Young people dedication to missions

Lovely young people who stand before the alter to accept the calling to serve God in missions. Very touching!

Malaysia Youth Missions Conference

Thank God for the opportunity to serve God in Malaysia. And thanks for many of your prayers. 950 youngsters attended, and hundred dedicated to full time missions work. Praise the Lord! God was doing amazing work in a Muslim country.

International Board meeting 2008

Our international Board meeting was fruitful. Thank God for members travel from different continents for 2 days of meetings.

May God bless them with a safe journey home.

Devotional 191108

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. Our international Board meeting will start tomorrow. And right after the two days meeting, I will depart for Malaysia for our Youth Missions Conference. Praise God that we have close to 1000 people participate in this 4 days retreat/conference. This journey will also include other stops in Asia. Hope that you will remember me in your prayer. I may not be able to write my journal in the next couple of days. I pray that you will continue to stay close to the Lord for your own well being.
Jesus said, “When the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned” (John 16:8). Very few of us know anything about conviction of guilt by the Holy Spirit; we know the experience of being disturbed because of having done wrong things; but conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and leaves one relationship only - "Against You, and You only, have I sinned!" When a man is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every power of his conscience that God dare not forgive him; if God did forgive him, the man would have a stronger sense of justice than God (as though God makes a wrong thing right). God does forgive, but it cost the rending of His heart in the Death of Christ (He made His Son pay the price for our sins) to enable Him to do so. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the Divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. When we have been convicted of sin we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary (where Jesus died for our sins), and nothing less; the love of God is spelt on the Cross and nowhere else. The only ground on which God can forgive me is through the Cross of my Lord (someone has to pay the price for sins). There, His conscience is satisfied (God cannot violate the law by proclaiming sin as innocent. His forgiveness must involve the price of sin – which is death).
Forgiveness means not merely that I am saved from hell and made right for heaven (no man would accept forgiveness on such a level); forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a recreated relationship (with the One whom you have sinned against), into identification with God in Christ. The miracle of Redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One, by putting into me a new disposition or nature, the nature of Jesus Christ. God sees us as a holy child because of Christ. Therefore we should get used to this new nature of Christ when we prepare to spend eternity with Him.
Confession is not a one-time event or magic word for us to gain eternal life. It is a constant realization of how our own nature is in the way of God’s plan for our lives. We have the nature or disposition of Christ in us. The Holy Spirit will testify for us in the spiritual realm (against Satan’s persecution) that we are indeed the children of God because of the death of Christ on our behalf. And He will also convict us of our fears and worries because their root problem may be the remnant of our self-centeredness and faithlessness. We need to confess our sins to God whenever the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins, and renew our relationship with Him by abiding ourselves in Christ even more. God loves us. He knows our weaknesses. He will help, but He cannot help us to do our part in terms of dealing with our deep-rooted sins. He cannot make us love Him nor abiding in Him. He gave us this free will, and He expects us to exercise this free will to abide in Him each day. You will experience His power and help when you walk with Him whole-heartedly today.
Love you with this recreated relationship in Christ,
Lawrence

Devotional 181108

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. It is so good to be back to my morning routine again - to spend quality and quantity time with the Lord. It was like missing a good breakfast when I was too busy to enjoy the presence of God yesterday. It is essential to my health to eat right and act right; it is not for legalistic reason not to eat breakfast. I chose to eat breakfast and spend time with Christ because they are essential for my well being. If I don’t, I may not suffer any imminent consequence. But I will definitely hurt myself at the end. So don’t tell God that you can’t find time for Him nor you are too busy to take care of your own health, you will suffer from doing so.
If there is any remnant of individual conceit left, it always says, "I can't" (Remember, the opposite of pride is inferiority). The personality that God designs never says "I can't," but simply absorbs and absorbs (a little child is always daring to explore life and accept challenges). Personality always wants more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for God; and sin and our individuality are the things that keep us from getting at God. God delivers us from sin: we have to deliver our selves from individuality, i.e., to present our natural life to God and sacrifice it until it is transformed into a spiritual life by obedience. Therefore don’t tell God what you can’t do in the Bible. If you do, you are telling God that you know better than Him, and you are still in the driver seat.
God does not pay any attention to our natural individuality in the development of our spiritual life. His order runs right across the natural life, and we have to see that we aid and support God, not stand against Him and say - I can't do that. God will not discipline us; we must discipline ourselves. God will not bring every thought and imagination into captivity; we have to do it just as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10:5. Do not say - O Lord, I suffer from wandering thoughts. Don't suffer from wandering thoughts. Stop listening to the tyranny of your individuality and get emancipated out into God designed personality. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). Do not substitute 'Savior' for 'Son.' The Savior sets us free from sin (this is the accomplishment that Christ has done on the cross for those who trusts in Him); the freedom that we enjoy thereafter each day is being set free by the Son who lives in us. It is what Paul means in Gal. 2:20 - "I have been crucified with Christ," his natural individuality has been broken and his personality united with his Lord, not merged with the Lord but united with Him. "You shall be free indeed," free in essence, and free from inside out. We will insist on actively pursue this unity with Christ, instead of being energized passively into identification with Jesus.
The freedom that we can experience in life lies in Christ. When we abide in Him each day, we participate in this freedom that only Christ can offer. Therefore, the more we abide in Him each day, the more we realize how wonderful this freedom we can have in Christ. We will no longer be bound in sins, in fear, in pride or in worries. We are free to be the kind of personality that God designs us to be.
Hope you will enjoy your union with Christ today.
Love you because of His freedom in me,
Lawrence

Devotional 171108

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good afternoon. I was extremely busy with meeting after meeting as soon as I had finished our staff morning prayer time. I literally had no break in between to check my email nor write my journal until now. But the day was very fruitful. Praise the Lord!
The devotion I read this morning came out of the story of how Abraham sacrificed his only beloved son, Isaac. After Abraham learned to obey God’s ultimate command in his life, God said, "I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me" (Genesis 22:16-18). Abraham has reached the place where he is in touch with the very nature of God, he understands now the Reality of God.
"My goal is God Himself . . .At any cost, dear Lord, by any road." "At any cost, by any road" means nothing self-chosen in the way God brings us to the goal. There is no possibility of questioning when God speaks if He speaks to His own nature in me; prompt obedience is the only result. When Jesus says - "Come," I simply come; when He says - "Let go," I let go; when He says - "Trust in God in this matter," I do trust. The whole working out is the evidence that the nature of God is in me.
God's revelation of Himself to me is determined by my character, not by God's character.
"'This is because I am mean, God’s ways so often look mean to me." By the discipline of obedience I get to the place where Abraham was and I see Who God really is. I never have a real God until I have come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ, then, I know that "in all the world, my God, there is none but You, there is none but You." The promises of God are of no value to us until by obedience we understand the nature of God. We read some things in the Bible three hundred and sixty-five times and they mean nothing to us, then all of a sudden we see what God means, because in some particular we have obeyed God, and instantly His nature is opened up. "All the promises of God in Him are yes, and in Him Amen." The "yes" must be born out of obedience; when by the obedience of our lives we say "Amen" to a promise, then that promise is ours.
The lesson of obedience is truly difficult for us but essential for our transformation as a child of God. The test of faith may make us angry with God at time. We know that He is not a nice God even though He is good at all time. No matter how difficult our lives may be today, we know by faith that God means to bless us through it. We learn to obey with a cheerful heart.
Have a blessed evening.
Love you in the name of Christ,
Lawrence

Preached at Crosspoint Chinese Church

Thank God for a chance to preach at 3 worship services of Milpitas Crosspoint Chinese Church. And it was my privilege to pray for commissioning their first short term mission team to Central America. I treasured the opportunity to preach at their new Mandarin Service as well.