EE Malaysia 2nd Convention 8-9 May 2013

Just 3 days after Malaysia Votes EE Malaysia held it's 2nd Convention. What a timely Convention with the focus on what is of THE HIGHEST PRIORITY TO THE LORD - THE RULER OF THE KINGS OF THE EARTH - the salvation of precious souls and the making of disciples.

Even at the Convention the hot topic at break time was the outcome of GE13. While emotions are running high with anger, sadness, grief, shock, unbelief etc., we must all remember GOD IS ON THE THRONE AND HE IS SOVEREIGN.
I certainly believe that THE LORD KNOWS WHAT'S BEST for us at this time.
Dr Hong Seng's message of "Winning the Nation" was certainly God's proceeding Word to His church. He reminded us that God's people like Nehemiah, Moses, Daniel and Joseph served the Lord and fulfilled His purposes for the nations who were under very wicked kings/governments of their day. Hong Seng reminded us that:-
Our responsibility is to change the church (discipling the church)
We are to trust God for His Sovereignty to change our nation according to His wisdom and timing.
Unless we, the church, change, we cannot be change agents.
We are to continue faithfully to fulfil the MANDATE :-
Mark 16:15-18

• Be His faithful witness
• Go and Preach the Gospel and equip the church to preach the Gospel
• Make disciples
• Cast out demons
• Be filled with the Holy Spirit
• Bring healing in the name of Jesus
• Experience God's confirmation of His Word
• Lay on of hands

We are to be SALT and LIGHTS in MALAYSIA!
He stressed that the Lord said if we have no saltiness we are good for nothing.
We are also to be those who will PUNCH THE DARKNESS!

We must not allow INDIVIDUALISM, MATERIALISM AND SECULARISM to shape the church.
WE MUST BE DIFFERENT AND STAND UP FOR CHRIST.
WE MUST REPENT OF WORLDLINESS.

He also stressed on the MUST DO of the church.
The church MUST HAVE STRONG FOLLOW UP OF NEW BELIEVERS.
The church MUST BE EVANGELISTIC!
The church MUST HAVE STRONG PRAYER MEETINGS.

In the 24TH ANNIVERSARY DINNER held on 8th May our speaker shared a CONVICTING MESSAGE on IS IT RIGHT?
Is it right for us who HAS THE GOOD NEWS to keep quiet and not tell others who don't know?
Is it right for churches who knows and uses EE training to keep it to themselves and not share with  other churches who love the Lord?
Is it right for us to just keep EE training to the nations that already have it and not bring it to other nations?

Other sessions were informative, heart moving, encouraging and challenging.

Our goals is to keep having EE semesters and keep sharing EE with other churches who have yet to adopt this training.

In closing - GE 13 is over.
THE CHURCH MUST KEEP THIER EYES ON THE LORD, THE KING OF KINGS.
ONLY WHAT HE SAYS AND WHAT HE WANTS MATTERS.
LET US NOT BE DISTRACTED.
LET US KEEP TO OUR COURSE AND CAUSE - TO GO AND MAKE DISCIPLES OF ALL THE NATIONS.

ONE THING IS NEEDED

The Lord said, "One thing is needed!"

ONE THING is needed (Luke 10:41-42)  

ONE THING I desire (Ps 27:4),

ONE THING I do (Phil 3:13)

As a disciple of Jesus this ONE THING will be fulfilled when we faithfully FOLLOW HIM.

Jesus first called Peter – FOLLOW ME Mark 1:17.

Jesus last word to Peter  – FOLLOW ME. John 21:19, 22

Discipleship = Calling to Follow Jesus = Following the Word with the Helper, the Holy Spirit  

Discipleship = Learning; not just learning from Jesus BUT learning to be LIKE JESUS

Discipleship = Transformation = Change to be like Christ

Discipleship = Conformation - into the image of Christ

Discipleship is a life of learning from Jesus Christ how to live in the Kingdom of God now.

                                                                                                             By DALLAS WILLARD

A Disciple of Jesus is pre-eminently a man of ONE THING.

He only sees ONE THING

He only cares for ONE THING

He only lives for ONE THING

And that ONE THING is to please God

Whether he lives or whether he dies

Whether he has health or whether he has sickness

Whether he is rich or whether he is poor

Whether he pleases men or gives offence

Whether he is thought wise or whether he is thought foolish

Whether he gets honour or whether he gets shame

For all of this the spiritual leader cares nothing at all.

He burns for ONE THIING, he cares for ONE THING,

he lives for ONE THING and that ONE THING is to please God                                                     

and to advance His glory.

                                                                        By JC RYLE

We are in a WAR

HGC Men’s fellowship + paintball game – 17^TH Sept 2012

PAINTBALL GAME - a war game

For most of us this is the first time we are in a paintball game.

We learned many precious lessons – practical and painful lessons.

Firstly jokingly I told the gang – please don’t shoot me, I am the pastor. They all started laughing and said WE WILL SURELY SHOOT YOU! THE BATTLEFIELD IS NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS. We must realise that we are in a battlefield – we are at war!

The Battlefield was fierce – I got shot many times. At one time I grasped the flag and ran back – and they shot my back – it was painful. At other times I got shot on my head, on my arms, on my face mask, on my leg etc. If it is real bullets I would have died many times. I still have a blue black mark on my arm.

We need to have our whole armour on!

The real bullets can kill.
We need to fight as a team. We’ll be dead in no time if we fight alone.

We must have a clear strategy to win. Every soldier must be clear what they are to do. If he is attacking, he must do his part well. If he is defending, he must cover his attacking team well. Etc.

We must be fit.

2 days after the game I’m feeling the pain in my muscles. We must have regular training to stay fit!

 

PRE-GAME TIME

In the pre-game time we had a time of Praise and worship. It was powerful, liberating, anointed and Christ exalting!  There was indeed a breakthrough as the men praised the Lord loud and free and also danced before the Lord!

 While worshipping I was reminded of Ps 29 – The voice of the Lord

The voice of the LORD is over the waters; The God of glory thunders; The LORD is over many waters.

⁴       The voice of the LORD is powerful; The voice of the LORD is full of majesty.

⁵       The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars, Yes, the LORD splinters the cedars of Lebanon.

⁶       He makes them also skip like a calf, Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox.

⁷       The voice of the LORD divides the flames of fire.

⁸       The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; The LORD shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh.

⁹       The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth, And strips the forests bare; And in His temple everyone says, "Glory!"

 

Man is made in the image of God – we ought to have a powerful voice like God too.

Man must not be silent.

When the world was void and without form – GOD SPOKE ORDER, DESIGN, PURPOSE  AND BEAUTY into being – Gen 1

God made man first before making woman because God wants man to lead out of a relationship with Him.

 The enemy’s plan to foil God’s plan for man is to silence man.

Adam was right beside Eve when the serpent tempted her – but he said nothing – he was silent. He didn’t say, “STOP it! God said NO! Don’t do it! We must not disobey God etc.”  He should have said something!

Today the devil is trying all out to stop man from speaking God’s will, God’s order, God’s word, counsel, judgment etc.

One area is that he is trying very hard to stop men’s praise and prayer; authoritative, bold, strong prayer.

And it is not just in the area of praise and prayer. Many men today are silent when they ought to speak up.

Many fathers say nothing about their children’s life – they don’t give their approval or objection – they don’t rebuke and neither do they affirm.

Because of that many young people today are insecure, lost and weak or they are simply fed up, frustrated and rebellious just to get attention.

They lack the strong father leader figure over their lives.

 God has a calling for man – to rule!

How are men supposed to rule?

One most vital area is to rule with their authoritative, decisive, strong, wise yet loving VOICE!

 If men say nothing, the devil moves in and speaks lies, deceptions, perversions, unrighteousness, accusations and all his evil schemes.

 Where do men start to move towards being a positive, strong, righteous voice for the Lord?

Let’s start with PRASING GOD for we are called to praise the Lord!

1 Pet 2:9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

 Praising God is powerful!

 Psalms 22:3

But You are holy, Enthroned in the praises of Israel.

 Praising GOD enthrones HIM.

That mean it dethrones everything else.

The enemy always seeks to dethrone God from our hearts.

In fact the WARFARE we are in is the battle of the heart – who is going to be the LORD of man’s heart – THE LORD HIMSELF or any other things. The devil wants us to enthrone self, money, power and lusts and he will tempt us to do that. Anytime we allow these things to be number 1 in our hearts we lose the battle and the devil wins. He subtly deceives us to put self-interest above God and if we fall for it – guess what? He wins and we are defeated.

 So men let us decisively with determination and zeal, in unity and in strength choose to PRAISE THE LORD with all our hearts, souls, mind and strength!

 And I know out of that the LORD will release into our hearts HIS STRENGTH, COURAGE, POWER, LOVE, WISDOM ….AND HEAVEN’S BACKING into our lives and we will be HIS VOICE ON EARTH – THAT WILL BRING HIS ORDER, HIS RULE, HIS BEAUTY TO EARTH!

 

Our special trip to Israel and Europe

Chin Nee and I celebrated this year, our 25th Wedding anniversary by taking this special trip to Israel and then hopping over to Switzerland from there to minister in Ps Daniel and Ruth's church and then as a BTW thing we also hop over to London to visit my sister Maggie and her husband Bill. We left on 7th march and arrived back safely on 2nd April. This was the longest time we were away from home.
When asked how our trip was, my answer was a resounding EXCELLENT!
The Lord was so good and gracious to us. We were very very blessed in everyway.
Israel
It was really awesome visiting the Bible Land. The Bible truly came alive.
I spent quote a lot of time in the night and morning reading the Bible concerning those places we visited or about to visit. The cities, the towns, the Sea of Galilee, the mountains, the rivers, the terrain, the plants, etc all came alive. The weather in that relatively small region is very diverse. It can be very cold in Jerusalem and very hot in the dead sea area at the same time. That's because the dead sea is 1388 feet below sea level. The sea of Galilee is 712 feet below sea level and is the lowest fresh water lake in the world. I had the experience of Baptising some Christians on this trip in the River Jordan, like John the Baptist. Now when I read the Bible these places have special meaning. The ruins in Ceasarea was spectacular. You can't imagine the kind of civilisation 2,000 years ago. Today it is just ruins. BUT THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST IS EVER EXPANDING TODAY!
Jordan
We visited some parts of Jordan too and it is so disctinctly different from Israel. Most of Jordan is wilderness but Israel is a land flowing with milk and honey. Moses led the Israelites through the dry, parched, uninhabited wilderness for 40 years. We can see clearly that the Israelites could never have survived without the PILLAR OF CLOUD BY DAY (They would have been scorched to death by the hot sun) or the PILLAR OF FIRE BY NIGHT (They would died of cold or being attacked by wild animals).

Switzerland
We had a most blessed us time in Switzerland. We had beautiful snow for 2 days and then the other days were all sunny, blue sky and just beautiful. The ministry in Ps Daniel's church, Hope of Glory Switzerland, was wonderful. The members were very hungry for God. The Lord's was present to bless His people there. It is a very good work and the need is great.

London
We flew over to London to visit my sister Maggie and her husband Bill. They are a very godly and loving couple. They showed us wonderful hospitality and it was really a great blessing to get to know them much better. They are in Salisbury, about 2 hours by road from London city. It is a peaceful city with beautiful countryside plains. We enjoyed our 3 nights and 2 full days there.

Germany
After getting back from London to Switzerland we ministered in Ps Daniel's church dedication service. It was a very powerful time as the Lord spoke clearly about His call for this church.
The following week Ps Daniel drove us to Germany to visit a place call the Black Forest. We stayed 2 nights in a lovely hotel in a place called Titisee where there is a beautiful lake.

All in all it was a superb trip for our Silver Wedding Anniversary.
All thanks, praise and glory to our Lord Jesus!
Lord you are so good to us!

Wage the Good warfare!

We are in a war!
Often we say it is a spiritual war as though it doesn't affect other areas of our lives. But the spiritual affects all other areas. In fact the spiritual is first and then the physical. So we are in a war battling for souls for eternity.

In 1 Tim 1:18-19 This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, 19 having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck

One of the most important gift that God has given man is the conscience.
What is conscience?
The following story by Theodore parker illustrates it very well.
" I saw a little spotted turtle," he writes, " sunning itself in the shallow water. I lifted the stick in my hand to kill it; for though I had never killed any creature, yet I had seen other boys, out of sport, destroy birds, squirrels and the like, and I had a disposition to follow their example. But all at once something checked my little arm, and a voice within me said, clear and loud, ' It is wrong.' I held my uplifted stick in wonder at the new emotion, till the turtle vanished from sight." I hastened home and told the tale to my mother, and asked what it was that told me it was wrong. She wiped a tear from her eye, and taking me in her arms, said, ' Some men call it conscience, but I prefer to call it the voice of God in the soul of man. If you listen and obey it, it will speak clearer and clearer, and always guide you right; but if you turn a deaf ear or disobey, then it will fade out little by little, and leave you in the dark without a guide. Your life my son depends on heeding that little voice.'"

Definitions of conscience
· The consciousness within oneself of the choice one ought to make between right and wrong. (Oxford)
· From a Christian perspective a conscience is all about having God’s standard in our hearts to guide us in how we conduct ourselves.
· Conscience is a group of laws in our hearts. Mankind has demonstrated that they know God’s principles. No matter if we know the Bible or not, we know we should not murder, steal, be jealous of other people, and generally not do the things that displease our Creator.
· A good conscience is one that allows me to look every person in the eye knowing that not one of them can point a finger and say, “You wronged me and you never tried to make it right”.

Then why do man made in the image of God do “beastly”, ungodly and wicked things? What happened to their conscience?

THE BIBLE SAYS THAT CONSCIENCE CAN....
seared – burned and destroyed with hot iron (1 Tim 4:2),
defiled – made corrupted by impurities and filth (Titus 1:15) and
weakened – a conscience that is seared and defiled and a conscience that has been filled with lies and wrong examples will be weak (1 Cor 8:7,10).

How can one’s conscience be weakened? If we keep seeing wrong things done around us we can accustom ourselves to it until what we consider as wrong become "acceptable". If our parents uses foul language, the children will soon follow and they have no shame feelings about it.

GOD’S WANTS OUR CONSCIENCE TO BE:
good - strong and healthy - 1 Tim 1:5, 19;
pure - cleansed and kept clean - 1 Tim 3:9 and
clear - void of offence towards God and men

CONSCIENCE CAN BE AWAKENED BY TRUTH:
John 8 :9. When Jesus spoke the truth; the men beginning with the oldest were convicted in their conscience of their own sins.
We need to constantly expose ourselves to the truth of God’s word to keep our conscience healthy and strong.

WAGE A GOOD WARFARE BY HAVING FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE: 1 Tim 1:18-19
We can’t fight against the devil if our conscience is pricking us or condemning us. The devil’s scheme is to defile, sear and weaken man’s conscience till he doesn’t know what’s right and wrong. Then he can easily tempt man to do the wrong things i.e. to sin against God and be destroyed.

What can we do to maintain a good conscience
§ Love truth & not compromise it
§ Please God
§ Live by God’s standard
§ Be sincere

CONCLUSION:
Let’s be like Paul who said in Acts 24:15,16 …I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men.

Don't ever bow to compromise; to fear; to self preservation.

Only bow to God and His Word; to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Poor People are more Compassionate and more Blessed

Recently the news of Yue Yue the 2 years plus baby who was ran over by a van and was ignored for 7 minutes by 18 passers by, shocked us all. How could human beings (in this case the Chinese people) be so heartless that they could totally ignore a critically injured baby by the road side right before their eyes.

Has the busyness of life in the city made cold hearts out of us. Notice I use "us" and not them. Before we point the finger and criticise the 18 people let us do some soul searching. Could we have done the same? Perhaps we are rushing to go to work, to an appointment or even to go home to take care of our family members at home. There could be a 101 reasons, right? As someone puts it, " we could have made the money but we have lost our hearts (the loving compassionate human hearts). Is progress, development and higher standards of living beneficial to us? Maybe to our physical comfort but I'm certainly doubtful about it's benefit to our souls/hearts.

In contrast I have a heartwarming story to tell.
Ten of us from our church went to India for a Mission Trip recently. We went to a small town about 10 hours drive from the city of Hyderabad. It is one of those poor towns where roads are bad and where everything seems so messy and dirty. You see cows strolling on the roads or resting right in the middle of the road. On top of that there are wild pigs like dogs running around, scavengering for food amidst rubbish thrown everywhere. There are lots of pedestrians and people on bicycles and motorcycles. On top of that cars are always honking.

On one of our trips on the road, the car in front just went past a junction and a motorcycle came out and hit the car and the riders fell to the ground. We exclaimed! But what amazed me was that almost immediately 6 to 10 people came from different direction to help to lift up the riders and the bike. The sight really left a deep impression in my heart. They just "dropped" whatever they were doing to come to aid. I know that these people were the "poor" people of a small town in India. But they were "real" human beings. They have compassion. They are helpful. They are caring.

In this Mission trip we were serving the villagers. They live in simple small one room thatched roofed houses. When we preached the Good News to them, they responded enthusiastically and many (numbering above thousands) lifted their hands to receive Jesus into their hearts. In the last night I preached a message on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and many responded and came forward to ask the Lord to fill them with the Holy Spirit. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to pray in the heavenly language.

No wonder Jesus declared in Luke 6:20-21
"Blessed are you poor, For yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now, For you shall be filled."

Be saved from this perverse generation

Acts 2:40
And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation.

Most people don't know that they are in danger. In danger of being harmed, being cheated, being stolen from and even being destroyed.

We know that Jesus is the Messiah, the Saviour and Deliverer.
But we don't know what we need to be saved from or delivered from.

We are living amidst a perverse or crooked generation.
Lying, cheating, being selfish, being greedy, being lustful is part and parcel of life. Most people can't beat this kind of lifestlye so what do we do. We join them. And we think it is OK. We think that nothing will happen. There will be no consequences. We think that we won't reap what we sow.

We really believe that nothing will happen and we go on living in sin.

But surely God is not mocked.
Surely what we sow we shall reap.
Surely judgment will come.

And we who are in the light of the truth about God and the Gospel must be convinced of this truth. And we must be so convicted that we will stand for this truth and we will also TESTIFY & EXHORT with many words to people who are ignorant, who are deceived, who don't care BECAUSE WE BELIEVE AND WE CARE!

We will do it in the name of Jesus because HE GAVE HIS LIFE ON THE CROSS to save us from this perverse generation that will come under judgment if they do not BELIEVE AND ACCEPT WHAT HE HAS DONE FOR THEM.

Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes