A Note of Religious Realization

Throughout the entire week, i was getting depressed on all of these supposedly random ideas that I believed would truly make me happy, or distract me from my everyday pains. it turns out i can finally correlate them to each other with the help of several wonderful lessons from today's sermon at TCCC.

Tuesday and Wednesday at school, i was just sorta feeling "out of it.." kind of like band really didn't work out and neither did show choir/dance practice (i couldn't really do anything in those time periods). tuesday during english class, i randomly, suddenly felt how cool it would be if i could show someone they really had never seen or experienced before. kind of like, the first time i heard tobymac's 'burn for you,' i didn't see any of the lyrics or music coming, and i certainly wasn't expecting it. but i had never thought of it in a religious context - i was thinking about GarageBand and C4D animations. later on wednesday, i somehow stumbled onto the notion (and amazement) that i was part of something that was much more bigger than me - kind of like when someone tells you, "this is bigger than the both of us." i was just sorta thinking about how when you're on a team or something and going for this giant competition or revolution, you know that it's bigger than you, and you're just one part working in the giant body for the prize. but i didn't really think about that in religious context either, just that i thought it was sort of cool.

coming back with the editing, the progression was really throughout the week, because i was reading the earlier chapters in 1 Corinthians. each chapter held something significant, but sadly, I couldn’t figure that out until today’s sermon

Corinthians 1 - God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies." That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have -right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start - comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That's why we have the saying, "If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God."

Corinthians 2 - No one's ever seen or heard anything like this, Never so much as imagined anything quite like it - What God has arranged for those who love him. But you've seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you.

Corinthians 3 – You are God’s house. Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints…Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you’ll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn’t, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won’t be torn out; you’ll survive – but just barely.

Corinthians 4 – For who do you know that really knows you, knows your heart? And even if they did, is there anything they would discover in you that you could take credit for? Isn’t everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? So what’s the point of all this comparing and competing? You already have all you need. You already have more access to God than you can handle.

Corinthians 6 – Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.

today's sermon, had a whole bunch of hidden messages that i was able to connect sorta. I can’t find the scripture reading right now, but if I do, I’ll put it up. The main idea was that the flesh and the Holy spirit are two completely different ideas, at the other sides of the spectrum. Human nature is to follow this flesh. However, it is impossible to retain your own normal self and still successfully pursue the Holy spirit. That was my problem all along – I was concerned socially and physically of what the world would think of me if I issued myself as a Jesus Freak. And that was why I could not find it in myself to be the kind of spiritually strong person I intended myself to be. It was also said that the importance to be real with yourself – of your sins and your imperfections. Once you accomplished this, you could begin to work for the Lord. the Lord had plans for everyone to contribute to the greater scheme of things, and he needed to include me so that I could move in peoples’ lives, showing them new ideas before they had opportunity to reject them or see what had hit them. And they will know we our Christians by our love…