Teaching a mission class at home church

I was happy to be invited to teach a class on mission history at China Town Campus of CPCC. As soon as we were about to start the class, there was a power outage. Both cantonese and English congregations had to worship in darkness. Somehow the Christian Education Building was spared from the problem, I was able to move into a smaller class room and complete my presentations. Praise the Lord!

A fruitful weekend ministry

Thank God for giving me and Loretta the opportunity to minister at the retreat of Sunset Chinese Baptist Church. It was their combined retreat (English, youth and Cantonese) with almost 400 attendants. We enjoyed the fellowship and sharing God's words with the Cantonese congregation. It was a wonderful surprise to meet some CPCC sisters in the retreat as well.

Devotional 240709

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. I was attracted to an interview with President Obama last night at Night Line. When he answered the question about his spirituality, he said that a good friend of him held him accountable to focus on God each day, by sending his daily devotional to his ‘blackberry.’ It is amazing how this person’s devotional can shape the mind of a person who has political power to change the world. If our president needs to do daily devotional reading to focus on God, I am sure you need it too regardless of your opinion toward this president. Let’s continue to pray for our president just as the Bible said, “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone--for kings (or Presidents) and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Tim 2:1-2). Amen? Let’s look at our devotional reading today.

"For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:20). The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in motive because he has been made good by the super-natural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds “right-doing” is “right-being.” Jesus Christ came to put into any man who would let Him a new heredity, which would exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus says - If you are My disciple you must be right not only in your living, but in your motives, in your dreams, in the recesses of your mind. You must be so pure in your motives that God Almighty can see nothing to censure. Who can stand in the Eternal Light of God and have nothing for God to censure? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ claims that by His Redemption He can put into any man His own disposition, and make him as pure and as simple as a child. The purity that God demands is impossible unless I can be remade within, and that is what Jesus has undertaken to do by His Redemption.

No man can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations; His teachings are truths that can only be interpreted by the disposition He puts in. The great marvel of Jesus Christ's salvation is that He alters heredity. He does not alter human nature; He alters its mainspring.

This concept seems to be very profound or abstract. We still operate with the same mindset and attitude after becoming a Christian. We don’t really feel the changes. I am sure the Apostles did not feel the change in them after they decided to follow Christ. As a matter of fact, they reacted by their human nature – Peter stopped his Teacher from heading to the Cross; John asked Jesus to burn the village that had rejected them, and one of them drew a sword and cut off his enemy’s ear. We did not see any “change” in them at that time. But after they were filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts 2, something seemed to happen within the core of their being. This group of “scary cats” suddenly became “bold lions.” They were confident and bold in proclaiming the gospel in the place once they were filled with fear. What caused such significant change in them? Was the dramatic or supernatural experience that transformed them from inside out? I don’t really know for sure. But one thing I am sure was that their faith in Christ was deepened through their experience at Pentecost, and their courage was born out of their passion for Christ, who died and resurrected for their sake.

Something had happened to the early church that permeated the whole community. They no longer were afraid of death and persecutions. Even non-Apostle like Stephen died with a similar serenity and passion like Christ. Dr. Luke described, “While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he had said this, he fell asleep” (Acts 7:59-60). The love of God richly filled this person’s heart even at his violent death. We cannot tell for sure what had happened to Stephen within his being. His life was taped to a new source or spring of strength and love from above. Somehow the first martyr was not one of the Apostles but a “lay leader” in the early church. It means this transformation could take place in any followers of Christ, regardless of their title or what they do in the religious community. It will happen to you too.

Have a blessed weekend to spend more time with the Lord! Please also remember me in your prayer, as I will preach in a summer retreat tomorrow, and teach a Mission class on Sunday.

Love you because of His transformation in me,
Lawrence

Devotional 230709

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. Thank God for beautiful sunshine in Burlingame. It was so foggy and wet in Daly City as I left the house. It made me sleepy even though I slept longer because our office is opened at ten on every Thursday. Let's meditate with Brother Chambers, who continued his devotional reading on the same verse that he had started yesterday.

"It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30). The mystery of sanctification is that the perfections of Jesus Christ are imparted to me, not gradually, but instantly when by faith I enter into the realization that Jesus Christ is made unto me sanctification. Sanctification does not mean anything less than the holiness of Jesus being made mine manifestly.

The one marvelous secret of a holy life lies not in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfections of Jesus manifest themselves in my mortal flesh. Sanctification is "Christ in you." It is His wonderful life that is imparted to me in sanctification, and imparted by faith as a sovereign gift of God's grace. Am I willing for God to make sanctification as real in me as it is in His word?

Sanctification means the impartation of the Holy qualities of Jesus Christ. It is His patience, His love, His holiness, His faith, His purity, His godliness that is manifested in and through every sanctified soul. Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy; it is drawing from Jesus the holiness that was manifested in Him, and He manifests it in me. Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation. Imitation is on a different line. In Jesus Christ is the perfection of everything, and the mystery of sanctification is that all the perfections of Jesus are at my disposal, and slowly and surely I begin to live a life of indescribable order and sanity and holiness: "Kept by the power of God."

Indeed we have nothing to boast of our holiness. We learned to strip ourselves to nothing but our relationship with God. And between ‘me’ and God, He imparts His holiness and the nature of Christ into our soul on a daily basis. We may not realize how the transformation takes place within us; when we look back after several years, we felt the difference in us. By God’s grace we grow and become more like Him. I agree with Chamber’s description: Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation.

If sanctification is our effort to become perfect, our lives will be miserable because we will always be in a stage of regrets and frustrations. We hate our weaknesses, our sinful nature, our helplessness, our hypocrisy, our impotency to the point of giving up to fight. Martin Luther was serious about his calling to be holy. He repented to his supervisor in the monastery as soon as he committed a sinful thought. It came to a point that his supervisor was tired of hearing his repentance. Finally he told this young Martin Luther, to go home and meditate on Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast.” It is not by repentance we become holy, it is purely the grace of God. Of course, we have to do our part in stripping off the bondage of earthly relationship, so that we can become the disciple of Christ.

By stripping off the bondage of earthly relationship does not mean isolate yourself from Christian fellowship or from family. God does not make us an island or loner. He expects us to live in community and serves Him through community. But we learn to yield not to opinion of men but to the Word of God. Community could be stumbling. Religious institution could be corrupting. We learn to discern the difference between the opinion that is from God or from men. Just as Jesus reprimanded Peter who was out of good will to stop his teacher from going to the cross, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men” (Matt 16:23). Let the Holy Spirit continue to impart upon you the holiness of Christ each day.

Love you by His holiness,
Lawrence

Devotional 220709

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. I am not as fatigue as yesterday, even though I had the same amount of sleep. I need to spend more time to stay focus on the Lord and nourish my hope (not my worry) in Him. He is the one who cares not only my daily walk with Him but every other details of my life. He is the ultimate CEO at my work; He is the real Owner of my house; He is the personal Trainer of my life, He is my true Soul mate or Lover of my soul. He will indeed watch over me day in and day out. Praise the Lord!

"It is God's will that you should be sanctified" (1 Thessalonians 4:3a). In sanctification God has to deal with us on the death side as well as on the life side. Many of us spend so much time in the place of death that we get gloomy. There is always a battle royal before sanctification, always something that tugs with resentment against the demands of Jesus Christ. Immediately the Spirit of God begins to show us what sanctification means, the struggle begins. "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26).

The Spirit of God in the process of sanctification will strip me until I am nothing but "myself," that is the place of death. Am I willing to be "myself" and nothing more? Am I willing to be with no friends, no father, no brother, no self-interest - simply ready for death for Christ? That is the condition of sanctification. No wonder Jesus said: "I came not to send peace, but a sword." This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us faint. We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus on this point. "But it is so harsh," we may protest; "He cannot wish me to do that." Our Lord is harsh; and He does wish us to do that for our sanctification.

Am I willing to reduce myself simply to "me," determinedly to strip myself of all that my friends think of me, of all I think of myself, and to hand that simple naked self over to God? Immediately, He will sanctify me wholly, and my life will be free from earnestness in connection with every thing but God.

When I pray - "Lord, show me what sanctification means for me," He will show me. It means being made one with Jesus. Sanctification is not something Jesus Christ puts into me: it is Himself who lives in me. Just as Paul said, “It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). Once we invite Jesus into our house, He expects us to move out all the “precious” things that we have collected or stored from within, and give room for Him to be the new Master. When a groom receives his new bride into his house, he must be willing to change his former lifestyle and allow his wife to have a say in “house cleaning.” If a groom does not treasure his bride more than all his collections in the house, he is not ready to get married.

Many people don’t mind to enjoy “courtship” with Christ or God once a week or 1 hour a day. But when it means costing their lifestyle or their treasures to live with Christ, they will definitely hesitate. They don’t want to have serious commitment to this relationship. They just like to have a little dosage of “spirituality” to make them feel good about themselves. Unfortunately you cannot buy 15 minutes of Christianity whenever you feel like it. Just as you cannot buy 15 minutes of “marriage;” there is only prostitution but not marriage you can buy in such manner. To follow Christ involves a lifetime 24/7 commitments. You ‘cannot’ be His disciples if you are not willing to strip away all your earthly relational attachments; this kind of sanctification process will surely take a lifetime to realize and grow. Let’s encourage one another toward this calling to be the true follower of Christ.

Love you because of Christ,
Lawrence

Devotional 210709

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. I did not know why I was so sleepy this morning. I need to seek Him for more strength to face the challenge of today. Life is full of excitement. There are so much potential in us to be utilized for the blessing of others and our own fulfillment. The main thing is to focus; do one thing at a time. Prioritization is to identify the things that we need to accomplish in life in according to their importance. Make sure I don’t exhaust myself in doing just the urgent things but not the important things, or spinning the wheel on things without significant values.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3). Beware of placing Our Lord as a Teacher first. If Jesus Christ is a Teacher only, then all He can do is to torture me by erecting a standard I cannot attain. What is the use of presenting me with an ideal I cannot possibly come near? I am happier without knowing it. What is the good of telling me to be what I never can be - to be pure in heart, to do more than my duty, to be perfectly devoted to God? I must know Jesus Christ as Savior before His teaching has any meaning for me other than that of an ideal, which leads to despair. But when I am born again of the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come to teach only: He came to make me what He teaches I should be. The Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into any man the disposition that ruled His own life, and all the standards God gives are based on that disposition.

The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount produces despair in the natural man - the very thing Jesus means it to do. As long as we have a self-righteous, conceited notion that we can carry out Our Lord's teaching, God will allow us to go on until we break our ignorance over some obstacle, then we are willing to come to Him as paupers and receive from Him. "Blessed are the paupers in spirit," that is the first principle in the Kingdom of God. The bedrock in Jesus Christ's kingdom is poverty, not possession; not decisions for Jesus Christ, but a sense of absolute futility or inadequacy - I cannot begin to do it. Then Jesus says - Blessed are you! That is the entrance, and it does take us a long while to believe we are poor! The knowledge of our own poverty brings us to the moral frontier where Jesus Christ works.

The problem with Christians today is similar to the Church of Laodicea. Jesus warned us of this church, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see” (Revelation 3:15-18). Jesus was referring to the hot spring of Laodicea. A hot spring is full of minerals that are good for healing purpose when it is hot. And when a hot spring completely cool down, with all the minerals settle down on the riverbed, the water becomes drinkable. A lukewarm hot spring is definitely useless; it cannot be used for healing or drinking. If a person drinks a lukewarm hot spring will vomit. That’s how our Lord Jesus describes a lukewarm church or Christian; it is useless in the Kingdom of God. And it will only make people vomit.

When God puts you in a inadequate situation, He wants you to realize how pitiful and poor you are, so that you would seek God for real satisfaction; to quench your thirst or feed your hunger. If you still feel that you are capable to run your life or independent from God, you will never be able to experience the joy of the Kingdom of God.

Love you by the power of His love,
Lawrence

Devotional 200709

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. It is totally His grace that we are active in His plan. The office is excited to anticipate the home coming of our missionary from Dubai who will join us for lunch. God will continue to raise up His church to reach all nations for Christ. And He desires His children to invest their lives toward the same goal both locally and globally. When we draw close to the Lord, we can almost know for sure that we will sense His passions for all nations. And because of this experience, Paul said, “I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish” (Romans 1:14).

"Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint" (Isaiah 40:31). There is no thrill in walking; it is the test of all the stable qualities. To "walk and not be faint" is the highest reach possible for strength. The word "walk" is used in the Bible to express the character - "John looking on Jesus as He walked, said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God!’" There is never any thing abstract in the Bible, it is always vivid and real. God does not say - Be spiritual, but - "Walk before Me."

When we are in an unhealthy state physically or emotionally, we always want thrills. In the physical domain this will lead to counterfeiting the Holy Spirit; in the emotional life it leads to inordinate affection and the destruction of morality; and in the spiritual domain if we insist on getting thrills, on mounting up with wings, it will end in the destruction of spirituality.

The reality of God's presence is not dependent on any place, but only dependent upon the determination to set the Lord always before us. Our problems come when we refuse to bank on the reality of His presence. The experience the Psalmist speaks of - "Therefore will we not fear, though . . ." will be ours when once we are based on Reality, not the consciousness of God's presence but the reality of it - Why, He has been here all the time!

At critical moments it is necessary to ask guidance, but it ought to be unnecessary to be saying always - "O Lord, direct me here, and there." Of course He will! If our common-sense decisions are not His order, He will press through them and check; then we must be quiet and wait for the direction of His presence.

We seek the Lord only when we need His help for some issues beyond our control. We consulted ‘spiritual’ men and women, attempting to find God through them. But we did not ‘walk’ in accordance to what He expected. The psalmist said, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners…” (Psalm 1:1a). If we do not walk in the counsel of the wicked, we should then walk in accordance to the Word of God. That’s why the psalmist continued to say, “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers” (Psalm 1:2). If you delight or desire the Word of God, you don’t need to ask God or consult any ‘spiritual’ men and women from time to time, whether you are walking toward the right direction or not. The word of God becomes part of your value or operating system. When you have doubt whether you are doing the right thing, it could be the prompting of the Holy Spirit. You should stop and meditate on God’s word again. When you desire to do the right thing or ‘walk right’ before God, our Holy Spirit will surely guide you on the right path of Truth.

Have mercy on us O Lord. Help us to delight in your Word and meditate day and night!

Love you by His help,
Lawrence