Our family has been attending HOFCC off and on for several months. Our plan is to transfer over, but my parents are taking care of their obligations in our other church first.

My brothers and I look forward to your next conference.

Proverbs 19:2 says “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.” I think we definitely have to zealous for the Lord without wasting any time counting the cost, but God wants us to be genuine and reasonable ambassadors for Him. Sometimes, depending on the situation, or the need of the moment, silence may be the best response to a foolish comment. But for other times, we must be sensible and wise in giving a biblical response without being reckless in the wordings and the way we say it. I think letting the Spirit lead (especially) in this kind of situation is crucial, because i believe whenever we try to fix things on our own, it always generates disastrous outcomes; instead of being zealous for God to bring Him glory, we may end up being ensnared by our own words that just slipped out of our mouth with the worst timing which will leave us feeling stupid or shameful for the things we said. When dealing with non-believers, we have to be especially careful, because our actions and words have direct effect on their impression of a “Christian”. I always try to make sure that i don’t make any judgmental comments with any Bible verses about something i disagree with because it’s obviously unbiblical, even though it’s very tempting to just blurt out the verses i know that explain the situation perfectly. I just have to be patient and give grace while making sure that i don’t participate in the discussion any further. What happens every time i do this is that someone would come up to me afterwards to ask me why i reacted the way i did, and then i’d ask God to use the time for beneficial conversations about Christ with that person. When dealing with a believer regarding a comment like that, i think it’s immensely important for us to hold our tongue in that very moment, so that we don’t make the response sound or look like a public rebuke, which would put that brother or sister in a very difficult situation where they’ll feel humiliated and bitter towards your comment/you. If you have a close relationship with that person, pray about it, and then find an opportunity to pull them aside to talk to them about it. If there really isn’t any form of friendship established between you and them, then pray pray pray that God would provide opportunities for people who are close to them to talk to them about it.

Always give grace, forgive, and love. For we’ve been given grace, forgiveness, and love ourselves despite our iniquities. I still have so much to learn about this, and everything else of course. =) I’m really thankful for this Web site and i appreciate your zeal for the Lord. Keep serving, brothers!

The problem that I see, however, is not only do we “not sin” by what society has made it to be, we’ve lost hold of sin’s true definition. Sin, according to James 4:17, is knowing to do GOOD and NOT DOING IT! That puts another perspective entirely on sin, because it means that you can sin as much or more by NOT doing things as by doing something wrong!

In high school I was one of the kids who didn’t do the bad things, partying, drinking, drugs, sex. I know through comments made to me and my parents that I was seen as a good kid, because I didn’t do bad things. I thought that was nice but never put much thought into it after that. Now looking back I regret not giving people many other reasons to recognize that I’m a good kid. I challenge everyone to give people a reason to admire you and your efforts.

I think that if we say we are exceptional, it implies that we are at the top of our game; but I think that if we instead imply that we are just normal — just average — in respects to how God intends for and designed us to live and serve Him, then we are on the right track as far as humility is concerned.

Also, just as a note to take this point a little further; I believe that the closer we get to God, the less we have to be concerned about “humility” and pride. Many have implied just the opposite of this to me, and otherwise, and many Christians are concerned with this, but I believe that if we stop focusing on ourselves and others and whether we are proud or humble and instead focus on God and worshipping Him, bringing Him glory, then we will not find much need to worry anymore because the splender of His Presence and a Relationship with Him is, indeed, very, very humbling. And the deeper we go in getting to know Him the more we will realize that we are unworthy and unqualified to even serve Him — much less, know Him — but that He is abundantly merciful and the only way to be redeemed (survive) and will provide all that we need and will empower us to serve Him, not just as servants, but as His Bride (to lead us and fill us full of Himself so as to guide us beyond service, that is out of duty, and into service that is wholely and purely out of love) and that He, despite our lowliness when we encounter Him, intensely desires to know us — and in fact, knows us through and through — and desires that we know Him deeply and intimately.

>I’m curious, though. What did you mean when you said that most of us actually are exceptional?

I was saying that most of the youth are only not “out smoking pot or drinking”. Those that do more, are the exception. Not exceptional perhaps, but the exception.