keith hershey

This Sunday at church, pastor Jim was still on vacation and we had a guest speaker... Keith Hershey. The guy is white, but perhaps he thinks he's black like Hershey's chocolate... he kinda talks like black people... and unusually emotional for a white guy! ;)

His sermon about 1Peter1:2~5 was kinda interesting. I really liked his message... he said that our most prized possession is not what we hold in our hands(the visible), but what we hold in our hearts(the invisible). He reminded us the promises of God... reminded us how to never feel useless..., never be fruitless, never be clueless, and never be toothless(or stumble, falling on our teeth)! ;)

In order to acheive these things, 7 ingredients are absolutely necessary to add on top of our faith:
1) need to have virtue, to actually do good by acheiving moral excellence!
2) to have knowledge- to really KNOW Christ and to KNOW God... personally!
3) to have self control... not to be controlled by the flesh...
4) to be able to presevere- to be able to stand firm before God does His thing...
5) to have godliness- I'm not sure what's 'godliness'... I guess it's to be more God-like, or Christ-like? ;)
6) then we need to have brotherly kindness- be nice to people even when then don't deserve it...
7) and above all things, we need to have love! The unconditional kind of love, the love of God!

If we can truly add these ingredients into our lives, surely we will live a much smoother running life! ;)

Over the weekend, we didn't do anything too spectacular..., we saw a few movies, saw a so-so Sparks game at Staple Center, saw a few meteors fly by... can't even call it a 'shower'..., but over all, it was quite a smooth weekend I suppose. May the Lord our God continue to show us and remind us to add these necessary ingredients into our lives!

Yeah, life can be very hard sometimes. In the movie Ratatouille, it also talked about how hard life can be for both rats and humans... and how unlikely changes can occur..., yeah, it's true, it's never easy to change things. It's never easy to change other people. It's never easy to change the world. It's not even easy to change yourself! But in order for change to occur, we have to first 'believe'... and then our actions must match our beliefs...

Today's scriptural reading was about Rahab..., I think I'm kinda like her... she probably believed in the LORD because of fear first! Yeah, I was scared of God too... initially, I really didn't want to go to church anymore, but I was actually afraid... afraid that what if there really is God? What if Jesus if for real?!?!?

Anyway, I've been following Jesus for 4~5 years now, I have to say that Jesus has never led me wrong so far. Yeah, there were few things I don't understand, but I will continue to trust in God to lead my life... and of course my only request is for God to eventually save my natural family too... just like He did with Rahab's family. O, have mercy on us Lord God. Thanks!

(Joshua 2,6)