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Monday, 19 January 2009

My name

My Korean name is Jung, Suk Woo. My grandfather, who was alive when I was born, named me that and my father, who was still going through the processes of becoming a pastor, named the meanings after me.

Suk - foolish, inferior, of lower status
Woo - Great

My name can mean that I am greatly foolish. To many, that might sound really weird because why would a father name his son "greatly foolish?" In John 3:30, John the Baptist proclaims that, "He (Christ) must increase, but I must decrease." This is why my father put the meanings to my name, most likely for me to live a humble life.

Sadly, to the common saying, "I am the greatest sinner I know," I feel like this applies greatly to my life. I am anything but humble; I have so much pride that it takes every fiber of my being to rely on God and the Scriptures and not on myself, making myself self-righteous and whatnot.

From what I've learn going over a 1 John series at Lighthouse about 2 years ago, in 1 John 2:16, it talks about sin and list the 3 general sin, which encompasses all other sub-categorized sin, the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life (NASB). From pride comes anger, jealousy, possessiveness, selfishness, delusions of grandeur, and so many more.

Sad to say, I have not done my father's meaning of my name any justice, as the hardest thing I struggle with daily is pride. Even though it might not be an ongoing thing, it could happen in instances, and even if it happens for a milisecond, I know that I have just sinned. Even as I write this note, I'm sure, somewhere along the lines of me writing this, I have sinned by thinking things that are offensive to God.

The greatest thing about the gospel is that Jesus Christ has already paid the penalty for the sins that I've committed and will probably commit in the future. My sins, which have severed the righteous relationship that men once had with God, can now be forgiven and be put away by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, where God's infinite wrath has been appeased by the one and only one who can appease it.

I am thankful that God has sent down His Son to take the death that we so rightfully deserve, and I can't help but be amazed at God's continual love for us, that even as Christ as ascended to heaven, the Holy Spirit would continue to grow us and fight for us while we are here on this earth, that He didn't just leave us alone after making us righteous, but that He would continue to grow us, as Rick Holland have said at Resolved, "the life of a Christian is a slow uphill climb."

Even as we stumble from time to time in our climb, the Holy Spirit does not stop in continuing to edify us and to grow us, so that we may one day reach the peak and be united with God, and in our perfect righteous relationship paid for us by Christ, we would never have to worry about coming back down from that peak ever again.

Sunday, 14 September 2008

Children Ministry

"Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised,
And His greatness is unsearchable.
One generation shall praise Your works to another,
And shall declare Your mighty acts." ~ Psalm 145:3-4

I joined Sonlight ministry (elementary Sunday school) not long after I became a member, and it's been over a whole year. During those times, as I taught the children and interacted with them, I feel as though my characters have shaped up more and more to glorify God further. I'm not saying that I've became an excellent individual, but rather, through Sonlight ministry and later on Lighthouse Kids Club, I realize that maybe I've grown a little bit. When I'm there after Sunday service to teach the kids and interact with the kids, I realize that it is not just them that are learning, but I'm also learning a great deal. Whenever I prepare for a lesson, I go through the passages that require of me to properly teach to the kids, and in there, I find various facts and ideas that I've never ventured upon. When I play with the kids, I'm astounded by their energy and joy to play, as if they have an abundant source of energy that never runs out (makes me wonder if I was like that when I was young).

When I was first joined, I joined with the intention of upholding the passage that I put up there (Psalm 145:3-4), to pass on the greatness of God to the next generation, and although I feel like I'm partaking in that, so many times, I find myself learning and learning. Not only in facts or knowledge, but the heart issue as well. Through interaction with the kids, I learn to be more patient, and I learn to be more loving, for they show tremendous amounts of love easily. Of course, they don't know a lot and often can get frustrated, but I still find myself amazed at what a great opportunity God has provided me in allowing me to be with these kids.

I failed many times in properly addressing the kids; there have been times when I have lost patience or gave the wrong advice or fumbled through a lesson because I wasn't properly prepared. Through all these, the kids have been forgiving and forgetting my mistakes, and they have been, in many ways, a tremendous encouragements. One of the encouragements actually came from one of the older kids (I won't mention the name) and that person wrote me an encouragement note saying "Hello, Mr. David, thank you for serving in the children's ministry." Just that brief statement of thanks really made my day, and more importantly, it has allowed me to see that God truly does use the lives of people to help shape other people, and to manifest His glory further.

Lighthouse Kids Club will be starting soon, and it is in need of help. I have been told to ask around for people who might be interested in joining, but I thought it might be better to share what I've experienced working with children in Lighthouse as opposed to just telling you to sign up and join. It truly is a great experience, and like any other ministry, it takes effort and dedication, but you do see fruit in the ministry, so I urge you, whomever may be a member of Lighthouse Bible Church, to participate in passing on the greatness of God to the next generation by joining this ministry; I guarantee that you won't regret joining it. It is on Wednesday Night, 6-8 PM, so you'll only be giving up two hours of your time out of the whole week, and I know that there are many people who are more than capable of giving up those amount of hours to glorify and worship the Lord. Contact Chris Chung for more information.

Thursday, 07 August 2008

High-Five

I realized today that from time to time, I have random thoughts. And to make sure these random thoughts are not forgotten (as many have perished from my memories), I'm going to record them here (view them at your own discretion).

I have heard of stories where the concept of handshake occurred as a sign of peace between two warring nations, as the shaking of hands indicate that there are no visible weapons in the hands of the people who are doing the shaking. Pretty logical enough, but I wondered, how did high-five come about? Is it a new generation (one of those Y2K trends) that came about or is there a deeper origin? I decided to write my own thoughts on it.

*Disclaimer* - This is a random thought and a random opinion formulated by me. If you somehow use this as a resource for a research paper of some kind, I guarantee that you are going to fail.

What if high-fives originated similarly to handshakes? What if there were two nations, who have warred over many years, and decided to sign a peace treaty? As they were signing the peace treaty, and about to seal it off with a handshake, one of the people signing the treaty suddenly stumbles over his feet (let's say he has two left feet or something) and the other person who also signed the treaty tried to catch him, and as a result, both of their hands were simultaneously up in the air and happened to smash together as to regain balance? The soldiers from both sides might have thought this was a sign of war, so both sides drew swords, but by their commanders, they were stopped when they realized that two people signing treaties were testing out the smashing of hands (later called high-fives) and decided that the sound made by clapping of hands sounded really cool? And, sooner than later, that action was something many people were doing.

I have a back-up theory to bolster this argument. The reason why the concept of the high-five seem so new is because both of those nations were conquered by other nations and the tradition of the high-five have disappeared, appearing only in books. Some scholars from the 20th century found a book recording the aspect of the high-five, and decided to try it out with some people from the ghetto. After trying it out, they realized that it was very fascinating and made them feel cool, so they kept doing it and it eventually spread (and that's the reason why the word "ghetto" became cool as well, for people in the ghetto were the people who brought back the high-fives).

That is my random thought on high-five, and I just wasted a couple of minutes writing this post, but it is quite okay!

Monday, 30 June 2008

FITS

FITS, or Fun in the sun, day, was very fun indeed. It was interesting at first, for I was put in charge of the kids, and so I planned to play a little game with them (maybe play steal the bacon or something like that) but some of them did not want to play and said they pretty much wanted to just play around, so I was left with a choice; to either force these kids to play by what I wanted, or let them do their own thing. Considering the fact that there weren't that many kids, I thought there was no harm in letting them do their own thing. Little David Chung wanted to play volleyball with me, so I thought it would be fun, but when he actually got in line, he bailed before he could play (he didn't want to serve). We played volleyball for like 2 and a half hour before deciding to stop and go to the church. It was really crazy because some of us were making these crazy shots while other people were being crazy. Ed Yip hit me on the head with the volleyball (unintentionally, I'm sure, but I'll get him back for that). Some screamed, some dived for the ball, but most of all, everyone seem to have a good time, so it was really fun and encouraging.

We went to the church and ate some food, and it was just a good time to hang out and catch up with one another. That's one of the things I like a lot; just sit down and catch, regardless of all the bustling around that might be going on every now and then. In the end, I got to talk to a lot of people, and now I'm gonna go watch Wall-E very soon (I think that's how you spell it).

~David J.

Monday, 16 June 2008

Resolved

More than 100 degrees in the daytime, and hot still at the night time because of the dry heat, Palm Springs is not a place I would come to play tennis outside. However, being at the convention center and having listened to Rick Holland, John MacArthur, CJ Mahaney, John Piper, Steve Lawson, and Randy Alcorn, I feel like I have been blessed with so many knowledge that I do not know how to handle it sufficiently. Resolved conference this year is so far a tremendous blessing and I feel like I learned so much about the topic of heaven and hell. It emphasized what little I knew, broaden my knowledge all the more, and totally destroyed the views I once held as legit, not just because they are from well known speakers that I have decided to listen to their views, but rather, it is because their messages were so biblically based that to say that my views were still right would have been blasphemous and downright heretical. To anyone who care, I can't wait to share with you what I've learned, for I know that many of you will rejoice in the knowledge and the beauty of scripture and what it defines as heaven and hell. Till then, bie!