Forming community around the makan table.

We just enjoy having pot bless meals in a chinese [choy yin ouk] village house setting. Very rustic wooden house just near to Kepong Jusco, you can smell what's cooking even before you reach the house because of the open air kitchen. Peter's dogs bark friendly at each visitor. You can even learn to fetch water from a little well near the kitchen if you really like to have a cool bath. Since we enjoy being and eating together we might as well use it as "spiritual formation" time, so we initiated a cell community of about 10 people with at least 4 new ones who are not part of any cell. Praise the Lord.
I think we are having steam boat this Sunday.

Good Friday to ?Saturday before Resurrection Sunday.

Last night we celebrated Good Friday in a combined service with the Chinese and Bahasa congregation with Worship, word, feet washing and an agape feast. The feet washing was awkwardly awesome? Some wash and some just watch. What do you think of it?

This morning on the way to the church office, a thought came to me "Go and visit this brother who is sick and take care of him to relieve the family for an hour or so" How do I know if it is the Holy Spirit or just me? Do you ask such question, sometimes? The tiny conversation began in my brain. [ A tiny conversation in a tiny brain ] [ Are you laughing? Good.]
It wasn't too difficult to decide on the answer.
The thought did not come from the "Me". Because this thought is inconvenience for the "me". This thought brings some discomfort to the "me". This thought makes me fear whether "I" am welcome or not. So, it isn't pleasing to the "me". So the "me" couldn't be giving me this suggestion.
I asked the next question. What would Jesus do? Would Jesus who is love wants to visit this sick person to minister to him. The answer was obvious - of course He would.
So I detour and visited the sick, took care of him for about an hour. Could I have been taking care of Jesus as well for that one hour according to Mt 25:34-40.

Tomorrow is Resurrection Sunday - May the Resurrection Spirit blows and brings forth new births and new life among us and through us.

What is the Church for?

The Church exists for Exaltation of God - to glorify God- How? Just by our praise and worship and testimonies ? Jesus say: Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven - Mt 5: 15-16. Just imagine it will be the unbelievers who would glorify our Father. Wow !!!
The Church exists for Edification of the saints - Heb 10:24 - And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. To edify - build up- for the purpose of stirring each other to love [ love deeds not love { smoochy, leechy } feelings] and good works.
The Church exists for Evangelism - to win the lost. How ? Good works, good works, good works -when you feed the hungry, quench the thirsty, shelter the homeless, take care of the sick, clothe the naked, visit those in prison - you do it unto Jesus. Mt 25: 34-36. Does that not bring us back to worshipping Jesus?
So it is Jesus who died for the church - Ephesians 5: 25. Now can the church die for Jesus and the world that Jesus died for. Die to self, selfishness, self-centredness, self-consumerism...
Did you die this week to any of these?

What do you think?

Jesus in you to the Jesus in others. Purposeful Faith

If I have faith without works - my faith is dead. Orthodoxy - correct beliefs without orthopraxis -correct behaviour - is dead. Many times when we talk of orthopraxis in this context, we think about living right before God and man in terms of morality. And if we are honest about this, the motivation behind is that I must do right so as to be in good terms with God. Too many Christians faith do not go beyong their individualism. Loving God>must lead to loving our neighbor as ourself. Our faith must have a purpose beyond my personal well-being. The church must not drop to the level of consumeristic culture and climate in its attempt for "church growth". We must motivate people beyond a "feel-good, am-good " to a "do-good" faith. Is my faith growing from a "belief-faith" to a "being faith" to a "doing-faith"?
We are not saved by good-works but we are saved for good works. Are we doing good works and how often are we doing it? Do we measure our spirituality by our "personal journey" with God [ How much I pray, read the word, fast, attending meetings etc.] without the "outward" expression of that walk with God - in walking with our fellowmen and our neighbor? Have I been show kindness intentionally this week, have I done a good deed to someone in need today? Do I look around to be a blessings with the blessings that I have been blessed with?
There's always someone who is hungry, thirsty, without a shelter, naked, in prison, or sick - so much opportunity to be Jesus in this world. This is not for the specially called ones who has an anointing for a mercy ministry. Jesus say " If YOU.....you are doing it unto me"

MERE DIRT AND DUST

For my lunch on Monday [ off day/ house cleaning day ] my wife, Nellie baked me purple sweet potatoes. Really healthy eating you know? She asked me to eat it with the skin. As I broke the potato into half, I began to marvel that this potato that I am about to eat have been in the ground, dirt and dust for some time. In the ground, it had been growing, getting its needed nutrients and minerals. The dirt and earth not only did not destroy the potato but it has been part of the source of life for the potato. Now I am getting some "life" from this dirt-originated potato. Wow!
About 2 years ago, my dog died and I remember burying it at the back of my house. It was quite a big dog, so I really had to dig a deep hole, poured some acid and cover it with dirt. I think most of us bury dead things in the ground -do you not? Ya, some just throw the dead animals into the longkang [ big drains ]. The point is this - the dirt is not contaminated by the dead: it covered the stench of the decay, processed the rotting flesh and it the end given the necessary time it itself became more fertile to support life that will grow in the ground.
Actually dirt is so unnoticed; it is trampled on, spat on, shit on and human just throw dirty stinky stuff on it. But it is so resilient - and it had the power to transform the dirty, decaying, dying into LIFE.
I read somewhere that the root word for dirt comes from " humus": this is where we get the word humility as well. Does our "humility" have such power as the dirt on the ground.

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantage of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't clain special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a slefless, obedient death - and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.
Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyong anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth - even those long ago dead and buried - will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father. The MessageL Phil 2: 5-11.

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. ...a servant is not greater than his master....if you know these things, blessed are you if you DO them. John 13: 13-17 NKJV

They kissed Jesus

I'm quite sure that there were at least 3 persons who had kissed Jesus before. Two are obviously written and the third is inferred.
The first to kiss Jesus was his own mother, Mary. It's hard to believe that any mother would not want to kiss her baby. What are the kisses of a mother to her baby? As her flesh and blood, they were kisses of fondness well up within her for a new life that has grown within her for the past nine months which she now holds in her arms. There were kisses of comfort to sooth when he cries from his humanity as a baby. There were kisses of being belonged, of being connected, of loving and wanting to be loved even by a tiny human held in her arms. There were kisses of awe in anticipation of the greatness promised to her by the angels at their visitation. There were also to be kisses of sorrow and sadness in her understanding of the sword that would pierce her heart as the metals, hooks, bones and whips that would rip and pierce his human body. There were also the kisses of "please come back to me" as she hold her son/her saviour/her God as the soldiers brought his limp, torn, broken, bloody body down from that ugly/beautiful cross.
The other lady that kissed Jesus is mentioned as a sinner, a prostitute. With perfume and tears she kissed his feet. Kisses of thanksgiving, of adoration, of worship, of careless abandonment to the One who gave her a taste of life, of her worth and human dignity.
The third person who kissed Jesus was one who was allowed to be close to Jesus. He was allowed into His inner circle, His private world, around the table where Jesus shares food and hearts together. He was allowed to view His complete humanity as he laughs, he crys, he prays, he eats ..as he lives. He was allowed to come near and kiss Jesus even if it was to betray Jesus.

Have you kiss Jesus lately. Why?

Kiss me___with the kisses of his mouth
For your love is better than wine
Because the fragrance of your good ointments
Your name is ointment poured forth
Therefore the virgins love you
Draw me away
WE will run after you. Song of Songs 1:1-3

Shy encourager believes in a pastor.

Someone : young, shy, smart, unassumming, wrote to encourage me with this note: [ unedited ]
Being a pastor, having listen to the pains of others, it does affect you. In a way it's good.
Pastor vs. psychiatrist:
1. You pay a psychiatrist to listen to your heart, you don't have to pay your pastor. He does it free of charge.
2. A pastor is genuinely interested in your pains. He cries with you. A psychiatrist does it only for the money. After your session, he smiles at the cheque you give him.
3. A psychiatrist "psyches" you either into believing beyond your pain or by killing your pain with drugs. Both ways are superficial, just like cutting the "lalang" on your lawn. A pastor holds your hand, prays with you, seeks the Lord for you and that heals you iniside out. It's like uprooting the "lalang"; uprooting every cause of pain by the Father's love, not just cutting it.
4. The solutions by the psychiatrist is influenced by worldly knowledge. The solution by the pastor is through heavenly guidance.
5. Remember that your pastor loves you. The psychiatrist doesn't.
So, know that you're blessed. Helping others is a wonderful thing to be doing. You're not like a psychiatrist..it's too fake. ....You"re a pastor and that's good. It's good to cry for others too. Not everyone gets that chance.

It feels great to know of someone who understands the job of a pastor and believe in a pastor.

She wrote: " i love teaching because i love the kids"

I write: ' I love pastoring because there are people/ or someone who believes in a pastor".