If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And-which is more- you'll be a Man, my son!

At VCF on tuesday we were talking about evangelism, and today during quiet time i read a passage that I think pertains very much to it and one that we can learn from. John chapter 4 accounts the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, quite a well known story. Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at the well, asks her for water, and then offers her the "living water", which she says she wants. He then tells her that He knows about her past five husbands and adultery. He then tells her later than He is the Messiah.

That part of the story is quite well known. Note the sequence of events that follow:

1. "The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, 'Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could He be the Christ?'" v.28-29
2. "Then they went out of the city and came to Him." v.30
3. "And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, 'He told me all that I ever did.'" v.39
4. "So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. And many more believed because of His own word." v.40-41
5. "Then they said to the woman, 'Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." v.42

This, I believe, is a wonderful model for evangelism. In our lives we begin by telling people about Christ and like the woman, testifying about the wonderful things that He has done in our lives, sharing about Christ's goodness. Some may come to faith by the power of the testimonies of believers, just like the Samaritans in verse 39; others may be interested to find out more and start seeking Jesus themselves, just like the Samaritans in verses 30 and 41. But what happens when these people come to seek Christ personally is that He impacts their life and speaks to them directly, so that they come to faith because of His own word in their lives. Christ once spoke through believers; now He speaks directly to them. Occasionally, like in verse 42, we may have the blessing of hearing someone whom we have pointed towards Christ come back and tell us the same thing that the Samaritans told the woman- "Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." And that is a truly joyful and awesome thing.

Your testimony can make a difference to those who have yet to come to know our Lord Jesus. And while we testify we must also pray that our friends, drawn by the Holy Spirit, will eventually come to seek the Lord themselves, hear Him, and find Him.

"For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." Acts 4:20

"Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." James 1:17

We all know how to approach the Father with the things that we want, or the gifts that we desire. God is not a divine vending machine, like my pastor used to say. We bring all our requests before God, acknowledging that He is Lord, and He will bless us according to His will. "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God; and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Phil 4:6-7

How comforting it is to know that our Father is a loving God who gives good gifts to His children! "Ask, and it will be given unto you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!" Matt 7:7-11

However, God will not bless us whenever and however we want. I have discovered that God does withhold His gifts and blessings, not because He does not want us to have them, but because we are not ready to receive them. It could be due to a few reasons- we may be wanting them for the wrong reasons, we may be seeking the gift instead of the Giver, we may misuse them for evil instead of good, we may not fully appreciate the significance of the gift and why God wants us to have it, we may spoil the gift and its value with sin and greed and lust, or the gift may distract us from God Himself. In summary, us having the gift would eventually take us away from God and the knowledge of His will, when His gifts are meant to bring us closer to Him. Also, His gifts are meant to give us joy; if we receive the gift in any of the states above, we can rest assured that eventually it will lead not to joy but to misery. It will become a curse.

A gift from God is a wonderful thing, but Satan can take that blessing and twist it to bring us away from Him. Sadly we have a tendency to be like children with a new toy- instead of cherishing it and being grateful to the parents, the child plays with it a while, then grows discontented and tired of it, uses it to hurt others, totally forgets about the parents, and eventually throws the toy away. What is the remedy? Forget the gifts, and fix our eyes and hearts on God and His ways first, and then we shall be ready to receive. Seek Him first and live the way He wants, and we will find that our lives will not be short of blessings that we truly can appreciate, cherish and enjoy. When we have learnt to seek the Giver first above all things, then His gifts will finally be what they were meant to be- gifts. And they will bring us joy, but eventually we will see that the greatest gift of all is God Himself.

Thank You Lord

And I thank you Lord
For the trials that come my way
In the way I can grow each day
As I let you lead
And I thank you Lord
For the patience that trials bring
In the process of growing
I can learn to care

But it goes against the way I am
To put my human nature down
And let the Spirit take control of all I do
But when those trials come
My human nature shouts the thing to do
And God’s soft prompting can easily be ignored

But I thank you Lord
With each trial I feel inside
That you’re there to help and lead
Guide my way from wrong
Cause you promised Lord
That with every testing
That your way of escaping
Is easier to bear

And I thank you Lord
For the victory that growing brings
In surrender of everything
Life is so worthwhile
And I thank you Lord
That when everything’s put in place
Out in front I can see your face
And it’s there I belong

"And whoever does not bear His cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost..." Luke 14: 27-28

Do you feel like it used to be easier to dedicate your life to Jesus and obey Him, but as you go further and deeper in the Christian walk it just seems to get tougher and tougher? Do you remember a time when you dedicated your life to Him saying that you would follow Him your entire life, but now feel like it is so difficult and you wonder where you will find the strength to press on?

Don't ever get the impression that you made a wrong decision or a blind, emotional choice. Because it was God whose presence and glory so stirred and captured your heart that you were motivated to make that choice. Just like Isaiah (in Isaiah 6), with the Lord Himself before his eyes in His full splendour and glory, could only respond, "Here am I! Send me." Be reassured of that.

And know this, that if you feel particularly challenged find yourself enduring many trials and temptations in your life, it is normal, for that is what a follower of Christ must go through, to be His disciple. "bear His cross and come after Me..." Bearing your cross is not meant to be an easy smooth thing. If you remember what Jesus went through when He bore His cross, it was terribly painful. "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." Hebrews 12: 5-6.

Why does God allow us to go through so many trials and temptations and difficulties?

"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." James 1:2-4.

"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honour and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Pet 1:6-7

Trials are one of God's most powerful and effective tools for shaping and building the faith of His followers. It is easy to profess faith when all is going well, but when all around us has crashed, when all that our security was built on suddenly crumbles, when our backs are against the wall and we are clueless what to do, when all that we once held dear is taken away, when our ugly sides start to show and we struggle to obey the Lord, when God begins to gently pry away the things that we hold deepest and closest in our hearts away from our hands, and our body, heart and mind scream out in protest, that is when true faith is built. That is when we will truly learn to depend on the Lord, when our own feeble strength fails. That is when we will see who the Lord really is and how all along we have failed to put Him where He deserves to be in our lives. And it is only there when our lives can be turned around. Just like Abraham.

"And whoever does not bear His cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it- lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him...
So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple." Luke 14: 27-29

And that is where, all the more, we must count the cost. We may not have realised the full cost beforehand; it just becomes clearer and clearer along the way. But I do not believe that the disciples realised the full cost, or were prepared to pay it; when Jesus was betrayed every single of them fled, even the headstrong Peter. But after they realised who Jesus really was, and what He had done, they had no hesitation in following Him to death. And so it should be with us. The cost becomes clearer and clearer, and we begin to see more and more that what God wants is our whole lives, nothing less. But I believe God would have also revealed more and more each day that He is able and faithful to help us through every trial that we face. "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it." 1 Cor. 10:13. And also revealed more and more His marvelous glory and love and reaffirmed why we chose to follow Him- because of the great God that He is. The darker it seems to get, the brighter and stronger the Light shines.

So count the cost. And the whole point of counting the cost is that we may be aware of what lies ahead, and thus prepare ourselves to face it. "So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple..." At this point, do you feel afraid and uncertain, wondering how you would ever be able to do it? I certainly have. But remember, you are not doing this alone. God is with you. Preparing to face it and facing it does not mean striving with your own strength, but simply taking the step of yielding entire will to Him and letting Him work. Go step by step, bit by bit, trusting wholly in Him. You will never know what amazing things God can do in your life until you have given Him your absolute best and trusted Him with all.

And you will find that as your faith grows, each victory becomes deeper and more joyful. The struggles will go on, may or may not become more difficult, but each step you take brings you closer to Him, and you are living in the abundance of the life that He has given you, in the centre of His will. The road to Calvary is long, but is leads to life.

"...let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:1-2