Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

Articles

our calling in life…

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“Every assignment that God gives His people is His primary means of sanctifying His leader.”

These are the words of Crawford Loritts that have encouraged me today.  In a sermon entitled The Call to Courage from the 2008 Desiring God Pastor’s Conference, Loritts digs out an amazing insight from Joshua 1:1-9 regarding the calling that God has given us and how God uses it to sanctify us.

Here it is:

“Every assignment that God gives His people is His primary means of sanctifying His leader…some of us are getting burnt out because we are separating the sanctification process from our ministry. I understand boundaries, rest, variety in life, etc…

…but the very thing that God is using to draw you to Himself is the calling that He has given you.”

Wow.

The primary calling that God has given me is to love God and love others.  More specifically, he is calling me to do that through pastoral ministry.  Getting even more specific, God has given me a desire to minister to those who are intercultural (those people who are attempting to balance their different cultural backgrounds and upbringings).  And to really hone in on exactly what God is calling me to do – he has given me a calling to minister to 2nd generation Asians (those born and raised in a country that their parents immigrated to) and to those who minister to 2nd gen Asians.

Perhaps that is why I am so energized and have such a renewed sense of calling upon coming back from ministering to 2nd gens in Korea?

conversation with a Korean taxi driver

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Sitting in an airport just outside of Seoul, South Korea, I can’t help but reflect on the conversation I just had with the cab driver who drove me to the airport.

I was initially going to take the bus to the airport, but as I was waiting, a taxi driver approached me and asked if I wanted a ride to the airport.  I was initially hesitant, but he seemed like a nice guy and he said he would only charge me the cost of the airport bus fare – 15000 won, so I went with him.

Entering the car, I began a conversation with him that began with why I was in Korea in the first place and progresed to faith issues and how cab drivers are paid in Korea.

The most interesting part of the conversation was when we talked about matters of faith.  He seemed to view faith very much as a crutch that help people live their lives.  He was commenting on the way that he came from a Buddhist family and that he just couldn’t understand why one of his sisters was such a strong Christian.  To him, everyone needs faith in something in order to get through this difficult life. 

Difficult?

When he mentioned the word difficult, I sensed that perhaps he saw Christianity as something that only gives hope to the poor.

Hoping to enter into a deeper faith conversation, I proceeded to ask him why rich people are also Christian.  His answer was basically that rich people’s prayers are different than the prayers of people   “like us.”  “We pray for daily life, making enough money so that we can eat, etc, while rich people probably pray for other issues..” 

I was hoping to comment on his faith and the way that he expresed himself to be a nominal Catholic who just goes to church to feel better in hopes that it would help his life…however, I didn’t sense that it was necessarily my place to tell him that.  Neither did I sense that it was right for me to say it (for cultural and spirtual reasons).  What I did do was love him by listening to him, encourage him as a human being, and silently pray for him that he would enter into a deeper and true relationship with Christ.

Does that mean that I never confront strangers on faith issues?  If God leads me to do that, then I will.  However, aren’t there enough people that breathe criticism and hate towards others who don’t believe in the exact same way that they do?  Wasn’t it enough that he knew I was a pastor and that I showed love and care for him?

True and lasting life transformation comes through relationships…not criticism.

I know that it wasn’t a mistake that I met him, and I pray that he does eventually realize that Christianity is not a crutch nor a religion…

Christianity is a way of life.

Remorse after murder…

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“I have to stay on this bus forever.”
and
“Please kill me.”

These are the two statements coming out of the mouth of Vince Weiguang Li, the man who murdered Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus last week.

Since his arrest he has yet to speak to his court-appointed attorney and the prosecutors.

Here is a bit more information about him, (from a CNN report – this link contains a picture of Li)

A church pastor, Tom Castor, who helped hire Li soon after he immigrated in 2004 with his wife, Anna, said the man never showed any sign of anger or emotional problems when he worked there as a custodian.

Church officials said they vetted Li by contacting references listed on his application and running a criminal record check.

I wonder, what happened to him? What was going on through his mind, soul, and body while he murdered a man he had never met before?

Is it a psychological issue? Is it a spiritual issue?

Is he mentally unstable? Is he demon-possessed?

These are the questions that I am asking myself as I continue to examine what happened.

What do you think?

bus murder…where was God?

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I just read the story about the horrific bus murder that occured on a Greyhound bus traveling from Winnipeg to Edmonton.

My heart is wrenching and at unrest.

I cannot simply process or begin to comprehend how someone could just stab, murder, decapitate, and carve up another human being, who he “seemingly” didn’t know.

[Read more…] about bus murder…where was God?

is Christianity like driving a car?

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Throughout my university years, I was heavily involved with Campus Crusade for Christ (in Canada, now known as Power to Change). I believed in the vision so heavily that I even wrote a paper on the founder, Bill Bright.

Now i’m not saying anything against the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC); after all, if it weren’t for CCC, I wouldn’t be able to articulate my faith as well as I do now, and I wouldn’t understand missions as well as I do now.

However, there is one aspect within the regular CCC teaching materials that I want to propose is off-the-mark.

[Read more…] about is Christianity like driving a car?

is money evil?

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“Money is the root of all evil” – we’ve all heard it before, but is it true?

We can’t live without money, but too much money can consume us and change us.

We think money can buy us and bring us everything that we want, but is it true? John D. Rockefeller after making millions of dollars admitted, “I have made millions, but they have brought me no happiness.”

Deep within us, all of us want to be loved – it’s a natural human craving. No one is born with an innate craving for money. Babies and children don’t even understand the concept of money! What we are born with is an innate craving for love and acceptance.

However, when our innate craving for love and acceptance isn’t met, especially as adolescents and adults, money enters the scene. Money is the love and acceptance of our culture. We use money to buy ourselves love. We use money to buy ourselves acceptance.

Therefore, perhaps the reason all of us want excess money is because deep down inside of us, we are all craving for love and acceptance.

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stanley cup baptism

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Upon winning the Stanley Cup, Detroit Red Wings’ Tomas Holmstrom decided to let his cousin use the Stanley Cup as a baptismal font to baptize his 7 week old daughter. Now that’s probably never been done before.

Growing up in a Korean Presbyterian Church, I was baptized as a child, and I was confirmed as a teenager. However, in the Evangelical tradition, they disagree with infant baptism because they believe baptism to be a symbol that one has made a confession of faith. As a result, since babies can’t make confessions of faith, infant baptisms are null. (My line of argument is more or less simplistic.)

This brings me to my current situation. I know that I am saved, and I have made a confession of faith through my confirmation. However, since I am currently attending a church that lines itself up with the Evangelical Tenets of Faith (as do I), is there a necessity to receive water baptism?

what exactly is sin?

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Sin – you’ve probably heard the word before, but what is your definition of it?

According to Oxford dictionary, sin is “an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law.”

If you go to Church, sin is typically defined as “disappointing God,” or “disobeying God,” or “breaking his rules.”

This is what Soren Kierkegaard in Sickness onto Death says,
“Sin is building your identity on anything but God.”

But what exactly does that mean? In short, we all have people, things, reputations, etc. that we feel like we need to have. For example, a certain job, a specific title, a specific type of girlfriend/boyfriend, etc.

We all have things that we feel like we need to have.

However what happens when we actually get those things? Timothy Keller says that “you’ll be[come] enslaved to it.” Furthermore, “when you actually get it, it won’t actually satisfy the hole in your heart, and if in anyway you fail it, it’ll curse you for the rest of your life.”

Consequently, rather than considering sin as breaking a set of rules, what if we began viewing sin in the same way Soren Kierkegaard does? “Sin is building your identity on anything but God.”

What would change?

Here’s another question – How do you view sin

blessings from God

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I just read an awesome and insightful entry by Pete Wilson, which you can check out here.

The following are my thoughts on a similar topic:

We are blessed. Having the technology, time, and money to access the internet and view this post means that you are blessed. I probably don’t even have to convince you regarding how much you are blessed. Just look at the clothes you’re wearing, the things in your house, the fact that you have a roof over your head, the people in your life, etc.

As a result, there are a few different types of people. There are those who don’t even consider themselves blessed, in comparison to others, and have this insatiable desire for more. These people don’t feel like they have enough as it is, and are always thinking about what else they could buy.

On the other hand, there are those who consider themselves blessed, but still want more regardless.

We hear and read about all the people in the world who are suffering. The fact that one child dies every five seconds from hunger related causes (that’s 16 000 children everyday). The fact that 12 million people have been orphaned by AIDS, across sub-Saharan Africa, by the end of 2005. The fact that 10.1 million children died before they reached their fifth birthday in 2005. And the fact that approximately 30 000 people go to bed hungry everyday.

Sure we read and hear about these facts, but is our heart moved? Are we compelled to act? Maybe…maybe not.

I believe that if we do the following and make a paradigm shift in our thinking, our actions will follow suit:

[Read more…] about blessings from God

healing power of God

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Does God still heal people today?

Watch this short clip – it’s a testimony to what God still does today.

I believe that God still heals people today. However, we need to understand that God doesn’t just heal us for the sake of healing us. He will heal us, of whatever we have, whether it’s a sore thumb or cancer, IN ORDER TO ____________ (fill in the blank). God always has a reason. We may never discover the reasons, but he always does have them. We may even discover one of the reasons, but God is so much more multi-dimensional than us. Even when we think he has healed us in order to do ________, he might have even healed us in order to ___________, _____________, _________________, etc.

My prayer is that you will be encouraged through watching this clip and that you would discover the ways that God has been pursuing you your whole life. I pray that you would understand and experience the almighty power of God.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/aZ_ny8hMgRY&hl]