Love meals for evangelism: 62 Plates

Love Meal

Every Saturday Night: We are hosting a weekly dinner in Anaheim, CA to whomever needs some extra love, encouragement & good food! (Especially if you are feeling burnt out, stressed and depressed during this pandemic, we are here to help) If you have a friend or family member who needs a pick-me-up, bring them along!

You pick the dinner menu and we will make it happen.

Everything free of charge. Tax & Gratuity Included 🙂

If you want to attend this dinner or gift the dinner to a friend or family in need, Please send us your available Saturday date to : 62plates@gmail.com

Why are we doing this?

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2)

We believe in loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Ever since Covid pandemic hit, we have noticed that there are so many people who are in need of the love. We want to share the blessing God has given us and speak love and encouragement into our neighbor’s life.

This is where it happens! 🙂 www.onyux.blog/62-plates

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Die to ourselves, live for Christ

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Galatians 2:20 – when I read it, my first impression was

“Huh?”

Bit of an oxymoron: I’m dead (I no longer live) but still I live. I live by faith in the son of God. The whole upside down principal of God’s Kingdom always was a bit of an enigma to me, until I started experiencing them in my own life. For example, Loving your enemies. (Instead of hate)

 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, (Matthew 5:44)

Why do we even have to care about the enemies, when we can’t even love our own neighbors? But Jesus loved and prayed for the ones who persecuted him. Even when he was on the cross, he uttered “Father Forgive them” It’s almost a mind-blowing concept, especially if you don’t know the person of Jesus. I remember the first time I loved on the person who was cursing me and hating on me, I think I was half-curious, if I can even do it. The key here is never using our own strength but using the strength of Christ to love them.

Day after day, loving on someone who has something against you isn’t the easiest thing, but you will see softening of their heart as Holy spirit works on them. It’s pretty fascinating. If you haven’t tried, please go ahead and actively try loving the ones who hate you. They’ll think you’re crazy, you’ll think you’re crazy, and probably everyone will think you’re crazy. But the Lord will see your heart, he will reward you.

What does it even mean to be crucified with Christ?

We talk a lot about dying to ourselves and our flesh daily. But I wonder if we really put that into action. When we are dead to ourself and our flesh, would we ever argue with others and fight? Would we throw fits and complain about how we are being mistreated?

When something’s dead, there is nothing but silence and stillness. (If you are dead, you usually don’t talk back)

It seems like my flesh is always talking back at me yapping and going “I don’t like this, and I don’t like that and I’m so frustrated and can’t believe so-and-so did that, blah-blah-blah..” It’s nuts. I want to know what it is like to truly die to self and to live ONLY for Christ. I want to empty myself of me and all my selfish thoughts and start living only for Christ.

God does not only want a part of ourselves, but whole. 100 percent of who we are. He wants full ownership because we belong to him. When we give him 99 percent but decide to hold back that 1% God cannot really use us. Whether it is an idol or secret sin. He is waiting for us to fully surrender ourselves to him. I need to search my life and see if there is even a small thing I’m holding back from him. “God, please you can take everything but this one thing” This will NOT work.

²³ Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139 23-24)

Lord search me and test me. If there is anything that is offensive to you, please point them all out to me. I want to truly learn what it is like to die to myself and live for you and your glory only, Amen.

When you’re weary in doing good

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. (Galatians 6:9-10)

Countless times, I wanted to give up with this friend of mine. I would try in every way, to talk to her about Jesus, God and his goodness, but she always turned her back on me. I kept on showing love to her, it wasn’t because I wanted to “convert” her to Christianity, but I don’t know why… I just felt so much compassion for her, that I didn’t know what else to do. When you sow in to someone, who you care for SO much, and year after year, not seeing the fruit, it becomes quite discouraging and you start to feel “weary” in doing all the good that you’re doing.

But who’s strength are we operating under?

but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

I was trying to do everything with MY strength and that’s when things started to take a toll on me. I was tired, I was feeling defeated, and I started to even question myself, and what I’m doing wrong. The enemy started to attack my identity and use scripture like :

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. (Matthew 7:19)

To condemn me and tell me that I’m going to be cut and thrown into the fire. It is crazy how the enemy will even take a part of the scripture and attack you with lies.

But over the several years, I started to witness a change in my friend’s life. She would randomly ask me to “pray for her” and “ask God to help her” Also recently she started to read the bible with me, which is something I never thought in a million years, would have happened. Slowly but surely, God was changing her heart.

To people who are feeling weary, I want to share this one scripture verse with you:

My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word. (Psalm 119:28)

I love how here, it says “Strengthen me according to your word.” This, I think is a key antidote, to our weariness. We need to be strengthened through the word of God. We need to be firmly grounded on his truth, or else, when things get tough, and you don’t see a lot of breakthroughs happening in real life, you will get discouraged and even tempted to quit. For me, reading the scripture just like how I eat my meal daily, has helped me GREATLY in being strengthened in Christ. You can clearly see the difference, once you start consuming daily “spiritual” bread.

Lord, thank you for your truth, and your wisdom.

Yeast Yeast Yeast!

For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. (Exodus 12:15)

Yesterday I went to Wingstop to get some chicken wings, and my husband pointed out a picture on a wall of these yummy looking yeast rolls. “We must get this!” We ordered 2 of them, but for some reason the word “yeast” reminded me of unleavened bread in the bible. And today when I was reading through Exodus, I kept on seeing “yeast” EVERYWHERE! I was really surprised at how many times it was repeated in the scripture.

Why so many times? And why such significance?

Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. (Exodus 12:17)

God called this the Festival of Unleavened bread. I bet the main thing they ate was Lamb that was slaughtered, but why was the bread emphasized more? The fact that the bread was Unleavened seemed like the most important thing, but I couldn’t tell exactly why. As I kept meditating on the verse, something interesting hit me.

On the first day remove the yeast from your houses

It was not just about avoid eating the yeast, but also removing yeast from your house altogether! It almost sounded like ridding ourselves completely and cleansing ourselves from sin. Do not even let the trace of sin be found anywhere. Also eating the leavened bread resulted in being cut off from God, just like sin causes the separation between us and God.

or whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.

That’s a serious consequences for just eating some sort of bread, isn’t it? This all represents and symbolizes something more significant.

“A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” (Galatians 5:9)

It is quite true that even a slight trace of unrepentant sin can affect the whole body. It quickly spreads to the whole batch before you know it. I got curious about yeast, and started to research a bit more into it. Scientifically speaking how does yeast affect the dough and what’s the optimal state for it to work and make the whole dough rise?

That’s when I found something even MORE interesting.

The optimum temperature range for yeast fermentation is between 90˚F-95˚F (32˚C-35˚C). Every degree above this range depresses fermentation. While elevated temperature is problematic in all phases of ethanol production, it is specifically hazardous during the later stages of fermentation.

Basically yeast thrives and grow the fastest (just like how sin spreads fast) at a certain temperature. That’s between 90 and 95˚F, and you know what that is?

That’s a lukewarm temperature.

So, because you are lukewarm–neither hot nor cold–I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:16)

Sin thrives in lukewarmness. Lord, I repent for all the times I was lukewarm and complacent. I want to do a thorough search within myself to find if there is even a small trace of sin hidden, and get rid of it. With a pure and clean heart, I want to run after you with passion, Amen.