Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. Thanks for praying for my ministry at a summer retreat. If you visit my blog you will see some of the pictures I took since last weekend. It was a pleasure to witness God’s work in the lives of different brothers and sisters; hearing their struggles and stories reaffirmed the fact that our sweet Holy Spirit is always active in the lives of His children and in His church. I enjoyed some quiet time I had with the Lord in the beautiful campground of Redwood Christian Park, and the fellowship I had with this lovely group of people who seeks to become the community of the cross.
"Quench not the Spirit" (1 Thessalonians 5:19). The voice of the Spirit is as gentle as a light breeze, so gentle that unless you are living in perfect communion with God, you never hear it. The checks of the Spirit come in the most extraordinarily gentle ways, and if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice you will quench it, and your personal spiritual life will be impaired. His checks always come as a still small voice, so small that no one but the saint notices them.
Beware if in personal testimony you have to look back and say - "Once, so many years ago, I was saved." If you are walking in the light, there is no looking back, the past is transfused into the present wonder of communion with God. If you get out of the light you become a sentimental Christian and live on memories, your testimony has a hard, metallic note. Beware of trying to patch up a present refusal to walk in the light by recalling past experiences when you did walk in the light. Whenever the Spirit checks, call a halt and get the thing right, or you will go on grieving Him without knowing it.
Suppose God has brought you up to a crisis and you nearly go through but not quite, He will engineer the crisis again, but it will not be as obvious as it was before. There will be less discernment of God and more humiliation at not having obeyed; and if you go on grieving the Spirit, there will come a time when that crisis cannot be repeated, you have grieved Him away. But if you go through the crisis, there will be the rise of praise to God. Never sympathize with the thing that is hurting God all the time. God has to remove all our sharp edges in life.
God never stops working in the life of His beloved. Sometimes we wished God would slow down His shaping work in our lives, but He would not. The author of Hebrews said, “The Lord disciplines those he loves…” (Heb 12:6). When we go through His discipline, we should have full confidence in His love and wisdom. He knows better than we know ourselves. God wants to give us the best in life. He wants to shapes us to the kind of person that will bring joy to Him, to ourselves and to others. A life in God’s hands is a life with many scars; those scars are like scars that a skillful designer cuts on a piece of raw diamond, for the purpose of bringing out its beauty. The hardship you have gone through in life represents the beauty of character that God wants to shape you through it. Remind us O Lord of your love, so that we can rejoice in the dark light of our souls, celebrate in the midst of suffering, serene in the middle of storm, hope in the midst of crisis. This is Christian living and this is Christian joy, “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (Habakkuk 3:17-18). Rejoice in the Lord, my beloved brothers and sisters. God is with you always…
Love you for His delights,
Lawrence
Showing posts with label Meditate with My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meditate with My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. Show all posts
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Devotional 100309
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. Though the temperature is cold, it is such a calm, sunny and beautiful day. I always enjoy driving by the Bay on Airport Blvd to my office. It is such a treat to enjoy the beauty of the Bay at the waterfront. God never ceases to work and create in the Nature. Each day is a brand new day, and God is doing His work in and through our lives too. Just as Paul said, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:17-19). God is making new creation throughout the world. And He will also use us in this ministry of reconciliation if we allow Him to. Therefore, our everyday contacts with people are part of His work. It is not by coincidence that you are in that office today. The people whom you meet are God’s target of love and reconciliation. You may not have opportunity to preach the gospel. But you can always build relationship with them by the agape love of God. Once you live out your life of grace each day, God will prepare people’s heart to listen to what He has to say through you.
"Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction" (2 Timothy 4:2). We are not saved to be "channels only," but to be sons and daughters of God. We are not turned into spiritual mediums, but into spiritual messengers; the message must be part of ourselves. The Son of God was His own message, His words were spirit and life; and as His disciples our lives must be the sacrament of our message. The natural heart will do any amount of serving, but it takes the heart broken by conviction of sin, and baptized by the Holy Spirit, and crumpled into the purpose of God before the life becomes the sacrament of its message.
There is a difference between giving a testimony and preaching. A preacher is one who has realized the call of God and is determined to use his every power to proclaim God's truth. God takes us out of our own ideas for our lives and we are being shaped and used, as the disciples were after Pentecost. Pentecost did not teach the disciples any thing; it made them the incarnation of what they preached - "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8).
Let God have perfect liberty when you speak. Before God's message can liberate other souls, the liberation must be real in you first. Gather your material, and set it on fire for the Lord when you speak.
Chamber's word is so true that we are not speaking out of theory but experience. We don’t tell others about a philosophy but our encounter with a living God. God is at work while we speak. He continues to work and empower our lives while we bear witness for Him.
The way to give liberty to God to speak through us is to submit to His Word for us each day. The more we submit to obey His word in everyday of our lives, the more we are delivered from the bondage of sins and Satan’s lie within us. This kind of transformation is taking place as we speak. We may not see the ‘changes’ right away, but the molding and deliverance are taking place in the spiritual realm within our soul. Once our soul is renewed, the behavior follows. The change is from inside out. Let's encourage each other to abide in His words.
Love you with my renewed soul,
Lawrence
Good morning. Though the temperature is cold, it is such a calm, sunny and beautiful day. I always enjoy driving by the Bay on Airport Blvd to my office. It is such a treat to enjoy the beauty of the Bay at the waterfront. God never ceases to work and create in the Nature. Each day is a brand new day, and God is doing His work in and through our lives too. Just as Paul said, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:17-19). God is making new creation throughout the world. And He will also use us in this ministry of reconciliation if we allow Him to. Therefore, our everyday contacts with people are part of His work. It is not by coincidence that you are in that office today. The people whom you meet are God’s target of love and reconciliation. You may not have opportunity to preach the gospel. But you can always build relationship with them by the agape love of God. Once you live out your life of grace each day, God will prepare people’s heart to listen to what He has to say through you.
"Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction" (2 Timothy 4:2). We are not saved to be "channels only," but to be sons and daughters of God. We are not turned into spiritual mediums, but into spiritual messengers; the message must be part of ourselves. The Son of God was His own message, His words were spirit and life; and as His disciples our lives must be the sacrament of our message. The natural heart will do any amount of serving, but it takes the heart broken by conviction of sin, and baptized by the Holy Spirit, and crumpled into the purpose of God before the life becomes the sacrament of its message.
There is a difference between giving a testimony and preaching. A preacher is one who has realized the call of God and is determined to use his every power to proclaim God's truth. God takes us out of our own ideas for our lives and we are being shaped and used, as the disciples were after Pentecost. Pentecost did not teach the disciples any thing; it made them the incarnation of what they preached - "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8).
Let God have perfect liberty when you speak. Before God's message can liberate other souls, the liberation must be real in you first. Gather your material, and set it on fire for the Lord when you speak.
Chamber's word is so true that we are not speaking out of theory but experience. We don’t tell others about a philosophy but our encounter with a living God. God is at work while we speak. He continues to work and empower our lives while we bear witness for Him.
The way to give liberty to God to speak through us is to submit to His Word for us each day. The more we submit to obey His word in everyday of our lives, the more we are delivered from the bondage of sins and Satan’s lie within us. This kind of transformation is taking place as we speak. We may not see the ‘changes’ right away, but the molding and deliverance are taking place in the spiritual realm within our soul. Once our soul is renewed, the behavior follows. The change is from inside out. Let's encourage each other to abide in His words.
Love you with my renewed soul,
Lawrence
Friday, March 6, 2009
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
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
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Devotion 040309
Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. I was reminded again in the devotion of staff prayer meeting that our Christian lives could slowly wither from within, if we fail to trust and obey. “In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!" "Have faith in God," Jesus answered” (Mark 11:20-22). The problem of the fig tree was that it did not bear fruits but only leaves. It symbolized how religious people in Jesus times busy themselves with devotional activities, but without obedience to God’s words. They might decorate themselves with outward devotion. But they were actually rotten at the root from within – therefore they could not bear spiritual fruits. In the same token, I may be very active in church activities or global missions as a minister. But without obedience to the Word of God from within, I will not bear fruits for His glory.
"I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace" (Acts 20:24). It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a call, because then you are not bothered by what God requires; common sense is your guide, coating over with Christian sentiment. You will be more prosperous and successful, more leisure-hearted, if you never realize the call of God. But if once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God wants will always come like a drive; you will no longer be able to work for Him on the common-sense basis.
What do I really count dear? If I have not been gripped by Jesus Christ, I will count service dear, time given to God dear, my life dear unto myself. Paul says he counted his life dear only in order that he might fulfill the ministry he had received; he refused to use his energy for any other thing. Acts 20:24 states Paul's almost sublime annoyance at being asked to consider his own self-worth; he was absolutely indifferent to any consideration other than that of fulfilling the ministry he had received. Practical work may be a competitor against abandonment to God, because practical work is based on this argument – “Remember how 'useful you are here, or - Think how much value you would be in that particular type of work.” That attitude does not put Jesus Christ as the Guide as to where we should go, but our judgment as to where we are of most use. Never consider whether you are of use, but ever consider that you are not your own but His.
Have mercy on me O Lord! How easy we will fall into this kind of temptation of pride? We want to be somebody or being recognized. There is always a secret ambition to be above others or better in our trade. But once we are compelled by the Love of God, we become careless in terms of our self-worth, and seek His will be done in our lives. This is the kind of fruit bearing lifestyle that pleases God. We don’t exercise our faith for our own agenda, but the agenda of God – make disciples of ALL nations. During this economic down time, let’s encourage each other not to be detoured by fear of economic tsunami, but to be driven by God-fearing determination to proclaim His good news.
Love you in Christ,
Lawrence
Good morning. I was reminded again in the devotion of staff prayer meeting that our Christian lives could slowly wither from within, if we fail to trust and obey. “In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!" "Have faith in God," Jesus answered” (Mark 11:20-22). The problem of the fig tree was that it did not bear fruits but only leaves. It symbolized how religious people in Jesus times busy themselves with devotional activities, but without obedience to God’s words. They might decorate themselves with outward devotion. But they were actually rotten at the root from within – therefore they could not bear spiritual fruits. In the same token, I may be very active in church activities or global missions as a minister. But without obedience to the Word of God from within, I will not bear fruits for His glory.
"I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace" (Acts 20:24). It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a call, because then you are not bothered by what God requires; common sense is your guide, coating over with Christian sentiment. You will be more prosperous and successful, more leisure-hearted, if you never realize the call of God. But if once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God wants will always come like a drive; you will no longer be able to work for Him on the common-sense basis.
What do I really count dear? If I have not been gripped by Jesus Christ, I will count service dear, time given to God dear, my life dear unto myself. Paul says he counted his life dear only in order that he might fulfill the ministry he had received; he refused to use his energy for any other thing. Acts 20:24 states Paul's almost sublime annoyance at being asked to consider his own self-worth; he was absolutely indifferent to any consideration other than that of fulfilling the ministry he had received. Practical work may be a competitor against abandonment to God, because practical work is based on this argument – “Remember how 'useful you are here, or - Think how much value you would be in that particular type of work.” That attitude does not put Jesus Christ as the Guide as to where we should go, but our judgment as to where we are of most use. Never consider whether you are of use, but ever consider that you are not your own but His.
Have mercy on me O Lord! How easy we will fall into this kind of temptation of pride? We want to be somebody or being recognized. There is always a secret ambition to be above others or better in our trade. But once we are compelled by the Love of God, we become careless in terms of our self-worth, and seek His will be done in our lives. This is the kind of fruit bearing lifestyle that pleases God. We don’t exercise our faith for our own agenda, but the agenda of God – make disciples of ALL nations. During this economic down time, let’s encourage each other not to be detoured by fear of economic tsunami, but to be driven by God-fearing determination to proclaim His good news.
Love you in Christ,
Lawrence
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