Even one lost coin

SCRIPTURE:

“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? Luke 15:8

OBSERVATION:

In the parable of the lost coin, we see the heart of God in desiring every sinner to be saved, not even willing that one should be lost. Although the woman still had nine coins, the bulk of her possessions, the way she went about looking for the lost one shows how precious the remaining coin was to her.  

The image of the woman lighting the lamp and sweeping the house gives us a powerful picture of the thrust and method of evangelism. Wherever true Christians meet anywhere and everywhere, we light up lamps. Jesus after all called us the light of the world. Churches, cell groups, marketplace fellowships, wherever Christians meet to worship and pray and hear the Word, all create pockets of light across the land. Some lights are brighter while some are less so, but every light is precious, and is a potential place that sinners can come to and find the joy of knowing Christ!

The imagery of the woman sweeping the house tells us that we too are to sweep our spheres of influence for lost souls who may respond. We don’t know who will respond or when they will respond, but we are to continue sweeping, while shining what little light we have. Most of the sweeping could be in vain, simply brushing aside cobwebs or going over the same spot again and again. However, if even one soul could be saved, all the effort would be infinitely precious, as even one soul saved from the horrors of hell would be worth a lifetime of searching.

APPLICATION:

How precious every single soul is to God. There is the story of a little boy throwing starfish back into the sea from the beach. An old man asked him, “There are thousands of starfish, what difference does it make?”. The boy smiled and said “A difference to this one”, and threw that one back into the sea. It is the same in God’s eyes. Though there are millions and millions of people all over the world, every single soul that turns to Him and is saved is infinitely precious to Him and to the soul himself. If Father sees every single individual that way, how much more effort should we put in towards shining our light and sweeping for souls to be saved?

Likewise, we should not grow weary or lose heart if our ministry or service does not yield many salvations. Instead, we should thank God graciously for every single soul that we have helped touch for him, and continue to ask for His grace to continue shining our light always praying that God may help us bring even one more to His salvation. Even at his dying breath, a great man continued to pray “One more, just one more for Jesus”. That too should be our attitude, not resting on our laurels or being discouraged by past results, but to keep looking forward, and seeking to help bring one more, just one more to Jesus.

PRAYER:

Abba Father, how precious each soul is to You! How the heavens rejoice over even a single sinner who repents. Help us share that great love You have for people, dear Lord. Help us have that same compassion, that same passion to see others come to know You. Give us that single-mindedness we pray, Lord, to be always on the lookout, wherever we go, to even help save just one more for You. How precious every single soul is Lord! Help us work with You to bring more and more into Your kingdom, even one at a time. Bless You, Lord. In Jesus name, Amen.

A letter from the crown prince

Imagine you received a letter from the Crown Prince of a very rich country. Dear …. Greetings. I am the Crown Prince. Listen, I have specially chosen you and prepared a very high position for you in my company. If you accept my offer, I guarantee you a salary you could never dream of in a job you will love so much you will never leave. Moreover, you can stay in my palace with your whole family, eat my royal food from a buffet everyday. On top of that, my father, the Sultan will also adopt you as his own child and you will be part of my royal family. 

But for now, I want you to stay where you are and I will your Sifu, and start training you. Start to do things the way I teach you. Start to have the attitude that will make me and the Sultan happy. To start off helping you, I will give you a manual. Read it often. Also, I am sending my best servant to help you. If you need any help or advice, ask him. I also have other trainees that I have called. Meet with them and support each other. All of you will be part of my family. Also, remember I am just a phone call away and so is my father the Sultan. You can even start calling him Daddy. Call me often, and get to know me, and I also want to get to know you. I know life is sometimes difficult for you now, and following me is not easy, but you must be patient. If you keep following what I tell you, when the time comes, your reward will definitely be worth it!

Listen, my offer is for a limited time. So make up your mind quickly, and if you accept, start following me seriously and don’t give up! Press on and finish this program, and look forward to a great life forever with us as your new family!

Wow! Wouldn’t it be so wonderful to receive such an offer? Would we believe it? Could we trust the Crown Prince? Well, the truth is that all of us here today have in fact been issued exactly such as invitation. But it is not the Crown Prince of just a rich country who has invited us. It is far, far, far better because it is the Crown Prince of Heaven Jesus Christ who has invited us!

The Bible says the Jesus has gone on to prepare a beautiful place for us to stay in Heaven, a wonderful job for us that we will be completely happy with, and has invited us to be part of His royal family, and the privilege to call our Great Creator God, Abba Father.  

However, that is for the future. For now, we must start training for that new position, and we are not to simply do it on our own. Instead, we are to follow our Crown prince Jesus as our Sifu. We need to get to know him, and understand from Him how we should live, and how we can please Him. He has given us the Bible to help us, which is Basic Information Before Leaving Earth. He has also given us His Chief Servant the Holy Spirit, who is our great Advisor and Teacher to help us and remind us what the Crown Prince said and what is important to Him. He also asks us to meet up with other trainees He has invited to work for Him and join His family, and we meet in places like church and this Chapter to encourage each other and support one another.

Now, our training ground is actually our life itself on earth. And our new position will be in a new kingdom that Jesus will establish when He comes again for the second time. However, coming back to our training on earth itself, we must realize that God did not promise us that it would be easy. Just like the students of a kungfu master have to go through a lot of hard training to learn and grow strong, a lot of discipline is required. However, how successful we are depends on how well we listen to our Master Jesus, and how well we follow His instructions. Jesus is not a distant master, who hardly talks to his students. He wants us to be close to Him, to listen and interact with Him, and the more we do that, the more we will grow and learn from Him. The more we know Him, the easier following Him becomes, and He gives us the power to overcome all our difficulties and challenges. It is the strength of our relationship with our Master Jesus that will carry us through. Two simple things – Know Him, Follow Him. What does know mean? The “know” in the Bible does not merely mean “I know who Bill Gates is” or I met Warren Buffett once. Instead, the meaning of “know” here refers to a very deep relationship like between husband and wife, or closest of brothers or best of friends. To know Jesus means being in an intimate, deep, close relationship with Him. What does “follow” mean? It means to set our life apart to learn how to live the way Jesus wants, to do things the way Jesus would do. That is our lifelong aim, and how we will make it through.

What happens if we reject this offer from Jesus? Well, God is looking for people who will be useful in His kingdom, who will listen to Him, and live by His principles. People who don’t want to follow Him, who want to live their own way, and refuse to change are of no use to God. In Israel, there is a place called Gehenna, where people throw all their rubbish and unwanted things. There are always people burning unwanted things there. Jesus used the word Gehenna to describe hell, a dark place under the earth where everything of no use to God is thrown away. Sadly, people who reject the Jesus will also have to go there. All people who don’t want God and don’t want to believe in Jesus, will go to the place where all God’s goodness and blessing and presence is removed. On earth, our training ground, it is still rich with God’s blessings even though man has destroyed a lot of it. Clean air that we can breathe easily, strength in our bodies to move and walk around, the warmth of the sunshine, the peace of being able to sleep. We take all that for granted. In hell, even these things are not there. People whom God has allowed to experience hell for even a few minutes speak of a place of terrible darkness, of having no energy at all to move, of hardly being able to breathe, always incredibly hungry, incredibly thirsty, and so tired yet unable to sleep. Even worse, there are horrible demonic creatures that torture people there and fire that keeps burning and burning painfully with no relief. And this horrible situation in hell will go on forever and ever just as the beauty and eternal happiness of Heaven goes on forever and ever.

Personally, friends, getting to know Jesus is the best thing that has happened in my life. Although I grew up in a Christian family and went to Sunday School and church, my heart was not serious in wanting to know Jesus and to follow Him. I would try to be good and follow the rules, but I really didn’t know Jesus well, and there was an emptiness inside me, and I was often unhappy in my teenage years and university years. It was only after I started work in my first year at IOI that I really began to understand that Christianity is not a religion of following rules, but that its really about knowing God and knowing Jesus and learning to do what makes Him happy.

Two things greatly impacted me during that first year in IOI. Firstly, I was impressed by my colleague who went outstation with me. Although he didn’t know much about the Bible, he would thank God very easily for every little blessing that came his way. God was real to him, and I wanted that. Secondly, as internal auditors, we had to stay in an old colonial bungalow that was haunted, and one night, I started hearing little children running upstairs when there was no one there, and then I felt a very evil presence in the room. I cried out as I had been taught in church “Go away in Jesus name”, but the presence was still there although it did not harm me, and I was very scared. I realized that I had not been really serious about knowing Him, not really interested to follow Him. So how could I expect to have His protection? 

From that time, something changed in my heart, and I really began to want to know God and to know Jesus for real! The breakthrough came during a very special church camp where Pastor Chew Weng Chee was the speaker, and I really started to have a fresh and special relationship with God. Over the years, He then helped me to become a teacher of secondary school students in my church and also start a Christian Fellowship in IOI. He also brought me to FGB Jaya One here, and helped me and Jason Tan keep this chapter running for 3 years now. After the change in my heart that made me be serious about knowing Jesus and following Him, I became no longer scared of those haunted houses. Sometimes, I would fast dinner and stay back alone in the haunted house, and once, the lights went off when all alone, but I was not afraid but kept worshipping God. I realized that God is real and that His Spirit in me was more powerful than all the evil spirits. Meanwhile, some of my colleagues talked off their beds being shaken violently when they slept, the alarm clock going off when not plugged in, something lifting them up and putting them at a different part of the house….

In closing, I want to encourage everyone of us to take up that offer that Jesus gives us. The Bible says that no eye has seen and no ear has heard the great and marvelous blessings that God has prepared for those who love Him. Beautiful mansions in Heaven, streets of gold, no more pain, no more suffering, no disease, no sadness. This life is so short, but the next life is forever and is so wonderful for those who follow Jesus! Friends, the Bible says that God sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross for us so that our sins can be forgiven and that we can have eternal life in Heaven. It is truly so wonderful, and so precious to have our sins forgiven, to have our past wiped clean, all our mistakes, all our sins. Being forgiven really will give us such a deep and marvelous peace!

Now, how some of you may ask, how do I know God and Jesus is real when I can’t see Him? Honestly, friends, I myself have not seen God, and most Christians would not have seen God yet. But we know God is real, because of the peace that He has given us in our hearts. Its not that we don’t worry and don’t have problems, but no matter what happens, we know we have that joy in knowing and being able to pray to God, to pray to Jesus. Looking back over my life, and seeing all that God has helped me to do, I am convinced that God is definitely real. How he led me to meet different people, how he took away all my fear in the haunted houses, how he led me to start the Christian Fellowship in IOI, how he led me to work near Jaya One. It can only be God!

In the Bible, Jesus said that all you need is faith as small as a mustard seed. If in your heart, you feel even the smallest possibility that God may be real and Jesus may be real, that your sins can be forgiven, just pray to Jesus right now in your own way. Just say “Lord Jesus, I want to believe you are real.  Please show me you are real. Please forgive me for my sins. Please help me know you. Please help me follow you. In Jesus name, Amen!” May the Lord Jesus lead you to know Him personally and follow Him and help you find and keep the precious truth of His grace forever.

Preaching in a dark land

Preaching in a dark land

On May 13^th, we were privileged to have a special brother give a testimony on his ministry in a country where it is forbidden to preach Christ.

He shared how he first started off helping with a street feeding program and telling the gospel very simply to some of the poor people there. One ex-convict told him, “I have served my time in prison, but society is still punishing me.” He could not get any job and was not even allowed to go to religious places. Our brother shared with him the verse “Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal that Christ has called me heavenward”. And the verse had a profound impact on the poor man.

Another time, our brother was walking in a train station when he saw a familiar face begging by the side of the road. He proceeded to buy some food for the poor man, and prayed for him. Soon, our brother noticed someone following him and he turned around. The man who followed asked our brother to do the same thing he had done for the beggar. Calmly, he explained what prayer was about and asked the man if he wanted to receive Jesus, and he did. They prayed together, and another lost soul entered the kingdom of Heaven.

One thing our brother noticed was that many churches have a grasshopper mentality, viewing reaching out to the lost as impossible in many countries. However, our God is a God of the impossible!

One important thing he learnt is that we must share the gospel from their perspective, from the perspective of the audience whom they are speaking to. In the country’s religious book, Jesus is a prophet too. So a question he may ask of their people is “What do you think of Jesus?” They will say he is a respected prophet, a respected man. “Where is Jesus right now?” They will say in Heaven, for they cannot accept that Jesus died on the cross. “Of all the prophets in your religion, which one is still alive today? Their Holy Book says Jesus was taken up to heaven. “Which prophet can show us the way to heaven then?” Jesus. “If I want to go to a place, who should I ask?” Who has been there? Who can show the way? No one can be in the presence of God unless they are holy, therefore Jesus is holy.

In their religion, they believe in judgment day. The sign of judgment is when Jesus comes back, the same as Christianity. Jesus will come back one day to judge mankind. “The destiny of our soul is in whose hand?” Jesus.

In their religion, they believe good works will get them to heaven. Their works will be balanced on a scale, and those with more good works than bad works will go to heaven. When will they know? Only on judgment day, and on judgment day, it also depends on the mercy of God. Thus, there is no strong basis for salvation and the forgiveness of sins. One goes through life, living in fear about tomorrow, about the afterlife. However, we believe in Jesus know that we need not fear tomorrow, for He has made the way for us to go to Heaven.

Many follow their religion as merely a form, never really knowing what its all about. Their priests keep the people in the dark by using a foreign language and the masses are not encouraged to read on their own.

Interestingly, our brother reports that a lot of conversions come through dreams and visions. An old man in a backward village called the village of darkness received a marvelous vision. He was under water and there were poles with the names of different prophets, but the name of Jesus was lifted higher than the rest. He received dreams and visions and personal discipleship from the Lord, and he spoke from the Lord even in poetic form. And to think he was a former medium.

Indeed, while the church was sleeping, God used His own miraculous methods to reach out to a people in darkness. May the Lord give us greater courage and wisdom to be bolder in our faith and declaring the gospel of His salvation. In Jesus name, Amen.

Go, throw yourself in the sea

Go, throw yourself in the sea

Have faith in God “Jesus answered” I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain “Go throw yourself in the sea” but does not doubt in his heart but believes what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. Mark 11:22-24

There is a Great Mountain on our country, a great and terrible mountain. And millions are trapped under that mountain, in darkness, in frustration, in chains. The Mountain blocks them from the light under the false pretense of protecting them. They have no opportunity to hear the good news. Their ears have been shut, their eyes have been covered. They are systematically cut off from the truth that would reach them, and generation after generation, they are destined to follow the paths of their fathers, trapped in the mountain, suppressed, and in darkness.

There are many of us who live free around this Mountain. Perhaps it is only because we are born of a different color that we are free, free to choose whom we will worship, free to choose whom we will love.

The Great Mountain has made a pact with us. Leave my people alone, and you can carry on your own lives peacefully, conduct your own worship, do your own thing. Violate this, and we will put you under the Mountain too, and take away your freedom. Therefore, we, of the Christian faith respect that, and we call it submitting to the authorities. We accept the tyranny on another race, and the deprivation of religious freedom that they endure.

Over time, over generations, we have come to accept that as the way of life, as the way things are, and cannot be changed. Instead, we are becoming increasingly focused on the deprivation of our rights in other areas. We detest the special privileges that the other race receives at our expense. We are so concerned with unfairness and discrimination against us. Many of us even leave the country completely in indignation and anger. Yet, we have perhaps forgotten, or even failed to realize that for all the privileges they receive, they have been denied the most important privilege of all that will determine their eternal destiny – the privilege of choosing Christ and being saved.

Therefore, instead of being so concerned about our rights, should we not be far more concerned about the salvation of their millions. Wouldn’t that be the very thing that our Lord Jesus would be far more interested in? Did He not also die for them?

Brothers and sisters, let us shake off our self-seeking, inward-looking, fearful mindset, but let us put on the mind of Christ, and be Kingdom-focused.

You may ask, what can I do? This Mountain is so great and huge? My friend, the Word of God says you can make it go and throw itself into the sea. What if every Christian in our beloved country were to wake up every morning, look at this Mountain, and say “In Jesus name, Go throw yourself in the sea”? I believe that if more and more of us stand up and believe and pray, this mountain cannot stand, no matter how great and powerful it seems.

Friends, I believe God really calls to us, love this people as I love them. Get rid of this Mountain. Set your country free that all may worship Me!