Fall 2014 Prayer Update

"Consecration of St. Augustine"
Cathedral Basilica, St. Augustine
St Augustine, Florida

It seemed like my summer went by at a blinding pace. And here’s why:

I kicked off my summer two days after my Hebrew final exam by visiting St. Simon Island in Georgia, attending a wedding in Jacksonville, FL, and catching up with a friend in Pensacola Beach, FL. After a week of traveling, I returned to Maryland from Birmingham within a few days and was in Salisbury, MD soon afterwards for ten weeks with Rev. Stephen Hause at In His Hands Deaf Ministry with Cross Pointe Church of Nazarene (explore its awesome Facebook page too!) to complete my final credit for Ministry Leadership Practicum (a.k.a. internship). During the course of my internship, I traveled to Louisville, KY for the 21st Century Deaf Church Colloquium and was also able to spend some quality time with my family and friends (much more compared to the previous two summers).

ASL SERMON – Leave Your Nets Behind

Sermon Title: "Leave Your Nets Behind"
Scripture Passage: Luke 5:1-11

Sermon voice-interpreted in English

This message was preached on July 13, 2014 at
Deaf Fellowship at Frederick Church of the Brethren.

Special thanks to Deaf Fellowship for filming this sermon

and making it available online for viewing!

Please feel free to share this sermon with your friends,
and please leave a comment below if desired.

If you want to have me come speak at your church or event,
please click the "Contact Me" tab at the top of this blog and fill out your information.

Kyrie Eleison!

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“The mercy of God is ultimately seen in Jesus Christ!”

(Bruce L. Persons)

Deaf Fellowship at Frederick Church of the Brethren invited me to fill the pulpit for Rev. Peter Myers, and I preached a message this past Sunday on Luke 18:9-14. It is my prayer that this message will bless and challenge you, and also enrich your personal walk with our Lord the Savior! If you ever want me to preach at your church or an event, please click here to contact me.

A special thanks is in order for Deaf Fellowship at Frederick Church of the Brethren for recording this sermon as a part of their ongoing "virtual" ministry. However, due to unforeseeable technical difficulties, the beginning of my sermon was not recorded. For that reason, I decided to write up a rough transcript of what I said at the beginning:

Jonah: An American Tale?

"Our God is a God of second chances!" (Rev. Rick McClain)

I discovered this morning that Dr. Rick McClain, a D.Min. graduate from Beeson, would be preaching at Deaf Calvary Church in Frederick, Maryland this morning. Deaf Calvary Church is an Assemblies of God congregation close to Deaf Fellowship at Frederick Church of the Brethren. He happens to be my mentor, a dear friend and colleague in Deaf ministry. He has been my source of encouragement and wisdom whenever I face difficult periods at Beeson or in ministry.

He is an exemplary preacher of God's Word, and I always listen to him whenever I get the chance to! With his gregarious and humorous personality, Rick has been endowed with a special gift to preach God's Word in a manner that is clear and accessible while not mincing his words at the same time. I was so blessed by his message this morning on Jonah 1-4 that I wanted to share it with you tonight because I think it is something that every American needs to hear in this present day and age.

A special thanks is in order for Deaf Calvary Church to make this video, "Jonah: An American Tale?" available for everyone!

Disclaimer: I can't guarantee the sound quality on this video for my hearing colleagues, but if you can understand this, you will be blessed as well! Please leave a comment below and let me know.

Thunderous Silence

“So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” (John 11:6)

      In John 11, John the Evangelist introduces us to Lazarus of Bethany. Lazarus was gravely ill and was being attended to by Mary and his sister, Martha. A messenger, bearing an urgent message from the sisters, found Jesus and told him, “Lord, he whom you love is ill” (v. 3). Can you sense the hurrying tone in his voice here? Lazarus, your beloved friend, is gravely sick! Lazarus, your beloved friend, will soon be dead! Come quickly! Yet in spite of this urgency, Jesus issued a mystifying and seemingly dismissive response back to the sisters whom he loved: “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (v. 4).

Bonhoeffer on Reading the Scriptures

While collecting information for my doctrinal synthesis paper due by the end of the week, I read something from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together that privides an accurate reflection of what churches are facing in the modern age.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer completed Life Together in 1939 while teaching at the underground, or "illegal," Finkenwalde seminary during the heyday of Nazism. Here's what Bonhoeffer had to say concerning reading the Scriptures:

We must learn to know the Scriptures again, as the Reformers and our fathers knew them. We must not grudge the time and the work that it takes. We must know the Scriptures first and foremost for the sake of our salvation. But besides this, there are ample reasons that make this requirement exceedingly urgent. How, for example, shall we ever attain certainty and confidence in our personal and church activity if we do not stand on solid Biblical ground? It is not our heart that determines our course, but God's Word. But who in this day has any proper understanding of the need for scriptural proof? How often we hear innumerable arguments "from life" and "from experience" put forward as the basis for most crucial decisions, but the argument of Scripture is missing. And this authority would perhaps point in exactly the opposite direction. It is not surprising, of course, that the person who attempts to cast discredit upon their wisdom should be the one who himself does not seriously read, know, and study the Scriptures. But one who will not learn to handle the Bible for himself is not an evangelical Christian.

Why Doth Thou Hidest Thy Face?

On this day twelve years ago, four groups of Muslim terrorists boarded American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 77, and United Airlines Flight 93, and, after commandeering each plane, they crashed each plane into the World Trade Center towers in the district of Manhattan, New York City, into the Pentagon of Washington D.C., and in an open field of Shanksville, PA on its way to Washington D.C. As the events of the day unfolded before Americans' eyes on television, fear and horror seized the hearts of men and women of America and the world. People were confronted with the gruesome and heartless face of evil once again. They tried to piece together the pieces that led up to this event and make sense out of this brazen act of terrorism against humanity under the banner of the Islamic God, Allah. They also asked on that day, "Where were you, God, when this happened?"

The Christmas Bells That Still Ring

Yesterday morning, I attended Trinity Lutheran Church with my family, and Pastor Virgil Cain gave a brief yet excellent meditation drawing from a poem-turned-into-a-hymn penned in 1863 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), a great poet and literary scholar, titled “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” As I listened to the pastor, my heart was encouraged and comforted by his message and I had to share this poem with you.

Winter Prayer Update

At this moment, I am home sitting in my parents’ house’s family room under a blanket, surrounded by Christmas lights, as I happily write this prayer update letter to you, my valued readers.

A Contagious Virus of Thankfulness

"Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!

Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!

For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” (Psalm 100)

5 Lessons Learned by a First-Year Seminarian

A milestone has passed in my life recently: I moved to Alabama to begin my Masters in Divinity (M.Div.) studies at Beeson Divinity School at Samford University last year! I have never been this far from my family and friends, and I was naturally nervous about what life would throw at me. I am constantly amazed with the Lord’s gracious providence and the new mercies he pours in my life everyday like a refreshing rain in summer. God has taught me many profound lessons about my life and how I can relate with the transcendent yet intimately personal Trinitarian God.

Summer Prayer Update

Summertime has officially begun for me, and things are just starting to heat up in the Deep South! My first year of seminary is officially over, and I survived it! I even had the opportunity to show a piece of Birmingham to my sister who flew in town for a couple of days after my finals was done (see picture on the right taken at the Peanut Depot where they roast simply amazing peanuts). I just got back in town after a week-long vacation with my family in North Myrtle Beach, and my time with the family was a sweet one.

Bound to The Strong Name of the Trinity

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“And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful” (Col. 3:14-15).

On February 4th, Beeson Divinity School hosted a day-long Spiritual Formation retreat for all Beeson faculty, students and their spouses at the Aldridge Botanical Gardens, and it was a wonderful time for me to withdraw from the hustle and bustle of my life and spend the day in solitude and quietude. Little did I know that God would use this retreat and a specific Celtic prayer to strengthen and encourage me, deepen my personal prayer life, and aid me during times when I struggle while in seminary.

In Christ Alone

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The Lord continues to do amazing work in my heart, especially when I pause and consider what has transpired over the past few years and especially since I moved to Alabama, but there still remains much work to do in my heart for the rest of my life. As I continue to read the Bible daily and ponder what Christ has done for me, I become more aware of my depravity and how dependant I am upon the Holy Spirit for my sanctification. On my good days, I am careful to obey his commandments and emulate Christ's example in my life.

However, there are times when I chose to deliberately rebel and dishonor God by, for example, doing things that is explicitly forbidden in the Bible, not loving my neighbors as myself, or not doing things that should have been done. I may have minimized certain sins in my life or even sinned against God without knowing it. When I sin, I am convicted of what I have done by the Holy Spirit and thus turn back to God. I have been sobered by the truth that I have not loved God as much as I should have, and I suspect that this is something that everyone struggle with, regenerated or not.

Golfing at the Highland Park Golf Course: A Lesson on 1 Timothy 4:7-8

View from the parking lot at
Highland Park Golf Course

I do enjoy golf, but I am not good at it. In fact, “not good” might be an understatement.

You see, I almost hit a golfer at the tenth hole about a month ago while I was on the first tee at the first hole of a public golf course with a friend in Alabama (if he died, my spotless record would be ruined). And must I also mention that I lost almost all of the balls I hit that day and none of them landed in the fairway or the greens? So I didn’t have a good first day as a player on a golf course.

A Billion-Suns-Size Star

Do you remember how you were taught in your astronomy class that a million planets the size of our earth could fill our sun in the solar system? Well, scientists just discovered an even bigger star in our universe that dwarfs our sun - in fact, it is a billion-suns-size star! See the video below for more.