September 9, 2011

During the Labor Day weekend, while I was taking a shower, my heart was moving in many directions.  While I do not fully understand what I was feeling and thinking, one thing is clear, God was speaking to me.  And, a few days later, I felt His heart for people who have moved away from Him and choose to have a relationship with the Bible and their interpretation of the Bible instead of Him.  I was thinking about the day and about what I should do in the future.  My wife and I are planning things and putting together pieces of the future.  He gave us a lot of input into what He wants us to do and how that comes together for us.

When I hear from God regarding divine discipline, I always seek to have such communications confirmed.  The last time such revelations happened, an entire church lost its assistant pastor, senior pastor, and a majority the deacon board had accidents, some requiring surgery.  The word was given to me to tell them that they were under divine discipline.  When they finally turned back to God in a small step, proposing that the Senior Pastor have a say in their decision making, God was merciful and healed the eldest elder.  At the same time, God commanded me to visit the church so that they would know that He was speaking through me.  So, having experienced God firsthand, I do not dismiss these words, but to discern them.

This time the words came to me during a shower.  And, God told me that they (let's not say who or what group) were under His divine discipline, the alarm clock in the bathroom, the one that never worked for ages, beeped.  At first, when I heard the sound, I was surprised and wondered what was going on in the bathroom and whether I needed to turn off my iPhone, which I may have brought into the restroom.  I took a peak through the curtains and saw nothing.  The sound did not continue, so I thought I was hearing things.  Yeah, it must have been my imagination.  Then, I started to shower again, then I heard the Lord say, "They are indeed being disciplined."  Now, there was a feeling of deja vu.  This has happened before and it is strange to me that something that had happened before would happen again, but then when God told me this, the alarm clock started to play its music.  As soon as I moved my attention to the clock, it stopped.  I didn't think much of it at first, just continue to take my shower and get ready.  My mind, in fleshy ways, dismissed it all as a fluke.

Then, it hit me sometime later, I don't know exactly when, but I remembered what happened and thought to myself - it is God.  The alarm clock playing sounds was a miracle since it never played sounds for a long time.  Then, it played sounds when God told me something very important.  It clicked in my head.  God was telling me about another divine discipline that has already taken place or will take place.  Some Christians do not really think that divine discipline happens.  They construct their own god and ignore the parts of the Bible that they do not like.  The OT is a great example of what they ignore, but they also ignore Hebrews 12.  Now, I felt really bad about this all, like I was having little faith.  When He spoke to me and I paid attention to Him, the alarm clock played sounds, but when I moved my attention to the alarm clock, it stopped playing sounds.  It felt like Peter walking on water and losing sight of Jesus and His voice.

I told my wife about what happened.  She told me that the alarm clock may be broken because there was no sound for a long time.  I told her that I heard the sound and described it.  She acknowledged that it was the alarm clock.  But then, she asked me, why would God tell you this?  Does He want you to tell them?  I told her that I do not really know and I am hesitant to give words to this effect - no one really wants to hear that God is disciplining them, not because they do not believe in God, but because they think of God as not doing things like that (they also dismiss the OT).  I hope and pray that God is just giving me these words for intercession purposes and not communication purposes.  I rather another person tell them what is going on with them (I hope this is not a Jonah situation).

Of course, I am assuming that it is true that God is disciplining them.  I am going to do the Gideon thing and ask God to confirm one more time that this is true.  Yeah, even after the alarm clock that never played sounds suddenly played sounds when He spoke to me.  Even after the messenger told me that whoever is not with them is against them.  I know...  I have experienced what the overall message is, but at the same time, I going to be prudent and ask God to confirm this again.  If He wants me to get the message, He will confirm it again.

Do you believe that God can speak to you?  If you do, how has this affected your life?

Copyright 2011 by Christenstein

September 8, 2011

On my way to Chick-Fil-A today, there was numbness in my heart that I have not felt in a long time.  It is the heart of God longing to reconnect with people who have turned their backs on Him and have chosen a path based on their imaginations and human interpretations of His word.  I have never felt this way before, a deep deep longing to reconnect with people who have turned their backs on God; yet being unable to do so because there is a rift between us.  It was so painful that I thought I was losing my mind much like @SirNickDon with the mice in his home .  It was really painful, that you love others and they turn their back on you, fail to support you, and fail to love you.  For some odd reason, deep within is a love that is emerging and it is peaceful, quiet and subtle.  It wants to reach out to these people again and to reconnect with them; yet it cannot because there is a chasm in between us.

What happened is that they did not believe me when I told them that God instructed me to do things.  They questioned my relationship with God and my salvation as a result of their disbelief that God guides my life.  They interpret my mannerisms and behavior based on their cultural traditions, instead of the looking into the heart.  To make matters worse, when God came through with His word, their hearts were even more hardened towards Him.  However, it seems that God's heart is still for them, still for revealing to us a greater level who He is, reaching out to them and speaking them, not only through me, but desiring to speak to them Himself so that they can experience Him firsthand.  He wants this incredible personal relationship with them, but their hearts are hardened.  They do not believe that He can speak to them and they only believe that He speaks through the Bible, but it is unfortunate that the Bible can be interpreted in so many different ways that they could make the Bible say whatever they wanted the Bible to say - essential creating the God they wanted, instead of chasing after the one true God with all their hearts.

And, the pain is not so much because I cannot have fellowship with those who seek to destroy and question my faith in God and those who do not take the time to understand things from the perspective of another culture - that I can forgive and work through given time.  What I cannot work through is the fact is they do not believe that God can speak to us personally, one on one because He loves us and cares about us.  They do not believe that God cares for every detail of our lives, but instead believes that God does what they think and want Him to do through their interpretations of the Bible.  God is God and that's why I am no longer their friends and my heart aches out for them to know the one true and God and be led to salvation.  Knowing the Bible is not enough - they need to know Jesus and to personally have experienced the Father through a relationship with Christ - sincerely repenting and accept Christ as their personal Savior.

How do you sort through the pain of being Christian?  What cross do you bear as a Christian?

Copyright 2011 by Christenstein

September 5, 2011

During our wedding reception, my wife and I wanted to honor God first and foremost.  The ceremony did not contain a sermon because we wanted to emphasize that we were coming together because of God's words to us personally and directly.  During the ceremony, the Pastor stated that we were coming together because we believe that God told us to marry each other.  So, during the reception, we had prophetic ministry - the first time together.  I have to admit that I wanted to call out demons and give words to tons of people, but it did not happen that way.  Although I had been disappointed with how the prophetic ministry went and wonder if it achieve honor for God, yesterday, my wife met with one of the people that I communicated to during that time.  When I saw the person, I saw an airplane and the word traveling came to me.  I did not know what it meant, but I communicated that picture to the person.

Last night, my wife came home and told me that the person wanted her to tell me that it happened.  The person is traveling two times a week for work.  When my wife told me that, I thought about how faith goes against all odds and believes despite what is happening.  Although I was discouraged, I still believed that God will speak to others through us and I took that step of faith during our wedding reception.  And, to know that that God has blessed our efforts and showed us that He indeed spoke through us during that time is a blessing indeed.  Faith is not based on a how great one feels with God one day and how discouraged one feels another day.  Faith is just believing that is true despite what the world tells us.  Faith is believing God and taking Him at His word.  And, this is how the righteous live, but faith, not be sight.

How have you grown in faith in the past year?

Copyright 2011 by Christenstein

September 4, 2011

My wife and I got into an argument again today.  We both see time very differently.  She sees time as occurring in the present and prefers to plan spontaneously.  I see time as occurring in the future and prefers plan ahead.  When I want to plan something in the future with my wife, I make suggestions to her.  She had been misinterpreting my gestures as telling her what I want us to do instead of suggestions.  I misinterpreted her adding the events to the calendar as not wanting to discuss spending time together.  She is adverse to discussing the future because she believes that planning the future is a waste of time, especially when there are so many things to plan in the present.  My perspective is that I had already planned the present and most of it is already on the calendar and scheduled.  Therefore, it is necessary to plan the future, to move ahead, and to head forward in life.  It is, rather comical, that she feels that we are not enjoying the present, but thinking too far ahead and I feel that we are not planning our future together enough.  We both felt that we were sabotaging each others' plans and not caring about each others' needs.

After a long conversation, we both learned that we were expressing love for each other, but not speaking in each others' "calendar" language (for lack of a better term to describe this phenomenon).  She was expressing her love to me at the moment and wanted to spend time with me at the moment and felt I was ignoring her expression of love for me by talking and discussing the future all the time.  I was expressing my love to her by planning the future with her and telling her that I do want to spend time with her.  I felt that she did not want to spend time with me because she did not want to discuss the future.  After clearly explaining to each other how much we love each other and wanted to express that love, we came to an agreement to allocate time on the calendar for planned events and spontaneity.

This solution allows me to express my love to her by planning the future together while allowing her to express her love to me by being spontaneous at the moment.  We are going to give it two months and see how it goes.  However, I already have a feeling that this will work well and that both of our needs to feel loved and to care for each other will be met.  We both are optimistic about this.  

Reflecting on our situation, I marvel at how Jesus could be fully man and fully God.  This calendar is both scheduled and spontaneous at the same time.  Looking to Jesus, I came to realize that love requires the best that we have to give to others, whether it be the best we have of our scheduled times or our spontaneous times, it is the best that love offers.  After, Jesus Christ gave us His best for us through His death on the cross.

How you give the best of yourselves to others, both sides of the coin?

Copyright 2011 by Christenstein

@ANVRSADDAY, known as Frank.  You asked us about our story and my wife and I decided to share. For this, you owe me a favor.  I really want your canary because it knows how to clean all the broccoli off my plate.  I think is only fair.    Just kidding, I decided to post our story to celebrate our 6-month Anniversary.   

Say "hi" to my wife @cattleya7.  

Single Life

August 31, 2011

My wife and I get into intense arguments - which couple doesn't?  Today was a little over the top.

We had been faithful to the Lord every Wednesday night having fellowship through dinner, doing worship, and Bible study.  She prepares the worship and food.  For this week she picked "Here I am to Worship".  I prepare the Bible study.

While she was preparing dinner, she asked me to set up and prepare worship.  I did not know what song she prepared, but I went straight into IHOP and played the last recorded worship session for the prayer room.  The song was "Here I am to Worship."  My wife broke in tears feeling the tender arms of the Father holding her and telling us that everything will indeed be OK because we love His Son and obeyed Him.  I felt His arms too!  Our marriage is indeed the three of us!

God, not only calls us to certain tasks as His workmanship, He also plans and prepares with us revealing to us that He is with us.  He has been keeping us together in this manner all this time.  After all, He told us to marry each other without time to know each other and He will make sure that His word never returns to Him empty.

Do you have an experiences where you felt undeniably God's love for you?

August 30, 2011

On my way back from work, I asked the Lord that if He was willing to use me to bless someone through words of knowledge.  For a while, I had not been asking Him or having a conversation of Him during the day because of all the transitional responsibilities that I needed to attend to during the beginning of my marriage.  However, a Xangan friend of mine @ANVRSADDAY described how he has conversation with God every moment of the day.  Then, in another comment , @kuro_kokoro mentioned how she tries her best to spend as much time with God as possible.  That's when I remembered the times I spent with God during day and wanting to start again, I spoke to Him.

He told me to tell this man that He loves him and that He knows him.  When I struck up a conversation with the man and told him what God said, the man, who had speech problems, told me that he knows God and God has been really loving towards him.  What strikes me about this is not so much God told me to tell the man, but that the man has speech problems.  He still loves God and although it took him a longer period of time to express it, this man still loves God.

Reflecting on this event, I wonder how many times we dismiss someone because they are different from us, maybe challenged.  God loves them too and we should also love them.  It is during times like these that I come to know firsthand the height, width, and depth of the love of Christ Jesus.

Have you recent felt or experienced God's love?  How was it like?  Did God ever challenge you to love someone?

Christianity seems to be ruled by and defined by the individualist mindset of the Western world.  The gospel is communicated in the context of an individual coming back to right relationship with God, which is only part of the truth of what the true gospel really means.  The gospel transcends culture and to say that it is individualistic in nature is to say that the gospel is Western and that the culture is above the gospel.  Clearly, the culture is not above the gospel.  The gospel is above the culture because it is truth.

From the collectivist perspective, Jesus came down the earth, died for humanity’s sins, and rose up again on the third day giving humanity eternal life through faith.  And, having faith in Jesus is not only a decision for one person to get into right relationship with God, but for a person to get into right relationship with God and with the Body of Christ.  The gospel invites us not only to declare God as our Father, but also to declare that the Body of Christ is our family (seeing our brothers and sisters from the heavenly perspective - no longer slave or free, woman or man, Gentile or Jew).  We are not going into this journey alone and by ourselves for ourselves, but going into it with others who believe in the faith – taking for example the great hall of faith in Hebrews 1.

When we repent and accept Christ as a Savior, we are not only coming into right relationship with the Father, we are also coming into right relationship with our brothers and sisters, joining the Family of God – the Body of Christ.  As much as we would like to believe that Christianity is a relationship between us and God alone, that is not true.  It is also a relationship between us and other believers, especially our spouse if we are called to have one.

Have you considered joined the family of God when you sincerely repented and accepted Christ as Savior?

Copyright 2011 by Christenstein

September 2, 2011

My wife and I had a talk today about balancing our time with God (Love the Lord your God), with each other/others (Love your neighbor), and with ourselves (as you love yourself - in the September 13, blog post - more information will shared regarding loving ourselves).  It was her idea.  I really thought we were doing a great job spending time with God almost every day in the morning, taking walks together, enjoying parties with family/friends, and enjoying each other.  My wife feels that we should spending more time with ourselves doing the things that give us life and recharges us so that we can love others (Love your neighbor as your love yourself, right?).  I really love my wife and love spending time with her; yet, I understood what she meant.  I love to blog and blogged a lot when I was single.  During the few months of our marriage, I stopped blogging.  Nothing serious, just adjusting to married life and still figuring it out.  So glad that Christ is with us because He does make the journey smoother than it otherwise would have been.  

The Bible also teaches us to balance time.  

Ecclesiastes 3

A Time for Everything

1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

How do you spend your time with others to show God's love?

Copyright 2011 by Christenstein

Reflections: August 28, 2011

When my wife and I woke up this morning, the wonderful warmth of the sun beat through the closed blinds of the bedroom window.  Some stray rays penetrated through the blinds and brightened the room.  Every morning, the sun greets our room and warms it up for us.  There is nothing more natural, more appealing, and more exciting than waking up naturally to the sun’s rays.  These are the days of summer, the days when the sun rises very early and gently stroking us awake, greeting us every morning.  These days, these summer days when the natural rays of warmth greets are days that I dread to miss.  How long until we wake up to the artificial music on our alarm clock?

The wonderful aroma of coffee permeated through the house, into the vents, greeting our noses.  The coffee was freshly ground the night before and set to brew at the exact time every morning.  For some, this may sound a bit boring and routine, but trust me – it is exciting to wake up every morning.  There is something about the aroma that hits the senses, causes to the mind to be excited, and energizes the body.  Maybe, it is indeed an addiction and the craving-ravaging of mad people rushing into the kitchen or Starbucks every morning without fail to get their caffeine fix or… maybe better, it is a binding ritual, however routine and boring, that my wife and I do every morning, dancing intimately to each other’s rhythms and movements.

There we were perking up early in the morning to spend time with someone else.  Perhaps, this sounds rather appalling and maybe our marriage is falling apart after those six months.  My wife, when awake rushes to the other room to spend time with someone else.  She jets out of the room after giving me a passionate kiss.  Just as soon as she sets her sights on another, I do the same.  About an hour each day for some time, we both spend time with another and not ourselves.  Yeah, that’s the sign, the sign of an unhealthy marriage where each of us entertains the ideas of another instead of one another.  This is the thinking of the world. The world wants us to put our spouse first, but Christ clearly tells us to put Christ first.

Most days, she would read the Bible, a devotional, and listen to praise songs to get her into the mindset to mediate on the Lord.  Sometimes, the Lord would speak to her and tell her things about us, about our future, and the path that we are to take.  For an hour, she spends time with the Lord, soaking in this presence and learning more about who He is.  Most days, I would read the Bible, a devotional, and instead of listening to music, type away my thoughts.  Some of my thoughts get published online for others to read – other thoughts just stay with me, patiently locked away until my wife, with the key unlocked them.  There are times when I reflect about the day before and what happened in the spiritual realms – there are days that I think about the circumstances in my life and ask myself what God is telling me through them.  And, there are days that a verse just pops out at me for application into my marriage.  Those are the days, the days that devotional entries come to life by inspiration from God.

But Sunday is different, different only because we attend service remotely through the International House of Prayer, otherwise known as IHOP, but also because we spend time with God later on during the day.  Remembering the warmth and aroma that woke me up, I suggested that we take a walk.  It was a wonderful day to take a walk – the sun was out and there was no wind – that’s great for thunder-stormy Windy City.  Unbeknownst to us, God sent a messager to deliver a message to us.

During our walk, I suggest we go to Walgreens to check out an item that we both were thinking of getting.  It was a great idea, to try to complete two things at once – get the exercising done and get the errand done and off the imaginary checklist.  When we reached the parking lot of Walgreens, someone said hi to us.  I did not notice him at first, but noticed him.  My wife did not say anything to the man.  She was focused on getting to where we wanted to go, which is comical to me since I am the one who plans, calendars, and focuses us on the goals that God has given us.  Planning and organization are my greatest strength, but even I need a break from excessive order.  It can be a little boring -- being able to predict what is going to happen next and being able to even predict how others will act.  For the most part, there seems to be no challenges in such situation.  This situation is interesting because my wife was focused and I was the one taking a detour, smelling the roses.

I turned my head to see who said “hi” to me and said “hi” back.  The man had a cigarette on his right ear, wore jeans, and a shirt.  There was nothing flashy or noticeable about his appearance, but his smile just radiated with me.  The guy smiles, but did not say much because he was heading in the other direction.  Deep down inside of me, I felt like there was more he wanted to tell me and that since we were heading in opposite directions, it would have been difficult for him to strike up a conversation.  While we were in the store, the same guy came up to us and asked, “Are you an alien?”  I heard the verse, “we are aliens in this land.”  I was about to answer yes, but he starting talking.  He said, “I am a time traveler from the future, where earthlings are killed and aliens are spared.  They sent me back to the present to change events.  The future is being changed as we speak as I am changing the present now by talking to you.  It was just like Revelations.”  For some odd reason, I understood the language he spoke.  Maybe he is crazy or maybe not, the point is that I understood what he was trying to tell me.  For some odd reason, I interpreted his language.  I stated, “You have a message for me.”  He looked at me and said, “The message is not to mess with the inter-galaxy patrol.  If you are not with us, then you are against us.”  I answered, “Asking a person if they are an alien right off the bat does not really help."  He offered his hand to me and I shook it.  I interpret this as a gesture of apology.

Now, you know that this may sound really strange to you and perhaps, I am the only one who could understand it or could have gotten the message, but the message was this…  we are aliens on this planet because we are children of God and belong to heaven.  In the future, God’s wrath will be spilled out to the earth and those who are not aliens will die while those who are aliens will live.  And, those who are not against them are with them.”  There two scriptures that popped out at me – (1) All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. Hebrews 11:12-14 (hence, I thought that perhaps, it is not far-fetched to come up to someone at random and ask them if they are aliens and strangers on earth) and (2) “Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.” Luke 9:49-51.  For me, after discerning the spirits, it is clear that this spirit knew the words of God, knew I was an alien on this planet, and knew that whoever is not against him is for him.  He knew the word of God, but when he spoke it, it was speaking in another language, the language of science fiction and fantasy.  And, an interpreter is needed to translate those truths.

On our way back, I asked my wife whether she thought the guy was crazy or sane.  She thought the guy was crazy.  Perhaps, this is how the Jews saw the disciples when they first received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost (see Acts 2).  Some even thought they were drunk!  And, although this seemed crazy, consider how I knew what he was saying to me beyond the superficial surface of science fiction.  To top that off, we both understood each other and shook hands!  Perhaps, you think I have a screw loose, but the message is particularly important and it was spoken in the language/context of science fiction.  The amazing thing is that the person recognized me, knew I was an alien and sought after me to speak to me.  He had many other people to talk to and babble his "insanities" to, but why me and why chase after me to do so?  That’s because he had a message to give.  Perhaps, in the future, I should give the message in another context/tongue, maybe alluding to the Chronicles of Narnia or maybe the X-men.  Regardless, I believe that this person had a very creative way of giving a message from God to me.

When I explained this to my wife, she said that more discernment is needed.  Awesome!  The Bible does tell us to discern.  All these sign and wonders have happened around me often enough where I know that God is confirming a path for us – my wife agreed that this may be the case.  This experience is similar to the experience I had in McDonald's when the homeless man who bought food for others with his arch card (homeless person giving away all that he had! - now, that's insanity according to the standards of this world!) told me in another language that God will provide.  And, God has indeed provided.

Have you thought that God is saying something you, but second guess yourself because it made no sense?

Copyright 2011 by Christenstein