Jesus said to Him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. This is the First and Great commandment.” — Matthew 22:37-38

I know a lot of us are familiar with this verse and probably memorized it. But i realized we’ve taken (at least i have..) it too easily and forgot about the weight and importance of it.  So, i wanted to share what’s been pressing on my heart last couple of months..

It’s the First and the Greatest call in life. No other calling or dream is greater than this one. This is truly God’s first priority and the Spirit’s first emphasis (that we would cultivate love for God)

God wants us to love Him with all of our heart/mind because He loves us with all of His heart/mind! We are equally yoked in love.

In order to love God in this way, we Need God’s grace to do so. We need His supernatural empowerment to love Him. In order to receive that power, we need to intentionally make this our #1 pursuit in life.

It’s amazing how.. God (THE creator of the universe, who lacks none..) is searching for something that He still wants first. It is love that He is after! He is after our heart. Greatest evidence is seen in Jesus, of course. The Gospel. When we learn to respond to this love.. by cultivating our love for God: it has the greatest impact on God’s heart and our heart.

Therefore, it’s the size of our heart that matters.. not the size of our ministry or anything else. The greatest grace we can receive is the anointing to feel God’s love and express it. It brings the greatest freedom and has the greatest reward.

These are some practical ways to love God with heart/mind/strength/soul

• With heart, we are to engage our emotions in our love for God. Our emotions eventually follow whatever we set ourselves to pursue. Therefore, as we set our heart to love God, emotions or affections will follow in time. David says in Ps 18:1, “I WILL love You, o Lord, my strength.” He made a choice to set his heart to love God. We also need to keep our heart focused with diligence as it says in Prov 4:23.
• With mind, it’s all about “what are we filling our mind with?” Our mind doesn’t stop thinking, so it is extremely vital what we fill in there. What we do with our mind greatly affects our capacity to love. We must fill our mind with which inspires love for God instead of that which diminishes it. Our mind is very powerful, and we cannot handle it casually.. Let us fill it with the Word of God, so that we come into agreement with the truth about Him.
• With strength, we are to love God with our natural resources (time, money, energy, talents, words, and influence). God LOVES it when you give Him your strength! God cares about the love we show Him when we invest our strength into our relationship with Him and in helping others t love Him.. Parts of sermon on the mount is a good one to follow (Matthew 6:1-18).
• With soul, we realign our identity to be based on our relationship with God instead of on our accomplishments and the recognition we receive from people. Loving God with all that we have and being loved by God.. This intimate fellowship with the Lord IS what determines our success and personal worth.

This is it: I am loved by God and I am a lover of God, therefore I am successful!

So thankful for this truth, and hope you’re blessed by it.

This is Jesus’ prayer of community

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me i have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me…” John 17:20-23 ESV

Community is Very important. But it also is a Choice.

Isolation is a killer! You can be at church all the time, and still be isolated. You’re in trouble if you leave church isolated.. A lot of us want to be independent, but sometimes the issue of independence can become a weakness. What happens is.. You become a prime target for a massive attack from the enemy, leading you to ungodly/unwise decisions.

There is a saying, “Banana that leaves the bunch gets eaten.” Funny, but true!

We cannot have Christianity without a Community. It’s essential as God the Father has His own community with His Son and the Spirit.

“Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 1 Peter 5:5 ESV

As it says above, it’s critical to submit to covering & community, for Grace will continually flow in life! You’re basically clothing yourself with humility when you submit to the leaders and one another. Openness and vulnerability are tough, but it’s worth it.. for it’ll not only help you to become more like Christ, but also the community to grow stronger and help become One.

Here are some of the benefits of community:

• Strengths come from community (wisdom, encouragement, knowledge, grace.)
• We need people.. Not just “me & Jesus” It almost sounds wrong, but we need each other!
• Timing is also depends on community (decisions made in community are safe. God speaks through them)
• Clarity comes through them

I’m not claiming that i have the best community and i’m fine. We’re still growing and got a long way to go, but we’re working on it. I’m working on it.. We all need it, and all it takes is two people to start! May God bless you this year with a loving/safe community where you can be you and grow much deeper in the Lord!

It’s the end of the world!!!!!! Haha jk.
This year is going to be amazing, I already feel it. I have a few things on my heart..

First and foremost, my goal/vision/dream for the year is to Love God with all my heart/mind/strength/soul.. I will mention more about that in next blog.. but I realized that, that’s really it. Being more in love with Jesus.. like never before. I wanna look like Him.

And the rest comes…
Its my last semester of nursing school! Excited and nervous at the same time.. it’s gonna be hard but worth it for sure.. hopefully will be a “working man” by the autumn.

As y’all know, worship team is a huge part of my life. Can’t live without it.. and there are many things going on both in youth and r180. For youth, a big transition phase will occur which will leave me with a fewer and much younger students! Ha! More challenges to come but an awesome and fun adventure is ahead.

And of course SSC youth.. the place where I grew and helped me become who I am today. So much potential, hopes, possibilities, and passion. Many say youth is dead. Not so, they just need one touch from God. Its going to be an amazing year.

Relationships. Looking forward to grow in relationships with people. Met new/cool friends last year. Relationships with people have been better for the most part. Wanna be in a tight loving community and Be that person!

Man.. many more but ill stop. Praise God for the last year and this brand new year. God has greater things stored for us and let’s have an amazing 2012. The best one yet.

May our gracious and faithful Father bless you with encounters, presence, and grace!! More love, more fire!

Perhaps.. all God is trying to say is those three simple words: I love you.

It may be only three words but it gets deeper every time you encounter. It’d take an eternity to know His love fully..

It means a lot, coming from the Guy who has Everything and lacks none. Yet, He is still searching and wanting something. He wants love(I mean.. His name is LOVE!).. He is after our hearts! The greatest commandment tells us that the most important and the First thing that He wants is our love. Whole-hearted devotion to the Lord in every area (heart, mind, strength, and soul).

Christmas is all about love. God’s “I LOVE YOU” is screamed out by a baby’s cry in a manger.. The King of the universe became sin who knew no sin, so that we may have the privilege of becoming the Sons of God and the Brides of Christ. What an amazing God we worship and serve..

May our gracious Father give you another revelation of His love in this season
Christmas reminds us that He is always with us, Emmanuel. Bless you

Words have SO much power, especially the words that are in our minds. We constantly speak to ourselves in our minds and it’s not something that we can just shut off, but we can re-direct them. So, we need to choose what to speak to ourselves daily. I’ve learned that it’s incredibly important to Be Kind to myself. I really believe it can literally save lives and give life to people.

An average person has about 1500 thoughts/min. About 1300 of them are negative! How terrible is that? More than 50% of what we think are harmful to our whole body/mind/spirit. It’s incredible how negative we can be. It is proven through many experiments that our words and even our emotions have power to alter natural things. That can be literally anything, but many tests have been done with Water (since water is a huge part of the nature). By speaking of words, water molecules shift and change! Let’s say you have two cups of water and you say nice things to the first cup but the bad things to the other. You’ll find out that the one that has received good words will remain clean, but the other one will get dirty in no time. Many people did the same experiment with rice too.. what’s interesting is.. some people just labeled a sticker on them and it still made a huge difference!

Guess what? Our body is made up with 70% Water! I believe one of the reasons we have illnesses is because of our thoughts.. And i’ve seen many research articles about how positive motivation and perspective from patients can impact their outcome in better ways. Pko recently shared a research article of a cardiology doctor who conducted a research to his heart patients. Those who prayed Out-loud, had much better results than those who pray silently or didn’t pray at all. Amazing eh?

Anywho, my point is.. we need to be kind to ourselves. Start speak truth over yourself. Prophecy over yourself with the truth! Sure, some of the things may be “true” right now in your life, but declare “Truth” over your life instead of those “trues” Agree with what God says about you.

The Creator of the universe is in Love with you! You were fearfully and wonderfully made! You were born to Rock! You are amazing! You are forgiven and set free! You are a new creation! You come from the winning side! If our God is for us, who can be against us? The blood of Jesus redeemed you! You are healed! You are a child of God! You have never been unloved!

Watch the short video… This girl Knows how to declare and prophecy over herself. I mean, come on.. don’t you just feel like you’re gonna have an amazing day already? haha

Bless you!

Wow, been a while but now that the semester is over, i’m gonna attempt to blog a bit

“Passion” is a word that’s been on my mind. I’m not sure how it got into me, but i remember watching a video of “Will smith” talking about his work ethics and how hard he works for what he wants to be. And looking at our current state of youth, it made me think a lot about passion.

I believe a life without a passion is a tragedy. If there is nothing major that excites and motivates you.. i mean, what’s there to live for? When i wake up in the morning, i wanna feel so alive on the inside! I bet you do as well.

I was talking with some close friends and realized we as followers of Jesus, aren’t as passionate as we used to be. We don’t cry out anymore.. and we are not desperate anymore (remember when you were first saved??). We often forget the fact that it’s a tremendous privilege to be where(in every sense) we are at right now! Our passion for the Lord is supposed to grow as we mature, but somehow it’s the opposite! It’s something that we must restore if we want to see a change in our generation.

Unbelievers understand how this thing work. People with passion will lose sleep and forget to eat because they’re crazy about what they do. They work so hard behind the scene of “successful life” and many have no idea what it takes to be there. They’re fueled by their passion. But somehow it seems just “too much” to have that kind of passion for Jesus. I wanna be like that.. for Jesus. It’s really all or nothing, hot or cold. No lukewarm allowed.

I mean.. let’s face it. He was/is so Passionate for you and me, He became one of us to die on our behalf. That’s some passion right there. His heart burns with love for us, and no one can ever change that. I believe the only way to have passion for Jesus is to encounter and understand His passion for us. Then, we can never be the same. Not saying, we won’t stumble… but our eyes will be focused on Him.

How bad do you want it? How far are you willing to go? Is it really too much? I asked myself these questions lately.

I want to love God with all that i have, that’s all. But i wanna do it with Passion. I just realized that my favorite song “Yearn” has the word “passion” hahah. May He bless you with Passion for Him!

P.S I know.. the rose?? I don’t know, it was the first thing that came to my mind :p

One of the very important things i’m learning is.. to be child-like. The concept of being children of God is all over the Bible. Jesus mentions it often as well.

Matthew 18:3

“truly, I say to you unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 19:14

“Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

Also, Jesus often refers/describes Us as “Children of God” instead of “People of God” or “Sons and daughters”

Romans 8:16

“The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we ARE children of God.”

Think about some characteristics of children.. I’ll write a few..

• Children do not have a second thought, they don’t complicate themselves. Let’s say i’m a child.. and i have many siblings. My dad comes home, and we are all excited to see him. When i run to my dad to welcome him, i don’t have a second thought of.. “Is my brother/sister going first? Am i gonna look weird if i run to him? What are they gonna think of me?” I run to my dad, because he is my dad, and i’m his child. That’s it. Let’s apply that wherever we are.. especially in a corporate worship setting (friday & sunday services.)
• Children also obey without a second thought. We’re so busy thinking about possible results and answers.. but our Father God is looking for children who will obey His voice without a second thought of (what if this or that)
• This is my favorite one. Heard of a story about children playing different roles. One kid wanted to be a superman, the other a spider man, a wonder-woman, and such.. A surprising thing is that.. nobody wants to be a garbage man. When you’re a kid.. you want to be Great and Amazing. Ask a child in Africa who just lost his/her parents(because of HIV) what he/she wants to be.. That kid still want to be Amazing when he/she grows up.

The Irony is.. when we grow older, we become more insecure, uncomfortable, awkward, have smaller visions, and become less and less. Somehow we are completely okay with just an average mindset and mediocre life. We accept the fact that being a loser and small is spiritual and okay.

Not so. It doesn’t have to be that way.

We were once children. I believe a child lives inside of us. Let’s call that child out and restore the purity, greatness, security, vision, and dream we once had. We were born to be Amazing. I believe having that child-like heart/faith is huge in the Kingdom of God. Let’s work hard to maintain child-like faith and to have a simple joy of loving the Lord.

Maybe you can share some of your thoughts of how children are!

I pray for a revelation for you.. Bless you

What’s a Revelation? It’s realizing and making known the unknown/new understanding. Basically, knowing fresh things about God and it can come from many different ways. The Source is the same (Holy Spirit), but it comes whenever and wherever.

You know when you read the same passage and you get a new understanding? That’s a revelation. You find out new/more things about the Lord which graces and empowers you to go deeper!

Another way you can look at it is.. let’s say that there’s a boxing match on TV. A guy gets hit really hard and you would assume that it would hurt very much.. but you wouldn’t really understand that. Revelation is like.. actually being in that spot and getting the hit. It’s raw, genuine, and real to the heart.

Revelation is SO crucial in our walk with Jesus. Can’t emphasize it enough.
I mean.. There’s no way that a person can be saved without a revelation. If we didn’t have the revelation about who Jesus is and what He has done and who we are because of that, how can salvation come true to us? If it didn’t come in a very real and personal way.. right? Because, look.. the whole world “knows” that Jesus existed and died 2000 years ago. It’s a pivotal point of history (in fact, the whole calender revolves around his death eh?) That’s why we can never be the same after we have the revelation of Jesus! It changes us forever.

Revelation is important also because God is So Amazing. The four living creatures in the book of Revelation, their wings are Full of eyes (front and back.) Kind of freaky and never understood what that’s about. I learned that it’s because each eye sees different revelation about the Lord. That’s why they never get bored/tired of worshiping God! God is limitless and unsearchable. It’s an eternal adventure to know who God is! How awesome is that.. So if we ever get bored with the Lord, ask for new eyes! New eyes to see more of who God is.

I never wanna get bored with Jesus, and it’s possible because that’s what’s going on in heaven.

Apostle Paul prays this important prayer in Ephesians 1:17..

“the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe..”

If we can pray this prayer before we read the scripture, and throughout the day. I guarantee it’s going to deepen our relationship with the Lord and empower us to be whom God made us to be! The heaven is awaiting to pour out heavenly revelations and i’m excited about that.

Bless you massively today!

There are different seasons in life (just like the seasons in weather.) It can be hard at times. However, once we endure through those difficult seasons, we often realize those were necessary/helpful for us.

When we are faced with difficulties and weaknesses, we tend to focus inwardly and to a particular season we’re in. I mean, i tend to do that all the time! But i realized that God is bigger than a season of life. He looks at the whole lifetime of my life, not just a season. He makes all things work together for our good! (Romans 8:28) So i needed to learn to go to the Source and get revelation about that. His thinking system is higher and better than mine.. He already knew me before i was born! He has placed me where i am now, meaning He is with me and empowering me to do what i need to do. It goes on and on…

Bill Johnson once said, “If you don’t seek Him in crisis, you won’t seek Him in success.”
I learned to go the Source (God), wait, and get a revelation of who i am as His kid.

Once i understood who i am as His child, and as i understand more and more of who i am in Christ and who my Daddy is.. Things were totally different. Not only my understanding, but my heart shifted and the way i see things is different. I just tasted a glimpse of it and it’s SO good. And there’s more all the days of my life! HA!

May we trust the Lord with all our hearts (Proverbs 3:5.) In knowing that the Lord sees our whole lifetime and already seen the end of it.

Bless you today

Ephesians 6:18 “Pray at all times and on every occasion in the power of the Holy Spirit. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all Christians everywhere.”

There are tons of verses about prayer and this verse was shared by Pastor Joon at the revival service yesterday. I often forget how important my prayer life is. Prayer is really the key to be connected to the Lord throughout the day. Scriptures tell us to pray without ceasing, meaning we are to breathe in and out of prayer (of course it doesn’t mean that you gotta talk constantly.) It’s about the posture of your heart. So as we hear/listen to the Father, talk verbally/silently, being still, observe, and being aware of His presence.. Your connection to the Lord is alive and well.

It’s not out of duty, but “because He first loved us.” It’s actually the same thing you do with people you love. It’s a relationship.

I was asked a question a while ago, “If you remove your petition/needs in your prayer life, how would your prayer life be?” I was like.. “O shoot… my prayer life would suck…-_-” If God really knows what we already need, it really isn’t that necessary to pray for those things because i believe He is a Really good Dad (Matthew 6). He provides our needs. When we think about it, He thought about it much more than we ever can! (I’m not saying not to pray for your needs ever, but you get my point)

I believe that one of the reasons why Jesus never sinned (yet tempted in every way) was because His prayer life was Awesome. His connection to the Father was alive 24/7.

I want an awesome prayer life.. and i WILL have it. I pray that You WILL too.
Let’s be encouraged! Jesus is praying for us right now (Romans 8:34).

Bless you