Fellowship of suffering

How can I love a person if I do not even know the hurts she carry? Even for myself, I feel closest n most loved by ppl who know my pains, hurts n struggles. Ppl who walked with me thru the desert, who have seen my tears n know the stories of the tears. ppl who did not merely give me cliche answers or counsel, but gave themselves to soothe the pain, gave me their precious time to understand n share in my hurts n struggles.

Indeed the easiest way to truly feel love for a person, esp an irritating person, is thru their hurts n pains. Somehow, their hurts illuminate their humanity, n bond us as fellow pilgrims of Life.

Similarity, God reaches us to us in n thru our pains, thru the same pains He Himself went thru. Truly, fellowship of suffering. Do not forget my experiences, hurts n scars. Use them to reach out to others. Use them to keep me always tender n sensitive to the pains n humanity of others. Use them to bring them into the fellowship of suffering of Christ.

Romans 8:16

from today's Daily Bread verse:

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. – Romans 8:16 (NIV)

How do we know that we are accepted by God? For the person who struggles with this, take heart: the very struggle can be a sign that the Spirit is dealing with you, and if the Spirit is dealing with you, this is a sign of being a child of God. We equate living a certain way with our acceptance, but the Scripture tells us another story. As we surrender to Jesus Christ with all of our faults, He sends His Spirit to perfect us. So both the sense of peace and struggle testify to being an heir with Christ. It is dullness and apathy that we should be concerned about.

My faith

Do I know anything with any certainty?
Frankly, all I have is my faith.
When all else goes, all that's left is Faith.
A faith that gives birth to Hope.
A faith that draws strength from Love.

Unique experiences

At a big Christian bookstore yesterday, somehow it just came to me how many Christian books there really are... even on similar topics.

I was thinking about this sheer number of books... and it occurred to me that perhaps this is the by-product of having a relational God who relates to each one of us uniquely, in accordance to who we are. And such experiences are so wonderful that we can't help but want to share with the rest of the Body of Christ, or even the world. Thus, so many different books but yet each varying in differing degrees of differences from each other.

(Part 4) Walking Slowly

(Part 4) Walking Slowly

God never wastes a hurt. His hands are not tied. And He delights in redeeming that which was broken and lost. I am not saying that everything always works out the way we want it too. But what I am saying is that no matter what we go through, God is faithful to go through it with us. And through it, makes us into who He wants us to be.

How God calls

extracted from Desiring God
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ponder how God calls people from one line of work to another. It is astonishing that in Acts 13:47, when Paul gives the basis for his call to the gentiles, he does not refer to the Damascus Road experience. He refers to Isaiah 49:6:

For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.”

This is amazing, not only because he does not refer to his first encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road, but also because this command in Isaiah 49 is not addressed to Paul but to the Servant of the Lord. And that Servant is Israel in Isaiah 49:3, and is the Israel-embodying Messiah in verse 49:5.
But Paul hears a life-altering word—a call, a commission—to himself personally in Isaiah 49:6.
That is how God does it. Many experiences in our life come together under God’s providence, and then there is a point—a flashpoint, a watershed moment—when something in the Bible becomes overwhelmingly personal to us. God has spoken to us! A call has happened. Our life is forever altered.

His Faithfulness

Alone and overwhelmed
At the foot of the cliff I stand
Up I crane my neck and eyes
At the towering structure I'm to scale

Unsure I can do it
So inadequate I suddenly feel
It's so much more than I had imagined
Who am I to conquer and fight

Back I turned
Past Jordan to the land I came
The dry and desolate desert that I walked
Suddenly that felt so much better

The familiar as I longed
Yet in the sands I suddenly saw
The marks of the journey that I made
More importantly the story that they tell

Pairs of footprints that I saw
One so firm and other skittery light
At times the skittery becomes a drag
Yet the other always stout

Intermittently only the firm remains
And I remembered those are the times
When I couldn't go on and just collapsed
And God took me in His arms carrying me through

Eyes back to the cliff front of me
Still small but reassured
For I am weak but He is strong
And never forsake me is His word

Trustingly I start the climb
Drawing strength from the One who ascend with me
Having faith in the One belaying me
Focusing solely on the One waiting and encouraging me

Past the desert not Promised Land
But Jericho awaits with threats and arms
Yet not by might nor by power
But by the Spirit of God

What Does Leadership Mean?

What Does Leadership Mean?

Leadership means being lower than all, washing their feet, being their “servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. 4:5).

It means preferring others, furthering their causes, seeking their good, encouraging their growth, bearing their evil (as long as it does not corrupt others), being gentle and humble—doing for others what God Himself has done for us.

It means leading by persuasion, reason, and proclamation of the Word of God, rather than by personal mandate and ultimatum. We cannot dictate or demand. We can only declare.

And then, when all is said and done, we should forget what we have done. We should acknowledge that, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty” (Luke 17:10).

But never fear: We’ll never lose out by so losing ourselves. Servitude is the basis of true significance. “The great leader is seen as a servant first, and that simple fact is the key to his greatness,” as Robert K. Greenleaf said. No one in this world is taken lightly who cares for others and who lightens their load.

If we’re growing in grace and faithfully using our gifts, we’ll be influencing others toward God, whether we know it or not, and, after all, having the ability to influence others toward God is what leadership is all about.

The Faith to Persevere

The Faith to Persevere

Because you have kept My command to persevere . . . —Revelation 3:10

Perseverance means more than endurance— more than simply holding on until the end. A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, but our Lord continues to stretch and strain, and every once in a while the saint says, “I can’t take any more.” Yet God pays no attention; He goes on stretching until His purpose is in sight, and then He lets the arrow fly. Entrust yourself to God’s hands. Is there something in your life for which you need perseverance right now? Maintain your intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the perseverance of faith. Proclaim as Job did, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).

Faith is not some weak and pitiful emotion, but is strong and vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. And even though you cannot see Him right now and cannot understand what He is doing, you know Him. Disaster occurs in your life when you lack the mental composure that comes from establishing yourself on the eternal truth that God is holy love. Faith is the supreme effort of your life— throwing yourself with abandon and total confidence upon God.

God ventured His all in Jesus Christ to save us, and now He wants us to venture our all with total abandoned confidence in Him. There are areas in our lives where that faith has not worked in us as yet— places still untouched by the life of God. There were none of those places in Jesus Christ’s life, and there are to be none in ours. Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.

The Patience To Wait for the Vision

The Patience To Wait for the Vision

Patience is not the same as indifference; patience conveys the idea of someone who is tremendously strong and able to withstand all assaults. Having the vision of God is the source of patience because it gives us God’s true and proper inspiration. Moses endured, not because of his devotion to his principles of what was right, nor because of his sense of duty to God, but because he had a vision of God. “. . . he endured as seeing Him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27). A person who has the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue— he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it. Things come to you with greatness and add vitality to your life because everything is energized by God. He may give you a time spiritually, with no word from Himself at all, just as His Son experienced during His time of temptation in the wilderness. When God does that, simply endure, and the power to endure will be there because you see God.

“Though it tarries, wait for it . . . .” The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have already grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. The psalmist said, “What shall I render to the Lord . . . ? I will take up the cup of salvation . . .” (Psalm 116:12-13). We are apt to look for satisfaction within ourselves and say, “Now I’ve got it! Now I am completely sanctified. Now I can endure.” Instantly we are on the road to ruin. Our reach must exceed our grasp. Paul said, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on . . .” (Philippians 3:12). If we have only what we have experienced, we have nothing. But if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of spiritual relaxation.