It was an honor

The other night I was talking with Kim's brother Chris, and I started yabbering on about
how much fun I was having serving with VBS this year
and how honored I was to serve
and how much time and heart CGBC pours into VBS
and how much I liked the curriculum
and how Greg presented the gospel
and on and on...

I'm glad that I got to serve alongside you guys and see you also serving on the worship band and in games and in drama and in dancing and in everything else you did. Auntie Margie told me that the TIGers were very faithful in keeping your commitments to VBS and in serving your teams. Way to go!

And for those of you who couldn't make it, consider joining VBS next year! It's a great chance to have fun serving God together, partnering in the gospel together, and developing our skills so that we can be more useful servants in the future.

Junior High School Musical

Jumping for joy over the baptisms Sunday! :)

Worship team testimony, part 2

A few weeks ago I posted the first part of a testimony that I wrote several months ago at the request of the worship team. Here's the second part (of approximately five parts).

By the way, it is especially fitting to post this section now, since I'm going to be teaching about the precious cross this Friday in TIGS.

***

Can theology “traumatize” you?

The first “trauma”: the cross

One particularly “traumatic” event: I was walking around campus reading a book listing fifty reasons why Jesus came to die (for some reason, it is now titled Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came To Die :) Coincidence? I think not. :) ). The first chapter blew me away. It explained that God could not let sin go unpunished—not even one! God does not sweep sin under the carpet of the universe. God must punish all sin. As the Bible says, “God is a righteous judge,” and “the wages of sin is death.”

But we know that God saves people—sinful people! How does God do this without being unjust? He cannot let the guilty go unpunished!

The answer: He put Jesus on the cross, and Jesus absorbed all of the punishment that we deserve. He took all of the hell that we deserve, and He swallowed it up. God did not spare the punishment one bit. He meted it out fully on Him Who knew no sin, and thus He saved His people. (If you want to see this for yourself, read through Romans 3:25-26 [try to read around this reference to get the context], then think through it, and then treasure it.)

When I saw the justice and mercy of God in this, I saw God as bigger and scarier and more beautiful than I had before. I can't get the cross out of my mind, my theology. It is too big and too precious.

I don't stand before God on the basis of what I do—my pitiful attempts at obeying my conscience or doing quiet times or at being a good son and student and employee and friend. I remember failing my conscience so often in college but then coming back to the cross—staring at what I could see of God's love. I remember riding on the BART soaking in this medicine for the soul, holding my little Gideon's Bible close and whispering to myself passages like Romans 3 and Romans 8 and Hebrews 10 (“we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all...by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified”).

My “good works” did not endear me to God, nor did my evil deeds take away the justification that Jesus secured for me. I only stand before God on the basis of what Jesus did. He did it perfectly, and nothing can shake this. Nothing can shake God's love for or hold on me.

Happy Father's Day!

I just received a Father's Day e-card from my good friend Jeremy, whom I'd told about the "Daddy" joke a few days ago. Pretty funny! :)

No, that's not blood....

I sent the links to the lock-in haircut videos to several friends, and many of them sent back pretty entertaining comments. But let me clarify a few things that I didn't clarify in the previous post:

1) See that red coloration on my scalp? That is dry erase marker, not blood. They used the marker to delineate the places that they wanted to leave on my head.

So, no, my TIGers didn't draw any blood. Aren't they talented? :)


2) For those of you who weren't there at the lock-in last week, here's the background story: I gave the TIGers 400 paper butterflies and their antennae to cut out for the Ecuador short-term missions trip, and just for fun, I told them that if they cut out all 400 butterlies and antennae, they would get to cut my hair, and I would wear it to church on Sunday.

So I had a very interesting haircut when I went to church this past Sunday! :)

TIGS Lock In 2008 haircut videos

Update 6/5/08: Is that blood on my head? And why did this happen? See more details in the next post.

In the wee hours of May 31, 2008, I got a very unique haircut! :)

You can see some of the haircut in progress:



And here's a grand tour of the top of my head after most of the haircutting was over: