Working under Grace

God is faithful and by "holy coincidence" a coworker asked me if I am a Christian. He saw in my online work profile that I put the "bible" as my favorite book. He is a believer and invited me to a weekly prayer meeting where I met other brothers in Christ at work. It was really good because I really need the prayer support to handle the challenges at work, to be more productive and to share my faith. Apparently my coworker knows a past chairperson from CCF.

It was interesting when my co-worker was sharing during the prayer meeting that he is struggling with understanding grace, and that he is pushing himself too hard. While another person shared that he is experiencing a lot of grace but that he is in the border of slacking in spending time with God.

Coincidentally, I am reading Prayer - Does It Make Any Difference? by Philip Yancey, and he mentions the paradox of how we need to leave everything to God, but at the same time we need to do our homework in the Christian walk. This is very similar to a famous quote that says "pray as it all depends on God, and work as it all depends on you". I like how our faith is so full of paradoxes!

How do we connect the dots between God's grace and our works in our spiritual growth? It is very clear from Ephesians 2:8-9 that our salvation is given by grace through faith. But if faith does not produce works, then it is dead (James 2:17). It is dangerous in one end to abuse grace and use it as an excuse to not work hard in our spiritual life. At the same time it is also dangerous if someone focuses too much on works to forget grace.

This can be extrapolated to decisions between setting a rigorous schedule for spiritual activities to discipline myself... versus waiting upon spontaneous spiritual goodness prompted by God. I was catching up with a brother, and we're talking about how some leaders abuse the concept of being "Spirit-led" to neglect preparation. Jesus spend a lot of time praying and being alone with the Father so that He can be prepared for the works of His ministry. We concluded that the more we prepare is better because we will allow the Spirit to work more as we understand Him more.

Ultimately, the Spirit is the one who works in us to transform and enable us to do good works for God's purposes because everyone falls short of His glory (Rom. 3:23).  At the same time, we have to work hard in knowing God more and prepare ourselves so that the Spirit can do more in us. It is really His grace that allows us to do works for Him, because God chooses to use us to make His gospel known to others.

"... continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." - Philippians 2:12-13

In the bible we see characters doing many great feats, and some of us will like to accomplish big things. It starts with being faithful with little things in life, in working in your daily life, and God will add more and more. 

Rock Lee from Naruto is a character who lacks many talents in the ninja arts. He often see other talented ninjas who are considered genius, and he decides to strive to become strong like them. Since he lacks pretty much every skill, he focuses on training extremely hard in one skill that he is able to do (physical power). After intense training, he is able to fight on the same level as those who are considered genius because of his determination to work hard. And he is considered the "genius of hard work". Yeah, let's be genius in training hard for the Lord!

Jacky Chan shared with me this awesome mathematical formula relating faith, work, and salvation:

God is always good

No matter what I do, the mistakes I made, the times I choose to disobey Him, God always shows me that His grace is exceedingly abundant. In the moments that my trust shakes, God's providence comes.

That I can always come back to Him knowing that there is no condemnation for those in Christ (Romans 8:1). As sin abounds, grace abounds even more (Romans 5:20). It is all because of Jesus. How can I keep from singing His praise!!!



Praise the Lord that I am blessed with the opportunity to work in where I am.

the Gospel in the postmodern world

I recently watched a Tim Keller's sermon on the Desiring God's conference about the "Supremacy of Jesus Christ and the Gospel in the Postmodern World". It is very academic and heavily packed, but I enjoy how Tim Keller uses the book of Jonah to teach us some important points about sharing the gospel.

He mentions that now is much more difficult than a few hundred years ago to share the message of Christ because in the past most people did believe in the existence of God and in the bible. So a lot of the outreach events consisted of reminders and encouragements to pursue Christ. But in the postmodern world is more difficult because people don't trust in the bible and the concept of absolute truth is debatable. Tim Keller went even further to say that some evangelistical techniques such as the four spiritual laws might not suffice in today's challenges.

Definitely sharing the gospel is a difficult task, sometime scary. I tremble at times. But God commanded us and empowered us to do it. We know that it is not with human wisdom, but with the power of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 1:17, 1 Cor. 2:13) that the gospel is preached. This is a partnership that God uses us to make His message known to others, so let's pray for opportunities and also prepare ourselves so that we can be ready to share about the hope we have in Christ (1 Peter 3:15).

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." - Matthew 28:18-20

This is an example of a challenge that Christians can face in sharing the gospel in the postmodern world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfsljDzUuD0#t=7m00s .
(video is timestamped at 7m00s, watch till the end, but you can skip some parts when the elevator scene is interrupted)

I definitely enjoy the priest's use of words =).

Engage

One of the major lessons that I learned in the last 5 years (and I am still learning) is to engage.

Christianity is not just about a point in time when you decide to submit to the Lordship of Christ, but it is a lifelong journey of pursuing God and engaging in what He has prepared for you. My friend's post is full of truth as it is not only about avoiding sin, but it is to constantly run towards God.

I personally realized that it is so easy for me to feel complacent after learning many things while serving in CCF. The coop terms can be especially dangerous if I choose not to engage in doing God's work. It is not so much about "doing", but when I am doing things for the Lord I am often put in situations where I learn more about my faith, the Spirit develops gifts in me, a stronger character can be mold in me, and more importantly I am pushed to depend on God alone. Most of the spiritual growth I experienced have been due to God using me in ministering CCF and the people.

That is one reason why I love to ask people to serve, because serving does push me to know God more and grow spiritually. Serving also allows me to get to know more other brothers and sisters, to the point that I can develop with them a deeper connection (a partnership).

When I say engage, I don't mean that everyone has to be serving in an official role in fellowship or church. But to engage means to actively seek God and partner with Him in doing His work. Not everyone has to be in committee, nor serving in leadership. God will call each of us in whatever circumstances we are in, whether it's to minister to coworkers, classmates, homeless people. We are to respond to this calling.

There is a lot of danger as sometimes we can take serving and works as idols. There are two extremes I see in churches (especially Chinese ones), that people perceive Christian maturity proportional to the number of ministries involved, and the other side which prefers not to leave the comfort zone and thinks that serving are for those who are hardcore. There is definitely a Chinese issue of putting too much focus on the image and reputation, while it is also very Chinese to avoid confrontation and stay in the comfort zone. At the end of the day, serving is not about doing things as duty but an expression of God's love (1 John). So, if we are to do works without the proper reason, that it is useless (1 Cor. 13).

There is something called the bystander effect where people see a problem, but they rather not do anything because they think that someone else will fix it. If everyone thinks that way, then no one will step up. And that happens in CCF many times when people see a need, but they think someone else will fix it. A good friend of mine shared with me that "if you see a need, you are probably the best person to deal with it". Obviously, serving is not about fixing a need. But just as Nehemiah saw a big need in the Jerusalem to rebuild the walls, he was so broken to see the needs of his people that he cried out to God. The Lord opened the doors for him to address this need.

But whenever you engage in God's work, we are pushed to step out of our comfort zone and also inviting troubles. There are times when it can be tough, when trials and tribulations are along the way. Discouragement and exhaustion can come often. The beauty is that God puts you in tough situations, and He will provide what you need to go through it.

Christianity is not a static point that have reached a certain threshold, but it is a directional vector with a positive gradient (basically a continuously growing graph) towards God.

Engage.

"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
 - 2 Peter 5-8