Dogs are Men’s Best Friends

My dream about dogs came true in a way unexpected. During the five days I was at College, none of the dogs even barked at me, all of them friendly to the point of being a bit annoying. Even when we wanted to take the class photo, two dogs came up and joined us. Perhaps in my dream I did sense the dogs in my car were friendly as one was trying to lick my face which turned me off. Only the fierce ones were outside. Is there a meaning to this? The new principal was friendly and he even asked me about the book I published on the Gospel of John which he was kind to promote on the last day (Friday) when almost all my books were already sold out. I took with me 45 books to College and sold the last 5 copies on the last day. The ten copies of Departure Points were also sold out to my surprise as I thought my English book would not have much of a demand. That meant I had none left for my former Church in the weekend and an elder bought my own copy which I sold for RM50.00. Another 20 copies of my John’s commentary were sold out in the church and there were requests for more. One politician friend even paid me in advance and asked to mail a copy of Departure Points to him. Overall the trip was an immense success as the Lord blessed and opened doors for me. On Saturday night I gave a seminar in my former church and the church was packed given the SOP, the capacity was only about 80 people. But the Q & A went on for 90 minutes which meant I stood for more than 2 hours on stage that night. And then I preached twice in Sunday and it went well. For both messages I preached a short 30 mins wanting to reserve my strength for my drive back to KK and the evening class for the young teenagers in my church.
When I reached my church at 6.20pm, my spirits were revived as I saw the youths coming in. There were 38 of them in all registered, together with a few parents and youth leaders who helped out in leading worship and ice-breaker. But I taught on the 7 titles of Jesus according to John's Gospel chapter 1. After only 20 minutes, I realised for a vast majority of the young teenagers, I really have to teach them line by line, precept upon precept. What does it mean to be God's chosen one? What is the Lamb of God? The Word/Logos? Messiah? When I got to number 4 "Messiah", I got stuck seeing that some young teenagers were struggling. They were a few older teenagers in their 16 or 17s who are more knowledgeable. I decided to stop at the hour mark (the class was meant to be 1 hour and 20 minutes) and announced that I would finish the lesson when we meet next.

So for 7 or 8 days in a row I was in active ministry including the Monday that I drove up to Ranau to begin the week-long ministry. I taught for 4 days (a total of 25 hours' lectures) on the book of Revelation. I gave a seminar on Marriage and Divorce. I preached on "Making use of the time" based on Eph 1:1-17 for the first Service and Psalm 90 "Counting our days" in the Second Service. Plus, I also had the honour of preaching at the College Chapel for exactly 15 minutes on "God had so arranged the body in such a way" (1 Cor 12:24). And it was a powerful message sounding out throughout Sabah. As for the Seminar, some senior leaders of the Ranau District as well as the General Council members were present and the Word of God was taught and was glorified by all. When I think of 7 or 8 titles of Jesus in John 1, I wrote down 7x8 and I had just turned a year older as I concluded my week-long ministry in church. When Jesus was asked by Pilate whether he (Jesus) was a king, Jesus answered, "For this I was born". For what were you born? I was born to preach God's Word.