Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. Thank God for another wonderful day to grow in Him. He is the author and grower of our faith. We are His workmanship on earth. He designs our lives to reflect His wonderful glory. We live and grow in Him, so that the name of our Creator God is being lifted up on high. We enjoy the communion with our loving Father, who allows different experiences coming our way each day. For from him and through him and to him are all things, and to him be the glory forever! Amen (Rom 11:36).
We learn to pray by being led in prayer. We commonly think of prayer as what we do out of our own needs and on our own initiative. We experience a deep longing for God, and so we pray. We feel an artesian flood of gratitude to God, and so we pray. We are crushed with a truckload of guilt before God, and so we pray. But in a liturgy we do not take the initiative; it is not our experience that precipitates prayer. Someone stands in front of us and says, “Let us pray.” We don’t start it; someone else starts it and we fall into step behind or alongside. Our egos are no longer front and center.
This is so important, for prayer by its very nature is answering speech. The consensus of the entire Christian community upholds the primacy of Gods word in everything: in creation, in salvation, in judgment, in blessing, in mercy, and in grace.
When we take our place in a worshiping congregation we are not in charge. Someone else has built the place of prayer; someone else has established the time for prayer; someone else tells us to begin to pray. All of this takes place in a context in which the word of God is primary: God’s word audible in scripture and sermon, God’s word visible in baptism and communion. This is the center in which we learn to pray.
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory (Ephesians 1:11-12).
Creation by nature is recipients of God’s plan and action. We are created according to His purpose and His word. Light came about when God said, “Let there be light” (Gen 1:3) Human being came about when God said, “Let us made man according to our own image and likeness…” (Gen 1:26). Genesis is not about science, but a revelation about the origin of the whole universe and mankind. We don’t exist out of our own will or plan. We exist out of the Will and Plan of God. Thus, we are the recipients of God’s initiation. If this is the case, everything we do is a response to His plan and action on earth. Prayer as an interaction or dialogue with God is definitely a response to His calling and word. God creates us for communion with Him. Communication is definitely a high priority for our existence. God calls us to have dialogue with Him, or else we become empty or meaningless, because we miss the core of our existence.
Busyness kills relationship. It kills intimate communication not only with God but with our loved one as well. Yes, the first thing to sacrifice in our busy lifestyle is our communion with God, and followed family. The institution of marriage and family are in endanger list of extinction. Number one killer of marriage is communication. Number one killer of family is communication. Have mercy on us O Lord! Help us to pause and talk, first with you and then with our loved ones. Let us enjoy the sweet hour of prayer with you today!
Love you by the power of His prayer,
Lawrence
Monday, March 22, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Devotional 190310
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. What a wonderful day that the Lord has created for you and I to enjoy! It is the day of experiencing the grace and mercy of our blessed Lord. There is no other God who has created the heavens and the earth. There is no other God but our Lord Jesus Christ, who speaks out through His Word and His creation, so that you and I may have communication with Him in every moment of the day. Blessed we are to be the target of His love…Amen.
What a wildly wonderful world, GOD! You made it all, with Wisdom at your side, made earth overflow with your wonderful creations (Psalm 104:24). Everything is created. Everything carries within its form and texture the signature of its Creator. No part of this material world is unconnected with God: every cell is in the organism of salvation. Biblical religion cannot be lived apart from matter – the seen, felt, tasted, smelled, and listened to creation.
It is; all, precisely, creation. Nothing merely happened along. Chokecherries and tundra and weasels are not random accidents. Since everything is by design, no part of creation can be bypassed if we intend to live in the fullest possible relation to our Creator in his creation. None of it is an inconvenience that we are forced to put with. Nothing is a stumbling block introduced by the devil to trip the feet of those whose eyes are piously lifted in praise to God. Creation is our place for meeting God and conversing with him. The voice that spoke Behemoth and Leviathan into being is the same voice that says, “your sins are forgiven you,” and invites us to call upon him in the day of trouble. External and internal are the same reality. Heaven and earth are formed by a single will of God.
We take box seats in this creation theater when we pray. We look around. The mountains are huge, heaving their bulk upwards. The creeks spill across the rocks, giving extravagant light shows under the hemlocks. The lakes fill up with sky, on earth as it is in heaven. A lion rips its prey. A sparrow builds its nest. Solomon and the Shulamite embrace. An eagle plummets from a cloud to a meadow and takes a rabbit in its talons; for a few moments the two genesis creatures are in a terrible and tangled harmony. An infant drinks her fill of breakfast from her mother’s breast. Matter is real. Flesh is good.
I like the way Eugene Peterson describes the Nature that our Lord creates for our enjoyment. The Nature is also our calling…calling to take care of the creation in according to His divine will. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, we fall short of the glory of God. We fall short of the glory of being “human being,” the glory of being the anointed one who can respond to the voice of God, the glory of being temporarily a little bit lower than angels, but one day will become the crown prince and princess in heaven. “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” calls for our response to make it happen – allow God’s kingdom and His will be done on earth in our lives. Submit to Him as our Lord of lords and King of all kings. Amen.
Love you in accordance to His will on earth,
Lawrence
Good morning. What a wonderful day that the Lord has created for you and I to enjoy! It is the day of experiencing the grace and mercy of our blessed Lord. There is no other God who has created the heavens and the earth. There is no other God but our Lord Jesus Christ, who speaks out through His Word and His creation, so that you and I may have communication with Him in every moment of the day. Blessed we are to be the target of His love…Amen.
What a wildly wonderful world, GOD! You made it all, with Wisdom at your side, made earth overflow with your wonderful creations (Psalm 104:24). Everything is created. Everything carries within its form and texture the signature of its Creator. No part of this material world is unconnected with God: every cell is in the organism of salvation. Biblical religion cannot be lived apart from matter – the seen, felt, tasted, smelled, and listened to creation.
It is; all, precisely, creation. Nothing merely happened along. Chokecherries and tundra and weasels are not random accidents. Since everything is by design, no part of creation can be bypassed if we intend to live in the fullest possible relation to our Creator in his creation. None of it is an inconvenience that we are forced to put with. Nothing is a stumbling block introduced by the devil to trip the feet of those whose eyes are piously lifted in praise to God. Creation is our place for meeting God and conversing with him. The voice that spoke Behemoth and Leviathan into being is the same voice that says, “your sins are forgiven you,” and invites us to call upon him in the day of trouble. External and internal are the same reality. Heaven and earth are formed by a single will of God.
We take box seats in this creation theater when we pray. We look around. The mountains are huge, heaving their bulk upwards. The creeks spill across the rocks, giving extravagant light shows under the hemlocks. The lakes fill up with sky, on earth as it is in heaven. A lion rips its prey. A sparrow builds its nest. Solomon and the Shulamite embrace. An eagle plummets from a cloud to a meadow and takes a rabbit in its talons; for a few moments the two genesis creatures are in a terrible and tangled harmony. An infant drinks her fill of breakfast from her mother’s breast. Matter is real. Flesh is good.
I like the way Eugene Peterson describes the Nature that our Lord creates for our enjoyment. The Nature is also our calling…calling to take care of the creation in according to His divine will. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, we fall short of the glory of God. We fall short of the glory of being “human being,” the glory of being the anointed one who can respond to the voice of God, the glory of being temporarily a little bit lower than angels, but one day will become the crown prince and princess in heaven. “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” calls for our response to make it happen – allow God’s kingdom and His will be done on earth in our lives. Submit to Him as our Lord of lords and King of all kings. Amen.
Love you in accordance to His will on earth,
Lawrence
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Devotional 180310
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. It is always a joy to write my journal with your image in the back of my mind. This is what the Lord has blessed me – giving you as a part in my life. And when I pray to God everyday, I am reminded that a community of faith is always there for me.
Prayer is everywhere and always answering speech. It is never initiating speech, and to suppose that is presumptuous. Miqra, the Hebrew word for Bible, properly means “calling out” – the calling out of God to us. “God must become a person,” but in order for us to speak in answer to him he must make us into persons. We become ourselves as we answer, sometimes angrily disputing with him about how he rules the world, sometimes humbling ourselves before him in grateful trust. Prayer is language used to respond to the most that has been said to us, with the potential for saying all that is in us. Prayer is the development of speech into maturity, the language that is adequate to answering the one who has spoken comprehensively to us.
Prayer is not a narrow use of language for speciality occasions, but language catholic, embracing the totality of everything and everyone everywhere. This conversation is both bold and devout – the utterly inferior responding to the utterly superior. In this exchange we become persons. The entire life of faith is dialogue. By means of the Psalms we find our voice in the dialogue. In prayer we do not merely speak our feelings, we speak our answers. We can answer, we are permitted to answer. If we truly answer God there is nothing that we may not say to him.
Isn’t it a beautiful way to describe “prayer”? You may think prayer is your initiation to talk to God about you and your environment as though he is not aware of what is going on. He is always here and there. He does not only know what is going on around the world. In fact, He engineers or orchestrates the whole universe to work so that you and I can live and think. Prayer is not asking the Creator God for what we think and want. Prayer is a response or answer to what God is asking us about life and our world.
It was God who called out to Adam, “where are you?” And Adam did his contemplative prayer, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid” (Gen 3:10). Our prayer should be a “naked” response to God’s initiation through His Word and the environment that we are in. It is not by coincidence that we are where we are at this stage of life. It is by His providence to live and walk where we are. It is not by coincidence that our God calls out to us through our reading of His Word. Are we too wrapped up in our “fear, worry and self-centeredness” that we careless to respond to God in prayer. Are you hiding behind your busyness that you don’t care to answer His call? It is time to respond to your loving God in prayer.
What can I give back to God for the blessings he’s poured out on me? I’ll lift high the cup of salvation – a toast to GOD! I’ll pray in the name of GOD; I’ll complete what I promised GOD I’d do. And I’ll do it together with his people. (Psalm 116:12-14)
Love you as a response to His call,
Lawrence
Good morning. It is always a joy to write my journal with your image in the back of my mind. This is what the Lord has blessed me – giving you as a part in my life. And when I pray to God everyday, I am reminded that a community of faith is always there for me.
Prayer is everywhere and always answering speech. It is never initiating speech, and to suppose that is presumptuous. Miqra, the Hebrew word for Bible, properly means “calling out” – the calling out of God to us. “God must become a person,” but in order for us to speak in answer to him he must make us into persons. We become ourselves as we answer, sometimes angrily disputing with him about how he rules the world, sometimes humbling ourselves before him in grateful trust. Prayer is language used to respond to the most that has been said to us, with the potential for saying all that is in us. Prayer is the development of speech into maturity, the language that is adequate to answering the one who has spoken comprehensively to us.
Prayer is not a narrow use of language for speciality occasions, but language catholic, embracing the totality of everything and everyone everywhere. This conversation is both bold and devout – the utterly inferior responding to the utterly superior. In this exchange we become persons. The entire life of faith is dialogue. By means of the Psalms we find our voice in the dialogue. In prayer we do not merely speak our feelings, we speak our answers. We can answer, we are permitted to answer. If we truly answer God there is nothing that we may not say to him.
Isn’t it a beautiful way to describe “prayer”? You may think prayer is your initiation to talk to God about you and your environment as though he is not aware of what is going on. He is always here and there. He does not only know what is going on around the world. In fact, He engineers or orchestrates the whole universe to work so that you and I can live and think. Prayer is not asking the Creator God for what we think and want. Prayer is a response or answer to what God is asking us about life and our world.
It was God who called out to Adam, “where are you?” And Adam did his contemplative prayer, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid” (Gen 3:10). Our prayer should be a “naked” response to God’s initiation through His Word and the environment that we are in. It is not by coincidence that we are where we are at this stage of life. It is by His providence to live and walk where we are. It is not by coincidence that our God calls out to us through our reading of His Word. Are we too wrapped up in our “fear, worry and self-centeredness” that we careless to respond to God in prayer. Are you hiding behind your busyness that you don’t care to answer His call? It is time to respond to your loving God in prayer.
What can I give back to God for the blessings he’s poured out on me? I’ll lift high the cup of salvation – a toast to GOD! I’ll pray in the name of GOD; I’ll complete what I promised GOD I’d do. And I’ll do it together with his people. (Psalm 116:12-14)
Love you as a response to His call,
Lawrence
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Devotional 170310
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. We read chapter 4 of Revelation as devotional reading in our staff prayer meeting. Apostle John was led by the Holy Spirit to receive a glimpse of what it is like to live in heaven. He saw how the heavenly beings worship God in eternity. The twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and worship Him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say: "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being" (Rev 4:10-11).This description of the heavenly worship should be the spirit of our personal worship today.
Christians worship with a conviction that they are in the presence of God. Worship is an act of attention to the living God who rules, speaks and reveals, creates and redeems, orders and blesses. Outsiders, observing these acts of worship, see nothing like that. They see a few people singing unpopular songs, sometimes off-key, someone reading from an old book and making remarks that may or may not interest the listeners, and then eating and drinking small portions of bread and wine that are supposed to give nourishment to their eternal souls in the same way that beef and potatoes sustain their mortal flesh. Who is right? Is worship an actual meeting called to order at God’s initiative in which persons of faith are blessed by His presence and respond to his salvation? Or is it a pathetic, and sometimes desperate, charade in which people attempt to get God to pay attention to them and do something for them (1 Kings 18)?
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." (Rev 3:20-22). This is a message that the Head of the Church delivers to the Church: I stand at the door and knock! That means the Head of the church is outside of the church waiting to enter. It can also mean our Lord is waiting outside of our being waiting to enter and truly become our Lord! Will you open the door and welcome Jesus into your life?
True worship is to submit to His lordship and attend to His will. It is not a ritual of singing a few songs and listen to a sermon. We may want to reduce worshipping God to just a weekly 1.5 hours ritual, and enjoy worshipping ourselves for the rest of 166.5 hours weekly. By doing so, we “pay for” the pass to heaven and the security of His blessings daily. If you practice worship in this manner consciously or sub-consciously, you are absolutely wrong and Christ is still outside of your being. If church focuses on producing a “good show” on Sunday morning in the name of worship, she is absolutely wrong and Christ is still outside of the church waiting to enter. Have mercy on us O Lord! We want to welcome you into our church and our being to truly become our Lord and King. Amen.
Love you in the name of our Lord,
Lawrence
Good morning. We read chapter 4 of Revelation as devotional reading in our staff prayer meeting. Apostle John was led by the Holy Spirit to receive a glimpse of what it is like to live in heaven. He saw how the heavenly beings worship God in eternity. The twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and worship Him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say: "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being" (Rev 4:10-11).This description of the heavenly worship should be the spirit of our personal worship today.
Christians worship with a conviction that they are in the presence of God. Worship is an act of attention to the living God who rules, speaks and reveals, creates and redeems, orders and blesses. Outsiders, observing these acts of worship, see nothing like that. They see a few people singing unpopular songs, sometimes off-key, someone reading from an old book and making remarks that may or may not interest the listeners, and then eating and drinking small portions of bread and wine that are supposed to give nourishment to their eternal souls in the same way that beef and potatoes sustain their mortal flesh. Who is right? Is worship an actual meeting called to order at God’s initiative in which persons of faith are blessed by His presence and respond to his salvation? Or is it a pathetic, and sometimes desperate, charade in which people attempt to get God to pay attention to them and do something for them (1 Kings 18)?
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." (Rev 3:20-22). This is a message that the Head of the Church delivers to the Church: I stand at the door and knock! That means the Head of the church is outside of the church waiting to enter. It can also mean our Lord is waiting outside of our being waiting to enter and truly become our Lord! Will you open the door and welcome Jesus into your life?
True worship is to submit to His lordship and attend to His will. It is not a ritual of singing a few songs and listen to a sermon. We may want to reduce worshipping God to just a weekly 1.5 hours ritual, and enjoy worshipping ourselves for the rest of 166.5 hours weekly. By doing so, we “pay for” the pass to heaven and the security of His blessings daily. If you practice worship in this manner consciously or sub-consciously, you are absolutely wrong and Christ is still outside of your being. If church focuses on producing a “good show” on Sunday morning in the name of worship, she is absolutely wrong and Christ is still outside of the church waiting to enter. Have mercy on us O Lord! We want to welcome you into our church and our being to truly become our Lord and King. Amen.
Love you in the name of our Lord,
Lawrence
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Devotional 160310
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. It took me a couple of days before I re-adapt to my pace at home. When I was on the road, I would be very focus on my task. But when I returned home, I either felt relaxed and sometime off focus in the midst of running for errands. Good habit and routine helps put life back to right track or in focus again. Writing devotional journal is definitely one of the helpful habits for me. The habit is not my God but way to help me draw close to God. We have nothing to boast but to thank God for His abiding presence that keeps us on track and steadfast in a rapid changing world.
If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at (1 Cor 4:7). Much anger towards the church and most disappointments in the church are because of failed expectations. We expect a disciplined army of committed men and women who courageously lay siege to the worldly powers; instead we find some people who are more concerned with getting rid of the crabgrass in their lawns. We expect community of saints who are mature in the virtues of love and mercy, and find ourselves working on a church supper where there is more gossip than there are casseroles. We expect to meet minds that are informed and shaped by the great truths and rhythms of scripture, and find persons whose intellectual energy is barely sufficient to get them from the comics to the sports page. At such times it is more important to examine and change our expectations than to change the church, for the church is not what we organize but what God gives, not the people we want to be with but the people gives us to be with – a community created by the descent of the Holy Spirit in which we submit ourselves to the Spirit’s affirmation, reformation, and motivation. There must be no idealization of the church.
Having been in pastoral ministry for 27 years, I totally agree with Eugene Peterson that it is more important to change our expectations toward the church than trying to change the church. It is out of God’s divine plan to put the church together as it is. We enter a church not out of coincidence. It is out of the providence of God. And it is not out of coincidence that we decided to become a member of a church. We may have observed and considered for a period of time before we make our final decision. We thought it was our decision in becoming part of a church. Only when we look back we realize it is out of His providence that we do so. If it is God’s plan for us to join a church, what does God intend for us to be and do? God must have a purpose in mind to place us in this church in our pilgrimage on earth. God’s purpose for each person’s life in church could be very different, but one thing is for sure. God wants to use us to be a blessing to the people in this church.
It was God who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-13). God bought you into a church and gave you gifts to edify the people in that church – it is totally out of the perfect will of God. Are you exercising your gifts to serve the members of the church, or still waiting to be served?
Love you according to His plan,
Lawrence
Good morning. It took me a couple of days before I re-adapt to my pace at home. When I was on the road, I would be very focus on my task. But when I returned home, I either felt relaxed and sometime off focus in the midst of running for errands. Good habit and routine helps put life back to right track or in focus again. Writing devotional journal is definitely one of the helpful habits for me. The habit is not my God but way to help me draw close to God. We have nothing to boast but to thank God for His abiding presence that keeps us on track and steadfast in a rapid changing world.
If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at (1 Cor 4:7). Much anger towards the church and most disappointments in the church are because of failed expectations. We expect a disciplined army of committed men and women who courageously lay siege to the worldly powers; instead we find some people who are more concerned with getting rid of the crabgrass in their lawns. We expect community of saints who are mature in the virtues of love and mercy, and find ourselves working on a church supper where there is more gossip than there are casseroles. We expect to meet minds that are informed and shaped by the great truths and rhythms of scripture, and find persons whose intellectual energy is barely sufficient to get them from the comics to the sports page. At such times it is more important to examine and change our expectations than to change the church, for the church is not what we organize but what God gives, not the people we want to be with but the people gives us to be with – a community created by the descent of the Holy Spirit in which we submit ourselves to the Spirit’s affirmation, reformation, and motivation. There must be no idealization of the church.
Having been in pastoral ministry for 27 years, I totally agree with Eugene Peterson that it is more important to change our expectations toward the church than trying to change the church. It is out of God’s divine plan to put the church together as it is. We enter a church not out of coincidence. It is out of the providence of God. And it is not out of coincidence that we decided to become a member of a church. We may have observed and considered for a period of time before we make our final decision. We thought it was our decision in becoming part of a church. Only when we look back we realize it is out of His providence that we do so. If it is God’s plan for us to join a church, what does God intend for us to be and do? God must have a purpose in mind to place us in this church in our pilgrimage on earth. God’s purpose for each person’s life in church could be very different, but one thing is for sure. God wants to use us to be a blessing to the people in this church.
It was God who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-13). God bought you into a church and gave you gifts to edify the people in that church – it is totally out of the perfect will of God. Are you exercising your gifts to serve the members of the church, or still waiting to be served?
Love you according to His plan,
Lawrence
Monday, March 15, 2010
Devotional 150310
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good afternoon. It has been two weeks since I last sent you my devotional. The two weeks of study was really intensive. I dedicated all my waked up hours on either class work or home work. Praise God for giving me another two weeks of spiritual retreat. The class was spiritually uplifting and inspiring. I came to perceive theology and the Bible from a different angle. I did not really know what theology of mission was all about. Most seminaries did not offer this kind of class or require this kind of study 30 years ago. When I started putting on “missional” lenses to see the Scripture last week, I am convicted that our God is truly a “missio Dei” = missional God. And the Scripture is a calling for all His children to take part in His mission. Are you ready for action in following your missio Dei?
"Time’s up! God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message” (Mark 1:15). A common way to misunderstand prophecy, and especially the prophecy of the Revelation, is to suppose that it means prediction. But that is not the biblical use of the word. Prophets are not fortune tellers. The prophet is the person who declares, “Thus says the Lord.” He speaks what God is speaking. He brings God’s word into le immediate world of the present, insisting that it be heard here and now. The prophet says that God is speaking now, not yesterday; rod is speaking now, not tomorrow. It is not a past word that can be analyzed and then walked away from. It is not a future word that can be fantasized into escapist diversion. It is personal address now: ‘for the time is near” (Rev. 1:3, 22:10). “Near” means “at hand.” Not far off in the future but immediately before us; only our unbelief, or ignorance, or timid hesitancy separate us from it. Jesus also announced the immediacy of the prophetic word when he preached “the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). St. John’s “near” and Jesus’ “at hand” are the same root word prophetic word eliminates the distance between God’s speaking and our learning. If we make the prophetic word a predictive word we are procrastinating, putting distance between ourselves and the application of the word, putting off dealing with it until some future date. This is what God intended for His revelation.
I have been meditating on the Kingdom of God in the past two weeks. Mission is about pronouncing the coming of the Kingdom of God since the King has already come. Matthew made it clear on this point as he recalled what his Master proclaimed, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…” (Matt 28:18-19). The authority in heaven and earth represents the supreme reign of God. The resurrected Christ is the King of kings and Lord of lords. The Kingdom of God has arrived. We are the witnesses of this kingdom. God wants us to proclaim the reign of God on earth even though the ultimate maturation of this Kingdom is not here yet.
The model prayer that Jesus taught to his disciples also pointed to this spiritual reality, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” (Matt 6:9-10). This is not a prophecy about something that is to come. It is a proclamation of a spiritual reality that has already taken place.
We make disciples not because we feel that it is a good idea. We do so because of our submission to the reign of Christ who is our King of kings. On a contrary, when we fail to do it, it is a deliberate rebellion against His reign or kingship in our lives. We are called to walk and talk like ambassador of this new Kingdom. Only when we recognize the kingship of our Lord Jesus in our own lives by obedience, we will not make disciples of all nations even with the power and resources vested in us.
With love in His kingdom,
Lawrence
Good afternoon. It has been two weeks since I last sent you my devotional. The two weeks of study was really intensive. I dedicated all my waked up hours on either class work or home work. Praise God for giving me another two weeks of spiritual retreat. The class was spiritually uplifting and inspiring. I came to perceive theology and the Bible from a different angle. I did not really know what theology of mission was all about. Most seminaries did not offer this kind of class or require this kind of study 30 years ago. When I started putting on “missional” lenses to see the Scripture last week, I am convicted that our God is truly a “missio Dei” = missional God. And the Scripture is a calling for all His children to take part in His mission. Are you ready for action in following your missio Dei?
"Time’s up! God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message” (Mark 1:15). A common way to misunderstand prophecy, and especially the prophecy of the Revelation, is to suppose that it means prediction. But that is not the biblical use of the word. Prophets are not fortune tellers. The prophet is the person who declares, “Thus says the Lord.” He speaks what God is speaking. He brings God’s word into le immediate world of the present, insisting that it be heard here and now. The prophet says that God is speaking now, not yesterday; rod is speaking now, not tomorrow. It is not a past word that can be analyzed and then walked away from. It is not a future word that can be fantasized into escapist diversion. It is personal address now: ‘for the time is near” (Rev. 1:3, 22:10). “Near” means “at hand.” Not far off in the future but immediately before us; only our unbelief, or ignorance, or timid hesitancy separate us from it. Jesus also announced the immediacy of the prophetic word when he preached “the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). St. John’s “near” and Jesus’ “at hand” are the same root word prophetic word eliminates the distance between God’s speaking and our learning. If we make the prophetic word a predictive word we are procrastinating, putting distance between ourselves and the application of the word, putting off dealing with it until some future date. This is what God intended for His revelation.
I have been meditating on the Kingdom of God in the past two weeks. Mission is about pronouncing the coming of the Kingdom of God since the King has already come. Matthew made it clear on this point as he recalled what his Master proclaimed, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…” (Matt 28:18-19). The authority in heaven and earth represents the supreme reign of God. The resurrected Christ is the King of kings and Lord of lords. The Kingdom of God has arrived. We are the witnesses of this kingdom. God wants us to proclaim the reign of God on earth even though the ultimate maturation of this Kingdom is not here yet.
The model prayer that Jesus taught to his disciples also pointed to this spiritual reality, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” (Matt 6:9-10). This is not a prophecy about something that is to come. It is a proclamation of a spiritual reality that has already taken place.
We make disciples not because we feel that it is a good idea. We do so because of our submission to the reign of Christ who is our King of kings. On a contrary, when we fail to do it, it is a deliberate rebellion against His reign or kingship in our lives. We are called to walk and talk like ambassador of this new Kingdom. Only when we recognize the kingship of our Lord Jesus in our own lives by obedience, we will not make disciples of all nations even with the power and resources vested in us.
With love in His kingdom,
Lawrence
Monday, March 1, 2010
Study retreat
Dear brothers and sisters,
After a weekend ministry at Houston, Texas, I returned to Western Seminary last night at around 11 pm. I will spend two weeks of study here. Please pray that I will be able to concentrate and learn what the Lord wants me to learn here. There were a lot of reading, writing and interactions in class.
I may not have time to write my journal every morning. I pray that you will continue your daily walk with the Lord on a consistent basis.
In His love,
Lawrence
After a weekend ministry at Houston, Texas, I returned to Western Seminary last night at around 11 pm. I will spend two weeks of study here. Please pray that I will be able to concentrate and learn what the Lord wants me to learn here. There were a lot of reading, writing and interactions in class.
I may not have time to write my journal every morning. I pray that you will continue your daily walk with the Lord on a consistent basis.
In His love,
Lawrence
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