Week One!

Praise to Jesus Christ. He has given us salvation through the cross and deserves all glory and honor! God is gracious and His love endures forever!

This past week has been a great evidence of God’s wonderful grace in my life as I have just finished my first week of seminary. Long awaited excitement has finally come to fruition as I begin classes. To blog comprehensively and to give you all the nuances of this first week would be a feat too difficult to accomplish, but I will share some things that God has placed upon my heart.

I have never been more convicted to run and spend time with God, both in prayer and in His Word. Spending time to pray to the Father and to spend time in the Word is the sweetest part of my day. I am constantly reminded through my relationship with Christ that my time at this school should only better my relationship with Him. To lose Christ for pursuit of academic excellence would be failure, but for God to use my studies to draw me closer to Himself would be the greatest joy in life. Living with the understanding that all the knowledge gained will allow me to dig deeper into the riches of Scripture and know God in a more intimate way makes all the difficult assignments, mountains of reading, and lots of writing much worth the hard work and effort.

I am thankful that I am not alone as I seek more of God. I share this same desire to know God with a host of other men on campus. It is a privilege to be in the company of such men who have such a high view of God and humble view of self. I only pray that God would cultivate a similar attitude in myself as I continue to walk with Him.

Lastly, it would be a crime to sit back and hoard all the riches of knowing Christ to myself. I can only pray that as I minister to those within the Church that I can encourage them to follow hard after God. Paul says in II Timothy 2:10, “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.”

As I said before, this is by no means a comprehensive list of God’s work in my life, but rather just a glimpse of His mercy.

“Open my eyes, that I may behold Wonderful things from Your law.” Psalm 119:18

God is so Good!
Mark Pakingan