Drafted since 2012-06-26
To a true believer of Christ, sanctification matters, i.e. he does not want to remain weak.
To get out of weaknesses once and for all, there is something that has to be kick-started or ignited first. This cannot be done from a human mindset. In fact, this cannot be done through resolution or courage of faith. We have to receive power from on high accurately and precisely. Let’s go back to find our original source of our identity.
When I read Ps 90, a psalm written by Moses, the man of God, my spirit was ignited to intercede for a few people in my mind.
1. Ps 90:1-6
When we believed in Christ, it might have seemed that we chose to believe in God. However, till now, I have not found a believer who says that he totally knew what is in stall for him so that he chose to submit to Christ. “Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus be cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.” <1Co 12:3>. The tone of our calling has no suspicion, a gentle call that is without obligations yet irresistible and irrevocable once heard into our heart.
If we have found some faults with ourselves, with believers or with the church, and we truly want to sanctify ourselves and also see all other believers sanctified and ministered, we have to go back to what the Lord says and seek the Lord. The Lord is alive and will hear.
Ps 90:1-6 says
1 Lord, You have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.
2 Before the mountains were born or You brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God.
3 You turn people back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
4 A thousand years in Your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.
5 Yet You sweep people away in the sleep of death – they are like the new grass of the morning:
6 In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered.
In my own case, I called out to the Lord in the year 1997 (where I was made a Sion Presbyterian Church Student Fellowship Chairman but with a heart that just could not accept myself as one because I could not see spiritual fruits from happening) for really going back to the Lord. At that time, I went to a few churches – charismatic and traditional/conservative. I tested and approved – all of which missed some marks somehow. I just could not be revived by them. At that time, I found Rev Stephen Tong to go back to the source with truth and power most closely. That is when I invested in the best media recorder I could find in the market at that time and bought a minidisc recorder, desiring to hear them again and again till my heart was “natured” to go the right way of God. I just could not just lead the Student Fellowship by worldly administration. I only recorded one message of Stephen Tong and my heart was totally turned to recording Missionary Leechull’s messages having the essence of the core truths and Spirit in the bible, and even above what I expected, again and again. The Lord is living and He really leads those who are upright for His kingdom. In your case, whatever you have gone through, God is alive. He can lead you to restart your life with total direction and passion, if you are totally upright about it, even right now.
Therefore, the first thing we must know is that there is nothing that we actually tried that the Lord has not formed. Everything is in the Lord’s hands. That is in Ps 90:1-6. He hears all our cries even if most part of it is out of weakness or motivated.
2. Ps 90:7-11
The second thing that we must know is in Ps 90:7-11: Who can stand the Lord’s judgement?
7 We are consumed by Your anger and terrified by Your indignation.
8 You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence.
9 All our days pass away under Your wrath; we finish our Years with a moan.
10 Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
11 If only we knew the power of Your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is Your due.
Our lives are full of ups and downs. We must know our short-comings, as in, our judgements are many times biased too. We have motives ourselves and are easily influenced by the environment. We might want to serve the Lord because our peers want to. We have feelings directed by the information we received from young. There is no one who can stand the Lord’s judgment if we judge. We need to judge it from God’s perspective. But how can we do so?
It does not mean escaping if you have an upright heart. Now,
1. If God is alive so that He hears and comes to us if we seek Him truly, yet
2. If we are mere men unable to discern, with criticisms totally under God’s sensitive wrath,
-> then if we put them together, He must have shown a narrow, almost hidden, yet most highly-priced and treasured way out for us to live, breathe and walk.
3. Ps 90:12-17
12 Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
13 Relent, Lord! How long will it be? Have compassion on Your servants.
14 Satisfy us in the morning with Your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as You have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble.
16 May Your deeds be shown to Your servants, Your splendor to their children.
17 May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us— yes, establish the work of our hands.
It is perfect wisdom to “number our days”. When the gospel message comes to a person, he will immediately number his days.
We need to admit that it is an unfair world where God sets apart the righteous and to those who can continue to be righteous. Our lifetime is a time that finds a gospel that can bless us continually with compassion. The crux about growing in Christ is not in finding faults, but in being found continually in the mercy of God. The crux is not far, it is not near, but it is before our very eyes, in our hearts. Those who do not believe in the One whom He has already sent are already condemned. Finding this gospel, there are numbered days to live the gospel out, and to bless others with the gospel message.
Those contrite, who seek for wisdom, who can be glad through days of affliction, who can continually pray for establishment and building of a church – time tested, they are the remnant ones who can write psalms out of their lives to praise God. Moses is a remnant who wrote Psalm 90 as a conclusion of his lifetime. No one can erase a time-tested church of God, people whose lives are called out for their lifetime.
Where are your testimonies? Is it when you can “do it”? Or will you wait to make testimonies till you can “do it“? It is not. In each moment presently, if your stories can help bless and allow people to find the mercy of God, receive forgiveness and thus righteousness, they are testimonies loved by God, angels and men..! Why seek to find a crown when it will look better?
I will soon write a series of messages on “how you choose a church”, for that is the next conclusion after finding an answer that “we do not find faults to be sanctified”.
Gospelization 