Devotional 060309

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. We are reminded in prayer meeting that we do live in the end time. This world will become darker and more chaotic than we can imagine. We may spend all day complaining how bad this culture and society has become. But it will not make any difference if the people of God do not repent or return back to God. The reality is that the Christian population is shrinking. The moral values and value system of Christians in church are no longer different from their pre-Christian friends outside of church. Christians busy themselves with activities and meetings within the four walls of the church, while the world penetrates into their living room through Internet and TV with the worldly agenda. To me, there is no way to change this mega-trend of globalization of worldly values by human effort or political maneuvering. The only way is to pray for a global revival of Christians – that we will take our faith seriously by walking with God daily. Have mercy on us O Lord! We need to point fingers at ourselves instead of the world for global turmoil and moral decay of our generations. We do share the blame!

"…As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses" (2 Corinthians 6:4). It takes Almighty grace to take the next step when there is no vision and no spectator - the next step in devotion, the next step in your study, in your reading, in your kitchen; the next step in your duty, when there is no vision from God, no enthusiasm and no spectator. It takes far more of the grace of God, far more conscious drawing upon God to take that step, than it does to preach the Gospel.

Every Christian has to partake of what was the essence of the incarnation; he must bring the thing down into flesh and blood actualities and work it out through his fingertips. We flag when there is no vision, no uplift, but just the common round, the trivial task. The thing that tells in the long run for God and for men is the steady persevering work in the unseen, and the only way to keep the life uncrushed is to live looking to God. Ask God to keep the eyes of your spirit open to the Risen Christ, and it will be impossible for hard work to dampen you. Continually get away from pettiness and paltriness of mind and focus your meditation on John 13 – to consider how the lord washed His disciples’ feet. At the end our Lord Jesus said to them, “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” (John 13:17).

Chamber's challenge for us is to become a humble servant for one another. We know about it, but it is difficult to actually put it into action. It may be easy to wash another believer’s feet as a spiritual exercise. But to do something for others that are considered to be lowly in the public is very hard. It could be cleaning up a dirty toilet; help a senior citizen to do grocery shopping in Chinatown; help handicapped people clean up their messy house or to take a mental retarded person out for lunch etc. Any good services that may hurt your pride or self worth could be the ministry that will bring you blessings from above. O Lord Jesus, help us not to hide within the 4 walls of the church in doing our services. Help us enter the world like our incarnated Lord to make a difference in this world.

Love you with God fearing heart,
Lawrence