The struggle with my family!

I wish it could be easier to live the Christian life and I certainly wish that I could do a better job of honoring my mother and my father even when it is difficult. But I wonder why it is so difficult to obey their authority when I do not want to. I suspect that the number one reason is the fact that there is indwelling sin in me. I have idols that are in my heart that I feel that I must defy and dishonor my parents in order to get. It is like what Paul said in Romans 1:18-25 when He mentions how we exchange the glory of God (the truth) and then pursue the glory of created things and ourselves (the lie) and then we worship and serve the creation rather than the Creator like all men are made to do! (Colossians 1:16)

I must admit that their are difficulties that I face in my quest to love my family and to bring the gospel to them with the way that I live. I firmly do not believe that my parents can truly and genuinely love me as unbelievers. Why is that? Well love is the joyful passionate commitment to enthrall the person that is loved with what is most eternally and infintely satisfying and what can bring the most joy and pleasure and happiness to the person's soul. And what is the One Thing that the person who loves must give for the enjoyment of the other?? GOD!! That person must be committed to reflecting God in his life and must labor to point that person to God for his or her satisfaction. And because my father has rejected Christ, he cannot glorify My Heavenly Father or point me to His all-satisfying love grace and beauty. And it gets worse, he exalts gods that are made in his own image and tries to point me to them for his enjoyment and that was all that I could do when I was not a Christian. And exalting any other god for the person's enjoyment is an act of hatred not love. And so my father can only be unloving to me by preaching his false gods. And that is one factor that could potentially influence me to go against him when I should be honoring him.

I wish that my father would follow the biblical mandate of Ephesians 6:4 where Paul says for fathers not to expaserate their children but to bring them up in the instruction of the Lord. And my father failed his part of the commandment and now this has hurt me throughout my whole life because I don't have a compass to lean on at my lonely house where I can find Christ.

In light of all of this I think that this is something that God will use for the time being in order to help me to grow and so that I may be complete and lacking in nothing like James says in 1:1-4. And then James goes on in verses 5-11 to say that I can ask with FAITH wisdom from God so that I can endure this trial that if I do I will get the crown of life. (James 1:12 cf. Romans 8:18, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, 2 Timothy 2:10). And so I pray that God will give me the way out of the temptation of disobeying my father (1 Corinthians 10:13) and also that I can look to Jesus who faced an infinitely worse temptation to disobey His heavenly Father but made it through. (Hebrews 4:14-16, 12:1-3). And that Jesus is praying for me and interceding for RIGHT NOW in heaven. (Hebrews 7:25, 1 John 2:2) So let me run this race for the prize of more glory to reflect for all eternity!! God is awesome and he will use my parents sins and acts of hatred against me for my good and His glory because even these sins when God allows them they will be allowed for HIS glory not theirs. I pray that you guys will all help me as I struggle to fight the sins in my own life and as I endure the loveless house I live in.

The amazing glory of Romans 9:15

Romans 9:15 is a verse where Paul quotes from Exodus 33:19 where God says to Moses "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion" I have recenty discovered the amazing meaning behind this awe inspiring statement. The context for when God said it to Moses is that Moses was interceding before God after he saw the Israelites dancing in front of the golden calf. After Moses finds favor with God in Exodus 33:12-17, he makes a request that one would dare not make while they are in a sinful body. He asks in verse 18 that God would show Him His glory (the visisle manfestation of His all surpassing beauty. After Moses makes His request, God replies in verse 19 "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you and I will proclaim my Name, the LORD, in your presence." And then God goes on to say that "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion". I believe that God said that in order to justify granting Moses' faithful request to gain a partial beatific vision of God that his face would be radiant to as he went down to speak with his people. (Exodus 34:29-35) And now I think that I finally may have found a life altering meaning in Romans 9:15 where Paul quotes it in order to validate the righteouesness of God in saving through the gospel rather than by race. (Romans 9:6-8) Romans 9:15 is God's unswerving zealous zeal to show amazing glory to all those who respond to the gospel with a desire to accept God's love as accepting eternal happiness. I think that is precisely what Hebrews 11:6 is saying when the author says that faith is coming to God with the expecatation of a reward (Happiness in GOD??) And so the nature of saving faith is desiring and accepting God's all-satisfying love and grace and beauty with a confident trust that it can satisfy. Jesus says in John 6:35 that He who believes in me will never be hungry or thirst EVER!! And so I plead that you will accept the gospel that Paul presents in Romans 9:15-16 regardless of anything in you. Because the reason that God will have mercy on who He does is because they belong to His wonderful Son (Galatians 3:28, Romans 9:8) and they can now be even more radiant with God's glory than Moses can all because they can go directly to God through union with their mediator Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5) and through the indwelling power and fruit of the Holy Spirit. (Galatians 5:16-26) So I plead that you can delight in Romans 9:15 because that is God's unswerving zeal to proclaim His glory and all-surpassing goodness to those who belong to His beloved Son, who are children of promise and spiritual children of Abraham without those people being obilerated as they now are spiritually alive!! Even the reason why He is putting up with His vessels of wrath (all non-Christians as John 3:36 declares) is so that not only will they repent and come to Christ (Romans 2:4) but also to demonstrate the glory of His amazing mercy to us Christans both Jew and Gentile!! (Romans 9:22-23) I pray that you will see that amazing God who is infinitely passionate about your soul-stirring pleasure in Him that no tribulation on earth can brake!!

The Consequences for Rejecting the Gospel

I have first posted the wonderful news of the gospel, the power of salvation for everyone who believes. (Romans 1:16-17) I want to just say that I am not suprised that you are all offended by the gospel, which is the wonderful news of a new life in Christ and a wonderful joy of being a child of the King!! (Ephesians 2:4-7) And I think that it is a wonderful thing that you are offended by my previous message because it exposes the dark pride that is in your hearts. (Proverbs 16:18) And it is the preaching of the living active gospel is the only way that you will even be enabled and enlightned to preach the gospel because you are convicted of your pride and sin (John 1:9, 2 Timothy 2:24-26) and through Jesus' death and the preaching of the gospel your pride and sin is crushed onto Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:21) And so it is a wonderful thing that you are convicted of the sin and pride that you have that has now been crushed onto Jesus Christ. The gospel is both beautiful and offesive at the same time. And now the offer of the wonderful gift of eternal life and joy and peace awaits you through Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:1) All you have to do is accept it. You don't have to pay anything for this FREE gift. And I trust that your life will JOYFULLY change if you accept the gospel. It is with great sadness that I must now preach the consequences of rejecting this wonderful gift and grace and love of God that labored to enthrall you with the all-satisfying beauty of God and all that He has in store in Jesus Christ (at the cost of His dear Son)!! If you refuse to believe, you will be cast into hell for all eternity after you die where you will experience the wrath of God. (John 3:18, 36). Hell will have an eternal fire burning in it prepared for the devil and His angels. (Matthew 25:41-46, Mark 9:43-48) And it gets infinitely worse than this. I ask that God give me weeping over this reality that neither God nor the Holy Spirit nor I could ever possibly desire. (Romans 9:1-3) There is an aspect of the wrath of God that I have fiercly neglected to mention that Christians like Tim Keller, Millard Erickson, and especially Norman Geisler (my favorite living systematic theologian) and CS Lewis. Sin is ultimately the rejection of God and His wonderful gift of His amazing majestic beauty. And so when you die, you will at the end of history see the awesome beaufitul Creator that loved you and made you for Him and died for you so you could be with Him. You will finally understand the amazing acts of love that He performed for you throughout your whole life that YOU rejected. And then you will now be granted your lifelong request of everlasting separation of God and all that is good. The apex of the suffering of hell will be that you have seen how wonderful God is, and then God gives you what you wanted your whole life, that is separation from Him. You will be eternally tormented by your ETERNAL separation from God and all that is good and by the ensuing overwhelming remorse over rejecting your loving Creator as you realize how much He loved you. (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10) You will remember reading this message and wished that you didn't let your getting offended move you to ignore it. This is FAR worse than any physical punishment of fire in hell not intended for any man but for the fallen angels. The chief and defining aspect of the wrath of God which is stored up over a lifetime of sins (Romans 2:1-10) is that God will grant the wish of any creature that does not want Him.... a horrible reality for the creature when that happens. I don't want it to happen to any of you and so I plead with you to repent so that you will not have to experience that horrible wrath and judgment of being left alone by your wonderful Maker. I don't care if I offend you even more. It is the only way that you can be enabled to make a choice to accept this FREE gift of God. I am not asking you to change your life or hobbies or to fix your life up because YOU can't do it. Only Jesus Christ can do it for you. Changing your life is not what this message is about. All I desire for you to do in this message is to accept the gify. And your life will joyfully change as you realize the wonderful taste that God is good. (Psalm 34:8) I urge with you not to reject this message because of the horrible consequencses that will happen if you do so. Receive Jesus, and you will be united to Him. You will then receive every wonderful gift bestowed in Him alone as you now have direct access to God and his wonderful spiritual salvic gifts only available through Christ Jesus. And the apex of it will be seeing God in all His glory and being glad forever. (1 John 3:2) Believe and you will have pleasures forever more. (Psalm 63:1-3) Refuse and you will have torment that cannot be described.

A message to those who don't know God

I have been pondering this lately and I thought it would be important to to mention this urgent message. If you want to call me a condescending person I feel nothing but sorrow for all of you and the misery that will await you if you do not heed the message that I am about to give you. I pray that I will have immense anguish at the thought of your eternity without God (Romans 9:1-5) and I know that you know He exists!! (Romans 1:18-24) I desire that you at least consider reading what I am about to write. The first thing that I want to say is that I know that you are all seeking self-fufillment, happiness, and satisfaction. You want a joy that will never ever end, and will never fade even in the deepest possible pain. And I know for a fact that you are desiring it and you are searching hard for it in every place that you go. You are looking for it in hobbies, people, spouse, material things, and anything that you can imagine. This pursuit of joy is something that is built-in in your nature. And this pursuit of happiness is not someting that is evil in and of itself. God placed it in you when He formed you in your mother's womb. (Psalm 139:13-14) And I want to say that you won't find it in any other place except in God alone. And now this leads into my talk about who God is and how He alone can satisfy. The first thing that I desire to talk about is the majestic beauty of God. This means that God is so amazingly wonderful to the eyes that to see it in all of it's glory will lead to everlasting happiness forevermore. (Psalm 27:4-5, 73:25-26). This beauty is majestic, that is it is amazing wonderful beauty that outshines the glories of heaven itself. And God's beauty will cause great awe, amazement and wonder to those see it in Christ Jesus!! And even more stunning, God's beauty is holy, that is it is a beauty like no other that is ever seen. The holiness of God is the fact that there is NO ONE like Him. He alone is eternal, self-existent, infinite, and indescribable beauty. And so I just want to paint as accurate a depiction of who God is as I possibly can. And now the next thing that I want to talk about is the righteouessness of God. I fear that many of you will be turned off by this attribute of God because all it can do is give you what you deserve for your rejection of God.... eternal wrath in the lake of fire. But I have good news for you, that is not ALL it does. I have seen in Scripture that the righteouessness seems to be the foundation for God's acts of grace and mercy. Many people in the Bible have appealed to God's righteouessness for grace and mercy. (Psalm 119:140, 143:11) And so I now want to define what the righteouessness of God is. This moral nature of God means that God is UNSWERVINGLY committed to glorifying His nature in all that He does. I believe that this is the reason why God delays His wrath (Jeremaih 14:21, Isaiah 48:9-11, Psalm 106:6-8) and also why God saved me through my faith in His Son alone (Psalm 25:11, 1 John 2:12) It was not because I deserved it (I don't) but because of God's righteouessness: His unswerving committment to glorify His beauty in all that He does. Now what does it mean for God to glorify Himself in all that He does??? I feel that Ephesians 2:4-7 is the best Scripture that explains it to me. Verses 4-6 say that: But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, So this illustrates regeneration (imparting of eternal life) and adoption into the kingdom of God. Now verse 7 makes the reason crystal clear. so that in the ages to come He might SHOW THE SURPASSING RICHES of His GRACE in KINDNESS toward us in Christ Jesus. Here is another awesome verse about that demonstrates God's unwavering passion to reflec His amazing grace: 1 Timothy 1:15-17 says that It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. Yet for THIS REASON I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might DEMONSTRATE HIS PERFECT PATIENCE as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be HONORED and GLORIFIED forever and ever. Amen. I have now shown you two amazing verses that explains the reasons behind God's merciful and gracious dealings with men. He will not let the glory of His beauty and grace be tarnished. Now I can imagine an objection coming up to all of this when I talk about this. It is ok because I struggled with the same thing. How can it be a loving act of God for Him to desire to glorify Himself in all things and to get men to praise and display Him. Here are two anticipated objections to this. 1.Is He just some insecure little child who can't live without the admiration and praise of other people??? 2.Is He just some selfish megalomaniac who doesn't care who He has to hurt in order to gain as much praise as possible?? I pray that I can show that God's unswerving committment to upholding the glory of His beauty and His love for us are one and the same thing by the end of this discussion Response to Question 1 Well in order for God to be God, He must be the First Cause of all created things. He furthermore must have had eternal existence before even time began. That is why God is known as the name "I AM WHAT I AM" (Exodus 3:14) And it will certainly mean that God has absolutely NO deficiencies (Acts 17:24, Romans 11:33-36) that He needs to take care of. He is perfect joy and happiness and He delights infinitely in the glory of His Son in human form, Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:4-6, John 17:24, Colossians 2:9, Hebrews 1:3) It cannot be that He has some insecurity and He is depedent on some outside being in order to complete His happiness as He would have been just as glorious if He didn't create anything. Response to Question 2 (I thank Louie Giglio for his help in my embracing of God's passion for His glory) Is God selfish in wanting to be glorified and worshipped in all that He does. No He is just being God. If He is God He knows that He is the most beautiful, loving, amazing, wonderful, all satisfying, all-sufficient, Good above all other things that exist. And if He knows that and He allows people, people that He claims that He loves to turn their hearts affections towards anything else (less than the very best), not only is He committing idolatry but He is no longer a loving God because for Him allow them to pursue their pleasure any other beauty (and therefore ruining their souls) would be pure hatred. If you fail to worship God, God will just be God and will still glorify Himself regardless. And you on the other hand will miss out on knowing, savoring and praising the most beautiful being in the entire universe, which will be your everlasting loss. So lets get rhetorical again. What should God give you if He were to love you infinitely. HIMSELF right??? Paul says that through the Spirit in Christ we have direct access to the FATHER (Ephesians 2:18) and Peter says that the very reason that Christ died was to bring us to GOD!! (1 Peter 3:18) Read the Psalms if you want to see hedonistic pursuit of pleasure and joy in God. Now what do we do when we are filled with infinite joy??? We praise and admire and worship it because this is the only way that our pleasure if going to be made full!!! We can't help but express joy in worship because that is the highest happiness!!! And so when God demands your worship, He is not doing it for Himself (as if He needed it to attain a happiness He does not have). Rather He is doing it for you, your benefit, and your highest happiness that can be found in Him alone. And God is being loving when He does this and not selfish. CS Lewis put it wonderfully!! I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are, the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. This is the grand and glorious gospel of God. That He is all righteoues and all loving and these two are really if you think about it two sides of the same coin. His righteouessness, that is highest passion for the full display of His glory, and His love for us, His passion for our highest happiness intersect perfectly!! God loves you and your happiness in Himself infinitely and suprememly and that is the glorious message of the cross!! So what is the cross all about!!! Well all people have sinned and what that means is that we have all rejected God (Romans 3:9-20, 23, Psalm 51:5) And that is evident by the way we live our lives. The essence of sin is not sex but rather rejecting God's love and your everlasting happiness and then pursuing your pleasure in something that can't satisfy!! (Jeremiah 2:11-13, Romans 1:21-25) And this completely affects the way that we live our lives towards other people. The problem is not so much our outward behavior but the idols of our heart. And because we have a sinful nature thanks to Adam's sin.... we are unable to accept God's love and happiness and our driven towards idols. Therefore God's wrath is now against us and we are doomed.... unless a miracle happens. And so because God infinitely loved us and infinitely desired to restore the display of His glory that had been marred by our sin, He sent Jesus Christ to die on a cross. On that cross, our sins were crushed onto Jesus Christ (Isaiah 53, 1 Peter 2:24) and Jesus was consequently separated from His Father (Matthew 27:44-45) because our sins were placed on Jesus. (2 Corinthians 5:21) And by crushing our sin onto Jesus Christ, the Father's wrath was satisfied and sin was killed in Christ. (John 19:30) And now we are free to respond to God's invitation of the gospel because our sin problem has been taken care of through the cross. God lovse you and wants you to have eternal life in heaven. And John defines this life very clearly as knowledge of the God. (John 17:3) This means loving Him and glorifiying Him. And all you have to do when the living gospel is presented to you is to just simply believe and passively receive by faith the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 1:16-17) And so I want to close my presentation with what will happen if you accept the wonderful gift of God through Christ!! When you die and go to heaven, you will see God's face (commonly called the beatific vision in theology) and ..... I can't even describe it so I will just say pure happiness that cannot be described. Read Revealtion 21-22 if you want a little preview of what will happen. Just remember unbeliever, God desires you to end your quest of happiness and Christ is infinitely willing to satisfy you with Himself. Just passively accept the gift by faith. Don't try cleaning up your life or making a committment to do all these things for Him. (He doesn't need you to do things for Him as He is self-sufficient) Just accept His love for you and you will find pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11, 73:25-26) Thanks for reading this and it was my great joy to depict the glory of God as accurately as I possibly can and to joyfully pursue your happiness in the Amazing and Living GOD!!

Why I am Here at EBC

I have had to question lately why I am going to EBC!! Why am I a student at their school??? Why did God place me in such a wonderful learning enviroment for me to passionately engage in holy communion with Him and to display His beauty for all too see?? Another puzzling question is I now need to figure out why I have been crashing in Simi Vallley all of these times??? Is it just some random chance?? I don't believe it for a second. (Proverbs 16:33) I am absolutely confident that God is showing is goodness to me by deliberately placing me in Simi Valley all of these times because He wants to manifest another aspect of His beauty towards me. I believe that He is sovereignly using these chain of events (Ephesians 1:11, Daniel 4:35) as a means of bringing me closer to Him through the EBC and Cornerstone community. I want to say that I haven't been to a church that has reflected the glory of God in the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:3-6) better than this church has and I am just so thankful for all of you. Christ, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:26-27) is clearly seen. I can say with absolute confidence that it is no act of randomness that I have crashed in Simi Valley all of those times. (Matthew 10:29) So why has God deliberately placed me in Simi Valley. Well I believe there are two reason. One He wants me to savor His beloved son in the brothers and sisters of EBC and Cornerstone Community Church. The other is that He wants me to be a display of Christ to these people and also to those who don't know the gospel. (Mark 16:15, Ezekiel 33:1-11) I was diagnosed with autism when I was three years old. It is a disability that I am still fighting today. As a result, my social skills and communication skills are far behind and also I was a turn-off in high school. This is still evident in some of the social mishaps that I have committed even last weekend at Cornerstone Community Church. But when I got saved almost 4 years ago God turned my life around and gave me hope in Him. (Psalm 42:5, Colossians 1:13-14) And I am ever so grateful to Him that He has given me the willpower and determination to overcome autism for the glory of His name at Simi Valley. I want to be a display of the TRIUMPHANT grace of God, the kid that was a nobody in the past (hated by others) into someone loved by God and Christ!!! It has been my great prayer that God will bend me into the kind of man that HE wants to use for His glory.I am now working on moving down to Simi Valley permanetly. I am doing this because I feel that God is calling me to live there so that I can be an example of how God's triumphant grace shines in somebody who as a former nobody into somebody that is loved by God and by Jesus Christ in others!! I wanted to say that it is a tremendous joy to be around you all because CHRIST (the perfect glory of God) shines so brightly in you. And I want to apologize for all of the social errors I may have made with you while I was hear. I look forward to what God will do with me in the future here at EBC and Cornerstone. This is Kevin longing for your joy in God and to savor Christ in you all, signing off with this verse!!In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.Romans 8:26-27