Devotional 200809

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. Our God is good and He is always good to me. After a long day of ministry (from 8 am to 10 pm), I regained my strength by spending some times to rest in His presence. Indeed his Word is our strength and our joy. He always whispers with His gentle voice in our heart that we are His beloved children. We don’t need to try too hard to listen. We just need to be still with focus on our Lord and His Cross; you will hear His affirming words that come like a warm embrace.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once and ask Him to establish rest. Never allow anything to remain which is disturbing your inner peace. Take every element of disintegration as something to wrestle against, and not to suffer. Say – “Lord, prove Thy consciousness in me,” and self-consciousness will go and He will be all in all. Beware of allowing self-consciousness to continue because by slow degrees it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is Satanic. Well, I am not understood; this is a thing they ought to apologize for; that is a point I really must have cleared up. Leave others alone and ask the Lord to give you Christ-consciousness, and He will dignify you until the completeness is absolute.

The complete life is the life of a child. When I am consciously conscious, there is something wrong. It is the sick man who knows what health is. The child of God is not conscious of the will of God because he is the will of God. When there has been the slightest deviation from the will of God, we begin to ask - What is Thy will? A child of God never prays to be conscious that God answers prayer, he is so restfully certain that God always does answer prayer.

If we try to overcome self-consciousness by any common-sense method, we will develop it tremendously. Jesus says, "Come unto Me and I will give you rest," i.e., Christ-consciousness will take over the place of self-consciousness. Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest, the perfect rest that self-conscious activity will not attain.

Yesterday, we visited our distinguished Chaplin, Rev. Mark Cheng, one of the founders of Gospel Operation International, and the champion of mission mobilization among Chinese Church. He was over 90 years old and was diagnosed with last stage of lung cancer lately. With a big smile and serenity on his face, he welcomed us to his house and said, “Wow, I have 3 men of God come to pray for me. God has to listen!” He was humorous and alert. With calm confident he said, “If God wants to heal me he just need to give order and it will be done.” This kind of ‘rest’ is what Brother Chambers talked about. It is not whether we deserve healing or not. It is perfect confidence and surrender to the will of God. There are no more struggles with self-consciousness or self-centeredness. He rested in the arms of God and enjoyed His sovereignty in his life. It is similar to how I feel right now in serving as a ‘second’ man instead of a ‘boss.’ I rested to know that my boss will be ultimately responsible for the well being of this mission. Yes, I still need to do my part faithfully. But if there is anything happen that requires a final decision, I am glad my boss will resolve it for me. We all have the BIG boss in heaven. We can have perfect peace to know that He is always in charge. On a contrary, if we try to take over his place or rebel against His role, we will not have peace at all. May God give you the peace that surpasses all understanding in the days to come!

Love you in peace,
Lawrence