ever-ready, everybody; anytime, anywhere.
After youth service today, I found myself presented with the opportunity to share the Gospel with two pre-believers, in the presence of two other R-AGE youths who are believers. It wasn’t these guests’ first time in our service, so I was a little surprised that no one has taken the effort to formally share the Gospel with them. I enjoyed the 45-minute conversation with these youths because it has been a while since I presented the Gospel in such an informal manner; it was refreshing to remind myself of my own salvation.
As I shared, the Spirit started to bring back to memory on exactly how to do it in a systematic manner. The sequence, scriptures, truths and probing questions all arrived at the right time. I was a little rusty but I thought I managed to deliver the message clearly while interweaving my own testimony into it as well as involving the two christian youths to share as well as inviting the pre-believers to ask questions. Interestingly enough, on my way home after sending HY back, JP’s sermon on Romans 1:16 was the first track on my shuffled playlist.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
In the very short message, JP compared the shame of the 60’s against the shame of the 90’s. In the 60’s, a believer would be ridiculed for believing the Gospel to be the truth. In the 90’s, a believer would be ridiculed for believing that there’s even a truth. Isn’t that postmodernism in a nutshell? I realised that youths today are a lot less receptive to the truth (regardless of whether it’s biblical truth or moral truth), and would much prefer to define it for themselves, according to their terms and what works best for them. No wonder we have more and more free-thinkers and pseudo-intellectuals thinking that they know everything. (I don’t even dare to say I know anything, hence my personal pursuit of knowledge and prayer for wisdom.)
I’d like to think that believers these days, as many are second-generation Christians, are becoming slack in their knowledge of the Word, hence they are unable to put up a defense for their own faith. I’m not talking about big-time apologetics; I’m talking about the simple justification of why they are even a Christian to begin with. Faith is never a hand-me-down commodity. It has been well-documented and preached by many pastors that “God has no grandchildren”. I firmly opine that one must own and be responsible for their own faith!
Faith is becoming a poisonous element to skeptics. It is precisely due to the subject of faith, their lack of and non-subscription to it which prompted their skepticism. No wonder the Word declared it clearly in Hebrews 11:6, as if it preempted postmodernism, that, “Without faith it is impossible to please [God], for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.” I’d like to think that one reward of having faith in God is that we have the peace of God that reigns in our hearts forever, in the face of skepticism and postmodernism, rendering our faith to be unshakeable (by God’s grace).
In future posts perhaps, I’ll share my other thoughts on my faith issues. But for now, I’d like to exhort all serious Christians (who naturally should be compelled to be passionate about evangelism) to be prepared to present the Gospel and their testimonies at any given time, for any given occasion, simply by ensuring that they have:
- Memorised the necessary scriptures for sharing (John 3:16, Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, Romans 5:8, Romans 10:9 etc.)
- Practised the chronological sequence of themes (Creation, Judgment, Sin, Redemption etc.)
- Written and rehearsed their own testimonies of how they came to know the Lord or how the Lord has been real to them
- Familiarised themselves with frequency asked questions about the Christian faith
May I also encourage you to engage the Holy Spirit and rely on Him to direct the session and to do the convicting; this is crucial because we must remember that our duty is evanglism, not salvation – we leave that to Jesus. In closing, note that these above four factors are in past tense. I firmly believe that we must be in state of readiness, not preparation. Perhaps it’s time to have remedial sessions for Gospel-sharing.
reflecting the future.
I’ll say this very loosely and irresponsibly; I am convinced that our behaviour today should give us an indication of our behaviour in the future. Of course, we all desire and hope that we will mature and grow beyond our weaknesses, and perhaps with wisdom and more experience we’ll see improvements.
My mentor PL once told me, after witnessing for himself my poor reaction to a family situation around five years ago:
“Joey, remember that whatever you are capable of doing to your family now, you will likely do it to your family in the future.”
That completely snapped me into place. And I’ve held those golden words dear to my heart ever since.
I’ve always seen myself as a family person; as my colleague and buddy in Shanghai SS would put it, “Joey is 26 (then) going 40”. He found it astonishing that a bachelor in the prime of his career in the wine industry, would have little or no affinity for partying, drinking, gambling, smoking or womanising (the vices, basically). Instead, he was (pleasantly) surprised (I hope!) that I found enjoyment in chilling out over coffee or hanging out at a friend’s place, engaging in a meaningful conversation and a hearty laugh. There’s a part of me that simply can’t wait to hang out with my own family nucleus in the future – playing with my kids, dancing with my wife and loitering in my house.
When RY came over to my place today, he said the same thing, “Joey, I notice you seem to… How do I put it… Have a thing about building a family, wherever you’re at”. I thought about it for a split minute and realised that his observation hit the nail on its head. I enjoyed building a family unit when I was with the Archer Company Tank Platoon, Wine Mall Marketing Team, Precious Thirds, TeamR-AGE and now, a work-in-progress, DoYouLoveMe. I’d like to think that this is a positive quality and it has to be God who ingrained it in me because I do not have an example in my own single-parent family unit to model after.
I know I have digressed, so here’s what I really wanted to say:
- If you currently demonstrate a hot streak of temper at home and are constantly fuming and throwing your tantrum whenever you get mildly pissed off, then it is likely you’d do it to your own wife and children in the future.
- If you currently enter a recluse whenever there’s a conflict between your loved ones and stubbornly refuse to communicate with anyone by shutting yourself off, then it is likely that you’d do that with your spouse in the future.
- If you currently like to run away when things don’t go your way and escape from confrontations and avoid dealing with pressing moral, ethical, values or principles-related issues, then it is likely you’d abscond too from your family in the future.
- If you currently show an irate face whenever you’ve had a bad day and behave in an antisocial manner that prevents people from approaching you, then it is likely you will exhibit this behaviour to your kids in the future.
The analogies given above are just a tip of the ice-berg. I am sure you are smart enough to know what I am talking about. This applies to any relationship, even outside of the family unit. So consider it carefully whenever you are about to do or say something that may jeopardise the harmony amongst your family (and friends). Remember that whatever that you do in the present has a chance of relapse in the future. Hence, build good and positive habits today if you want to establish a good and positive culture for tomorrow.
the Spirit pulls strings.
The older I get, the more reliant I am on the Holy Spirit. I see it at work when It inspires me with wisdom when I speak to a young person; the Spirit gives me ideas and creativity at lightning speed and it becomes effortless for me to pen plans down when I know that something that brilliant couldn’t have come from me; It reminds me of things that I need to do; It empowers me with courage and bravery to do things I don’t normally attempt; It turns me away from things I ought not to do; It teaches me what to pray; It reveals the truth that is already in my heart. I basically couldn’t do a minute without the Spirit. So I can vaguely imagine how desperate King David must have felt when he cried out in Psalm 51:11, “Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.”
It was an encouraging reminder today at the Foundations of the Christian Life seminar, that the Holy Spirit is a giver of power. I like BH’s description of the Holy Spirit as “the executive member of the Godhead”, meaning the one who accomplishes what God commands. In the Hebrew language, “Ruach” is used to describe the Holy Spirit as the “breath” of God. It’s like hearing a thundering voice, and feeling the air that comes with the booming sound. (Imagine putting your palm in front of a sub-woofer.) BH quite rightly says it, that “the desires of God in heaven is executed by the Spirit of God on earth”.
And so, today’s lessons are in line with last Tuesday’s Jesus Mentor Me session; everything that we learn comes via facts, instructions, advice, news etc. but from all the plethora of data that your mind processes, the Spirit illuminates the truth (that we need to know) from the flurry of information that we receive. This realisation of truth specifically speaks to our hearts and convicts us of what’s wrong and reminds us of what’s right. From this, our minds are continuously transformed and that subsequently causes a change in our speech and conduct. But everything begins from this illumination of truth that the Spirit does. However, if I may reiterate, the Spirit can only illuminate when there’s something already present to illuminate on.
I’ve always seen this analogy of the Holy Spirit at work within us: The Spirit is always beside us, and is connected to us via a string. Whenever we need help and counsel, the Spirit pulls the string and we’ll feel Its’ tug. But each time we turn the Spirit away, more string is released. Remember that the distance between the Spirit and us doesn’t change – the only variable is the length of string that is collected between us. When the string is no longer taut, we no longer feel its tension. However, the more we respond to the tug, the shorter the string becomes and the tighter the tension would be. In this respect, I’d like to think that the grace of God operates in a way that while we’re the culprits releasing string to slack the tension, the one drawing the string back, is the Holy Spirit.
Oh how true it is – “Take not your Holy Spirit from me”!
God’s cultural sense of humour.
I took this picture on the 1,865-metre ascend up to the top of Huangshan in Anhui Province, China.
As HY, CH, KP and I climb every step, we marveled at its ever changing landscape and just how amazing the whole sight was. We unanimously agreed that that was only one word to describe the scene – majestic. Wikipedia quite rightly described it to be an “area is well known for its scenery, sunsets, peculiarly-shaped granite peaks, Huangshan Pine trees, and views of the clouds from above. Mount Huang is a frequent subject of traditional Chinese paintings and literature, as well as modern photography. Today, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of China’s major tourist destinations.”
The interesting thing is, as we observe the yellow rocks (hence the namesake), you will, in your mind’s eye, conclude that these rocks just had to be from China; I guess this could be because hand-painted portraits we are see from time to time physically depict Chinese mountains in this particular physical appearance and hence we naturally match such landscapes to oh-this-has-got-to-be-from-China.
I wonder if this particular rock formation was there from the start (not likely), eroded into this state (more likely), or man-made (unlikely – you’d have to be REALLY bored to accomplish this). Either way, I reckon that God doesn’t just have a sense of humour, but a sense of cultural humour; it’s like He knew what would have tickled the Chinese bones. Well, it could have been a Westerner in a tuxedo, an African in a loincloth or a Japanese in a kimono… But no, this rock formation just had to be a Chinese farmer wearing a straw carrying a straw basket with a wooden stick picking herbs!
It doesn’t get any more humourous than that. I’m inclined to believe that God really understand us. And the Chinese would simply say, “哈哈哈”.
fast-forward 17 years.
Dinner tonight was an event 17 years in the making. Catching up with DL over a simple dinner was delightful and nostalgic to say the least. How does anyone actually get up to speed on nearly two decades of life? The last time we were close was when we were together in Primary 4 in Anglo-Chinese Junior School. These were the same two kids who, being equally short, partnered each other at the front of the class queue; the two 8-year-old kids who sneaked into Sentosa alone after school and accomplished it with cunning and enterprise beyond their age; and the same two kids who, from such vastly different family backgrounds, shared such pleasant childhood memories.
So, how do you catch up on all those years? Simple – by testifying God’s goodness over the years and by spurring each other on in ministry. You blend in common history to project a linked future. I think it’s no coincidence that these same two kids now share a passion for young people and worship; it is almost divinely appointed that these two boys now do their bit to introduce change, make a difference and leave a legacy in their church; it was affirming that these two boys, now men, subscribe to the same leadership concept and in them both resides a strong desire to impart to a younger generation.
Unlike other “old friends” whom I’ve caught up with over the years, I felt that with DL and I, there was no need to prove to each other how far we’ve come – there was no worldly comparison of one another’s achievements and experiences. I told myself, before the dinner, that if we were to spend the next couple of hours reminiscing old times, the friendship would remain in the nineties. I never expected to feel so comfortable with DL – I’d like to think that there was little or no pretense in our interaction; it was like finding a brother that I’ve always had, but lost contact with through the years. My testimony and spiritual journey was the antithesis of DL’s – a dramatic turnaround juxtaposed against traditional obedience; yet both end up 27 years later, serving the same God with similar fervour.
Instantly, I knew that this meet-up set the tone and manner for all future meet-ups with old friends, at least that is what I’d desire. There was an exchange of ministry, of knowledge, of experiences, of struggles and victories. It was more honest and candid than I had expected it to be. Our 2.5-hour dinner tonight made 17 years feel short. At the end of the day, I took home one thing – that God is indeed good and faithful and would use us for His glory wherever we are and have been. I rejoice with DL’s young marriage and the impending birth of the child in his wife’s belly this October.
I encourage you then, when you meet up with old friends in time to come, not to share about how good you’ve become or the great things you’ve accomplished, but to share with each other what God has done in your lives and how good He is indeed. And watch how God connects the people who love Him. You could never go wrong with that approach. I already look forward to the next time God brings DL and I together.
youth camp update #2 – wield your sword.
The most exciting youth camp yet in the history of R-AGE will be titled…
“PIERCE”
For the word of God is living and active,
sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing to the division of soul and of spirit,
of joints and of marrow,
and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Hebrews 4:12
As my instruction manual for the organising committee thickens, so does my excitement. Remember the dates: 15-17 June, week after retreat. You should have no reason to miss it, because we are going to talk about this camp for the next decade – don’t miss out on 10 years of chatter. Let’s attain 100% attendance. May PIERCE carve its lessons upon your heart for the rest of your lives – you will experience the power of the Word of God.
Official publicity begins after Easter – be ready.
joey asher | misunderstoodsunshinekid 