Fought a Good Fight

I thank the Lord that over 110 people (30 unbelievers) signed up to come to our Aug 18, 2007 BBQ and Movie Night, sponsored by CSAF. It was a hot summer day, but we were grateful for the cool air-conditioning inside the MPB gymnasium. The OJ Tea Station (OJTS) continued to operate at its usual spot, but this time under 90 degree outdoor heat. The sweaty faces of OJTS staff and helpers (Philip, Stanley, Pearl, Chris, Covinna, etc.) were visible. Bless their hearts! We whole-heartedly appreciated their cool and refreshing herbal tea very very much.

Though 8 unbelievers dropped out at the last minute due to car problems, personal travel, unforeseen obligation, etc., the workers prayed fervently in hope of a decent turnout that night. My heart sank a little, but was immediately lifted up by a sister's prayer who reminded us once again that we were doing this in God's name. God has His own timing and working.

CSAFers collaborated the best we can (along with some badminton friends, even unbelievers): setting up MPB, cranking up the BBQ grills, chopping food in the kitchen, battling with the audio-visual technology, warming up the initial icy atmosphere with songs and games, etc. We pressed on but quietly prayed that not too many needed to leave the premise early. God indeed answered our prayer. Except for a few who left midway during the movie, most guests decided to stay.

The C.S. Lewis movie, The Chronicle of Narnia, laid the groundwork for a spiritual discussion, while Minister Joshua did a fine presentation of the gospel, distinguishing the good from the evil. Though there were no visible fruits during the altar call, we are confident that some mustard seeds were planted firmly in the hearts of good soil.

Let's continue praying for a measurable harvest during our future follow-up opportunities to bless His heart the best we can. Amen!

Happiness is Bearing Fruits

Life is purpose-driven by bearing fruits for the glory of God. The more fruits you bear, the happier you will be. What a simple formula!

Paster Ken Yee asked today in his sermon: "Is your tree of life bearing no fruit, some fruits, or much fruits?" I'd like to add on one more aspect: Is your fruit inspiring to those who may have no fruit or some fruits?"

How I pray that the Badminton and OJ Tea Station will bear much fruits. Lord, for your name's sake, would you please somehow attract 40 non-believers to come to the Aug 18 BBQ? In Jesus Name, Amen!

Have Christ, Be Happy

1-Free heart ... LET GO.

2-Byebye worries ... THINK HOPE.

3-Live simply ... TOSS STUFF.

4-Give more ... TELL NOBODY.

5-Expect less ... SMILE ANYWAY.

6-Treat nicely ... BUY FLOWER.

7-Sleep well ... DREAM DREAMS.

Prayer and Castle in the Clouds

In Henri Nouwen's classic prayer handbook "With Open Hands", he trained his sharp 'life-microscope' onto five critical aspects of prayer: Silence, Acceptance, Hope, Compassion, and Revolution.

My eyes just could not leave the chapter on "Prayer and Hope" when Nouwen insightfully described the importance of the Hope element within our prayers, whether they are for Thanksgiving, Praise, or Petition to God All Mighty.

Without hope in God's eternal kingdom, everything we experience now here on earth by faith will be just castle in the clouds. Thank God for the beauty of clouds. He definitely had a hand behind the castle in the sky.

Mom, Remembered

Dear Mom,
The hardest word for me to say is goodbye.
Tears of sadness bathe our face as your children survey your silent face.

We stood by your final resting place where Dad lies.
Clouds hovered over us as rain mixed with our tears.
The farewell never seems to ease, nor does our churning heart subside.

This is our final goodbye, though we hate to let you go.
Some days we will meet again. But this I am sure you already knew.

Your Little Son,
Tak

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

Mending Wall - by Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Listen Online: http://robertfrostoutloud.com/MendingWall.html

(For better living: Ask the Holy Spirit to heal our wall.)

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun,

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows?

But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down. ' I could say '. Elves' to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Greyhound and Rabbit

What might make you stop and think about what it is you should be doing with the days and years ahead, what it is that is worth all your heart, all your might and all your soul? The following story may make you think.

Once upon a time there was a man who was involved in adopting retired greyhounds. As each new greyhound came to his shelter he would ask the same questions, curious about why the elegant and swift dog stopped racing. The man inquired of the greyhound,

“Why are you not running any more? Are you not as fast as you used to be?’

“No,” the greyhound responded, “that is not the reason. I am just as fast now as I always was. I continue to win all my races.”

“Well, then, were you not making enough money for your owner?’

“No, actually with each race the money I brought in for my owner increased. He became very wealthy because of me.”

“Did you stop racing then because you were not getting enough press?”

“No, that was not the problem. I was quite famous. I was getting plenty of press. When I raced I was on the front page of every sports section.”

“I don’t understand,” the man responded. “Why did you stop running?’

“Because I discovered that the rabbit I was chasing wasn’t real.”

Everyday we need to make lots of decisions about what is worth pursuing- perhaps it will be a career, a relationship, perhaps we will chase health or wealth, or all of the above. What will truly merit our time? What is lasting? What’s real? How do we decide?

Perhaps we can stop chasing the rabbit that isn’t real, and discover the passion within us.

Everyone of us holds a part of someone else’s story, just as someone will hold a part of ours. Each of us carries a piece of the puzzle of life’s meaning. You will recognize this piece that belongs to you and you alone, if you do not let what doesn’t really matter distract you, if you discover what is your passion, what makes your heart leap. You must hold on to that part of the puzzle with all your soul, as though your life depends on it, because it does.

In each of our lives, there is at least one missing piece and the only way to find it is in others. Our goal is to seek those others as if our life depends on it, because it does. We can’t solve complex math problems without the help of a calculator.

Remember that all things in our lives that we spend so much of our time and energy creating are built on sand. It is only our relationships to others that endure.

Sooner or later, a wave will come and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up. It will just vanish. When that happens, when life knocks us down, when we don’t get what we think we deserve, only those of us who have somebody else’s hand to hold will be able to stand up again.

Sometimes the harshness of life, its disappointments, its pain, it unfairness leave us speechless. Sometimes personal circumstances turn us into despair. But if we know what is our passion, what makes our heart leap; it will carry us through those inevitable times of disappointment and uncertainty.

Don’t pursue success and happiness as ends in themselves; like the greyhound chasing the rabbit, we will inevitably be disappointed. It may fill our time and our pockets, but it won’t fill our soul. We will be busy, but we won’t be fulfilled.

True success and happiness are by-products of doing what it is God loves, what moves us in the very depths of our soul.

Be part of, and contribute to outreaching to someone who needs God. Remember what matters; what lasts; remember what is real. I invite you to join me in pouring our heart and soul into the Badminton Outreach Ministry. Its mission is: "Have Life Abundantly (John 10:10)". I have no doubt that its fruitful harvest will be both real and lasting. Through life, we all need God.

The Amazing Tree of Life

Thankfully
Refreshing
Endless
Eternity

= TREE

Faith and Hope

Faith insists that the victory is now.

Hope assures that victory will come.

Often time, we are too shallow to lose faith, and too narrow to dim hope.

May God find us faithful and hopeful until Christ returns.

A Place to Be

At the edge of the endless sea, your heart pumps slower. . . your eyes see farther. . . your ears hear deeper. . . your mouth smiles wider. . . and your nose hmms lighter.

I'd rather wake up over there. Seriously.

Fruit of the Spirit

There are 3 clusters of fruit from the Spirit: (1) Love, Joy, Peace, (2) Patience, Kindness, Goodness, (3) Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-control. The first cluster is God-ward or upward, the second Heart-ward or inward, and the third Man-ward or outward. These clusters are all from God the Spirit, and not from human being whosoever. That is, no one can possibly manufacture any fruit of the Spirit. Where do they come from? The secret lies with the filling of the Holy Spirit. Being Spirit-filled means being totally controlled by the Holy Spirit in both our words and deeds. The more we ask God for the filling of the Spirit, the more likely we will harvest the fruit of the Spirit. Thank God, He won't give us rocks if we persist in our asking. The fruit will ripe into Christ-like characters which enrich our lives inside out. Yes, there is a sweet sweet Spirit in this place, only if you ask for His filling.

Tabernacle - M:i:3 - May 19 (Sat)

Mi3 will be a field trip to Getty Museum. We will do a treasure-hunt for every artifacts we learnt about God's ancient worship center in the Old Testament time. We will divide into small hunting groups to look for paintings, sculptures, crafts, etc. that are related to what were found in the Tabernacle revealed to Moses - altar, lampstick, seruphim, the ark of covenants, etc.

To reward ourselves for our hard-work, we plan to have lunch at Getty Cafe. So, take time to study the Tabernacle before the field trip.

Coordinator: Pearl & Covinna.

Tabernacle - M:i-2 - April 27 (Fri)

Mi2 will focus on our own personal Tabernacle - the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit - in every believer's heart. We will discuss some practical ways to manifest the Spirit for the common good in our daily life. We will discover how we can, optimistically, walk by the Holy Spirit, and pessimistically, try not to grieve and quench the Holy Spirit. Without a doubt, we all need the Holy Spirit's power to fan up our inner passion to live a God-pleasing life.

Fruit of Your Labor

The fruit of your labor is ONENESS among the whole congregation during the FCBC 55th Anniversary. Thanks to our badminton friend, Kathleen Chai, who captured this lively moment that afternoon, we can witness how EVERYONE was praising God together during CSAF’s performance.

Encore! May God be glorified!

Jesus - the Ultimate Eternal High Priest

In the Old Testament time, the Israelites depended on the Levitical High Priest to shoulder their sins (both transgressions and trespasses; intentional and unintentional) as he entered into the Holy of Holies to perform the ritual of sprinkling the blood of sacrifice onto the Mercy Seat, on the Day of Atonement year after year.

When Jesus finally came and died on the Cross, His precious and incorruptible blood was shed once and for all, not just to cover all sins of man, but to take away sins of the past, present, and future. Unlike the temporal atonement nature of animal blood, Jesus' blood has permanent reconciling impact. Unlike the blood from the imperfect world, Jesus' blood-line is divine --He was conceived by the Holy Spirit with 100% deity, yet he lived and breathed on the planet earth as 100% human for 33 years. He was sinless -- Although He could have sinned during Satan's temptation in the wilderness, Jesus, the Second Adam, passed His test with flying colors.

More importantly, Jesus is the Ultimate Eternal High Priest. On the Cross, He finished His 'impossible' mission and take away man's sins once and for all. And He is victorious, and is now interceding for all Christians at the right-hand side of God the Father every night and day. His salvation is free for everyone. But the power of His precious blood is only effective for everyone who accepts and believes in Him.

April's Group Meeting Topic: Our first Tabernacle study on March 23 provided a quick walkthrough of the Tabernacle building structure and its furniture. In April's group meeting, Part 2 will focus on our life-style applications of Tabernacle. We will discuss some practical ways to make God's Presence come alive in our daily life. Given that the Holy Spirit has already been dwelling within every Christian's heart in the New Testament church, how can we, either as a group or an individual, effectively magnify the Presence of God? May we all fan up our inner passion to live a God-pleasing life. Amen!

The Oracle of Pi

Pi a simple concept, the relationship between a circle's circumference and diameter: Multiply the diameter by pi — 3.14159 — and you get the circumference.

Supercomputers have computed pi to more than a trillion decimal places, looking always for a pattern to unlock its mystery. And for centuries the number has fascinated mathematicians.

And so is the secret locked in the Tabernacle, which was patterned after the one long existed in heaven. The striking difference is that God revealed the secret of Tabernacle Himself in minute details through the Scripture. And the details revealed in the chapters of Exodus are much more manageable than exerting our crude human brain power to memorize the infinite digits of pi.

In God, all thing is possible. In man, all thing is futile, unless spiritually discerned.

(Incidentally, today is March 14, the Day of Pi. The world record belongs to Chao Lu, a Chinese chemistry student, who rattled off 67,890 digits over 24 hours in 2005. It took 26 video tapes to submit to Guinness.)

Tabernacle : Decoding Mission Impossible

The Tabernacle (model shown) was architected by God Himself. When Moses ascended to Mount Sinai immediately after leading his people out of Egypt, he received two important sets of instructions directly from God: (1) the Law (i.e. the Ten Commandments), and (2) the Tabernacle (i.e. the Tent of Congregation).

After receiving the Law, the Israelites naively thought they could keep the law, out of their own strength. But in the book of Exodus, right between the chapters about the Law and those chapters discussing the Tabernacle design, the Israelites departed from God by worshipping their own man-made idol, the golden ox. Little did they know that it was an impossible mission in keeping the Law by their own strength.

Fortunately, God provided Jesus as the better way to deal with our sins. The Tabernacle is an object lesson for Israelites on God's salvation; it is a picture, type, and shadow of God's plan of salvation in Christ Himself.

Through studying the Tabernacle, we hope to see God's salvation plan with better clarity. As a personal application, let us reflect on how much we really desire God's presence every day. Dig deeper on this : If God departs from you one day, can you really tell?

Keeping the Unity of the Spirit

As I ponder upon my experience in keeping the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace (Eph 4:3), I see the picture of a multitude of Christians intertwining and forming the fabric of our lives. Everyone is striving towards a common goal - reconciliation with the Lord.

My related experience occurred during the critical vote for separating CSAF into two different fellowships - CSAF and CSYAF. Through this process, there were numerous town-hall meetings, heated debates and arguments, active group petitioning, etc. All in all, they reflected CSAFers' genuine concerns about the future of their fellowship.

Thank God, the vote that approved the separation was exactly 2/3 of the total memberships. No more and no less. God was indeed faithful. We peacefully evolved into two healthy and growing entities. It's all because of the unity inside the heart of every CSAFers - the Holy Spirit.

My Former College Roommate

At the 2007 CSAF Chinese New Year Celebration night, there was a new face half-way through the program. He was looking for the English-speaking fellowship group but failed to find any. So someone invited him to join our Chinese-speaking group. I didn't even recognize him at my first sight - he was my former college roommate at USC, who led me to Christ in our shared apartment. I was aesthetic to see him again. His voice remains pretty much the same tone and slow speed. He asked me directly, "Just what actually prompted you to accept Christ that night?" I replied, "I was all along ready to believe in Jesus ever since my high-school years. In His time, God sent you to come along to close the "deal" that evening. It's that simple." God is good. We will definitely have some reunion gatherings to catch up with one another's life. And I'm eager to exchange our spiritual growth stories since the day we departed after graduation. I pray that we can be edifying to one another. Amen!

Speaking the Truth in Love

Eph 4:15-16 says, "Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, ..., grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work." Recently, I tried to speak the truth in love, thinking that my words could build one another up. My words appeared to have back-fired; I was portrayed as needlessly spreading negativity. Nevertheless, I have peace in my heart. I also learned the proper principles for "speaking the truth in love": (1) the Contents must be True, (2) the Motivation must be Good, and (3) the Attitude must be Beautiful. What an unfathomable art in speaking the truth in love.

"A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver." - Proverbs 25:11 (NIV)