Pastor + Author
By Daniel Im
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?
By Daniel Im
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?
By Daniel Im
“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.
[Read more…] about is money evil?
By Daniel Im
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?
By Daniel Im
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