Gratitude to various people who have equipped me in their own respective ways

There have been various people I have come across within the past 10 years or so who have, both intentionally and unintentionally, equipped me to learn the particular skills that they possessed.

As this year comes to an end I got a little reflective and realized that I owe a lot of gratitude to these people whom God has used to cultivate certain traits in me with. There have been many areas that I have grown in that I have learned by virtue of studying from a variety of people in my life who had their own unique craft.



In no particular order, here are some of them:

1)Overcoming self-consciousness in potentially awkward situations. Learned from Sam Hui, my best friend in highschool.

This is something that, in my opinion, can't be learned (at least fully) from books. The reason why I think that, is that this trait is something that pretty much most sane human beings would want to possess. Who in their sane mind would not want to overcome the psychological-straightjacket of self-consciousness in "awkward" situations that typically render the average person socially paralyzed as to how to get oneself out of the "awkward turtle" situation? We have probably all told ourselves at times to "not be self-conscious!". Yet many of us still have this problem despite telling ourselves not to have it. It is not an ignorance problem.

I am incredibly blessed to have hung around this individual a lot in highschool. He had absolutely zero-shame when he encountered (and sometimes engineered) awkward moments with people. I have no idea how he did it, and still does it, but he seems to have a forcefield around his mind that makes him immune to being paralyzed by the socially-induced fear of other people's opinions of doing "stupid"/"weird"/"strange" things. And it rubbed off onto me as I hung around him a lot in highschool. This is a trait that is caught more than it is taught, and I see how my social interaction is highly influenced by all those highschool years of being molded by him.

One anecdote. One time, as he was doing his homework in the hall, either he or someone else accidentally spilled the juice in a juicebox onto his schoolbag. He stopped doing his homework, used his mouth to suck the juice off of his schoolbag, then continued doing his homework. All in front of others. He wasn't oblivious to how weird people thought he was. He was aware of it alright. But he's just... him. His forcefield is strong. He acted as if he was the only person in the hall too. Respect.

2)Growing in the art of verbal expression and the skill of articulation. Highly influenced by my first-year-university crush and Joseph Tam.

Before and up to highschool, I didn't really care about developing my skills of articulation and up until then, language was used merely for utilitarian purposes and I was oblivious to the intrinsic value of verbal-craftsmanship. Then, I fell for a girl who was really articulate with her words. When I stalked her blog, I fell in love with her language as well. I really admired her linguistical competency that was so expressive of her very dramatic adolescent experiences. I then endeavoured to overcome my linguistical limitations and to learn how to speak/write more elegantly, eloquently, expressively, and poetically.

Then Joseph Tam, a friend of mine who is just crazy with his language skills, helped me sharpen my craft more. Being very forthright in his corrections and advice, he helped me improve in my journey of becoming a wordsmith.

9 years later, I am so indebted to these 2 individuals who helped me develop this craft. With each increasing year, I have realized more and more the importance of effective communication and how word-choice and word-usage is so important and influential in human affairs. Glad to have developed this craft.

3)Critical thinking with a Christian worldview. Ravi Zacharias opened the door to this.

Although I don't know Ravi Zacharias as a personal friend (I have only shook his hand twice, I think), he was the one who "opened the door" to the world and glory of Christian thinking. Before I encountered him, I never thought that thinking and learning could be fun. It was only after encountering him that I fell in love with loving God with my mind, critiquing things in society taken for granted, defending the Christian worldview intellectually, and just learning more about God and the world through a Christian lens. It was fascinating! It still is!

4)Putting a label on and developing the spiritual gift of "culturally relevant parable making". Jan Johnson helped me develop my theology of culturally relevant parable making as well as inspire me to grow in it.

Through her, I realized that Jesus was doing this all the time. He usually would not give culturally irrelevant analogies to illustrate spiritual truths. When I read the words (paraphrased) that Jesus could take any everyday object in your culture and tell you truths about the Kingdom of God through it, that just opened the door to putting a label on this gift and developing it. Although this gift is not explicitly mentioned in the several lists of spiritual gifts that Paul writes about in his epistles, since Jesus was doing this all the time, I think it is one. I now believe that, since Jesus would not give Korean analogies to Jewish audiences, or African analogies to roman audiences, if he were physically with us today, he would not (at least primarily) give Jewish or Greek analogies to our contemporary North American audiences.

I did think of culturally relevant analogies to express spiritually discovered truths before, but Jan Johnson helped me to put a label on it, gave me biblical basis for it, and inspired me to grow more in it.

5)Reading people. Irene Wong, my co-leader in East Asia.

Before, I wasn't that good in reading people. A lot of it was hit or miss. But God blessed me with a co-leader while being a missionary in East Asia who was naturally gifted in reading people. She showed me the importance of it, and gave me some starter tips of how to grow in it.

That inspired me to do my own research and practice more. I researched Paul Ekman as well as other psychologists who have devoted their entire working lives to studying body language and facial expressions. I have grown a lot in it due to this help.

And I am becoming more and more convinced of the value and premium of being able to read people well. I am significantly better than how I was doing before thanks to Irene and others.

6)Charismatic listening to the Holy Spirit. Colin (don't know his last name) and Francis Jean.

Since I grew up Baptist, I didn't know how to train myself to listen to specific verbal messages the Holy Spirit had to tell me. I mean, I did feel impressions from the Holy Spirit about some things before, like conviction of sin, desire for the Great Commission to be fulfilled in certain parts of the world, and general growth of intimacy felt with God. But I never was able to hear very specific verbal messages from the Holy Spirit about the present, the future, my classmates, my friends, myself, strangers etc.

Colin opened the door when he first prophesied on me in November 2010. Then I kept asking him for practical advice/wisdom in this area of the gift of prophecy. Then through a friend, Francis demonstrated more of it to me and gave me practical tips as well as a workbook that has helped herself a lot in this area. And this workbook has helped me a lot too!

Without these (and others) I wouldn't have grown in this trait!

There are just some of the areas I feel that God has blessed me to grow in that I am severely indebted to him for. Through others, God has equipped me in various areas to be better in any future ministry as well as just to become a better blessing to those I want to serve in Christ.

Thank you Lord.

A Surface Level Order vs. Deeper Level Order of Things

Which smile is the fake/artificial smile? Which smile is the genuine one? A year ago I would not have been able to tell you which one.

Although I knew before that not every smile that I saw was genuine, I did not know how to tell which smiles on the face were natural, effortless, and sincere. I mean, although I try not to give too many fake smiles, I do give them from time to time. When I do, I don't do it intentionally to deceive, but because some situations seem too awkward not to put a smile on your face (e.g. if you happen to be in a really sad mood and someone happens to really go out of their way to do you a favour and you don't smile back when you say thank you, it just seems rude). I reasoned that if I, a reasonably sane person (at least I like to think I am), sometimes gave fake smiles, chances are that most of the rest of the sane human population also sometimes did as well. I knew this in theory. However, although I knew that theoretically some of the smiles I saw on other people's faces throughout the day were fake smiles (perhaps around 50% give or take depending on what type of people I was hanging around), I just didn't really know how to skillfully differentiate which ones specifically were real or fake about a year ago.

The point is that although I knew that there was more than what met the eye on a "surface level order" of things (what was taken on people's faces at "face value" [pun intended]), I knew that there was a "deeper level order of things" that one could gain access to which enabled one to understand and detect truthful smiles from false smiles and differentiate truth vs. deceit in general in one's social environment.

Although I did not yet have first hand grasp of this "deeper level order" of the social world, I really did want to understand this "actual world behind the world" of social reality. I wanted to peek and see behind the curtain of voluntarily induced facial expressions and be enlightened to what was behind it. I was not satisfied with just knowing that theoretically there was a deeper order of things. I wanted to experientially grasp it so that I could have access to its liberating truth of what people are actually thinking/feeling in moments of social interaction.

So I did my homework. I studied facial expressions and emotions on an academic level (non of that pop psychology stuff, life's too short to risk one's life/knowledge on that stuff). I decided to study the academic work of one of the world's most influential thinkers according to Time Magazine. Paul Ekman. He has spent decades on studying the microexpressions on people. Long story short, this guy knows what he's talking about in his area. I studied his stuff, trained myself with his material, watched Lie to me which was a show based on Paul Ekman's professional research and read Dr. Ekman's academic commentary on it afterwards, and got considerably better in the skill of deception detection and the art of reading people. Although I am far from perfect and still make mistakes in my judgments at times, all in all, I am way better than I was before (I used to not be good at it).

This is what some of his stuff is like:





The point at what I'm trying to get at is that after all this research/study/training I am now somewhat privy to this "deeper order" of the social world, the "world behind the world" of my social environment. I am getting longer and longer glimpses of what is going on behind the curtain of voluntarily commanded facial expressions. For example, I can sometimes detect if someone is trying to hide his/her discomfort even though the content and tone of his/her words may seem like he/she is comfortable. I can sometimes detect if someone is starting to get angry even though the content and volume of his/her speaking may seem calm. And I can sometimes detect fake smiles.

Now there is a trade off here. I used to be for the most part oblivious to what was actually occurring on the deeper level order of things although I knew it theoretically existed. But since I didn't know what was actually going on in the world behind the world as I was interacting with people, in a sense I was relatively more blissful. In a way, the saying "ignorance is bliss" was kind of true to me in this respect. When I actually thought that people were okay when their unconscious body language and involuntary/uncontrollable/subtle facial reactions showed that they weren't, I was ignorant of their discomfort and hence blissful. When people said they weren't angry but their unconscious body language and a slight shift in their eyebrows and eyelids showed otherwise, I was ignorant of their hidden anger and hence blissful. When people gave fake smiles, I (sometimes) thought that they were really blissful, and hence seeing them blissful made me blissful.



Now, after entering into a deeper order of things in social reality, I can no longer return to the bliss I once had. Because I am becoming less and less ignorant of what's actually going on in the "world behind the world". The trade-off of bliss was the truth. And would I really want to go back? To return to my previous bliss at the price of being ignorant of the truth? I wouldn't. Although short-term bliss is good, truth is more wise in the long-run. Although it can be painful to know someone is faking happiness and positive feelings towards me, I would rather know that they are faking it rather than be ignorant of it. Also, if I can detect concealed discomfort, I can try to subtly offer comfort to those who are being troubled by hidden discomfort. If I can detect concealed anger, I can try to do what I can to be a peacemaker and help the angered person (and others) to calm down and maintain inner peace as well as interpersonal peace. If I detect fake smiles, I can try to see what's really wrong, and take appropriate action to try to really cheer the person up if it happens to be in my control.

I say all this because something extremely similar is happening in the spiritual realm of things right now for me.

Allow me to illustrate first with an analogy of what it feels like.

It feels like my level of analyzing a wooden checkered board that had moving pieces used to only have the depth (or lack thereof) of a checkers level of analysis. I used to see and be comfortably familiar with some pieces of the board moving 1 or 2 spaces diagonally. And seeing these pieces move 1 or 2 spaces diagonally made sense to me. That "fit" with my checkers' interpretive framework. Things stayed within my "box"/level of understanding of how things ought to move, how they could move, and why they could move.



However, after a while, it is as if I noticed some pieces of the board moving straight. Some pieces started to move sideways and backwards. Some pieces could move both sideways and diagonal. Some pieces that could only move forward and diagonal one space at a time but could turn into the pieces that could move anywhere sideways and diagonal. Some pieces could jump over other pieces and move in an "L" shaped direction. After noticing that things didn't always "fit" with my old checkers-paradigm of understanding the checkered board, I knew that theoretically a deeper order of things existed and that I needed to discover, unlock, and gain a first-hand grasp of how this deeper order of things worked to comprehensively understand what the heck was happening! The surface level order of checkers-analysis wasn't working anymore! My previous paradigm needed to descend to a deeper and more profound paradigm called the Chess interpretive framework.



The initial result? Things felt unfamiliar and odd, yet strangely coherent at the same time with strangely reliable explanatory power. Things started to weirdly make sense as paradoxical as that may sound. That was how it was initially. But this deeper level order of spiritual analysis has started to become second nature to my spiritual awareness now.

The book of Proverbs in the Bible talks a lot about the "simple" vs. "wise" (those who have understanding and insight). Now by "simple" I do not mean the opposite of complex. It is possible to be complex + shallow (complex without insight) and complex + deep (complex with insight [e.g. Romans 7-8]). It is also possible to be non-complex + shallow (non-complex without insight) and non-complex + deep (non-complex with insight [e.g. many of the parables of Jesus]). One can visualize a quadrant to separate the four categories. The point is, what is to be desired is wise insight (as the writer of Proverbs talks about in the first 4 chapters of Proverbs) . By "simple" here I mean the opposite of deep insight. By "simple" I mean the opposite of wisdom which is folly. This is the type of simpleness that we should avoid. In a way we are called to be simple. But in a way we aren't.


"How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?"
-Proverbs 1:22

"Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of understanding"
-Proverbs 9:6

"the woman Folly is loud; she is undisciplined and without knowledge"
-Proverbs 9:13

"A simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thought to his steps"
-Proverbs 14:15

"A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it"
-Proverbs 22:3


Before I engaged in my journey of spiritual formation, the Christianity I was part of was too simple. Simply true, but too simple nevertheless. It may have been appropriate for a Christian in his/her first year of walking with Christ. But after a while, I felt like this "surface level order" wasn't all there was. To quote a Matrix line, there seemed to be a "splinter in my mind" that I couldn't quite put my finger on, but sometimes mystically felt nevertheless.

Although the "elementary teachings" of Christ were a good foundation (Hebrews 6:1) such as:

-you are a sinner
-Christ died for your sins
-repent in your heart from the former way of life that ultimately leads to death
-have faith in Jesus for eternal life
-rely on God's grace daily to sanctify you

I wanted deeper solid food, not milk anymore (Hebrews 5:12-14).

If I were truly to "grow in knowledge and depth of insight" (Philippians 1:9), I could not just remind myself of these elementary truths without going any deeper. And I am not talking about the type of "going deeper" where I just engage in more academic/cerebral study of biblical studies (although that has it's place, it doesn't automatically lead to depth of insight. It can also result in complex + shallow just like the Pharisees). There is a difference between adding facts to one's brain and entering into deeper and deeper levels of insight. It is possible to quote a ton of scripture and remain at a shallow level of analysis.

I can't fully explain it, but it seems that the journey of spiritual formation (which emphasizes the wisdom of Jesus and how to live wisely just as how he lived wisely and avoid folly) has allowed me to plant my feet in a "deeper level order" of the spiritual realm. Although I knew that theoretically a deeper order existed, I did not have first-hand experiential awareness of it during the days that my feet were still planted on the surface level order of the "elementary truths" of the Christian life.

But by God's grace (a lot of it was by reading Dallas Willard stuff, grasping it in my mind, then slowly but gradually becoming aware of it on a hands-on basis) I have been gaining steady footing on this deeper order of spiritual reality as opposed to staying on the surface order of it. I have been getting longer glimpses of what goes on behind the "spiritual curtain of how things appear at first sight". And walking through this "spiritual reality behind the spiritual reality" has shed insightful truths to me that I have been both intellectually and experientially ignorant of before. Once again, the trade-off between ignorance + bliss vs. truth + sobering feelings has emerged, just like how this trade-off has emerged in my understanding of social reality.

It is really hard to articulate what this really feels like. Because, after all, it is spiritual stuff, and spiritual stuff is non-physical. The best I can use is analogies. I feel like Neo in The Matrix. He used to analyze reality through the physical world of the 5 senses before he got "converted". Then, he came to the light, was able to plant his foot into the deeper order of things, then operate from the "world behind the physical world" and from a first-hand experiential knowledge of this deeper order. For him, checkers turned into chess. He learned how to move the pieces on the checkered-board in ways he never understood before through understanding a chess-interpretive-framework.



I feel a little like 1:03-1:06 in this clip

I can give a couple concrete examples of what "seeing the deeper order under the surface order in the spiritual realm" is like.

1)When Christians struggle with doing the right thing even though they have the good intentions in their heart.

Let's say that on the "surface level" a Christian suddenly decides that he wants to not care about what others think about him, and be the kind of person who just isn't bothered by what other people's opinions of him are. Then he enters a social situation where someone humiliates him in front of others. He then finds him defending himself in front of others, explaining to others elaborate background information on his side of the story in order to make himself look good. Well, he just did what people who care a lot about what other people think did - defend himself. Why is this the case even though he had absolutely good intentions to only want to care about what God thinks? On the surface level order of things, this makes absolutely no sense.

However, when we descend into a deeper order analysis of the situation, we find that although this person knows that God wants him to only care about what God thinks and that he's actually really having the right intention to only care about what God thinks, his bodily responses are still stuck in their old habits of defending himself. His physical tongue literally is ready to cock back and fire like a gun as soon as he finds his reputation at risk of being sullied. This all takes place in his body which operates for the most part outside of his conscious control. It is like having the perfect intentions to want to learn how to type on a computer keyboard with all 10 fingers at once after one has only typed with 2 fingers previously for many years. Although the typing-learner genuinely desires to ingrain typing habits in all 10 of his fingers so that one day his muscle-memory is so solidified that he can type 100 words per minute, his fingers have many years of bad typing habits. Just like the fingers, the tongue literally has to be retrained with proper habits to change. Just like how one cannot shed one's native/mother-tongue accent when learning a foreign language just by "deciding to" in a one time decision of the mind, one cannot just all of a sudden get rid of years and years of stored up habitual responses of the body to defend oneself with one's tongue. Knowledge and intention are not enough. The problem is not an ignorance problem. The problem is a problem of training and discipline. Just like how if a professional athlete just "talks about winning", has the best intentions to win, but doesn't engage in any rigorous training at all, he is screwed on the court/field. The same goes with the person who has the intention to only care about what God thinks but doesn't engage in the rigorous/long-term training of the discipline of one's body to not care about what others think.

And it is not only the case that caring about what others think makes you defend yourself with your tongue. Defending yourself with your tongue makes you care more about what others think.

Without deliverance from this repetitive feedback loop, one will forever be enslaved by other people's opinions. Sure, if you're a genuine Christian, then God will forgive you for the sin of caring too much about what others think. But being delivered from the guilt of sin is different from being delivered from the power of sin. Although God will forgive us of all future guilt of sinfully living under the control of other people's opinions, seriously, who wants to continue to be enslaved by the power of what other people's opinions are? Sure, if you keep on eating expired and mouldy food, you might not die and the doctor will give you medicine, but who wants to experience the stomach pains of food poisoning and eat bitter medicine every few days for the rest of their lives if they can learn to simply avoid eating expired and moldy food?

2)When Christians struggle with temptation in one's mind.

Let's say on the surface level a Christian is constantly bombarded with temptations that enter his mind (e.g. thoughts of committing adultery). This Christian seems to be constantly tempted in his mind of whether or not to commit adultery. Sometimes his thoughts give in. Sometimes they don't. Either way though, he is in a constant struggle because these thoughts have a see-saw-effect in his mind frequently without any net progress over many years.

However, as we descend into a deeper level order of analysis into this Christian's life, one realizes that he was not understanding that there is an even deeper struggle that he should focus on in his mind. The struggle is not merely with what his heart's desires want during the moments of temptation. The struggle is with what his heart's desires want to want. This is the deeper interpretive framework which he has to address in order to get to the root of the issue. The struggle is ultimately whether he desires the desire to lust, or whether he desires the desire to not lust. During the time of temptation, he has to work on not wanting to want the evil that he wants now, and to want the good that he doesn't want now. As Dallas Willard said, he has to know that the way to tell when a temptation turns into a sin is when he starts to enjoy the temptation. He has to know that there is a difference between enjoying the fact that he enjoys lustful thoughts vs. being repulsed by the fact that he enjoys lustful thoughts. That is the deeper order of things in this spiritual situation.

If he fails to succeed on this deeper level, he will continually fall victim to the lie that he is being deprived of something good by not seizing the window of opportunity to sin when it is available. He will fail to realize that he doesn't only desire one thing, but multiple things on different dimensions of his being (e.g. to be a loving father to his children, to be a faithful husband, to be a joyfully selfless friend, to enjoy the pleasure of sex, to enjoy the romance between a man and a woman) and that if all these natural God-given desires of his orbit around the solar system of what he impulsively wants at any moment, sooner or later, all the planets will collide and cause the whole solar system to implode. He will fail to realize that only if the center of the solar system of all his desires is God's timing, plan, and design, then all the planets can orbit harmoniously in their proper places and contribute positively towards the Solar System's wellbeing. But during the moment of temptation, one part of him will desire the former solar system and another part of him will desire the latter solar system. If he is wise, he will want to want the latter. In short, if he continues to want to want the former, he will continue to believe that he is seriously "missing out on something if he chooses to not sin".

The goal for him should be to desire the desire for righteousness after realizing the vision of the "goodness of righteousness" (as Dallas Willard puts it) and that he is truly not "missing out" on anything by not sinning.





Examples such as these have not merely been "intellectually registered" in my mind. They have started to become the subconscious analysis of the "spiritual world behind the spiritual word" in both my spiritual journey as well as the subconscious analysis of the spiritual journey of my fellow brothers and sisters. Just like how the grammar of my mother tongue (I'll just say it's English to make things simpler) has been so subconsciously embedded in my understanding of language that I hardly think about how I think with it now, this deeper level order of analysis has started to become more of an automatic thing right now where I find myself thinking less and less about how I think with it now. It is starting to become effortlessly applied in how I experience Christian spirituality in my spiritual environment. It's "just there" a lot of the time.

I still recognize the trade off of the ignorance + bliss of the surface level order of spiritual perception vs. the truth + sobering feelings of the deeper level order of spiritual perception. But, would I trade the latter for the former? Never. Any day I'd take the latter over the former. For the former leads to very short-term happiness coupled with long-term confusion and disappointing struggle whereas the latter leads to healthiness, wholeness, and deep Joy in the long run.


"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding."
-Colossians 1:9

"My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."
-Colossians 2:2-3

A Tony Stark Attitude Towards Ephesians 6 Spiritual Armour

I've been on a looong journey. God's put big things on my heart. I want to accomplish great things for him. However, I forget that growing in his spiritual competence takes time, and it is a process that can't be rushed. Living in a fast-paced culture with a youthful heart that tends to get impatient, I struggle in the "waiting" times sometimes, where one grows gradually yet steadily in his grace and knowledge (2 Peter 3:18). I desire to be a strong and courageous warrior for Christ (Joshua 1:9). He has put this desire in my heart to fight in this spiritual war for him. I desire to be a mighty warrior for God. A quality warrior, who by God's power can take on multiples of myself. Just like David's mighty men in 2 Samuel 23. Josheb-Basshebeth (v.8) raised his spear against 800 men and killed 'em all. Abishai (v.18) raised his spear against 300 men and also killed 'em all. Benaiah son of Jehoiada (v.20) went against an Egyptian with only a club in his hand. And even though the Egyptian had a spear in his hand, he snatched the spear out of the Egyptian's hand and killed him with his own spear. Although in the New Covenant with the New Testament the people of God are not called to fight physically for him anymore, I want to be a mighty warrior for him in spiritual warfare. "Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle" -Psalm 144:1 However, I forget a lot of the times that this process of becoming a mighty warrior for God takes time. Change of the character does not happen in an instant as opposed to miraculous healings, prophetic words, visions, and miraculous powers of the Holy Spirit. At least it didn't happen to Peter. After he witnessed a ton of miracles with Jesus (including the awesome privilege of being with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration), he still denied him 3 times afterwards. And in his first letter, he writes in 1 Peter 1:7 that "[trials] have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour with Jesus Christ is revealed". This process, as Peter experienced, takes time, effort, learning, time and... just more...time as we can see in 2 Peter 1:5-7. I want this stuff. But I get restless, antsy and forget that it is a process that takes time. As Dallas Willard says in The Divine Conspiracy: "a major element in this training is experience in waiting for God to move, not leaping ahead and taking things into our own hands. Out of this waiting experience there comes a form of character that is priceless before God, a character that can be empowered to do as one chooses. This explains why James says that patience in trials will make us 'fully functional' (teleion), 'perfect' (James 1:4) Sometimes we must wait for God to do as we ask because the answer involves changes in other people, or even ourselves, and that kind of change always takes time. Sometimes, apparently, the changes in question involve conflicts going on in a spiritual realm lying entirely outside human affairs (Daniel 10:13). We always live in a larger context of activities we do not see. But whatever the exact cause, Jesus emphatically taught that we are to stay with our request. That is, quite simply, an aspect of all serious human relationships. We stay with an issue until it is resolved one way or another." But I am resolved to believe that this process of persevering in training is worth it. Not only worth the price, but, one may say, it is even a bargain. What one gets is worth a million times the price and time it costs. I am choosing to believe this by faith. Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, took time, effort, and psychological investment to build his iron man suits. All 3 of them. Was it worth all the cost of time and energy? Initially, he was kidnapped by terrorists, lost his comfort, and lived in really hard, tough conditions in that terrorist cave. He thought his life may have been over. Yet, we see that without this "unfortunate" event, he would have never been forced to build his first iron man suit. It took time, hard work, trial and error, yet after he was done sweating literally in that cave he finally came out of that trial a new man, with a new suit, and began his journey as Iron man. He got the first edition of his suit. That is priceless. I can relate. If I was never strained, perplexed, hard pressed, struck down, pushed as hard as I was in my 2 years in East Asia (2 Corinthians 4:8-9 style [I was never attacked so vividly/directly/manifestly by demons in my life up until then], although metaphorically), I probably would not be on the spiritual formation-style journey of growth, at least to the point where I am right now. The upgrades of my spiritual suit that I have right now would just be as unreal as a dream. I know that. If I stayed in comfortable Canada in typical "North American Christianity", my spiritual armour would still be at an elementary level, although still existent. But because my spirit was so stretched over in the East, I was forced to build up my spiritual armour or die spiritually. And by God's grace, I was built in a way I could not have been over here. I flew out of the East with a new set of spiritual armour (via spiritual formation), and fast forward to today, where I'm in the process of learning about the nature of spiritual armour in Ephesians 6, studying its essence, experimenting with how it actually works in different real-life situations, discovering cause-and-effect relationships with how to use it in the spiritual journey, sharpening its armour, upgrading its material to better quality and becoming a better warrior of God with it. The elements include what Paul talked about in Ephesians 6: -the belt of truth -breastplate of righteousness -feet fitted with the readiness of the Gospel of peace -shield of faith -helmet of salvation -sword of the spirit which is the Word of God -prayer in the Spirit There is a lot of trial and error in this journey of discovery, experimentation, and modifications to make a custom-designed spiritual armour-suit for myself. This is because the armour of God is custom-fit to each uniquely shaped individual differently. While all these elements in spiritual armour are the same substance from God, how they are fit, shaped, and "upgraded" into each life is unique. For example, the spiritual exercises I do to grow my faith in my life stage, idiosyncratic personality, social situation, job environment, daily task rhythms will be different from the next person. The same goes with building up my practical righteousness, peace, faith, etc. Also, I have noticed that these traits - [knowledge of] truth, righteous habits, inner peace, faith in God, perspective of salvation ("God with us wherever we go"), meditation on the Word of God, prayer in the Spirit - can be improved, and grown through grace, training, and experience. And the growth is very interesting and mysterious at the same time, because it is something supernatural (extra-natural that is non-physical) that is growing within us. That is what I mean by "upgrading spiritual armour" It has been quite the journey though, I have to say. Spending a lot of time in the "spiritual formation lab". Just like how Tony Stark used discoveries of science in the physical world to engineer more efficient and cutting-edge technology, I have been on a Christian-wisdom journey, studying wisdom from the Bible, wise people, and my own observations of life in the spiritual world which has basically been my "science of the spiritual world". "Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding" -Proverbs 4:7 Throughout the past few years, I have been on a journey of studying the wisdom ("spiritual science" of how the spiritual world works) from different camps/denominations/faith traditions of the Church throughout Church history. It has been astonishing/mind-blowing. I feel like a first-year/freshman studying life-sciences in a university realizing how little he knows about the science of the physical world. Just starting to delve into the spiritual science of all these different camps/denominations/faith traditions throughout the years of Church history has been overwhelmingly glorious and so vast beyond anything I thought of or imagined before! It truly will take more than a lifetime to learn it all (not to mention experimenting, internalizing, sharpening them, and modifying them to fit myself etc.). The attitude I have been having this whole time has been Tony Stark's attitude of research, study, planning, trial and error, then subsequent fixing to improve. Much like this trial and error with the Gospel of Peace: The word "technology" essentially means "tools". A tool is something that simply helps you accomplish your objectives. Therefore, "spiritual technology" is essentially "spiritual tools" that help you accomplish your objectives. And the objective in spiritual formation is none other than to become Christ-like. So by "spiritual technology", I mean any tools accessed through God-enabled-wisdom that helps one to become more Christlike. Studying the spiritual technology of philosophical apologists who intellectually defend the Christian faith such as Ravi Zacharias and C.S. Lewis has definitely tightened and fastened the belt of truth. Reading heroes of the holiness tradition who earnestly and hardcorely discipline themselves to cultivate automatic habits of "gut-reaction righteousness" such as Jeremy Taylor and John Wesley have upgraded my breastplate of righteousness. Reading some quietists/medieval mystics such as Madame Guyon and St. Teresa of Avila who teach one how to "center down one's being" into the inner stillness of Christ dwelling in one's heart have upgraded my battle shoes in the Gospel of peace. Reading how the great modern revivalists who expected great things for God and believed great things for God (e.g. massive societal-scale revivals) like Charles Finney and Leonard Ravenhill has upgraded my shield of faith. Reading from Christians who have practiced praying without ceasing and spending every moment in the presence of God such as Brother Lawrence and Frank Laubach has helped me upgrade my helmet of salvation in so that it helps to keep my perspective in every situation as one of perpetual union with God. Reading from medieval Catholics such as St. Ignatius of Loyola and even the modern Jan Johnson has helped me to meditate on the word of God more effectively and creatively with the imagination richly involved, hence making the sword of the Spirit more powerful in my journey. And finally, reading some charismatic stuff from modern day prophets such as Jack Deere and Graham Cooke have helped me to truly "pray [and begin to prophesy [a type of communication with God {which falls under the subset of prayer}] in the Spirit". To add to the spiritual science/spiritual technology, I have also recently got into dream interpretation, which has helped me, I think, understand the "devil's schemes" (Ephesians 6:11) more. This has been a spiritual technology that I have only begun to study and apply in the spiritual formation lab recently, but it has proved to be amazingly helpful in my walk, giving me insight about myself, the devil, and God in reference to where I am at in the journey, sort of like a spiritual GPS kind of spiritual technology. After a few years of building "suit #2", I feel like I have begun to achieve "lift-off" with the armour of God now: "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time." -1 Peter 5:6 Yea baby. So reflecting back, this journey has been well worth it. Although at times I do wish to rush things and I get impatient, I must remember that God values quality over quantity. Although at times every fiber in me just wants to "get out there" and start fighting, I feel that the season that I'm currently in requires me to patiently wait, not to rush things, and gradually yet steadily keep upgrading this armour of God. After all, 1 Iron man could take on 10,000 enemy soldiers. But it took time for Tony Stark to build the suit. And the cost was well worth it. The wait was well worth it too. I hope to do this one day. Hallelujah for the promise of James 1:4! To switch superhero analogies, it's easy to put on weak armour that took no investment of time, effort, failure, and applied-research in advanced technology to try to fight the bad guys. But we see here that there's a big difference between someone who has spent the time to build good quality armour, and someone who just put on some hockey pads.

a very touching video

http://vimeo.com/26871884

I didn't get a chance to go to the wedding myself, because I don't really know the bride & groom. I knew of their existence, but I don't think they knew me haha. But anyways, if I could have chosen to either go to their wedding or Will & Kate's wedding a few months ago, I sooo would have chosen this one!

One of the most touching (in a unique way) videos I've seen in a while.

How would Jesus wield the sword of the Spirit?

Ephesians 6:17 tell us to engage in spiritual combat with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. What I think is assumed in this passage from Paul though, is that the sword of the Spirit is a weapon, and that weapons don't fight the enemy themselves. It is the soldier who has to learn how to wield the weapon in order to make use of it to attack the enemy. A gun won't fire by itself unless someone pulls the trigger. A cannon won't shoot unless someone lights it up. And contrary to Kim Jon Il, bombs on the North Korean/South Korea don't just "go off" themselves.

The same can be said of the sword of the Spirit. Merely possessing it will not defeat the enemy. Merely holding it in front of you between you and the enemy will not defeat the enemy. One has to learn, experientially grasping first hand, how to wield it like Zorro (or Cloud from FF7).



Then it will be of significant supernatural help in supernatural warfare.

I would like to share 2 principles of "wielding the sword of the Spirit" based on my own experience and research.



Principle #1: The never-changing content of the Word of God must be continually contextualized in a manner that is relevant to some aspect of the Christian's first-person experience, even if it is the Christian's vicarious first-person experience at best.



When we look at how Jesus wielded the sword of the Spirit, we see that he exercised principle #1 all the time. He never used culturally irrelevant analogies to his audience. He always adapted the content of the word of God with some aspect of his audience's first-person/everyday experience. In his Matthew 6:25-34 exhortation to not worry about the things of life, he used fitting farming analogies to an agrarian society (e.g. mention of birds feeding, barns, grass growing in the field and regularly being disposed of and thrown into a fire. Jesus used these culturally relevant examples to strike a dynamic chord with his audience, because he knew that making references to things of his audience's everyday/mundane environment would deeply resonate with their heart on a level that overflows to the intricate implications of their everyday life. Using mere emotion to passionately preach abstract doctrines were not the primary methods of wielding the word of God that Jesus used (although Jesus did believe objectively true abstract doctrines). Jesus was known for his culturally relevant parables that were custom-tailored to various ears of various audiences.

We should not only teach the same content of what Jesus taught. We should teach it in the same manner/style which he taught. That means avoiding culturally irrelevant analogies to recipients of the word, or just mere abstract doctrines without any references to people's first-person experience (as important as solid/sound doctrines are in themselves, they don't enable one to wield the sword of God in combat in any way that's of use [e.g. if one is being tempted to hate someone, be impatient, lust, be greedy, or covet, merely reminding oneself of abstractly true doctrines is pretty useless]). We should be able to adapt non-changing Kingdom of God principles to ever-changing environments/contexts in a way that is natural, smooth, non-forced, and fitting. It is my opinion that Jesus didn't rehearse his sermons in advance every time when he gave people spontaneous exhortations about the word of God. I think that he so deeply internalized the principles of the word of God and that he was so well versed in it that he could easily take any random object in his sight and say profound kingdom principles with them. That is, in his day, he easily took random everyday objects in his environment and expounded about profound spiritual realities by casually referring to them. Some of these include:


-fishing nets
-olive oil for virgins at a wedding
-mustard seeds, vines, branches
-wineskins
-bread/leavening


I am 99% sure that if Jesus were physically living in the 21st Century West, he would not use those culturally irrelevant analogies to us if he were on our modern day universities, urbanized shopping malls, downtown festivals etc. He might choose random cultural objects or symbols in our environment such as:


-ipods, iphones, ipads
-the subway
-facebook
-the current economic crises
-hollywood movies


He would use these to tell us profound spiritual truths about the nature of the Kingdom of God.

I think we should aim to do the same if we are to wield the sword of the Spirit just like our master swordsman Jesus did.

So to recap on principle#1 of divine sword wielding, we should aim to conceptually embody non-changing spiritual principles of the Kingdom of God in ever-changing culturally relevant symbols with constant relevant contextualization.

Here is where Shanghai noon illustrates this well.

The rope dart is a cool ancient Chinese weapon of warfare. Ideally, the warrior should personally master and internalize the principles of how to use it.



Jackie Chan's character in Shanghai noon has personally mastered and internalized the principles of how to use the rope dart (a piece of metal tied to a rope) in combat. He possesses the skill, or the skill possesses him to such an extent that he can look around in his foreign environment, find culturally similar tools (in this case a horseshoe and a cowboy rope) and use them for the same function of a rope dart in order to combat his enemies. In this sense, we can see that he is like Jesus.

(watch from 7:50-end)



Let us look at an example of principle #1 for the modern western Christian in action when he is faced in spiritual warfare with a lie/illusion of the enemy (for the enemy always speaks in lies) and uses culturally relevant parables that adequately embody Kingdom principles in order to combat the enemy. Let's say he is engaged in ministry, and things go haywire, chaotic, and seem to go down the drain. People are walking away from the faith, there is church politics/disunity, loyal disciples are really struggling in their walks, and no new people are being added into God's Kingdom. It is easy for him to get discouraged with lies from the enemy such as "God's ways don't seem to work, God's laws aren't true, God's promises aren't reliable". He can then take the culturally relevant analogy of Western magicians performing magic to audiences to "meditate" on the word of God in his situation. He can take the parallel of a magician "seeming to defy the law of gravity, but only using illusions to fool the minds of the audience" and match that up with Satan being an evil magician that does tricks to make things "seem to defy God's laws/ways/promises and get away with it but only using spiritual illusions to fool the minds of the Christian". The Christian can then further meditate on this culturally relevant parable of the Kingdom of God and know that just as how scientific laws (such as the law of gravity) don't stop being true if a magician temporarily fools the audience through tricks and sleights of hand, Satan the master liar/spiritual trickster cannot annul/negate/defy the spiritual laws, ways, and promises of God and his Kingdom even if he temporarily fools Christians with his spiritual tricks and slights of hand that they "seem like they can be violated without consequence".


"He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."
-John 8:44



I would find that the above example in combating the lies of the enemy in spiritual warfare is far more effective than merely reminding oneself abstract theological doctrines (e.g. "God is always right and good while Satan is always wrong and bad") as true as those abstract theological doctrines are.

Even if culturally relevant examples from one's first-person experience cannot be related to Kingdom principles to construct a contemporary parable, one can still accomplish a similar effect by drawing parallels with one's vicarious experience, that is, mainly through stories and movies that one has read or watched.

For example, there is a difference between merely reminding oneself of the abstract theological doctrine that "the spiritual armour of God in Ephesians 6 helps us to fight the forces of spiritual darkness" and meditating on G.I. Joe body suits that enable a soldier to jump higher, run faster, dodge weapons, and take/withstand hits better than the soldier can without it.



The same goes with spiritual armour, where we can accomplish so much more being equipped with it than what we can on our own without it.



Principle #2: The words of Scripture need to come alive, leap off of the pages of the Bible, and with fresh and invigorating dynamic become organically spoken to us through a live voice from lips of the living, breathing personhood of the Divine Author.



There is a world of a difference between reading the words of a letter that a person has written in the past to you, and that living/breathing person himself/herself speaking those exact same words to you in a live conversation that is currently taking place.

I can illustrate this with an example with my girlfriend.

(By the way, the cliche is true, I am learning so much about my relationship with God through my relationship with my girlfriend it is insane. My understanding of how I relate to God has broadened and expanded a lot due to drawing parallels between my relationship with my wonderful, beautiful, irreplaceable, sweet, and godly girlfriend =P)

Sometimes I get insecure about my relationship with my wonderful, beautiful, irreplaceable, sweet, and godly girlfriend, where I feel that there are so many other guys out there who can offer her stuff that I can't offer. I can't promise her an economically stable, financially comfortable lifestyle due to a secured and well-paid job that I don't have. I can't promise her spiritual, physical, emotional safety if she remains with me due to receiving future attacks from the enemy in labouring for city-wide revival in Toronto. She'll probably get attacked more because she's most important to me and the devil will try to take me down by taking her down. So I get insecure sometimes when I overthink things, all the "what ifs", like all the other guys out there who can (at least in human estimation) offer her an economically stable, financially comfortable lifestyle, with relative safety and comfort and minimal risk. When I think about this, as well as the added cultural pressure to "get a good job" (in asian standards), I sometimes get insecure, thinking that she'll leave me someday, or that even if she does stay with me, she'd rather be with someone else who can better offer her those materialistic benefits in our materialistic society.

So, what I do a lot of the time to "combat" this is that I try to remind myself of the times where she has genuinely affirmed to me that:


-she won't pin my identity down to whatever job I have
-that she doesn't care about materialistic comfort/luxury, "success" in worldly standards
-that she'll support me and believe in me, and respect me no matter what job God ends up giving to me
-it doesn't matter what other people think, she'll still care for me and look upon me with positive regard


Replaying these words in my mind that she has repeatedly told me in the past helps a little bit. But they are still words spoken in the past, that have lost their aroma of "freshly heard words in a live conversation".

But, when we meet up again, and she looks me in the eye and tells me the exact same words that reassure me, there is something different that happens within me compared to me just merely reminding myself of the same reassuring words that have been genuinely spoken to me in the past. There is a dynamic freshness to her words spoken currently that have this feel of aliveness to them that cuts off any lies that are "picnicking" in my mind. Those freshly words spoken live just slices all these lies in my mind like a sword splitting a kitchen cloth.

This first-person experience of this process helps me understand a bit more of the nature of Hebrews 4:12.


"For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."


To be completely honest, I thought that a lot of this verse that was oftly quoted in Christian circles was mere rhetoric. I thought that the author of Hebrews probably meant what he said, but tried to "Obama-ly" size things up like a western politician. Now, with the deeper understanding gained from the aforementioned experience with my girlfriend, I have come more and more to realize that the writer of Hebrews was not just using flamboyant rhetoric to describe the awesomeness of the word of God. He was speaking for real, and probably from his first-hand experience of the word of God coming alive off of the pages of Scripture, and slicing the lies of the enemy with that aura of freshly spoken words from a living, breathing, and consciously personal Author "looking him in the eye" and powerfully speaking to him his words in a live conversation.

There is a "catch" to this principle #2 though. It is not something we can completely control (just like how we can't completely control the timing and content of words that our friends speak to us in a live conversation with them). We can only create the conditions/opportunities, and the rest is out of our hands and in the hands of the friends that we're talking to. So with respect to our relationship with God, it is up to him when he does this, and sometimes he remains temporarily silent for our growth. But when God does show up and speak those live words to us, the rest is history. Attacks of fear, doubt, discouragement, anxiety just get thoroughly and definitively sliced by the double-edged sword coming out of the mouth of Jesus (Revelation 1:16)

To be honest, the words of the Bible can seem "wooden" and non-dynamic at times. Although they are always true, they don't always seem to have that "alive vigour/aura" in and of themselves. However, the Holy Spirit can give living breath to those seemingly "wooden words" and bring them to life when he speaks them to us in a current/live conversation we have with him.



Since the Holy Spirit is a live, conscious person, he can take the seemingly "wooden" words that we meditate on in the "cupboard" of our minds, and turn them into dynamic, living, moving, and breathing words. Just like how the indian in the cupboard turned from a wooden/static figure into a live indian at the turn of the cupboard's key. The Holy Spirit is the key to turning the words of Scripture into supernaturally alive words.





In my own life recently, I have been experiencing some rough "spiritual deserts", where the lies of Satan were just harassing me and assaulting me like there was no tomorrow. However, a friend of mine, directly prompted by the Holy Spirit to share specific biblical passages with me, shared some passages with me and the effect was dynamically supernatural. Throughout different weeks, she gave me different verses of Scripture and each time, it had the effect of turning the loving words of God that were genuinely spoken yet seemingly "wooden" to me into "live words" in a "live conversation" with a living God.

The Holy Spirit prompted her to share to me on different weeks:
-Zechariah 4:6
-Joshua 1:7-9
-Psalm 37:23
-Isaiah 40:28-31

I know this friend of mine wasn't just sharing randomly picked passages and glibly saying that they were "from the Lord". I know that it had to be the Holy Spirit speaking through her to speak to me live because immedately, there was spiritual intuition that resonated with my spirit when these words were spoken to me (the effect was on a spiritual level as opposed to an "intellectual click" on the intellectual level or mere "emotional fuzziness" on the emotional level [hard to explain unless one has experienced the distinction first-hand]). I immediately knew, without any outside help, how these verses were so relevant to my life specifically. These verses also were consistent with other charismatic prophecies spoken into my life independently. To my knowledge, these people speaking specifically consistent things in my life don't know each other. That's confirmation. Unless they're all in some conspiracy of tapping into my phones/emails. But I trust in a supernatural God. And I believe in that charismatic stuff

Let us wield the sword of the Spirit well in this supernatural spiritual warfare. For our spiritual life and vitality depends on it.

Knowledge of the outer world can contribute to change of one's inner world

13 Furious with rage, Nebuchadnezzar summoned Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king, 14 and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? 15 Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?”

16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us[c] from Your Majesty’s hand. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

19 Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual 20 and commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace. 21 So these men, wearing their robes, trousers, turbans and other clothes, were bound and thrown into the blazing furnace. 22 The king’s command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, 23 and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace.

24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”

They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”

25 He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

26 Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!”

So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire, 27 and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them.

Daniel 3:13-27






I used to think that mere knowledge itself could not change (or at least contribute to the change of) one's character. I used to think that people with "puffed up heads" full of head knowledge were useless in terms of helping themselves change how they instinctively react to pressing and stressful situations in life. Now I am modifying my view. I still do think that knowledge about specific facts (Bible verses, the latest news from the press, the stock market's latest values) doesn't change how one reacts to stressful circumstances in life with strong/virtuous/moral character. However, I think, knowledge about the nature of reality in and of itself at the grand/worldview level can potentially contribute to the change of one's inner character, and how it reacts to pressing predicaments and impending disasters on one's life.

Let's take an everyday illustration. Let's say that you're a bank teller and one day a couple robbers point a couple guns at you and tell you to open up the bank safe and give them all the money. If you had knowledge that their guns were real, then your inner character (with all things being equal) would cooperate with them under a real threat (with the fear of death lingering over you every single moment of the hold up). You would probably act without courage, be timid, and not dare to defy to do what those bankers told you to do.

Now let's imagine a modified scenario. Except that this time, when the 2 robbers each point a gun at you, you just know that although they look real, they are just toy-water-guns that they bought at the dollar store across the street (because you recognize them as you pass by everyday) although a quick cursory glance at them would convince the average person the guns were more or less real. The difference this time would be that you had knowledge that these were toy water guns that these 2 robbers were using to try to rob your bank with. What would you do if you were absolutely sure you had this knowledge (coupled with faith based on knowledge)? You would probably calmly call the cops, ignore their threats as if they're speaking a foreign language while saying them, be courageous, peaceful, and wait for the cops to come while the robbers continue to bluff-threat you (if they choose to stay).

What would the difference be in these 2 situations? Knowledge of the outside world. And that knowledge would affect the inner character of the person being threatened to do something against his/her will.

One of the recurring themes of the Bible is the fact that all of reality is under God's control, and that nothing happens without him allowing it, ultimately for his good purposes. This is not to say that there's no suffering, hardships, difficulties, trials etc. Those are all real. But the threats from the enemy (e.g. that followers of Christ are "missing out" on the pleasant sin they are rejecting, or if they do not submit to their knowledge of God's reality and are therefore "forced" to compromise and go against their knowledge of God's reality because unfortunate circumstances have made it "necessary" to do so) are ultimately bluffs with toy-water-gun pistols. This is not to say that there is an element of truth in persecutions (e.g. you'll lose your job, friends, reputation, and even life). The lie is not necessarily in these things we might realistically lose in the trials and tribulations of following Christ. But the lie is denying the fact that even if we were to lose our job, friends, reputation, and even life due to following Christ, ultimately we are not being deprived of anything good and all will work out in the end for God's glory and our joy, and that God will ultimately "have our backs" in terms of our eternal destiny. That's the lie. Knowledge of God's reality and his greatness and goodness throughout every situation in life not only helps change our our mind, it helps change our character too.

I do recognize there are qualifications for this. It has to be experiential knowledge and not just abstract knowledge without personal interaction with the facts. For example, if one has studied scientific research on parachuting for decades but has never parachuted out of a plane before, that "knowledge" is still abstract and one will probably be scared out of one's wits when one jumps out of a plane with a parachute the first time. But after one has jumped out of a plane with a parachute hundreds of times, that experiential knowledge of scientific reality will change one's inner character as well as spontaneous reactions after one immediately steps outside of a plane with a parachute. Also, in the spiritual life, one also has to train one's physical body and social relationships through spiritual disciplines too. All that to say that inner change has to be holistic with different dimensions of our being. With that being said, interactive/experiential knowledge of God's reality of the "outside world" can definitely contribute to change in the "inner world".

I believe that one of the reasons why Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had such strong and courageous character in the midst of life threats from the most politically powerful person in their day (Nebuchadnezzar) was because they had experiential knowledge of God's reality and his pragmatic protection over his people. They weren't even afraid of death because they knew that even if God allowed them to die, it would not negatively affect their eternal destiny with God a bit.

I am far from where Daniel (in the lions den), Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are in terms of being completely calm in terms of life-threats, but I think God has been growing me in the past few months in terms of my faith (based on knowledge of facts) in the "matrix" of the Kingdom of God. To me, I am experientially growing in the knowledge that the physical reality of the 5 senses is not all there is to life. There are invisible realities and a spiritual realm that are always in action that are completely undetected by my 5 senses most of the time. And ultimately, I believe, the spiritual realm guides the physical, although they are interconnected with the result of the physical realm being able to affect the spiritual realm as well.

But I am also learning to change the way I perceive reality to the way God perceives reality. "Taking things in my own hands" to secure the job, love life, economic stability, social life that I personally want and desire is starting to become more and more of a realized illusion in my mind (although not completely, I am not perfect). And threats from the enemy that "if I don't take these things into my own hands, I'll lose something good" are starting to more and more to appear as toy-water-guns as opposed to real pistols ready to kill my soul.

Knowledge of the "matrix" of the Kingdom of God that it is alive and in action whether or not I sense it at any given time contributes to the change of my inner character. The good news for me is that the "matrix" of the Kingdom of God will take care of me, so although I do my part, I know ultimately God will look out for me so I don't have to stressfully look after myself. The result is that my character is changed as this interactive/experiential knowledge is increased. The result of that is that my actions and behaviour are changed as a by-product

The type of art that one would die for

I had a conversation with a friend about a month or two ago. We were talking about the movie the Dark Knight at the time. We were talking about Heath Ledger's acting of the role "the Joker". My friend (who is into acting more than myself) said a really thought provoking comment. He said something along the lines of "[Heath Ledger] dying to play the acting role of the joker, now that's good/worthy art". The essence of what he said stuck with me. While I don't think that actors should die for their acting roles, the lingering comment in my head started to make some parallels in my spiritual life.

Christ calls us to "deny ourselves" and "lose our lives" to follow him (Luke 9:23-24). Now Jesus is clearly not telling his followers to commit suicide, or annihilate themselves. He is telling his followers (aka his "imitators") to die to their own selfish will and life for God's will, or in Dallas Willard's words, to "no longer live to get one's own way, but live for God's way".

Think about actors engaging in the art of acting. These professional actors who specialize in imitating characters of different roles are engaging in something that is more than mere behaviour modification. They really have to "become" the character from the inside in a way. The don't just enter the world of the character. You can say that the world of the character also enters them.

http://submittedforyourperusal.com/2008/03/01/did-the-joker-kill-heath-ledger

Notice the excerpts from the Rolling Stones obituary of Heath Ledger commenting on him "entering the role" of the Joker:

1. “He couldn’t seem to disengage; the inexactness bothered him.”
2. “Ledger had no formal training, and there’s this to be said for acting school: it teaches you to approach a role as foreign, as a language you’ll temporarily speak. Ledger didn’t appear to have that. He needed to dig for (and inhabit) the part of himself that was the character. ‘Performance comes from absolutely believing what you’re doing,’ he said. ‘You convince yourself, and believe in the story with all your heart.’ It didn’t always shut off when a production did, and I think it ground him.”
3. “As The Joker in next summer’s The Dark Knight, he will appear as a man severed from all connection. A ‘psychopathic, mass-murdering clown with zero empathy,’ is how he described it to the New York Times. On set, Michael Caine said the performance sometimes turned so frightening he forgot his own lines.”

I also heard that Heath Ledger locked himself up in a room for month(s) to really enter into the character to play his role as crisp, natural, and authentic as possible. One can say that he not only became the Joker. The Joker became him.

I am reminded by an excerpt from a book called "I told me so" by Gregg Elshof (a book primarily about self-deception). He is very insightful when he talks about us "imitating" Jesus:



Jesus was down on hypocrisy - he didn't seem to have much room for it at all. As followers of Jesus, we're called to live lives of authenticity and candor. At the same time, though, we're called to a lifestyle of imitation. We are imitators of Jesus.

Think about imitation.

When I imitate something or someone, I adopt patterns of being that are external to me, foreign, and unnatural. The presumption of the New Testament is that I do not presently have the character of Christ. Instead, I am twisted and broken. My present opportunity is to play at having the heart of Christ - to imitate him - in an attempt to cooperate with the Holy Spirit as Christ is realized in me. With the help of God's Spirit, I put off the old self, that which is authentically me at present, and put on the new self, that which is authentically Christ. Over time, that which was at first artificial, foreign, and unnatural takes root, and I am transformed. I begin by blessing those who curse me, even though everything in me is pushing a curse through my lips. I'm playing. I'm imitating the one for whom the blessing comes naturally. Over time, with the help of the Holy Spirit, that which was once forced and unnatural becomes the reflex response I begin by deciding to give when my heart is selfish. I'm playing. I'm imitating the one for whom generosity is instinctive. Over time, with the help of the Holy Spirit, that which was once opposed to my nature becomes natural for me - as it was and is for Jesus. We play at being Christ's followers in order to become his followers.

But this whole process of transformation through imitation is unavailable to the hyper-authentic. They will bless only when they feel a genuine desire for the well-being of the other. They will give only when they feel generous. Hyper-authenticity rules out the possibility of imitating anyone other than yourself - and so it rules out the possibility of cooperating with the Holy Spirit in your own spiritual re-formation by imitating the Master.

When I was in college, I picked up the guitar. I played for years without formal instruction before I finally decided to get some lessons. By that time I had settled into some pretty bad habits. At my first lesson, my teacher positioned my thumb differently on the back of the neck of the guitar. Suddenly, I was completely incapable of playing even the simple things I had played before. I felt awkward and unnatural. But the teacher assured me that if I stuck with it, I'd get used to it and, in time, this new position would free me to reach chords I could never have reached using my old method.

Insofar as I am not yet perfectly like Christ, the imitation of Christ will, at times, feel false, unnatural, and insincere. But if we trust the Master, we'll obey even when obedience isn't what comes naturally - even when obedience runs contrary to what we're feeling at the moment. This isn't hypocrisy; we don't act contrary to our impulses in an attempt to fake anybody out. We act contrary to our impulses because we wish to be re-trained. We wish to be something other than what we are today. We wish to be putting off the old self and putting on the new.

Imitation, then, can be perfectly authentic. It can be the outworking of an authentic intention to take on the heart and character of Christ. But imitation precludes hyper-authenticity. So if you want to be a student of Jesus, beware of hyper-authenticity.



I think us Jesus followers can learn a lot in a modified channeling of Heath Ledger's death due to his engagement (at least partially) with his assigned acting role as the Joker.

If secular actors can physically die due to turning into the characters that they wish to imitate through art, us Christians can and should spiritually die to ourselves in our pursuit the "art" of imitating Jesus and becoming like him.

I should imitate Jesus in the attitude of a professional actor so much to the extent that not only I enter the role of Jesus, but Jesus enters the role of me, and in some mysterious way, becomes me as I aspire to become like him.

Dostoevsky said something along the lines of "First art would imitate life. Then life would imitate art. Then life would find its very meaning for existence from the arts."

Oh Jesus, allow me to devote my entire life to "acting" and entering the role of a 21st Century North American incarnation of you as I try to imitate how you would literally walk, speak, sleep, eat, interact with others, serve others, and relate to the Father through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. So much to the extent that my old self is dead, remains dead, and the world sees you alive through my dead self.

Shanghai Noon illustrating new wineskins

"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins."
-Mark 2:21-22

There is a time when an old "system" of doing things has to go. There was a time when the old system of doing things had a relevant place, was an honourable and God-glorifying ritual, and brought people closer to God under specific conditions. However, times keep changing, and and therefore methods and means need to keep changing as well. The substance of Christianity ought to never change. But the the vehicle/methods/vessels/containers or "wineskins" must change from generation to generation. If we look across biblical history and extrabiblical church history, we will see the Holy Spirit always changing things up, finding new ways of doing things, all the while retaining the non-changing substance of the Kingdom of God.


I like how Shanghai Noon illustrates this. We can learn a lot from it.

In the parable of Shanghai Noon:

Being Chinese represents being Christian. An ongoing question in this parable is: What does it mean to be Chinese in the current generation? Is it only a matter of following preexisting rules, regulations, and rituals that were relevant for the last generation? Or is there more to being Chinese than only the cultural roots? While the cultural roots and traditions of the Chinese culture should be valued, commemorated, and respected, is being Chinese merely following these roots and traditions? What does it mean to be Chinese in contemporary times?

Similarly, what does it mean to be a genuine Christian in the current generation? Is it only a matter of following preexisting rules, regulations, and rituals that have previously blessed the previous generations of the Church? Or is there more to merely following the traditions and cultural roots of Christianity? While the cultural roots and traditions of the Christian culture should be valued, commemorated, and respected, is being Christian merely following these roots and traditions? What does it mean to be a Jesus follower in the 21st Century?

The traditional Chinese Imperial guards represent the previous generation of Christianity (20th century North American Christianity let's say). There is a rich culture and tradition of practices, values, and customs in it. It worked in a certain time and place, and many people benefited and were blessed by it.

Similarly there is a rich culture and heritage of previous generations of Christianity. There was a certain time and place for it and many people were blessed by it. Hence it is tempting to universally prescribe these relative cultural traditions to all future generations while confusing the substance (what does it mean to be Christian?) with the forms (how did previous generations live out the Christian life in their culture?)

The Princess (Lucy Liu) represents a daughter of the Emperor of the Universe (God), who has nevertheless strayed from the Kingdom of God although once walking in it. She has been disillusioned with the traditional North American 20th century Church. While it had a time and a place, and she previously was blessed by it, there was also hypocrisy, rigid rituals, inflexibility, and a lack of creative/dynamic/organic freshness in it. Therefore she has strayed from the Kingdom, because the "system" of outdated wineskins of Christianity has left her disillusioned. Lucy Liu wants to stay in the West, not because she hates China. She respects her cultural heritage and does not want to cut it off, but prefers to stay in the West and explore what it means to "be Chinese" in the West. (Because "being Chinese" is not a matter of where you live and what you do. It is a state of being that finds novel expressions in new settings. [e.g. CBCs and ABCs])

The bad guy Chinese guy in black represents Satan, who holds the wayward Children of God hostage. Certain children of the Emperor of the Universe have been wayward and strayed from the faith over the years and Satan has tried to take them prisoner again.

The gold represents Jesus' blood that has ransomed the wayward Child of God.

Owen Wilson represents "the neutral culture". There are some things that are neutral in the culture which have the potential to benefit the Kingdom. Some stuff in the West include individualism, free/creative expression, cultural diversity and tolerance of different traditions and viewpoints, Western music genres, democracy etc. These examples and more are neutral cultural characteristics of the West which should not be "shunned" by Christianity, but embraced openly with the potential to even enrich the Christian experience particular to one's time and place in the West.

The bad guy Cowboy represents the evil things in the culture. Some things in any culture are just plainly evil. In the West, this includes but is not limited to: adultery, "gang" murders, vanity, blatant narcisissm, lack of respect and submission to authorities, lack of respect to elders/the older generation etc. These things are plainly evil and should be shunned by Christianity. While we should love those who practice this stuff, we should avoid the practices ourselves.

Jackie Chan represents a genuine spiritual journeyer who, for a limited time, "stepped outside the system" of cultural Christianity. He has explored a foreign culture that has allowed him to understand his own cultural bias as well as strengths by temporarily getting an objective bird's eye view of it. He respects and cherishes his roots and heritage, but he does not think that his roots and heritage is "all" it means to live Chinesely/Christianly. Exposure to a foreign culture via Owen Wilson has helped him to do this. He discovers the deep "essence" of things. After stripping away all the extraneous cultural, geographical, temporal garb/fashion of what it means to be Chinese/Christian, he is on a journey to discovering what is the essence/core of what it means to be Chinese/Christian.



A couple comments on the clip:

1)When Jackie Chan tries to keep the princess in the West (because the princess herself desires to), he is confronted by one of the imperial guards reading the official "decree"/document of the Chinese culture. He has been so used to not questioning this traditional decree over the years and just unhesitatingly submitting to it because that's what he was taught. But then he has changed this time. This time, he realizes that being Chinese is not ultimately what that decree/document says. It is a state of being, open to new expressions in new cultures, environments, and generations. Therefore, although he doesn't disown/disinherit the decree, he is not controlled by it.

Satan: "Do you see? He will always be a slave."

Jackie Chan: "This is the West. Not the East. And the sun may rise where we come from. But here is where it sets."

In the same way, I see more and more of generation of Jackie Chans in the North American church who are really searching and are on a journey. What is the essence of Christianity? Surely it has to be more than just how our parents specifically expressed their Christianity in their time and their age. Christianity is more than the mere customs and rituals of going to Church on Sunday, doing inductive Bible Study, tithing, singing Western worship songs, going to Friday fellowship etc. What is the essence of Christianity? While I don't want to disrespect and disown my previous generation's roots, Christianity is a state of being, not ultimately a matter of doing things my mom and dad did.

The attitude of some (but not all) previous generations of North American Christians consciously (or subconsciously) believe that: "If a practice, belief, or way of thinking is not in the Bible, throw it out. it is unbiblical and has nothing to do with Christianity."

A lot of modern day Jackie Chans are learning not to be enslaved to the previously generation's way of thinking and doing things. Slowly rising up from the ground. Respectfully but firmly saying in response: "This is the 21st Century. Not the 20th. If a practice, belief, or way of thinking is not prohibited in the Bible, we remain open to it, for all truth, goodness, and beauty is God's truth, goodness, and beauty and can be used to glorify Him."


2)Both the Imperial Guards and Jackie Chan are ultimately on the same side. They ultimately have the same goals of "rescuing the princess" and ensuring her wellbeing. Although they have disagreements on the best way of what that looks like ultimately they are fighting for the same purpose and would sacrifice themselves for her. Immediately, this means saving her from Satan destroying her at all costs.


3)There is one part of the clip where one of the Imperial Guards fights Jackie Chan with "tools" that China has used for centuries. These include the spear, sword, and special nunchucks. In their disagreement of how to save the princess and ensure her wellbeing, they engage in battle with these tools. In the Christian world, these 3 tools of spear, sword, and nunchucks represent the biblical tools of "exegesis", "hermeneutics", and "application". The Imperial Guard tries to use these tools to defeat Jackie Chan's new beliefs and way of thinking. In the same way, the traditional Christian may use exegesis, hermeneutics, and application to try to defeat the new wineskin Christian, using the tools to conclude things such as:

-the Bible says that when we pray, we should be respectful. Therefore it should be formal
-the Bible lays out a model of Acts, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. We should always follow that model in prayer
-the Bible never talked about modern psychological concepts. Therefore there is no room for taking modern psychological concepts in prayer.

The modern day Jackie Chan will use the same tools of exegesis, hermeneutics, and application to defend himself and counter the attacks with ideas such as:

-the Bible says that we should be respectful, but being respectful does not mean being formal. One can be respectful and casual/informal at the same time. One can use slang/colloqialisms/and talk about "small things" with God the way a friend does while remaining respectful.
-the Bible lays out the ACTS model of prayer, but it does not prohibit any other methods and means of prayer. Therefore, if the Bible doesn't prohibit it, we have freedom to use it. Therefore, we can pray while implementing the various dimensions of our being including our physical body movements (i.e. "feeling God in our legs" when we walk), our sense of humour (i.e. sharing inside jokes with God), and our will in addition to just using our mind in the ACTS model.
-all truth is God's truth. Therefore if modern day psychological discoveries help us concentrate and focus on God better throughout the day, let us use it. One way to help oneself get into another person's imagination is to try to "imagine your consciousness" in the geographical location of another person's head since the body and the mind are connected, and how the state of one's mind is interconnected with one's physical environment and one's sensory information with the 5 senses in it. Therefore to imagine our own consciousness in the first-person consciousness of Jesus inside us helps us interact with him better. Also, using our imagination to "pray" with Jesus while taking into new accounts of psychological phenomena is effective. Therefore, sometimes I will creatively pretend that I have "divine multiple personality disorder" where sometimes it's my consciousness inside of myself, and where a few moments later, it's Jesus inside my consciousness, and it's a back and forth feedback loop because Christ does not call me to annihilate my personality, but doesn't cause me to worship myself as well. Therefore, since the Bible talks about "me being in Christ" and "Christ being in me" there is room for both, and creatively implementing the knowledge of modern day psychological discoveries can help me engage with Jesus through prayer.

4)The evil part of the culture saying "Nice to see we're all churchgoers".

LOL

the "Matrix" of the Kingdom of God

For the last month of my life, there has been a recurring theme repeatedly going on in my mind as to how life in the Kingdom of God relates to the nature of the Matrix movie.

One line always repeats itself in my mind. "Living from another world that has extraordinary effects on this one". This is a slightly modified phrase that I stole from one of Dallas Willard articles. It keeps going through my mind periodically as I go throughout my day. Whether this is from the Holy Spirit, my own mind, or a mixture of the both I do not know. I think that line clearly makes sense in a plain/simple no-nonsense reading of the New Testament. The early Apostles/Acts Church were really normal human beings that were living from another world that has extraordinary effects on this one. That is the only rational explanation for what the heck actually took place in the book of Acts.

Once again, I do feel like I need to give a reminder to those reading this that I am aware that the comparison between the Matrix and the Kingdom of God is not a completely flawless one (as with all analogies). There are flaws/shortcomings/incongruities with the Matrix and the Kingdom of God definitely, and some sketchy/New Age-ish implications that come from the Matrix too. Nevertheless, I believe that although the movie is over a decade old, it captures more of the essence/nature of the invisible Kingdom of God that we read about from the New Testament than mere technical propositions can. Technical propositions can only go so far to communicate the essence of something (e.g. a textbook definition of sacrificial love). It takes a narrative-like framework to more fully express the essence of a concept sometimes (e.g. a movie about sacrificial love).

(with certain qualifications) The Kingdom of God as outlined in the New Testament is so like the Matrix.



There are so many references to the Kingdom of God in the Gospels and Acts that I don't have room to refer to every single one here, but just a few. The topic that Jesus talked about most was about the Kingdom of God. Now what exactly is this Kingdom? I like Dallas Willard's interpretation, because it just makes so much sense when it is applied to the contexts in Scripture where the term is used. Dallas Willard says that it is the "range of God's effective will, where what God wants done is done". Because on earth right now, in a ton of places God's will is not done, and we ask for God's will to come into effect in more and more places, especially in our own hearts.


Now to the references:

Jesus said in John 18:36 that “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” From here, we know that his Kingdom right now is not in the physical realm where it is advanced through physical means (i.e. political/military force). The same goes with the Matrix and the "kingdom" that Morpheus, Neo, and Trinity are fighting to advance, they do not expand the "kingdom" of the Matrix ("unplug" people from the Matrix) through physical/political/military ends (although sometimes they do have specific missions for other purposes that encompass this stuff like the famous lobby scene), but by living from "another world" that has extraordinary effects on this one.

In Romans 14:17, Paul says that "the Kingdom is not of physical eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit". Those 3 things in the Holy Spirit are non-physical/invisible, yet real things. You can't describe the colour, weight, location, height, width or any physical characteristics of righteousness, peace, and joy, although they can have physiological effects on the physical body. The same with the Matrix. One cannot say to Neo "Hey Neo, where is the Matrix?". Neo cannot "show" the Matrix to the person to experience only with his/her five senses while he/she remains in the physical world. In Luke 17:20-21, Jesus says "The Kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you." The same goes with Neo.

I believe that at certain times in the New Testament when the term "the Kingdom of God" is used, sometimes it is referring to something in the future. But sometimes it is referring to the present moment. Like right now. One piece of biblical evidence (on top of the entire book of Acts) is Acts 14:22 when Paul and Barnabas said to the churches in Lystra, Iconium and Antioch that “We must go through many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God." Clearly Paul and Barnabas are not saying we have to suffer in order to attain salvation in the next life. That would clearly go against the "justified by grace alone" theme that Paul writes about all over the place in his Epistles. But I believe that what Paul and Barnabas said here only makes sense if the Kingdom of God here is understood as "actively being involved in fulfilling God's story on earth right now and being a part of what he's presently doing now on earth while being in interactive relationship with him." If that definition is inserted into the phrase "enter the Kingdom of God" in Acts 14:22, then it makes sense, because it is something that we enter into and are a actively a part of now. The same thing goes with Neo. After Neo "converts", he is actively involved in the expansion of "Zion" through the Matrix.

In 1 Corinthians 4:20, Paul says "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power". Power can be defined as the ability to produce the effects what you want to effect, effectively. The Kingdom of God is not escapism where one escapes into another reality that is remotely unattached and unrelated to "normal" everyday life. It is a matter of living from another world that POWERFULLY produces extraordinary effects in the "normal" everyday world as evidenced in the Gospels and the book of Acts. Similarly, Neo did not just enter a form of escapism where he stops living in the "normal" everyday life. On the contrary, he entered a reality that had powerful effects on the "everyday" one.


1 Corinthians 2:6-14 says:

We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit


If Morpheus tried to explain this to another person who has never experienced the Matrix before, it would sound like utter folly. It would sound ridiculous. It would sound retarded. Until the person experienced it him/herself. After Neo got thoroughly/holistically/irreversibly converted he was able to understand not the "wisdom of the world" or of physical reality, but he was able to understand the "secret"/"hidden" wisdom of the Kingdom of God, that tells us that we were previously of "the world" aka "The Kingdom of darkness", but then we were delivered from it (Ephesians 2:1-5, Colossians 1:13). The same goes when the student of Jesus tries to communicate spiritual truths to someone who has never stepped into the Kingdom. It sounds absolutely ridiculous. But for that student of Jesus to try to communicate spiritual truths for someone who has just thoroughly/holistically/irreversibly experienced the "new birth" (truly being born-again) it is true/priceless/treasured wisdom.


I think these parallels are extremely important for us modern day Protestants to understand. I cannot stress this enough. How far we have strayed from norm of New Testament Christian experience is very saddening to one who has started to actually experience the Matrix of the Kingdom of God. I see it like this. Imagine Neo, after experiencing the Matrix himself, writes letters to his children, so that his children can one day pass them down to their children and so on. So he writes letters describing the Matrix, it's nature, how to navigate through it, what to expect from it, how to train oneself to cosntantly remain in it, "agents" to watch out for and how to deal with them, how to live from it in order to have extraordinary effects in the physical world etc. Then, imagine several generations later, Neo's grandchildren's grandchildren read these letters and try to imitate Neo and experience the kind of life Neo experienced, but just imitate the surface by-products/physical effects of Neo's typical life in the Matrix with a monkey-see-monkey-do sort of legalistic carbon copy of his descriptions accompanied by merely "parotting" his sayings all the while never learning to really live from this invisible, yet parallel reality. But they are very technical in their understanding of the Matrix, debate amongst one another about the small technicalities in his letters, and feel guilty about not being able to live the life that Neo was able to live. They remain living in and from the physical world and try to produce the extraordinary effects they see without living from the parallel world, the Matrix. But they keep studying these left-behind letters of Neo and build seminaries to understand its meaning better. Ladies and Gentlemen, that's kind of the picture we have today in the North American Church.

In order for someone to imitate Neo, he has to operate from the same alternate reality that Neo operated from. One cannot imitate Neo by putting the emphasis on trying to conform his external behaviour to Neo's external behaviour. One imitates Neo by living from the same alternate world that he lived in that has extraordinary effects on this one.

One does not dodge bullets from the enemy by trying to dodge bullets.



Although this guy's imitation of Neo is impressive to the public (it really is), if he tried that while terrorist was shooting bullets at him, he'd die in a moment.



One dodges bullets from the enemy by living from another world that has extraordinary effects on this one.


The same goes with the student of Jesus wanting to learn how to bless those who curse him, not fear man but fear God, or learn to not worry in all types of situations that are stressful for the nondisciple. These things can be learned by following Jesus. They are not just unrealistic expectations that Jesus tells us to do but where we constantly have to fail and ask for forgiveness after inevitably failing without improvement. By the grace of God they can be learned and Jesus expects us to learn them, master them, and teach others (in the Great Commission). Teaching people to do something is not just merely telling them WHAT they should do (e.g. a basketball coach teaching a basketball player how to master fadeaway shots by saying "just make them!") but teaching them exactly HOW they can master it (e.g. a basketball coach teaching a basketball player how to master fadeaway shots by "breaking his shot down" and going through each ineffective part of his shot with him and encouraging him). But we must remember that it is basically impossible to fulfill the commandments of Jesus if we remain in this physical world only. We must learn to live from another world that has extraordinary effects on this one in order to experience those effects. And that comes from learning from the "Morpheus"es that have experienced it themselves and who can likewise personally train those with less or no experience in it.

I am so grateful for my "Morpheus"es who have experienced the Matrix of the Kingdom of God first-hand and who have, after mastering things themselves, have taught me how to steadily master things in the Matrix myself. Dallas Willard, Jan Johnson, Richard Foster, and Frank Laubach have been my Morpheus"es, with the first and the last being the most helpful with my personality. Dallas Willard is truly like no other. You won't find too many people like him. He teaches you (with more practical help from Jan Johnson) how to live from all 5 dimensions of your being (thoughts, feelings, will, body, and social relationships) in the Kingdom of God, how to submit and grow in all these areas, and in turn, to produce visible effects in the physical world from the invisible Kingdom of God. The Matrix of the Kingdom of God is so awesome.

These Morpheuses have taught me how to practically remain in the world while not being of it, especially in a 21st century context (since advice would have to be modified somewhat to apply it to "the world" which takes different forms in different centuries [I'm sure Morpheus' tutorial to Neo would be somewhat different if Neo lived in China rather than America]). It is important to know how distractions can lure us right into the trap of the barrel of an agent's (demon's) gun.

As Dallas Willard writes in Renovation of the Heart about emotions:

"By contrast [to the person who is mastered by emotions/feelings], the person who happily lets God be God does have a place to stand in dealing with feelings - even in extreme cases such as despair over loved ones or excruciating pain or voluptuous pleasure. They have the resources to do what they don't want to do and to not do what they want. They know and deeply accept the fact that their feelings, of whatever kind, do not have to be fulfilled. They spend little time grieving over non-fulfillment. And with respect to feelings that are inherently injurious and wrong, their strategy is not one of resisting them in the moment of choice but of living in such a way that they do not have such feelings at all, or at least do not have them in a degree that makes it hard to decide against them when appropriate.

Those who let God be God get off the conveyor belt of emotion and desire when it first starts to move toward the buzz saw of sin. They do not wait until it is moving so fast they cannot get off of it. Their aim is not to avoid sin, but to avoid temptation - the inclination to sin. They plan their path accordingly."

Moving on, we continue with John 3:1-8:

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

In this scene, Neo experiences a "rebirth", but this is not a physical rebirth, just like how Jesus said that in order to enter the Kingdom of God you must be born of "water and spirit". When Neo falls into the water after he gets "unplugged", I think that signifies baptism somewhat. Speaking from my own experience of living from the Matrix of the Kingdom of God (It's been roughly 2 and a half years), the "rebirth" hasn't always been a pleasant/happy ride. There are times where it's rough. But then I am being transformed to the point where life doesn't necessarily always have to be pleasant/happy. I mean, it's the Matrix! The adventure of all the ups and downs of fighting for Zion vastly outweighs the comforts of an ignorant life of friends revolving around "central perk" (I have nothing against the show friends, although "central perk" here illustrates what "the world" is like in North America).

I also think the narrative-framework of the Matrix helps me understand Luke 9:23-24 better.

Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.

Before, I understood the content of what Jesus said, but not necessarily what he meant. It didn't really make sense to me and I couldn't comprehensively understand the heart of what he was getting at. But the movie the Matrix helped me understand it a bit more (and also experiencing it first-hand myself). Before Neo entered the Matrix, he was a computer programmer living a "normal" earthly existence. He had to give up that lifestyle and "deny it" in order to enter into the Matrix. If he were to "save" that "normal" lifestyle, he would never be able to experience a truly fulfilling/abundant life. Whereas if he gave up and "denied" that "normal" lifestyle in the physical world, he would be able to experience a truly fulfilling/abundant life.

Morpheus is not saying to Neo that "I'm going to be mean and won't let you into the Matrix unless you impress me by giving up your life 100% that would subjectively give me good feelings about you". He is basically describing the decision objectively. It's logically impossible to simultaneously fully live the life he lived before while fully living life in the Matrix at the same time. Morpheus is not being a jerk. He is just an intersection sign that shows two roads going in opposite directions that follow from it. One cannot be 50% "rebirthed" in the way that Neo experienced "rebirth" after taking the red pill. It's 0% or 100%. Jesus was not being a jerk too. He, like Morpheus, was just plainly laying out the options with their consequences.

Jesus always had the truth of God in his mind to interpret reality. The truths of the Kingdom of God were saturating his human mind 24-7. That's why he could always pick up a random everyday object in the middle-eastern culture that he was in and casually give illustrations about the Kingdom of God from them. Just like how if a young guy/girl likes another young guy/girl, whatever they see, they will somehow relate it to the target guy/girl that he/she likes. This is how Jesus was with the Kingdom. He constantly meditated on Scripture in his human mind. How was that like? I think it was like 1:03-1:06 of this youtube clip.

Metaphorically speaking that is. His interpretation of reality was always an interpretation using the paradigm of the invisible Kingdom of God upon the visible physical kingdom.

That enabled him to casually stop the attacks from the demons (agents), and even cause them to run away from him.

Oh yea, and he also resurrected from the dead just like how Neo did in the end of the movie. By the way, happy Easter everyone. The Good news of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God is not only the mere forgiveness of sins. Jesus coming to earth, dying on the cross, and resurrecting from the dead is good news because it allows us to get unplugged from the Matrix! The Good news is that we get unplugged from the Matrix not only after we die, but even right now in this present moment. As Dallas Willard said, "if you want to get into heaven, don't wait t'il you die, start now".

Living from another world that has extraordinary effects on this one. Thanks for helping me understand the Kingdom of God Wachowski Brothers (directors of the Matrix).