Congregational prayer meeting - Jubilee

Yesterday night, my wife and I joined the congregational prayer meeting at LSBC. It was good to be praying together.

We prayed on the following three areas based on the theme of the Jubilee year:

• Returning to God
• Re-set our lives
• Rest and restoration in God

Prayer is an essential time for us to learn to trust the Lord wholeheartedly and acknowledge His greatness.

Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness;
give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. (Psalms 86:11, NIV)

It is good to engage God in prayer. It connects us to Him so that we are able to depend on His strength for performing our daily tasks. It encourages our soul to rest and trust in the Lord; and as we rest in the presence of the Lord, the overabundance of the joy and love of the Lord will fill our souls and refresh us from within.

When we went home after the prayer meeting, we lingered on a little bit more in the worship atmosphere by listening to some worship songs on Youtube before we slept. One of the songs was particularly striking a chord with the theme of the night: I will be still and know You are God.

When the oceans rise and thunders roar
I will soar with You above the storm
Father you are King over the flood
I will be still, know You are God

Find rest my soul
In Christ alone
Know His power
In quietness and trust

When the oceans rise and thunders roar
I will soar with You above the storm
Father You are king over the flood
I will be still, know You are God [x2]

Find rest my soul
In Christ alone
Know His power
In quietness and trust

When the oceans rise and thunders roar
I will soar with You above the storm
Father You are king over the flood
I will be still, know You are God [x2]

 

Be A Watchful and Faithful Servant

My wife and I were at the LSBC morning worship service again today. God spoke to me about 2 specific application areas during the sermon. The first was the pastor’s exhortation for us to develop the spirit of praying together as a family. I told my wife that we need to set aside regular time to pray together. Prayer helps us to lean on God rather depend on our own efforts, and brings us into the rest of God, a rest that is ever-present even if the storms of life surround us.

The second was a principle extracted from Luke 12:35-48. How do we respond to the increasing signs of the end times in the world today? The parable told by Jesus exhorts us to be a watchful and faithful servant. The willingness to serve others is the kind of spirit that we see in the leadership of Jesus. Unlike many leaders who focused more on their position and status, and who expected to be served and who liked to boss others around, Jesus demonstrated in his life what a privilege it was to be able to serve others around him. Jesus taught that the path to greatness is not in throwing our weight around but in serving the people around us.

 25 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:25-28)

I am deeply reminded of this basic principle once again today, a principle that so easily slips from our grasp as we grow in the social status that comes with age, career advancement and acquisition of more knowledge. There are some specific applications that I was able to share with my wife as we ask the Lord to teach us how to serve one another with the right spirit. Here are some thoughts that I have about what it means to serve one another with the right spirit:

1. Serving with a spirit of humility, realizing that all our resources and capacity to serve comes from God

2. Serving with a spirit of unconditional love, considering the interests of others with compassion and sincerity

3. Serving with a spirit of sacrificial giving, for the Lord has said that it is more blessed to give than to receive

4. Serving with a spirit of submission to authority, knowing that all authority has been appointed by God  

It is amazing how the Word of God can touch our hearts and rejuvenate our souls. By the grace of God, we can always walk forward courageously and confidently in our lives despite past failures and mistakes, because when Christ atoned for our sins at the cross, it was a once-for-all act of redemption. Because of the atonement that has been paid for by Christ, we have perfect redemption from our failures and mistakes, and God will never, never give up on us, even if we mess up with our lives and relationships from time to time.

Resolutions for the new year

I have finally set some resolutions for this new year! As some of the details are of a more personal nature, I will only share the 4 main areas which I have identified for the year and leave out the details which I have set.

1.       Enlarge the blessings that is my inheritance in God

 

2.       Enrich my experience and understanding of God’s word

 

3.       Encourage myself to grow in strength and character through life’s adversities and challenges

 

4.       Engage in helping out the community around me

A Clear Vision Anchored by Consistent Values

It’s the beginning of a new year again. I celebrated the cross-over into the new year by attending the watchnight service at Paya Lebar Methodist Church together with my wife, and then on the first day of the year, I went for a long run along the Punggol Park connector. Last Sunday, my wife and I attended the church service at Living Sanctuary Brethren Church, and I enjoyed both the preaching as well as worship there.

Every year around this time, we are motivated to press the “re-set” button in our lives, putting the failures and disappointments of the previous year behind us, and setting new resolutions for the year ahead with expectations that it will be a better year. We draw encouragement from what the apostle Paul said: “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.”

As I think of the resolutions that I want to set for this new year, there is a phrase that keeps resonating in my head: “A clear vision anchored by consistent values”. For this coming year, I want my resolutions to be defined by two important questions:

• What is the vision that I want to set out to achieve this year?

• What are the values (character traits) that I want to consistently develop in this new year?

Before I move on the list out the concrete resolutions that I am setting, I wanted to explore further these two elements that would define the resolutions. These are thoughts that crossed my mind as I was looking through the first chapter of the book of Joshua in the Bible.

1. A clear and compelling vision

I am not talking about a grandiose vision like that articulated in Martin Luther’s “We Have a Dream” speech. Rather I am talking about a simple idea of what we hope to see in our personal life at the end of the year 2015. I have some thoughts about how we can articulate a clear and compelling one-year vision for this year.

• A vision should be bigger than our current reality.

It is not meaningful to dream to underachieve by the end of the year. We need to dream of goals that are bigger than our current reality, whether in terms of quantity of quality.

• A vision should be translated into an implementable plan.

A vision needs to have a practical implementation plan to go along with it. This means writing down SMART goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. A vision tells us the final destination that we want to reach, but careful preparation and prayer will prepare us for the journey to reach the destination, a journey which is usually fraught with mis-steps such as taking the wrong turn or running into an unintended accident.

• A vision should be implemented in consultation and cooperation with other people.

The good news is that we do not need to walk the journey of our vision alone. We are intended to operate within a community, and there are mentors, friends and family members that God will place along this journey to help us achieve our vision and encourage us when the going gets tough.

2. Consistent values

Values will guide us on the decisions we make and the paths we take to achieve the vision. The circumstances around us change all the time, and whilst we need to keep our eyes open to the happenings in the world around us, the one thing that will anchor us and keep us on the right path towards our vision is having consistent values. Many people fail to reach the end point because they give up in the face of adversity and discomfort. Only a strong and courageous character characterized by having consistent values in our lives will ensure that we finish the race to see the destination in our vision. This is why the exhortation to be strong and courageous and not to be discouraged was repeatedly given to Joshua.

Character is forged in the face of adversity, as we continue to walk ahead despite challenging circumstances, knowing that God is always walking alongside us and will always be there, never leaving us or forsaking us.