To the Likeness of Christ, Not to be Liked

To be liked by people, it is quite appealing, to get a pat on the back, or job well done. Often this is motivating enough for doing anything in this life.
It feels good to be liked and cared for, by those that you love and even those that you hardly know.
 A big drive in my life has been to please men so that they can praise me for my hard work or my good attitude, while forgetting about my heavenly fathers approval. I care more about looking good, and neglecting the one that is only good, God.
Traveling around Taiwan is always eye opening, I get to see a different type of culture, and a different kind of language to experience and lots of awesome food. I don’t really feel like a foreigner anymore I have been here so many times but none the less I am a foreigner here, no matter how much I know about Taiwan and feel apart of it.
In Taiwan I have noticed that most Taiwanese when you talk to them are very nice and always seem very interested in you and what you have to say. Now I know maybe someone who is Taiwanese could disagree but the way that I saw them treat Americans was like this.
They were always interested about God. They always wanted to know what I believed and wanted to know about God, but never willing to go deeper then to just know about him.  They were always asking questions but never really listening to the answers, always looking at Jesus as someone who was good but not LORD.
This was always frustrating  to me, sometimes I had just wished that they would be really rude to me and tell me they didn’t want to here what I had to say. Maybe some of this is due to being an American, but either way they are missing Jesus.
The desire to be approved by men will rule your life and when we focus on being liked by men we will miss Jesus, we will miss God.
This mind set is not only in Taiwan but it is also in America and around the world.
Often we don’t always realize that we seek the approval of men, it can be very deceiving. Here are some ways that we can tell if we wants mans approval over Gods.
Caring to much about are cloths and keeping up with the right styles, making sure we look good and that people will notice that we look good. Having the right education so that people will think that we are smart. Having enough money so that we can feel secure, but also that people will see that we are secure. So much of what we do is so that everyone around us can like and notice us. Its really scary when you start to think about it. I think what this really boils down to is, we love ourselves and we want other to love us. We are so selfish, so much of our lives is just thinking about us and what we want, and when we are focused on ourselves and people liking us we will find out that it is very empty and we will find ourselves friendless and even unlike able.

Look at what Jesus did, he may have been like by some people but his ministry was not based on people liking him. His ministry was based on loving us, and to love is much harder then to like or be liked.
To like something is easy, its just one click away, a simple thumbs up, its an attraction to someone with the ability to be reserved. But to love something or someone is unreserved it means to give ones self to them, love requires everything. Jesus gave everything up for us because he loves us. If Jesus’ ministry was based on people liking him, then he probably would have never been hated by the phrases and probably wouldn’t have been crucified. We would have no salvation, and Jesus would have gone down in history as a good man and not LORD. It was his love for us that brought salvation into the world and it was his love for us that got him killed. We are called to be in the likeness of Jesus and to be like him, which means that we die and we love those around us. We know longer care if people like us but we care about loving people. Love dies, love is not always like able and hurts at times, but love will be the one thing that will last forever. I think that our lives will be a lot more stress free when we learn to please God over men, to love over like, when we stop checking our Facebook to make sure people like are new selfie or new post. I want to live my life without people always having to like what I do. My life is for God not people and to be approved by Him, but this does not give me an excuse to do whatever I want, but a call to love.
“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another .” John 13:34-35  

Keep fighting the fight, don’t loose heart for Jesus is Lord and we have been made into his likeness his image through the power of the cross.
Keep me in your prayers always praying that I would know Him and know his power, and to speak boldly for His name sake.

David -

Lets have real friends!!!

I thought it might be fun to continue to write this blog although I am no longer living in Taiwan. But Taiwan is still on my heart and prayers and I’m actually there right now.
I must confess I have a hard time writing about what I’m doing on this blog, I mainly just like to write what God is teaching me, so sorry if its not to much about what I am doing, but then again what I am learning is doing. Right? 
The first thing I want to say is that God is so good and amazing. He is so merciful and kind, I couldn’t be more grateful for what he is doing in my life.
Lamentations 3:22-23
  "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassion fail not.23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."
Being back in Taiwan has already been awesome, God is already been revealing to me so many new things. When I got on my second flight to go over to Taiwan God lead me to Psalms 115.
This Chapter talks about how the world has made false gods, ones with hands and mouths but they are useless to them and those who trust in them are just like them.
 In Taiwan many people worship idols and trust that if they worship them and pray to them, they will be blessed and have peace. But in there worshiping they find no peace and no rest, for their gods can do nothing for them.
It’s so sad to watch this and its so sad to watch them waste their lives on serving a dead god, a god that will never give them what they are seeking.
Before we put them off as not relate-able, think twice. Are we not the same??
We seek pleasures of the world that will not satisfy us. We want jobs that will make us financially secure. We want friends that will not betray us and fathers that will never disappoint us. Are these not false gods?? Are these not with hand and mouths but cannot move or speak?? And has not man created them??
We have made a world that is built on dead ideas, dead gods, we are trying to up hold them and say that they are living and if we follow them we will be blessed.
The ways of the world are dead and those who seek to find comfort and peace in it, will only find death.
BUT GOD, who is rich in mercy and in love has given himself to us, and provided away to have life, to have peace and those who trust in Him will not be put to shame.
"The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you,
for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you." Psalm 9:9-10

 Another thing I have been thinking about is how this digital age and social media age has been killing our relationship. I thought that phones and Facebook should improve our communication skills and the ability to stay connected with all of our friends would be a good thing. Maybe it is?? But one thing God has been showing me is that a lot of this social media makes us trade real relationships for fake ones. We create a new kind of friend, friends that we don’t really know but know about. We make false image of what a friend looks like and does, but in reality they are nothing like it. In trying to know everyone we know no one.
I believe that the root problem to all of this is, we have turned from a real relationship with God to a fake one.
 Let me explain.
From the beginning of time we can see that God made man to have a relationship with Him, but we rejected him, we chose sin over a relationship with him.
We lost the connection we once had. What was once no problem to know God, had became merely impossible. We would need a mediator to know God one that would break down the wall of sin, allowing us back into the relationship that we were once able to have. This of course is Jesus, but often I think that we forget this point. Jesus is the one that made it all possible to know God, He is the one that intercedes on our behalf for us, He paves the way to God nothing else. Not church, not good books, not sound doctrine, not even prayer, but JESUS Himself.
 Often we replace Jesus for something else, creating a false god creating a false relationship about Him. You can know all about God but that will do you no good, even the demons know who God is and know what he has done. You can do things in His name and for Him but that will not save you. Jesus is the one who saves and if we know Him we will know the Father and if we know Father we can love our brother and have real relationships with them.  PRAISE JESUS for what He has done, He has won and He is LORD.
Keep me in your prayers as we are on our second week of teaching in Taiwan and only have one more week after that. Pray that we would have energy and creativity and that God's kingdom would go forth.

David—