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…that i’ve been meaning to blog about for like …MonTHS. By God’s grace alone, much has changed for the better already, but it is still a burden on my heart:

…the issue of God’s sovereignty

 We say so many times with our lips that God is sovereign, that we can trust in the Lord, cast all our cares upon him, depend wholly upon him… that we can not worry about anything but rest in the knowledge that the Lord is in complete control over our future and more importantly the future of all creation as well. Complete, utter control, from a perfectly omnipotent and omniscient God who loves us with a love that is incomprehensible.

Yet do we truly believe these words that we speak from our own mouths? Or even if we do, do our lives and hearts and thoughts reflect that?

If you say that God really is sovereign, then trust in Him! For everything! His will over your own, His desires over your own, not only in one part of life but in EVERYTHING. And in GOC we have just went over this (well actually a few months ago) from the sermon on the mount… to not be anxious or worry about anything and to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” in Matt. 6. We just went over Philippians 4:6 a while ago in Chris Gee’s small group as well, to not be anxious about anything. So yes, the knowledge is obviously there, and often we can play the lipservice game during discussions or prayers or meetups or whatever, but when we are away from a heavily spiritual environment, in the daily grind and trenches of life, so many times we forget about the very words we have just said, or sometimes even believed with such convictions moments ago.

I think a lot of people, myself especially included, look at these verses and these doctrinal truths and say, “yeah, don’t worry, got it” without going deeper into the picture – realizing God’s complete sovereignty. Psalm 139:16 says “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them”. Your days are numbered, your future is already set in stone. There is no need to worry! However, there is so much more than just not worrying, which even then we so often are not consistent in doing (i.e. the hour or two before that killer final when you’re cramming and making studying an activity, or even idol, separate from God). We do not see God for who He is, and thus we diminish His sovereignty and His will, often putting our desires above His when they are not the same, as if we were any more important than the next person at all. We forget who created us and gave us our uniqueness and talents and abilities, circumstances and every good thing we have been blessed with. We forget the One who purchased our life with the blood of His very own Son. And all these wordly desires that we have cloud our vision of Him and who He really is.

Basically, God is sovereign ALL the time, and we should live that way. Yup, I really needa work on this.

Ok well all this is pretty general and stuff, so onto some specifics.

1 – Honoring God’s sovereignty in your future career
This is something that we have often heard of and yet for some of us, it’s quite hard to do 100%. We need to have more flexibility right now in what we want to do after we graduate if we are not completely sure it is what God has called us to do. Especially for premeds, like me – we premeds are often so consumed with making it into medical school that we think it is our calling when it may very well be far from it. We can have very many woefully wrong reasons in pursuing this, deep down in our hearts, and pride is something that really flares up… what we want to do and what we imagine ourselves doing 10 years from now, versus what God wants us to do. Sure, goals are one thing, and actually we should all have goals to accomplish, but we should always be prepared to change our goals if God is telling us to, and there is a very fine line between studious pursuits and selfish ambition. Don’t make studying into an idol. Don’t make status into an idol either. Those all come under not making your ideal future career into an idol.

2 – Honoring God’s sovereignty in relationships (especially pre-dating and dating)
Wow I guess this was one of the main reasons I wanted to blog because this topic keeps coming up so much and I realize how different many peoples’ views are. So after talking some with many people and reading up in the Word, and lots of observation as well, I have realized a couple things, and sadly one of them is this:

For guys, when girls are suddenly in the picture, your theology concerning that often goes down the drain.

This is especially true of those of us, like me, who are not as spiritually mature or do not have as much experience or knowledge in the ways of glorifying God in all sorts of relationships with the opposite gender. I see myself, and so many others, saying things like “God is sovereign” and “I desire to do His will” and yet when girls are there our minds are so often surprisingly forgetful. Our flesh wins often. And yet I see a lot of people who are on the opposite side who seek God’s will wholeheartedly in relationships and pursuing them. So this isn’t an “OH NOES EVERYONE IS SKREWED UPS” thing, but it is something that I am seeing so much of, in myself and in some other people.

A couple things to do. First off, know, believe, and TRUST this simple truth: If God really wanted you and another girl (or guy) to be together, you would eventually do so ON HIS TIMING! It seems kinda duh yet it’s quite exasperating to see how our flesh likes to get around this. For example, the timing issue. We tend to want to do things on our own timing, not God’s, and we want things now. Even if we think the time is not right, we usually just say things like “I’ll wait a year” or so, thinking that a year is a long time. Really though, how long is a year to God, and what about God’s timing? We also like to interpret many circumstances to the benefit of our desires, and not looking at them from God’s point of view. We like to make excuses like “Oh, since I see her (or him) so much at this one thing, that must mean that God is telling me to get closer to her and DTR” or something. But really, if that was someone else there in that position that you were not interested in romantically, would you still be saying that to yourself? So we need to be extremely careful in interpreting circumstances, conversations, etc. We also need to be patient in God’s timing. This, like many other sins, all boils down to pride again.

Another thing: God’s sovereignty in chosing our “life partner” or “future spouse” or whatever you wanna call it. So often, and I know this is very true for guys and not so sure if it is for girls too, we starting liking a certain someone and think “oh, he/she must be the one!” And so we often do many things on our own accord to get closer to them and possibly getting them to like us back. We fail to realize a very important part of that truth just mentioned above: If God really wanted us to get together with this person, HE WOULD. DUH. So we really don’t need to go all out in trying to woo them or turn their attention to us, so pridefully, as if we were worth paying attention to over God! This is totally a heart issue. A close brother-sister relationship can be very glorifying to God as long as it goes accordign to His will. But a lot of times those relationships can be places for temptations to sin to creep in. People need to be on the same page, knowing the boundaries set, knowing what kind of relationship it is, and people need very much to actively guard their own hearts as well as the other person’s heart in their actions/body language, their words, and their thoughts. This again is a heart issue, and especially one of finding satisfication in God FIRST, above any other relationship, because He alone is the sole source of everlasting, perfect satisfaction. That and our God is a jealous God. Ideally, we would be satisfied in God to the point where we can say truthfully that we would not care if we never married in our lives because we are that satisfied with God, but most of the time for most people this is not the case and to start a dating relationship it often doesn’t have to be. God is gracious. But seriously, He is sovereign. And we need to trust in His sovereignty over our own… “wooing” abilities, our own timing, and especially our own desires. We must submit ourselves to our Lord and not try to rewrite our destinies. We also, in the pre-dating and dating and marriage and everything else stage, must be extremely careful to not make our relationship into an idol above God.

So if you really say you believe that God is sovereign, live that out in your desires for your future and in pursuing/having relationships.

There are other points as well but DKimmy suddenly came in the room and I must go to sleep now.

ok i’m taking a mandatory study break from chinese hw to post this.. cuz it was just that post-worthy (this is also part of my try-to-post-now-more,-dan! strategy in a strange little ..sort of way)

 (this is the first ever time i ever ever did something remotely like this… which is why it was so embarrassing but funny at the same time roffly!)

so i was drinking from the carton the very last few drops of my minute-maid “premium” tropical punch that i just recently bought from Ralph’s. it was only $2 so i dunno how premium it really was ..but it tasted good to me i guess. anyhoo, it was literally the very few last drops so i was just gonna finish it and go back to reading my textbook, but i guess i was thinking about something.. i forgot what.. so i really wasn’t paying any attention at all. well, you know how you have to tilt the carton/cup/bottle/whatever to get to the last “most precious” (or premium) drops? this is true especially of hot chocolate cuz then you get all the really sweet choco chunks, but sometimes they’re too sweet so then you just kinda leave them there or add more milk. anyways, that’s what i did, but i wasn’t paying attention to how much i was tilting it.. i even leaned back in my chair until it was like completely vertically upside down over my head. and then, in the middle of my very deep, profound thoughts (so profound that i forgot what they were!) i feel this weird… tingly feeling suddenly sHOOT down my left nostril and i immediately go “whoomp” back into an upright sitting position, chair flatly seated on the floor. cuz for some weird reason the very last drops of tropical punch went UP MY NOSE at the very same time i took a breath.. and cuz of that a few got on my shirt too. but it was so surprising o my. and i was like ohhh boy WOW i am so dumb. except in my mind… cuz dan kim was lying on his bed in the room, in his usual lying down with laptop on lap staring at TV position. luckily he was super focused on his laptop screen so he didn’t notice. poker is that addicting. anyhoo, i slooowly and quietly reach for a napkin and kinda blow my nose and stuff cuz i have a semi-cold anyways so i don’t think he noticed at all… w00t mission accomplished! except my nose is still feeling really weird right now. hey, i never squirted milk out of my nose so this is a first okAY? okay back to work. happy bday willy btw =] hope you liked your bday cake(+ing) and handprint! and “charades” lolol good times

..i know that’s what some of you were thinking! cuz i haven’t updated in forever and a day minus some. sad, huh… i’m really bad at this blogging thing after all =/ but wow wordpress changed quite a bit while i was gone (oh btw i haven’t played starcraft in even longer!!! DOTA ALL THE WAY hahahAh jkjkjkjkjk no games no games)

so why this sudden return to blogging, you might ponder? (do you like my incorrect use of ponder instead of something like wonder? ARE YOU PONDERING WHAT I’M PONDERING??!?! two brownie pts to whoever knows where that’s from lawl) well, since serious stuffs don’t juxtapose well with my over-the-topful weird typing mannerisms (juxtapose is from chris gunit okay i take no responsibility for the use of it. btw it’s juhckstapoze, not jyoockstapoze) i think i’ll just do what y’all practically shouting in your heads right now and… stop! (DROP KABOOOOM)

 this is serious now, so turn that frown upside down or maybe into an even more frownier frown. last one i semi-promise! okay lemme start over pretend you didn’t just waste your precious 20 seconds of your life reading that cuz it’s all a big JK!! NO TRANSITION NEEDED! just more proper typing. but this next part’s important, so i urge you to read on…

This week, especially these past few days, God, through His Holy Spirit, has been seemingly pouring out these convictions onto my heart, through sermons, talks with friends, events, devotional times, or just during the most random times. And the sad part is, I must confess that my flesh, through pride or apathy or many other sinful means, has been covering these convictions, pushing them deep into a corner of my heart so that I may forget them and move on with my life the way it is. But thanks be to God, who has poured out His grace on me at the same time, so that His Spirit can triumph over my flesh. I’m still working on not covering up these convictions so that my eyes can truly be opened and my heart can be healed, but for now I just have to share these with whoever wants to read.

Just about an hour ago, I did something that I haven’t done in the longest time: I got down on my knees, pushed everything else out of my mind, and literally cried out to the Lord. I prayed for many things that I won’t go into detail here, but mainly for a broken and contrite heart, for Him to strip me of my pride, and for Him to show me His glory and His love for me, so that my love for Him may increase in turn. And boy was it refreshing.

For a while now, my walk has seemed very dry, at least to me, and I’ve been just monotonously going through the motions of life. I’ve been putting on a veil of holiness, yet inside my heart has been filled with apathy. At times, I wanted to feel a passion for God again, a desire to dive into His word, to do His will, and so much more, but I always returned to a state of apathy soon after. It was quite frustrating. And so the weakness of the flesh has conquered the willingness of the spirit. I guess we all desire to be on fire for God, but many times we just pray that and feel passionate for a while, then promptly return to being lukewarm. Kind of like “Ooh, I wanna get an A, but I don’t wanna work, but I wanna be able to wanna work hard” …yeah? (don’t over-analyze that by the way. just an analogy that’s not really that similar cuz like Jtrick said on Friday, God’s standard is A or F and we can only get F by ourselves. i know some of you may be thinking “why you comparing righteousness to grades hm?” ..so dONT! bwaha) Well.. God has been gracious enough to show me some things I’ve been doing/thinking/praying for/feeling wrong these past few days.

I went to One Vision, the cross-fellowship praise night/meeting tonight, which calls for it’s own blog post but since I got a midterm tomorrow I can’t do that right now. Well, I originally hadn’t seriously planned on going, since GoC doesn’t really support these things (for reasons which I understand but don’t agree with 100%). So I didn’t really look into it, and when I found out that a couple other gracers wanted to go, I decided to go for an hour or so cuz, well, I have a midterm tomorrow! I thought it’d just be a whole praise night thing with a short message like what I heard it was like last year (or two years ago?) Ok trying to make this post short, so going into turboblogging mode. I heard Jason Ma was speaking and for those of you who never heard him speak before, he has an amazing testimony and is a superb preacher as well, so I encourage you to listen to him! So that made me decide to stay longer and hear all he had to say. Anyhoo, we go in, there’s a whoooole buncha people there from all these fellowships, and I knew/recognized some of them and wow there’s more Christians at UCLA than I thought! fastforward. Okay so his message was extremely convicting. You know what I’ll just start saying what I think about it and about other stuff and what I was mainly blogging for in the first place… you can go find a recording of it if you want somewhere.. iono ask CrossConnect or w/e.

 Anyways, this part is mainly directed at people who go to GoC (me too!). And a lot of this comes from the sermon by Jason Ma, Jmac/Jtrick/Rick Holland, from talks I’ve had with people, and from my reading/devotion times and thinking (just so I don’t have to say it every time). I’ve been talking with some gracers before this event, especially those who’d gone to non-grace organized events like Urbana and No Ordinary People, and this has been told to us by Jtrick before, but I’ve got to say it again: WE’VE GOT to STOP being such a bubble! Hanging out with Christians is cool for fellowship and spurring each other on, but THINK in terms of ETERNITY!! Like really think about it.. about everything in this world, about heaven, about everything outside of this world, about God’s plan, about past present and future. We go about all the time worrying about studying for tests or what we eat and who we eat with or relationships or our futures, when they are SOOo insignificant compared to eternity! Not that they’re not important at all; we’re called to be excellent in everything we do, to be good stewards of the “mina”, however many, that we’re given, to prepare for the future because we are responsible for bringing up our future children and being good spouses… but these things should not take priority over God! And we all know this! It’s been said over and over again so many times that I think we might have become callous to it. And yet we STILL often have idols before God in our heart. I know I have many, and very few people, if any, can honestly say before God that they don’t. Our priorities are reflected in the things we do, and although we are saved not by works but by faith, our works and attitudes are often a reflection of our heart. I think if we truly valued eternity as much as we should, we wouldn’t be worrying so much about these things. Go back to Matthew 6… the words of God here ring truer every time they’re read (well everywhere else too). Especially at UCLA, we worry WAY TOO MUCH about academics. I know it’s weird for me, who doesn’t study that much, to say this, but really, if God wanted you to have some grade or job or whatever, YOU’D HAVE IT! And honestly, one midterm grade really doesn’t affect your future that much. Are you studying just for the grade, and then just so you have something to boast about in your heart? Depend upon the Lord for all things. So study hard, but with God first, with His will first before yours. We spend the same amount of time with God in midterm week than in some other week, if not more because we need His power that much more! And the future is already in His hand, your destiny has already been written down in His book before the beginning of time! There is so much more to our lives here on earth than worrying about school or work, or on the flipside, being slothful. Will we be doing that in heaven? It’s especially hard at UCLA not to be too caught up in academics; I’ve heard from friends that Christians at other campuses have an easier time concentrating on God. So do we sacrifice our time with God to get a higher paying job later? Is that really worth it? Everything we do echoes into eternity, so next time you find yourself saving time with God for after midterms, reconsider, because God is so much more important and also because He is sufficient for all your weaknesses (anyways, just think about it; He created knowledge in the first place, so why not study with Him instead of just by yourself?) ”Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Ok that was a bit too much on academics but I’m seeing so much of that that it’s really bugging me. Anyways, back to GoC… we hang out with Christians too much! And not even Christians in general… only gracers! (this is for the majority of us). It’s good to work on becoming more Christ-like, on conquering your own sin and, basically, sanctifying yourself. But don’t use your imperfections as an excuse to ignore fellowship with other believers outside of grace, as well as (more importantly to some effect) EVANGELISM! true compassion for unbelievers. One thing I’ve noticed about GOC vs other fellowships is that it focuses more on theological knowledge and on “perfecting” oneself as opposed to outreach and social justice issues. As one wise small group leader put it (hehe guess who), when we face God in heaven, will He be more pleased that we know the difference between double and single predestination, or that we have a heart for the poor? Eternity is too short for us to spend all/most of our time on ourselves, cuz basically that is what we are doing! (okay we obviously doesn’t mean everyone in GOC there are exceptions but still.. think about it!) You really don’t have to be “perfect” or even halfway there to spread the gospel or feed the hungry/clothe the poor. Even many nonbelievers do the latter. Of course, we should all strive to be like Christ and our sancification is a continual process… but isn’t part of being more Christ-like showing His love to others? He had so much more compassion for sinners than ANYONE can even remotely boast of. So look deep into your heart, and just between you and God, see if you are, in a way, being a Pharisee – if you are constantly trying to perfect your own self for the purpose of being able to boast in your heart of righteousness… if you look down upon other fellowships as being not “godly” enough because they don’t teach the Bible as well as GoC does or because they have different worship styles/doctrine… if, like Jtrick said, you are making a spiritual checklist everday, doing devotionals just so you can say you did them, acting more ”godly” than you are when you’re with other gracers… even looking up to John MacArthur or Rick Holland or whoever else so much that you idolize them… and so on and so on. I know I’m guilty of those things, and I desire change.

 One thing I, as well as some others in grace, think we need to really work on is OUTREACH. If we truly thought about eternity the way we should, this should be one of the most important issues on our minds! I’m not only talking about spreading the gospel here, but about social justice issues, caring for the homeless, the sick, the poor, the oppressed, widows and orphans, basically all who are not as fortunate. We gracers, who spend so much time reading God’s word, should know this more than those who don’t! Go look up Matthew 25:31-46, James 1:27, and James 2:14-16, just to name a few. Evangelism is achieved not only through words, but by actions as well. If we are truly the light of the world, let us act like it. I remember hearing about a survey in Taiwan a while ago, which asked why people had certain views of religions. Many people liked Buddhism because they showed the most compassion to people outside their religion. For instance, in every natural disaster in Taiwan, they’d be the first to act, the first religious group on the scene to aid the victims. I don’t know if this is true, but this can be applied easily to us as well. If even nonbelievers have all these organizations caring for the sick, poor, etc, shouldn’t we strive to do even more?

One last thing… I still have so many thoughts to share but this is the last one for now, and this is on the topic of inter-fellowship relations. One Vision really opened my eyes to this issue, to the sin I had in my heart because I was judging other fellowships without even knowing them, and blindly believing deep in my heart that GoC was more righteous because we were more hardcore as in biblically oriented. Or maybe they worshiped differently, or were too soft on the gospel, or were too diluted or too charismatic (well, Grace iS super conservative, but even Rick Holland likes clapping in worship for example. I have a hard time standing still with my hands in my pockets and praising God in song and rejoicing! But whether we like to stand still or lift up our hands and even dance, we are all still worshipping the same God!) Sure, other fellowships have their problems too, but we are all equal in righteousness before God! For our righteousness is not our own… all have fallen short of the glory of God. One sin is equal to thousands in God’s eye. But, moving on… one thing that Jason Ma said really hit me. The most effective way to defeat an army is to divide and conquer. Has Satan divided the Christians on this campus? As Ephesians 4 says, there is one body and one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. We will be seeing our fellow believers in heaven! Why, then, must we separate on earth? Matthew 18:19-20 has always rang out to me, and it is especially suited for this topic: “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” There is power in unity, because we are unified under Jesus in one body of believers, and this is exemplified by the power of prayer unity. Unity especially, for the salvation of this campus! (one quick thing: if you think we gracers have more theological knowledge than most other fellowships in UCLA, which may be true, then shouldn’t we be even more ready to evangelize to unbelievers, or show compassion and the love of Christ to the unfortunate? shouldn’t we be more aware of these commands?) This wicked and perverse generation needs a revival, a lasting revival, and it could very well start in UCLA if God so willed it! Let our prayers and actions be instruments of His will, so that He can take back His glory here on this campus. God’s will is above your will, God’s desires above your own. It has happened many times in the past, so why not now? Or is our faith too weak, or are we too divided? So we gracers should stop hiding behind our GoC wall and unite with the body of Christ on this campus, and even if we cannot do it under the name of GoC, we can definitely do so as just brothers and sisters in Christ!

Jason Ma went a lot more into unity, so listen to his message instead if you really want to know more, but I think you get the point already. Basically we need to:
- stop solely concentrating on ourselves (academics, our desires/priorities, even our sanctification)
- outreach to unbelievers and those who are not as fortunate as us
- unify with the body of Christ, at least in praying for the salvation of this campus (don’t quench the Holy Spirit!)

and other things oboy wow i spent a lot more time than i thought typing this up but i hope that you got my drift at least a bit and that you were convicted as i was. wow no more blogging for a while loL o_O

alritey. so i know i haven’t posted in forever. and that i sometimes use caps and sometimes just start every sentence with lowercase like it’s some 1337 way or typing or something which it isn’t but saves me the trouble of hitting that annoying shift key cuz i guess i’m just not 1337 enough like some of you girls wHo lYk 2 tYp lYk diSs~!! lYk, oMg, hOw oN eArTh dO yOo tYp sO fAsT lYk diSs hRm~?? dAt jUss tOoK mE lYk 9028375275 hoUrZ~!! bwahA middle school days! you’ll have to forgive me, it is quite late after all

so i was pretty bad about updating this and sorries and all but my summer is honestly not that exciting i haven’t been anywhere in a long long time. but that will change this week!! yay for froshmon norcAL TRIPP!!! XD!!! schweeet can’t wait to see all you socalers and sactown peeps!

so back on topic. worship. i’ve been meaning to write something on this subject for a really long time and i guess i never got around to it but after hearing three straight sermons in a row on this topic (okay mebbe not in a row but 3 weeks) i guess i’d like to share with you guys my thoughts and feelings on this. that sounds really corny and mushy at the same time. thoughts and feelings. theelings and cornushy.

that was the last sidetrack i swear! i mean i semi-promise! anyhoo so here’s the serious part that is pretty important and that i feel like i gotta get off my chest. this will be kinda unorganized but bear with me it’s late. there’s a lot of things i’ve noticed about people’s heart in worship, attitudes during worship, attitudes towards worship/praise in general, general music listenings/thoughts, pretty much everything concerning worship and music. some good some kinda wrong. and i’m guilty of probably all of them but i’m trying to change that now. but before all the deep and kinda blunt stuff that will make some people stop reading and say oh, applesauce! he don’t know what he talking bout! i’d like to ask you to put your pride aside for a moment (preferably forever), and take this with an open mind, thinking from God’s point of view. i’m not trying to condemn anyone. i’m just voicing my thoughts, what i’ve heard from group discussions/sermons/conversations/sharings etc, and i think this is important enough of an issue to try and tell as many people as possible.

firstly, i’m gna talk about music. in general. (for those of you from svca reading this, this is paraphrased from nancy ayi’s two sermons and what some people said on friday) Music was created by God, for His (and other people’s) enjoyment, and for praise, among other things. Think of what our lives would be without music! Certainly a lot more boring-er I would think (notice the sudden use of caps here… i’m too lazy to go back and change that so moving on..) So it’s safe to say that music has a large impact on people… there’ve been many tests including mouse tests where they played classical and heavy metal/rock music for 6 months to mice. the classical ones became geniuses and finished mazes in record time, yet the heavey metal ones became “crazy” as one doctor described and fought with each other, rammed themselves suicidally against walls, and became dumber. music and lyrics can greatly influence our emotions, our appearances, our attitudes/moods, etc etc.. in both positive and negative ways. However, satan also uses music in his devious ways. lucifer was the leader of heavenly worship remember, leading the angels in praise of God. so he knows a lot about music and it’s influence. when he was cast out from heaven and took a third of the angels with him, he obviously retained that knowledge and has been using it ever since to try and lead people astray. to summarize, music has a very strong influence on people.

i’m not gonna go into all these examples of how certain types of music can be worse than others but basically there are definitely some genres of music that are more …”advantageous” than others. even though you can say every genre has it’s exceptions and good lyrical songs and whatnot, i’d beg to differ. heavy metal vs. classical music. not to bash any one genre but heavily beat-driven music has been tested to cause more mental/physical tension and hinder brain development than complicated harmonious music that you actually have to work a bit to listen to. and anyways, the majority of metal and rap lyrics today are very repulsive and negative and just totally don’t glorify God, which is definintely important enough to cause us to change the music we listen to. it’s just so sad to see music, which was originally created for the glory of God, used in such a derogatory way.

on the flip side, there are many classical/”christian” songs that are not exactly “good” or written with good intentions. just shows that you can’t completely sort “good” and “bad” music by genre. example: richard wagner. don’t even need to go into that i would think. and many bands who started out “christian” have gone mainstream and diluted their message, losign sight of their original view. the excuse may be to reach out to more people, but how does sacrificing the most important part of evangelism, Christ, accomplish that? not worth it in my opinion. examples: P.O.D., switchfoot, jessica simpson, sixpence none the richer, dc talk, or even Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant. if you wanna know examples and why, talk to me.

i’m not saying don’t listen to the music of those people who have turned off the path, or that you shouldn’t listen to certain genres of music. just be careful what you listen to and make sure what your purpose of listening to a particular song is. if it’s to praise God directly, make sure it’s an actual praise song. if it’s just for enjoyment, still make sure that it pleases God. and if you have to make excuses to yourself or God about listening to an artist or song or w/e, just don’t listen to it. you’re not fooling anyone. one test is to see if you can sing praise to God right after you’ve listened to a song, or better yet, see if you can pray to God. if you cant’, you probably shouldn’t be listening to it.

this post is getting too long so i’m going to be more blunt and concise now… so now for the more christian/worship musical part of it. one question i have for everyone (taken from today’s sermon): is music even that important? i don’t think so. musical praise is definitely important, but if your heart is not there it’s meaningless, and if your audience (God) is not pleased by it, it can even be insulting. i would say that your relationship to God and prayer/meditation is more important than musical praise. some churches have worship session that go on for hours, followed by a twenty minute sermon. that may seem like an outrageous thing to do (and i sure hope you feel that way) but it actually happens (i’ve heard from friends who have visited churches like that). many churches are also trying to use worship to attract newcomers. i think they have their priorities in the wrong places. worship is under biblical teaching and prayer, in the same way the worship leader should follow the pastor/shepherd/whoeverispreaching’s decisions. not that worship itself isn’t important, but when we start to value singing songs over praying or listening to sermons it can get dangerous.

which brings me to my next question: what is the purpose of worship? easy one, right? to glorify God through praise! aha, but what does that really mean? in order to answer that, we need to ask ourselves who we’re singing for/to, who is the one receiving the praise, and who’s feelings/preferences are more important. When we praise, we need to ALWAYS keep in mind our audience. God is all that matters, not you, not me, not the person standing next to you, not the worship team, not even Rick Holland or whoever is preaching that day. Worship is purely between you and God. So in that light, listen for the applauses of heaven when you worship (borrowed from Brian Holland’s message, who btw has no direct relation to Rick Holland. I asked him.) God knows your heart, and hears your heart. you could be the best singer/instrumentalist in the world and if your heart is not praising God, He won’t hear a thing. (besides, all that talent is from God in the first place). God doesn’t need us, but by His grace and mercy He wants us. so when we worship, we need to be extra careful to strip off our pride and humble ourselves before the Lord, the one creator of music and praise. we need to make sure that we are trying to please God and not ourselves or the people around us. it’s easy to be self-conscious, or to look around to make sure other people are signing before opening your mouth, or to try and sing better than your neighbor, to try and lift your hands higher and make it look like you are more “into the music” than anyone else. but once we remember that God is our audience and the receiver of our praise, everything else falls into place. it’s just you and God. once your heart is in the right place, you singing, actions, and everything else is directed solely to God, to please Him alone. and when that happens, i think God would truly be pleased.

adding on to that, our preferences are not important in worship at all, only God’s are. if you don’t like the song that everyone is singing at the moment, if it’s “overplayed” or “too old” or “not my style” or “boring” or w/e, or if you can’t understand the language or if you are with people who worship differently than you (more liberal/conservative or different culture usually), just remember, it’s not about you! tough, but true. our pride often gets in the way of our ability to worship. i think that the majority of people fall into this trap… i know i do. having been blessed with a very musical ear and having practically grown up listening and playing music, i many times catch myself criticizing the worship music i hear if it’s not to my liking, or getting too caught up in it if it is. this goes for lyrics too but right now i’m only talking about music. i’m sure a lot of people go through this as well… in fact i hear about it all the time. now, granted, songs should be practiced and improved musically so that it glorifies God and leads people into worship, but it’s not that important. one question to worship team members out there that Brian Holland asked in his message: when you get off the stage, do you think to yourself, “man that sucked, no one really got into it today” or “darn, we didn’t sound very good”? or are you listening for the applauses of heaven instead? true worship is with the heart. i’ve said that a bajillion times cuz i hope it gets through. heart of worship has very true lyrics. so next time you start to think “ew, i don’t like this song” or “this song is waaaay overplayed we just sung it last week” or “the guitar sucks today” or “i really hope we sing ____ today”, catch yourself and remind yourself who you’re singing to. not to us, but to God be the glory.

another thing i’ve noticed is that sometimes we start to listen to praise songs and enjoy them in a secular way. which is okay i think, but not when the point is to worship. we’re always trying to get the newest songs, newest styles, sometimes taking pride in how many gigs of music we have… well just think about this for a bit. do we have to change our christian songs just to match the worldly preferences of the day? are we not allowed to sing “old” songs anymore or songs that aren’t in the right “style”? don’t let the world change you; change the world. don’t get evangelized to; evangelize to others. some old hymns have lasted for hundreds of years. they may not be super exciting or upbeat at all (sometimes the 246298235 verses can get old) but if you allow yourself to truly dive into the lyrics, the Holy Spirit can come in and soften your heart, allowing you to truly worship God. New songs are good, but so are many old ones. It’s very important for churches to not disagree over music choice (the generation gap doesn’t help).

still another point, it’s also easy to subconsciously idolize worship leaders/christian artists. and many contemporary christian music artists have fallen into the trap of pride in popularity, trying to idolize themselves and putting themselves over God (well, that’s basically what they’re doing). this applies to all music we listen to. having favorite artists and stuff is all good but when you try to dress like them, talk like them, think about them 24/7, etc, it can get dangerous. enjoying the music more than the artist is better in my opinion.

so does that mean that we can’t listen to anything but praise songs by “good” artists and throw away all our secular music? aw darn. my 235235296089 gigs all into the recycle bin. no, i’m not telling you to do that, but just ask God about it. if you truly want to glorify God in all that you do (including worship/music choice), pray about it, and i’m sure He will tell you how. music is such a powerful tool, so use it in the right way, for the glory of God.

i have some more things to say about this but i’ll leave it for now cuz i doubt most of you will read everything (and cuz its like 3:30 now) but hopefully at least some of this made you think and reprioritize your life. okay maybe not your whole life but your thoughts on worship at least. i’m still working on it as well. goodnighto! ohoho

ok so i realized that i haven’t posted in a really long while yes i know i am a bad poster badbad (as in the person poster not a paper on-the-wall poster of a person.. i’d hate to be stuck to a wall all day. posters have feelings too! both of them! ok shutting up..) anyhoo it is fuREAKING HOT here in norcal and i am melting so i am just about to go to shinbala and enjoy some nice taiwanese foods and uh.. that shaved ice thing iono pinying but is it like bao bing or something but w/e I LOVE THAT STUFF so happy happy and im about to go so going.

btw pirates was purty awesome. iono why some people said it sucked. well except the ending i admit that was very disappointing and totally not worth holding in my pee for another 10+ minutes waiting for the list of credits to end. credits are only fun for the 1st 5 seconds when you see who played what. sometimes.

and also my sister just came back from australia on a band trip and WOW CAN YOU BELIEVE IT’S WINTER DOWN THERE RIGHT NOW??? anyhoo, she got this awesome lil/big wombat stuffed animal and its sOOOoOoo cute so i shall post pics of it soon but i got a nice turtle one and a nice echidna one too! (the hedgehog’s cousin). pics from my lovely high-kwality DigIc4m fR0M t3H c3LLuL4R f0N3z!!