. This can lead to all manner of boorish, demeaning behaviors toward women. At the root such sin involves misogyny, or the hatred and dishonor of woman.
Modern women often tend toward a counterreaction to this traditional idolatry. A woman may ignore her ned for men altogether. This is a posture of worldly justice; the woman now exists in reaction to the man's historic cruelty. She becomes larger than the man--more confident, more capable and free to need him no longer. In reaction to his abuses, she now refuses him. Her sin involves the suppression of her good and appropriate need for the man. She complements his misogyny with misandry, the hatred and dishonor of man.
Many men today grow up in a culture rife with misandry and misogyny. The battle for justice has resulted in evolving gender roles. This confusion, combined with a lack of adequate fathering, can leave men boyish and underdeveloped in their masculinity. They are thus prone to bonding with women in their immaturity.
Unsure of himself, this type of male does not lord himself over the woman in his life, but neither does he love her with the clarity and commitment that healthy relationships require. His presence may be underwhelming; hers, larger than life. She retains control through her greater function in the relationship and yet resents him for his littleness. Her disrepect reinforces his disempowerment. He remains at odds with himself and subject to self-contempt. She struggles for security in her oversized, maternal posture. Both need to confess the sins of not standing in their true status: man and woman before the Creator. Their mother-child dynamic undermines God's intent for his image bearers.
Related to this boyish immaturity is a pervasive theme I see in men today--the tendency toward narcissism. Here the man, unaffirmed and self-absorbed, engages the woman with a limited capacity to give himself to her. The relationship revolves around him. Even then he is nearly unable to love her, to extend himself beyond the awareness of his own desires. He sees her only to the degree that she satisfies him.
Such chronic selfishness can be cured only if it is acknowledged. Confessing the idolatry of self is the beginning of healing here. This requires more than the other party's long. It must involve the clear witness that such a self-serving posture is wrong. Otherwise the one partner can contribute to the idolatry of the narcissistic other." (Strength through Weakness, Andrew Comiskey, 103-5)
If one area exists where probably just about everyone is broken, it is uality, my seminary professor once said. The brokenness is manifested not only in conspicuous things like homosexuality or ography, but also in subtle things like power struggle between a husband and a wife in marriage, or fear in dating scenes among singles. The confusion and distortion run the whole depth of humanity, from shallowest to deepest. What God in His goodness has created for beauty and joy has become a source of perversion and pain. How we wish we could restore it! We must restore it, and we can, by the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
I am reading Andrew Comiskey’s Strength in Weakness: Healing ual and Relational Brokenness. I hope you will read it also. To whet your appetite, I typed about 1.5 pages of his book below. A caution in reading it though: do not read it to accuse the other (male or female), but to acknowledge our own wrong in this relationship, confess and seek healing.
"The fallen pair set in motion a struggle for power that has raged since time's beginning. Whereas in Eden they complemented one another in wholeness, outside the garden the genders tend to merge in brokenness.
In the case of a woman, we see her greater relational capacity becoming a potential for sin. She now years for a man's love inordinately--a tendency that places her at risk of making a god out of a mere mortal. This occurs when she allows herself to be subject to the broken creation in a manner that eclipses the primacy of the Creator in her life. From this flow the sins of a woman compromising her dignity to satisfy a man's cruel demands. Her idolatry is paired with the sin of self-hatred.
Many men reinforce this idolatry through requiring much of a woman and yet giving little. They want leadership without the cost of serving a woman in love. They may even justify the imbalance on the grounds that men are superior… and thus entitled to receive more than she does. This can lead to all manner of boorish, demeaning behaviors toward women. At the root such sin involves misogyny, or the hatred and dishonor of woman.
Modern women often tend toward a counterreaction to this traditional idolatry. A woman may ignore her ned for men altogether. This is a posture of worldly justice; the woman now exists in reaction to the man's historic cruelty. She becomes larger than the man--more confident, more capable and free to need him no longer. In reaction to his abuses, she now refuses him. Her sin involves the suppression of her good and appropriate need for the man. She complements his misogyny with misandry, the hatred and dishonor of man.
Many men today grow up in a culture rife with misandry and misogyny. The battle for justice has resulted in evolving gender roles. This confusion, combined with a lack of adequate fathering, can leave men boyish and underdeveloped in their masculinity. They are thus prone to bonding with women in their immaturity.
Unsure of himself, this type of male does not lord himself over the woman in his life, but neither does he love her with the clarity and commitment that healthy relationships require. His presence may be underwhelming; hers, larger than life. She retains control through her greater function in the relationship and yet resents him for his littleness. Her disrepect reinforces his disempowerment. He remains at odds with himself and subject to self-contempt. She struggles for security in her oversized, maternal posture. Both need to confess the sins of not standing in their true status: man and woman before the Creator. Their mother-child dynamic undermines God's intent for his image bearers.
Related to this boyish immaturity is a pervasive theme I see in men today--the tendency toward narcissism. Here the man, unaffirmed and self-absorbed, engages the woman with a limited capacity to give himself to her. The relationship revolves around him. Even then he is nearly unable to love her, to extend himself beyond the awareness of his own desires. He sees her only to the degree that she satisfies him.
Such chronic selfishness can be cured only if it is acknowledged. Confessing the idolatry of self is the beginning of healing here. This requires more than the other party's long. It must involve the clear witness that such a self-serving posture is wrong. Otherwise the one partner can contribute to the idolatry of the narcissistic other." (Strength through Weakness, Andrew Comiskey, 103-5)
Monday, July 7, 2008
America My Country?
I am in Kansas City, praying for a couple of weeks. Julie, my beau, and I came here right after JAMA Conference on July 4th. We went straight from the airport (Eddie picked us up) to Bob Hartley's house. He was having a 4th of July party. By the time we arrived, the party was well on the way. About 30 s and children sat in the backyard, thanking God for independence.
As I put my foot in the backyard, I had a culture shock. I consider myself Korean-American. I am an American citizen. Yet, as I saw the non-Asian Americans, mostly Caucasian Americans, I could not help feel less American. (Julie thinks it's because there were older Caucasians.) I had to mentally tell myself that I am an American.
Later people shared prayers and poems for America. When Bob asked if anyone had anything else to share, I shared the "Declaration of Dependence" we drafted for JAMA conference. When Bob asked if I wanted to read it or should he, I said, "I think it will be good to have an Asian-American read it." People were deeply moved. (It may find its way to some newspapers.)
Do we consider ourselves fully American? Korean-American, or Chinese-American, but fully American nonetheless? Or do we consider ourselves less American than fully American? That is to say, do we take full ownership of this great country? Do we feel responsible for this nation's well being, and do all we can to make it blessed? Or do we sit by the sideline of this nation?
The key theme of JAMA conference is to instill ownership of this nation to Korean-Americans. God has brought us here to make this nation great. We must step into the ownership of this nation. When people think of American in the future, may they think of Asians because God is using us to make America great, for God's glory.
As I put my foot in the backyard, I had a culture shock. I consider myself Korean-American. I am an American citizen. Yet, as I saw the non-Asian Americans, mostly Caucasian Americans, I could not help feel less American. (Julie thinks it's because there were older Caucasians.) I had to mentally tell myself that I am an American.
Later people shared prayers and poems for America. When Bob asked if anyone had anything else to share, I shared the "Declaration of Dependence" we drafted for JAMA conference. When Bob asked if I wanted to read it or should he, I said, "I think it will be good to have an Asian-American read it." People were deeply moved. (It may find its way to some newspapers.)
Do we consider ourselves fully American? Korean-American, or Chinese-American, but fully American nonetheless? Or do we consider ourselves less American than fully American? That is to say, do we take full ownership of this great country? Do we feel responsible for this nation's well being, and do all we can to make it blessed? Or do we sit by the sideline of this nation?
The key theme of JAMA conference is to instill ownership of this nation to Korean-Americans. God has brought us here to make this nation great. We must step into the ownership of this nation. When people think of American in the future, may they think of Asians because God is using us to make America great, for God's glory.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
How to Overcome Jealousy
Last week I shared about being broken and letting the light of Christ shine. Today's thought is a further reflection on the same theme.
One common struggle among Christians is jealousy. It could be jealousy over a another's Gucci handbag, a better car, a more successful career or even "better" children. As I shared last week pastors are not immune to the same poison of jealousy. If another pastor has a bigger church, we may boil inside with jealousy.
Where does jealousy come from, and how can we overcome it? Jealousy exists because at the heart of hearts we want to be the greatest. We want to be the best--not Joe, not Jane, but me! Jealousy is comparative by nature and stems from our desire to be better...than others. How can we overcome it? God's answer is radical. He says, "Consider others better than yourself (Phil. 2:3)." We struggle with jealousy because we want to be better than others, but God says simply, "Consider others better than yourself." Another person carries a better handbag? Just consider her better: "She is better than I am." Another has a more successful career? Just consider him better than you: "He is smarter. He is a better man." Do not fight and try to make yourself look better. Surrender and acknowledge others as better. That is Jesus' answer.
God's call for us is not to build our name, our own empire, but to serve others, and to disappear. This is the paradox of Jesus' teaching: "Whoever wants to be great must be a servant of all." A servant has no empire of his/her own. He/she serves another. He/she works to make others great. God calls us to serve others, entirely expend ourselves for the sake of others. That person will be called great in God's sight.
When we can consider others better than ourselves, we will be free. We will no longer live to be something that we are not--to impress others, to look better to others than we are, or even just to think about what others think about us. We will be truly free and be what we are made to be.
One common struggle among Christians is jealousy. It could be jealousy over a another's Gucci handbag, a better car, a more successful career or even "better" children. As I shared last week pastors are not immune to the same poison of jealousy. If another pastor has a bigger church, we may boil inside with jealousy.
Where does jealousy come from, and how can we overcome it? Jealousy exists because at the heart of hearts we want to be the greatest. We want to be the best--not Joe, not Jane, but me! Jealousy is comparative by nature and stems from our desire to be better...than others. How can we overcome it? God's answer is radical. He says, "Consider others better than yourself (Phil. 2:3)." We struggle with jealousy because we want to be better than others, but God says simply, "Consider others better than yourself." Another person carries a better handbag? Just consider her better: "She is better than I am." Another has a more successful career? Just consider him better than you: "He is smarter. He is a better man." Do not fight and try to make yourself look better. Surrender and acknowledge others as better. That is Jesus' answer.
God's call for us is not to build our name, our own empire, but to serve others, and to disappear. This is the paradox of Jesus' teaching: "Whoever wants to be great must be a servant of all." A servant has no empire of his/her own. He/she serves another. He/she works to make others great. God calls us to serve others, entirely expend ourselves for the sake of others. That person will be called great in God's sight.
When we can consider others better than ourselves, we will be free. We will no longer live to be something that we are not--to impress others, to look better to others than we are, or even just to think about what others think about us. We will be truly free and be what we are made to be.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Break Me and Shine
About a month ago I saw a vision in my prayer. I was praying that God would break me. I knew that I was full of my ego, concerns for my success, my appearance before others, etc., so I was asking God to break me. While I prayed, I saw a small metal ball (the ball had a metal covering, not full of metal), which I recognized to represent me. I asked God, "Lord, break it. Crush it." As I prayed, I saw a bat come down and strike it. When the bat struck it, I was sure that the metal ball would collapse . Instead, when the cover ed, I saw that inside the metal cover was a ball of shining light, which I recognized as the light of Christ, and the light was beginning to shine through the . I realized that when I break, I do not get crushed. Instead, I finally release Christ to shine through me.
I still struggle mightily with my ego. When I hear about someone other pastor's success, I get jealous. I still want my name to be big instead of the name of Jesus Christ. I am desperately aware how little the love of Christ I have in my heart toward other people.
Everyday I pray that God would break me. Paradoxically, when my ego is broken, I will be set free and become truly myself--who God made me to be, how God has made me shine the light of Christ.
P.S. Please pray for the Connections Conference. It is happening this week, Mon-Wed.
I still struggle mightily with my ego. When I hear about someone other pastor's success, I get jealous. I still want my name to be big instead of the name of Jesus Christ. I am desperately aware how little the love of Christ I have in my heart toward other people.
Everyday I pray that God would break me. Paradoxically, when my ego is broken, I will be set free and become truly myself--who God made me to be, how God has made me shine the light of Christ.
P.S. Please pray for the Connections Conference. It is happening this week, Mon-Wed.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
The Value of a Soul
I sat in a room full of strangers. Over a hundred people I have never known before. An odd sensation came over me. Who are they? What are they? I could not connect. I felt even if they all died, it would make no difference to me.
One phenomenon of the (post-)modern age is that we are trained to see people as tools. If you are a store owner, when someone walks in, that person looks like a walking dollar sign, a potential consumer. If you are a manager, you look at an employee for what he/she can do in the job. If a politician, a person may simply be a number--the vote he/she can cast for you. We see people not for their intrinsic value, but for their extrinsic value.
Much of this utilitarian view of others te our perspective because we view ourselves the same way. We think our worth is in our utilitarian worth: how much money we make, how valuable we are to the company, etc.
But God says our worth is infinite because He made us in His image. We are more precious than the most ancient artifact--even if broken, infinitely valuable. God cares for each person; that's why each of us is of an infinite value. Yes, even that drunk sleeping on the side of the street, or that person in the pit of sin. Christ died for each soul, you and me, and them, and that's why each person is infinitely valuable.
May we look at each person we meet as a person of infinite value each day instead of a tool. May we look at each person as one that God cares for and Christ died for. May we care for them, as Christ would, and share Christ with them.
One phenomenon of the (post-)modern age is that we are trained to see people as tools. If you are a store owner, when someone walks in, that person looks like a walking dollar sign, a potential consumer. If you are a manager, you look at an employee for what he/she can do in the job. If a politician, a person may simply be a number--the vote he/she can cast for you. We see people not for their intrinsic value, but for their extrinsic value.
Much of this utilitarian view of others te our perspective because we view ourselves the same way. We think our worth is in our utilitarian worth: how much money we make, how valuable we are to the company, etc.
But God says our worth is infinite because He made us in His image. We are more precious than the most ancient artifact--even if broken, infinitely valuable. God cares for each person; that's why each of us is of an infinite value. Yes, even that drunk sleeping on the side of the street, or that person in the pit of sin. Christ died for each soul, you and me, and them, and that's why each person is infinitely valuable.
May we look at each person we meet as a person of infinite value each day instead of a tool. May we look at each person as one that God cares for and Christ died for. May we care for them, as Christ would, and share Christ with them.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Hardship, A Blessing?
While we live with short-term views, God works with long views. We want to have success NOW! God easily take 10 years and put us through hardship for the purpose of training us. Ten years is an investment for next fifty years, 5 generations, or even 500 years. That was the case with Joseph, David, Lincoln, and FDR among many others.
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