Interesting ways in how Americans viewed God

Americans who described God as "Friend" in 1984: 29 percent

Americans who did so in 2008: 18 percent

Americans who described God as "King" in 1984: 18 percent

Americans who did so in 2008: 23 percent

In korean....

A penny for your decision?

Everything is permissible—but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible —but not everything is constructive. - 1 Cor 10:23

Paul said this in the context of decision making. I have been thinking about this since the shepherd meeting on Monday and I think I have some views into this verse regarding how we make our decision.

Permissible? One question we often want to ask is whether the decision that we are going to make is permissible under the authority of God's word. The bible listed in the OT and the NT that there are certain things that are not permissible Yet Paul said that everything is permissible. A lot of times, even as I listened to the teaching about deciding what is beneficial, I wondered why Paul said this, that everything is permissible. My only explanation is, in very summarised form, that under the covering of the new covenant through the sacrifice of Jesus, everything that we do is being covered by His grace and mercy. That's why 'everything is permissible', because we have His covering of grace. I have no time but to say that I derived this from Paul's writing in Romans and other epistles. But to consider this alone without context would be a fallacy. It does not mean that we make stupid decisions or go about sinning, because this principle does not stand alone.

Beneficial? Obviously, this is the next question to ask ourselves. The fact that everything is permissible doesn't mean that everything is beneficial for our spiritual health per se. We can go about doing what Woods or Letterman has done previously but how is that decision going to be beneficial? Of course, the next question is beneficial to what? As I said, to our spiritual health, our spiritual and personal relationship with God (this is a redundant statement because we can't really have a 'physical relationship with God literally until the second coming). It is to this end that we have to ask ourselves this question. That's why the first question has to be asked in context with this second question.

Constructive? Other than permissibility and benefits, we need to look at the constructiveness of the decision. As the following verse says, we need to do good for the sake of others, we need to make decisions that can help to build people up and that are constructive, rather than making decisions that benefits ourselves and nobody else in the end. I think one very common example is going for SEP. It may be beneficial and may not be wrong but at the very end, I think students need to ask if their decision is constructive to God's ministry to them? This applies for a lot of things as well.

The only reason why I decide to post this up is because of the interesting wording that Paul uses. I think we really need to consider why he said 'everything'.

Moving ahead

However, 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.

I was reflecting upon this verse while I ran the marathon on Sunday. As I enter into my 4th year in Christ, I realised that this verse applies a lot to my own spiritual life and my own philosophy as a believer and a disciple of Christ.

I consider my life worth nothing to me. I have a tendency to think about my own life and all that I can do and achieve in my career, even as I start my career in MOH, if I ever have a career there. I was thinking what's my CEP and how far I can go in MOH or even the civil service. Yet, I have to keep reminding myself that my own life is worth nothing and I need to consider all things rubbish. Coming 4 years, I have to admit that compared to God and His presence in my life, the rest seems rubbish in comparison with that. It often came across my mind what I could have done if I have gone for NOC, or SEP, or even gone on to do internship or what. But to tell the truth, I made a decision to sacrifice all these the day God called me to become the shepherd of a flock. It sounds silly, but that was my decision. My life simply continues to pale in comparison to the eternity I am going to have. It occurs the same here as I start work. My mind has already been made up, to start preparing for missions and church planting and I am going to do that by upgrading myself spiritually. Whether I go or not, it is of insignificance because I will be operationally ready in 2 to 3 years time. So when He says 'go', I can be ready to go.

if only I may finish the race. Life is like a race. Paul likened his own walk with God as a race and this is not the only time he alluded to that. As I was running the marathon, or everytime I run a marathon, I can feel what is it like. The beginning is always the easiest since I am still fresh. But there will come points in time when I feel like dying and I want to give up. There will be times when I feel lonely because I am the only one running the race. There will be times I will feel more energised because someone encouraged me, like one lady who has Philippians 4:13 written on the back tag. In real life, I think I am lucky to have people around me who will be able to encourage me and spur me on. Yet, I believe at some point, I have and will experience the different stages of a marathon race. Scream and cry and shout, but I know that ultimately I have and will experience them. Even so frequently, I feel that I am on a lonely battle. I was sharing in unit the other day that I am truly frustrated by people who dun dig into the Word enough and who dun study the Word deep enough and are contented with elementary teachings and such. I am disappointed by the way some Christians (including leaders) interpret the bible and some verses, taking verses out of context. Scream, cry and shout, but this is the situation I see and I know this is something I want to fight for.

Complete the tast the Lord Jesus has given me. Yes, and I want to complete the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace. Outside of this, it is in my deepest conviction that there is no other reason why God would keep us here on Earth. Without this task, there would be no such thing as a Christian life. Yet I am convicted with this task because I believe and am convicted by the reality of God in my life.

But it is here that I would like to digress a bit and 'cry father cry mother' a little bit about what I see in our own system. Testifying to the gospel of God's grace is a thing that believers do that must be accompanied by a strong relationship and a strong conviction in God, and be built up by strong discipleship. It laments me to see the quality of discipled Christians who are transferred over to the Uni-YA group (ie the youth). From what I know, the youths are very strong in their evangelism, which is good, but I realise that the attrition rate from youth to uni is very high also. I ponder over a case study and a real life example, and think about the youth transfers over the past few years to the Uni group. The strong giants are really the strong giants but those are quite few in number. A lot fell or became stagnant in their faith while in uni. My diagnosis is because there is a culture that asks people to share their faith that is not augmented with a strong conviction or strong relationship and supported by strong spiritual discipleship. This is of course not unique to youth transfers but I see it quite often in these group of people. And I am not saying that the youth group is lousy. Yet, as I reflect upon it, I realise that a lot of time, in the bible, people share their faith as a result of a direct experience with Jesus. The Samaritan woman had a personal encounter with Jesus and it was not supernatural. The blind man had a supernatural encounter with Jesus. Paul had one. Peter and the disciples who received the Holy Spirit baptism had one. Basically all early Christians are able to share their faith and testify because they had a conviction and faith that is augmented by a strong relationship with Jesus. In our context, we need to think about are we asking people to share Christ too early in their faith, when the relationship is not strong enough, or when there is no conviction, ie their sharing is not built upon a foundation of convicted faith. This is in view that not all believers who receive Christ initially know what they are doing or fully understand their decision. This is something for us to think about and something I have been reflecting upon.

Another issue for me to cry father cry mother as I reflect is this, that believers nowadays come to church with a consumeristic attitude. This is something that I realise, that the PnW must be good, that the preaching must be funny etc. Granted that we dun need someone who goes off key to lead PnW or someone who knows no rhythm to play the drum on stage, or someone who cannot understand the bible fully to preach the word, nonetheless, do we really need a super inspirational speaker, or do we really need a super good PnW in order for God to speak to us? And a lot of people come in here and ask 'what can God do for me today?' Sometimes when I think about it, I feel mad you know, seeing that people come in with such attitude and just to mention, I am not immune to such sentiments too. I will leave the issue here as such and not go on further.

As I enter into my 4th year, I think all these things that I see and I understand only serve to confirm that I made the correct choice in believing in God. And I hope that another 4 years from now, I will be an even stronger disciple than I am now.

Till then, akan datang.

Sentuh Hatiku - touch my heart

I love this worship song. It's in Malay, and I think it's better than most English worship song that I have heard. And it's meaningful.

Betapa kumencintai
How I love
Segala yang t'lah terjadi
All that has happened
Tak pernah sendiri jalani hidup ini
I have never been alone in this walk of life
Selalu menyertai
But always protected

Betapa kumenyadari
How I realised
Di dalam hidupku ini
In my life
Kau slalu memberi rancangan terbaik
You have a wonderful plan
Oleh karena kasih
Because of love

REFF (CHORUS):

Bapa, sentuh hatiku, ubah hidupku
Father, touch my heart, change my life
Menjadi yang baru
To be anew
Bagai emas yang murni
Just like pure gold
Kau membentuk bejana hatiku
You have shaped my heart

Bapa, ajarku mengerti sebuah kasih
Father, teach me to understand a kind of love
Yang selalu memberi
That always gives
Bagai air mengalir
Let it be like a flowing stream of water
Yang tiada pernah berhenti
That never ends

Thoughts from the GC

I have been going for our Hope international conferences and this time, it had been no exception. The conference was held in Putrajaya, at PICC, and I had the privilege of attending it with 1700 other brothers and sisters from other Hope churches all over the world. I met quite a lot of old friends from Hope Malaysia, it was only a pity that none from Hope HK appears. It has been an inspiring few days. I would not blog what happened in the conference, but I will want to share some thoughts here that I have been thinking about.

The first thought from the conference is that there is no way I can settle down in God's presence. Let me explain that. It was during the first PnW when I just felt overwhelmed by God's presence. Just then, I realised that no matter what I do, this sense of being overwhelmed is always there, regardless where I am, just that I was a bit more overwhelmed in this instance. Just like David likes to dwell in His presence, I realised that I can never get too used to God. This sense of overwhelm is always there when I came before God. This is just a minor thought but I thought I want to share it.

Before I really enter into other thoughts about what I gained from the conference, I would like to digress a bit here and dwell on another minor thought. This second thought has nothing to do with the conference, other than the fact that it happened during that few days. While I am overtaking myself, attending Ps Dinah's workshop prompted me to further challenge certain assumptions and practises that we do in church. I realised that Hope Singapore people like to drag our members into the wee hours of the night to share their thoughts, learnings or reflections during this kind of conferences and camps. The assumption is that we need to share so that we can consolidate our thoughts. This is not wrong. I firmly believe that we need to share and reflect on what God spoke to us during the camp. But then I realise that we may be doing it the wrong way and therefore, not being fair to God. The word of God, being preached, is like the seed that is being planted in our heart, but it has to be heard. Dragging discussions and sharing well late into the night means people have no enough rest and therefore sleeps during teachings and preachings. This is a direct result of dragging people into the wee hours of the night and share. There is no excuse about it. This directly shortchanged the people from hearing God's word. So I was thinking, shouldn't it be better if we do it after the thing, making sure that we deliberately follow through with our people, rather than doing it during the camp/conference and making everyone so tired? I was looking at the uni group people during the few days and wonder how correct can this be...

Coming back to the teachings and preaching of the conference, I think God did not specifically plant anything new in my heart, although I did receive from Him. One thought from this experience is that God connected the dots of all the prophetic words that He spoke to me through different people. I began to gain an understanding in what I should be doing with my life. Particularly in the area of church planting and responding in wanting to be an apostolic leader to build the foundation of the church. I dun know if I will ever be called to fulfill the Great Commission overseas, but I know that I want to prepare for it, and God has indeed confirmed this during the conference. I felt a deep compassion for people all over the world who had not come to know Him yet and I felt that I want to do something to reach out to these people. So one key word here is really preparation. At the very least, He narrowed down the choices that I can consider.

I also gained some new understanding about the concept of a church, particularly church membership. Hope is a church planting movement which sought to fulfil the Great Commission by building strong and Christ centered disciples to plant vibrant and biblical churches all over the world. I wonder how many people in Hope Church really know what they are doing when they signed up for church membership. Actually I didn't really know then also, but I hope that people really know and understand what is Hope's mission before signing up for membership. At the end of the day, while we can say that someone is serving in Hope actively and things like that, signing up a Hope membership is essentially buying into our core values and vision. Yet, I have always seen people going for membership classes only to leave after that. Yet, I have seen people going for membership classes then suddenly stop serving. Yet I have seen members who dun give a shit on the church vision. Eventually, we need to commit to a local church, but commiting to Hope is much more than just commiting to a local church. I seriously think that it is commiting to a mission, a vision that strives to follow the Great Commission. It's seriously not something that we should be taking it lightly, like what a lot of people are doing in our church.

I think God also spoke to me to continually develop my leadership and discipleship making. This is congruent to the thought on church planting. And I hope to be able to do so for the next two years, hopefully going back into pastoral leadership and leading a group again. The conference opened my eyes and I saw that the church will need people to rise up and take on the vision. I was inspired by the lives of a lot of the leaders who gave their best years to God, although what best years means really depends on God (Moses' best years was after 80).

I was really heartened too by some of the brothers and sisters from Hope Malaysia. There was this brother. He wasn't one when I first knew him in Redang. But he was serving as a photographer during the conference, which really encouraged me. There was another brother, who chose to stay around with us and bring us around after the last day, although he could just go back to Penang. Also, getting to know other people from the churches around really reinforce the thought above.

I think I have typed enough here. Got work and I shall come back to share more thoughts as and when I am able to.

Akan Datang.