I just came back from a retreat and Im just thankful that God let me finish this year with a prayer and start a new year with a prayer :) 

I’ve been struggling and thinking about some things for a longgg time.. 

and pastor peter’s sermon at the retreat really helped me understand why I was struggling with those things. 

I learned that prayer is our way of showing dependence to God. The fact that i havent been praying was a direct result of me being prideful because one of the implications of not praying is that im not really depending on God for everything in my life. 

second thing i realized was my life was  no different from a nonbeliever’s life. 

I’ve always wanted to change my lifestyle. I wanted to live a life of worship but my excuses and laziness always kept me from praying and reading the Bible everyday. Hence, just like how I cut down on online chatting (msn and aim), I am going to take another bold step in eliminating other things that have been dominant in my life. Although I dont really listen to music that much, I decided to give that up as well because i realized that the kind of songs i listen to really affect my spirituality. Starting on Jan 1st 2011, I am giving up secular music and media that I think negatively affects my spirituality. This includes all the songs and movies with excessive profanity, sexual innuendo, violence, horror, etc. I really truly want to live a life that is set apart from the world. I know im considered extremely conservative by many but I am willing to be even more conservative to set myself apart from the world.

Im so glad I have friends that I could talk about faith with. I am truly thankful for that. I remember this past semester, me meta jree and joe talked about our daily walk with God out in the morrison hall. One of the many things we talked about was how we experience a different kind of persecution than those living in the middle east or north korea putting their lives at risk to defend and preach the Gospel. In a country like America, we dont really have those kinds of persecutions but we have other temptations that we so easily fall for. I believe that all of us have a choice not to sin because we have the Holy Spirit teaching us what’s right or wrong. With His help, we are capable of choosing to obey the Spirit. Knowing this, I am going to do my best to avoid the sources of sin and ask the Holy Spirit for strength to overcome these temptations. 

Pastor Peter preached that If you dont feel like you are being persecuted in anyway as a Christian then there’s something wrong with the way you live.. I was truly convicted by this statement. My biggest fear of living a transformed life was the persecution from my own group of friends and the feeling that I am missing out. By persecution from friends, I mean being awkward with friends, not being able to enjoy the worldly entertainment the same way we enjoyed it before, etc. I was really nervous about cutting off msn and aim because I was such a slave to it. I wasted so much time online chatting about random useless things… although there were some good convos, I think most of my time was spent talking about stupid stuff that doesnt even matter..However, God has granted me power to overcome it and im willing to do the same with other things that dominate my life at the moment. 

I wonder If i had a kingdom perspective and truly understood the values stored in heaven, how easy it would be to live this short life on earth. God has been teaching me how there’s nothing the world can offer. He’s been teaching me the NOTHINGNESS of life.. I want my faith and my lifestyle of worship to define who i am as a Christian because I know that there’s no genuine satisfaction coming from the things of the world. I must decrease to nothing and God must increase to everything! His amazing grace to an unworthy, undeserving person like me is truly overwhelming and life on earth is wayyyy too short for me to be living a life of complacency so I am going to do everything I can to live a life of holiness for the Lord.

now… for the new year’s resolution part.. haha I know that none of this is possible If I dont have the willingness to pray, read the Bible and live by the inspiration of Christ daily. Hence, I decided to buy a devotional book and do it everyday! I also wish to gather a group of friends who can be accountable for one another in this lifestyle of worship. YES It will be awkward at first and YES the thought of not being able to enjoy some of the worldly things that we enjoyed will make us hesitant to these changes but we believe in the goodness of God and He will provide!

I am so excited to take a step closer to the Lord. This is going to be a great semester!