What I Want To Fill My Mind As I Wake Up Every Morning

I want to wake up every morning in 2009 with a deep sense of hope and expectation that God is at work in my life. I want to enter into each new day with fresh faith that God is going to use me to fulfill His purposes for His own glory "so that my joy will be full".

To do that, I want to wake up each morning with these three prayer-thoughts in my mind:

• "God, because I am in Christ I know there is nothing I can do today that would make you love me any more than you do right now, and there's nothing I have done that makes you love me any less." As Martin Luther noted, the human heart is hardwired to default into works-righteousness (my acceptance and worth is based on how well I perform). This sentence helps me grasp the free, complete grace I have in Christ. According to John 17, God loves me now as much as He loves Jesus. Wow! Therefore, the idea that I can add to or take away from His love, then, is absurd.
• "God, your presence and approval is all I need to have joy today." This sentence helps war against my natural proclivity to idolatry. As John Calvin said, the human heart is an idol factory. We turn almost everything good into an idol, looking to it for happiness rather than God Himself. This sentence helps me remember that I don't need worldly praise, monetary blessing, success, or even "happiness" to have joy.
• "God, everything Your Word tells me about your intentions for my life is TRUE." In the Word, God shows me that His intentions for me are blessing not cursing, hope not despair, resurrection not death. This completely charges me up to go into the day. I realize that God's intentions for me, my family, and my ministry are good beyond even my wildest imaginations. The sky is literally the limit (Psalm 103) on the power and salvation He wants to work in and through me.

Meditating on these things allows me to leave the house completely filled up on the Holy Spirit. It is meditation on the the truth of the Word of God (Phil 4:8-9; Gal 3:2) that fills us with presence of God.

I was reading the newspapers this morning and all it paints is a new year filled with uncertainties and gloom. But because I came to the newspapers only after I gave myself to the Word, I was unshakened. God is able to turn the worse situations to the best of His glory. That makes 2009 an exciting year, doesn't it?

I pray those three daily meditations will undergird you with faith and strength in 2009.

Have a blessed new year!

Still So Much To Learn About Biblical Hospitality

Thea and Louis in the home of Kwesi and Samira, Edinburgh

One of the things Paul has brought up in Romans 12 is the subject of hospitality--today what is a lost Christian art. Christian people think of hospitality as what you show when you open your home to another friend, but that's not hospitality, that's fellowship. In the OT, God told Israel to be hospitable to foreigners and strangers (that people you don't quite know). So hospitality OT style is to have people in your home that are "strangers". In the NT, "radical" hospitality would mean extending this grace even to your enemies.

Here's something to consider: How often do you "share your table" with people who are not such great friends with you--people who might even be very unlike you? Is your "hospitality" just a "Christian club" fellowship luncheon? What if you, on a regular basis, had people into your home who are not your friends?

I am forced to think about this kind of hospitality because this Christmas my daughter spent her first Christmas away from home. She was in Edinburgh visiting another fellow Agapian studying there. And the night before Christmas, she really missed home and the Christmas she was used to here in Singapore. But on Christmas morning, she went to church for service and a family invited her and her two friends home for a Chrsitmas lunch. This family always opens their home to "strangers" on Christmas Day. Thea, Sheng and Louis were so blessed!

If that wasn't enough, another young couple took the three of them home to their apartment for dinner that night. And this couple had just met the three for the first time at lunch in Brian and Anne's home that afternoon after church. What great Christian hospitality!

Thea, Sheng and Louis were so blessed, they felt like this was the best Christmas they had away from home. Thea said she was going to remember this Chrsitmas for a long, long time. It had such an impact on her.

Now, if you are like me, this type of generosity just does not come naturally to us. Singaporeans are often suspicious of strangers. And often we allow those suspicions to limit us in being truly hospitable in the biblical sense. That robs us of the joy of blessing those who really need our hospitality.

So I decided this morning that I am going to embark on a journey to practice true Christian hospitality and entertain strangers when God opens up such opportunities. It is time to pay forward for the way the Lord is looking after my daughter when she is away from home.

A couple on weeks ago, Ivy taught us what it really means to be hospitable while we were in her home in Holland. In fact, Thea is in Ivy' s house over the New Year now because everything in Leuven, her university town, has shut down over the holidays. And Ivy has so kindly offered to have Thea over for a week so that she has some warm, quiet place to study for her exams in mid-January. Again, what great hospitality!

There are so many out there the Lord wants to embrace in His love and He is looking for people like us to extend our arms to them in the spirit of true biblical hospitality! Thank you again Ivy; Brian and Anne; and Kwesi and Samira for teaching us the power of biblical hospitality!

Real Faith?

"My fear is that the modern conception of faith is not the biblical one, that when the teachers of our day use the word they do not mean what the Bible writers meant when they used it. The causes of my uneasiness are these:

1. The lack of spiritual fruit in the lives of so many who claim to have faith.

2. The rarity of a radical change in the conduct and general outlook of persons professing their new faith in Christ as their personal Savior.

3. The failure of our teachers to define or even describe the thing to which the word 'faith' is supposed to refer.

4. The heartbreaking failure of multitudes of seekers, be they ever so earnest, to make anything out of the doctrine [of faith] or to receive any satisfying experience through it.

5. The real danger that a doctrine that is parroted so widely and received so uncritically by so many is false as understood by them.

6. I have seen faith put forward as a substitute for obedience, an escape from reality, a refuge from the necessity of hard thinking, a hiding place for weak character. I have known people to miscall by the name of faith high animal spirits, natural optimism, emotional thrills and nervous tics.

7. Plain horse sense ought to tell us that anything that makes no change in the man who professes it makes no difference to God either, and it is an easily observable fact that for countless numbers of persons the change from no-faith to faith makes no actual difference in the life."

A. W. Tozer, "Faith: The Misunderstood Doctrine," in Man the Dwelling Place of God, pages 30-31.

Inspirations

Snow Over Salzburg

We have come to the close of another year. Many of us will feel compelled to do some reflection on our lives. My reflection as I come to a close of 2008 has been on what really inspires me. Inspiration is so precious. It is like the precious squeeze of the finest, purest drops from the depths of the soul. Inspirations are often brief, sporadic and rare.

By inspiration I mean those moments where our souls are stimulated to a high level of feeling, thinking and doing. I love those brief, sporadic and rare moments. I am addicted to the vitality I have, and the clarity of thought that occurs when I am inspired. I have tried for years to pay attention to these moments, to dig into them, excavate them, and figure them out.

What is it that inspires me?
Who is it?
What stirs my affection…for my wife? For my children? For my ministry? For life in general?

This to me is one of the major ideas that demand an answer. To solve this arduous riddle means more energy, richer life, deeper relationships and greater self-awareness.

Some time ago, especially when I got into the habit of blogging (and this is my 210 post!) I started applying this line of thought on what really inspires me in my relationship with Christ. What stirs my passion for Christ. What, when I’m doing it, when I’m around it or dwelling on it creates in me a greater hunger for, passion for and worship of Christ and His calling?

When I reflectively wrote them down, the list looked something like this:

1. Early mornings and hot 'Bru' coffee - my mind is at its best in the mornings
2. The writings of preachers of a bygone generation - like Spurgeon and Maclaren
3. Listening to great preachers - like Piper and Edmund Chan and so many more
4. Slow morning walks accompanied by unhurried prayer
5. The book of Psalms
6. Talking about marriage and parenting
7. Fun times with my family where we laugh crazy
8. Robust dialogue on values and wins with my staff

I also wrestled with and paid attention to what robbed me of passion for Christ. What, when I was doing it or spending time around it created in me an unhealthy love for this world? The first list was a strange one because the majority of things that robbed me of zeal for Christ and His mission were morally neutral things. It looked something like this:

1. Watching too much TV and spending too much time online
2. Staying up late for no reason
3. Being physically lazy
4. Empty conversations (talking for hours about nothing)
5. Idleness, especially on Mondays

I want to pay more attention to life in 2009. It is one raeson why I am beginning 2009 with a series on Living A No-Regrets Life.

I want to be keyed in to what feeds my zeal for our great God and King and what kills that zeal. My hope is that I could flood my life with Christ-exalting, worship-creating things and avoid anything that would rob me of that.

What inspires you?
Better yet, what stirs your passion for Christ, truth and holiness? If we can fill our lives with the things that stir our affections and avoid and flee those things that rob us of inspiration, we have a better shot at dwelling deeply with God in our souls. What and who inspires you? Stirs you? What presses you into holy places? What robs you of joy and vitality? What robs you of your passion for Christ and holiness?

Maybe these questions are worth reflecting as you transit into 2009.

I Miss My Personal Space!

It was a very normal day until I realized that I was actively destroying my own soul.

The day began with waking up for another day of exploring the city. I woke up to check smses on my phone. I stepped into the shower where I was thinking where to go, what to see. I then went to the computer to read my emails and reply them; check on Facebook and update my blog while I did some quick research on the Internet on places visited or to visit.

Throughout the day my family and I were running here and there, catching trains and trams, following maps and guides, clicking pictures and taking in the sights and sounds of the cities and in between walks, finding the little space we had to talk a little more deeply or to catch up with our souls in reflection.

As I drifted off to sleep, it dawned on me that I have not really been diligent in finding real time margin of silence and solitude for real deep reflections and I realized, that I could not live the rest of my life without ever again experiencing silence.

To top it all, at lunch yesterday, my daughter just had enough and said she really needed the space to just sit by a cafe with coffee and cake and do nothing but think. I felt a double dose of the message that I felt my soul was already resounding to me.

I don't know whether it is pressure of maximizing a holiday or what, sometimes we can go on trips and totally neglect our souls. That is why I had been so diligent in updating my Facebook and blog. At least it gives me an opportunity to come home to the inner sanctum of my heart where I sense God and His Presence.

This morning I sat a while by myself and reflected on the words of missionary martyr Jim Elliot, who said, “I think the devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements: noise, hurry, crowds . . . Satan is quite aware of the power of silence.”

I began to ponder what Jesus’ life might be like if He lived today. Would He be available to all of His followers twenty-four hours a day on His mobile? Would He have left His phone on at the Last Supper and been continually interrupted by needless calls? Would He have failed to stop and speak to needy people because their weeping was not loud enough for Him to hear over His iPod on his ears as He hurried past them on His way to a meeting He was already late for?

In that moment I prayed, asking God for His wisdom and help to save me from myself. I was reminded that Jesus often took periods of prayerful silence to hear from the Father and to ensure not that He was doing everything He could, but that He was doing only what was most important. For example, before beginning His public ministry, Jesus spent forty days fasting from food, people, and noise in an effort to prepare Himself to fully accomplish what God the Father had given Him to do on the earth.

Moreover, the Bible says in Luke 5:16 that “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places.” Jesus spent considerable time alone in silence to pray, rest, and focus on what priorities He should be devoting His time and energy to. This helps to explain why, in just three short years of ministry, Jesus had a greater impact on history than anyone else who has ever lived.

The Bible also describes multiple benefits of purposeful silence and solitude, including:

* hearing from God (1 Kings 19:11–13)
* waiting patiently for the Lord to act (Lamentations 3:25–28)
* worshiping God (Habakkuk 2:20)
* knowing God better (Psalm 46:10)
* praying effectively (Luke 5:16)

Whether it is back to the busy life in Singapore which I am returning to in another four days, or a family vacation in Europe with the excitement of new places and peoples. I need to carve out margin for silence and solitude, for reflection and review, to listen to God, to write in my journal, and sometimes doing nothing at all, like what my daughter wanted to do, sit in a cafe and just do nothing, which becomes an act of faith that God is at work even when I am not.

My prayer is that those reading this who, like me, are guilty of noise addiction can also experience the regular gift of silence because that is often where God is waiting for us. There was silence before God spoke the world into existence, and silence for forty days before Jesus began His public ministry, which may indicate that silence is what allows us to speak as God intends. And in those silences we build depth into our otherwise shallow lives.

Must I Be New And Innovative?

The Church of Our Lady of Týn in Prague, where we are now,
has a gothic style and is located in the old city.
Its steeple is more than 80 metres tall.

Being in Europe these past two weeks or so made me think a lot on the power of the old. One reason why Europe is so attractive is because the past is preserved so well in their buildings and architecture and museums and these structures are so huge and so strong, you know they are built to last. Through the years, they have survived the seasons, the wars and the generations.

That brings me to the point here. It seems that a really dangerous temptation of us is the desire to be new and innovative... to discover groundbreaking truth or some new methodology that changes Christianity, and then be able to speak prophetically into the church. I can't tell you how many times I talk to young pastors who, when asked why they are going into the ministry, say, "I want to change this or that about the church."

There is, of course, some level at which this is good. We really do need to rethink the state of the church on a continual basis.

But the need for newness is not the primary need of the hour. The problem is not that most people need a new way of hearing the Gospel, but that most people have never heard it at all. My goal each Sunday is not to give what the people in front of me will perceive as a "new approach" to the Word, but simply to explain the really old Word in as clear and as relevant a

You Can Tour Europe On A Budget!

Yes, you can. We have done it twice!

Here are some tips for serious travellers:

1. Book Into Hostels

You pay only a quarter of what you would pay for hotel rooms and hotel accomodation is exorbitant in Europe. Hostels are not just cheaper, they are often more roomy and homely.

2. Don´t Eat In Restaurants

Instead try Turkish joints - kebabs, rice, grills, pizza. You will pay half of what you pay in restaurants (including Burger King). Also cheap to eat at open markets. We ate pork knucles at only 3.9 Euro and the servings feed two!

3. Do Brunch and Dinner

Eat at 10.30 am and 5 pm. Get a snack for supper if you are hungry. You save some money.

4. Buy snacks and drinks from supermarts.

Drinks at food joints can cost double. So get your drinks, fruits and sandwiches from supermarts.

5. Buy three meals to feed four persons and share.

They serve food in quite big proportions in Europe. So just buy for three if four are eating together.

6. Carry ziplog bags

Then you can ta-pau what you cannot finish and eat it later. Food is kept relatively fresh because of the cold.

7. Bring your own ketchup, sambal belachan and wet wipes.

You pay for ketchap in Europe and they have no chilli sauce, so sambal belachan goes a long way and keeps you in touch with your roots.

8. Walk as much as you can

Train or tram rides are expensive. Get a city guide map at the Tourist Info counter at train stations and just keep walking to the places of interest.

9. Use the Student Card for discounts

If you are under 26 and are studying, apply for an International Student Card before you leave Singapore. With it, you can get discounts on trains, musuems and concerts.

10. Buy full day metro/tram/train tickets.

In bigger cities, where walking is not possible, it is cheaper to buy full day tickets then single trip tickets to run around. Full day tickets allow you to take unlimited rides at just one price. In Vienna, we bought a 24-hour ticket for 5.7 Euro. A single ticket costs 1.7 Euro.

11. If you must shop try H & M or New Yorker.

The prices are comparible to any department store in Singapore and the quality in good, especially if you are looking for winter jackets, gloves, scarf or cabs.

12. Fly budget within Europe.

Book early via the internet. Budget flights within European cities can be very cheap, especially in winter. For example, the flight from Brussels to Budapest cost us only 29.90 Euro per person, inclusive of tax and fuel charges.

13. Carry minimum luggage

It helps you move from place to place. You will need to move from trains to trams and then pull your luggage along. So travel light. You don´t sweat much, so clothes don´t smell.

14. Plan your own trip. Avoid tours.

It gives you greater freedom. You learn more and it is so much cheaper. Tour agents will charge $3900 for an 11-day three countries tour of Europe. You can do that on your own with half that amount, inclusive of airfare.

15. The journey is more important than the destination.

The purpose of holidays shouldn´t be just to see places. It should be to capture memories with loved ones and learn lessons that will bond relationships. So enjoy the journey, even if you never like the destinations you get to.

Hospitality - Making Others Feel Special

We discovered this past week having spent five days with Ivy in her beautiful home in Amsterdam that practicing Christian hospitality isn’t so much about glittering, glamorous table settings or platters of picture-perfect food; it’s about practising servanthood right in the middle of your busy life. More important, it’s about loving others through Christ and making people feel special. Ivy just modeled that for us in so many wonderful ways.

She has such a natural way in making her guests feel so special. She puts you totally at ease in her home so much so that you don't feel you need to be careful or cautious - after a while you truly feel at home in her home.

The Bible says some Christians have been graced by God with the spiritual gift of hospitality. Spiritual gifts are given for the purpose of building up God’s church and serving the body of Christ. In other words, these gifts are given not for our own benefit, but for the enrichment of others.

We left Ivy's home in Amsterdam on last Friday truly enriched. I felt the Lord just blessed us so much in those five days. We went home richly blessed by her graciousness and generosity. We also learnt from her (without her intentionally teaching us anything) how to truly practise hospitality.

Romans 12:13, however, encourages us all to practise hospitality, whether it is our spiritual gift or not. In fact, the Greek word philozenia is actually a combination of two words – philos, meaning “affection” and zenos, meaning “people we don't quite know.” While usually translated to mean hospitality, philozenia signifies affection towards people not so close to us.

In The Message Bible translation, 1 Peter 4:8-10 says, “Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. Be quick to give a meal to the hungry, a bed to the homeless – cheerfully. Be generous with the different things God gave you.”

Whether we have the spiritual gift of hospitality or not, it can be a part of our way of life.We should show hospitality not just to those we know but also to those we don't quite know. That is the true test of Christian hospitality. For doing good to these is equal to serving the Lord.

St. Benedict upheld that “hospitality maintains a prominence in the Christian tradition…the guest represents Christ and has a claim on the welcome and care of the host.”

Thank you so much Ivy for being the living biblical model of hospitality. We learnt so much from you about hospitality. You blessed us so much.

God Does Not Have Problems. Only Plans.

The Bible Museum In Amsterdam

We visited a total of four out of the thirty-six museums while we were in Amsterdam – the Bible Museum , the Zaan Dutch Village Museum, Corrie ten Boom’s house in Haarlem and Anne Frank’s house by the canal in Amsterdam. We spent about two hours in each museum. There is something very sobering about touring museums. It’s like the past is lived out right before your eyes. It’s like for that moment you were transported to a totally different era and the present stands still for you while you walk through an era distant but real, dead but yet alive.

Otto Frank was quoted on one of the walls on Anne Frank’s house which was the family’s hiding place when the Nazi regime ruled Holland in the Second World War. He said to build up a future, you need to know the past. How true.

We are never divorced from the past. It’s the past that gives our future hope and relevance. And museums have a way of connecting us to the past – to generations of people we have never met and never known but upon whose lives and battles and victories, our era has been birthed and built.

What left the deepest impression in my mind was the visit to 19 Barteljorisstraat in Haarlem, the four hundred-year old house where Corrie ten Boom and her family hid Jews fleeing from the Nazis in Holland between 1942 and 1944. Corrie came from a family that loved the Lord and loved the Jews. Her grandfather ran weekly prayer meetings in that very house which became a safe place for Jews a hundred years later , praying for the peace of Jerusalem. Casper ten Boom, Corrie’s father held similar passion for the Jews and Corrie and her sister Betsy develop similar convictions. Willem, Corrie’s grandfather successfully passed on his heartbeat from generation to generation. How inspiring.

Corrie ten Boom was born April 15, 1892, the youngest of four children. Her father was a well-liked watch repairman. Corrie herself was trained as a watchmaker in 1920 and in 1922 became the first female watchmaker licensed in the Netherlands.

In 1940, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. In 1942, she and her family had become very active in the Dutch underground, hiding refugees. They rescued many Jews from certain death at the hands of the Nazis.

Corrie and her sister began taking in refugees, some of whom were Jews, others members of the resistance movement sought by the Gestapo and its Dutch counterpart. There were several extra rooms in their house, but food was scarce due to wartime shortages. Despite the odds, they gave a home to the destitute. Corrie had a man built a little room behind one wall in her bedroom. That room had just enough space for just six persons and you entered that room on your knees crawling in through the bottom shelf of a cabinet set against the wall.

Every time the Nazi’s came to check, within 70 seconds, these refugees had to run from anywhere in the house up the steep spiral stairways into that ‘hiding place.’ This happened for over two years but the Germans arrested the entire Ten Boom family on February 28, 1944 at around 12:30 pm with the help of a Dutch informant. They were sent first to Scheveningen prison (where her father died ten days after his capture), then to the Vught political concentration camp (both in the Netherlands), and finally to the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany in September 1944, where Corrie's sister Betsie died. Before she died she told Corrie, "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still."

Corrie was released on Christmas Day of December 1944. Ten Boom narrates the section on her release from camp in her book The Hiding Place, saying that she later learned that her release had been a clerical error. The women prisoners her age in the camp were killed the week following her release.

After the war, Corrie ten Boom returned to the Netherlands to set up rehabilitation centres. She returned to Germany in 1946, where in her speaking tours she met soldiers who had mistreated her and her sister in the war. She tells of how the Lord led her to forgive them so that she herself could be set free in her soul.

Corrie died on April 15, 1983 her 91st birthday.

One of the most powerful statements made by this remarkable woman of faith is: "God does not have problems. Only plans." That probably was the story of Corrie Ten Boom’s life.

Thursday afternoon, we were sitting in the Ten Boom living room listening to our guide retell that story while soft snow was falling on Barteljorisstraat, Haarlem. She then took us around the house and to the “hiding place” in Corrie’s little room.

For a moment, amidst the falling snow outside, time stood still for us. And we got transported to the hustle and bustle, the fears and tears, the whispers, the songs and the life of a people who lived so long before us and in conditions so alien to us but whose lives still speak to us today, inspiring us for the future.

God, indeed, does not have problems. Only plans.

It's 24 Years Today!

Whenever I take a long family holiday, I get this opportunity to pull away from ministry and life in Singapore and reflect on my life from totally fresh angles. So today is a good time for me to acknowledge something I don't acknowledge nearly enough. It is about my greatest asset. This is usually the key behind every great idea or sermon. This is what turns my 'good ideas' into great ones. This is what often cheers me when I'm depressed and strengthens me when I am weakened. This is what I most often recognize as God's best gift to me.

It's my home and family. I can be out there in the world weathering all kinds of storms but the moment I step into my home all these 24 years, I always find peace and security and love and comfort and the freedom to be me.

And the one person who has made my home such a wonderful place to recuperate, refresh and recharge is my wife, Christina. She herself is calm and composed, an epitome of deep inner peace. She creates a climate of stability in the home. And she provides us with such a calmly environment, we just want to keep coming home.

She puts the best food in the world on our kitchen table. She meticulously plans the menu everyday to ensure that each one of us gets to eat our favourite dishes. And it's not just the dishes, but it is the type of drinks we like, the deserts we prefer - she just loves us to the details.

Best of all, she is the one I would want to spend my sunset days with. She just lets me be me. I am never more myself than when I am with her. She laughs at my craziness. She gets irritated with my nonsense but then will smile it off, without ever becoming seriously offended. She frees me to pursue the dreams that God has placed in my heart. She grows through my sermons.

She is so different from me and that makes our relationship so interesting because we still fight like little kids over little things. Yet because she is never a bitter person, she gives me such deep security to be myself in our marriage. She is the one person who knows me inside out, all my faults and all my weaknesses and still accepts me and loves me for who I am. Her benefits to my life are innumerable.

This post is a special tribute to her. Today is our 24th wedding anniversary and life would not have been this wonderful without the Lord and without Christina and my two children, Thea and Reuben.

When I was looking for a wife, my mentor, Lillie Rogers would say to me, "Guna, be very careful who you marry. She will either make you or break you."

Honey, thanks for being the Lord's instrument in making me to be who I am today. Thank you for making these 24 years such a treasure, giving us a legacy to leave behind.
Happy 24th Anniversary, Hon!

Finding Value Through A "Below Your Means" Holiday

We have been in Europe for a week now. And we have done our holidays the way we have always done it in the past - to find value and meaning and draw lessons that will stay with us for an entire lifetime as a family. And to achieve that we often have found the peace to let go of conveniences and comfort, if we must.

The clear example this time round works out like this. Thea lives as a student in Leuven, Belgium. She has a neat little room in a building with 16 such rooms that houses students just like her. This last week that we were to be in Belgium, two rooms on her floor were vacant as her friends were out of town.

We grabbed the opportunity to stay with her, making use of those rooms. Why, we could have stayed comfortably in a nearby hotel or motel or stay even more comfortably in Brussels where my brother and sister-in-law have a nice apartment. But we chose to stay with Thea. The reason is simple: there was no way we would be able to completely identify with her life as a student in Europe unless we really live with her.

And those five days in Leuven, we learnt so much first hand about the way Thea lives. How she has to walk up and down four floors to get to her room. How her bathroom looks like and how she has to cook for herself; where she does her grocery shopping; where she went to school and how her friends looked like and where she takes the train to go anywhere. We were a part of her everyday life. We walked it with her.

And because of those experiences that went into such details into how she lived as a student, we found VALUE in our stay with her that money could never buy. Money could buy us convenience but not character. Money can buy us stuff but not substance. Character and substance often come with some inconveniences and discomforts.

Now we have a bagful of precious memories (and not perishable stuff) to take with us into the future. Years down the line, we would talk about her European days; we would tell those stories to her children, nephews and nieces and we would inspire them that there is more value and happiness in living below your means because it deposits into your soul things that money can never buy.

And we left Leuven so happy yesterday - we saved quite a bit of money!

On The Economic Crisis

• The economic downturn is a great opportunity of Christians for evangelism. For many people, money is their god and their god just got crucified, and shows no signs of resurrection. This is the time to point people to the only real Saviour who did get resurrected.

• Christians respond differently in times of crisis. In the early church, when disease swept the urban centres and everyone fled, Christians remained to help the sick and dying. In the same way, when many are now panicking because of financial crunch, shoring up their own interests, and turning to new hopes that ultimately will also disappoint, Christians should be asking, "How can we sacrifice personally to help people in need?"

• As I explained four Sundays ago in the opening sermon on Unshaken Amidst Uncertainties (Lessons We Can Learn From A Downturn) , we all tend to compare ourselves to our vocational peers (i.e., those who make about as much as we do), and see if we're living as well as them. If not, we are bothered. But studies consistently show the average Singaporean is living above his means, which means that if you choose to live below your means, then you are going to be living a few steps behind your peers. And you will look like a financial retard. And, if you choose to give generously and to save, (both biblical admonitions as well), that is going to put you many more steps behind your peers. Living many steps behind someone is a NOTICEABLE difference. It is not simply going out to eat one less time or not getting that $3.50 dessert at the Food Court; rather, it affects where you live and the kind of car you drive. You should be prepared for this and at peace with it, resolved that living 4-5 steps behind your peers is worth it to stay out of debt and give generously. And be more contented; feel so much more secure in God and stay happier!
  

Our Lives Should Demand An Answer

I hear quite frequently that postmodern people today won't respond to a verbal witness the way people would 30 years ago. They are not as open and comfortable with altar calls either. But, it is said in scripture that we must witness with our lives and "be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us." (1 Peter).

I think that is a great observation, except it overlooks that Jesus' command to us was to GO and be His witness. We were never to wait for unbelievers to come to us to "ask" questions. We were to go to them and proclaim a message that answers a question they may not have known to ask.

What of Peter's admonition to "be ready to give an answer?" He means we are to live in such a way that our lives BEG a question from people that are watching, not that we're just ready to "talk about our faith when people are curious." Our lives were to be so characterized by RADICAL generosity, and they were to display such joy in the midst of suffering, such peace in the midst of uncertainties that people were simply befuddled and had to ask us what was 'wrong' with us.

Many Christians give faithfully to their church, but how many of us give in such a radical way that people have to come ask us what is 'wrong' with us?

Christians often know the right answers to give in suffering, but how many demonstrate such RADICAL joy in the midst of pain people have to ask us if we're crazy?

This was the case with Paul and Silas in Acts 16. It was when the Philippian jailor saw their interminable joy after being beaten, and their wild generosity (in that they would rather stay and witness to him than take their freedom), that he asked the question, trembling, "What must I do to be saved?" We rarely get questions of that nature, I think, because we don't live with the inexplicable hope with which Paul and Silas lived.

This is what I mean when I say that even in a lifestyle witness our very lives should demand an answer from those who don't know Jesus. We should be seeking to preach the message by the radical way in which we live.

Encouragement: Recreating Others Through WORDS

I can't tell you how many times this year I was getting a little discouraged and either someone on my staff team or friends or my family, who had no idea I was discouraged, spoke words of faith into my soul. Maybe it was a compliment about how God was using me, or maybe some grace they saw in my life, or maybe just something about the goodness and faithfulness of God.

That's what encouragement literally is: break apart the word and it means “to speak strength/courage into someone’s life.”

I believe it is one of the most overlooked of spiritual gifts. I love being around people with it! They seem to know when and how to call out the grace in my life.

It is one of the things I most love about my personal mentors. In fact, the thing that my most cherished mentors had in common was that they routinely spoke strength, not just criticism, into me. I get teary eyed thinking about how often these men told me they believed in me.

It is easy, you see, for us to "assume the strengths" in others and to "notice the weakness." We can even write off our pointing out their faults as being "helpful" to them, or not pointing out their strengths as an attempt to guard their pride. Bull. Such an attitude shows little to no awareness of the human condition, or how God works. I believe we should reverse that. We should assume others' weaknesses and notice their strengths.

One of my favorite theologians on this was Martin Luther. Luther said that God's way was to redefine reality with WORDS. God looked into chaos and spoke the hopeful, power-infusing words of creation. He looked into the chaos of our sin and declared us righteous in His Son. By speaking those words (coupled with our belief in them), He reconstituted our reality. You see, if He had declared us lost He would have spoken truth, but He spoke an even greater truth by recreating us with His words.

As one article I read noted,

In other words, others might tell me I am a failure, an idiot, a clown, evil, incompetent, vicious, dangerous, pathetic etc., and these words are not just descriptive: they have a certain power to make me these things, in the eyes of others and even in my own eyes, as self-doubt creeps in and the Devil whispers in my ear. But the greatness of Luther’s Protestantism lies in this: God’s speaks louder, and his word is more powerful. You may call me a liar, and you speak truth, for I have lied; but if God declares me righteous, then my lies and your insult are not the final word, nor the most powerful word. I have peace in my soul because God’s word is real reality. That’s why I need to read the Bible every day, to hear the word preached each week, to come to God in prayer, and to hear words of grace from other brothers and sisters as I seek to speak the same to them. Only as God speaks his word to me, and as I hear that word in faith, is my reality transformed and do the insults of others, of my own sinful nature, and of the evil one himself, cease to constitute my reality. The words of my enemies, external and internal, might be powerful for a moment, like a firework exploding against the night sky; but the Word of the Lord is stronger, brighter, and lasts forever.

Of course we can abuse that. We are not to declare wicked things good. What we are to do is recognize God's potential work in someone's life and help them believe it.

Celebrate often the goodness of God you see in another person's life. Fan the flames of His grace at work in them. Recognize the potential of what God wants to do in someone and affirm it. See the crown God has placed above their head and help them believe their way into it.

This season of staff appraisal, I had opportunity to bless and build every one of my staff with such encouragement and it has so blessed my life and added so much value to my ministry.

Do you do this with your children? Your leaders? Your friends? Your spouse?

The Four Levels Leadership

It was one of the best Leaders' Retreats in the last couple of years. About 40 of us left M-Suites in JB with a strong resonance about growing a leadership mindset and rising on new sigma curves for the growing of our faith and vision for the future. It was, for me, a very fulfilling closing to a three month journey in seeking the LORD for 2009 and beyond.

Leaders live in the future. And my mind has since moved beyond the six leadership paradigms to crafting another new paradigm for leadership: The Four Levels of Leadership.

The concept of the "the 4 levels of leadership" is an important one if you are leading any growing organization. The basic gist, per Ram Charan, in his very insightful work, LEADERS AT ALL LEVELS, is that people who led an organization at one level are often unprepared to lead at the next level... as the organization grows, their job changes, and what made them good at one level may not be sufficient to make them excel at the next. For example, take a superb salesman... He is winsome, great with customers, and a good time manager. If the salesman is promoted to manage other salesman, however, those things that made him a good salesman don't ensure he will make a good manager of other salesmen.

In a small business, or church, the 4 basic levels are: managing self; managing others; manager of managers; and enterprise manager.

Some people will discover they have found their niche where they are, and are content not to climb the leadership pipeline (i.e., they are content to remain an expert salesman: that is ok, and they can excel at that--better to do what you're good at than pretend to be something else). Others will have the needed competency or want to develop the needed skills necessary to lead at the next level.

Each leader must be self-aware his personal capacity and competencies and it is the discerning task of the leaders over them to see who has what it takes to go up to the next level of leadership. Part of that discernment will include awareness of gift mixed, skills and most importantly depth of character and calling.

Hence begins a new journey for me in leading leaders.

A Fruitful Pastor Or A Fruitful Church?

"By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit." John 15:8

Jesus' concern then, and now, was that his disciples be fruitful, not just they stand amazed at his fruitfulness. It appears to me that in the “church growth circles” in which I run there are two kinds of churches - the kind where the church is an audience gathered to share in the personal fruitfulness of the Pastor, and the kind where members are equipped to be fruitful themselves. In the former, the PASTOR wins people to Christ each Sunday from the platform; his speaking is a strong manifestation of the Spirit, and he creates a buzz of excitement that draws people like crazy. He is the “hero” of the church.

In the latter kind, the CHURCH MEMBERS are equipped to see the power of God in and through their lives as they see God's kingdom brought into where they live and work and study. They, not just the pastor, are the “heroes” of the church.

I definitely want that latter kind. Jesus didn’t simply gather observers. Jesus called and trained leaders. He REPLICATED Himself in them. He made disciples.

Furthermore, Jesus wants us to transform the community and the city, not just grow the church audience. Since the community and city lives outside the walls of the church, training up leaders and members to take Jesus to them is the most effective way to really transform the community and city. 39 of the 40 miracles in the book of Acts happened OUTSIDE of the church.

Don't get me wrong, I do want to preach the Word with such anointing that people come Sunday by Sunday to encounter God. I want to be like Solomon, whom another world leader came to hear preach because she had heard about the power of his words. That is a crucial part of the strategy, but it is only PART of the strategy.

I don't want a church that grows with people simply observing and riding on the coattails of, my fruitfulness. That is more like a spiritual circus than a genuine church.

God called me to lead a church, not put on a show. At the end of the day, I will answer to God not for the size of my crowd, but for what I did to make fruitful disciples out of them.

Anything less cannot be called an "Acts" church. The story of the church did not stop in Acts 2 with 5000 being saved under Peter's preaching. It progressed into Acts 6-8, where the members went everywhere into the community and world preaching the word.

Agape, don't be satisfied to simply sit and be awed by the fruitfulness of your leaders. Jesus has more for you. Let Him make you fruitful yourself! And to grow in your personal fruitfulness, make it a point to attend the Evangelism Explosion seminar as part of the OneEOne process this season. Be fruitful!