It is amazing how everyone understands the concept of sin and evil no matter where they are from. In teaching the Chinese students the concept of sin, all I had to do was to tell them that sin is “being self-centered or selfish.” And I told them sin (selfishness) is what made Japan invade China during […]

Galatians 2:11–But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. One way to test whether grace is the “identity” of your relationship(s) is to consider how you respond to correction.  If we are very defensive at the slightest criticism, it is because we fear “our failure” will make […]

Do you want to know a secret? I have something to confess. I have an agenda… There is an agenda for me to pastor our church. There is an agenda for this email. There is an agenda if I ever had coffee, lunch or dinner with you. My agenda is to “bring about the obedience of […]

Galatians 2:6–And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me. One of the strongest confirmations that the world uses to establish self-confidence or value, is to be validated by influential people.  Generally when someone very credentialed recognizes […]

How we think of the marginalized reveals the basis upon which we believe God accepts us. If we think the marginalized are simply human waste and thus to be avoided, then it reveals that we have never understood the grace of God (And consequently become human waste ourselves in the eyes of God.) If we […]

(I’m sorry. I dropped the ball on Wednesday and did not send you a devotional…) We live in such a bipolar world. There is much evil in this world. But there is also much good in this world, too. Yesterday, I went to a funeral of a man who battled cancer for years. He has […]

Hebrews 11:39-40–And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.  How would you define “leaving the world better for future generations”?  This is a great notion and concept that the world has, and in […]

Psalm 51:1-3 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. What if we tried to measure our security to be forgiven and loved by someone, from our daily performances? How assured would we be of our daily “performances” to deserve such forgiveness and […]

Jesus does not meet “down” to our expectations. We must adjust our expectations “up” to Him. It is not unusual that we get disappointed by God. You have expected certain thing out of Him, but He didn’t perform to your expectation. And we interpret this as God failing us. But it might be that God […]

There is no point in trying to please the crowd. You cannot please sinners who are only pleased with themselves. Jesus was hedonistic and people criticized Him for it. John the Baptist was ascetic and people criticized him for it, too! In Luke 7:31-35, Jesus laments that people criticized Him for being a glutton and […]