Was feeling very discouraged now... had just tried to help a friend of mine with one of his concern, but had seemingly failed... The thing is that it had became a norm for me to read any passage in the context, so when he gave me a passage from Thess, and told me his revelation from God... I told him what the passage meant in its context, and hence what should be its application. His question was not answered in a way... he mentioned he felt stumbled in a way when what he wants is an assurance that what he understanded is from God, and I just told him that God speaks clearly to us through the bible. He mentioned that he wants to speak to God....
I am deeply distressed after the MSN conversation, probably using MSN is not a good mean to bring my msg across..., my brother felt stumbled in the end... I started to doubt my stand... is what I am doing -- guarding the gospel, edify ppl or stumble ppl in the end? Ppl no longer want gospel alone, bible alone, Christ alone.... ppl wants more... more experiences, more standards, more spirituality... yet there is this one small group of boring ppl, making every effort to teach and rebuke and correct according to the Scripture alone, Christ alone. And apparently, I am in this minority. It is not easy to hold fast to the word of truth... especially when ppl feel that they can't relate to you, because they know ur standard answer is bible bible bible. Now with a friend saying that he is stumbled by what i'd said, it weaken me even more....
As I almost make a decision to be more "open", when I came across Chin Cher's site. I opened the mp3 of Chris Chia's sermon on God's Worker (2 Tim), and before long, my face was soaked in tears. The things that P. Chris said, is what I'm going thru every now and then. Every word he said, every letter I read from the bible, strengthed my heart, firming my stand in Christ. I wants to be God's workman... faithfully handle the word He had entrusted. Pray that I still can be strong despite of any adversity, for I am like Timothy, trained but timid... very timid.
Before I end this entry, allow me to thank God and the Holy Spirit in encouraging me. And if you have the time, do listen to the sermon if you'd not. Let me encourage you too, to be a faithful workman of the Lord, for we can be workman to the church, the congretation, the people, but unless we run the race according to the rule, we will be disqualified-- unless we work in God's way, we are not workman of God. And God's way is Christ, and Christ alone.
1 comment:
Hey, huiqing! I wasn't stumbled by you k? what I meant by 'that's not what I expected' was that my question wasn't about the meaning of the verse in context. You see, what happened was that I was praying for something, then I just felt God tell me to read Thess 4. Then I read V9-11, and thought that that was what God was trying to say to me, that I should love those around me, but not get too involved. I wasn't sure if it was in context of the chapter, but I felt that if it was along the same lines as what the rest of the bible teaches, then it's also valid. You explained to me the meaning with the context, so it answered me by telling me that it's out of context, so I was asking the other question, whether the revealation agrees with God's character or the Gospel, because I believe that as long as one of these 2 conditions are met, then it's safe to believe it.
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