It's All About Jesus

Our God of Abundance

2006-08-25T17:56:00.000+08:00

Knowing that I'm going to enter the army soon, I've been trying to control my 'eating' habits over the past few weeks, but u know what, God seems to be encouraging me to eat more! Haha... Well, maybe not, but in the past month that I've been back in Singapore - God has blessed me abundantly with food - with treats from friends, unexpected discounts and free food for no reason at all! Let me start counting the blessings:

Blessing 1: Free Ice-cream
I met up with Yoong Chuan at Cafe Cartel in the first week I was back and I was meaning to give him a birthday treat of ice-cream. So we both ordered our ice-creams and had a good time of fellowship. Before we left, I decided to go to the toilet, meaning to pay after I returned. When I came back, he had already paid - for BOTH ice-creams! Depriving me of the chance to treat him, but at the same time, blessing me greatly with free ice-cream! Thank you, Yoong Chuan!

Blessing 2: Unbelievably Cheap Dim-sum Buffet High Tea for 3 people
My mum, my sister and I went for Dim-sum Buffet at Lao Bei Jing after church anniversary three weeks ago. The food was alright in general, though I really liked the jiao zi. The best part was the whole buffet only cost $4 for 3 people in total - because my mum was able to redeem some points from the Tung Lok Card that she had. Wow!

Blessing 3: Free cheese toast
Two weeks ago, I went with Jianhao and Zengkun to this French restaurant in Holland Village called Amici. They serve the best bruchettas (bread with tomato on top with vinegar and olive oil) there! Jianhao arrived after Zengkun and I had finished our first serving of bruchetta and we decided to give another of their breads a try - so we had a French Cheese toast, which was good, but not as good as the bruchettas. When the bill arrived, we realised they hadn't charged us for the cheese toast, so I went to ask the waiter about it. He said something like, 'It's free until your next visit', which totally didn't make any sense at all, but once again, free food for no reason! Plus, that restaurant has 100% Rebate if you use HSBC card there on the food ordered by the person with the card, so I now have a $20 voucher for that place which can be used regardless of the total receipt (unlike Billy Bombers whose $11 discount voucher requires you to spend at least $22).

Blessing 4: Very cheap Coronation Chicken Pies
Last week was my mum's birthday and she loves chicken pies. While browsing the web, I found many websites recommending Cornoation Chicken Pies along Joo Chiat Road, so I made my way down there to look for it. It was quite a walk because I wasn't famliiar with the area, but I finally found it. The usual price for a chicken pie is $1.50 for one, but on that day, because the chicken pies which came out were a little 'deformed', they were selling it for 3 for $2! So I got six for just $4! And they were indeed tasty, though really really out of shape. Heh.

Blessing 5: Free Chicken Pie
Yesterday after coming back from the gym, I passed a shop selling mini-chicken pies 8 for $6 and decided to just buy some to let my family members try. I bought 8 of them and the lady at the stall so graciously gave me another free one! I was so happy! :)

In addition to the above, Cafe Cartel and Secret Recipe now have half price cheese-cakes after 9 p.m! I've enjoyed four half-price cheese-cakes so far and looking forward to more! :) I've been tremendously blessed as well by a dear sister in Christ who has blessed me with not only cheese-cakes but a KFC 4 piece chicken meal plus a zinger meal as well. My aunt keeps on buying goodies for us at home - the latest being Round Pineaple Tarts which are so so good. I've been so so blessed with food - and I'm not even including all the good food that I've had to pay for, which are nonetheless still great blessings!

Haha... God is so good! And you know what, after blessing me with all this food, He has blessed me with a one week free membership at California Fitness gym, which I'm going to make full use of. Thank you so much God, for I know indeed, you are a God of balance. :)

Labour of Love

2006-08-24T13:48:00.000+08:00

"It is only the love of God shed abroad by the Holy Spirit that can cause effective repentance and cleansing - not simply Christian work or service, but the shining sweetness and fragrance of the love of Jesus Christ. It is this which touches a life that is out of adjustment to the will of God. It is this which makes a man realize he has been a fool and that he has sinned. It is love that melts coldness of heart and brings conviction. That is why Calvary has such magnificence; that is why at Jesus' cry, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," thousands of hearts have been melted by the love of God revealed to them there.

That is why the practice of love in your life liberates spiritual power as nothing else can. It is not simply the distributing of a tract; it is not the preaching of a sermon or the teaching of a Sunday school class. It is something far deeper: a life saturated with love, a life that has learned the principle that David learned, to love not merely your friends, but also your enemies; and a life that has learned, also, to wait upon God."

Taken from Alan Redpath's The Making of a Man of God, Lessons from the Life of David

Was reading this book on the MRT train yesterday and this beautifully written passage just spoke so strongly to me. I read it three times, just savouring the well-written prose of Alan Redpath but also allowing God to use these words to speak deeply into my spirit.

It was such a strong reminder to me that the best testimony I can be to all around me is not how much I can do for them, nor how much knowledge or advice I can impart of them, but how much love I can show them or more importantly, how willing I am to be a channel of God's love to those around me. The message of loving those around us is such a commonly preached message in the church, but for me, every reminder to love is always just as strong as the previous one. I can do so much for those around me, but if it's not done in love, it's as good as nothing as Paul says in 1 Corinthians.

The gospel is not simply a message to be preached or a concept to believe in, but a lifestyle to be lived. Two weeks ago, during his sermon on the wife's role, Pastor Kong spoke about how the wife shouldn't be preaching or nagging to her husband, constantly berating him with bible verses or 'spiritual' exhorations, but should rather, the wife should be the living Bible - her life should speak from the Bible itself. That is true not only for the husband as well, but of all Christians - our lives need to speak of Christ's love. I can read so much of the Bible, listen to so many sermons, but how much of my life actually represents the Bible? I have so much more to learn about being a witness for Christ in this world.

So this is my prayer to God: Thank you Lord for the love you showed to me on the cross and may my life be a living testimony of the unconditional love that you showed on the cross. Amen.

Knowledge determines Destiny

2006-08-23T16:50:00.000+08:00

City Harvest invited Dr. A. R. Bernard to preach in our services over the weekend and all three sessions were simply mind-blowing! And mind-blowing is indeed the right word because he must be one of the most intellectual preachers I've heard. He delivers theologically and psychologically profound ideas in such simple and acccessible illustrations that makes me just go WOW! It's no wonder he is such a sought after speaker, not only by churches, but also by secular organizations - a friend of Bloomberg, Bill Clinton and many other famous personalities in the world of US Politics and the Arts and Entertainment Scene.

His sermons focused generally on the theme of 'Kristos Kai Kosmos' - Christ in Culture, on how the church can no longer shy away from culture and look down upon the general trends of the world (i.e. pop culture, technology, etc. The church has stayed away from culture too long! The church needs to penetrate culture and find its place in prevailing culture - only then, can the church truly take the place and transform the city. I must say, this is the direction that the global church is taking now given the series of sermons from Festival of Praise to this weekend's sermons.

And these sermons couldn't have come for me, personally, at a better time - to inspire and set my direction right as I enter the army. The military culture is opposed to the culture of Christianity in many ways and I've not really been looking forward to entering the army, because of the potential for backsliding while I'm in and the many tepmtations I'll face.

Yet at the same time, over the past few weeks, God has been placing in my heart a desire to be a shining light for Him in the army and He has been speaking big plans into my heart, which I will reveal on this blog in time to come. And A. R. Bernard's sermon on the final day just released the word needed into my spirit to encourage and empower me for the next stretch of my life ahead of me.

On the last day, he spoke about the importance of knowledge. In Luke 11:52, Jesus describes knowledge as a key that unlocks. Many times, we fail in life because we have insufficient knowledge or we have the incorrect information.

Knowledge enters our mind and our mind converts them into beliefs.

These beliefs communicate something to immediately impact our self-esteem and our sense of self-worth.

Our self-esteem then results in certain actions or behaviours, which after a while, become habits in our lives.

These habits that we have lead either to success or failure.

So, if we trace back, success actually depends on information! We often trace our successes and failures back to our self-esteem, but many of us forget to look further back, to look at the information that we have about ourselves. This is why the Bible tells us that we are to be trnasformed by the renewing of our minds - by changing the way we think! And how do we change the way we think? By taking in new information.

In the Garden of Eden, God 'transferred' knowledge to Adam's mind through giving him the breath of life, transferring character and knowledge necessary for Adam to have dominion and multiply. Adam, equipped with strong beliefs in himself from God, was fearless and walked with authority amongst the beasts that were in the land. God had given him authority to rule over them and to name them and he therefore walked confidently amongst them.

How did Adam and Eve fall? When they started to get wrong information!

When Adam was hiding from God because of his nakedness, God zooms in on the issue of information, in Genesis 3:11 - 'Who told you that you were naked?', meaning, 'Are you getting information about yourself from somebody else other than me?'.

We need to uphold ourselves with the right information and the BEST information about ourselves comes from the Word of God - not simply the Bible, but also the living word of God which is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. God sent His word - His information - to us to heal and deliver us!

This word released by A. R. Bernard just exploded in my heart because it is just so, so true in my previous experience in National Service before I went over to UK to study.

One of the greatest regrets I have in my life so far is giving up on OCS (Officer Cadet School) four years ago. I think some people will be shocked to read about this. When I first went to Officer School 4 years ago, I went out of course within 3 weeks. The official reason was my asthma, but that was not the real reason. It was simply an excuse. The real reason was the immense discouragement and depression that I felt while I was in OCS and unfortunately, most of this discouragement and low self-esteem was self-imposed.

I entered Officer Cadet School with a sense of myself being 'smaller' than everyone else. It didn't help that some of my relatives were rather shocked at me getting in, because I never used to be fit at all. I used to fail my fitness tests all the time and when I entered the army, I had to enter in 1 month early because I failed my fitness test. Getting into Officer School was something I never dreamed of. I think when I got in, I was still coming to grips with my abilities. I was in the Scholars Wing, so many people in the wing were both academically and physically capable and I felt overshadowed by all the talent in the wing. I saw myself as being inferior to everyone and I couldn't motivate myself to go on. I felt so lousy amongst everyone that when the opportunity came for me to get out of this course, that was what I did. The next few months in National Service were the most relaxing months in my life ever, but I don't deny that everytime I see those cadets out training, something in me would rather be there, being trained as an officer, rather than sitting at the side and watching.

God, however, is gracious. As A. R. Bernard illustrated on the Saturday, whenever we make a mistake or walk in a way not intended by God, He immediately starts recharting a route for us to return us back to where His will for us is. And indeed, now, four years after I quitted OCS in a moment of weakness, God has brought me back there once again, to confront a challenge I once thought too daunting for me, to enter into the course with the same people who I once felt small amongst. God's ways are just so interesting sometimes.

Although I am facing the same challenges with similar people, I am a fundamentally different person from the one who entered the army four years ago. My self-esteem has been built up over my years in Leeds, especially the years after I accepted Christ. God has showed me so much about myself that I never knew, the hidden potential within me that I never unleashed.

Most important of all, I've realised the most important source of information about myself comes from nowhere else but God Himself! I thank the Lord for greatly supportive parents, especially my mum, who has such great confidence in me and believes that I will excel. In the past few weeks, I've received negative comments about me (some unintentional) re-entering the army, which has undoubtedly shaken me from time to time. I've learnt now to close off those negative comments and to listen only to God. And what does God say about me?

He tells me, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you whever you ago". (Joshua 1:9)

I am a "mighty warrior" and He, the Lord is "with me" (Judges 6:12).

By the power of God, I can run against a troop and leap over a wall. He teaches my hands to make war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. (Psalm 18:29-30, 34)

Even though I walk through the avlley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for He is with me. His rod and staff, they comfort me. Goodness and love will follow me, all the days of my life. (Psalm 23:4, 6).

I am more than a conqueror through Him that loves me (Romans 8:37).

I can do all things through Him who gives me strength (Philippians 4:13).

Wow! People ask me how I feel about re-entering the army and many times, I feel afraid to tell them that I am excited, because they would just think I'm crazy. But yes, I AM excited! There is something stirring deep within my spirit with great anticipation at the great things God is going to do around me as I embark on this next phase of my life. God has been gracious and revealed certain things which I still require some confirmation but most importantly, the next phase of life demands a conquering faith - a faith that overcomes the world!

Thank you Lord Jesus for what You say about me. Thank you Lord for Your great confidence in me. Thank you Lord for the great destiny You have not just for me, but for all who believe in You and call upon Your name. I look forward with great excitement to what You will do in my life. May Your will be done in the life of your humble servant. Amen. :)

My Beloved Family in Christ

2006-08-14T10:05:00.000+08:00

God has been tremendously, immensely, abundantly good to me in the past one month that I've been back in Singapore. And the biggest blessing He has given to me is the wonderful church (City Harvest Singapore) and the wonderful cell group He has placed me in.

I really don't know if this is the right time to write about it because I've only known this church and these people for 1 month. Yes, I have so-called been in City Harvest since last July but personally I feel that during those first two months in City Harvest, I didn't feel quite as if CHC was my home church yet, probably because I knew I was going back to Leeds and at that point of time, I was still deciding between churches. But God has been good in guiding me as I prayed and He has led me back to City Harvest and truly, I entered City Harvest this time with that mindset of wanting to settle down in it and commit myself to it. There have been doubts at times, questions from people and from myself which have shaken that commitment, but there is such a firm conviction in my heart that CHC is where I want to be. :)

There are many good things to say about CHC - good preaching, many people on fire for God, a sense of excellence in everything they do, a heart for the community. But for the past one month, all these qualities of CHC pales to the greatest thing I've discovered about CHC: We are all one big, loving family in Christ!

Yes, the Bible does say that and indeed by name, we can often call ourselves one big family in Christ. But truly, truly, I can say that in the past month, I've experienced how powerful that identity is when really lived out in community.

Now, you would think that for a church of 22,000 (and steadily growing), it would be easy to get lost, to feel that you are out of place, that you don't belong, that you don't know anyone and of course that's what I used to think about CHC before I came and that's what some of my friends say as well. 'CHC is too big, no sense of family warmth'.

We've been having the 'Making Marriage Work' series lately and while the sermons have been enlightening and empowering, what really strikes me from this series is the heart of Pastor Kong for all of us and especially for the couples in church. What I see in this series is a pastor who so passionately wants the marriages in his church to work because He knows that this is God's best plan for the church. What never fails to touch me during every session is when Ps. Kong gets all the couples to stand up, sing to each other and then express their affection for each other (often through a loving kiss. hehe) in front of the whole church. It's really, really sweet!

And this is what struck me - Ps. Kong loves all of us so much!

Wow! God must have really given him such a big heart. And really, as Sister Klessis shared in cell group last week, love must always be the motivation of everything we do, because it is the key motivation of God! John 3:16 speaks of how God sent his son down because He 'so loved the world'. Love is so central to God's message of salvation, to God's heart for the world and this is a church where I have grown to see more of the power of God's love!

Two weeks ago, I went to help out in the children's church and after that, they had the JAMS church - a church for the mentally disabled, and I was so touched! I saw church members assisting these mentally disabled people to the toilet, down to the church auditorium, and comforting some of the people who had gotten into some mood swings. It was so touching and heart-warming! I really felt in my heart - this is a church with a true heart for the community. :) And I really started to love the church so much.

Then of course, there's my great cell group which has been such a great source of blessing and encouragement over the past month. I don't really know many of them well yet, but I thank God for the deeper conversations He has allowed me to have - on MSN, on MRT trains, over coffee/dinner, while queueing up for service which has allowed me a glimpse into the heart of these people and truly, I can see that everybody has a heart for God. I used to wonder how much City Harvest people truly loved God, how deep was their relationship with God and I used to think that most people were just merely outwardly passionate. But that is so not true!

At every cell group meeting, the presence of God is tangible, the worship of God is not only passionate, but also deep. The presence of God will not come if we only worship God from the outside! There is a distinct difference between energy generated by outer 'passion' and the energy that comes from a deeper worship. I get so encouraged each cell meeting - granted, I've only been to two - by the message shared, the testimonies shared and the time of fellowship that follows.

And amazingly enough, I believe these people are not only passionate for God, but incredibly available for God to use them. There have been times when I was having some doubts in my head, a specific doubt with regards to the church, and immediately God will bring someone from the cell group to just share something with me that will address that doubt! That has happened twice already! Wow! God is so good.

Now, I've been speaking mostly about the horizontal dimension of the church's love, i.e. the man to man love. God calls us to love Him and to love our neighbour as ourselves. There is both a vertical (man to God) and a horizontal (man to man) dimension of our Christian walk. I now realise that all the 'qualities' of City Harvest I listed earlier - its sense of excellence, etc. - all stem from a love for God.

I met up with my friend on Saturday and we had a long chat about City Harvest and she said that it's just such a 'showy' church - with so much technology, such a lavishly decorated building etc. And of course, you can say that all this appeals to man, but I truly believe, that the pursuit of excellence is all for God's glory. God deserves but THE BEST and if we can afford it, why not give Him the best? His house deserves to be decorated with the best furniture, designed by the best architects. His worship deserves the best singers, the best sound equipment, the best instruments. We need to worship God with our possessions and resources and City Harvest is definitely a church that knows how to do that!

Thank you so much God for planting me in such an annointed House of God! I pray that you will use me eventually to give back to this church, to serve this House of God, to help this house of God to achieve its dreams! God, you are indeed, so good, all the time. In Jesus's name, I pray, Amen. :)

An Eternal Flame for Jesus

2006-08-04T10:58:00.000+08:00

I met many amazing young people on fire for God during my mission trip in Easter this year, but the person who left the deepest impression on me was this lady, Diane, who was in her late 40s, who had just started Bible school and was so passionate about Jesus. She spoke to me so much about what God had done in her life and how excited she was about the great future that God had in store for her. God had given her a vision of revival in the country of Latvia (a small country in North-Eastern Europe) and she believed so firmly that the most exciting part of her life with Jesus had yet to come!

It was just so inspiring to see someone who has been through the working world and so much of life and yet continue to be so on fire for Christ! Sometimes I get worried that the flame that I hold for Jesus will dampen down as I enter the work place and get older. Many people always say about City Harvest, 'It's such a young church. Everybody is so on fire and so passionate' - as if 'passion' for Jesus and age have an inverse relationship where younger means you can be more on fire for God and older means that you have to mellow down and become less 'passionate' and on fire'. This is so not true! I can write a whole entire entry on City Harvest itself and the fire it has for God but shall reserve that for another day.

I just finished reading Edwin Louis Cole's Maximized Manhood two days ago and this excerpt from his book just encouraged me so much with regards to keeping our flame burning strong for Jesus and I hope it encourages you as well! Let's never let our passion for life and God be dampened by the pressures of the working world or anything else!

In the Old Testament, after Solomon prayed, the glory of God filled the temple. Time went by and the temple was still there, but the gold was gone and brass had been put in place - a sign of faded glory - what was, but now isn't.

Peter wanted to build three tabernacles and stay in the glory of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. The Lord said, "No." His glory could not be put in a box, but in a tabernacle "made without hands" (Mark 14:58).

The fleshy nature of man will always want to relax, take it easy, find a resting place, and not be subject to the disciplines of the spirit that hunger and thirst for God, seek the daily application of BIble study and prayer, and want to be part of what God is doing on the earth in this hour!

Nancy (his wife) said it best, "Edwin, let's not just fade away, but let's burn out for Jesus."

General McArthur, after retiring, said, "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away."

That is the way of the flesh, the world, the earth and man, but not God!

I want to be fired up for God until I die.

Why miss the best part of your life, which is today? Yesterday did not have the good old days; today is the best day of our lives!

God's glory never fades; people do.

HIs glory is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

We have been "[born anew] into an inheritance which is beyond the reach of change and decay [imperishable], unsullied and unfading, reserved in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:4 AMP).

Enjoy it, because it is going to last for an eternity.

Amen!

Delivered through the Word and the Spirit

2006-08-01T11:00:00.000+08:00

Pastor Mike Connell's deliverance serves always form landmarks in my spiritual life. I really love Pastor Mike because he not only moves powerfully in the Spirit and deliverance ministry but also because of his sermons which are so deeply saturated in the Word and guided by Scripture. Not to say anything about City Harvest as a whole, because I've yet to fully understand how the church works, but often Sunday sermons leave me feeling a little 'dry'. Yes, I'm encouraged and I'm ministered to, but I often feel that the Sunday sermons could be more Word-centred and founded. Pastor Mike is a man in which the word and spirit come together and when both come together, the power is tremendous! He is truly a man I emulate and hope to have a ministry as powerful as his in the future.

His services in City Harvest always form spiritual landmarks for me. Last year, his deliverance service marked that moment of confirmation for me that I will commit myself to CHC. But more importantly than that, it marked the moment when my sister walked up to receive prayer and rededicate her life fully to Christ. Praise God for that moment!

This year was no different.

One major thing I regretted last year was not going up ahead for prayer. He gave an altar call for those who believed were trapped by spirits of 'Baal', i.e. idol worship and I was uncertain but there was a hunger in me to go up. I wasn't actively involved in idol worship then but in my past, I have engaged in ancestor worship, gone to temples and involved myself in seventh month rituals. As such, I believe those activities did open up certain footholds in my life for Satan to take control.

But I was afraid to go up for prayer. I guess sometimes I feel quite self-conscious and the fact that City Harvest services have a video camera makes it a bit worse sometimes. I am afraid that I will be 'caught' on camera as someone who is caught in sin. However, throughout the whole week leading up to last Sunday's deliverance service, I felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit as I did my quiet time, telling me to go up for prayer. 'Don't miss this chance', He said, 'God is presenting you with a chance to be free, to draw closer to Him, to walk closer with Him in obedience. Why do you want to miss it? Do you want to let a silly fear get in the way of your walk with God?'. Yet there was still an undeniable fear in me.

The spiritual attacks were strong. I went to church on Sunday feeling very tired, even though I had rested well and my body was aching. During the service itself, I believe the spirits within started to manifest and I felt a trembling of my body everytime I worshipped and prayed in the Spirit, as if there was something within me rebelling. During the worship, I was particularly ministered to by Reuben Morgan's final worship song ' Mighty to Save. I couldn't stop crying as we sang 'Our God is Mighty to Save. He is Mighty to Save'. And then I felt God's gentle pull on me, telling me, 'Come forward Andrew. Come and receive my power.'

So I went forth for prayer during the altar call and though the resistance was strong, I was delivered. :)

As I returned to my seat after receiving prayer and continued to worship God, the experience was distinctly different! There was no more trembling! What I felt instead was the gentle breeze of the Holy Spirit flowing through me and over me. I felt the presence of God washing over me and an indescribable joy fill my heart. I couldn't stop smiling. It was the joy of Jesus's sweet release. Praise the Lord!

God set me free! But it is a Biblical principle that obtaining is always easier than maintaining.

I was not only set free from idol worship but other sins that have been disturbing me. Yes, I was set free. But if I am disobedient to God and give those sins foothold again in my life through falling to temptation, I will once again fall into the entrapment of sin. The battlefield of the mind needs to be conquered. I need to keep telling myself that in Jesus, I've already attained the victory. In Jesus, I am more than a conqueror! I am a new man.

I pray that the Holy Spirit will give me the strength and the grace required to walk in obedience to my Lord Jesus. Thank you Lord for your salvation! :)

The Leeds & Singapore Lifestyle

2006-07-31T09:24:00.000+08:00

Met up with Val Quay and Daniel last night for coffee and we started talking about Leeds and catching up on the 'gossip' on the people that we all knew.

One thing that really came out during the conversation was that Leeds is a place that is very easy to grow emotionally attached to. The ease of meeting up daily, the fact that you can spend so much time with people there and build such deep friendships and spiritual bonds makes that place a really difficult place to leave.

Daniel said, 'In Leeds we can meet up everyday. This kind of lifestyle (& close fellowship) is not practical in Singapore or KL'.

And this comment did strike me because it was something that I've been thinking about over the past few days.

One thing I really miss about Leeds is the deep fellowship that we had. I blogged about it in my entry 'Sanctuary'. It's not just the meeting up everyday but also the ease at which God enters into conversations just effortlessly. In my last months in Leeds, God blessed me tremendously as well through a great friendship bond with a dear brother that really gave me the opportunity to pour out my life to someone and grow so much through that transparency. The daily prayer meetings gave me an avenue to share so much of God's goodness in my life daily to my fellow brothers and sisters and to just uphold on another in prayer. One of my brothers in Leeds shared that the best memories he has of Leeds is the daily prayer meetings. I agree definitely that this daily prayer meetings have really impacted me greatly. :)

I was just lamenting to one of my new cell group members a few days ago that I have so many testimonies of God's goodness to me over the past 2 weeks in Singapore but no-one to share it with. Over the past week, I've just been bursting with joy inside as I see how good God has been to me and my family - spiritually, financially, health-wise and just in terms of building our relationships and drawing us closer.

God has been so good to me in terms of helping me to transition and settle down. Leaving Leeds was the most emotionally difficult thing for me to do ever, but somehow back in Singapore, God has detached me from that place and I no longer feel a strong longing to go back. It's not that I don't love that place anymore, but I possess with it a relationship that can be likened to Paul, Silas and Timothy's relationship to the Thessalonian church:

"We always thank God for all of you, remembering you in our prayers. We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thessalonian 1:1-3)

"How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith?" (1 Thessalonians 3:9-10)

I've still been keeping Leeds in prayer and I cannot stop thanking God for the great work He has done in me while I was in Leeds. It's not just the teaching, but it's the whole community. What Val said yesterday was so true. Christ-likeness is not something that can be lived out in solitude - the Christian life not only requires community but can only be truly lived out in community. And the community in Leeds has been used by God so greatly to mould me and shape me.

And like what Paul says in 1 Thess 3:9-10, sometimes I feel like I want to be back in Leeds to 'supply what is lacking'. After our chat yesterday, Daniel sent me and Val a text message, saying that he wishes he could still be a blessing to the people in Leeds. And in that same way that's what I feel. I keep on thinking of what I can do for Leeds if I were there and how I can feel the 'needs' of the fellowship. But as we all came to conclude, that part of our lives has been closed. Yes, we can still be a blessing, but to go back to it would be as Val said, 'living in the past'. Nonetheless, this community is what we all long for and love.

And indeed this is what I feel is lacking right now for me in Singapore in terms of my spiritual growth - the lack of a community. But God is slowly building that up and I have to be patient and continue to grow deep in Him through this time. I am so hungry to share with people about God, to talk about God, to live out what I learn in books, sermons amongst my fellow brothers and sisters. I thank God therefore for the deeper conversations that I've been able to have over the past 2 weeks with mostly sisters in my cell group and other friends.

In fact, I thank God very much for the cell group that He has placed me in in City Harvest. It's truly an amazing cell group - filled with God's presence and God's love. Although I barely know the members yet, there's really such a great sense of GOd's warm embrace in the cell and I already feel so welcome in it. I wouldn't go as far as to say that I feel like I'm a part of it yet because I haven't been in the cell long enough, but I am already starting to love and miss cell meetings.

I brought friends to church last Sunday and I was so amazed to see how quickly my cell members warmed up to my friends and made them feel so at home. And the cell group helpers send out SMS prayer alerts to everyone to pray for cell members who are going through particularly difficult times. I think that is so so great. Yesterday as well during the service, one of my cell members came up to me during the altar call to check on me and whether I needed prayer. I felt so loved. :)

I guess there will be part of the Leeds lifestyle that I can never find in Singapore again and that is what will make it so special. There will be a part of me that will always remember and miss Leeds. But I thank God that He has allowed me to put aside what is behind and 'strain towards what is ahead' (Philippians 3:13). I know that God has an amazing plan ahead for me in Singapore and I wait in great anticipation for what is ahead. God is goood! :)

The Power Available to Us

2006-07-25T11:53:00.000+08:00

I just finished reading Ulf Elkman's book Faith That Overcomes the World - a powerful book that has changed my prayer life ever since. Just want to share one of the most remarkable passages of the book that has really encouraged me.

So long as you believe you are lacking in faith, you will be unable to avail yourself of the promises that apply to you as a believer.

So long as you believe you need to have some sort of special faith to see God do miracles, and that only a select few ever receive it, you will never personalize the promises of God.

But in John 14:12 Jesus says, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also (note that Jesus is talking here about the individual and not the collective faith of the Church);and greater works than these he will do.According to Jesus, the individual believer is supposed to do what He did.

Wow! I don't know how you respond to this passage, but I can't help but go WOW at that. We, as believers in Christ, are supposed to do what Jesus did when He was on earth! It is the 'minimum' expectation! How far have I fallen short in believing in the power of God available to me!

This is the power that is available to us - Jesus's power to preach the gospel, His healing powers, His powers of deliverance, His miracles, everything! And what is even more striking is this - and greater works than these he will do. Oh wow. We are supposed to do what He did, but Jesus says that we can do greater works than Him! Wow!

The verse in John continues to say:

"And whatever you ask in My name, that I willl do, that the Father may be glorifed in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it." (John 14:13-14)

Ulk Elkman speaks of such a verse and parallel verses in the gospel. We often try to rationalize such verses, saying, 'No, it can't possibly be true. Is it? It can't be 'anything''. But it is anything! God has such abundant power available to us! God has such abundant riches available to us! In Ephesians it says, 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ'. We have been given every blessing!

So let us continue to believe in Christ for more in our own lives, but not 'more' for our own good, more blessings so that we can continue to expand His kingdom on this earth. Our God is really such a great God! :)

Sanctuary

2006-07-23T23:30:00.000+08:00

I worship You, Lord
In You my life restored
This is my heart
Make it Your sanctuary
For nobody else, but Jesus only

This latest worship song composed in City Harvest touched me the moment I first listened to it on my sister's iTunes and it continues to touch me everytime I hear it and especially when we sing it during cell group or worship services. The presence of God always comes so strongly into my heart as I cry out this song as a personal prayer to my Lord, Jesus Christ.

My first week in Singapore has been great! Getting to spend time with friends and family and especially getting aquainted with my new family in Christ in City Harvest Church has been great.

Nonetheless, I still miss Leeds immensely. There are many things I will miss, but what I will really really miss the most is being in fellowship with Christians everyday, and almost every moment of my life.

I have been really really blessed in Leeds. I stay with Christians. We have daily prayer meetings at 6 pm at the Parkinsons, so I'm receiving 'feeding' and prayer everyday, as well as praying for others and in fellowship with people who know and love God deeply. I spend most of my leisure time with Christians as well and God is just such a frequent topic in our conversations. I spend so much time with the people of God that in a sense it becomes 'easy' to keep a Christian life as there are people to keep me accountable, the preaching of God's word to keep me 'sharp' and prayers to release the power of the Holy Spirit in my life daily. As I look back on the past year in Leeds, I slowly come to see how God has really been so good to me.

Now I'm back in Singapore. My 'church' life has sort of been relegated to cell on one day and the weekend. I spend time mostly with non-Christian people instead of Christians. And because I'm new to the church, our sharings have not reached the level of depth and transparency that I reached with some in Leeds.

I really really miss the abundance of God's presence in my life that I had when I was in Leeds. I miss being transparent - where people know who I am, know my struggles and see me for who I am - not as a scholarship holder who has a Masters in English, but a person with real struggles, where people see me as 'Andrew'. I miss having the privacy of my own room - where whenever I feel a prompting to pray, I just close my door, turn on some worship music, and spend sometime in God's presence - as long as I want. Such simple joys of worshipping God were joys I never appreciated fully when I was in Leeds.

I am so hungry for God that a great excitement stirs up in me whenever I go for cell and to church. God's hand is so apparent on my life, but right now, I still feel distant from God's heart.

And because I'm entering the army soon, I fear that God's presence in my life will 'decrease' even more - as I might not even get to go to cell group or even have to miss church on certain training weekends. Added to that is the fact that I won't have my own private space in army - which means my extended quiet times that I had in Leeds would be hard to come by.

I went for cell group last week with that great fear in my heart - the fear that my opportunities to worship God would be so much reduced as I go into the army, the fear that the opportunity to dwell in His presence would decrease as I so-called 'go on in life'.

God spoke to me during cell - not through the message directly - but through the words of the song, 'Sanctuary', which was our response song.

To think that the universe could not contain your glory
Yet You chose to live in me
I'm so amazed

The realization came to me then - that yes, God's presence is not only around me, it is within me! God yearns not only to surround me. He wants to dwell inside me and this is what the whole song was about - making our hearts a home, a sanctuary where God's presence can dwell, so much so that we don't just become seekers of God's presence, but carriers of His presence to a world which is hungering so much for it.

Wow. I was so comforted by that Word from God.

Yes indeed Lord. I want to be a carrier of Your presence. Make my heart a home for You! This is a calling back to soul care once again - a calling back to the inner life.

I would say that my final year in Leeds has really been a year of learning how to care for my soul and God is continuing to bring me on this journey now that I'm back in Singapore. Because really, the most important thing in the Christian life is caring for your soul and bringing it into communion with the Spirit, so that you move with the Spirit, you sow to the Spirit and reap life! And this is how I am going to spend the remaining days that I have before entering the army, in quiet devotion to God, dwelling in His presence and welcoming Him into me. :)

For those who've read this entry, thank you for faithfully reading my blog all this while in spite of the fact that I've not updated it in ages. I'll try to write more over the next few days. I will not abandon this blog, though I cannot guarantee regular updates. :) God bless dear friends and I pray that this entry has blessed you.

Thanksgiving

2006-05-19T16:46:00.000+08:00

When I first returned to Leeds after summer last year, I spent a few days re-orienting myself. I listened to City Harvest's sermon on goal-setting and then spent a few days thinking through the goals I wanted to set for myself - for my spiritual life, my studies, my health, my friendships. I wrote them down, pinned them up on my wall.

Habbukuk 2:2 says "Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it."

These goals have been my source of strength and energy throughout the year. The vision' I've put on my wall has made me run many times and hold on to the faithfulness of God. As the year progressed, God altered some goals - refining them, redirecting some of them and showing me that some of them would have to wait.

As this year draws to a close and I look back on the goals, I stand in awe as I see them slowly being achieved one by one. Goals I never thought achievable have been achieved through His strength. And I continue to hold on to Him in faith that those which have not been fulfilled will be.

This week is a week of celebration. Celebrating who God is and how good He has been in our lives.

Thank you God for how good you've been to me. Thank you God for who you are - because of who you are, I stand assured that You will be good to me, for the rest of my life. Amen.

The Habit of Having No Habits

2006-05-13T18:22:00.000+08:00

It's been three weeks since the term started and no proper blog entry since then, so time to write something to glorify Him and to keep you guys updated about what a great God we have. :)

The first two weeks of my term were one of the craziest ever - with two 4000 word essays to do, Amos Bible study to prepare for, Wednesday prayer meetings, cell group messages, training for a half-marathon - not to mention the various social commitments I make, just to spend sometime 'enjoying' God. God was really gracious to me through those two weeks of craziness, showing me constantly that He is in control. Those two weeks were weeks of incredible peace and stability - I was able to wake up regularly each day at the same time, do my quiet time, set off to uni to do some work, have my lunch or afternoon prayer session (depending on whether I'm fasting or not), work in the afternoon then go for prayer meeting and spend my night leisurely.

Everything felt really in control, everything felt stable, I felt like I had my life in control and really, God brought me through by the end of last week - I completed my two 4000 word essays on Thursday 12 noon, 4 hours before the deadline and I completed the half-marathon in a good speed - 2 hrs 10 minutes - not bad for a first run. The half-marathon was a great accomplishment for me because I was so fearful about it. My dear brother, Tze Way, can attest to how overwhelmed by fear and anxiety I was but thanks to his prayers and of course God's grace, I completed the run and crossed the finish line with really a sense of how AMAZING God was!

So, the first two weeks of this semester were great times for me.

Then came this week.

I was recovering from the fatigue of the marathon so on Monday, I woke up later than usual and couldn't get into my usual work routine of the past two weeks because of other commitments. My legs were so sore that I just didn't feel like getting any work done.

Okay, I thought. So Monday is a rest day - Tuesday I will resume work. Tuesday wasn't much better as well. I woke up much later than usual and then went to school with much lerthagy. I ended up having to come home to wait for the arrival of a new single bed in our home and then chatting on MSN for 2 hours and ended up spending only 3 hours in school doing work.

And the whole breaking of regularity is a pattern that has been happening over the past week.

In addition to my breaking of regularity during the day, my regular sleeping and waking up hours have been disrupted. Thank the Lord that He has really blessed my friendship with my dear brother lately and we've been having a lot of sometimes deep, sometimes casual, sometimes crazy but always enjoyable conversations and prayer sessions at night which has really thrown my sleeping schedule off - sometimes I sleep at 1, sometimes at 2.30 and as a result of that, my usual morning quiet time slot has been pushed back and the temptation to cut it short is always there, but thank God that I haven't.

The regularity has been lost, and in some senses, I've lost that sense of control and even the peace in my heart at times. I admit that at times I feel afar from God and not sure whether He's still there.

Yet, although I don't 'feel' like God is there, there has been a strong sense of God's presence with me. I don't really know how to explain it. I think Don Moen's song - 'I Will Sing' - speaks to this feeling the most accurately -

Lord You seem so far away
A million miles or more it feels today
And though I haven't lost my faith
I must confess right now
That it's hard for me to pray
But I don't know what to say
And I don't know where to start
But as You give the grace
With all that's in my heart

Though God's presence has been with me, I've nonetheless been feeling lost and feeling uncertain of where I'm going - whether what I'm doing is right. For the first two weeks of the semester, I felt very guided by God even to the extent that I could hear his voice at times, telling me what to do, but somehow over the past week, I felt as if his voice had withdrawn from me and just left me floundering to find my way.

The breakthrough came last night, at 4 a.m., as I came back from my coursemates' birthday party, I felt a prompting to read Oswald Chamber's My Utmost for His Highest - which was interesting given that I haven't touched this devotional for a few months, and Praise the Lord! - Oswald Chamber's devotional unlocked the key for me to understand my journey over the past week:

The Habit of Having No Habits

When we first begin to form a habit, we are fully aware of it. There are times when we are aware of becoming virtuous and godly, but this awareness should only be a stage we quickly pass through as we grow spiritually. If we stop at this stage, we will develop a sense of spiritual pride. The right thing to do with godly habits is to immerse them in the life of the Lord until they become such a spontaneous expression of our lives that we are no longer aware of them. Our spiritual life continually causes us to focus our attention inwardly for the determined purpose of self-examination, because each of us has some qualities we have not yet added to our lives.

Your god may be your little Christian habit— the habit of prayer or Bible reading at certain times of your day. Watch how your Father will upset your schedule if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes. We say, "I can’t do that right now; this is my time alone with God." No, this is your time alone with your habit. There is a quality that is still lacking in you. Identify your shortcoming and then look for opportunities to work into your life that missing quality.

Love means that there are no visible habits— that your habits are so immersed in the Lord that you practice them without realizing it. If you are consciously aware of your own holiness, you place limitations on yourself from doing certain things— things God is not restricting you from at all. This means there is a missing quality that needs to be added to your life. The only supernatural life is the life the Lord Jesus lived, and He was at home with God anywhere. Is there someplace where you are not at home with God? Then allow God to work through whatever that particular circumstance may be until you increase in Him, adding His qualities. Your life will then become the simple life of a child.

Taken from My Utmost for His Highest Online

Wow! How insightful and true!

I was sharing with a close friend of mine on Thursday that perhaps God was guiding me to place my stability and my trust in Him instead of in my regular habits and regular timetables. Now, this is not to say that keeping a disciplined and regular lifestyle is WRONG - but it only becomes WRONG when, as Chamber says, that habit becomes an idol in place of God - that habit becomes something that takes the place of God as your solid rock in your life.

And indeed! That was what had happened to me over the past three weeks. I really thank the Lord for His grace. The line that struck me the most in the above devotional was this:

Watch how your Father will upset your schedule if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes.

I felt as if Oswald Chambers was speaking directly to me as he wrote that. And indeed, that is what I have been watching over the past week.

As I read that devotional, my heart came to God in repentance for putting my habits over Him and my faith rose as well to believe that Yes, God is STILL in control! Even when life is in a 'mess', even when we don't do things according to what we THINK is a controlled timetable, God is still in control!

As I repented to God, laid down my idols, God started to speak once again to me this morning and showed me so many things to do in my life and to pray for. Thank the Lord for I've found Him once again! How my heart is prone to wonder and to stray from Him, but His amazing grace always seeks and finds us back and leads us back to the way everlasting!

Anyway, the next two weeks will once again be busy weeks but it's the final dissertation stretch. It's going to be an exciting two weeks and I look forward to the multiple challenges that God is going to bring me through.

God is really so so so SO good. :)

The Heart of Evangelism

2006-04-27T16:29:00.000+08:00

Time does not permit me to write long blog entries about my life right now. God has been really good to me though and He inspired me greatly with this lovely Bible study which I shared with my dear brothers and sisters during prayer meeting yesterday. I hope it will bless you as much as I was blessed preparing this sharing. :)

Paul's Evangelism in Athens (Acts 17:16-34)
Today we’re going to continue learning from the Apostle Paul and his life. Yesterday, we saw him as a teacher, tutoring Timothy and teaching him about absolute obedience to the word to the point of persecution. Today, we are going to look at Paul as an evangelist and Paul’s devotion to the gospel as he goes to Athens in Acts 17:16-34 – this passage can be divided into three main sections from which we can draw three powerful principles that will govern our own evangelism.

The Scope of Paul’s Evangelism

¹⁶While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. ¹⁷So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. ¹⁸A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. ¹⁹Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? ²⁰You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." ²¹(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

Paul evangelized everywhere, to everyone at all times.

He preached the gospel in the synagogues with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks on the Sabbath day and on non-Sabbath days (‘day by day’). Just like in Thessalonica, he would have delineated the Christ of scripture, the Jesus of history to the people who were religious.

Secondly, he went to the agora, the market place. The agora was not only a market place but also the centre of public life. There, Paul reasoned with the common folk, ‘casual passers-by’ (NEB), those who happened to be there, not now on the Sabbath but day by day. A modern equivalent of this would be a park, city square, street corner, where people meet when they are at leisure.

Thirdly, he disputed with the intellectual elite, the Epicureans and Stoic philosophers. He preached a sermon at the Areopagus. It was the town-house, or guildhall of their city, where the magistrates met upon public business, and the courts of justice were kept; and it was as the theatre in the university, or the schools, where learned men met to communicate their notions.

Background information: The Epicureans considered the gods to be so remote as to take no interest in, and have no influence on human affairs. They believed that life was due to chance and that there was no such thing as judgment or life after death. Emphasized chance, escape, enjoyment of pleasure.
The Stoics acknowledge a supreme god but confused him with the ‘world soul’. The world was determined by fate and human beings must pursue their duty, resigning themselves to live in harmony with nature and reason, regardless of how difficult it is. Emphasized fatalism, submission and endurance of pain.

It is even more important to note in the midst of all this that Paul’s time in Athens was a time of waiting. He was not sent to Athens on a mission. He did not come here as a man of mission to preach Christ. Paul was waiting for Timothy and Barnabas. He was hoping to return to Macedonia – for it was to Macedonia that he was called. Imagine! This is how Paul spent his holiday!

The Strategy of Paul’s Evangelism

²²Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. ²³For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
²⁴"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. ²⁵And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. ²⁶From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. ²⁷God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ²⁸'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
²⁹"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill. ³⁰In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. ³¹For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”

Paul engaged in three different kinds of evangelism – church evangelism, street evangelism and home evangelism (where there is free discussion and free reign of intellect), meeting the different people at their different levels of needs.

If we read Paul’s sermon from v.22-31, we see that it is really a brilliant piece of rhetoric, picking up from what he observes and using that as a starting point – ‘Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you’. Paul was a very clever man. He had a lot of head knowledge and his sermon responds to aspects of the Epicurean and the Stoics philosophy and also the idolatry that he sees around him. There is a necessity for us sometimes to equip ourselves if we want to evangelize – I realised this especially for Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu evangelism.

Paul emphasized the God the creator of all things on earth and of all humans, v. 24-26. Responding to the idolatry that he saw around him and also the Epicurean emphasis on a chance combination of atoms or the virtual pantheism of the Stoics.

Paul emphasized the caring nature of God. God as our father, God as being near. v. 27-28. Paul was targeting the Stoics here who saw life as being painful and a long trial of suffering.

Paul emphasized the certainty of judgement and the call to repentance. v. 29-31. Here, Paul was responding to the Epicurean belief in the lack of judgement and the pursuit of pleasure, living for the now.

Paul knew how to bring God to the people and bring God specifically to the people, which leads us to the next point.

The Success of Paul’s Evangelism

³²When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject." ³³At that, Paul left the Council. ³⁴ A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

Did Paul manage to convert many? No! ‘A few men’ followed and believed.

But is that how we measure the success? Look at how powerful the conversions were.

Dionysius the Areopagite was one of that high court or great council that sat in Areopagus - a judge, a senator, one of those before whom Paul was summoned to appear; his judge becomes his convert. The account which the ancients give of this Dionysius is that he was bred at Athens, had studied astrology in Egypt, where he took notice of the miraculous eclipse at our Saviour's passion,--that, returning to Athens, he became a senator, disputed with Paul, and was by him converted from his error and idolatry; and, being by him thoroughly instructed, was made the first bishop of Athens.

Paul might not have converted many, but the only person that God used him to change was eventually used as a bishop! Sometimes evangelism is worth it just because of that one life that will be changed. This is what I learnt as I did my street evangelism during my mission trip. Sometimes I wonder – does giving out all these tracts help? How effective is it – going from door to door? But then someone told me, even if you speak to a hundred people, and only one converts, it makes everything worth it. Even if you speak to a thousand and only one converts, it’s worth it.

Evangelism is not about ‘converting’ – imagine how many seeds Paul sowed in Athens during his visit there. Imagine how many people he spoke to! He provoked people into question. He provoked them into curiosity. What an amazing evangelist Paul was in terms of scope, strategy and success!

I bet some of us must be thinking now – I must be like Apostle Paul. I want to go out in all areas of my life, equip myself to speak to anyone and be able to bring Christ to meet the felt needs of everyone. I must be an evangelist with great scope, great strategies and great ‘success’ in Christ’s eyes.

However, I feel that is missing the whole point of Acts 17. Acts 17 is not only about the act of evangelism, Acts 17 is about the spirit of evangelism. There is one verse in this whole passage of Scripture that is so crucial which I have not looked at yet.

The Spirit behind Paul’s Evangelism

16While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. (NIV)

The longer Paul waited in Athens for Silas and Timothy, the angrier he got--all those idols! The city was a junkyard of idols. (The Message)

Paul had some days to wait at Athens for Silas and Timothy to arrive, and while he was there his soul was exasperated beyond endurance at the sight of a city so completely idolatrous. (JB Philips New Testament Translation)

What motivated Paul to evangelize, to reason, to preach was his distress.

The Greek word for this is paroxyno. What exactly is this emotion? This verb is also regularly used in describing the reaction of God, the Father, to idolatry – when the Israelites made the golden calf at Mount Sinai, when later they were guilty of gross idolatry and immortality in relation to Baal of Poer etc.

Paul was ‘provoked’ by idolatry. He was provoked to anger, grief and indignation, just as God was himself, and for the same reason, for the honour and glory of his name. Scripture sometimes calls this feeling jealousy.

It is not a violent loss of temper - it is a continuous, settled reaction.

The ‘distress’, ‘paroxysm’ which Paul felt in Athens was not due to bad temper, nor pity for their ignorance, nor even to fear for their eternal salvation. It was due rather to his abhorrence of idolatry.

This inward pain and horror which moved Paul to share the good news should similarly move us. The people who love God’s name should share in his jealousy of it. We need to know not only how to evangelize, but why we are doing it.

A common motivating verse for world evangelization is obedience to the Great Commission. The next motivating force is love for people, to have that compassion for the lost that Jesus had. But the highest incentive of all is zeal or jealousy for the glory of Jesus Christ.

God has promoted him to the supreme place of honour, in order that every knee and tongue should acknowledge his lordship. Whenever he is denied his rightful place in people’s lives, we should therefore feel inwardly wounded and jealous for his name.

Note that nobody was with Paul at this time of his evangelism. This is an account written by Luke, probably based on what Paul related to him about his time in Athens. There are two possibilities regarding the transcription of this passage. Either Paul used this word himself to describe his own emotions or it was something that Luke captured from Paul as Paul described his evangelism efforts in Athens.

I pray that today we will capture the heart of Paul and Luke here. Sometimes you can just really capture the heart of jealousy people have for God.

I remember in equipping weekend, Kenny Gan was telling us about how some people say serving in church or serving God is a waste of time and you could sense his righteous anger and his righteous jealousy for God. He was almost in tears as he said, ‘Don’t you dare say that serving God is a waste of time? How dare you say that?’.

Today, let us not pray that as a church our scope of evangelism will increase, that we will have better strategies for evangelism or that our evangelism will be successful. We do not speak as Paul spoke because we do not feel as Paul felt. We have never had the paroxysm of indignation which he had.

And if we do not feel as Paul felt, it is because we do not see as Paul sees.

Paul saw, he felt, he spoke.

Paul saw men and women created by God in the image of God, giving idols the homage which was due to Him alone.

You know, the world around us now in Leeds is just as consumed by idolatry as the world of Athens is, especially now during this time, the idols in our lives – fame, wealth and power, alcohol, work, studies, possessions, even church and religion – all these idols threaten to consume not just the people around us, but also ourselves. An idol is a god-substitute. Idols always seem particularly dominant in cities.

Have we ever been provoked by the idolatrous cities of the contemporary world?

Prayer points

Let us pray firstly that we will see as Paul sees – that we will learn to see the idols around us and be sensitive to them. Maybe as we split up into groups, share with each other the idols that you see in your own life – things that might distract you from God and pray for each other.

Pray that we will learn to see each person around us as created by God in His image. Because only when we see that, then can we believe that they need Christ.

Let us pray that we come to learn of this holy jealousy for God’s name, that we have the same distress that Paul had for the idolatry that he saw around him.

Lastly, let us pray for something outward – pray for that balance that Paul had.
In spite of his anger, horror and dismay, he did not react in violent bursts of tempers or weep helplessly or curse and swear at them. He reacted in Christ-like boldness and sensitivity, positively and constructively.

As we pray for these things, let us rise up in faith and believe that out of these prayers will flow the scope, the strategy and the success of our evangelism.

NEEC 2006: The Violin Player

2006-04-23T03:26:00.000+08:00

Our speaker this year for the North England Easter Conference (NEEC) was Joel Edwards from Evangelical Alliance. More information on him available here.

One of the analogies that Joel Edwards used which remained in most of our minds was that of a violin player.

In order to produce the best music, the violin player needs to hold the bow lightly, allowing the bow to glide across the strings. I understood this analogy because it was a similar situation with playing the er-hu when I was in secondary school and college. I remember our er-hu coach telling us to 'fang4 song1' (let loose) of your bow to produce the most beautiful and resonating melodies. It was so difficult, because our natural tendency is to hold on tightly to the bow, thinking that the more we 'control' it, the better the sound we can produce.

Just like the violin player, a disciple of Christ has to be one who holds on to the things of this world lightly. The disciple of Christ needs to be an anti-materialist - to realize that the material things of this world are simply rubbish compared to the value of knowing Christ (Philippians 3:8). This challenged me a lot to really hold on to the things of this world lightly, not because I don't care about them or because I don't value them, but because the material blessings that I have are not mine - they all belong to God. Everything that God has blessed me with materially is not mine to hold, not mine to control. They are still His and I am simply a steward of what belongs to Him.

During this NEEC, God challenged me with this question - 'Are you willing to let go of your own life and let me take control?'

He not only challenged me with this question, but brought me on a journey of letting go as I led a group for the first time during NEEC. Before I came for NEEC, the group leaders were all given a name list of our group members and a set of questions to prepare for discussions. I spent sometime before NEEC praying for my members and also preparing these discussions. I entered NEEC with this sense of 'prepardness' - feeling that I was ready to meet these people and ready to lead the discussions.

God, however, had different plans. As I came to NEEC, I was issued a new namelist for my group and I realised that some members had been added to my group and one or two shifted. That wasn't a big problem in itself, but the biggest problem came to me when we realised that Joel Edwards didn't exactly follow the discussion topics which were prepared. It meant that what I prepared couldn't be used wholesale in my discussions. Furthermore, the new namelist that was given to me wasn't exactly the group that I had because there were people who were just coming for one day who joined my group, group members who didn't want to partake in all activities and members who were involved in other things. As such, there was no 'stability' in this group, there was nothing I could get a firm hold on.

We had two group discussions on the second day of NEEC and each group discussion was different. What this forced me to do then was to listen to God, depend on the Holy Spirit and respond as He guided me to. Surprisingly enough, in spite of all the 'instabilities', God's peace was with me and the group discussions all went well.

I thanked God so much for His grace upon me and His guiding wisdom, yet at the same time, there was such a great sense of anxiety in me and a great burden for this group.

The next day I woke up really early and wanted to pray for my group members but God just told me to keep quiet. I was so tired though when I woke up and just so drained, and the time of prayer was just so difficult. I tried to pray for my group members but it was just like I couldn’t, and I just spent that time in quietness before God. There was just something tied up on the inside of me that I couldn’t be free of – something so tense on the inside of me. When I went for the early morning prayer session, this ‘tension’ on the inside of me was released as we worshipped and I started crying uncontrollably. I think it was a moment of immense surrender for me where I unconsciously told God in my spirit that ‘God, this is your group. I can’t do anything already, take it and use it and may Your will be done in this group!’ and because of this prayer of surrender, God indeed started to speak to me and I started to see the group as God did. This released me tremendously and I started to enjoy the group so much more on this day.

As I let go of the group, I started to be able to serve Him more effectively, to listen to Him more effectively and really, I started to see God at work in this group. It was amazing!

I felt as if God was saying to me - "This is what happens when you let go. It might be uncertain, it might be unsure, but I have things under control. Just sit back and watch me at work".

Yes, I admit that I've struggled many times with letting go. I like to keep things under control. I like it when I can determine what's going to happen, how it's going to happen and when it's going to happen. I like it when I can plot every step of my future, to proceed in a logical and decisive manner, to allocate my time wisely and smartly amongst the things I need to do.

Now, I'm not saying that all this is wrong. Discipline, control and organization have their own roles to play in the Christian life. A great outreach event is one that is methodically planned and attentive to all detail, with a great sense of excellence.

The struggle though is to retain a sense of surrender amidst this sense of excellent planning, which I feel is what God is challenging me to do for the next phases of my life.

The group was a great challenge for me but God pulled me through. I didn’t know what to expect, but God knew and indeed His plan was sovereign. When I surrendered, lost control and let Him take control, He brought it to His own ends and that brought me so much joy and contentment. This spoke to me on the larger scale of my life. Indeed, I do not know what to expect as I return to Singapore, but God has assured me of two things – firstly, it will be tough, but secondly and most importantly, He will be with me. Isn’t that the greatest assurance of all? I’ve heard a strong voice echoing these words to me many times since the message Wee Leon shared on trials and I’m almost certain now that these words are from God.

The sacrificial lifestyle won’t be easy indeed – to hold the things of this world loosely, to give up my individualism / self-control, to live for the sake of others. The temptation is always for self-preservation, for self-improvement, for self-control, but God has said to me, No, I will preserve you, I will grow you if you let me take control of your life.

One of the most memorable experiences for me was running down the hill during our free time on the third day of NEEC.

I didn’t dare to do it – because I was afraid I would lose control, that I would tumble and fall and go too fast. But God has told me – let go, roll down the hill, because that is such an exciting journey. Yes, it would hurt, but at the end of the day, I will catch you and I will be with you. So yes, Lord, I give up my control over my life to you, placing myself as a living sacrifice before your throne. Lord, take control. Lord, lead me on the most exciting journey I’ve ever known and will ever know. Let me live each day without regret, live each day with that excitement that every thing that I do matters in eternity, everything that I do will echo in eternity because you are a God of eternity. Amen!

The Harvesting of Souls (3): Passion

2006-04-16T05:50:00.000+08:00

[Continued from previous two posts on my Easter Mission trip with OM Luke from 6 - 12th April]

Jesus’s passion for souls
³⁴"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. […] ³⁶Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.

Our Lord Jesus was so devoted to soul winning, to seeking and saving that which was lost that he neglected his own tiredness and hunger. Prior to this passage of scripture, his disciples implored him to eat, but he told them that completing the will of the Lord was his food. He was not only eager to start the work but to go through it and to finish it. It was hard work, but it was work which brought much joy to Jesus. He promises as well that both the sower and the reaper may be glad together! It was delightful work!

Indeed, in the five days of my mission trip, I captured so much more of the passion and hunger that Jesus had for souls and the joy that He had as He engaged in the work of soul-winning.

There was a huge map of the world in the Conference room at the OM Luke training base. On the first day, after dinner, a few of us were in the Conference room, just singing some worship songs to pass the time. Sun Jing, a guy from South Korea, was playing the piano and if I’m not wrong, he played ‘Jesus, Lover of my Soul’ and a few other songs. As I worshipped the Lord and looked upon that map, tears came to my eyes as my heart captured God’s vast and far-reaching love for the world, for all the souls of this world to be won into His kingdom.

God really opened my eyes over the next few days to see that yes, indeed, the harvest was plentiful and there was much work to be done. On Saturday, our first day of working with the church, we were brought on a tour of the neighbourhood and were brought to several viewing points where we had a panoramic view of the entire Black Country. As I looked out from that vantage point, there was just such a hunger within me to see this entire region won for Christ.

But alongside that enlarging of my vision for God, God allowed me to experience the abundant joy of serving Him in my short span of five days with the OM Luke team. God showed me how wonderful it was to live for Him, how my life had really been changed completely as I accepted Him into my life and what a beautiful, loving family I had been brought into as I took that step one and a half years ago to accept Jesus as my Lord and Saviour.

The church we worked with really made us feel like such a part of their family. Even though we spent a brief three days with them, it felt as if we’d been with them for so long and were family.

There were two girls, Sylvia and Katie, were in love with all the members of our mission team. I remember distinctly the scene after the barn dance outreach, where the two girls ran around hugging every volunteer, jumping up on them from the back and ‘hanging’ on them. I remember their brother, Mark – how we instantly clicked and how he called me his brother, not just his brother in Christ, but a ‘brother’ in his family. I remember how he told me that he was going to ask the pastor for the keys to the church to lock us all in because he didn’t want us to leave. I remember praying with him after the service on Sunday and feeling such a distinct certainty in my heart that God was going to use this man to impact the lives of many. I remember their grandmother’s wide, sweet smile and her warm embrace of farewell to all of us.

I remember Monday night, the final day of our work with the church – where all the farewells were so heartwrenching, the smiles so genuine, the hugs so warm. I remember being so overwhelmed by how good God was, how amazing it was that yes, this was God’s family, God’s universal family which can be found anywhere and everywhere. A family filled with such warmth and love, with such acceptance and joy.

Our mission team was amazing. Germans, Finnish, Nigerians, Singaporeans, British, Dutch, Americans, Korean – all brought together and united in one cause to make Him known. All brought together on the first day by our experiences of fear and apprehension as we moved out on the streets to initiate conversations with strangers. God then continued to bring us from glory to glory.

I watched many people grow bolder as the days progressed – not able to put their testimonies together coherently at first, but eventually managing to share their lives in a convincing and inspiring way. I was encouraged how many were willing to step out of their comfort zones at such a young age, to share their testimonies in a language not native to them, in a foreign land. We shared our lives with each other, prayed over each others fears, encouraged each other, affirmed each other about our futures. It was amazing how God just brought us all together, as one family in Christ.

And truly, these experiences of joy were what convicted me the most to seek and save the lost because I truly want to see those around me experience this same eternal, overflowing joy that Jesus can bring into their lives. Thank you God for the wonderful experiences you’ve given me during my first mission trip. Thank you Lord for the passion you’ve instilled in my heart, the faith you’ve placed in my heart, the love and the joy that you’ve eternally given to me! I pray that this passion for souls will never be lost!

An appeal
My dear readers, if you've been faithful enough to read to this point, could I make one request? Go back over the past two entries and pray for those people that crossed my path during my mission trip - those that I spoke to on the streets or in their homes. The seeds have been sown. Prayer releases the power of God to bring the increase on that seed, to make it grow to a full-fledged faith in our dear Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank you very much and thank you too for having the patience to read my testimony. I hope you've been blessed by my sharing. :)

The Harvesting of Souls (2) : Principle

2006-04-14T06:21:00.000+08:00

[Continued from previous post where I describe the Easter mission.]

The principle for soul winning.
³⁷Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. ³⁸I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labour.

This was something I’ve learnt before but this lesson was drilled in more concretely throughout the 5 days of my mission trip.

Many times, we are simply there to sow the seed and any benefits we reap, like good conversations or salvation decisions made, are only a result of what others have already done. Many times, I felt that giving out religious tracts on the street was pointless because they were just so basic and simple, but then I realised that these were simply seeds which were sown. The OM staff shared with us many testimonies of how people who gave out religious tracts for many years realised years later than their giving out of tracts actually led many individuals to Christ.

Throughout the mission, God opened the opportunity for me to partake in different parts of the soul-winning process from 'preparing' the soil to planting the seed and to 'growing' the seed. I didn't get the opportunity to lead anyone to Christ, but I nonetheless feel thankful because I felt as if God was moving me each time I street-witnessed one step ahead of the previous time.

Case 1: Engaging with Strangers (Friday 7/4/06)
The first time we did street-witnessing was on Friday, the training day of the mission. We were given a lesson in the morning firstly on the British Culture so that we would be able to engage with people on the streets, and then we were given sometime to think about how to share our testimony in three minutes. After these lessons, we were given the opportunity to go out into the streets just to engage with people and the aim was simply to get into a conversation with someone.

I was overly ambitious when I first went out and I felt extremely pressured to have to share my testimony with someone. But even engaging someone in conversation was very difficult already. I was working with Chris, the German guy, and the first person we said hi to ignored us and walked ahead. We racked our brains for good conversation points and then realised that we would use our position as so-called tourists and use what we learnt about British culture earlier in the morning to engage people in conversations. We managed to get into two good conversations using points about British culture by asking where fish and chip shops were, what British like to do in general etc, and though we didn't reach the point of sharing our testimonies, I felt very grateful already that God had helped us to take that first step to engage a total stranger on the street in conversation.

Case 2: Engagement and Evangelism (Saturday 8/4/06)
On Saturday, before we went to Oakham Evangelical Church, we were given the opportunity to practise engaging people in conversation. I went with this British lady from Yorkshire - Diane and Christoph and we spoke to this lady who was running a tea stall in the farmers market.

Diane started the conversation by asking her about her business and what she did. She told the lady that we're here with a mission organization and learning how to share our testimonies and asked her if she had any interest in Christianity. The lady said she used to go to church but now she has no time. Diane then directed the conversation to me and told the tea-seller that I had a wonderful story to tell about how I knew God and it was amazing because it opened up the opportunity for me to share my story and after I shared the testimony, the lady told us as well that her husband left her and that she has 3 children to take care of, which probably explains why she has no time.

As we were ending the conversation, I felt a strong prompting to pray for her, so we just asked her if we could pray for her and she said okay and we prayed that the Lord will bless her with great business today and that the Lord will continue to shower His love and blessings upon her. I really believed in my heart that the Lord would honour our prayers and truly show this lady that He is real! :) God is so good, isn't He?

As Diane, Chris and I made our way back to the OM Luke training base, I had such great joy in my heart because indeed I felt that God has moved us beyond the first step we took the day before and allowed us, as a team, to bring God closer to someone in the market. I recognised also the power of working in a team because it gave us each more confidence and allowed us to share in the joy of bringing someone closer to God.

Case 3: Door-to-door Evangelism in the areas surrounding the church (Monday 10/4/06)
On Monday afternoon, after the prayer walking session I described in the first point about perspective, we did door-to-door evangelism. We were split once again into groups of three and we had to give out flyers advertising the church. We were encouraged to knock on each door and pass the flyer to the tenants and then attempt to engage the tenants in conversation, and hopefully, share our testimony.

This was an extremely amazing afternoon for me as I truly felt that God encouraged me by moving me from glory to glory in each conversation I had. There were four memorable conversations, marked in between by many cases of rejection or luke-warm responses.

I really thank God for His guidance because there were just certain doors where he prompted me to wait longer for the tenants to respond and indeed as I waited, the tenants came down and opened the door. This was indeed the case for the first significant conversation I had, which took place with a girl who was currently in college. She opened the door and received the flyer from me. I asked her if she had taken part in any of the church activities before and she said no and told me that her family doesn’t really know what they believe in. Then, I asked her if I could share my testimony with her and she said not really, because she had a lot of work to do. She was still reading the flyer then so I just went ahead and shared my testimony with her. At the end of it all, she didn’t have much of a positive response on her face but I went by faith that she had heard all that was said and that God would use whatever small seed I had sown to bring her that small step closer to Him.

After sometime, we realised we had too many flyers to give out and we couldn’t go knocking on every door, so we decided instead to put the flyers in the letterbox. I felt slightly disappointed because I really wanted to knock on doors and talk to people, but I realised the importance as well that every house in the neighbourhood receive a flyer. So, in response to that, I told God, ‘God, could you please bring the people that you want me to speak to out in the streets?’. I made a promise to God that every person I saw on the street, I would talk to and indeed God was faithful.

The first person that He brought was an old lady who was just walking up behind me. I greeted her and she was very warm and friendly. We started to talk and she told me that she used to go to church and that she had lost interest in it gradually and stopped going. I went on to share my testimony with her and she was very engaged, asking me questions about my life and thanking me after that for sharing my ‘family history’ (as she called it) with her. It was such a lovely conversation. I was so thankful to God for it and prayed in my heart that this lady would go back to church eventually.

We continued in our flyer distribution and I saw two kids coming up. One of the kids looked a bit like a punk and I was initially rather apprehensive about speaking to him but I remembered my promise to God, so I went up to the kids and spoke to them. They were very friendly as well. The both of them were brothers and they used to go to church as well with their mum, but their mum no longer went to church. The younger kid told me that he did believe in God and in Jesus and that he still prays every night and morning. The elder brother, on the other hand, was more sceptical. I didn’t share my full testimony with them but I kept telling them that God loves them and encouraged them to go back to church. They are having their holidays now, so I believed in faith that they would go back to church.

The conversations were getting more and more enjoyable and I was really thankful to God for all this. The final conversation was the best, though the shortest. As we reached the end of our pile of flyers, we realised that we had very few flyers left, so I became more patient and decided to wait at the doors once again. At the second last door, I felt God telling me to wait longer, so I waited and waited and just as I decided to insert the flyer into the letter-box, this man opened the door.

I showed him the flyer and he was extremely enthusiastic and asked me to point to him where the church was. He told me that he did believe in God but he wasn’t sure about his position on whether he believed in Jesus, but he was very interested in partaking in the church activities. As this house was closest to the church, it made it much easier to point out where the church was and I was so happy to finally meet someone who had a great interest in going to church.

As we were doing this door-to-door evangelism, I noticed that the weather was getting warmer. The sun was shining more powerfully and I had this image in my mind of the whole neighbourhood being littered all over with ‘seeds’ – which were our flyers – and now that we had all sown the seeds, God was bringing the ‘sunshine’, His power, to grow the seeds. I felt as if God was affirming our work and telling us that He would be faithful to being the increase to our work of sowing. I finished this session of evangelism with a great sense of faith and joy. Thank you so much God for giving me this wonderful experience.

Case 4: Street Evangelism in Birmingham City-Centre on Tuesday 11/4/06

This was our final opportunity to win souls for Christ and as we went out to the streets that day, I felt a strong sense from God that there was someone out there on the streets of Birmingham who was ready to receive Christ, who needed to hear Jesus calling out to him/her.

We were told to give out all the tracts we had (we had 25 each) and to attempt to engage in at least one conversation with someone. It was a very wet day which made it more difficult to engage with people because everyone was in a rush to get out of the rain. The rain got heavier and heavier and as we approached the time that we needed to go back, I still hadn’t engaged in a proper conversation with anyone but we decided to make our way back to the coach.

I was working with Doreen, Sun Jing and Chris and as we made our way back, suddenly this lady came in our way and passed us each a small flower, appealing to us to make a donation to her so that she could pay for food for her family. We spoke to her and she told us that she used to go to church five years ago but not anymore because a lot had happened in her life and she felt initially very angry with God. Sun Jing gave her some money and told her that he wanted to share the love of Jesus with her. She told us that she knows she will return into the arms of Jesus one day but she didn’t know when. We told her that we will pray for her when she get back and then we walked on.

As we walked on, I felt a prompting to go back and speak to her. I felt as if I had something to share with her, so I told the rest to go on and I made my way back to the lady. I gave her some money as well and I shared with her my testimony and assured her that whatever happened in her life, God will work it out for good in the end. I told her that Jesus was calling her back to Him today.

As I was sharing with her, two of her other friends, who were also selling flowers gathered around and were also listening to my testimony. I asked if I could pray for the lady and we moved to a corner. One of her friends was also a Christian. The other one claimed not to be a Christian, but claimed that she believed in Jesus and that Jesus was her Lord and Saviour. She said that she hadn’t personally accepted Jesus. I asked her if she wanted to do so today and she said no. Something in my spirit sank, but I believe by faith that her agreement with me that Jesus was her Lord and Saviour brought her just one step closer to God. I prayed for the three ladies and they were very thankful to me.

I then made my way back to the coach with a heart overflowing with thankfulness to God for giving me that opportunity to pray for someone and to draw someone closer to Him. As I reflect and look back on my experiences from start to end, I see that God has put me in different stages along the soul-winning ‘track’ from engaging to sowing to growing the seed and I thank Him that really He gave me this privilege. I know that He will continue to move me from glory to glory and perhaps the next time I go out into the streets, He will use me to lead someone to Christ! I’m still waiting for that day to happen and live in anticipation of that day where I get to lead someone on the streets to my Lord Jesus Christ!

The Harvesting of Souls (1) : Perspective

2006-04-14T06:10:00.000+08:00

On the first day as I arrived in OM Luke, I told the Doug, the so-called coordinator of this mission, that this was my first mission trip and I didn’t know what to expect. He told me to let God surprise me and he assured me that a mission will change the way that you look at the world completely. And how true it was!

I learnt so much about God and His kingdom within the 5 days of my mission. I experienced so much of His love, His grace and His transforming power through the Holy Spirit. I saw so much of how He could work in the lives many and felt deep in my heart His great passion for the world. So much happened that I find it really difficult to tell anyone about my mission trip. Anyone who asked me about it so far has received relatively little feedback unless they’ve had at least two hours to spare. I’ve given much thought about how to express it and then it struck me to come back to the foundation which is the Word!

So, I’ve decided to use a passage of scripture which I held on to throughout my mission trip to structure my testimony:

John 4
³⁴"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. ³⁵Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. ³⁶Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. ³⁷Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. ³⁸I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."

I read this passage of scripture during my quiet time on Saturday, which was the first official day of our mission trip where we would start our work with the Oakham Evangelical Church.

As I ponder on this passage again today and think back on the past five days, what I learnt about soul winning and experienced can mainly be summarized in three points, which I will split up into 3 different posts:

The perspective needed for soul winning.
v. 35 Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.

The harvest is ready! The complementary verses to these are from Matthew and Luke where Jesus says – the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. This verse convicted me and convinced me that yes, there was much work out there for us to do and all we had to do was to open our eyes and see where God was working.

During the morning devotion on Monday, Rodney (one of the OM workers) shared with us from John 5:17, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working’. Jesus Himself could not do anything other than what the Father was already doing and what this emphasizes is the importance of perspective – of being able to see what the Father is already doing and then to make ourselves available so that we can partake in God’s work.

This importance of seeing things in God’s perspective and being sensitive to His guidance was the most striking to me on Monday morning, during a prayer walk which we did around the neighbourhood.

We were planning to give out flyers advertising to the church in the afternoon and the prayer walk was just to prepare the ground, to ‘till’ the soil of the area so that the flyers that we sent out would ‘fall’ on good soil. Before we left, we were told just to pray as we walked around and also just to say hi and talk to people while we walked around, so as just to engage the people.

We split up into groups of three and I went with two German teenagers, Chris and Sarah. We were assigned to a street to walk down and then were told that after we finished the street, wherever we went to was up to us. We walked and prayed for the neighbourhood – that God would touch the peoples hearts, that God’s love would fill the households and that the Holy Spirit would speak to them.

We finished the assigned street and reached the main road where there were two different directions we could take. We decided randomly to turn to our right and we continued walking and praying. Eventually, we reached this junction where there was a small grass patch and a few benches. Chris decided to take a seat there and then Sarah also followed. I thought initially that he was tired and decided myself to just dwell in that area and pray.

Two kids came out of their house and we greeted them. We had a short conversation with them and then they told us they had to go to the provision store and would be back soon. As they made their way there, the three of us felt a prompting from God to pray together for the area out loud, so we sat together and I prayed that God would indeed open our eyes and let us see where He was working here. I prayed too that God would bring the multitudes out on the street and allow us to touch and reach them.

Just as we were praying, two other teenagers came along and they were friends of the two kids we spoke to earlier. The kids returned from the provision store and the four of them gathered outside one of their homes. Sarah, Chris and I approached the four of them and started a very lively conversation with them.

They asked us what we were doing here and we told them that we were praying for the area. And one of the teenagers said, ‘Thank you very much. This is a very dangerous area. There are a lot of gun-crimes and stabbing here. Please do pray for us’. Wow! It was so amazing to receive appreciation for our prayers.

While this conversation was going on, the streets were getting more and more crowded, with people walking from different directions. It was amazing! God was really bring people out on the streets!

I tore myself away from the conversation with the four kids momentarily to speak to an elderly lady who was walking up the street. I found out that she does go to church from time to time and as she claimed, she believes in Jesus ‘sometimes’. The conversation was really short as the lady wanted to return home after her morning of work. I returned to the conversation with the four kids and Chris was sharing his testimony of how God directed him to this mission with one of the teenagers.

This was really amazing for me to see because three days earlier, Chris wasn’t confident of sharing his testimony. English wasn’t his first language and he had difficulty expressing himself. We were working together on our testimonies and I helped him out. It was so amazing therefore to see that God had opened up the door for Chris to share his testimony. Chris expressed himself confidently and convincingly and the teenager was very amazed by Chris’s testimony.

The conversation went on for a while when Sarah, Chris and I decided to go on and make our way back to the church because it was nearing lunch time. As we were walking up the street to make our way back, we saw a whole group of kids running down the street and to our great surprise and amazement, three of the kids were near the church the day before playing football with Chris! I was like, WOW! What divine timing! Chris didn’t even know that the kids lived in this area and it was as if God was just planning that whole morning for us from stage to stage from the moment we left the church to the moment we decided to dwell at the bench and even the length of each conversation.

We started to mingle with the group of kids and they were very friendly, asking all of us many questions and asking us if we wanted to play football with them. We were slightly lost as we had strayed off our assigned road so we asked the kids if they could direct us back to church. They were very willing to do so and led us back to church rather quickly. There was still 15 minutes to spare before lunch so we decided to have a game of football with the kids, which was really fun. Even though I admit that I’m not a good football player at all, but the kids were so sweet and so encouraging. I remember a moment when I missed a goal and a kid, Adam, turned to me and said, ‘It’s okay, Andrew, everybody misses.’ Heh.

We returned back to church extremely thankful that God’s hand had been upon our day – that God guided us at every step of the way, showing us who to talk to and what to do. I felt so blessed that morning that God’s hand was truly upon us and indeed The Father is always at work and all we need to do is to be sensitive to His guiding.

The World's Most Jealous Lover

2006-04-05T21:22:00.000+08:00

I was preparing for prayer meeting sharing today and since Julee and Jean have sort of been sharing from Hebrews lately, I decided to have some continuity and share from Hebrews as well. Julee's sharing on Monday encompassed Hebrews, 4, 5 and 6 and Hebrews 7 was too "technical" for me (too much about the order of Aaron and Melchizedeck.. haha), so I decided to take a look at Hebrews 8:

The High Priest of a New Covenant

¹The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, ²and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man.

³Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. ⁴If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already men who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. ⁵They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: "See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain." ⁶But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.

⁷For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. ⁸But God found fault with the people and said:

"The time is coming, declares the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
⁹It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from them, declares the Lord.

¹⁰This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
¹¹No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
¹²For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."

¹³By calling this covenant "new," he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.

After expounding for 7 chapters on what it means exactly to have Christ as our high priest, Paul takes a short moment in Chapter 8 to summarize the gist of what he's saying so far. And the gist of what he's saying, which is also the theme of the whole of Hebrews is this idea of SUPERIOR.

In Christ, we not only have a new covenant to replace the first covenant (v. 7, v. 13), we have a superior one (repeated twice in v. 6) which is founded on better promises (v. 6). This covenant is superior in 3 ways:

1) The superior position of Christ

Positioned on the throne: Christ as our high priest is seated at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven (v. 1), enjoying great dominion and dignity, possessed of all authority and power both in heaven and on earth.

Positioned in the tabernacle: Christ as our high priest is also serving in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord(v. 2) - not simply in any earthly sanctuary which can only be 'a copy and shadow of what is in heaven' (v. 5). There, he takes care of people's affairs, interceding with God for us, so that our sins may be pardoned and their persons and services accepted, through the merit of his sacrifice.

2) The superior partnership with Christ

The Old Covenant focused on rituals and regulations.

The people needed to present offerings to God for various purposes (atonement of sin, thanksgiving, for peace etc.) and these offerings could only be presented by the High Priests.

The Lord gave distinct instructions to the people - not only the laws, but for the building of the tabernacle. Moses was warned when he was to build it that it had to be made 'according to the pattern shown [him] on the mountain' (v. 5).

The Lord took them out of Egypt 'by the hand, to lead them out of Egypt' (v. 9).

The Old Covenant was a "hands" covenant, focusing on works and God's direct leading of His people.

The New Covenant of Jesus focuses on relationship and response.

God declares that he will be our God, and we will be His people (v. 10).

He will be God to us. All that He can be and do, He will be to us! And in response to that, we, as his people, have to love, honour, observe and obey Him in all things.

But He has given us the grace to be able to fulfill our part of the relationship by placing his law in our minds and writing them in our hearts (v. 11). He has placed within us an inner desire for righteousness.

He has also made himself widely available to everyone. Not only high priests can approach him now, everyone will know him 'from the least of them to the greatest' (v. 11). He has given us an incredible disposition for realizing Him.

This new covenant is a "heart" covenant, focusing on an inner obedience and God's gracious leading.

3) The superior pardon we receive through Christ

"For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

The pardon we receive is free. It requires no merit from man, but only mercy from God.

The pardon we receive is full. All that we've done - sin, wickedness, iniquities. Everything is forgiven.

The pardon we receive is final. 'I will remember their sins no more'. God not only forgives, He forgets, as if the sin never happened.

As I slowly analyzed His word and identified these points (the final point about pardon is taken from Matthew Henry's Commentary), I felt very encouraged by the superior covenant we have with God, but at the same time, I felt my soul yearning for something more. I felt as if there was something deeper, something more WOW that God wanted me to speak through this passage.

I persevered and read it again, attempted to draw some thematic links between words in the passage. Could it be that God is trying to draw a comparison between hands and heart? Or is it that God is trying to describe an ideal community of believers (Old Testament vs. New Testament)? But I couldn't come up with anything concrete, or rather, these interpretations didn't give me that personal WOW.

I went to take a shower then I came back and looked again at this passage and looked specifically at the verses which weren't covered in detail in my analysis:

For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. (v. 7)

The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. (v. 8)

This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel, after that time, declares the Lord. (v. 10)

By calling this covenant "new", he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear. (v. 13)

These are all simple framing statements which mention how the first covenant is obsolete, therefore a new one will be made.

What struck me was who made the covenant.

God made it.

'I will make' is repeated 3 times in different forms. Along with verse 7, it suggests God's active role in making a covenant with us.

This seems like a pretty obvious and DUH point to make right? But let us consider the history of God's relationship with man.

God was not the one who had broken or failed the first covenant, it was the Israelites (v. 8). Their hearts were hardened, they were ungrateful to what God had done in their lives, they deliberately sinned against God in spite of his goodness and many warnings towards them.

Verses 7 to 11 are taken from Jeremiah, but there is a slight difference in Jeremiah. Instead of what Hebrews 8:9 says - 'they broke my covenant and I turned away from them', Jeremiah 31:32 says, 'they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them'.

Now let's use God's marriage metaphor and imagine this.

If you are in a marriage and the other party has hurt you, ignored you, completely forgotten what you've done for him/her, gone against your wishes in spite of you continually making clear what you want, how would you feel? Would you even want to maintain that relationship? Even in simple friendships, if our friends hurt us, if our friends betray us, we would just say, 'Forget it! I can always find other friends, these friends are not worth it'.

But look at how God responds and remember, this is GOD - A God who is Holy, a God who is righteous, a God who has created the heavens and the earth.

The Israelites hurt Him and ignored Him, but what did He do? He continually gave them chances to repair that old covenant and when that failed completely, did He stop pursuing them? No!

He sent His son down to set up a totally new covenant to try again to pursue them, to capture them back into His arms. He sent His son down to die, as the ultimate expression of His love, so that the world will come back to Him!

Did God need the people of Israel? No! Does God need us? No!

Why then does He even bother so much with us?

Hebrews 8 summarizes God's attempts to call the world back to Him. One covenant didn't work, so He tried again with a superior covenant where this time He offers his son in place of all the offerings that man has to give, so that they can draw close to Him. He places His laws in our heart and helps us to achieve it through His grace and His now widely available power.

And He has done all this so that He can win us over to Him! Look at how much GOD has done FOR US. Why does GOD, the creator of the Heaven and the earth, want to do so much to win us back?

Because. He loves us. He loves us so jealously that He wants us to be completely His. He loves us so jealously that He will do so much (while not compromising who He is) just to get our attention. He loves us so jealously that He is willing to sacrifice His own son so that we won't be held back from Him by sin.

And what have we done to deserve this?

NOTHING.

Wow!

Behind the superior position, superior partnership and superior pardon is a LOVE that cannot be superseded, a love that hasn't changed since the start of the Bible from Genesis to the end of the time. It is a love that can never change and will never change.

Yes, Hebrews may be about the superiority of Jesus Christ and the superiority of faith, but underlying all this superiority is a SUPERIOR LOVE that cannot be compared to anything the world can offer.

As I came to this realisation, I started to cry. It's not that I've never known that God loves me and that His love is unconditional, but what God showed me today was the extent of His love not only for me, but for the world, not only for the present world, but for the world past, present and future.It is a love so strong, so jealous that I wonder whatever I have done to deserve it.

Yes, the answer is nothing.

Thank you God for giving me such a timely revelation of Your love, just as I embark on my mission trip to Birmingham over the next week. I pray that Your love will continue to be fresh in my heart as I live each day not just during the mission trip but for the rest of my life. I know that this will not be the end of my encounters with Your love and I can't wait for the next time You touches me once again afresh with how great Your love is.

I was just thinking of what prayer point to share during prayer meeting today and I stumbled upon this verse:

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.(Ephesians 3:17-19)

Let this really be our prayer daily - for ourselves, for our friends and especially for those who do not yet know Him. Let us all go out and share with the world what a jealous God we have and how much God wants us to be His. Amen. :)

Academic Excellence

2006-04-05T08:26:00.000+08:00

Colossians 3:23-24:
23Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."

I've become rather slipshod with my work this year.

Over the past semester, I've developed the very unhealthy habit of making promises to my tutors about the dates when I will hand in my work and not keeping those promises, especially in terms of my dissertation.

I tell my tutor that I will hand in a piece of work by mid-week, thinking that this will motivate me to finish the work by mid-week but at the same time, knowing that I cannot possibly complete a satisfactory piece of work by then. I cannot count the number of times I've agreed to hand in a piece of work by a certain date but haven't handed it in. These pieces of work are not graded. They are simply dissertation drafts. And the fact is that my dissertation tutor, Dr. Brendon Nicholls, is extremely lenient and is himself a very busy person. Very often when I reschedule meetings with him because I'm unable to complete my work by the date I promise, he's more than happy to reschedule.

In addition to the dishonouring of promises, I've handed in many pieces of work this semester which I've felt extremely unsatisfied with. The fact is that these were drafts and not final assessed assignments, so in that sense, handing in a less-than-perfect work does not harm my overall academic grade. When I do end up keeping to essay draft deadlines, I simply cobble together a few ideas and hand in a piece of work which I know is not my best.

I've lost that sense of thrill of academic research - that sense of excitement at composing a beautiful paragraph of analysis. I've lost the joy of uncovering beautiful coherences amongst pieces of work which seem to be extremely varied in themes at first sight. I've lost that sense of excellence and craftsmanship where every single word needs to be carefully thought over and every single idea needs to be precisely expressed.

I've been sailing by this semester at this level of academic medicroity - allowing myself to hand in sub-standard work and pushing back deadlines, which were set in the first place by me (and not my tutor).

This cannot go on any longer.

None of my tutors have complained or said anything, because they're all really nice and well, this is University and we're all in charge of our own academic progress. In fact, my dissertation tutor, who is incidentally also a tutor for one of my modules, has been very gracious to me and very supportive.

However, I feel like I've let God down as a student this year. More important than the 'standard' of my work is the position of my heart. I no longer feel like I'm 'working at [my studies] with all my heart, as working for the Lord, not for men'.

I feel content when my tutors give my work the slightest praise, or when they give me looks of approval during seminars, but deep down inside I know I haven't put in my best.

Lord, set my heart right again. I truly want to honour you as a student. So I commit my essays and my dissertation into your hands now and I pray you help me in the following months to focus on being an excellent student so that I can bring honour and glory to Your name in my department. Instill in me once again that joy of academic and allow me to be EXCITED as I glorify you in this aspect of my life. Amen.

Hope to Finish the Race

2006-03-31T18:52:00.000+08:00

Have been listening to FCBC sermons over the past two days and they have truly been inspiring for me. Just what I needed to hear as I approach to end of this leg of my 'race' with God here in Leeds.

I was listening to the sermon 'The Faith to Conquer' by Pastor Cesar Castellanoes, who spoke during the G12 Conference in Singapore last week and he challenged every single believer in FCBC (Note: not only the cell leaders, not only those who have been Christians for a long time, not only 'mature' Christians, but EVERY SINGLE BELIEVER) to find 12 followers within the next TWO months. Wow!

He shared the story of Columbia where the church grew so much that the leaders started to get complacent, to settle in mediocrity. They settled for winning only 4 people a year, because the church was already so big. If out of the 4, only 1 stays - that is a blessing, they felt. And everyone had accepted that concept. The church had fallen asleep. There were less conversions, nobody was willing to go out anymore to win.

He went back and awakened the church again! He gave his 12 leaders a challenge -

'Every one of your disciples must win 12. And we are going to have 12 services where each one of you is going to take your disciples and their 12 to the Colosseum where we will have' miracle catches' services where those who do not yet know the Lord by then, will be given a chance to respond to the Lord. We are going to fill the Colosseum with people ready and willing to worship God!'

He divided the city into 20 districts, calling each of his 12 to go to 2 or 3 of these districts to conquer these neighbourhoods. One of his 12 took one of the districts and with his team visited 600 places, visiting house to house, and nobody rejected them! Everyone was very kind and very open and they came back so joyful, saying 'Pastor, we were so full of fear, we were so fearful that people were going to reject us - but it didn't happen. Everybody has a hunger for God!'.

And when the miracle catch services came, they didn't manage to fill the Colosseum, but at the smallest service, at least 60% of the Colosseum was filled with people who had been won over the past two months. And during those miracle catch services, 8500 people were won to the Lord! Wow!

How amazing is that!

Pastor Lawrence Khong ended the service by issuing a similar challenge to all the members of his church and FCBC is going to have their miracle catch service at the end of June. I can't wait to see how God is going to move so greatly in their midst, in Singapore. Imagine - if each person captures 12, how big the church will grow, how many souls will be won to Christ!

As I listened to that message, along with an earlier message by Pastor Khong about how we need to dream for God because dreams allow us to live in the future and to exercise our faith, I decided to commit myself over the next 2 months to finding my 12!

Although I'm not exactly a member of FCBC, but our leader, Wee Leon, is and he was sharing with me about how he feels that whenever he does an Encounter Weekend, the anoining of God flows down from Lawrence Khong to him. Wee Leon is similarly passionate about the G12 vision and I believe that the anoining will flow down from Lawrence Khong to Wee Leon and then to me! Heh. :)

In some senses, the past 7 months here in Leeds have been a journey of me finding my 12 as well. Wee Leon gave a challenge to us in the leadership cell group in December last year to find their 12 by July this year and as I listed down the number of my friends who had come to cell group, I realised I was almost hitting 12 already. But Wee Leon's challenge was not just 12 people who came to cell, but 12 people who were part of a Joshua Generation - disciples who were bold in faith, balanced in theology and biblical in perspective!

It seems so impossible now, but I want to believe by faith that by the time I leave Leeds this year, I will have found 12. That is a dream, a hope that will propel me in the months ahead as I finish this leg of my race with God in Leeds. How exciting it's going to be!

When I arrived in Leeds in September last year, my mission was to win my Singaporean friends and my coursemates to Christ. There are so many of them that I can't see how me - one person - could possibly win all of them. But Pastor Castellanoes said - don't focus on the thousands yet - focus on your 12! The 12 is the strategy of winning the thousands, your 12 is the strategy for winning the world! Amazing!

I haven't stopped dreaming for the salvation of my coursemates and the Singaporeans - although my passion right now for my coursemates is so much more intense than the latter, because I feel that the Singaporeans already have people interceding for them.

God has now given me a strategy for winning them.

I prayed last night for God to stir my heart to witness for Him again, to reach out and see with Christ's eyes the pre-believers and the multitudes.

I asked Him to bring a spirit of conquest upon me, for me to win 12 people to Christ over the next 3 months!

I confessed and believed that God was ready to do the impossible for me and bring those 12 to me!

Exciting things are going to happen over the next few months. Join me on this journey and let's continue to believe in God for the impossible. Amen!

Freedom to Live to the Fullest

2006-03-28T19:45:00.000+08:00

Went to watch V for Vendetta on Monday with Stephanie and Kyle. It was really one of the most excellent movies I've watched in a long while - lots of quotation from Shakespeare and random authors, stylishly and cleverly filmed, well-acted (not brilliantly, though Hugo Weaving does extremely well with soliloquies), good amount of action, though too much gore for my liking and it was a movie jam-packed with ideas, where 'ideas' almost took the forefront, overshadowing the characters themselves.

While it was indeed a brilliant movie, it was also an extremely grim one with what I felt was a very disturbing message about how the government is supposed to fear the people in an ideal system and how the destruction of the government or any form of institutionalized authority is what will eventually bring people together, perhaps within the context of UK only. I haven't worked out the finer political points of the movie, but this was the general impression I got from the movie in terms of its political message.

There were, however, a series of scenes in the movie which challenged me greatly - the scenes where Evey was being tortured in order to obtain information about V. and his locations. I'm not a good story teller at all, but I'm going to try my best to narrate the gist of the scenes. [Spoilers follow]

The torturer finally tells her that she's going to be sent to the chemical sheds to be shot, offering her a final chance to save her life by signing a testimony that wrongfully accuses V of being her torturer.

She refuses, saying, "Thank you but I'd rather die behind the chemical sheds"

The man responds, "Then there's nothing left to threaten you with, is there? You are free."

She walks feebly out of the prison and realises that her 'prison cell' was actually in V's home and that for the past weeks, she hasn't actually been in the state prison but rather in a prison constructed by V and her torturer was in fact, V, himself.

She obviously gets very angry and V tells her, 'I wanted to set you free.'

He says:

They offered you a choice between the death of your principles and the death of your body. You said you'd rather die. You faced the fear of your own death and you were calm. Try to feel now what you felt then.

Evey responds, 'I felt like an angel'.

While I was watching the torture scenes, I was just imagining myself - if I were one day tortured for something I stood up for, like Evey. Brother Yun came to mind immediately - if I were asked to betray my God, to deny Him in order to stop the physical abuse and suffering, the degradation and shame, would I be strong enough to stand up for Him? Would I have that resilience and that faith to stand up for Him even in the face of death? Would I have that faith to believe that I was dying for a cause that was worthy enough to give up my life for?

Very often, we pray during prayer meetings that our lives will be completely surrendered to God and laid down for Him and it's a prayer that I often pray myself, in my safe place, and was in fact a prayer that I prayed today, inspired by the movie. (Interesting how movies can actually inspire prayers eh. :P)

Sometimes when I think about this prayer, it scares me and there's a little voice inside me which says, 'Yes God, I surrender myself to you... BUT, please don't call me to die for you', which leads me to realize that my faith might not be that strong after all.

But as I pondered on the exchange between Evey and V, I realised the truth of what V was saying and received my WOW revelation this morning as I was praying.

They offered you a choice between the death of your principles and the death of your body. You said you'd rather die. You faced the fear of your own death and you were calm. Try to feel now what you felt then.

Evey was set free because she was willing to die for the principles she believed in. She was literally and also socially/metaphorically set free in the movie by that act of being bold enough to face her death, to choose death of her physical body over the death of her beliefs.

And isn't that even MORE the case with my faith in Christ?

It is only when I am willing to die for Christ, to die for my faith and belief in Him, that I will be free to live! It is only when I am willing to sacrifice every ounce of my physical, mental, spiritual energy for Him that I will experience true freedom from the enslavement of this world.

"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." (Matthew 16:24-25)

It is only when we are willing to lose our lives for the sake of Jesus, that we will find life!

2 Corinthians 4:10-12 says:
"10We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. 12So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. "

Isn't that the only life worth living?

One that is completely given over to death for Jesus' sake - so that his life may be revealed in us! One where we are so lost in the higher purposes of God that we lost track of ourselves, only concerned with God's purposes in this world that we decrease, and He increases!

Thank you God for challenging me in this area of my spiritual walk! :)

Faith to Run the Race

2006-03-27T16:02:00.000+08:00

Apologies to all who've been visiting my blog over the past few weeks and finding that yes - once again, it has gone into dormancy mode. I've been trying to justify myself by saying that I don't really have much to blog about - while that isn't really true, in the sense that there has been a lot happening but I feel that there isn't much for me to write about in terms of the WOW revelations that I've been receiving from God lately. God, however, has been teaching me a very subtle and quiet lesson over the past few weeks about faith and I feel a newer, stronger faith in me arising, taking me into the final stretch of the "leg" of my race in Leeds.

As early as December last year, God already convicted me that this was going to be my final year in Leeds. Before that moment of conviction, I was still contemplating doing pHd here and was even thinking that that might be God's plan for me - because all my lecturers had been asking me to apply for pHd and even many of my friends told me to try. I can't remember exactly HOW God told me, but I do remember the day it happened and when God told me that yes - this would be your last few months in Leeds, so treasure it, I couldn't stop crying because I realise that I was very very very attached to Leeds.

I really can't over-emphasize it enough how attached I've grown to Leeds - my spiritual birthplace. The place where I've learnt so much more about God through the lovely and loving community that God has placed me in. I really feel so blessed everytime I look around me and see how many people I can turn to when I need prayer, when I need advice or just simply when I need fellowship.

In the past few months, God has led me on a journey of letting go of this place - not to say that I love it any less, in fact my love for Leeds has just continued to grow non-stop, but He has confirmed for me that my destiny in Him, at least for the next seven years, is back in Singapore. I've been feeling more and more excited about returning to Singapore, yet at the same time, I feel that there's more that God wants me to do here in Leeds. One of the lessons I’ve learnt over the past weeks is that it’s not that God needs me to do anything, but rather, He wants me to partake in His great work over here in Leeds and really, the journey is getting more and more exciting as God has put in my heart a greater faith, not just a blind faith or a faith rooted in my own abilities, but a faith strongly and firmly rooted in Him and who He is!

During last week’s Growing Deep in Prayer session, Wee Leon led us in a time of ministry for those who had been hurt, who had lost hope and felt like they couldn’t pray anymore. When he was leading this ministry time, I didn’t feel like anything was wrong with my life – I had been praying prayers of faith, I couldn’t see that anything had hurt me greatly, I examined myself and I just felt that Wee Leon’s prayer didn’t speak to me.

After the ministry time, we had a session of sharing which was just so so anointed because people were just so open with one another, willing to ask for help and share doubts but more importantly just willing to share their lives and share their emotions with one another. It was one of the most memorable sharing times ever and another memory of Leeds that I will hold close to my heart. But it was very special to me for another reason as well.

Somehow as I was sharing, the Holy Spirit suddenly opened my eyes and laid bare my heart and I realized that indeed I had lost hope and been hurt by what was happening around me and that source came from somewhere that was so distant.

I realised that my faith had taken a huge blow when I heard the news of Lord Chan’s death. When Lord Chan was first hospitalized, there was no doubt in me that he would pull through. I never for a moment thought that he would die. Furthermore, there were so many miracles – moments where he was almost on the verge of dying and then there would be signs of life again. As I prayed and interceded, I kept on believing that God would win this battle over the life of Lord Chan and that Lord Chan will emerge and have a great testimony to share of how great God is and then go on to do God’s amazing work.

During the time of Lord Chan’s hospitalization, I took a trip back to Singapore for about two weeks and back there, I kept on asking my friends to pray for him as well and I continued to pray. However, there were times when my immediate needs just overwhelmed me and I just didn’t feel like praying for Lord Chan even though I thought it was the ‘right’ thing to do.

The news of Lord Chan’s death came to me when I was in Singapore. I never thought it affected me at all, though I do recall during that time a certain heaviness in my spirit. And as I was sharing during that growing deep session, I realize that I was really so affected by it. Firstly, I felt that it was my fault for not praying enough for Lord Chan. As Wee Leon shared, it was spiritual warfare and I felt that I had let the Devil win the victory by not praying enough for Lord Chan when I was back in Singapore – a guilt which I realize is not true (because God wins the ultimate victory), but I still can’t help feeling so.

But more importantly, I realised that my faith had taken a big blow. How is it that God allowed a person who served Him so much, who was so bold for Him and so radical for Him die such a tragic and sudden death? How is it that God didn’t “answer” the prayers of many to revive Lord Chan from his hospital bed? I just couldn’t see the death of Lord Chan as a victory in anyway.

Lord Chan was a figure who had inspired me so much. His testimony encouraged me so much to reach out more to my coursemates and my friends. It was because of him that I went to look for the School of English prayer group and it has been such a tremendous experience the past semester praying in this prayer group, lifting up our burdens for the department into His hands and really seeing how He has worked in the lives of my prayer buddies. I couldn’t believe that God would have allowed a figure who was so inspiring just die such an ‘unrighteous’ death.

And as I shared this with my fellow brothers and sisters, I felt that finally I had allowed God in to heal my wounded faith. More important, as Ken Wu shared, I realised that by taking Lord Chan back to Heaven, God had answered our prayers in a way we could never imagine. Did we pray that Lord Chan would be free from disease? Yes, we did and God brought him to a place where he would be free from disease – forever.

I prayed personally that Lord Chan would emerge from this crisis and have a great testimony to share, but I realised that his death is itself a great testimony. This was a man whose personal life mission was ‘To live is Christ, to die is gain.’ Indeed, his life was so sold out and so surrendered to God that really, for him, to die is gain because he is now in perfect communion with God. And Ken shared that as God takes away one Lord Chan, He might raise up even more to replace Him and I felt personally challenged by that as well, to rise up and to be someone like Lord Chan.

As I saw the death of Lord Chan from the perspective of God, I felt my faith not only being healed, but arising once again and once again I found hope to believe in the many prayers I’ve been praying over the past few months. It is true that God hasn’t answered the prayers I’ve been praying for since September, at least not in tangible ways, but in small ways I’ve seen him slowly and surely answering them and at times, I lose hope that these prayers might not be God’s plan and they might not happen.

But you know, these days as I pray, something has changed inside me.

There is no longer that anxiety, that worry, that desperation, that fear that I used to have that my prayers will not be answered. In the past, I used to pray, ‘God, please bring this to pass. God, please, I want to see my prayers answered.’ And I realize now that these are prayers of extremely small faith. God is not a reluctant God! God is not unwilling to answer our prayers! God really really does want to answer our prayers, but at the same time, He wants to find faith.

“When the son of man comes again, will He really find faith on this earth?” (Luke18:9)

I admit as well that my faith has been boosted because God has really provided many tangible answers to prayers especially with regards to cell group and our outreach last week. Four new friends who came for the outreach came for church yesterday and right now, it really seems like our cell group is on a journey of growth, which is so exciting.

But you know what, even if the tangible results cannot be seen, God is still faithful, isn’t He? I pray now that I will just continue to set my eyes on Him and persevere in faith and I believe the next few months in Leeds, my final leg in Leeds, will be the most exciting months of my life.

Thank you so much God - my Saviour, my Lord and friend.

"Quiet" Time

2006-03-10T18:28:00.000+08:00

As I came before God today, God spoke a soft word to me.

"Don't say anything, Andrew. Just come before me and dwell in my presence."

So that was what I did.

I struggled a little at the start, wanted to pray for many many things, but finally I just stopped, was still and kept quiet.

And it was really QUIET time! Haha.. The most quiet, quiet time ever, with the exception of the Hillsongs music which was playing over. I just dwelled in His presence and said nothing and I felt my burdens being taken away, my hurts being healed and my spirit being uplifted. It was great!

I realised that many times I attach too much value on the things I pray for, rather than on the God I pray to. And today God just brought me back to the real purpose of prayer - which is not to 'get' things from God, but to seek God Himself! :)

Of course that doesn't mean I have to be quiet in my quiet time all the time eh. Heh. But I guess the important thing was that restedness that He gave me and that sense of delight and wonder as I just spent time with Him and I realise that all prayer times can be like that - even if I'm praying for things to happen, there can still be that joy and hope and delight in me because of the God I'm praying to, not because of the prayers He will answer.

Thank you God, for teaching me to be still. :)

Echoes of Eternity

2006-03-02T06:50:00.000+08:00

The Growing Deep sessions so far have been really good, not only in inspiring me to grow deep in God's word but also in directing me towards God's greater purposes. Last week's session was so amazing and so timely!

Before the Growing Deep session, the core members of my cell group met up to start a prayer and fasting chain for the cell group. We all shared what we wanted to see happen in the cell group - to see a community of people growing together in their love for God, a community where we can grow in Christlikeness together, a community which is not only growing in numbers but also deeply rooted in God's words and His truths. These were all amazing visions for the cell and as we closed the meeting in prayer, I sensed that this was really a time where the cell would really start to see God work even more and really start to grow in faith and dependence on God.

During the growing deep session, Wee Leon shared about how we can share what we learn from the word - not only how, but also the kind of community needed and the sort of attitude required. It was what he shared about community that really just touched me so greatly.

He was shared about the necessity for theology holism - a well-rounded approach to theology rather than a single approach. This meant that there was a necessity to move from:

Orthodoxy, which is the right doctrines of truth to

Orthopraxy, which is the right practice as a responsibility towards truth and finally to

Orthokoinonia, the right community for truth (ie. the cell group).

The aim of orthopraxy is more than just applying the truth in our daily lives. It is applying the truth for a redemptive and transformative purpose and not just for our own lives, but for the world.

As we learn more about God's truth through orthodoxy, His truth also speaks to us about the situation in the world and places upon us a responsibility towards the world.

And in community (ie. Orthokoinonia), we realise that we need each other in order to advance God's agenda in the world! It is where we learn not only to apply God's truths in our own personal lives. It is where we learn to be a community which is salt of the earth and light of the world! A community which is counter-cultural a radical, a community which shapes the world and not allow the times to shape us. There is power in community!

Wee Leon said, "Cell growth & multiplication is too small a vision! We need to aim to be a community that changes the world! A community that turns the world's values upside down!"

And as he said that, in my heart, I just went WOW!

Indeed! That is what the cell group is for!

Yes, in the cell, we want grow deeper in Christ and build our lives firmly in Christ.

Yes, we want to experience life transformation and grow in Christ-likeness in a community.

Yes, we want cell multiplication - for our friends to come and become committed to the cell.

But why do we want all this?

So that God can change the world through us!

As Wee Leon shared this, I was just going there thinking - Wow! Yes, indeed. I was thinking of my cell group last year and how many of the members who have left have gone on to be great instruments of God's transformative power wherever they are - whether it's in Brazil, Indonesia, London or Singapore.

Julee's sharing during prayer meeting today just put things once again in perspective.

Why are we meeting everyday to pray? For what?

For the salvation of the world!

She shared from Joel 2:17:

Let the priests, who minister to the LORD,
Weep between the porch and the altar;
Let them say, “Spare Your people, O LORD,
And do not give Your heritage to reproach,
That the nations should rule over them.
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘ Where is their God?’”

In our instance, 'the nations' can be replaced by the world or 'Satan'. Instead of allowing 'the world' to have dominion over the people in our immediate community (ie. Leeds), we need to pray with that perspective that they will have Christ ruling over them instead!

I felt a similar sense as Julee shared that the prayer meeting was sort of losing its direction already. When it first stared out, it was to pray for our community penetration activities where we went out to different housing areas and just showed acts of kindness to random strangers, allowing them to feel the unconditional love of God. We prayed for community transformation - that through our acts of kindness, people would start to sense the presence of God out there and start to hunger for Him and that Leeds would be transformed into a Christ-centred God.

In some senses, the prayer meeting has returned to the very reason why it started off. We are not coming everyday at 6 p.m. just to pray for each other - that's too small a perspective. We're not even coming everyday just to pray for our church - that's too small as well! (That's not saying that it's wrong to pray for each other or to pray for the church, but there's a bigger perspective in mind.)

We're coming to pray for community transformation and eventually, world transformation.

This whole notion of world transformation helped me to put everything we do in perspective of eternity.

During prayer meeting today, Julee asked us to share from our own quiet time. David shared about Moses's mother - how she feared God and how her act of devotion and obedience to God led to the preservation of Moses, who eventually led the Israelites out of Egypt into the Promised Land. Tze Way shared about Rahab, the prostitute who risked her own life to hide the spies into Jericho, knowing very well that she could have been killed but relying on her belief that the Israelites relied on a trustworthy God.

Imagine - how two very bold at at the same time very small acts (ie. if you compare to parting of the Red sea or other 'great' moments :P) played such a vital role in God's greater purposes for the salvation of the world through Jesus Christ.

Imagine now that every act that we do, every prayer that we pray, every meeting that we engage in as a church (ie. cell groups, Sunday worship etc.) - every meeting is part and parcel of God's plans for us for eternity and not just for us - but for the world! Imagine that as we meet every Friday for cell group, God is using that time to steadily transform the world. Amazing, isn't it?

Everything that we do - echoes in eternity!

Doesn't that realisation that everything we do is part of God's plan for eternity give us a greater passion to ensure that our lives are lived in complete obedience to God?

Doesn't it give us a motivation to devote ourselves to cell group? To church? To ensure that we gain the most from what God is trying to speak to us through these moments of corporate worship?

So let us really just devote ourselves to living our lives in complete obedience to God - for we know that God is going to use us greatly, that His destiny for each and every one of us is to multiply us abundantly. But more importantly, that each and every single one of us have our part to play in God's eternal plan for the transformation of this world. Thank You Lord for this privilege! Amen. :)

Double-mindedness

2006-02-20T20:11:00.000+08:00

During last week's cell meeting, Elder Kim came in about half-way through Julee’s sharing. As she listened to Julee sharing her experience of having to ‘battle’ negative comments about her, she inserted this comment, ‘We should try to prove God right, instead of trying to prove others wrong’. And all of us in our cell meeting went ‘Wow!’ Such wise words indeed and such a timely message for me as well!

Last Tuesday's Valentines Day outreach was the first time some of my friends had seen me in a Christian setting, which was part of the reason why there was such a burden on me, as related in the last entry. As I reflected on what that night meant to me personally, it was actually quite a breakthrough moment for me because now, some, if not all, of those on my Masters in Postcolonial Literature course know that I'm a Christian. Initially, I felt fear because I was worried about the questions they would ask and how they would treat me different, but later on, as I spoke to a dear sister of mine, she told me that I should feel free instead - because now I can be who I really am and at the same time, because they now know I'm a Christian, hopefully my behaviour will point not simply to myself, but also to the God and 'religion' I believe in. I could now be a more powerful testimony for Christ!

So, I started to formulate ideas for ways in which I could show them more Christ-like love - like organizing a potluck or some outings, participating more in seminars and working harder so that Jesus's spirit of excellence can shine through me. On Thursday, I had a seminar and I didn't participate that much in it, but I tried to make very so-called 'Wow' remarks that I had thought quite hard about and yea, it was good in that I felt like I had made very good contributions.

However, somehow, I didn't feel quite comfortable after the seminar. There was this sense of unreset in me.

Partly, it was because I think God convicted me slightly of my sin of pride - sometimes I contribute during seminars so that people can say, 'Wow! He's so smart'. Or I contribute so that people will know that I'm smart, so that I can show how hard I've worked and how much I know.

But after listening to Elder Kim's pithy idiom of wisdom, I realised where the deeper problem was, the solution of which would also help in my pride problem I believe.

I was focusing on proving my coursemates wrong instead of trying to prove God right.

During the Valentines day outreach, most of the coursemates that went seemed rather skeptical and didn't really think much of Christianity. And I was focusing a lot on 'redeeming' myself, even during the fellowship time itself. And as I was formulating ideas for organizing events for my coursemates, I was focusing a lot on how I could show them God's love, how I could 'correct' their impressions of Christians.

My focus was completely wrong! I've been thinking about whether that is too harsh an evaluation to make on my own motives and now that I think about it, no it isn't!

What does it mean to prove God right? It means to be living out His promises and to take hold of our identity in Christ - to ensure that our lives reflect what He says about us in His word, not so that we can gain the approval of man, but so that we can gain the approval of Him and Him alone!

I realise now that that I was yearning for the things of God but for the approval of man.

Edmund Chan spoke about this precise danger of double-mindedness in the first sermon of Covenant Evangelical Free Church's new equipping series. The sermon was about the danger of double-mindedness. You can read a summary of the sermon here.

One of the greatest obstacles to disciplemaking, he claims, is not worldly-mindness, but double-mindedness. A Christian who is double-minded is focused on the things of God, but pursues them not for God and God alone.

I realise now that it's important now not just to seek the things of God, but to seek God!

God doesn't want us to seek after his blessings or to seek after the life transformative work He can do. He calls us first and foremost to seek Him. For "the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him" (2 Chronicles 16:9).

I just came back from a School of English prayer meeting. I wrote a huge majority of this entry until the link to Edmund Chan's sermon before I went for the prayer meeting. It was an amazing prayer meeting. The prayers were such prayers of brokenness, prayers of perseverance and desperation. The prayers spoke directly to my heart. Naomi French (the admissions tutor for our department) prophesied over all of us, telling us that she felt God was asking us all to take those steps of boldness to initiate conversations with our coursemates, to get to know them and let Jesus shine through us. But the most amazing prayer came from Naomi (this third year student who is CU Vice-president and really on fire for Jesus) - she prayed that we will not be double-minded Christians, and that we will seek Jesus and Jesus alone!

Her prayer confirmed for me that this is God's message for me, in this season of my life as I set forth and be a witness for Him amonst my coursemates. The fact that it was prayed during my School of English departmental prayer meeting just makes it even clearer that this is God's word for me for this specific group of people.

Thank you Lord for making your message to me so clear. I will seek You and You alone. I will set my heart on the things of God FOR you God - you and you alone, the audience of ONE, the Almighty One! Amen :)

Brokenness leads to Breakthrough

2006-02-17T06:56:00.000+08:00

Today, during prayer meeting, Wee Leon shared from 1 Samuel 10 about the choosing of Saul as the king of Israel.

Although Saul was God's chosen king, he was by no means a perfect person. He had three main weaknesses:

1) He was not a very spiritual person.
From 1 Samuel v. 6-12, we see that when he prophesized, everyone was very surprised, because it was unexpected. 'Is Saul also among the prophets' became a proverb, we are told.

2) He was not a very secure person.
From v. 19-23, we see that though he knew he was the chosen one by God, yet he hid himself amongst the equipment. He was afraid of failling.

3) He was overly concerned with status.
He was a man who was criticized. Though in v. 27, he held his peace and wasn't affected, he was later consumed with jealousy.

We all know later that Saul failed terribly as a king and the reason why he failed was because he was a very useful person, but not a very usable person.

Saul was God's chosen king but that didn't mean that he was capable of being king on his own. Saul focused too much on his own strengths that he forgot to give his weaknesses over to God - that he forgot that, in his weaknesses, he was to depend on God. And from the story of Saul came the theme of Wee Leon's sharing:

'Do you want to be a useful or a usable person For God?'

Our strengths are what make us useful to God, but it is our weaknesses that will make us run back to God.

Our strengths give us a hint of what God can do through us, but if we turn our weaknesses over to God, only then will we start to experience God's miraculous power in our lives. Our strengths can only bring us so far!

Because Saul focused on his strengths and did not give his weaknesses over to God, pressure on him induced panic! He started to focus on himself and his reputation. David on the other hand, gave his weaknesses to God. He was an extremely broken man - and as he gave his weaknesses over to God, pressure produced power!

The importance of realising our weaknesses and giving them to God is not to have a low self-esteem and think that we can do nothing - but rather, to come to God with a sense of great brokenness, to come to God in bold humility - to realise that we can do nothing withouth Him and that though our strengths make us useful to God, at the same time, our weaknesses make us usable to God because "[His] strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor 12:9). As Paul says, "For when I am weak, then I am strong". Indeed!

And as I reflect on Wee Leon's sharing, I realise truly what has gone wrong in the past few days. I have been relying too much on myself. I have been relying too much on what I can do, what I have done, what talents I have, how I appear to others - everything is about me and I - that I have forgotten about God.

On Tuesday night, we had our Valentines Day outreach. I'm slowly seeing that it was really an amazing outreach, but I certainly didn't feel like that on Tuesday night.

I felt that we were facing very hard soil. I was doing the icebreakers and I tried very hard to 'break' the ice but the audience was not responding in a way that I thought they would. Certain things went wrong and my spirit just kept on sinking and sinking - and I kept on pressing on. My coursemates and Singaporean friends were there as well - so I felt extremely self-aware and also very burdened. I wanted them to receive something and my spirit sank as well when I saw their cynical and bemused looks during Julee's sharing. I didn't know how my couresmates in particular felt about the whole night because it was the first time they had ever seen me in a Christian setting and I was very focused on 'me' - how they would view me after tonight's event, how they would perhaps start questioning me about stuff. There was some misunderstanding towards the end of the night and that caused me to break down towards the end of the night.

I was very, very discouraged. And I was very, very tired.

On Wednesday morning, I spent most of the day with God, just spending time being still in front of Him, not even speaking much - just letting Him speak to me. I didn't hear much from Him. He just spoke one short sentence, 'Andrew, you have forgotten me.' At that point of time, it didn't make sense to me.

'I've forgotten you?', I thought to myself, 'But God, I was doing everything for you! I brought all my friends to the outreach, I got everything together for Your sake, I was so burdened for your sake! How could I have forgotten you?'

And today, as I think back on what I heard, - 'You've forgotten me'. I realise that, 'Yes! Indeed! I have forgotten you, God!'.

I was focused so much on being useful for God that I forgot to rely upon Him and to trust in Him. I kept on pressing on, moving ahead, trying hard for God - when all He was calling me to do was to come backto Him because in Him is that sense of peace and that sense of rest.

And I'm taking the steps back into His arms right now, hoping to find rest in Him and then become not just that useful person for Him, but that usable person too. And I trust that as I come to Him in brokenness, only then will the breakthrough come.

As we prayed today during prayer meeting, I felt our faith rising up as we prayed for cell group growth. I prayed a personal prayer for myself - that as I reach out to my friends, I no longer feel the burden upon myself to make God known to my coursemates, I no longer feel that it is my responsibility to bring them to Christ. I repented to God for the times I took the cell group away from Him - thinking that it's my cell group instead of His!

And we prayed that all our church members will be like Jacob, walking constantly with a limp - with a weakness, but not a 'weak' weakness, but a weakness that brings us back to God, to depend always on Him and as we depend on Him, only then will we start to witness miracles happen because finally, God can flow freely through us.

As we finished praying, there was a sense of excitement in my heart - because I knew that God - the God of 'how much more', the God who 'gives the increase' - was going to do something amazing in our midst in the next few months. And what a privilege it is to be able to be a part of God's amazing work in Leeds. I am truly blessed. Amen!

A Love Song

2006-02-16T07:45:00.002+08:00

This song from Galvin's blog ministered deeply to me today - 'His Love for You Will Never Cease'.
(To listen to it, go to his song compositions by clicking here and then choosing the song on the list of songs on the Radioblog window at the side.)

Verse 1:
When you’re down
When you’re out
When you think things are not what they ought to be
Just close your eyes and see

When you feel distraught within
When you start to feel alone and misery
Just close your eyes and see

Chorus:
His mighty love will see you through it all
Just hold on to His covenant with you

His heart is the anchor
Oh can’t you see
His love for you will never cease

When you need the comfort
Confide in Him
His love for you will never cease

For eternity His love will never cease

Verse 2:
When it’s dark
When you’re cold
When it seems that noone cares or understands
Just close your eyes and see

And then you feel
A stir within
And you know you’re not alone in this journey
Just close your eyes, You’ll see

As I sang this song, I changed all the 'you's to 'Is' and all the 'He/Him/His' to 'you/your'. That change of pronoun transformed the song into a personal love song from me to God, telling God:

'Yes, I trust in You. Yes, I believe in your covenant with me, that Your love will never cease and all I have to do sometimes is close my eyes, to close my eyes so that the eyes of my heart can be opened and I will see Your hands stretching out to me, will hear Your voice comforting me and feel Your presence guiding me.'

Thank You Lord for this special love song you've given to me.:)

The Theology of Gratitude

2006-02-11T22:41:00.000+08:00

Just some excerpts from Edmund Chan's Growing Deep in God that spoke directly to my situation yesterday and the previous blog entry:

"Thanksgiving is not just giving thanks. It is not about gritting your teeth trying to give thanks. Thanksgiving is not a duty, but something of a spontaneous joy that bursts forth from the heart. I learnt that thanksgiving is delighting in God! Therein lies spiritual power over our circumstances.

When there is deep gratitude in the heart, a true delight in God, there is true power in thanksgiving. I am talking about the kind of thanksgiving that comes forth from a heart awakened by the realisation,
'Hey, God is in control! He cares about all that is happening to me. He is allowing all things to work together for good to them that love Him. Just look at the great things He has done! Just count the blessings - especially those blessings in disguise!'

There is a delight in God. There is a robust faith. There is sound theology in action. There is a sense of thanksgiving. Whatever happens, God is in control!"

"The Bible says the joy of the Lord is our strength. With joy in thanksgiving comes a confidence that nothing can thwart the purposes of God"

The Key to Contentment

2006-02-11T00:50:00.000+08:00

I've been struggling over the past few months with the issue of contentment. On the one hand, we are supposed to be discontented with what we see around us and moving from that discontentment to a sense of destiny and dreaming for Christ. On the other hand, we are supposed to be content in Christ because we are complete in Him. 'Draw Me Close', one of my favourite worship songs, goes 'You're all I need. You're all I ever needed. You're all I want'. Christ is supposed to be all we need, all we want, and all we ever will need.

And I've realised that discontentment and contentment have to go together. To only be discontent leads to frustration. You go ahead and try to do things to create that 'dream' and 'destiny' that you think God has for you. Yet because you are not moving in step with God, in accordance to His timing, you don't see 'results' and you get unhappy. To only be content would be to live a life that is only medicore, that doesn't move into the realm of the supernatural to capture the vast potential that God has placed in each one of us.

Dreaming has never been difficult for me.

Contentment has always been the struggle.

In the past few months I've experienced frustration with people, tiredness. I've been emotionally burnt out and unnecessarily strained because I take burdens upon myself to effect change into people's lives.

Yet today, as I was praying, God revealed to me the key that released contentment within me and that contentment was not something calm and soothing - it was a contentment that was overwhelming and abundant.

And the key to being content in Christ is to constantly have a heart of thanksgiving.

As I was praying today for my many dreams to come to pass, God stopped me and told me - 'Andrew, I want you to give thanks for what I've already given you.'

And as I begun, the list was endless.

I gave thanks to God for all my wonderful coursemates in my Postcolonial Masters course. I gave thanks for all the supportive and encouraging tutors I had in my course, some of whom even seem to know my character quite well. I gave thanks for the wonderful modules I had last semester and in the coming semester.

I gave thanks for my housemates and how God had just brought us together in a surprising and wonderful way. I gave thanks for each housemate and how God has made each one different yet beautifully made in their own ways. I gave thanks for how He had grown them over the past few months and drawn each one of them closer to Him.

I gave thanks for my cell group - for each member of my cell group, for how they have been such a blessing and encouragement to me, for how they have just brought so much joy into my life.

And as I continued to give thanks, I realised that Yes! This is contentment - the ability to give thanks to God for what He has already done in Your life. The ability to look around you and see how God has placed you in a position of abundant blessings, a position where you are surrounded by people who have touched your lives in everyday.

I realised that for a long time I have been discrediting all He has done as 'not good enough' and measuring everything against my ideals and my dreams. And I have been blind to God's exceedingly abundant blessings on my life.

And then as I finished giving thanks, I prayed once again for my dreams and this time the prayers were different. There was an increased sense of faith in them, an increased sense that God was moving me towards something, an increased sense that God was with me and that my prayers over the past few months have been heard - not only heard, but answered! I realised then how powerful contentment is. Because I was content, I could dream once again - without the frustrations and the tiredness, but with a peace that was from God. And a verse which I memorised a long time ago, a very familiar verse, became living truth to me:

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus". (Philippians 4:6-7)

Thank you Lord for this lesson you've taught me today. As I seek you each day now, I will come to you with a heart of thankfulness, giving thanks to you for what you've blessed me with, but above all that, giving thanks to You for You've given me your son Christ Jesus. I know now that contentment in you is a powerful emotion that moves me to dream big dreams for you. Lord, help me to continue to dream for You. :) Amen.