Love, Peace, and Sooooooouuuuuullll

“Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:

- I shall not fear anyone on Earth.
- I shall fear only God.
- I shall not bear ill will toward anyone.
- I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.
- I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

"I'm Don Cornelius, and as always in parting, we wish you love, peace and soul!"- Don Cornelius

Love and Peace is more than a phrase said in the 60's and 70's. It's a phrase that's throughout the bible. I was reading this unique chapter of the bible and the subject matter of it caught my attention. The title read "What Christians Should Do. Living the New Life." Amazing I thought. I finally found a "How to" book. LOL Sort of. It was Colossians Chap. 3. The verse that stood out the most was:

¹⁵ And let the peace (soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (act as umpire continually) in your hearts [deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds, in that peaceful state] to which as [members of Christ’s] one body you were also called [to live]. And be thankful (appreciative), [giving praise to God always].

What it was saying is that Christians should live in peace. It doesn't mean that suddenly all differences of opinion are eliminated, but it does require that loving Christians work together despite their differences. Please be inclined to read the whole chapter. Verse 13:

 ¹³ Be gentle and forbearing with one another and, if one has a difference (a grievance or complaint) against another, readily pardoning each other; even as the Lord has [freely] forgiven you, so must you also [forgive].

States that the key to forgiving others is remembering how much God has forgiven you. Let God worry about the wrongs you suffered. My constant phrase whenever I am team building or teaching is that we need to be effective also. Not just right. When you are going through your trials and tribulations, we need a team. God, Jesus, and you are a great team, but also understand that God has also put other teammates for you out there to get the win. Not all teams work out in the beginning, but all have the ability to be champions. Every component is important. 

Without peace in your own heart, you can never grow to become anything more than what you are then. You cannot truly love without peace. You cannot move on when you are stuck on what angered you. There is no place in the Kingdom of God for hedonistic sexual experimentation or for gossip, rage, and back-biting. All those things cause a stir within you as well as a in your Christianity. Think of it as the story of the mosquito. In this story, the mosquito tells a lie which sets off a series of cause and effect events that affect all of the other animal characters in the story. The animals are each called in turn to tell their side of the story to the Lion until he learns that the problem can be traced back to the mosquito. In the end, the mosquito dies trying to spread gossip to a farmer who smacks him. Gossip cause distractions. God is in reference to the farmer. He was there to bring it to an end.

So we look at the title of my story and see the it is love, peace, and soul. We need to love one another in order to find peace to save our spirit (soul) from not reaching the Kingdom of heaven. I thought it was a big thing to hear Don say that catchphrase. Lets move forward in our lives and not become stagnant in hatred and animosities. If we cannot not love each other, how can we fully understand how God can love us.

Stay blessed.

My Favorite Thing

"Most people don't care what happens, as long as they get to do their favorite thing. People don't even want to back off from their favorite thing. They won't even do their second favorite thing. You ever seen somebody in trouble... He's in the right lane. And there's a lot of cars , like 6th avenue. A lot of cars. And he wants to make that left. So what does he do? He just does it anyway. He goes at it. He shoves his car through everybody's life.Without any... And everybody's honking and outraged. And you always see the guy go, "I have to. I have to.There's no other possible thing I can do.What else could I do? Except go up one more block, and take a left and take four seconds. That's not my favorite way, though! That only meets 99% of my criteria."- Louis CK 

Growing up we always loved to do our favorite thing. We feel like we are committing blasphemy if we do anything other than that. Even if it only takes one more move or one more second. Amazing isn't it? We feel as if we shouldn't have to compromise what we want to do just because........ We never have a believable answer for that. It seem like life has a different answer for us. Life is filled with compromise. When you marry. When you have a roommate. When you have siblings. Like I said, everywhere. Even in eternal life. Now I know I sound crazy to say that their is compromise in order to get to heaven, but let me explain. God has done all he can to give us the ability to live in heaven with Him. He has put rules in place and a way to live on earth in order to get us there. He has given us His son, Jesus Christ. He's done it all. Now what have we've done? We always try to come up with ways to live how we seem fit. We get caught up in our lives, we forget to live in his image. "But that would mean we couldn't do our favorite thing!" What favorite thing? He's not asking much from us. "But he takes forever to give answers!" Let me show you why.

^{2 Peter ch.3:9} The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

^{2 Peter ch. 3:15} Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.

I remember hearing on the radio one day the most insightful story I could ever hear. Once there was a Pastor of a church and up to him came an atheist. The atheist laughed at him and said, "You are a fool to believe that there is a God and Heaven. Let me ask you this. What if you are wrong?" The pastor shook his head and answered, "Well then... What a life to have lived? God has taught us to love and how to be fruitful. My life would be full of enrichment and joy. My life would've been lived to the fullest." And the atheist was paused. "And now I ask you," the pastor said, "What if you're wrong?" Crazy right? Francis Chan quoted it best when he said to not be scared of people who can only kill your flesh, but to be scared of the One who can kill you and send you to Hell. 

Now to bring it all together. God isn't asking us to quit living. He is asking us to live right. There are things we do that we should change and we know it. Don't sacrifice eternal life for your favorite thing on Earth. You'd be surprise how little that favorite thing is. We all have vices, but with knowledge of them, we cannot allow ignorance. Don't take Jesus's power lightly. It's not walking on water or striking you down as his ultimate power. When we are in front of God and Jesus washes his hands of us and says he does not know us. Think about that. That's also true in life moments too. When you are troubled with someone, the worst thing you can do is wash your hands of them. Think about that as you go through you day and live. Happy Living to you all.

Old and New

"Faith does not make things easy... It makes them possible."- Paraphrased Luke 1:37

I remember when I was three we had this church in the back of the our pastor's house. It was a trailer with 20 seats in it. Very old school. We were trying to get enough money to get a bigger church and all. (That good ol' building fund) The daycare was his house. We tore that place up. LOL. He didn't mind. He asked us to go ahead and clean it up when we are through. Our parents worked diligently to make the church better. And amazing it was. We moved from the country back woods to the middle of the city. The journey was needed as the church grew bigger. Our pastor, Pastor Jin, knew we needed more stability so that we could reach out to our church members better. There in lays our start of our Korean International Baptist Church. They were pushed to make a way for them to head towards God's path. Now, 28 years later, it seems like a funny imagination. So what was happening at that time? My mom was a 36-ish year old Korean Lady who had lived in the US for about 9 years. She was a former believer in Buddhism, but found God. I in turn grew up in a christian home and so has our generations to come.

We created a christian heritage in our family from there. Always blessed even in our worse hours. We've seen joy. We've seen pain. All in all, we've been through something. Now that we paved the road, what's next? Refer to 2 Kings Chapter 2 & 5. Also Psalm 127. It's not an easy road, but we still have to keep moving on. Let us never forget where we came from. We came from His image and love.

1 Thessalonians 5:11-Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

Who am I

I'd rather be relevant than incognito,
I'd rather be corrected than stroke my ego,
Flying high as an eagle but still need the wind beneath my wings,
If anyone ever wanted to, 
They could ask me why the caged bird sings,
Feeling as if the world was on my back and shoulders,
The older I get, it seems as if the world gets colder,
It's funny to think that especially when we talk of the world going to hell,
But I cannot deal in negativity and downfalls because that would mean that I failed,

So who am i,

Maybe I might ever know,  through the rain, sleet, hail or snow, 

There can be times where I want to hide but I can never forget that there is always time to grow, 

I am not just your typical, average, run of the mill type of person,
I am that guy who shines even when my times worsen,
What I give to you is an open mind to a closed world we live in,
I just hope that I'm not too late before it all comes to an end


-Shad

Wisdom

 "Never argue with ignorance. They will make you step down to their level and beat you with experience."- Unknown

Common sense seems to be more of a rarity than common. It's seems like it's so lost in translation that it has become more of a second language. What does it mean to be a know it all versus having wisdom?
Proverbs 26:4 "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him." The ones we hear the most are not always the most knowledgeable. In this verse, it talks about arguing with a fool. The fool has no thought to his antics. He is only led by mostly arrogance and ignorance. So why even entertain them with an answer? If we choose to go along with them, we look just like them. What is better? A quick answer, or the right answer? A wise man studies to answer, but a fool blurts out whatever comes to mind. Train your ears and mouth to appreciate studied answers.

A friend once told me that if you are the smartest person in the room, then you need to change your circle of friends because you will not learn anything. I totally understand that saying. When you are not learning, you are not living. When you are not living, you are dying. Once we can understand that, we can really start to live. Now to dig deeper into that statement, which life are you trying to live? If you choose to have eternal life, we have to gain knowledge of Christ and his teachings. If you choose to only learn the way of the world, then your life will end with it. Think about that.

Matthew 12:37 "For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned." Be careful what you say. Words can heal as well as hurt anything in it's path. It has no bias. Allow yourself to speak angrily, and you will say the greatest thing you will ever regret. Speak with meaning and compassion, and depth and compassion will be reciprocated. One of my most favorite sayings is, "It's hard to be deep in shallow waters." So when we talk to others, let us think to ourselves how

can I benefit that person with the knowledge that I have to offer? (And to be more specific, the knowledge of Christ." I hope that you enjoy this as much as I have and good teaching to you all.