Next week I will be attending the Malaysian Cell Church Conference at DUMC so I may not be able to update my blog....I have decided to post 2 entries today....
My favourite Bible study website must be www.biblestudyplanet.com. Not that I know many Bible study blogs...in fact, this is probably the only one I know other than biblegateway.com. My dear sister Lydia introduced me to this website when our life group started the 4/14 life group within our life group. The 4/14 group was inspired by a message that John Robb had shared with us in church about the need to minister to and raise up the 4/14 generation i.e. young people age 4 to 14. Sister Lydia suggested that we download the Bible studies from this website to teach the children in our life group. Not only did I find the Bible studies for this age group useful, I found that there were some practical and easy to remember Bible teachings and devotions that really ministered to me.
I am going to adapt one of the Bibe lesson for this blog post called "Letting God love us with His AAAAAA love". Before I do that let me tell you about how I got the inspiration for the title to this blog. It came from Pastor Vernon Falls. Pastor Vernon must be one of the most inspiring speaker I have heard. His favourite phrase is that God has blessed us with the AAAAAAAAAA anointing, the AAAAAAAAAAA favour and the AAAAAAAAAA abundance! Each time I hear him speak, my faith lifts and I can believe that with God nothing is impossible!
There is this wonderful lesson in Biblegateway about the love of God which is simply AAAAAA. It is the love of God which is Atoning, Adopting, Accepting, Assuring, Able to set us Apart and simply Amazing!
Unlike the AAA batteries that we use for our walkman or camera, the AAAAAA love of God is a never-ending supply...it goes on and on as long as you and I are 'plugged' to Him!
This type of love cannot be expressed by human beings. We are not capable of such AAAAAA love as our natural human love has its limitations. But God's love is deep and wide and cannot be grasped with human understanding....we can only experience it with the help of the Holy Spirit....
The AAAAAA love of God begins with the ATONING LOVE.
God's atoning love for us is demonstrated through Jesus, while we were yet sinners He died for us. His atoning love for us opens the door to all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places reserved for us by God himself through the foundation of the world.
John 3:16-17 "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son to condemn the world, but in order that the world may be saved through Him"
The moment we invite Jesus into our heart, His atoning love begins to operate in our lives! If we continue in that atoning love, we will enter into a personal, loving relationship with God and there will be available to us all the spiritual blessings promised to those who believe in Christ!
Let us continue to let God love us with His ADOPTING LOVE. God's adopting love brings us into a relationship with Him where we can call Him Father! Which religion in the world allows us to call the Supreme Being and the Creator of heaven and earth Father God? The longer we spend time with God, the more we realise that God does not want us to be alone in our walk with Him. He has put us into a family....a family of God, the local church where He has called us to be planted and to grow...
Rom 8:15 "For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!"
An adopted son is in the same position as one born naturally into a family. He is entitled to inherit all his father's riches...the Father's riches include salvation, strength, hope, peace, joy, comfort, providence, fellowship and so much more!
The more we pray, the more we realize that God's love is also an ACCEPTING LOVE. We have all sinned and fallen short of the the glory of God but we are justified by our faith in Christ Jesus. In Christ and through Christ alone, we stand accepted in the Beloved! Rom 3:23-25. God accepts us warts and all, irregardless of our background and our troubled past. God accepts us whether we are beautiful or ugly, fat or thin, dark or fair, smart or not so smart....our Father is no respecter of persons, He loves all who come to Him through Christ Jesus.
Let us also allow God to love us with an ASSURING LOVE. If God is for us who can be against us. In Christ we are set free from guilt and condemnation. His love assures us that He loves and nothing will seperate us from Him. Rom 8:38 "For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth,nor any other created thing shall be able to seperate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord"
The more we stand face to face with God, the more God will reveal to us that He is certainly ABLE TO SET US APART with His precious sanctifing love. God's love is able to sanctify us in 2 ways, positionally and progressively. In terms of position we are sactified the moment we come to Christ. Heb 10:10 "We have been sanctified through the offering fo the body of Jesus Christ once and for all"
God's love is also able to sanctify us progressively throughout our Christian lives. Progressive sanctification is the process of dying to sin and lving for Christ to become more and more like Him each day. Its about producing the fruit of the Spirit and not to indulge in the works of the flesh. Gal 5:19-23
God's sanctifying love sets us apart for His own special plans.
Finally being face to face with God is to experience the most AMAZING LOVE of all times. It endures from generation to generation, it is His eternal promise to be with us no matter where we are and no matter where we are going through. It is as God's says "I will never leave you nor forsake you. I will be with you to the ends of the age". This amazing love and amazing grace will eventually bring us into eternal glory.
"Beloved, we are God's children, now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know when He appears we will be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is" 1 John 3:1-2.
Throughout our lives on this earth, we will wrestle with sin, struggle with temptation, face all kinds of challenges, encounter trials, testings and tribulations, we will cry, we will mourn and we will weep....but the day will come when all tears will be wiped away from our eyes when the good work that God begins in us will be completed. When we go to be with the Lord forever, our sinful nature will be left behind and we will be like Him, and with Him, forever!
Rev 21:4 "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be more pain, for the former things have passed away"
O Lord give us the grace and favor to experience all the different aspects of your AAAAAA love!
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Face to Face with God - Letting God love us (John the Apostle)
Before I share on this, I just want to share the testimony of a dear brother in our life group who is really on fire for God. Not only does he take time to travel all the way to Gohtong Jaya on Wed to hold a Bible study for a small group of Chinese speaking believers, he will also visit the sick and the needy in the hospital. Last Friday, during our life group (Tim and I run a small life group called Canaanland life group in our church), he shared that he ministered to an elderly man in the hospital. Apparently the old man complained that no one visited him, so our Bro. Francis decided to visit him and even bought him food upon request such as bak kut teh. The old man was very touched by this gesture and accepted Christ. During the last visit, Bro. Francis was surprised to learn that the old man had died....thank God for leading our dear brother to witness to elderly gentleman before he died.
What an encouraging testimony! Through this I am reminded that I too must be sensitive to the Holy Spirit to allow Him to lead me to share the gospel whenever the opportunity arise as it could determine the destiny of the person concerned.
Well, I have been waiting the whole week upon the Lord on this topic of letting God love us. To let God love us and to love God is like two sides of a coin. Sometimes its not easy to love God especially when we may feel that God is far far away or that He has rejected us because of a sin/wrong thought/past mistakes. Many times in my own spiritual walk I had felt as though God had deserted me or that He did not want to fellowship with me anymore. These are times when I had to just sit in His presence and call out to Him from my innermost being for a touch from Him to revive me.
During those times, I had to practice 'full and frank disclosure' of my spiritual condition with Him. In the bank, where I work 'full and frank disclosure' is a popular management phrase meaning that even if it may cost us our increment/bonus or our popularity, we had to be 'brutally frank' with our management concerning the problems we face at work (part of my job is to handle legal cases against the bank). I had to assess the legal position of the bank and advice management whether it is worthwhile to fight out the case or to hand out the olive branch to the opposing side.
John was one disciple who knew how to let Jesus loved Him. In fact he called himself "the disciple Jesus loved". If anyone knew how to let God loved Him, it was John. He was sensitive to Jesus's words and actions. The Bible tells us in John 13:23that he leaned on Jesus' bosom during the last supper. In terms of posture and position, he was close to the Lord. In fact he was so close to the Lord that I believe he knew who the betrayer would be. When Peter asked John to ask Jesus who he was talking about, Jesus named Judas to John in a soft voice meant for his ears only. John knew the Lord's destiny, that he had to go to the Cross....
At the Cross, John stood with Mary and Jesus seeing "the disciple whom He loved standing by" said to him "Behold your mother" and to Mary, Jesus said concerning Joh "Behold your son!"
Jesus knew John fully and loved him fully. John was not a perfect person. Bible tells us that he and James (his brother) wanted to call down fire from heaven on a village that had refused to acknowledge Jesus. Not only did he struggled with rashness and impatience, he also had to deal with spiritual pride. He was one of those who asked for a special place in God's kingdom.
To let God love us is to be 'brutally honest' about ourselves with God. It is to tell God the things we see in ourselves that we dislike so much but we seem to have no power over it. It is to give it over to Him to let Him change that weakness into something good. God takes that seemingly weak aspect of our character and moulds it into a character strength that He can use for His glory.
Truly being loved is the greatest motivation of all. How do I let God love me deeply? I have to take time to savour that love, to hear His voice and to read His word. I have to take time to lean on His bosom like Apostle John, I have to slow down to search myself and to confess to Him the weaknesses of my character and to allow the searchlight of His word and Spirit to expose the pride, anger and fleshly attitudes that I carry around with me.....(more later)
What an encouraging testimony! Through this I am reminded that I too must be sensitive to the Holy Spirit to allow Him to lead me to share the gospel whenever the opportunity arise as it could determine the destiny of the person concerned.
Well, I have been waiting the whole week upon the Lord on this topic of letting God love us. To let God love us and to love God is like two sides of a coin. Sometimes its not easy to love God especially when we may feel that God is far far away or that He has rejected us because of a sin/wrong thought/past mistakes. Many times in my own spiritual walk I had felt as though God had deserted me or that He did not want to fellowship with me anymore. These are times when I had to just sit in His presence and call out to Him from my innermost being for a touch from Him to revive me.
During those times, I had to practice 'full and frank disclosure' of my spiritual condition with Him. In the bank, where I work 'full and frank disclosure' is a popular management phrase meaning that even if it may cost us our increment/bonus or our popularity, we had to be 'brutally frank' with our management concerning the problems we face at work (part of my job is to handle legal cases against the bank). I had to assess the legal position of the bank and advice management whether it is worthwhile to fight out the case or to hand out the olive branch to the opposing side.
John was one disciple who knew how to let Jesus loved Him. In fact he called himself "the disciple Jesus loved". If anyone knew how to let God loved Him, it was John. He was sensitive to Jesus's words and actions. The Bible tells us in John 13:23that he leaned on Jesus' bosom during the last supper. In terms of posture and position, he was close to the Lord. In fact he was so close to the Lord that I believe he knew who the betrayer would be. When Peter asked John to ask Jesus who he was talking about, Jesus named Judas to John in a soft voice meant for his ears only. John knew the Lord's destiny, that he had to go to the Cross....
At the Cross, John stood with Mary and Jesus seeing "the disciple whom He loved standing by" said to him "Behold your mother" and to Mary, Jesus said concerning Joh "Behold your son!"
Jesus knew John fully and loved him fully. John was not a perfect person. Bible tells us that he and James (his brother) wanted to call down fire from heaven on a village that had refused to acknowledge Jesus. Not only did he struggled with rashness and impatience, he also had to deal with spiritual pride. He was one of those who asked for a special place in God's kingdom.
To let God love us is to be 'brutally honest' about ourselves with God. It is to tell God the things we see in ourselves that we dislike so much but we seem to have no power over it. It is to give it over to Him to let Him change that weakness into something good. God takes that seemingly weak aspect of our character and moulds it into a character strength that He can use for His glory.
Truly being loved is the greatest motivation of all. How do I let God love me deeply? I have to take time to savour that love, to hear His voice and to read His word. I have to take time to lean on His bosom like Apostle John, I have to slow down to search myself and to confess to Him the weaknesses of my character and to allow the searchlight of His word and Spirit to expose the pride, anger and fleshly attitudes that I carry around with me.....(more later)
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