Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Affections

(i assume my audience to be Bible-believing Christians for this post)

Conventionally, people call today either Valentine's Day or Single Awareness Day. Couples who are married or dating have surely spent a great amount of effort anticipating and planning for tonight's _______. (date, romantic experience, make-up time, festivities.... whatever have you) On the other hand, godly single men and women out there who believe that they do not possess the gift of singleness are perhaps praying earnestly for God to not only strengthen that very conviction, but to manifest that conviction into sight by means of what we called, the one. Well, whether you are dating or not, no one knows for sure that they do NOT have the gift of singleness until his and her wedding day. So, if you are dating, keep at it and may the Lord sanctify the two of you in preparation for your marriage if it be His will. If you are not married/dating, don't be discouraged. Think about it this way: the fact that you DON'T have the gift of singleness will be verified on your wedding day... on the flip side... you don't have to worry about this too much because you will never know for sure that you DO have the gift of singleness until you die. And when that happens, you won't even be thinking about singleness cuz you'll be in glory!!

Speaking of affections, I must mention what I've experienced recently at Grace Community Church. If you go to GCC or know anything about it, you understand our church to be one of the strongest conservative-evangelical-Bible-believing-Bible-preaching-megachurches in the U.S. At GCC, "the Truth is everything," as our pastor would say, and there is absolutely no room for compromising the soul-saving truths of the holy Word of God. For this reason, we the Bruins of Grace On Campus UCLA have come to learn to wield the Sword of God offensively and defensively with all the resources God has given to us through the teaching at GCC. we have worked hard at our Extra-Jesus... oops i mean, exegesis!! we have gotten used to quoting Scripture to enhance our prayers, we have perfected the skill of reciting verses while we share the Gospel, we are even convicted about the importance of spedning personal quiet time with the Lord in the Word. Praise God, the authority of His Word is upheld at GOC and GCC.

However
.... in my 11 quarters at GOC, I have heard relatively few discussions and expressions on our affection for the Word. By this I mean that at least within the student circles of GOC, believers' love for God's Word is not often articulated. Sadly, my heart also infrequently tells me of its affection for the words by which the brain has been excited of. Loving Bible-study and the process of exegesis is NOT equivalent to loving the Word! "Oh man, you know what deep theological concept I just understood after 6 hours of exegesis? I love it!" what is "it?" Is it the theology or the Savior? When was the last time your heart shouted out to you after drenching itself in truth for a period of time, "I LOVE the Jesus Christ MY Savior!!" A true love for God must be fueled by Truth; a true love for Truth will reflect its affections for the Author of the Truth.

consider our pastor, John MacArthur. Lots of Christians in America love him, lots of Christians hate him. Listen to MacArthur for 5 minutes or read 5 pages from any of his books and his strong conviction and almost stubbornness for adhering to the Truth will not escape your notice. He is a warrior on the pulpit. John not only spent his whole life guarding the truth of the Bible, but he attacks un-truthfulness from the pulpit. Not many preachers have the guts or the skin to do that. To be honest, you might not think he's the nicest person if you just seem him preaching, because he absolutely loses himself when he preaches. But I think he is an affectionate person. How do I know this? Well, first, I go to evening service. I really enjoy evening service (sometimes more than morning. sometimes. I believe Sunday morning services have a special place in the Bible). I love going to evening service for the baptisms and the testimonies and I love hearing pastor John share his heart. Surprisingly, he is a lot more open during evening service concerning his ministry convictions, his view on current events, and with his personal walk with the Lord. He does not merely reference the Truth with a roaring shout, but also with a very tender and mature affection for the Word. He once told the evening congregation of his ministry goal and summarized it to be something along the lines of: "loving the written Word as loving the Incarnate Word, since they are One in the same." To be honest, although I've heard these words before, it almost surprised me to hear it from John MacArthur. But now I understand, the reason his ministry in the Word is so powerful and oftentimes uncomfortable is because of his affections towards his Savior. Interesting. If you want to know John more, go to evening service. yes, this has been a public exhortation for people to go to evening service. :)

secondly, everyone who knows John MacArthur personally, whether they be pastors, family members, missionaries, church members, has vouched for his affection towards people. He is considered and respected to be one of the nicest people around when he's off the pulpit. I just had an endearing semi-personal encounter with him a few weeks ago. Thanks to my brothers Mitchell and Ed and their sacrifice, I was able to sit right next to John MacArthur during morning service on the first-row pew. Those seats are normally reserved for pastors, elders, or Mrs. MacArthur... but on that day, it was for Beland Huang. I must say, even in his few words of appreciation to me for sitting next to him and being his pal for the day, I was impressed with his kindness and good sense of humor. I think a Christian can only be truly affectionate to one another if we are affectionate to the Lord. I've heard pastor John preach for roughly 220 hours ever since I came to college, and I see a mature affection for the Lord even in his most fiery sermons.

To conclude this post, I would like to present to you some facts about the English language. Almost all of us have read at least a few of Shakespeare's plays, and most of us enjoy singing praises out of the good 'ol hymnal. If you have been paying attention to any of the words at all, you will inevitably notice the usages of that antiquated 2nd person singular pronoun: Thou, Thy, Thine, and Thee. Some of us don't particularly enjoy singing songs with these words precisely for that reason. But let me remind you, that Thou, Thy, Thine and Thee, in pre-modern English was the set of pronouns one would use for close friends and companions. In fact, if you were referred to as "You, Your, You," then your relationship with the one who has called you is probably still distant. more distant than the one who is called, "Thou." Somehow, the English language as we know it today has retained to royal "you, your, you."

But in light of today's post on affection, the next time you are standing in God's house singing those old words, do not be afraid to consciously sing phrases like "I love thee" with an extra bit of affection in your voice.


"How sweet are Your words to my taste!
Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!"
-Psalm 119:103

Monday, February 12, 2007

Moth-ball free treasures

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and rust destroy..but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven...for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" -Matthew 6:19-21



ok. so i started out slow and i did not post even a word for a week. sorry i didn't keep my word about posting a paragraph everyday... but, somehow i don't think too many people are expecting anything. that's ok. we'll do what we can.

please pray for me. i have a job interview on Thursday morning. Pray for me to trust in God's sovereignty: His hand is not too weak to close or open any doors he wants to. The position i'm interviewing for is a management trainee position with East West Bank. If you know me, you understand that I do not major in economics and have very limited practical knowledge about managing finances... much less any sort of investments. The only thing I know about money is what the Bible says about it: you cannot serve it and be a Christian; use it wisely for eternal purposes; pay taxes; a virtuous woman knows how to use it to make profitable investments; people with a lot of it have a hard time finding themselves inside the Kingdom; the servant who used it well was considered faithful by his master; it is the root of all evil; there's a time to receive it; a worker deserves to have it as his wage; a bank is a good place to put it; false teachers always seem inclined to have it, etc. sometimes, i think i am scared to handle money because i think it will decide how i live the rest of my life... which is true to some extent. nevertheless, the Lord gives and He requires of me to be a responsible steward of His gifts, money is one of them. maybe this job will teach me lots of spiritual lessons.

speaking of spiritual lessons concerning provision and anxiety over it.... I really appreciate Joe Penberthy's sermon today:

"if you call yourself a Christian and have entrusted your SOUL to God. How is it that you can be so inconsistent and hypocritical to worry about these things ?"

these things refer to anything you would worry about on a daily basis: food, shelter, clothing, etc. we Californians have augmented this issue into more than mere anxiety regarding the availability of these things, but we have made it into an art and a lifestyle to obtain a high level of comfort and ease by means of these things. what should i wear today to impress my friends today? which dining hall should i eat at? which apartment building should i live in? which roommates will i get along with the best? which video game should i buy next? which classes should i take next quarter? where do i want to work? who should i marry?
these things are not bad things and there is nothing wrong about making these sorts of decisions everyday. perhaps you even know somebody who needs to spend more time thinking about these things. after all, doesn't the Bible command us to glorify God in every little thing?

i don't think the issue resides in the nature of these decisions, given the fact that many of these seem like pertinent decisions for a college student make concerning his stewardship in order to honor the God. But as a young-asian-american-californian-evangelical-christian-man, i find myself and others who identify with me in at least 2 out of these 7 categories... on the one hand acknowledging the mundaneness, or perhaps even "unspiritual-ness," of spending time making decisions about these things; yet on the other hand, abiding by a twisted Christo-cultural hybrid of ideals that have subtly become our criteria for decision-making. i understand the Bible has its cultural context and we live in a cultural context that requires proper interpretation of the text... but practically, our generation is compromising more and more in our daily decisions. we have become experts at spiritualizing. you know how it is. our problem is not just being anxious over these things, but we seek these things instead of the Kingdom, because we care about our bodies more than our souls.

i hope my job interviews and actually having a job will not make me gold digger. honestly.

I want the treasure in heaven!

no wonder Jesus provided this context (treasure in heaven) before He spoke about anxiety over these things. the key word is "so." pretty awesome and comforting truth if you think about... especially for people who have a job interview coming up this week.

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." -Matthew 6:33-34

(for more insight on the real meaning of the text, consult a Holy Spirit near/inside you)

Monday, February 05, 2007

Namesake

it was 4 years ago when i first took up the habit of randomly posting thoughts on the internet. after a few months of spilling my guts over cyberspace, life got busy in college and there were simply too many things for me to decide whether it was "post-worthy" or not, so i stopped. in retrospect, it would have been nice if i had kept an auto-graphed record of my life, even if it did not contain little details from the milestones of my soon-to-be-past college years. too many thought-provoking and worship-inducing events and words occur within 24 hours to be fully captured in a blog, but i will try my best to produce at least 1 paragraph in summary of my daily experiences with the Lord's kindness to me. This is in effort to:
  1. like i said, keep a general record of my life for myself and those dear to me
  2. help me digest my thoughts and discern my intentions by communicating it in words to you
  3. encourage you, if some things strike a chord in your mind or mirror your experiences
  4. for you to encourage me and have more information about me to pray for me (thank you in advance)
  5. stir up conversation when i see you in person. i do want to see you, i promise.

so here goes.

my name is Beland Isaac Huang. if you don't know me, the only thing in my name you would pronounce rightly is probably "Isaac." "Isaac" means "he laughs," because Abraham and Sarah had a good laugh when God told them they were going to have a kid at age 100 and age 90. I'm not sure if my parents laughed when their prayers for a second child were finally answered 10 years after my older sister was born, but they appropriately named me Isaac in appreciation to God's gift. that's a really really really humbling thought for me.... i was God's gift to my parents and an answer to countless prayers?! did they know that i was going to grow up to be a big sinner?

Beland, pronounced [bei 4 lan2], was a name given by name father with a very special meaning to it. [bei] literally means "shell." at one point, shells were the currency for ancient chinese societies, which is why [bei] denotes the meaning of "treasure" or "precious thing." No, i was not named after Mammon. My dad had been saved by the Lord at a young age and by the time i came around his relationship with the Lord was one who has "tasted and seen." My dad named me after the very gospel that saved him and his whole family from eternal punishment:

"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves" - 2 Corinthians 4:7

[lan] is the color blue. In many cultures, the sky, or, the heavens, is often associated with Divine presence and loftiness. If you look up at the sky during a good day, you will notice that it is blue. in addition to that, my dad brilliantly referenced [lan] to the robe of an Old Testament priest. One of the layers of the levitical priest's ephod was commanded by the LORD to be blue. apparently, my dad had thought through of all this and wrote a short poem about [bei lan] prior to my birth. i don't think he had much of an idea that his son would be telling people about how he was named on a virtual space, almost 22 years later.

[huang] is my family name, and it simply means "yellow." No, we were not named that because one of our ancestors had jaundice nor because we lacked courage in the family. Yellow, not purple, was the color of royalty in chinese culture. ok, maybe not yellow yellow... perhaps gold-ish yellow. either way, there were many Huang emperialists in the past. funny thing is, my family did not live up to that name. my parents are poor missionaries who have no affiliation with any earthly power or ruler to grant them riches to live by....their apartment in Taipei, Taiwan is nothing like the forbidden city or solomon's palace in terms of its beauty and architectual genius... but my parents serve the King of Heaven and i believe He will reward them with untold treasures in eternity. please pray for their missionary work in the prisons and juvenile delinquency centers in Taiwan.

there you have it. that's an introduction to my name... and the legacy of ministry that my parents are passing on to me, which has been sovereignly unfolding within my lifetime. by the mercy of God, I have not lived up to it and don't think i ever will.... but by the grace of God, He saves and transforms sinners from earthen "filthy" vessels into "honorable vessels" (2 Tim 2:21). I don't think that in my dad's mind he expected himself to fill the shoes of Paul's ministry when he read 2 Corinthians 4:7, but he did believe in the gospel and God's power to grace, so he named me after this ministry to remind himself... and now that i'm at an age of understanding... to remind me of God's power.

therefore, the proceeding posts of this blog will be dedicated to describing and presenting the things of the Kingdom of God... at least this very small portion of it that surrounding me.... my life. the treasure has been found and purchased, now let's see how this treasure will validate itself to be of the supreme value, even though it is placed within the most unworthy of containers.