Back to a Heart of Worship

"What do you do when you fall off the horse? ..fall off the horse.. you get back on! Sorry Morty i'm not a gymnast"  lol i always quote stuff that no one gets.. kinda ruins the fun out of quotes. i miss my old roommate buddy who gets all my quotes and pidgin slang. aight aight aight

The truth is that i've been in a dark slump for a while. i guess i prevented myself from flooding my blog with such depressing moods and whining. but at the same time, it's good to have an outlet to express honest feelings. I've been waiting till i felt more rejuvenated to post something..

well.. right now im in the library. i skipped my 4 hour class this morning so i could work on my 18 page paper. so far i got 5/18 which is some progress. But i'm hoping I can just hammer it all out today. My goal is just completion and not really quality, because as long as I get a C or higher i'll pass with a B in the class. The prof told us that he's gonna cancel this 18pg paper for next semester students, which kinda bummed me out since i was debating if i shoulda waited to take it next semester.



If u haven't heard, i failed my hebrew 2 class. I never failed a class before. I wish i dropped with a "W" instead of taking the F. I'm not too concerned with GPA since once u get the degree it doesn't matter unless i apply for more school. And anything between a 2.8-3.2 ain't horribly bad. I'm probably gonna hafta retake hebrew 2 online this summer, which is a good thing since i'll be able to take hebrew 3 in the Fall and graduate on time! I also need to take a step back from worrying about how everythin will play out in the future. I need to be more concerned with the small steps in the present right meow.

Sometimes i feel like our world is so concerned with work and productivity. I mean, what are we all striving for? I understand that we need to invest in a future family, home, and good career to be financially secure. But perhaps we're missing the most important things. Shouldn't we be valuing our relationships and our walk with God first and foremost? How come our relational and spiritual well being seems to get sacrificed first? I guess it's all about having a good balance of moderation between investing in our spiritual lives and also in this earthly life. Sometimes i just get bugged down when physical treasures and pleasures replace or fill my spiritual needs. Like when we're so busy just doing stuff, we sacrifice finding rest in God. but just because we have time for God, doesn't mean we're being intentional. God taught me that we have an active responsibility in our faith. We need to respond by trusting in Him. He isn't jus gonna magically zap us and cure all our problems.

I realized that i'm spiritually starving and empty. I haven't been plugged into the outlet, and i've been running on 1% for far too long. I need to reorder my priorities. And in truth, when we make time to commune with God, we become empowered with the addition of the Holy Spirit. What are the things that i'm really investing into? What are things that are entangling and distracting me from obtaining my resolves?

I'm realizing that small steps in the right direction is better than sprinting in off in the wrong direction. no duh chris.. but i guess the most important things in life are actually quite simple. Devote your heart and life to things you most value. Like.. if we're all looking to get somewhere to be happy, can't we just be happy regardless of circumstances? The fallacy is always looking for something else in the future to make us happy. but true joy comes from being satisfied in God.. right?! Well.. God is always available and open 24/7, shouldn't we eagerly be longing to simply be with Him everyday? I believe our relationship with God shouldn't ever be boring, even tho it sometimes appears that way. I just think we have such limited and finite minds that we can't really fathom the sheer awesomeness and awe of our God. praise God regardless of your situation. God disciplines n strengthens us by allowing us to face trials. How will you overcome them? Will you trust God in the midst of them?


it's funny how u start a blog intentionally to write something, and get so side tracked. I probably shouldn't even be blogging since i gotta do this paper. how come it's so easy to write novel blogs and then it's so frustrating and slow to write papers. I'm actually on a roll right now. I bought sushi and a bunch of energy drinks. i never felts so pumped up and energetic in my life. I did over a 100 push ups, basically ran around inside the library, boxed myself in the bathroom and ripped a table in half. Now i jus need to concentrate that power and focus into my paper!!!

but then God started talkin to me.. so i figured that's more important. I think God is actually using my Bible assignments to speak to me.. I was saving this revelation for a bible study in the future, but i guess i'll share this awesome revelation i had. It's really changed my perspective of worship. What a blessing it is to participate in worship with others.

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It comes from my Daniel-Revelation class. I usually avoid prophecy books since there's so much symbolism and so many different views of interpretation. there's still SO MUCH i don't understand.. but this class teaches us how to have a better methodology in interpreting these difficult yet important books. I didn't realize how many passages in scripture cross reference each other. Like did you know the Book of Revelation has the most OT allusions than any other NT book? I think second would be the book of Hebrews. John the author assumes the reader to know the OT well. basically cuz the first century Jewish Christians actually really knew their OT books well. I jus wish sometimes theyy woulda wrote it more clearly. Anyways.. John's visions in revelation pretty much sum up divine christology doctrines. It links so well to the book of Daniel, esp chap. 9. There's also ties to Ezekiel and Isaiah. I think when verses echo or foreshadow each other, it's so mind blowing. When scripture begins to click and make some sense, it gets really exciting.. knowing how wonderful and mighty our God is really does lead to automatic worship.

Okay! so here's my revelation i got from Revelation ch. 5. If you read the chapter, it talks about 4 spiritual creature dudes and 24 elders. They're mentioned throughout the book of revelation. they're worshiping the One on the throne, which refers to the Ancient of Days. He has a scroll in his hand, and an angel says, "who is worthy to open the scroll?" And no one is found worthy. But then behold the Lion, who appears as a slain Lamb enters the scene. They go from surrounding and praising God the Father, to observing the Lamb take the scroll and break the seals and then praising both the Father and Son. God the Holy Spirit gets a little left out in this passage tho.

I think it's interesting that God gives John this vision of eschatology to show how God will one day reign triumphant and be victorious when this world has passed. God doesn't take John into heaven in the future or anything, but he gives a vision that symbolizes what the kingdom will be like. cuz Jesus isn't literally a Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. But it refers to his wisdom and power. So from Rev. 5, we see that the Lamb is worthy because he was the perfect atonement. His blood and sacrifice was propitiation for us. God settled his wrath on Christ for our sins, to make us righteous and to make us royal priest who will serve in God's kingdom. So that's why Christ deserves all praise.

Okay.. now close your eyes.. actually don't.. cuz then u wouldn't be able to read this. But imagine for jus one second, what it would be like, to see thousands and millions and a crazy number of angels surrounding God the trinity in His throne room. Imagine, loud instruments, and all the voices of all things created everywhere praising God in songs of worship.  "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is and is to come.

  “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals,
because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.”

 Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they were saying:

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!” -Rev. 5:9-13

Like drink this passage down. We get this crazy awesome glimpse and the glory of God. We see that he is deserving of our highest praise. We see that God is Holy and Worthy of all our devotion. We get the joy of knowing that we're already citizens of His kingdom, and we can even experience the joys of being considered "children of God." It is by the blood of Jesus that we are saved and justified. And then our God sanctifies us in holiness in this life, and glorifies us to righteous perfection in his eternal heavenly kingdom. All evil, sin, and death is crushed, and God reigns victoriously. How can we not be in such awe? I believe seeing God for who he is, and receiving such electric dynamite love should stir our hearts towards passion and yearning for Him. 

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The scroll that the Son of God takes, symbolizes fulfilling all prophecy, purchasing his people from captivity, establishing his eternal kingdom, judging over all evil, and being worthy to be the supreme King over all. Something like that.. This scroll also is a continuation and reference to Daniel's vision of king Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Dan. 2.

His dream is about 4 kingdoms. the first is like a lion, which is interpreted as the Babylonian kingdom, then governed by a bear which is the medo-persians, then a leopard which is the greeks, and then another beast which is the roman kingdom. The fourth beast is a collected people of these other kingdoms as well. and this beast has 11 horns, one of who is the antichrist, who leads this rebellion against God's coming kingdom. God's kingdom is then established and completely destroys all other kingdoms. These things were partly fulfilled in the first century when Rome persecuted Christians and destroyed the temple in Israel in 70AD.

But then these prophecies also allude to the collection of man's rebellion against God that will wage war against God and his already but still to come kingdom. So there's this dualist interpretation of prophecy being right about things in the past, and yet it's prophecy of things that will still come to past in our future. I thought that was super trippy.

okay chris.. now go do your paper!