Howdy everyone! I, The Faithful Nerd, do hope each and every one of you are doing well and are having a good week so far! As far as me, big things are happening for me in my life. It’s kind of got my hands tied as summer comes our way, but it’s honestly for good reasons!
First, I do want to say that because of big life events are about to unfold for me, I might not be able to really post a lot of content at this moment. I know for a young blog such as this it’s kind of a death sentence to even mention such, but I have an excuse: I’m getting married! And in about two months I’ll be a homeowner as well! Pretty awesome, but it’s making me really put my energy into preparing for all of this, so I do apologize for lack of content.
All hope is not lost! I have some brainstorms storming on in this nerdy brain God has given me, and I hope y’all will stick with me as I finalize housing things with my fiancé and soon get the wedding plans rolling. My next blog post is going to be of a certain……..misthios dealing with the crossroads of revenge and letting go of a lone wolf gnawing at his mind.
With that said, I pray y’all enjoy the day and may God watch each and every one of you, my fellow faithful nerds. This is The Faithful Nerd, secretly continuing looking at wedding dresses and nervously counting the days ’til I have a house to call my own. It’ll then be my responsibility to have the house stand on the solid foundation I only trust in: Christ itself.
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. ….
Happy Easter everyone! I hope everyone is in good spirits and spending time with loved ones; for me, The Faithful Nerd, this Easter was one of the best I’ve had in a long time. As a Christian, this day is always a profound day of remembrance and rejoicing, but I also didn’t expect to learn something entirely new about Jesus. It’s not a bad thing to learn new stuff about Jesus did on the cross—in fact I was kinda floored at what Jesus did and made me really thank Him today for what He did. I know this kind of lines more with Good Friday, but bare with me—it hit me today and made my reflection on Easter that more intimate and beautiful.
As my church and many other churches were looking at John 20:1-18, I was quietly reflecting on my Sunday lesson with the other adults. Our lesson booklet we were reading from took us to Matthew 27:45-54 when Jesus was entering His final hours of life. The skies went dark at high noon, and Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, and we know what follows through after that and the curtain being torn in the temple. Of course I was paying attention to everything in the sermon, but I couldn’t help but have an epiphany of sorts about connecting dots in Scripture that made me take a step back and go, “Whoa God, this is crazy and amazing.” I saw something completely new in those words that I’ve seen time and time again.
We all know what Jesus did for you and me was something brutal, horrific, and utterly humiliating. We all know the horrible things Jesus physically endured for us to have a relationship with God, but He didn’t just go through the whips and torture for us. I don’t think we realize Jesus spiritually went through torture for us as well, and I don’t think a lot of us actually realize this. He went through and felt eternal separation from God, and that’s something that physical wounds can’t compare to although we can barely understand His physical suffering.
As He took upon the sins of mankind, He no longer became the spotless lamb. If we remember, people had to take a spotless, healthy animal to “place their sins” upon and kill it as a sacrifice to God for the forgiveness of sins. It was an Old Testament ritual people went through to be in the good graces of God, but that all changed when Jesus became that ritualistic offering, except this was the only conscious sacrifice that knew it wasn’t taking man’s sins symbolically into Himself. Jesus took upon that sin, and God saw His beloved son was becoming the catalyst for sin that displeases Him so; Jesus had to endure His Father’s wrath at the sins He was taking in, and God turned His back to Jesus because of the uncleanliness of it all. God had to because He’s 100% perfect and holy, and the sins of mankind were things He hated and sin, things unholy and imperfect, is what separates man from God. Jesus felt that separation from His Father as He became unclean, and Jesus cried out those words on the cross.
I was floored at realizing everything I just wrote, and I honestly wished I could’ve shared it with the group. I tend to talk a lot about my thoughts on things we go through in Scripture and our lessons as a whole, but this was a little tid-bit of personal reflection I kept to myself. I guess this was something I was meant to think about and have my eyes and heart open to Jesus just a bit more than they were when I entered church. It helped me make my worship time more sentimental than I thought it would, and yet another one of my inner pondering sessions has led me to looking at Jesus again and thanking Him for what He did and triumphed over for us all. “It is finished”—the victory call that bridged the gap between us and God for us to be with Him always for those that put their trust in Jesus Christ.
This is The Faithful Nerd, thanking Jesus for ending eternal separation from God by enduring it.
“Oh death, where is your sting? Oh death, where is your victory?”
1 Corinthians 15:5
Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
Hey everyone! Welcome back to The Faithful Nerd! Hopefully everyone is having a good week so far and is getting ready for Easter Sunday. I don’t know if it’s just me or is Easter on the later end of this month? It feels almost weird that Easter this year is pretty close to the beginning of summer—I can certainly say that as I’m already getting 80 degree weather days and what feels like copious amounts of rain! Besides that, let’s get down to today’s post: How a certain slime has shown very Christ-like characteristics that are certainly in tune with this upcoming holiday.
One of my FFXIV (Final Fantasy XIV) buddies decided to take me, The Faithful Nerd, and another one of our friends on yet another shenanigan-filled journey in the form of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, and we just wrapped up it’s first season with high commendations. It’s silly, beautifully animated, and it tickles all of my RPG bones with it’s obvious video game references. Once we got to Episode 14, I started noticing and seeing elements of redemption that hit a soft spot in my heart. The whole arc of the antagonist Geld and his fight with Rimuru really gave me a lump in my throat that I had to hide from my friends on voice chat. I didn’t cry, but I certainly connected with Geld more than I expected.
Geld was a leader under enormous pressure—his land and his people suffering from famine enough where babies being born weren’t lasting even two days. Desperate for a solution for the good of his nation, Geld wanders through the parched land in search of food. He encounters Demon Lord Gelmud when on the brink of starvation, and Gelmud entices him with food and lies—lies that sacrifice Geld’s comrades and his own mind. Geld admits to Rimuru he’s not wanting to die in order to save his people, and his death would only pass his mistakes to his men already just as desperate as their king; Rimuru, however, ensures that this will not be so.
Rimuru defeating Orc Disaster Geld
“But rest easy. I’ll devour your sins along with you.”
“Devour…my sins?”
Rimuru promises that he will take care of his people despite Geld’s mistakes and will shoulder his burdens by “eating his sins.” He honestly didn’t have to shoulder the responsibility of taking care of the rest of the Orcs, and yet he gracefully took it after defeating Geld. It’s not his job to help a people so weak and at the end of their ropes, yet he did with wishing his opponent eternal peace. What kind of person says that, saying their sins can be wiped away and even wishing peace upon the defeated? Is there something out there that can devour our sins clean and without a speck of blemish overlooked? There is—not in the form of a shape shifting slime, but in the form of a man that actually swallowed sin whole through His death.
Like Geld, we have sin that eats us inside out and drives us to starvation of the soul. As much as we try to sate that hunger with whatever we do and consume, it’s never enough and it never will be. We need someone who can sate that hunger for us so we don’t have to hopelessly fill that bottomless pit in us with things that only makes that pit even deeper—we need a Rimuru that can embrace us and swallow us whole with the ability to stop that hunger we’ve been born with, and our Rimuru is Jesus Himself. He did so by dying on the cross and taking that cup of wrath for you and for me. He embraced us and embraces us not with ectoplasmic substance, but “peace that transcends all understanding.”
We’re like Geld—a beast of burden starving for not only food at times, but also for completion and for truth. Sin causes us to go on a rampage wanting anything to sate its never ending hunger, but it only drives us to wanting more and more until we die from it eating us from the inside out. We would do anything to no longer be hungry at the cost of either ourselves and others, but we don’t have to go through great lengths and hurt ourselves and people we care about. As it says in John 6:35, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” Jesus didn’t say He’s just a temporary solution until we find something more filling—He clearly says that anyone that comes to Him shall never hunger or thirst by feeding our spirits and bringing an end to our famine from sin.
“One who devours my sins.”
With it being so close to Easter, it was a great reminder as to why this day is so important for Christians like myself—to remember that sin big and small was defeated and devoured by His victory over it. He opened His mouth to consume it for us so that we don’t have to take it in and let it consume us. In Him, we find our resting place and no longer look to shallow things to feed our life, our ego, and our pain. He’s the only one that can feed us spiritually with the outpouring of His Spirit. All we have to do is rest and open our mouths like babes longing for milk. This is The Faithful Nerd, letting the one who devoured my sins swallow me whole and embrace me with His love, peace, and goodness.
But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Matthew 4:4
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Matthew 5:6
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Happy Palm Sunday everyone! It’s a beautiful day today with the sun shining and the breeze blowing through my sister’s room as I, The Faithful Nerd, hang out with her. She laughed so hard when she saw me finding Alolan Exeggutor to reference the day when Jesus entered Jerusalem on the colt. In my opinion, seeing Alolan Exeggutor reminds me of Zacchaeus climbing up the tree to see Jesus! Imagine the tiny tax collector climbing up the neck of this exceptionally cheery and derpy-looking tree Pokemon. Anyways, I have some exciting things coming up soon!
With this week leading up to Easter, I have some good topics in mind that I want to share. Within the next day or two, I’ll be whipping this blog to shape, and introduce future blog series y’all might find interesting! Keep up with The Faithful Nerd and don’t be shy; click on the “Like” icon and leave a comment, whether it be about the topic or wishing me well! This is The Faithful Nerd, laying down her coat and palm on the road as The King of Kings rides humbly along the road…..
7 They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, [c]and set Him on them. 8 And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road; others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying:
“Hosanna to the Son of David! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Hosanna in the highest!”
Hello viewers! I give you: The Faithful Nerd! I invite you into my head-space that’s always filled with something in regards to Jesus or things in anime and video games. Sit down, have some tea with cakes, and dive into my view on subjects near and dear to my heart.
I’ve been known to sit down and ponder a lot of random things out of sheer boredom or from anything that piques my curiosity. You might find me crouching down with my face resting against my hand. I tend to be in this position when I’m alone at home or at work; my coworkers or family know that I have something on my mind enough to make me stop and do this weird way of thinking. It can get a bit lonely to have my thoughts and feelings all to myself, so after yet another random thought with no one to share it with, I decided to create The Faithful Nerd.
I know this is a pretty short post, but after spending a whole day doing laundry and fumbling at birthing this blog, I’m needing a break. The rest of my night will be spent watching That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime and maybe folding past laundry that’s been in the bag for almost three weeks…….(I know my favorite pair of socks are in that bag somewhere underneath shirts and pants.)
The Faithful Nerd 
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