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Wednesday, November 19, 2008 |
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Update from Tony
November 9, 2008
PIPELINE UPDATE
2008-11-08
Visa & Flights back
No further news.
Continue to pray for God’s favor upon the whole visa process so that we would be able to return in the next couple of weeks.
The Gospel and praying for the dead to help them get into heaven
Thanks for praying for me regarding my dad. It hasn’t been a bed of roses but I sense God working in my heart towards him. Like instead of losing my temper with him during the 4 times I talked with him today, I only lost my cool once by God’s grace. PTL! Real change/growth takes time and I feel with the Hol Spirit’s help to shed more light into this area of my life, there’s hope for the future! … also having a wife that reminds me when I’ve lost my cool and talking it through with her helps a great deal.
I wanted to ask you to pray for me during something that will take place on Sun. night @ 6-7pm(EST) at my dad’s house. Basically, people will gather at the house to “pray for my mom to enter into heaven”. I spent over 2 hoursctalking with my dad about faith, grace, salvation and other issues related to heaven in my broken Korean and realized that he didn’t have saving faith nor an openness to hear about any other “religion” because he believed that if you just live a good life and do good things, you’ll go to heaven even though you don’t go to church.
As I reflected upon this situation, I thought about whether this was a battle I needed to stand firm in or to just let it go to preserve the
relationship peace between my father and me. I talked with a couple of people to make sure that I wasn’t just acting out of my emotions and wascaffirmed that this wasn’t a minor issue to just pass over. It undermines the gospel at it’s core… conveying that we are saved not by God’s grace but by our own efforts and by the efforts of others’(i.e. prayers lifted up on our behalf so we can go to heaven).
I want to love and honor my dad and will be as supportive as possible while he has this event at his house (e.g. welcoming the guests, cleaning up the house, etc…). Sarah and I decided that we’ll even keep our kids in the house, out of the way during the ceremony / chanting. But I feel I have to draw the line and share what I believe in if he or the guests ask me to participate in the event… that even though I love and honor my dad, I cannot
compromise the gospel of grace for the sake of satisfying a ritual that he sees as “helping my mom get to heaven”.
I’m really wrestling with this and would appreciate your prayers regarding this whole thing. Thankfully I didn’t lose my cool with my dad last night but I know I could lose it at any time apart from His grace.
Continue to pray that God would continue to work in my heart to be in line with the gosp. and to be able to see my dad as God sees him… in need of grace, mercy and love.
Pray that God would remove any spiritual blinders that the enemy has had upon my dad so he would be able to hear and accept the truth of the gospel of grace.
If you have something you’d like to share regarding this I’d love to hear from you. I know that I don’t know everything about faith and salvation and can always learn from others in the body of Christ.
Thanks.
Tony for the family
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