Paul praised and thanked God for the stamina, endurance of the Thessalonian church in facing persecutions and trials in 2 Thessalonians 1. One word I do want to bring up to us : When we are trying hard to press on in our lives for a calling, for a vision, for a dream, or facing trials/persecutions, remember that if we are walking with the Lord, it’s the grace of God that’s working in us. It can’t be just us dreaming and have a self centered ambition pressing on, be cause that will be of the flesh, and that will be religion, which will get you no where and wear you out. But when you understand and acknowledge that it’s the grace of God working powerfully behind us, suddenly all dams breaks loose. It’s a powerful theological position that we, all Christians, must take, as this is God centered, Christ centered. Grace oriented.

 

How do we frame our prayers?—Prayer/Faithfulness

2 Thessalonians 1: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.

Recently I was struck by what Don Carson wrote about how we pray are very different from how Paul prayed. Paul prayed in a phenomenal class A prayer if we call our prayers as Class C. Let me explain. Our general prayers consist of about 10% thanksgiving and worship to God, and the rest about 90% of the time will be requests, petitions (generally). Whilst the book of Psalms is the most intimate, personal prayers one can ever pray, and I love psalms way of prayers which I follow almost daily, but there is another stark different way of prayer by the apostle Paul as in 1 Thessalonians 1 and other books by him. It’s amazing to see how intense is prayers is and the second thing is how much he longs for a passionate for the church he planted. Almost his entire prayers are thanking God for his grace that is powerfully working in the people’s’ lives, and that he is always praying and thanking God for their faith in God growing and their endurance in facing persecutions and trials. There is no mention of prayers like how we would normally pray-O God protect them from persecutions, and stop the evils. But Paul is focusing of the inner growth of the folks as their endurance grows. In fact, the word “faith” in 1 Thess 1 in Greek means fidelity. Fidelity or faithfulness to God. In other words, Paul is more interested that we grow in our faithfulness to God and actually praise God because of persecutions; he sees tremendous substance of growth in the people’s’ lives. 2 Thess 1:⁴ Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.

Then the source of power for being able to endure is very important. If we just try harder on our own strength in God, I mean, even in God, because it’s very subtle, we would feel deflated and discouraged after a period of time. Because that’s religion. Not the gospel where the grace of God is working in enormous stride in us. It’s all Him. Paul said-Grace & peace from God to you… it’s the grace of God that works mightily in us that our faith is growing.

 

I got inspired continually in the last 2 weeks one after the other about the power of charismatic power & fire, and also the depth & profundity of Reformed teaching & thinking. If I have to choose one of the two, I would have to choose reformed thinking & teaching. That stimulates my mind & captures my imaginations. However, I don’t have to do that. I can have both.

Why Charismatics and Calvinists Need Each Other

This article brilliantly lays down the reasons why we need to combine both. Example: the fastest growing churches in the world is pentecostals/charismatics!

But let’s not fool ourselves—the Reformed movement pales in size to the Modern Pentecostal/charismatic Movement (hereafter, MPCM). MPCM is the fastest-growing religious movement in the history of the human race. In 1900, there were statistically a meaningless number of such Christians. Presently, the number sits around 700 million (see Allan Anderson’s “Global Pentecostalism,” a paper presented at the Wheaton Theology Conference on April 3, 2015), or 1 out of every 3 believers. Just to put it into perspective, that’s more than the total number of Buddhists (around 500 million), Jews (around 14 million), and all folk religions (around 400 million) in the world. MPCM isn’t going away. Quite the opposite. –Adam Mabry

This explains why we need the pentecost power.

Why reformed teaching? There is just too much to say. The teachings on gospel centered way of teaching & preaching by Tim Keller has impacted me greatly. The notion that gospel is only the ABC of Christianity is completely wrong. Its the A-Z of Christianity. He has written and spoken many with great intellectual conviction, and I will just glean what it impacted me so much. First and foremost, for a guy like me from the charismatic background, this is completely new to me. I absolutely loved the teaching of absolute dependence ion God and we are so depraved that we can’t even lift our finger to rescue ourselves. This has shifted my mindset so much to God, rather than a mix bag of me & God. I have now come to understand much better the meaning of surrender to God. I mean, there is no surrender if you have to push your will power to surrender. There is none. Why? Because there is nothing in us that we have that we own or possess. There is nothing we achieve that count towards us. Its all God. The grace of God. The absolute mercy of God. Its been said unless you see the darkness of your soul, you can never see the glory of the ALmighty God. There has to be a contrast. Thats why Paul can say I consider as rubbish that I have achieved compared to the knowledge of Christ! Wow! And how? I struggled with that verse for a long time. It’s because he sees the depravity of his soul, his doings, his achievement, that he sees such a contrast that he was absolutely and utterly transformed. It was such a radical transformation that he went from a persecutor of the gospel to be the apostle of the gospel and suffered tremendously and endured for the gospel. Now do we need to be in such drastic contrast? Each of us has different pathways and callings from God. But the principle of contrast needs to be evident & strong.

Secondly, the idea of Christ centeredness on the cross. I have never seen the comparison of all the verses and tie them to the cross in preaching until I meet Tim Keller. Jonathan Edwards always describes the beauty of the Lord and how he was radically impacted by it. You see these guys use the sufferings of Christ on the cross as the beauty of redemption and fulfilment of the absolute beauty of where the grace of God meets the wrath of God! It absolutely makes sense. Wow! I have never seen it that way. Its amazing. How can a righteous wrathful vengeful God exist with the side of him as tender, loving, caring, forgiving? It is all made possible when the cross of Jesus absorbed all the wrath of God, for God to forgive us, and love us and even adopt us as his adopted children! That’s amazing. Miracle! Have I heard this kind of teaching in pentecostal circles? No. Do I like it? I love it! It melts my heart. Makes my christianity so much more organic and not mechanical, vision driven leadership kind of thing.

I will expound more next time….:)

Stay & abide in the vine. Jesus is the vine.

p/s I used to chase after the vision. Now I chase after my Lord Jesus Christ! 🙂 Yay!

 

 

 

 

Reading Tim Keller’s article, something resonated in my soul:

1. Pentecostalism/Charismatics  I believe that charismatic combined with reformed theology teaching is going to be the torch-bearer of the revival in America as well going forward just like the worldwide body in Asia, Latin America, Africa with pentecostalism. Its most multi-ethnic group, multiracial, fastest growing block of christianity. (Isn’t that’s what we are all talking about especially in NYC about diversity, and the rest?)  However, it needed a little more than just that as there is a lot of bad theology and prosperity doctrines all wound up in pentecostals or charismatics, unfortunately.  In America, we definitely need a more orthodoxy to anchor in with the power of the Holy Spirit. Some glaring examples: Like In America we talk so much about diversity, in Asia/S America/Africa, they just do it and it happens. Any wonder in the day of the Pentecost, God revealed the multi language, multi ethnic/culture church!! The first church in human history was revealed on the day of Pentecost in the book of Acts, with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to the birth of the first church. That’s not a coincidence, that’s the providence of God. It sends a signal on how the Lord wants the end time church to look like. It must not be void of power & miracles. The problem with great teachings of America shaping the culture, intellectuals, still come short of the vital real renewal/revival that we all long for. Like Keller said correctly, our country is in a crisis, political, family, academics, liberals have swept across the nation. 

There is a sweep of pentecostal revival. In America, a combination of reformed teaching with the power of charismatic demonstration of the gifts of the Spirit is going to resonate across America. Praying we will arise. 

2) Student movement

Tim Keller said “If you’re on a college campus, you’re on the culture’s cutting edge. [The campus] is our best leadership development pipeline. By exposing people to the cutting edge of culture where they have to deal with the modern mindset, where they have to deal with non-Christians — that is the best way to develop pastors and lay leaders”

I have been raising students from campuses and eventually becoming pastors and leaders of the church. I strongly echo that, and that’s why we will reach out to campuses passionately. Starting to meet at W72 st, Upper west side. Welcoming all Columbia students!

Keller and Duncan: A More Relevant PCA?

 

my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! Galatians 4:19

We often pray that a person’s behavior and attitude will change and God will touch him or her. A better prayer will be to pray for Christ  being formed in the person.
Why? Because this is the presence of God in the person’s life not by some will power of the individual that brings change. But you actually have the person of Christ in you! That’s a huge difference! It’s much more personal and intimate. It is much more encompassing.
Remember your will power doesn’t change you. What changes you in Christ in you!

Notice that the word used here is Christ is ‘formed’ in you. It’s a formation process. It’s only possible if Christ is in you. Only God can do that. Pray!

Example: would you like to have a map guiding you or a life person leading you?
Ask for the person of Christ! He is the Son of God our savior and redeemer who loves us and died for us. He is our shepherd. I shall not lack.
I love Christ. I can’t love laws. I can’t love vision. Without Christ, I am doomed. My life is in Christ. Christ is in me. Christ is everything. Bible says, it’s no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live I live by faith in Christ  who loved me and gave himself for me.

“And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought [Jesus] up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord . . . and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons'” (Luke 2:22-24). Under the law, the regular sacrifice was a lamb, but there was a provision for poor mothers: “If she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons” (Leviticus 12:8). This is what Mary brought. Jesus, who had all the riches of the world at his disposal, chose to be incarnate into a family that could not even afford a regular sacrifice. Let us not love riches.–Bethany Jenkins

It is true that Jesus, the owner of the whole universe, chose to be born into this world he created, into a poor manger. The most stunning thing to me is that when the time came for offerings to be made for the dedication of the baby to God, his parents Joseph and Mary were in the category of the poor as they couldn’t afford a lamb offering. I guess, in today’s terms, Jesus would have been raised in the low cost housing of New York, The God of the universe grows up in the low cost housing. Is that incarnation? Is that implication for our lives?

I pray for myself and my church and my christian friends to know the incarnation of Christ.

 

 

This is December 2013, Christmas bell is ringing and 2014 is just round the corner. We are going to believe God for great harvest coming.

As we move into 2014, harvest awaits us but something has to change in our group. 2014 will be a crucial year for us and me.

Can you pray for hope New York church as we are going to start biweekly dinner cum short gospel sharing outreach meetings starting this Sunday? This is new which I learnt from my incubator course. Pretty radical .
Kick off this Christmas meal December 22. After that we will review and plan for biweekly outreach example Chinese New Year and new students intake in jan . Need a lot of prayer because we don’t have enough man power and contacts. Work is difficult and challenging.

Also starting a core team training and planning group weekly with prayers teaching and communion and offerings . Teaching rich gospel centered theology for internal transformation with grace and outreach focused and challenge . (No more Sunday or sat service, no church service until we launch with 40-50 people). Learnt that having service with less than 20 people does not retain Americans . We need to be good and ready to launch .

We are starting our weekly fast and a core group weekly brain storm and sharing and teaching cum prayer that’s closed group.
Thanks for praying and u appreciate that.

In God we trust