FAITH – Forsaking All I Trust HIM

1. What is Faith?

A practical man says: “Seeing is believing”. A man of faith replies, “Believing is seeing”.

Before a person becomes a Christian, he is a citizen of one world. When he placed his faith in Christ, he is a citizen of two worlds, the earthly dwelling that he is in, and a heavenly citizenship (Phi 3:20). Before he becomes a Christian, he walks by sight. When he becomes a Christian, he has to learn to walk by faith (2Cor 5:7) because without faith, it is impossible to please God or grow in Christ-likeness (Heb 11:6).

What then is (Christian) faith?

The acronym: FAITH = Forsaking All I Trust HIM
Forsaking all doubts against what HE has said.

Faith is believing in what God has said even though it has not come true yet.

2. What has God said?

(1) Eph 2:8,9 – We are assured of eternal life and no judgment of hell by God’s grace. This is the very beginning of the Christian faith – a faith rested in the Lord Jesus Christ.

(2) Psa 23 – “The Lord is my shepherd; I have no lack of anything”. David the shepherd boy, experiences it. He devotional thought penned in Psalms 23 become God’s Word to us. We too then can have this calm assurance that HE is our shepherd.

(3) Rom 8:28 – able to trust God that He will work for the good all things, no matter how bad or difficult it is that will happen to me. He has a purpose to allow such things to happen.

…

Do you believe in His Word? That takes faith. If you do, you will delight in His Word – reading, studying and mediating – because that is where we can find His assurance of things hope for, the confidence of things not seen (Heb 11:1).

3. What must I do?

Learning to obey and trust in God what has promised in the Scripture is not easy. But faith can grow as we get to know HIM. That is the Christian journey – a pilgrim (sojourner) in this world.

Faith is best understood with the following story:

During the terrible days of the Blitz, a father, holding his small son by the hand, ran from a building that had been struck by a bomb. In the front yard was a shell hole. Seeking shelter as quickly as possible, the father jumped into the hole and held up his arms for his son to follow. Terrified, yet hearing his father's voice telling him to jump, the boy replied, "I can't see you!"
The father, looking up against the sky tinted red by the burning buildings, called to the silhouette of his son, "But I can see you. Jump!" The boy jumped, because he trusted his father.

The Christian faith enables us to face life or meet death, not because we can see, but with the certainty that we are seen; not that we know all the answers, but that we are known.

With faith in Jesus Christ, we are seen by the Omniscient Father and we obey what He tells us.

Heb 11:6
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Agape
Mark Lim

Empowering Leadership for Christ – God’s way

“What is empowering leadership?”

During our Saturday dinner time, I overheard a sister-in-Christ asking Pastor this question. His answer was that it had to do with the spirit anointing. I thought this is a very important question and so set myself to think about this more.

Talk about “empowering” and the song, “empower me” appears in my mind. I guess that is where Pastor got his word coin up for the theme of year 2009 for Bethany PCES. But is this word used in the Bible? I check the concordance and it is not used in the bible. Next, I search the dictionary and this is what it means: - to invest with power, especially legal power or official authority. Who give the power? What is this power? For Christian leadership, it must be the Holy Spirit who gives the power base on my memory of Acts 1:8.

1. Old Testament Example
Is there any example of Spirit empowering leadership in the Bible? From memory, I think there is, somewhere in the Book of Numbers where God’s spirit come on the elders and they prophesied. Checking it up, it is Num 11: 16-29

The LORD said to Moses: "Bring me seventy of Israel's elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone. (v16, 17)

(verse 24-29)
So Moses went out and told the people what the LORD had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the Tent. Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took of the Spirit that was on him and put the Spirit on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but they did not do so again. However, two men, whose names were Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the Tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp. A young man ran and told Moses, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp." Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses' aide since youth, spoke up and said, "Moses, my lord, stop them!" But Moses replied, "Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD's people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!"

The leaders were bestowed with the spirit (presumably godly knowledge and wisdom to govern) of Moses by God. With that, more leaders are able to do the work of Moses as he has been complaining to God of his burden (Num 11: 11-15). This is the principles of leader reproduce leaders. There is now more Moses. BCPES need more worship leaders, more BSG leaders, and more youth leaders. Where to find? When God did it, it is instant, just get the spirit of Casey (or Isaac, Ginnette…) and put it on Amos, Grace, … and there you have more worship leaders. But this is divine intervention, humanly impossible. So how? Go the slower way, teach, train, practice, practice, practice, evaluate and improve.

Notice that Moses’ spirit is put on the elders and leaders, not anybody. So, choosing the right person is important. How do we know that we have chosen the right leaders?

Spiritual leaders are not elected, appointed, or created by synods or churchly assemblies. God alone makes them – Oswald Sanders, Spiritual leadership, page 18

2. New Testament Encounter
The church of Antioch gave us a pattern how they choose leaders: (Acts 13:1-3)

In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

The prophets and teachers were praying, worshipping and fasting, and the Holy Spirit spoke (presumably through the prophets) to choose Barnabas and Saul for the work. But BPCES got no prophets what. Never mind about whether we have prophets or not, that is God’s initiative to occasionally send one or some. Our task at hand is to pray, worship and fast when seeking God for leadership. Not just pass a nomination form and sign your name.

3. Personal Experience
I am always against the way we elect our English Service Committee members. It is not right just to pass the nomination form and usually those who sign it will be by default elected into the committee. I feel that we should really spend some time praying about our needs for leadership. It may sound stupid or naïve but if this is God’s house, He will do something. In February this year, I was spending a lot of time praying for the new election of committee and also for my two Sunday sermons. I asked God a very simple question: “Who should be in the English Service committee?” After many days and weeks of praying, the spirit within me prompted a name that I least expected. But what should I do, “Why tell me, God?” Because you care to pray.

When Jenny approached me with the nomination form, I casually told her to approach Luh Sy also. Not sure whether she got my hint and did approach her. At the last day of nomination, Elder Rosie came to me to get my signature. I told her that she should approach Luh Sy.

“No lah! She’s so busy. She is the chairperson of the Child Care you know.”

“OK, you are right” I replied.

Guess, God got the wrong person this time. Or, was it that I heard wrongly? But at least, I have done my duty and convey the message to Elder. Many years ago, I too have a similar message and Su Lynn joined the English Service committee. Could this time be wrong? It doesn’t matter, my task is to pray. I am no prophet so not to worry whether the message is right or wrong.

Care to join me in prayer?

“Call to me and I will answer you and will tell you …”

Serving Him with you,
Mark Lim

Devotion - The New Covenant “cleanses” my Conscience

Once in a while my “spiritual barometer” will pop out. It is that kind of prompting that tells me that I am not doing right, or maybe I should have done better. I think you may have experience that also. My spiritual barometer works in many ways. But I will just talk about one way – the conscience. Sure you have it also, right?

I was just going through Hebrews 8 to 10, the sermon we heard last Sunday. It’s all about the old covenant and new covenant stuff. The old covenant doesn’t mean much to us. It applies only to the Jews. I am quite sure most of us don’t know much about it unless you have read the Book of Leviticus or attended an Old Testament Theology class. Even though I read the book and attended the class, I still need about 3 morning of pondering over this Hebrews passage before I am able to draw some applications! 2 verses finally hit home to me:

Heb 9:9 This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. (old covenant)

Heb 9: 14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (new covenant)

I couldn’t agree more with these verses. Before I became a Christian, conscience is not so much to accuse or excuse me from my words, thoughts or action. What’s wrong with a seemingly innocent lie to get me off the hook or a little aggressiveness against sub-ordinates to make sure they perform and do their job with diligence? Different people (Christians, I mean) see conscience differently and I believe you have your comments too. But I see God is constantly working at my conscience. 2 issues happened to me recently. Let me relate one of them. I have an engineer working under me for 1 year already. However, he is a slow learner and on many occasions when he made mistakes, my voice would go up a few decibel. Somehow, I felt bad about the way I handled him, because I usually treat every workers with respect, even to the operators and cleaners. My conscience may have bothered me. I decided to be patient with him. I have to use praise and encouragement to help him along. Perhaps, it sounds trivial to you. But it has changed me and the way I relate to people.

Let me simplify my version of Bible study:

Bible Study / Devotion Questions (Hebrews 8:7- 10:18):

Objective: To help us see how the New Covenant has changed our lives and strengthen our relationship with God, others and even ourselves

Warm-Up: How’s your life before you became a Christian? What difference to do you see yourself now (as a Christian)?

1. Observation Question: What is the old covenant (Heb 9:1-10)? What is the new covenant (Heb 9:11-28)?

2. Understanding Question: What does living in the new covenant mean to me?
Heb 9:14 – cleanse our conscience , serve a living God
Heb 9:15- to receive promised eternal heritance
Heb 9:28 – bring salvation to all who believe
Heb 10:10 – to lead a holy life
(What does holy life mean?)

3. Application Question: In which areas of my life is my conscience not right with God, with others, with myself? What specific action should I take to rectify this? (Read Acts 26:16)

So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man (Acts 24:16)


Blessings
Mark Lim

Spiritual Growing Up

What skills should every young person have mastered in the process of growing up?

When I was a boy, there were two skills that I very much wanted to acquire – cycling and swimming. At the age of 12, I would go to the Farrer Park Swimming Pool every Saturday morning alone. There, I would observe how people float, swam and imitated them. After a few months and many failures, I finally was able to swim without the help of any teacher.

My father had a big grocery bicycle, too big for me to handle. Each time when my father was not using it, I would push it around in the car park. I started by trying to balance on the bicycle. After many tries, injuries and on a few occasions knock down by cars, I manage to cycle, all by myself. During secondary school, I picked up more skills – cooking, hiking, canoeing, typing with two hands, and many more.

What about spiritual level? What should every Christians know in the process of growing up? I received an email many years ago by one member of the church and here are the list mentioned:

- Know your way around the Bible. Become familiar with the Old and New Testaments. Choose some special passage and memorize them.
- Develop the confidence to pray in a group.
-Learn how to tell someone about Jesus.
-Understand the basic beliefs of the Christian faith: God, salvation, Jesus, the Bible, the Holy Spirit, the church, what happens after death.
-Be able to pray with someone who is going through a rough time.
-Attend church, and worship God throughout the service.
-Get in the habit of giving to the Lord.
- Learn how to tell a Bible story to children.
- Be able to study a Bible passage for yourself and know what it says.
- Become skilled at working through personality conflicts and differences of opinion to maintain Christian friendships.

I like to add a few more (after you have attained the above):

-Know how to find and obey God’s wills in your life.
-Able to sense to presence of God in your life.
-Know how to make Godly and wise decisions in crucial issues of life.
-Learn how to handle crisis and trial that test your faith.

Has BPCES or our Youth Alive develop our youth and new converts in these spiritual basic skills? Have we prepared them well (in our safe country) so that when they move on in life, maybe to overseas (with no one to check on them spiritually, so to speak) for studies or job attachment, they can still stand firm in faith?

Here in Equipping The Saints, my purpose is to try to provide some guidance in these areas.

Let us heed the word of the Lord to Jeremiah:

"If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?” (Jer 12:5)

Agape
Mark Lim

Personal Reflection (Heb 7:1-8:6) – What’s my "Priestly" duty?

After hearing the Sunday sermon, many things are still not clear to me. I don’t mean to be offensive to the sermon preached. It is a difficult passage to follow but I just want to be connected to God’s Word. Maybe I am the only one feeling this way. I have no doubt put my faith in Jesus Christ, in response to the sermon final question: where are you putting your faith? But I believe the passage want me to do more than just putting faith in Jesus Christ. This passage is to Christians, not to non-believers. Priest is for believers, evangelist or missionary is to unbelievers (like the last illustration of a missionary reaching out to a Hindu lady). I need to reflect over this passage again.

Talks about priest don’t really mean anything to me. I don’t meet any priest whether I am in church or anywhere, unlike a catholic. What then does a Great high priest mean to me? For a Jew, the two most significant people are Abraham and a priest. That I can understand. Abraham is important because he is the father of the nation of Israel. Priest is important because he helps the Jews to atone for their sin. Jewish life is all about offering, holy days, sacrifice, clean and unclean food, do this, can’t do that kind of thingy and so need a priest. But I am not a Jew. Christian has very little restriction actually. How then does this passage relate to me, a 21st century Christian living in an urban city like Singapore? 2 points I learn today:

1. Chosen to be a Priest (Heb 7:1-28)
In the Catholic and Anglican faith, there are priests in robes and attires. It is good to sometime join a high Anglican worship service like St. Andrew Cathedral. Anybody interested? Holy Communion is on third Sunday worship service at 5pm. You will find it very different from BPCES Holy Communion. You can feel it’s significant. Anyway, a priest is important. Do you know that we Christians actually also have priests? Guess who? Pastor? Not really, Elder? No, lah. OK, a clue: 1Peter 2:9

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

All of us are made to be priests, but without any special attire or robe of a priest!! Christ is our Perfect Great High Priest; we are the imperfect little low priests. but still a priest. Don’t like that leh, A bit scary to be a priest. What to do, ah?

2. Duties of a Priest (Heb 8:1-6)
A priest is someone who mediates for others with God. Like it or not, all Christians are priests. 2 things we need to do as priest.

Duty #1 – Pray for one another
Jesus Christ set the example for me to follow. In Heb 7:25, it says that Christ is making intercession for us. Samuel the priest also said it in 1Sam 12:23 (good to memorise this verse)

As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right.

Jas 5:16 tell us to pray for one another.

Know of anyone who is in need? How about those in your BSG, church, school, …? Pray for them. Pray for those studying oversea, that they are still mindful of their faith in Christ. Pray for those drifting away from Christ, that they may have the desire to come back to Him. Do add to the list. God is never tired to hear you pray. In fact, He invites us to pray. (Jer 33:3)

Duty #2 – Encourage one another
In the Book of Hebrew, the writer after describing about priest and sacrifice (chapter7-10), then tell them in Heb 10:24, 25:

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

So, let us encourage one another. Encourage those struggling to come to church. Encourage those who are discouraged with life, financial problem, BGR, etc. Your fellowship and encouragement is important! Everyone is part of the body of Christ – the church.

That is what “priest” means to me. What about you?

As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right. (1Sam 12:23)

PS: Come to this Friday prayer meeting. I'll will be there!

Agape
Mark Lim

Errors in the Bible?

“The Bible is full of errors and contradictions.” You may have heard of this remark before.

“Sure or not? OK, show it to me some of the errors.” That would be a likely response from a Christian.

To be honest, there are indeed some seemingly “errors” that I know. I believe there are more than I can list, but anyway let me show you some.

Error #1 – Order of creation – man or animal created first?
Genesis chapter one is a systematic narrative of the creation story and human – man and woman are created last, after God created the animals. (Gen 1:24-30). But when you read Genesis 2:7, it described God creating man from dust. He finds the man to be alone, and so God decides to create the animals in Gen 2:18-20. So, who did God created first, man or animals?

Error #2. Proverbs 26:4,5 - to answer or not to answer a fool?
Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself.

Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.

So what should we do, answer a fool or not to answer a fool? A dilemma indeed!!

Error #3 – Who incite David to census Israel – God or Satan?
2 Sam 24:1 Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, "Go and take a census of Israel and Judah."

1Chron 21:1 Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.

So who actually incited David to take a census of Israel, the LORD or Satan?

Error #4 – The Beattitude – Jesus sitting on mountainside or standing on level place?
There is this passage called the Beattitudes in Matthew chapter 5.

In Mat 5:1,2: Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them saying:

There is also a similar passage in Luke 6:17 onwards
He went down with them and stood on a level place. …Looking at his disciples, he said:

The same message but in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is sitting down on a mountainside, while in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is standing on a level place. Isn’t that contradiction?

Error #5 – Temptation of Jesus – order of temptation #2 & #3 reversed in Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke. Who is right?

Gospel of Matthew:
1st temptation – turning stone to bread (Mat 4:3-4)
2nd temptation – ask Jesus to jump from temple top (Mat 4:5-7)
3rd temptation – to worship Satan (Mat 4:8-10)

Gospel of Luke:
1st temptation – turning stone to bread (Luke 4:3-4)
2nd temptation – to worship Satan (Luke 4:5-8)
3rd temptation – ask Jesus to jump from temple top (Luke 4:9-12)

There must be some error. Who is right?


I am sure you to have discover some "errors". Care to share it? How would you respond to such seemingly errors?

Perhaps a thought came to my mind as you ponder how to answer Bible critics. I am no artist and I personally don’t understand why many people say Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawing of Mona Lisa is a master piece. To me it is just another ordinary drawing not worth thousands of dollars. But I know I am wrong, because I know nothing about art. The artists may be right to say that Mona Lisa is a masterpiece. Strange!

Likewise, Bible scholars insist that there is no error in Bible. Strange!

Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. (Prov 30:5a)

Mark Lim