Category Archives: Attempted Provocation
I attempt to write daily because I am in the business of shifting paradigms, especially that of my own – so help me God.
humble pie is the steady diet of champions.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” — Matthew 5:3
I have mixed feelings about tonight’s prayer meeting.
Please do not misunderstand me; I sincerely believe that every prayer offered in those 60 minutes was uttered with the right intentions – to honour God, to spur each other on in the faith and to intercede for Grace AG.
But honestly, amidst the spiritual euphoria that was brewing in the room, typical of any church activity after a spirit-rousing church camp, I believe with all my heart that the way to sustain your post-retreat afterglow is tell yourself that you CANNOT do it on your own. That was what the Lord impressed upon my heart halfway through J333.
So young people (and adults alike), before you go around thinking you can spread the fire to those who didn’t go for the retreat, consider this instead: the way to prevent spiritual arrogance and complacency, and to promote spiritual growth and maturity, is to advance with humility on bended knees.
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” — Psalm 51:17
The truth is, we can’t do it on our own. At least, that’s what I’ve learnt after 15 years of attending Grace Retreats. And quite frankly, I’m predicting the same eventual deflated outcome for you if you are intending to depend on your own efforts.
Therefore, I submit to you my honest thoughts. Serve other people and consider their needs before yours, ask the Holy Spirit to empower you, and be humble and the Lord will lift you up.
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” — James 4:7-10
top ten benefits of being secure.
Off the top of my head and in no order of importance…
1. Being secure helps you to stay humble. You’d be slow to anger and quick to apologise because you won’t feel like it’s a dent on your ego. And you won’t mind people thinking you’re in the wrong or having a wrong impression of you.
2. Being secure helps you to discover who you are. Coming to terms with your flaws and weaknesses is a painful thing, but when you’re not ashamed of your shortcomings, admitting it allows you to grow into your own skin.
3. Being secure helps you to be yourself. I think it’s tiring being someone else. Confidence is being comfortable with who you are and being acutely aware of your strengths; people don’t grow in their weaknesses, but in their strengths.
4. Being secure helps you to grow. One defining mark of a leader is about teachability. I always pray that I’d grow in my potential. I don’t want to fulfill all my potential and realise that there’s nothing left to grow in.
5. Being secure helps you to serve others. The world tells you that serving is for subordinates, but the Bible tells you that the top of the food chain must serve those who receive the least honour. Security breeds service.
6. Being secure helps you to trust God. There is no better test of faith than to place your trust in God to answer prayers than in your own ability to get things done. This is only possible when you recognise that God can do more than you can.
7. Being secure helps you to forgive. No one has the power to from getting or watching someone else get hurt, but everyone has the power to forgive. Forgiveness must always be exercised in the perspective of what Christ has already done for us.
8. Being secure helps you to have fun. Let your hair down and paint the town red! It’s no fun being around someone who doesn’t know how to have fun or make a fool of themselves (in the right place and time, and for the right reasons).
9. Being secure helps you to groom other people. The job of my generation is to help the next generation surpass us in everything. Secure leaders don’t hoard but invest themselves into people generously and willingly.
10. Being secure helps you to look toward eternity. God doesn’t call us to be successful, but to be faithful. In light of forever-ness, I am glad I only need to be accountable for what I am given to steward.
Being secure means that you can truly live like you have nothing to prove, nothing to lose and nothing to hide. So be secure in the Lord today – freedom beckons!
I want to be the someone with Someone in him.
AIYS 2012 concluded with a riveting message preached by Ps Jesse Dedel. I’m still chewing on it but I thought I could share the same excerpt from the article he used in his sermon.
Well, if my youth group, church or nation is going to have a giant rise up against it, and it’s going to need someone with Someone in him who is greater than this giant, then I’d like to volunteer to be this someone with Someone in him.
Whenever children are born at a critical time in history, strange, supernatural things seem to go on in that culture. And people in high places know it. When those things take place, it’s in the demonic world that Satan puts out the contract on children.
But why?
In the records of the Bible each time a mass destruction of children fell on the world, a KEY LEADER was about to be born. Moses, Jesus – a deliverer was coming, and hell was afraid. As we’ve seen, the mass murder of children is not a new idea.
The contract is out again. It has come in our time, and it has come for our children. What does that say to us? What can we learn from this awful slaughter? We must ask ourselves: What is there about this generation that makes Satan so afraid? What does he see or sense coming that has triggered such an awful holocaust?
In the times of Moses and the Lord Jesus, that rage missed its marks. The targets of that destruction escaped each time. And the ones that got away did untold damage to hell’s domain. There is something precious and important about this generation, so deeply under attack.
It may well be the last generation before Jesus returns.
It may have among its ranks of survivors the makings of a major spiritual miracle.
There may be leaders-to-be rescued from the sword that will lead an entire generation of the abandoned, loveless, and lonely into the promises of God.
I believe that the children being born today are part of a whole prophetic generation God is bringing forth, and that’s why the enemy is trying to destroy them in any way he can – both physically and mentally. In the demonic realm the contract has gone out – and the contract on children today is greater than ever before in history. Much, much greater.
Source: Last Days Ministries
this is my one act of righteousness.
Unfortunately, I don’t go for campus prayer-walks often enough. Yes, God has been spoken to me time and again on this issue for months. And He is faithful – He did it again through this conference through various people. His voice is unmistakeable.
This afternoon, we fasted lunch and headed to a local university to experience a 1-hour prayer-walk in and around the campus. I asked God to open my spiritual eyes as I walked this campus. I asked Him burn a desire in my heart for varsity students back home who do not know Jesus. I want this prayer-walking experience in Baguio universities to be transported back home to the secondary schools, junior colleges and even universities, but especially in polytechnics.
But…
There’s so much in the ministry that I have to re-order – I want God to bring this vision to pass! But what do I tell my leaders and shepherds who are already so deeply embedded into church ministry that they may not see the need for campus ministry? I’m talking about a 15-year legacy!
Lord, there’s so much to un-learn and re-learn.
Truth is, R-AGE will always be around as long as Grace AG is around, and will always be successful. But are we merely existing instead of thriving? The Lord keeps putting the same recurring thought into my heart, “The ministry will implode and eventually perish if it doesn’t see a vision bigger than itself and explode in outreach.” I am sick and tired of doing church.
I don’t want to be a youth pastor that leads a “happening” church ministry with zero influence in the campus. I don’t want to be a youth pastor that leads a youth ministry that doesn’t make disciples of MY nation. I don’t want to be a youth pastor that leads an R-AGE that is happy doing programmes for unbelievers but is handicapped in building relationships with them. No, I want a vision for R-AGE so big that it’d be impossible to do it on my own.
Lord, give me courage. Make this my one act of righteousness that changes R-AGE forever.
I’m praying for a renewed vision, an outward-looking purpose, a structure that supports discipleship and leaders who are sold out to go and make disciples of all nations.
Lord, I’m scared. Help me to do the right things. Bring me the right people. Send me into the right places. Change me into the right person.
No, I want to be a youth pastor that leads R-AGE to really and truly be redeeming a generation for eternity.
Redeemed youths redeem youths – that’s what R-AGE will die for.
Reflections on being courageous for the Gospel.
I guess it’s about time I breathed life into my blog, again.
Over the last weekend, I preached the final installment of “The Call of Duty: R-AGE digs deeper into Ephesians”. It was based on Ephesians 6:10-24 and the armour of God. I titled the sermon, “Is there courage in R-AGE?”. I had the luxury of having three weeks to prepare for this sermon (due to the combined adults and 180° Easter outreach services) and extra time meant that this sermon could pack more punch.
Most times at the end of a service, I always feel I’ve preached the worst sermon of my life, but surprisingly, I enjoyed preaching this one. Not because I tickled minds with interesting nuggets of information, but because I felt that I had executed the prophetic burden God laid on my heart for the youths. It’s similar to Apostle Paul’s cry for the believers in Ephesus – to boldly proclaim the Gospel. I challenged two groups of young people at the altar; those who used to preach the Gospel boldly and those who have never preached the Gospel boldly before – that the Holy Spirit would strengthen them to do so.
While I was thankful for those who responded, there were more who didn’t and I wondered why – was it due to my inadequate delivery of the message, their apathetic spiritual condition or simply because God didn’t plan it that way? Or was it something else beyond my comprehension? I couldn’t put a finger to it but it drives me to intercede more intensely for my beloved youths.
David Lee was the emcee for R-AGE @ GI and at the closing of the service, he echoed what I had actually said at R-AGE @ GII – that the responsibility of evangelism doesn’t fall on the shoulders of the leaders, pastors and those who are more fervent in their faith, but on everyone who calls himself a disciple of Jesus. How could we remain unmoved if the love of Christ has already moved us? It is my earnest prayer that R-AGE would experience the Father’s love first-hand!
“Stop evangelising. Instead, start loving people in the name of Jesus”, I first heard Ps Edmund Chan say that when I traveled with him to Perth last October. He repeated that statement at the recently concluded Grace Leaders’ Retreat and it was a sobering reminder for me. I had a short SMS exchange with Gabrielle Ong this morning and I encouraged her not to give up on proclaiming the Gospel to her pre-believing friends. I told her that one of the most effective ways of demonstrating the Gospel is to find opportunities to pray for people – you “speak life” into them and they get a chance to see your faith in action. It works!
Back to the sermon… Well, I’m not sure about other preachers, but the thing I enjoy most about preparing a sermon is how much I learn and am challenged through what I read and write. I already know what God would want me to do in response to my sermon and I look forward to walking in obedience this week. It is my prayer that R-AGE would take ownership of the souls within their communities who haven’t met Jesus.
Even as I type this, my heart is moved by the compassion Jesus has for the ones who are suffering and the ones who do not yet know Him. I am thankful for the Spirit’s reminder in my life – that my occupation isn’t one of a part-time youth pastor but a full-time Gospel preacher! I must never lose sight of reconciling others to God through the Gospel!
It’s going to be an awesome week, my dear friends. Let’s raise the shield of faith on each other’s behalf, gird up our loins with the written truth, wield the power of the spoken truth and advance the Gospel for the King! What a privilege to shepherd R-AGE – I am thankful for this season of my life. God is good.
top ten ways to encourage someone.
I know that “A pat on the back pushes out the chest”. And I’ve also learnt (and taught) that to “En-courage” someone is to “Put courage into” him. Sometimes, all we need is for someone to believe in us and to be our cheerleader; the older I get, the more I want to be someone else’s cheerleader. Don’t underestimate the power of speaking life into someone else’s life – you might just help him to realise his potential and help him to unlock his capacity to do things beyond what he’s normally capable of doing.
As such, in no order of importance, here are my top ten practical ways to encourage someone:
1. Listen to him intently and be genuinely interested in his life. Learn to draw insights out of him and provide a platform for him to share his heart. Don’t patronise him or brush off what he says but take him seriously. A good encourager listens.
2. Give him feedback whenever you see him in action. Every teachable person would want to learn where he did well and where he could improve in; you could be the difference between his future success and failure. A good encourager coaches.
3. Pray for him whenever you get an opportunity to, whether you’re with him or not. God is more powerful and loves him more than you do and so it’s comforting when you direct his reliance above. A good encourager intercedes.
4. Spend time together because giving him your time is giving him a part of your life. Time is an irreplaceable and irreversible entity, so when you take time to hang out with him, it tells him that he’s important to you. A good encourager avails himself.
5. Find out what he’s been up to (and stalk him online). Subscribe to his blog and read it regularly; whenever possible, check out his activity on social media platforms and leave your comments. A good encourager validates.
6. Message him periodically and randomly. It’s always nice to know that you’re on someone else’s mind; whenever the Holy Spirit brings someone to my mind, I will pray for him and tell him that I’ve done so. A good encourager remembers.
7. Rebuke him whenever necessary, in private. It’s better to tell the truth that hurts rather than the lie that kills. This risk you take may just forge a deeper relationship, and to establish your spiritual authority in his life. A good encourager corrects.
8. Praise him verbally and audibly in front of others. Everyone needs recognition; when you acknowledge his good work publicly, he will be motivated to grow because someone took note of his effort. A good encourager acknowledges effort.
9. Remember what he shared with you from the last session. Those without good memories must learn to make mental notes. If it’s important to him, it should be remembered by you. A good encourager recalls.
10. Bless him with a meal or a gift. It’s about the gesture – be it coffee, a pen, a book, a meal or just a pack of chocolates. People like to receive (but it is better to give than to receive). I tell my youths to pay it forward. A good encourager blesses.
That said, I think one of the most powerful ways to encourage someone is to remind him of his potential – tell him that he can do so much more, and have so much more room for improvement. Inspire him to develop his gifts and talents. Plant an insatiable hunger and thirst in him to grow. Remind him (in a loving manner, of course) that he’s nowhere near his final product. I’ve learnt that this is one of the best ways to stamp out complacency and infuse humility into someone.
But some of you might say, “I always encourage people but nobody encourages me!” It’s true and I shall not deny that there’s not enough encouragement to go around the world. But let me be the first to declare that I encourage people more than I am encouraged, and it has done me a world of wonders. Contrary to popular belief, encouraging others is to our benefit.
Perhaps we can take a paradigm shift and think of it this way instead: 1) our job is to encourage others and 2) our prayer is that God will send someone to encourage us. You see, if enough people achieve part 1, then part 2 will naturally be accomplished. Don’t worry about what you cannot control; instead, focus on what is within your control.
The Greek for Holy Spirit is “Parakletos” and the Greek for Encourage is “Parakaleo”. Para means to be “Called alongside” (someone). And that’s what the Holy Spirit does – to walk beside us. So I’m inclined to think when we encourage someone, we are most like the Holy Spirit.
Yes, it’s that simple if you want to mimic the Holy Spirit – you simply need to encourage someone today. (Do it now!)
joey asher | misunderstoodsunshinekid 