Who do I have?

"Listening is rare". We need the certain people to whom we feel we can talk because they have such a deep capacity for hearing, not just our words, but hearing us as a person. They enable us to communicate on a level we have never reached before. They enable us to be as we have never been before.We will never truly know ourselves unless we find people who can listen, who can enable us to emerge, to come out of ourselves, to discover who we are. We cannot discover ourselves by ourselves. Note the words "there are certain people… who enable us to be as we have never been before." Those are the people we need most.
Who is my coach? The older, wiser, and more experienced person who would stand on the sidelines of my life watching out for me and at the same time having the bigger picture in his mind all the time? A coach who doesn't try to run the race for me but sets the standard for the race and makes a judgment on my performance.

Who does this for me? Who stretches my mind? Who makes me wince as he exposes the many faces of my ignorance; who will not let me get away with Spiritual and intellectual superficiality. Who listens to and encourages my dreams? Dreams are not intellectual propositions that must be proven. They are the work of visionaries; they are out-of-the-box, frequently awful and occasionally good. These are the folks who, when others laugh and say I am trying to build castles in the air, remind me that God is ever unchanging and never forsake His child, that He is the one Who protects and cares for me?

When the Christians in Jerusalem wanted nothing to do with the newly converted Saul of Tarsus, Barnabas acted as his advocate. You don't have enough voices. You need others to speak up for you. Who shares your tears? Mary of Bethany was the only person in the room who understood what Jesus was going through as He came closer to His hour of death. She alone shared His tears.
Who is close enough to us to pick up the signals, to sense when fears and tears need to be shared? Yes, there are times when we need a pep talk or a boost, but there are also times when we need to be encouraged, to process our emotions. Who does that for us? Who rebukes us? Even with our 20/20 vision, one pair of eyes is not enough. We have blind spots. Satan is always ready to remind us of our good qualities. But a true friend is the one who exposes and challenges our self-seeking, self-pleasing and self-dependence, and helps us to restore to God the authority that we have robbed Him of. Who seeks God with us? Praying together to keeps us honest. It also keeps us dependent on God. We are reluctant to open up, to get real about our areas of struggle. Yet it's only in the honesty of shared prayer that we draw closer to God - and to one another.

Unity, unity....much used and said word!!!!!!!

Yesterday we had a visiting speaker to take the pulpit ministry, the needed break I long for so much, praise GOD!.

He was sharing about unity in prayer, and I was only pondering over this subject as I was asked to meet up with a fellow pastor who seemingly felt that I have encroached into the so called turf as I reached out to some unsaved students in the local university. I was asking God why all these issues, are we not to have Kingdom mentality. Hey there are thousands of students out there and I am only searching and reaching out to the non Christian. My heart wrenched out in pain as I seek the Lord.
I thank God for revealing to me, to lift me up again as I read His words, "So we all agreed... it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements" (Acts 15:25, 28).

Controversy among churches is nothing new. Where two or three are gathered together, there we will find difference of opinion, but sad that church would spend so much time in debate...that has more people trying to fix blame than are trying to fix the problem.

Consider His word "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us." Communion with Christ by the Holy Spirit lies at the very root of that expression. Also, an outcome of this is the unity of the church by the Spirit. And finally there is the unanimity of the Spirit and the church. This picture of the council in Jerusalem is that of a company of men and women, sharing the life of Christ, desiring only to know the mind of the Lord, having no selfish views for which to contend. These are the conditions upon which it is possible for any such assembly to say, "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us." Can the church say this today? Hey I am not judging but what can I say as I want only to do His work in that vast mission field. Can we come to unanimity when we are prepared to discuss our absolute difference freely and frankly, not my turf and your turf but on the basis of common desire to know the mind of the Lord.

God I surrender it to you for it is not the colour of the curtains but the quality of the commitment to Christ that makes your church effective, the church which you have give me shepherd.

Where is my family, I am lonely?

The long weekend has started, just wondering how many will be there for this Sunday worship service as all the students have made the exodus back home. Suddenly I am overwhelmed by the loneliness in my own study praying and reviewing my sermon for tomorrow. Where is my extended family? Is there a glue to hold the family together? Yes surely yes! The "it" of that oft-voiced sentiment may be a place, a person or even a tradition. But whatever the "glue", it is certain to be something that the whole family shares in common. Christian too are members of a family. And the glue that holds this diverse family together is the Holy Spirit. I am glad I still have the family no matter where they are, thus I can sigh with relief that I am never alone, they are linked together with me through our Lord. The more important one is, I am in His family...He is my FATHER. O God I am link and hook up with YOU.
The word "communion" signifies "having in common." It is used of our fellowship with one another and with God. The bond of such fellowship is always through the Holy Spirit. The blessed Spirit unites the Person of the Trinity to each other, and us to them, and secures the oneness for which our Saviour prayed.
How wonderful it is to have the privilege of this divine fellowship! That we need never be alone again; that we can at any moment turn to Him for direction; that we may draw on His resources for every need; that it is impossible to exhaust His willingness to counsel and sustain; that there is no service or suffering into which He is not prepared to enter with us! Surely, if we would but give ourselves time to realize these marvelous privileges, there would be no room for the despondency which threatens to deprive us of hope.
Such divine union as lies within our reach certainly demands on our part watchfulness, a tender conscience, a yielded will, and a heart which has no other love, nothing that is inconsistent with the Spirit's fellowship.
"May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all" 2 Corinthians 13:14. God bless you all.

Spititual fatigue

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? The last few days I have been reading of so many heart tearing struggles seemingly out in the blogsite. I remember an old hymn -
Art thou weary, art thou liguid,
Art thou sore distress?
"Come to Me", saith One, "And coming Be at rest."
Hath He marks to lead me to Him
If He be my Guide?
In His feet and hands are wound-prints,
And His side.
Finding, following, keeping, struggling,
Is He sure to bless?
Saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs,
Answer, "Yes".
As I read this and the many postings there was a silent sigh in my heart, a twinge of spiritual fatigue...... a deep and abiding weariness. Why Lord do you permits us to go through all this? Lord I want to join the crowd and wave the white flag, shouting, "I surrender! I give up!" I have decided to bail out, to throw in the towel, to give into discouragement and give up. There is nothing wrong with that or is it?
Our pace, the noise, the interruptions, the deadlines and demands, the daily schedule and the periodic feelings of failure. I am getting very weary of the fight, of the constant bombardment and shelling targeted into my life, hey I did not ask to be in a war zone?
I was brought back to earth as I remember Paul writing in Ephesians 2:14, "For He Himself is our peace" and the very word of our Lord in Matthew11:28 " Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. for My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
There is nothing wrong with feeling weary, but there is everything wrong with abandoning ship in the midst of the storm. Growing weary is only natural and the consequence of many experiences, they are not bad but exhausting. Many of the things we go through maybe fine with many others but as for us our strength has its limit, we are make different. Before long the fatigue will cuts our feet out from beneath us. The longer the weariness lingers, the more we face the danger of that weary condition clutching our inner man, strangling our hope, our motivation, our spark, our optimism, even our encouragement. Oh how I want to "sustain this weariness" As I mediated on the passage I had a new understanding that God does not dispense strength and encouragement like a doctor filling out a prescription for our sickness. The Lord does not promise to give us something to take so we can handle our weary moments. He promises HIMSELF. That is all and that is enough. In the place of our exhaustion and spiritual fatigue, He will give us rest. All He asks is that we come to Him, that we spend a while thinking about Him, meditating on Him, talking to Him, listening in silence , occupying ourselves in Him totally and thoroughly lost in the hiding place of His presence. "Consider Him..... so that you will not grow weary and lose heart" (Hebrews 12:3).
Don't lose heart! Are you weary? Heavy laden? Distressed? Come to our Lord. Come immediately, come repeatedly, come boldly, give Him your load of care and be at rest. God bless you.

Waiting in the Strength of Hope.

Waiting, watching, working that is how life spins around us. Have been waiting quite a lot lately. Waiting for help, waiting till my ship finds its course or even comes in, waiting for sympathy, waiting for a friend without whose presence there seems to be nobody on the face of the earth. Waiting..........waiting!!!!!

There are two types of waiting: waiting because we have to, and waiting because we want to. The story about the people around the pool at Bethesda waited because they had to, they needed to bathe in the healing waters. One man had waited years to be healed. But when approached by Jesus, the man found himself being asked,"Do you want to be made well." These folks were all waiting, groaning, sighing. A sigh was a prayer, a groan was an entreaty, a cry of distress was a supplication.

This world is a hospital. The person who is in the most robust health today may be struck before the setting of the sun with a fatal disease. Only this week I received three tragic news, the sister of my former cell member has only a month to live says her doctor, a friend only 45 years old while driving had a heart attack and knock down two people, they are in critical condition as he is. Another former cell member was knock down by a motor cycle and is warded with a broken collar bone and eight fractured ribs. In the midst of life we are facing death.

"Life is a perpetual crisis; it can snapped at any moment." But blessed is that servant who shall be found waiting, watching and working when the Lord comes.

How then do I wait? Does waiting means patience, hope, contentment, assurance that God will redeem His promises and make the heart strong; or is it fretfulness, impatience, distrust and complaining, this kind of waiting wears out the soul.

O God, my Father teach me what it means to wait on You for my every need. You have promised to provide in Your time. Guard my heart from fretfulness and complaining, and make my heart strong to hope. Please take courage if you are trotting along this path like me, that one man who waited was healed so can we no matter what the situation is. God bless.

Experincing God anew.

It was a weekend of explosion. Been struggling with sleepless night after night. Trying to blog but each time after writing i end up deleting it as what was said did not strike my heart cord. Have you ever go through this dry desert spell, it was tough. Faith rise up for me this Saturday when indeed He brought someone and a incident to happen to challenge my faith and put it to work.
At the end of it all i realise the impact of Paul statement when he said "I know whom I have believed" because it is not enough if we believe, unless we have a testimony of God. Faith never leans on the authority of mortals, nor rests on God in such a manner as to hesitate, but must be joined with knowledge, otherwise it would not be sufficiently strong against the innumerable assaults of Satan.
Amidst every storm and tempest, I know I can enjoy undisturbed repose if I have settled conviction that God,who cannot lie or deceive, has spoken and will undoubtedly perform what He has promise. I have learned and experience this break though for His church which he entrusted me to shepherd this Saturday. Praise God. I saw His power and how He touched and built my faith to the next level when He shows that, even in desperate affairs, I can and ought to give God such glory so as not to doubt that He will be true and faithful to His children. Indeed "Lord,I know that nothing will happen today that YOU and I together can't handle." For in this world where fear and timidity might be expected, laughter and love, joy and peace still fill the air.