Devotional reading 280411

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. By God's grace, I recovered from jetlag sooner than before. Again, thanks for your prayer. While I was driving to office this morning, I recalled a unified theme being preached by various speakers at London conference, which is "to be real from inside out." This theme became the central message from the Holy Spirit at the conference. These speakers had submitted their sermon outlines ahead of time, and without comparing notes with one another they gave the same emphasis. Yes, in order to seize "the opportunity of this time," we need to seek the lives of obedience under the Lordship of Christ. Dr. George Murray, our last speaker of the conference said, "Great Commission begins with lordship of Christ because Jesus siad, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me...therefore go and make disciples of all nations.'" Without obedience there will be no spiritual revival. Without spiritual revival there will be no Great Commission. A lot of time, we want God to be involved in our plan for ministry and life. But He prefers us to be involved in His plan. We focus so much on what "we want" to accomplish for Christ instead of obeying to what "He wants" to accomplish through us. And the life of obedience is to be expressed in our daily living as a person, and our interaction with other beings in our daily context - to be a real and genuine follower of Christ.

Our first speaker of the conference quoted a phrase from one of another speakers who said in other occasion, "life should be our sermon, and daily living should be our pulpit." Renewal or revival, therefore, should be starting with our genuine relationship with the Triune God on a daily basis. It does not matter how much one knows about the Bible. What matters is how much one obeys the teaching of the Bible. Another speaker echoed, "many Christians ended their lives with many good wishes without being put into practice." They knew what God had intended for their lives, and wished to be involved in His glorious plan for their lives, but they ended their lives with nothing but regrets. Unfortunately, this is a life description of many Christians. We hope to summarize our lives with an inscription on our tombstone as "a good and faithful servant of God." But in reality, many of the inscription on Christian tombstone is "wished to be a good and faithful servant of God."

Have mercy on us O Lord! Help us to be obedience to your plan for our lives and finish well. Let's encourage each other to practice what we preach or know.

Love you in Christ,
Lawrence