Living a Life of Supernatural Service

John 14:12 – “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

Do we believe that God has a work for us to do and that it will be a greater work than what Jesus accomplished on earth? Do we believe that we are called to live a life of supernatural service? Do we know that God has a work for all of us to do? We are not a redundant in the Kingdom of God and this work that God called us to is to a supernatural service.

First, we are not called to do God’s work with our own strength. To whom God called he will also enable. We are blessed to be a blessing! We are all “…empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills… (1 Corinthians 12:11).”

Second, we are empowered with the resurrection power to live a life of supernatural service for our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. In Philippians 3:10 we read “that I (we) may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings…” The supernatural life that we are called to – the abundant life – is a life flowing with the boundless energy of resurrection life. We can and should live a supernatural life, not defeated and beaten down. We are winners in God. We possess boundless energy in Christ to stand strong and preach the gospel with all power and authority. We are cut out to live a life of supernatural service – a life full of adventure in the kingdom of God.

Third, this supernatural service that we are called into is to serve God with steadfastness – with commitment and dedication. It is a call to a service that is immovable – fixed and unbending. We need to abound in our service of God.

1 Corinthians 15:58 – Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.

Supernatural service for God is NOT just the occurrence of miracles on our right and left BUT a service with faithfulness in generosity, kindness and compassion. Do one random act of kindness at a time. Be thoughtful of others in our everyday walk of life. Speaking words that build faith, words that encourage, and ministers grace to the hearers. Stand by each other. Believe in the God of impossibility. Giving that which is unconditional; a giving that is not just in kind but in act, attitude, and words too! All of these are part of the everyday supernatural service that we are called to engaged in with the Lord.

Fourth, unity in diversity in the church shows to the world the manifold wisdom of God. In Christ incarnation we saw the power of God in Jesus, we saw the character of God portrayed in Jesus, and we saw the authority of God exercised through Jesus. The gospel account tells us of miracles, healings, deliverance, and such authority that enveloped the Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus was Christ limited to time and space. He could only be in one place at one time.

When Jesus’ mission was finally accomplished on the cross He became the saviour of the world – the One who took away the sin of the world. At his resurrection He conquered over sin and death. What a glorious historical event! But the story did not end there because Jesus told the disciples that He will sent another Comforter to them – one of the same kind to stand alongside them. He told them to tarry at Jerusalem. And on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came upon them and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and with power.

The church was birth; she is the Body of Christ of which Christ is the head. Now, with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we now see Christ unlimited. The authority of God is transferred over to His body. His character, the fruit of the Spirit, is evidenced in His Body, and His power is manifested in all its fullness in the Body. The Church, the Body of Christ is unlimited. There is no stopping His church from advancing and reclaiming the lost humanity for Christ and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. The church has all the weapons of the warfare to advance the Kingdom of God. We need to rise up and understand Christ in session; move in the apostolic ministries, exercising the gifts of the spirit, and establish the will of God on earth as it is in heaven.

THE ONLY TIME WE ARE GOING TO SEE THE

“GREATER WORKS” DONE THROUGH THE “UNLIMITED

CHRIST AND HIS BODY” IS WHEN THERE IS UNITY!!

We will be different and will always be BUT we are called to be united!! It is in unity that we can do the “greater works” – if not, we cannot hope to survive on the long run.

Living A Life Of Possibility Faith

Matthew 17:20 – For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

We are called to a life of faith where nothing is impossible in Christ. We are not called to live a life for ourselves and with ourselves BUT a life of faith in Christ – a life of POSSIBILITY FAITH. The whole world lies in deceit – lying to themselves and others. The whole world lives in scepticism – doubting everything even itself. There are people who have stopped believing in anything or that anything good can happen.

As Christians do we really believe that what we believe is really real? Can we put our trust in God and walk in the possibility found in Christ – living in all the promises of God for us!

Jesus Said It

Mark 10:27 – But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men [it is] impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.”

The circumstances that are considered as impossible are possible with God. We need to look beyond our own strength and ability. With him all things are possible. We are called to a life of possibility faith and NOT a mediocre lifestyle. We are not called to live a life full of scepticism and doubt BUT a life of faith and believe that God will never leave us nor forsake us.

Angel Gabriel Said It

Luke 1:37 – For nothing will be impossible with God

The key is that we need to put our possibility faith in the God of impossibility. What is our need today? What is our lack today? With men it is impossible but with God all things are possible! We need to raise our level of faith. That’s what Jesus came to do; to bring us into a life of all possibility faith in Him and through Him. We need not live a defeated life – a life of bondage, a life full of unresolved problems and difficulties.

When we start to view everything from God’s vantage point we will see things differently. With the eyes of God we entered into the plane of faith – the ability to see things beyond ourselves. We need to believe that and we need to trust God to be faithful to his words. Our Father has made known to the Son that with him all things are possible so we can believe in this God of impossibility for our everyday life – not just for extraordinary times. Let us start today!

If you find any difficulty in forgiving some people it is about time to believe in the God of all impossibility. Let us find our forgiveness in him so that we can forgive others. That’s living a life of possibility faith. If there is a mountain in front of you and you find you have no strength to remove it then it is time for you to trust in the God of all impossibility. For with God nothing shall be impossible; he can give you the possibility faith to say to the mountain to be removed and it will be removed. You can experience your miracle today! If you have been living under the lie that your life will never be any better, under the lie that your life will always be pathetic, and defeated, you need to turn around and start believing in the God of all impossibility. He has called us to live a life of possibility faith. Let us pull down all vain imagination and thoughts that are not of God. Let us cast down and destroy every stronghold of the devil. Let us start trusting in the God of all impossibility! It’s time for us to do away with doubt and scepticism and begin to believe in the word of God, in the truth of God and to see the impossible becoming possible.

LIVING A LIFE OF COVENANTAL RELATIONSHIP

John 15:12-13 – “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Much as I like to believe that in the Church today we really love one another and we are all ready to lay down our lives for each other I have to be honest to say that we are all far from fulfilling the commandment of God to love one another as Jesus has loved us! It is easy to verbalize that we love one another but more often than not it is only when we can have something back or that we feel we have been loved and accepted or that our needs are met.

Jesus presented to us this principle of loving one another as a covenant relationship modelled by God the Father to us human when he gave his Son as a sacrifice! Make no mistake to think that the gift of salvation is cheap. It is free for us because of grace but it cost the life of the Son of God to redeem us back. The covenantal relationship is an everlasting covenant. His love for each one of us is everlasting; it is not just a feeling, a talk but is affected through an action of love.

We need to think deeply and seriously about what it means to love one another in the body of Christ. While I think that it is sweet to show love and concern when someone is sick, in need or going through a bad patch BUT I think it is more than that when we really want to love one another.

First, to love one another is to have patience with one another. Recently I have been reminded that we need to have patience with one another, we need to learn how to treat each other with respect. Many times we view others from our point of strength and we have the tendency to be critical, to be disrespectful and no longer generous in our words. Some of the things that we need to watch out for are (1) unkind words that hurts, (2) pride in our ability and strength that we forget the grace of God, and (3) we become spiteful in our attitude.

Second, to love one another is to prefer others better than ourselves. None of us finds it easy to do that. We are by nature selfish and self-centred. We need to be reminded all the time about the grace of God.

God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:5-7).

We need to be kind to one another. We need to always take the view that we don’t always know everything that is to know about a person. We need to always be aware that our heart is deceitful above all else. It is always better to err on the side of love than to be right just to prove a point!

Third, to love one another is to love without condition. Can we just love people because it is a right thing to do and nothing else? We need to see each other beyond the external. We need to be aware that we are all still WORK IN PROGRESS. We have not arrived yet but certainly we have left. The moment we attached conditions to loving one another we are telling others to love us with the same conditions! And we know that we are not perfect and we do not have everything in place yet in our lives. Is it possible to love one another with the awareness that we are all still work in progress? Is it possible to prefer others better than ourselves? Is it possible to put others first? Is it possible to love without any condition for love?

Let me share with you a personal observation in my own family. Jesher, my youngest son has a tendency to be annoying, provocative, and getting on the nerves of his sister. The sister would shout at him being exasperated and thoroughly annoyed. She would exclaimed: “Jesher – stop being so annoying! Go away!”

But yet – with all these idiosyncrasies – she really loves him. I had witness many times how she would care for him, would help him and even take him out for Christmas shopping. I was told by the youth pastor that during supper Jesher would order food without a thought whether he had money or not trusting that the sister would pay for him. True enough, his sister had to pay for him and ended up with no money left for herself. She had to sacrifice her supper or dinner on many occasions.

I believe that in the church we can be the same. We can love each other including all the warts and pimples that we find in each other. We can love without conditions attached to it. When we experienced the love of God we can have a big heart to love others. We have been given a heart big enough by the Lord to contain God’s love for everyone around us and to overflow out into the community.

REFLECTION OH JOHN 15:14-15

John 15:14-15 – You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

A servant does what the master commanded BUT a friend of God knows what the Father’s want and do them as commanded. Jesus heard from the Father and he made it known to his friends. The knowledge of what the Father wants done was revealed to us through Jesus Christ and that becomes a commandment; not an optional extra and not a personal choice anymore.

Apostle Paul said to the Corinthian Christians that when he “….preach the gospel, that gives me (him) no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me (him). Woe to me (him) if I do (he does) not preach the gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16). Paul said that necessity is laid on him, that he is under compulsion to preach the gospel. What is make known to us will ultimately change us and becomes a commandment from the Lord – it becomes our responsibility to carry it out. For Paul it was the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles.

When we truly encountered God we will be changed on the inside out. When we gazed upon the face of God He will expose our heart and then He will expose the world around us. Suddenly we realize that we have a choice – to follow Him through surrender and to surrender is to answer this question truthfully: “Who will go for me?” For Isaiah, his response was “Here am I Lord, send me!”

For me I answered that question 29 years ago. One afternoon while working, I looked out the window and saw a Chinese funeral procession. It was nothing unusual BUT that particular afternoon the Lord stopped me on my track and asked me a series of questions; “What did you see? Who died? What do people usually say when the dead man is a young man? What if he/she is an old man/woman with lots of people wearing black?” Finally God asked me this question: What do you think that I see?

At that moment I saw a vision. I saw myself standing as the edge of a cliff and people were walking aimlessly toward the cliff and over it. I looked down the cliff and saw multitudes of dead bodies at the bottom of the cliff. I was shocked. I was frightened. At that moment the Lord gently spoke and said to me that every time I see a Chinese funeral procession one soul goes to hell! I cried for a long time. After that I stopped struggling with Him. I answered the call of God to serve Him for the rest of my life. I have never looked back since then. I have never regretted for my decision to follow Him.

Let me leave with you three things (out of many things) that God has explicitly spoken through his Son Jesus Christ – make known to us to pattern our lives after. If we don’t hold on to these WORDS of Jesus we cannot possibly progress but we will either have stunted growth or even regress instead.

1. Living a Life of Covenantal Relationship (Relational). John 15:12-13 – “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends.

2. Living a Life of Possibility Faith (Transformational). Matthew 17:20 – For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

3. Living a Life of Supernatural Service (Vocational). John 14:12 – “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

Freed 2 Follow

FREED gives us the picture of someone who was bound in chains but now was set free. Paul said that we were once in bondage, being in chain to sin, hurt, wounds, depression, sadness, uncertainty, insecurity and without hope BUT because of Jesus Christ we are set free – free to laugh, free to rejoice, free to face tomorrow, free from hurts, wounds and offenses. BUT the best of all is freed to FOLLOW the Master who saved us!

So what is it that we FOLLOW after? There are three dynamics of discipleship – to follow Him is to have the relational dynamic – learning how to behave as a child of God and enjoy friendship with God. And through our relationship with God we learned to love one another, to care for each other, and to watch out for each other.

Second thing about following Him is the transformational dynamic – spending time with God in worship, in prayer and in God’s word. Worship is the privilege given to us by God through Jesus Christ so that we can gaze into His awesome face and be transformed into the likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ. Prayer, communion with God, is the place to hear from Him and to be able to walk in obedience. His Words is like a mirror that we can see into it and be changed.

Third thing about following Him is the vocational dynamic – it simply means serving God. We cannot help loving Him when we owe a debt of love to Him. We cannot help but serve Him because that is the little expression of love we can give back to the Lord who loved us with an eternal love – a love that never changes.

Freedom in Christ moves us forward. Freedom in Christ does not mean just being happy that our sins are washed away, our hurts being healed, and our hearts being mended BUT a forward looking into great adventure of faith – friendship with God, great relationships with other Christians, changed from glory to glory, and serving the King.

“Can we follow the saviour far, who have no wound or scar?” – Amy Carmichael –

A WELL OR A BROKEN CISTERN

Date : 27th November 2008
Time : 2.23 am

My daughter Joyce blurted out when I gave that exasperated sigh about another breakdown of my car, “Just trust Him….” Well, I always thought that it is easy to say it and preach it but really not that simple to live it. It’s another spiritual lesson in life – oh, not again!

I was actually preparing my sermon – crafting my sermon, more like it – when Judson called to say that the car was stalled by the side of the road somewhere in Prai. My heart sank and my mind was racing with the “ringgit” sign. I got to be honest because at that moment my whole inspiration for sermon crafting vanished into thin air. I lean back in my chair and the thought that flashes through was a picture of a broken cistern as described by the prophet Jeremiah. I was wondering about the leakage in my pocket. I guess I was momentarily not so spiritual – thinking of all the things that could cause the leakage.

Ean Beng, my wonderful wife, came over to my side and I called for a short time of prayer to the Lord. That’s where Joyce blurted out to me to trust in the Lord. My prayer was that the Lord would teach us to dig a well that would flow rivers of living water; a spring beneath and a fountain that would spring up out of our lives. I was asking God to show me if there have been any tendency on my part to store up His blessings and presence in a broken cistern purchased by my own self-effort.

I am writing this journal entry not to give what answer I had received but to record the feelings, the very emotions that came over me, and how to turn to the Lord immediately even without knowing what will happen next. According to Judson’s description it could be a major repair that could run into thousand of ringgits. I was really not in the mood to think positively when all of a sudden I realized that my family will be travelling down to Pulau Pangkor in a few days time. What if the car broke down then? It would be even more devastating, even more dangerous on the highway. So I guess I have to thank God that it broke down tonight so that we have enough time to repair the car, so that we can go for our staff retreat without any worries. I guess money should not be the prime reason of concern but rather the safety of the family. For that I thank God that it was discovered earlier.

I am more and more aware of the life of faith that I am called to live. Sometimes it can be rather rhetorical in our sermons and in our teachings about living by faith in Christ and living faithfully for the Lord. In reality, under day-to-day circumstances, it becomes a test of faith more than anything else. Ironic, isn’t it? But I am learning each day about living by faith, living in harmony with God, and living faithfully. I called it living reality. That has been my catch phrase for a while now.