Marriage

When I went back to China some of the most asked question was "Do you have a girlfriend?" and "When are you gonna get married?"

I used to be under pressure to get married, I made a goal to have kids before 28... Now looking back I was pretty silly, and did a lot of foolish things, bought into many lies: "It is better to marry than burn with passion" means marriage will cure my problem with lust and pornography, and "He who does not marry does better" thinking singleness was somehow a more spiritually superior state.

Oh ya, there's also this tendency to poke around with relationships with the opposite sex, sometimes thinking if I went to this event my wife might be there, or thinking "is she the one for me?" "Does she like me?" That was pretty foolish for me to do as well.

Now I'm at peace. I do want to get married because it'll be a beautiful thing, but even if I don't get married I'm content with having Christ.

Brother Charles shares some really good wisdom and advice in this podcast. Pursue Christ while you are single, and God will wake you up when he brings your spouse to you.

https://soundcloud.com/illbehonest/marriage-and-singleness

The Good Samaritan

This hit me on my way to China, the Good Samaritan parable may not be as simple as it seems.

Usually it's told as a story for people to love their neighbour and be like the Samaritan to help those in need. This is one purpose of this story, but I believe Jesus wants us to see ourselves in the role of the beat up Jew.

I say this because of the question Jesus asks the lawyer after he told the parable: "Which one of these 3 proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell to the robber's hands?" to which the lawyer correctly replies "the one who showed mercy to him". Isn't that interesting in light of the original conversation? The lawyer wanted to know how he can inherit eternal life, and the law says to love your neighbour as yourself, the lawyer probably realized he failed so many times to love his neighbour as himself and wanted to justify himself by asking Jesus who his neighbour is(if Jesus answers straightforwardly the lawyer will follow with many "buts" and "ifs"), but Jesus makes the Samaritan to be the neighbour who the Jew ought to love as himself, in other words "love those who showed love to you"

Christ is addressing another issue, he's saying our view of ourselves needs to be changed, we think in our pride that we are the rich man who's able to help others, but Christ is trying to point out that we are the poor man who's in need of help. This is a parallel to the gospel, in that the natural man is an enemy of God, hating him for no reason, but God through Christ loved his enemies and took care of his needs(freedom from sin, and from the damage done by Satan), so we can fulfill the righteous demands of the law to love our neighbours out of gratitude as a response to what God has done for us. Jesus's yoke is indeed easy, and his burden light.

Hydra code

Supposedly there's a jargon in programming called hydra code. Where a deadly error exists in that any attempt to fix it would produce more errors.

This is like the state of the human soul.

Jesus says whoever sins is a slave to sin. Like the hydra code, any attempt by man to fix his problems will only create more.

Trying to be kind to people only to be met with a cold response, man becomes bitter.
Trying to quit an addiction and succeeding, only to become proud and look down on others.
Trying to be more social and friendly only to be constrained by one's past, fears, bitterness and anxiety, then great depression crushes man.

To every corner, and at every turn, his conscience accuses him, fear, anxiety, restlessness, depression weighs down heavily upon him, pride tells him to save face and makes him irrational by trying to hide his struggles, or makes him the object of contempt in the eyes of his peers because he looks down upon them.

All this is only his earthly state, a fate far worse than these await him after death, because in the eyes of God who has authority over his fate, men is evil and not fit for a kingdom of righteousness without suffering. He will be cast into the outer darkness, weeping and gnashing his teeth for all eternity.

How wretched!

How hopeless!

But it is only true if man does not find Christ.

Christ is the one who brings joy, because he looked at man's heavy laden state and took pity on him and loved him. Christ being God became man and walked with him in his suffering, told him about a kingdom to come, proved His divinity through miracles, and took man's burden upon Himself.

But God put Christ at the very bottom of the pile, beneath all other things that are deemed glorious by man. Only those who are willing to take off their mask of pretense, and admit, "yes, we are messed up, and unable to save ourselves, so help us God" can find Him.

Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. - Jesus Christ.