Coming Alongside =)

Let's never forget the great work He has called all of us, His children, to strive towards... =)

Coming Alongside

by John Fischer
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I am normally not a fan of ten steps to this or five ways to do that. But for one of my recent talks I came up with these six things to remember about being around those who may not yet be Christians, and thought some of you might find it useful.

1) Assume everyone is searching for God. Why? Because everyone is. We were created this way. God has purposely frustrated humanity by creating us with eternity in our hearts, yet with an inability to fathom what that is or what it means (Ecclesiastes 3:10-11). He has done this so that we might reach out for him and find him though He is not far from any of us for in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:27-28).

2) Come alongside. This is really the crux of it all. Just walk alongside people and enter into their lives. Listen. Talk. Laugh. Cry. Find out where you can contribute and what you can learn. There’s something to give and something to receive in every relationship.

3) Point. You don’t tell someone what the truth is; you point to it. “There it is over there,” or “Here it is in my life.” This is why we need to learn to identify truth in the context of the world around us. Truth isn’t religious. You don’t have to get into a certain posture to see it. It’s not something that hasn’t been there all along.

4) Find out what people already know before you set out to tell them anything. Don’t ever think you have to clear the table and start over. This is why it’s so important to listen first. Find out what’s already on the table that you can use.

5) You don’t have to tell everything you know. Just the next thing.

6) You don’t have to correct everything someone says that is wrong. You are not the protector and defender of truth. You don’t have to decide where to draw the line. You don’t even have to be concerned if someone may be walking away with the wrong idea. You are not that smart anyway because you don’t know what’s in someone’s head. As long as they have something to think about, that’s a good thing.

And now here’s the one final thing that makes all this possible. It is the most important of all. (This is the one thing that makes all six of these make sense.) We don’t save anybody, convince anybody, “win” anybody to Christ or close the deal. All that is God’s business. The Holy Spirit is doing this all on His own terms and timetable. We are not salesmen, marketing reps, counselors or prosecutors. We are just friends who come alongside.

You can comment on this devotional online at:
http://thoughts-about-god.com/blog/2009/09/19/jf_alongside/

Sent to me by Jayne =)

Making God our best.

Well it’s been a while I guess, since I last posted on this blog.

Whilst hearing much about focusing on God in the past week, I couldn’t help but realize the focus on the theme of putting God first in everything. This is undoubtedly important, and could be said to be one of the marks of a Christian. But it begs the question, how? To what effect? And Why? I remember Michael saying: “You just feel better that you have spent time with God over doing well for that subject”. That essentially summarizes the whole feeling of what we’re supposed to feel when we have spent time with him.

What I want to say today would be one of another perspective and things to keep in mind. Around a week ago, a friend had mentioned to a few of my friends and I saying “I see a growing rift in how I behave as a Christian in front of Christians and in front of non-Christians.” No doubt, her intentions to better herself were virtuous, in hope that she would be good enough to be a Christian for the world to see, if not, why be a Christian, it would be very hypocritical don’t you think?

I often hear this statement resonating in my mind from time to time – He or she is a Christian why is he or she like this? Then looking back into my own life I see all the flaws that would make me so awfully sinful, then I wonder – In that case, are all Christians hypocrites? In a simple definition of ‘hypocrites’ we would see one who does not practice what we preach. We see Christians telling each other off and telling one another what the word of God says, and in the end not living up to it. Then we would end up coming back to the question – I can’t live up to being a Christian, so hypocrite? So why be a Christian and end up getting judged by people around and spoil the image of a Christian?

Well my answer to this is Grace & Love. How often have we forgotten the basis of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? How much have we forgotten “The Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel” – 1 Corinthians 9:14

So what does that all mean? Let me give a simple analogy that the Holy Spirit had helped me draw out through several months of qt. Imagine the relationship as that of a father and child, (as we always were taught about in Romans 8:15 “Spirit of sonship, and by whom we cry Abba, Father”.) Draw the parallel between the relationship of a child and father and that of God and us. Imagine a familiar scenario. Daddy says “Don’t touch the iron, it’s hot”, and by a child’s inquisitive nature we go touch it when he’s not looking and get burnt. Then Dad returns and goes, “sigh. I told you so”. Or what about this, Daddy says “Don’t cram so many things in your day”, and you thinking “hey I’m a teenager, so full of energy, I think I can do it.” And at the end of the day, you didn’t do your best for anything because you were so tired, you end up making things worse. Then we cry out to daddy and say “why? Why!?”

I guess in the same way, we could relate that to sin, God telling us don’t do this don’t do that, it’s bad for you. But we in our happy-go-lucky-smart-aleck self decide that we know what’s best and do it, reaping sad consequences. But in the end of it all, God is always there to pick us up. It is in these failings that we would learn to trust in Him and listen to what He says to us. It is also in this we learn of His ways, His will for us and His will for the people around us – Knowing the Father’s heart. How you may ask? Let’s take another analogy, something probably closer to heart of teenagers (maybe a BGR or just a BFF [best friend forever *as girls like to call it*]), when we spend time with these special people in our lives, we would learn of their likes and dislikes as we invest into these relationships with them. And extrapolating as such to a relationship with God, we would know what he dislikes and likes, we would know of his nature and with that knowledge we could become what He desires us to become – More Like Christ.

In the same way that we would learn about Him, and possibly experience what He experiences as we learn of His heart, we realize sometimes much of this is just head knowledge, stuff we would know is right, stuff we know he dislikes, stuff that we know would please him, stuff that sometimes we feel we cannot live up to. What I always liked to call it, Head Knowledge vs Heart Knowledge, doing something because we know it’s right vs doing something naturally because we feel and know without uncertainty that it’s right. It’s often a hard and arduous process , but FEAR NOT! Jesus said in John 16:13 “But when the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own, he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” He will guide us INTO ALL TRUTH, He will let us experience it and live by it. Sharings at FireAC, devotions, Sermons, Teachings can only bring you unto truth, not into it to experience and live by it.

It is the Holy Spirit that will be with us and change us in the process of Sanctification into becoming perfect as we enter into His presence in heaven forever. So going back to the point of feeling hypocritical, I would say this –The start of any change and possibly another mark of a Christian is how much we are willing to change, for as long as we are willing, God will do the rest.

In the same way about changes, I would say this about the relationship we have with God our father because of the wonderful sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a 2 way relationship, God will do His best for us (as seen on the cross) and he will continue to, and in the hope that we ourselves will give our best to God, and make God our best. For “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the Heavenly Lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17.

There’s a common misconception that God is only willing to gives us what we need, not what we want, well, I doubt that’s a father. "Which of you fathers if a son asks for for a fish will give him a snake? If you, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will our Father in Heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?" Matthew 7:19-11

We see Dr Ong always quoting this verse from the Psalms, “Delight yourself in the Lord, God will grant us the desires of our heart.” Psalms 37:4. So if we delight in the relationship, we would learn his thoughts and change to become more like him as established earlier, making His desires our desires, and God will grant us the desires of our hearts. So is that just the need? I doubt it. To make someone happy, we would often times give them something they want, not just what they need. More so our Father in heaven who gives us the very best, for “Our God will meet all our needs according to his riches in glory” Philippians 4:19, not from his riches, but according to what he has, so as a measure of what he has is a measure of what he will give to us. An overflowing and far surpassing providence over that of need!

With respect to exams, just an observation (you could call it an epiphany) of sorts. Always remembered when we used to say we do our best and let God do the rest, (though not Biblical) we realize that God doing the rest is like 99.999999999% where our best is a mere 0.00000000001%. So why not, we let God be our best, instead of asking God to help us do our best, we let God work through us in everything, and hence, he becomes our best as his Best is brought out in us.

So what are you waiting for? God will carry you through and He is just waiting for you to say Yes. Yes to His blessings and his calling. Give God your best and make him your best!

Keep our eyes on what is ETERNAL

Was supposed to actually post this earlier, but here goes!

I was reminded of one of the main paradoxes of life today, our humanly tendency to classify things to "Being a means to an end, or an end in itself".

Being in IB and all, we all work toward it as if it's a final end, but later to find it's just another stepping stone to university. From University we realise, yet again another stepping stone to work. So is work an end in itself? In another way, we look for prospective people to become our soulmates, we marry them, and is that yet an end in itself? We have children, is that an end in itself? The cycle goes on, and yet again, we come to the end of the cycle (or so we think) death, what now?

Paul constantly uses the imagery of a race, likening it to the lives we live. He is seen to say ²⁴However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me (Acts 20:24). He talks about things that we should be doing, things that should basically govern the purpose of our lives. Things that we should strive toward to make it a worthy means to the final end, the end of eternity with Christ.

Paul then constantly talks about counting all things as lost and having lost all things for the sake of Christ. So in a sense what does this all mean? 

Many of the things mentioned above may seem to be important, but in the end, they all fall short "Compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord". Philippians 3:8

In his final exhortations to the Philippians, Paul tells everyone to think about things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy.  To Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. What does this mean? "Fulfilling the task of testifying to the gospel of God's Grace" - Acts 20:24b. 

So how would we do this in our daily lives? Let me encourage all of us to continue reaching out to the people around us, to be living testaments of his Grace in our lives. Where people can see a heart of worship in us. To be people who are seen to do our best in everything, setting a good example in our studies, deadlines, friendships, relationships, quiet time and even those lil times when we think we aren't being watched. To put CHRIST first in everything, not after studies (although we know bad results are a bad example), not to stumble one another by compromising on our values (during the tough times). To serve our best in what we have committed to in ministry or in school or anywhere else likewise. In that fulfilling the passive testament of the gospel of God's grace. 

In the same way, serving in ministries (personal or corporate or otherwise) to reach out in an active way. To feed the hungry, clothe the poor and tend to the sick, in that sharing the love of Christ with the rest of the world. To actively share this Gospel (great and good news) to everyone, ceasing every opportuninty, in that, fulfilling the active testament of the gospel of God's grace.

Many of us as Christians may know this, I myself know this very well, but in the end, to apply it to our lives, one must make whatever head-knowledge this is into heart-knowledge. It is my sincere hope that through the empowerment of the holy spirit as well as our personal choice, that we will continue to meditate upon the word of God and continue in faith in this race.. To set our minds on things above, keeping our eyes on what is eternal.

Good Dae Mates!

-Leb