When I first met A - he was really skinny and not too clean - years of drug consumption. Relationship with family was really bad. He finally stayed in my house, came to the church's office with me, attended services - and got clean for some time. Then it was in and out of rehab centers. There was a time we met at a condo's poolside and he was being baptized. I can still remember he was "well fed" and was so happy to be a new creation in Christ. Then we lost contact for some time. The last time we met was this chinese new year [ 2005 ]when he dropped by to say hello - he has got married and have been clean. Tonite I decided to give him a call to check if he has become a father. He was at dinner with family for a niece's birthday. I was thrilled. He is clean, working and I am very happy for him. I told him I miss him and he said " I know and I miss you too." I asked the Lord that his fruit will remain [ John 15:16 ] - You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you asked the Father in My name, He may give you. ....I command you that you should love one another. This is a good ending for 2005.

The Youth are having BBQ. 8 international chinese students might be staying over for watchnite. Pray that they will be "fruits" that will remain too. We don't have too much time with them and then they will go back to China. Will they experience and take the love of God with them to share the Lord with their own people? Have we embodied His love well ? Lord help us.

Post Christmas, post youth camp

After the rush of the morning christmas service and a good nap, manage to have a quite homely dinner with family and few friends. That's what I like. Nice!
Have just returned from 4 days of FCC Youth Camp at Kampung Jeram Besu near to Jerantut, Pahang. Pastor Alpha & Adeline were our camp speakers. Inspite of monkey and mosquitoes bites, scorpion and strange crawlies, the youth were greatly blessed by their ministry - pulpit and personal. I had great fun playing with the youths, water baloon canon balls; american football [ fcc style ] and all sorts of activities. I was just hanging loose - what a nice ending for 2005 - able to relax and just have fun with authentic, fun-loving, eager to make the most awesome jokes," God, people, and life-lovers". I love you guys - you are real, raw, to the core and not boring at all - and keeep in that way for the Master to continue to craft His masterpiece in each of us and through all of us.
Just passed my 49 th. birthday - thanks for all the prayers and the gifts but most of all thanks for the friendship. Not feeling old yet at all; the race had just begun again. PTL.

This Sunday is already the first Sunday of 2006. Wow!!!!

Christmas Prayer

My Prayer for this Christmas.

I pray no one will be alone and if they are not alone, they will not be lonely.
Lord send them a friend like You.
I pray that everyone will know they have at least a friend who love and care for them.
Lord send them a friend like You.
I pray for those who are far from home and family to find a home among God's family.
Lord reveal Yourself among them.

I pray for those who miss their love ones who have gone to be with the Lord that they shall find comfort in the hope of their reunion at the Marriage supper of the Lord.
Lord, be their Comfort.

I pray for Christians who would thoughtfully be a joyful blessings to at least someone.
Lord touch our hearts to reach out to someone.

I pray for Emmanuel, my brave son in Sydney who is missing his second Christmas away from home. I miss you very much. We are very proud of you.

I pray for every home to be lighted up with the joy of togetherness, the presence of our Saviour's love and the peace of Prince of Peace. Lord, you are the Light fo the World.

Blessed Christmas to all.

His Hand on my shoulder?

I really don't know how to say it. I try so hard to hold it down.
The final song was just too much for me. I really tried to control my sobbing, hoping for someone standing near by to put their arms around me and weep with me.

"Many hearts are hungry tonite.
Many trapped in darkness, yearn for the light,
So many who are far from home,
And many who are lost,
Lord your wounded children need
The Power of the Cross.

Chorus
As bread that is broken,use our lives;
As wine that is poured out, a living sacrifice;
Empower us Father to share the love of Christ
As bread that is broken Lord, use our lives

Help is to begin where we are
Help us love the people, near to our hearts
Then give our faith a mission field
Whenever You may call
Lord love Your World, through each of us
Until we touch them all.

I wept for my own incapacity to love as Christ would love;
I wept for more to understand this love;
I wept for so many who are out lost, lonely, trapped, far from a home: without a safe place.
I wept for wounded believers who are in need of wounded healers.
I wept for wounded pastors in wounded churches who need friends who will weep with them and strengthen them.
I wept for them who waits somewhere out there without someone to share this love with them
So few broken bread, so little poured out wine.

LORD HELP US TO BEGIN WHERE WE ARE!
DID I FEEL HIS HANDS ON MY SHOULDER?
Was His hands upon many shoulders? I notice many with red eyes after the service

Thanks be to God..

Where to practise Jesus?

Will be conducting another wedding this Saturday. 99 % of weddings that I have conducted or attended are memorably beautiful; but I can't say that for marriages of those weddings.

It is wonderful to see couples that came through years of thick and thin, the ups and downs together, holding hands and exchanging glances at one another during weddings. Some couples stay away from weddings for just any other reasons. You know what I mean?

Genesis 1:26 declares to us that God created both male and female in His Image. The picture of a man and a woman living under the covering of God's authority and blessings reflects His Image and Glory.

In our redemption and salvation, God initiates again the process of conforming us back into His Image in Christ Jesus [ Rom 8: 28-29 ]. I believe that the marriages relationship provides to us one of the best opportunity for us to practise becoming and being Jesus to the other. Against all the dreams of what the other person will fulfilled in your life as married people is the reality that two different humans is about to embark on a journey of self and other discovery in everyday situations. In this process, most people will discover and be convinced the need for the other person to change more than oneself. There's where the dreams can sag into frustrations or disillusions. On the other hand if we are conscious of the "Big" purpose of God in this "two becoming one" project, we would take a bended posture and allow Him to bring about our personal transformation to practise being and becoming like Jesus.

Sometimes we pat ourself because we have practise Jesus by visiting and ministering at orphanages or old folks home during the Christmas Season or going into a poorer nation to do street/social ministry for 2 weeks or 2 months. What's the real training ground? It is in our everyday encounter with our closest neighbor - our spouse.

What a lovely sight to behold when the new couple walks down the isle hand in hand after the wedding vows. But a greater loveliness is sung when older couples walk hand in hand, even with a tongkat [ walking stick ] as a sign of their years together.

Thanks be to God for His ever available Grace.

A love poured out

These two brothers lost their mother and an unborn brother in a car accident when they were 2 and 3. Now they are 8 and 9. For the past 6 years, Joshua worked with their father and had stayed with them. In a couple of days time, Joshua will be getting married and they are the page boys. Their faces shone shyly as we practised the bridal entry in today's rehearsal.

Something strange and wonderful caught my attention. They had this unhindered demonstration of affection for their "uncle Joshua" who will be starting his own home with his bride in a few days time. At every opportunity they were practically wrapping themselves tightly around Joshua and hanging on to him. Did they sensed that he was going to spend less time with them, or was it just a plain evidence of a love poured out and received?

As we got warmed up in our conversation during lunch, these two boys also demonstrated ability to show gentleness, politeness, and affection to their uncles's friend - me. I felt the spurts of a love poured out and received.

Thanks be to God for His wonderful love.

The world is a better place with people like Joshua.

God bless you richly as you start your new home with your bride.

May God bless with manyfold returns of your love poured out.

Happily crying together?

I sensed there was something wrong when I asked if she had eaten her lunch. I sat her down at the church pew to ask what was wrong. I felt her sadness as she told me of a misunderstanding with her best friend who walked in later. I realised that both were hurting and crying - now not because of the misunderstanding but because of the "broken fellowship" since that morning. Both felt the pain of separation and disconnection.
After talking with them individually I brought two of them together and left them to talk and cry; with some cakes in a plastic . [ I had to go somewhere else - to cry.]
I came about back an hour later: they were still crying but with smile on their faces. One of them said that "today I cried very painfully happy - in chinese -" Woh kuk te hen tong kwai ". The cakes were also gone. They were painfully hungry too.

How our Heavenly Father weeps when there's broken relationship between His children.
Beloved let us forgive one another. Beloved let us love one another.

Known or evaluated?

Do you desire to be known or evaluated?
You are evaluated by your achievements, but you are known by who you are.
Which gives you a greater satisfaction/joy? How lasting are they?

Our achievements indicates a part of us but not everything of us.
Most people hangs their identity/worth on their achievements. When they are well praised they feel worthy, admired, adored, esteemed etc. But what happens when someone else does a better job than you: sings better, acts better, preach better, build a bigger church than you? When you are not the best, the number one; what happen to you ? We remember the OT Saul who sulked when David is praised greater than him. Envy, anger, murder arose in his heart to get rid of the competitor. Did he live well - in jealousy and competition? No, only in misery.

Being known needs us to be transparent. It's a risky business. Vulnerability is the path to true intimacy. To be known and to be loved as we are, provides us the best climate for wonderful life-giving transformation and living. Will we offer the space for others to be known and will we take the space that stretches and challenges us to love beyond our comfort?

Achievements with the crowd cheering is wonderful until you have to face your own self. How are you without the applause? Do you know that you are truly known by the One, one or a few and looking into the mirror, you smiled and say: Yes, I know I am loved. Have you taken the path of vulnerability?

"Did God ask you to come?"

He has been taking his [ good, more expensive ] medication properly since his release from the hospital. I have never consider him to be a "mentally ill" person. I have known him since his teens.
Parents were divorced and he was trying to find his place in an adult world. When he knew Christ, he was on fire for God. He's caring especially towards the elderly. Not a selfish person, always wanting to say the most encouraging words to the elderly aunties. He was a God-chaser [ even b4 -Tommy Tenny ] He had stayed with my family for a few months during one of those "down moments" needing medication. In "clear moments" throughout all these years [ over 10 years ], he always say that those were wonderful time. And he would always say it with that familiar happy smile. Today I saw that smile again except his 2 front teeth are gone. There was a time where he went missing for 21 days after walking out of a "center". It was really scarry when his mother called my wife to accompany her to the hospital to identify a dead person. What if it was him? Finding him on the 21st. day is another miracle story to be told.
Today, he asked" Did God move your heart to come and see me?" I fumbled like " well, yes an errr.." I really did not want it to sound spiritual. But that was important to him: it means to him that God has heard his prayer. I wasn't sure whether God told me to visit him or not. All I know is that if I was him I would like me to visit him. So I did. After all these years of being in and out of hospital and centers, this is the best he has ever been. He was very articulative about thoughts and emotions, and many times he would stop to find out what I was thinking. He even asked me if I was troubled " as though sensing something within me". I was thankful to God that he was even able to feel for another. I never doubted that of him. It's just that most of the time, he was so zombied by the medication.
His ' God spoke to me" was "chun", nothing spooky or flaky. God was assuring him of His presence, His remembrance of all the good works that he has done. God was asking him to fix his eyes on Him. I was thrilled. It was like the first period of his walk as a Christian: only now it comes with a steadiness and maturity.
Tomorrow his mum will visit the doctors and he might be spending a little more time with me.
I am waiting to hear new things from him.
Thanks be to God.

How big is God's Love?

How much does God loves us?
He loves us until it hurts. It cost Him to give up His Only Son. Did He not feel the pain of His Son as Jesus was beaten, slapped, punch, spat at...nails that hung him on the cross and He could do nothing to ease that pain. Not being able to ease the pain, when you have the power to equates more to cruelty doesn't it? Yet that is the pain God had to bear, to be judged today: If God is a God of love, why this and why that.......

Does it hurt you when you love?
Many stop loving when it hurts. We withdraw, we recount the cost, we ask the question - is the person worthy, should i pay such a price??? Parents start loving their new born with such joy and laughter but later comes with pain and heartache. Would they stop loving when it hurts?

Why does it hurts when we choose to love?
I guess it is path of the journey for our own good - our own brokeness. WE begin to feel a little of how God would likely to feel when He made the choice to love us.

You can be broken by sins, by crisis, but there is a sweet brokeness that heals and transforms when it comes by loving.

Why do humans have fear when we love?

1 John 4:18-19-states a few things:-
There is no fear in love.
Perfect love cast out fear. Fear involves torment.
He who fears has not been made perfect in love.
We love Him because He first love us.

Life seems to tell me otherwise:
There seems to be fear in love. When one choose to love, there is the fear: the fear of rejection.
When one choose not to love [ to feel and sympathize and care for another ], there is no fear of rejection. So love is the source of that fear rather than the antidote of fear. But once the fear is acknowledged, it is the perfect love of God [ who is love ] that casts out that fear as we are being perfected in that love. It is that Agape love that takes into account the possibility of rejection. The rejection does not negate that love.
So the more we immersed ourself in the unseen Him who love us , the more we are willing to love our fellowmen whom we can see. [ 1 John 4:20 ]
Do we have a choice? If we really do want to experience God's love we have to love our brother also - 1 Jn 4:21. Keep loving, and the torment of fear [ not the fear itself ] will dissipate.
Love is patience, kind, does not envy, is not boastful or proud, does not behave rudely, not self-seeking, not easily provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in the iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love Never Fails. 1 Cor 13: 4-8

Living invitational lives 2

Jesus lived an invitational life because He has good news - He Is good news - He is the Gospel. The Gospel is His Story "of God came down, of Love came down, of heaven came down [ and glory floods my soul], "
Today we live invitational lives because we also have good news -The Good News in us - what He has effected and is effecting in my life. You and I have a story to tell. The Gospel is more that just the 4 spiritual laws and a futurised or a funeralised gospel of "going to heaven when you die". It [ or rather He ] is alive and is at work in us. He enables us to live meaningfully and abundantly above the cares, the curse, the cries of this gravitational and binding earth. We are a fortaste of heaven on earth - where He wipes away all tears - where there is no more sorrow, pain or death. God who is Love embodies in me and us as a church, His Body.
We invite and share this "good news" in a posture of acknowledging both our brokeness and our belovedness . In our brokeness, He still loves us. In our brokeness He invades us with His Love. From this posture, we live or exist as connected or disconnected community of broken and beloved people. As a connected community who ventures with progressive transparency and honesty we begin to experience joyous healing of our woundedness. When disconnected we are merely surviving in our pseudo okayness with our private pain and loneliness.
It sure takes humble, trusting courage to overcome many fears, to go beyond the surface, to stretch our vulnerability to find and journey with those who desires to rediscover the hidden masterpiece of the Creator within us and His subsequent Recreation through us.
Anybody coming along this journey?