Thailand 2012!
If anyone wants a letter, let me know here or schang43@gmail.com.
There will probably be one or two blog posts leading up to it, but if you want the actual letter, I’d be more than happy to give it to you :]
If anyone wants a letter, let me know here or schang43@gmail.com.
There will probably be one or two blog posts leading up to it, but if you want the actual letter, I’d be more than happy to give it to you :]
9 And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent,10for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.”11 And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.
-Acts 18:9-11
If today, you fear the repercussions, the persecution, the awkwardness of proclaiming the Gospel, hear the command, and the encouragement, of Almighty God: Do not be afraid, go on speaking, for I am with you, and I have many in this city who are my people. What a ridiculous encouragement from God; it gives us an unwavering confidence in His sovereignty. There are people in this city, on this campus, that He has chosen, and the way He will get them is by your speaking. So, proclaim the gospel to all creation!
Holy Spirit, give us boldness to proclaim the greatest news in all of history — Jesus Christ has endured death that many might have life!
60
12 (or 13?)
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5
25
125
625
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9360
46800.
Studying 23 verses in Matthew 13 with community… for 3 hours. It flew by. It was fun, exhilarating, contemplative, confusing, illuminating, and reflective all into one. Looking forward to more. Why do we not study the Word in community more?
Paradigmatic shift in why and how we need to seek Jesus out in His word, and why and how we are to give out His word to everyone around us. What a privilege it is to have him.
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“For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
“It’s not going to be ‘business as usual’ for the church anymore,” he added. “We are experiencing increasing shakings all around the world; this is a prelude to the greatest ingathering into God’s Kingdom we have ever seen. The time is now! It is imperative we plan and work together to see the Great Commission completed.”
-Mark Anderson, from Fulfilling the Great Commission
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Edit:
Can I just add on top of this, that if this is true and the Great Commission can be completed in our lifetimes and even possibly the next decade, how exactly does that change the course of your life? Engaging in global mission doesn’t affect your salvation, but it is the heart of God.
If this is true, would it make sense to have career plans? To save money to put in your retirement plan? If this is true, beyond the urgency that is already implicit in the Great Commission and throughout Scripture, IT MIGHT GET DONE BEFORE YOU EVEN GET IN THE FIGHT.
Would it even make sense to plan out your future as you would have it, as to what you aspire, or would you give every inch and cent and drop of sweat to making the Gospel known? Gospel theology necessitates urgent missiology. OH, AND BY THE WAY, IT MIGHT GET FINISHED IN YOUR LIFETIME.
Strip away your conceptions and preferences of Christianity and obey the call of Christ to make disciples of all nations. It is unequivocally a part of Scripture, and our response as his disciples is to give our lives to that call.
This morning, I woke up to pray and everything that I had to do this week was bouncing around in my head. Scatterbrained, overwhelmed, thoughts upon thoughts upon responsibilities and worries.
And then He said:
“I am with you.”
“I am with you.”
“I am with you.”
Three times. And there was peace.
Today, if you are overwhelmed and unable to do, fulfill, rest, complete, work, obey — trust in his amazing, unbreakable promise: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” And He will surely give you whatever you need; He does not withhold any good thing.
Sometimes, there is a great fear in me.
I fear that my life will not bear fruit, will not make disciples, will not be worthy to persevere to the end.
If I based my ability to persevere to the end and to actually do something worthwhile for His kingdom on my track record, I’d have to say — I wouldn’t make it. I see the warnings in Scripture, and sometimes, I’m scared. What in me inspires any confidence? I repeatedly, repeatedly, disobey him, sin against him, pursue all things other than Jesus. And I am tragically unable, tired, failing, and falling short.
Sometimes I wonder why God’s plan for our redemption and sanctification had to be so dang hard. Like, why couldn’t we just stop sinning and obey perfectly at the moment of our conversion and regeneration?
And there’s just this.. discontentedness, this frustration in me — “If Jesus has paid for all my sin, why do I keep on sinning?” And, “If the power of the Spirit is in me, why doesn’t my life produce more fruit?”
Why couldn’t following Jesus just.. be easy?
But this is the way that the Father chose. Because of our sin, life and salvation would inevitably be hard. No, even more than hard, it would be impossible. For all our suffering and works and religion, we would never have a way to salvation, never have a way to life.
And yet, on our behalf, Jesus suffered. So that we may have perfect righteousness, he was tempted. So that we may have salvation, he took on wrath. So that we may have life, he was crucified.
So much of what I believe following Jesus to be is a false gospel. We don’t earn His favor by working hard, we inherit it as sons. Because we are His sons, we obey our Father’s commands. We don’t obey His commands to become His sons. Jesus modeled perfectly what it looked like to obey the Father’s commands. Our identity is not in what we do, but in what he has already done for us.
Following Jesus will be a lifelong struggle with sin, with the world, with our own selves. If we are truly his disciples, we are promised suffering, trials, and persecution. But we stand on the foundation of the Gospel: for it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.
Christian, if today, you are tired, discouraged, and despairing, know this: the God that first saved you has not forgotten you, and is continually saving you. He is not unjust to forget the sacrifice of His Son on your behalf, and to you is promised all the inheritance of the Father. You cannot earn His favor — it is given to you. Rest in His promises to save you, to give you life and peace and joy and all of His own presence.
Would the truth of the Gospel and the promises of His goodness be enough to encourage us, to persevere us, to press us on toward the advancing of His Kingdom. God, we need you! Give us more of your presence and your Holy Spirit! Jesus, help us — transform our fear into faith in you.
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“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
“‘Not called!’ did you say? ‘Not heard the call,’ I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help… Stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face—whose mercy you have professed to obey—and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.”
It took me 8 months to re-learn what following Jesus meant, and in 2 weeks, that has all been flipped on its head.
I’m still learning.
But a few things are sticking. And they’re showing themselves to be true and they are messing me up. I have experienced more of God in the last 2 weeks than I can remember in any such time period.
A few people wiser than me (see: 150,000 churches in less than a decade) figured these things out first — I’m just doing what they are saying and trying to be obedient to the One that reveals all things.
1. The commands of Jesus are simple.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.
Everyone knows these right? But how are you with doing this? His commands are simple — we just convolute them and dilute them. We know that we’re supposed to read our Bibles and pray unceasingly and preach the Gospel and serve the church and live in community and love the poor and make disciples. These things are straightforward. Not at all easy, but simple and clear. They are just.. undeniably in the Scriptures.
But we are unable to do them. Or we put other things ahead of these commands Jesus has given us. And we make excuses with Christian interpretation and discussion and by saying we don’t understand the Scriptures, but really we just haven’t taken the time to study them. There is something that we don’t believe about Jesus and his words, that they aren’t trustworthy or he isn’t worth it.
We have convoluted the commands of Jesus with discussion, and diluted them with excuses and priorities. The commands are simple — and we are called to obey them.
2. The Gospel is the ongoing power of God for salvation.
But the whole reason we needed Jesus in the first place was because of this — we couldn’t obey God. We were sinners, rebels, unrighteous, haters of God, despisers of His Word, filthy, exchanging the truth of God for a lie, exchanging the glory of God for created things. We weren’t able to follow God, to earn our salvation, to live rightly.
And God knew this from the creation of the world. He so loved us that He sent His Son Jesus for us, and he became flesh and dwelt among us. He lived righteously, without sin, bringing the Kingdom of God to a world of darkness.
And he died. He took on the full wrath of God on our behalf, as a payment for the penalty of our sins. Jesus took away all our sin, all our shame, all guilt, all condemnation, all accusation, all blame, all confusion, all lies, all of our trying to earn salvation on our own.
“You don’t have to work for my favor, and you haven’t squandered my blessing.”
We’ve grown up in a Christian culture that says, “Accept Jesus and be saved!” and then turns and tells us to obey the Law. How many times have you been told to try harder, give better, sacrifice more?
Stop trying to earn your way to Jesus, but believe in what he has earned for you.
We continually need the Gospel preached to us, in community, to our hearts, precisely because we can’t live everything out perfectly. We continually need the Gospel! The commands of Jesus were given to us to bring us closer to God and give us joy, not to force begrudging submission.
You will fail! It’s guaranteed. But look to the one who took on your failings — and triumphed over them. In him, we have victory. It’s guaranteed! Jesus has already done it all for us, and it frees us to risk and pursue him without the burden of failure.
3. We need the Holy Spirit to follow Jesus.
This is such a crucial part of following Jesus that we’ve all been missing out on. To believe in the Gospel and to follow Jesus IS to live by the Spirit! It doesn’t even make sense to try fulfilling spiritual commands without the help of a Spiritual power.
Everything that we are to do as disciples of Christ is by the work of the Holy Spirit. Really, everything. If we don’t have him, how can we expect any fruit from our ministry or our lives?
How do we get more of him? Pray. Pray and ask him, and he’ll come. Without him, we don’t have a chance to succeed at anything. With him, nothing is impossible.
We’ve been given a huge mandate, a task, a responsibility as Christians. Bring the Gospel to all the nations. It’s an impossible mission without the Spirit. But by his power, we could see it finished in our lifetimes. Just… crazy to even think about. God, by your grace, let us see the end.
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Knowing the Gospel begs the question: are we content with having “good,” Christian lives and trying to fit in religion where it’s convenient? Or do we want to see the full power and presence of the living God, transforming hearts, birthing movements, and changing nations?
Jesus promised that we would do even greater works than his — and it is happening in our generation, all across the world. Radical, life-surrendering obedience seems so far away, but I think that Jesus is able to bring us there, and that he wants to. A few things that I think will bring us closer:
Following Christ isn’t weekend religion or half-hearted facades of filling quotas or even circles of futility. It’s sacrificial, Spirit-powered, Gospel-focused obedience. My prayer is that God would give this generation a hunger for him that results in faithful obedience. And we’d see the world changed, and even come to an end, because of his transforming work in their lives. Would the glory of God be known among all the nations!
“Shortly after I became a Christian, someone wrote in the flyleaf of my Bible these words:
‘This book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book.’
That was true then, and it’s still true today. Dusty Bibles always lead to dirty lives. In fact, you are either in the Word and the Word is conforming you to the image of Jesus Christ, or you are in the world and the world is squeezing you into its mold.”
-Howard D. Hendricks
