Saturday, November 25, 2006

Is this really Your call??

I've always known that I'll be serving God one day through Bible teaching.

Now here's this thing here, is it from You? Or from humans? Is it the right time?

Tell me...

What is attracting people to church?

Just back from church after the fellowship committee meeting, we had a discussion on how to get more new people to our fellowship, and what can we do?

I participated in the discussion and we talked about various things, e.g. organising hiking trips, sailing, even financial planning seminars (we've got so many accountants, haha)

On my journey home, a thought popped up.

What exactly are we doing??

Are we doing things our way again?

I remembered when I was a kid, our mentors were always saying that we were not in a community centre, we were not the same with non-Christians. We were gathered because of God.

I agree sometimes we may need to compromise. Is this the sort of compromise that God wants??

Or is it just us doing things in our way, in the way we are familiar with??

So it comes back to the question, what attracts people to church? Is it the activity or God? Or people? Or what?

If we get people to come back because of the activity, are they going to stay??

And most importantly what God's plan is? What does He think of all these??

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Spring coming

Cold war is ending... at least I hope...

I noticed that there're quite a lot of great co-workers with me in the fellowship. Even when they are not so great and during our misunderstandings, God use us.

It's really miraculous when you think about how God use EVEN the misunderstandings.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Angry

I'm still angry with God... I know I shouldn't be, but I can't help it... I understand EXACTLY why He's doing things this way, but I'm just MAD things didn't go MY way...

I can't control how I feel, can I?

As a result, I don't want to do anything this week.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

SANCTIFICATION --An Evangelical Tradition Neglected

Just reading a friend's xanga the other day and he talked about an article (in Chinese) written by Dr. Carver T Yu. In fact, I just discussed this essay with some of my friends a few weeks ago when a certain pastor came to our church and talked about Buddhism for the whole time. I suggested that this might be what he wanted to do-- to tell Chinese people about Christianity in their own way, so that they don't feel like it is something foreign.

This reminded me of this article he wrote on santification. (For the Chinese version of the same article, click here.) I have shared this essay with my fellowship last year.

"As spiritual heirs of the Reformers, evangelicals are all too familiar with the doctrine of justification by faith. We have however often overlooked the fact that sanctification is the other side of justification. Our Reformers put tremendous emphasis on the inseparability of justification and sanctification... Sanctification is the working out in our life the righteousness we have received absolutely free from God in Christ. Our salvation is empty without the holiness that is meant for our life. To Calvin, Christian life on the foundation of justification is a life of sanctification, a life of schooling under Christ, the inner schoolmaster. It is a life of learning to allow the Spirit to root out our heart's distrust and our mind's blindness. It is also a life of learning to submit our will to the Will of God, like Jesus Christ. Thus we can see why Calvin has given such great emphasis to the discipline of self-denial, of bearing the cross and dying with Christ, of meditating on the future life and the proper use of the present life.

However, the great tradition of spiritual discipline (in contradistinction to what we call "spirituality") seems to have fallen by the wayside. The term "sanctification" has become something that sounds rather strange to the ears of our congregations. Why? Because seminaries nowadays seldom teach sanctification as a doctrine, and much less as a way of Christian life.

Secularization has eaten into the bone of our modern life. Among Christians, the sense of the Holy has been seriously eroded, the feeling of fear and trembling before God has become numbed. Many Christians seek spirituality merely to escape from the unhappiness of their pressurized life. They are thus much more at home with the soothing commonsense spiritual wisdom than with Calvin's great teaching on Christian life."

He is a very good observer. And I like reading what he wrote.

Nowadays we can see this everywhere, we try to adapt Christianity to modern society so that more people can accept it. However, it was done in a way that distorts it.

You can see people emphasizing on getting peace and rest from Jesus and omitting the important parts of cross-bearing. (Not that getting peace and rest is not important, but this is NOT the only thing Christianity is all about. And you wonder why people think Buddhism is profound and Christianity is superficial, impractical, out-of-touch with our present life.)

The life of Christians was never easy. It never is, and never will be. Jesus never promised us that.

That's what our pastors promised though. And you wonder why all these people left Christianity after a while being thoroughly disappointed by "Jesus".

Sunday, November 12, 2006

How to serve God the best way I can?

This week, a couple of things happened.

God is trying to teach me various things on how to serve Him. And I'm learning.

Learning is painful process.

Just as what I wrote earlier, I'm trying to serve God, not myself. And I'm learning. To identify what God wanted me to learn, not what people tell me to do, and not what I wanted to do.

And I see more and more people whom I can work together for God. Different talents really can work together.

And God gave me some insight on the problems I'm going to face when I continue to serve God. I have never imagined these before. Thank You for preparing me. Please teach me how to deal with these. From my understanding, my way of doing things need some adjustment, but it's still the way You wanted me to go. O Lord, help me to serve you the best way I can.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Hebrews 7:20-28

"He (Jesus) is a truly human being, tempted in every respect just like we are, and he can therefore sympathize fully with our weakness and the pressure we find ourselves under. (Indeed, you could say that he knows more about it than we ever will, since we are inclined to yield to temptation and so never to face its full fury, whereas he, who never sinned, had to go on battling against it without the relief of giving in.)"

I have never thought about it this way. I don't think I can ever imagine how hard that was for Jesus to "go on battling against it without the relief of giving in". Wow...

Friday, November 10, 2006

Living a Christian Life

I wanted to invite some colleagues to my church's evangelical meeting. I had this planned out long ago. Of course, things are never as smooth as planned.

I was really frustrated by some problems. And then I was so unhappy a few of days ago because of this. I wanted to stop doing everything.

I read Hebrews 6:9-12 on the next day.
Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case—things that accompany salvation. God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

Again quoting NT Wright, "The important thing, then, is not to wait until you feel like living a holy life, or loving your neighbour, or working at the project of Christian service to which you are called and on which you've made a start... What matters is the call of the gospel, the promise of God, and your task of being faithful and patient in the present:'Until it be throughly finished.'"

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Retreat Camp

Did I get a lot from the retreat camp? No. Did I like it? Yes. Especially the sharing by the pastor.

For me, I got reminded of the importance of focusing on Jesus. We have faith in Jesus. It is not the depth of our faith that matters, it is the ONE we focus on.

Jesus' work often get mistaken, Jesus just don't work in the way we think. Jesus will lift us up, but it takes time for us to recover and grow up.

My hand is feeling horrible, so I'm going to stop. If you wanna know why, see here. And if you wanna know about the details of the sharing in the retreat camp, pls read the part 1-3 from the past few days...

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

What I learnt in the retreat camp on Mark 9 (Part 3)

Mark 9:19-23
"O unbelieving generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me."So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?""From childhood," he answered. "It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us."" 'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes."Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"

Faith cannot be measured by its size. Even with faith as small as a mustard seed, nothing will be impossible. For the father in this case, he didn't have enough faith, but when he cried out for Jesus' help, it worked.

The most important thing is whom we believe, NOT how much we believe. If we are able to believe in Jesus, then it'll be ok.

When you don't feel you have enough faith, try not to say, "I don't have faith". Instead, try repeating, "I don't have faith in Jesus." After a few times, you'll find that you cannot say that anymore.

Mark 9:25-29
When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the evil spirit. "You deaf and mute spirit," he said, "I command you, come out of him and never enter him again." The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, "He's dead." But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up. After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, "Why couldn't we drive it out?" He replied, "This kind can come out only by prayer."

Often Jesus' work got misunderstood. He got the exorcism done, and people thought the kid was dead... They couldn't be more mistaken about the situation here...
The kid didn't come back as if he had never been controlled by the ghost.

Jesus lifted the kid up, but the kid still need quite a lot of time for growing up and learning. Like us, we need quite a lot of time for growing up in God.

What I learnt from the retreat camp (Part 2)

Even Judas managed to perform the same miracles as the other disciples, it should be a reminder to us who are doing God's work. Even if we are able to do God's work sucessfully, we can be Judas.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Retreat camp stuff again

When you read the Bible the first time, and you think you understand it, that means you don't.

After you read it again and again, you find something you don't understand, THAT means you understand it a bit more.

REVIVAL - What I have learnt in the retreat camp (on Mark chapter 9) Part 1

Mark 9:12-13
Jesus replied, "To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him."

According to this passage, with Isaiah (i.e. John the Baptist) and Jesus (the Son of Man), everything should be revived already. However, we all know both of them were killed.

Is that revival? What does it mean by revival? There're so many definitions and theological theories on this subject in the last few centuries. What's in the Bible? Not much, and even less in the sense we use today.

And what does it mean? If you continue reading the next passage, you'll realise this is in fact inter-related.

Mark 9:14-15
When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.

The disciples and the scholars were debating on why they could not perform the exorcism. They have done it before. They must have known the trick, but why couldn't they do it this time?

They were amazed when Jesus arrived. They obviously have never thought to ask for Jesus' help in this, otherwise, they would not have been surprised by Jesus' appearance.

And what was wrong with them all along?

Was there a problem with their method? The kid perhaps? Or the father?

In fact, the spirit was deaf!!! That's why they had failed. Whatever you said to the spirit, he simply didn't understand.

Jesus succeeded. Well, it's Jesus.

When we're facing our own problems, how do we solve them? In our own way? Or call for Jesus' help?

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Back from Retreat

How come I'm even more tired after returning from the retreat camp? Actually I know exactly why, I couldn't sleep in that unfamiliar bed...