What Price Freedom?

When I was called to serve the Lord as a 18 year old teenager I knew then I would serve for free for the price of freedom. Freedom to speak God’s Word to kings and slaves. Little did I realize it took 43 years after those fateful weeks that I had a series of visions in church that launched my ministry until today. A few may see I went for theological training BTheol and then further post grad study but little is known what God reveals in secret for no one can study or understand the book of Revelation unless God wills it to him.

Rising from the Dead

The ultimate vindication is the resurrection. Even dead, one rises to live again. All wrongs will be righted on that day. There is no Christianity without resurrection. The apostles preached that Christ rose from the dead, barely two months after the crucifixion. Christ took upon himself the sufferings of the world, all the injuctice was borne by Him. He bore the cross with joy knowing that it would only be temporary, on third day he rose again, defeating death forever and bringing the hope of eternal life for all who believe.

Fulfil Your Promise, O Lord

I have had two weeks of doing nothing, resting and just let time passes me by. I have to learn to take things slowly and in its time. Unless God builds the house, the builders build in vain, says the Psalmist. Likewise, I found myself at the mercy of God, very much like Moses in the wilderness for 40 years for unless it is God's will there is nothing much I could do. I learned many things in the past week. Reading a few chapters of Exodus 10-13 as preparation for Passover/Good Friday.

Living by Faith

It’s now over a month since I left my former church as pastor and now I live by faith. In fact, I have lived by faith since 1989 when I opened my law firm as a young lawyer just barely 25 years old having worked for two law firms for two years; five months in NZ before admitted to the Bar in Christchurch and then about one and a half years in Kota Kinabalu.

Last Promise

“I desire peace but when I speak, they are for war”, says the Psalmist. I had spoken the last words in my former church yesterday. I attended because the church we visited last July came to visit my former church and when the leaders asked me two months ago (after I had resigned) I told them I would attend as a sign of courtesy as well as Christian fellowship. My absence could be a talking point, so I went.

5 Sessions on Leadership

There are six sessions altogether but one session is Q & A, so I do not have to prepare notes and PowerPoint for that. The rest of the 5 sessions are fully loaded with notes and PowerPoint slides. Three sessions of lectures or talks are on leadership and two sessions of workshops for which I also prepared notes too to guide the participants along. I was told two days ago 120 people already registered for the seminar. Initially I thought maybe 50 was a good number.

Calm before the Storm

I don’t know how I will fare with about 10 hours’ long seminar over one and a half days. Even preaching for 37 minutes and a song of response for 4 minutes took me three days to recover and even now I am not fully recovered from the exertions of last Sunday. But tomorrow I will speaking for one hour 15 minutes talk followed by an hour long Q & A. We will see how it goes. We are supposed to have a 3 hour break from 4.30pm to 7.30pm and then another two and a half hours long sessions with the last hour on a workshop.

Weariness & the Anointing

I give glory to You, O Lord for the anointing I felt and the words You put into my mouth over the course of my preaching. Truly it was as if borne by the wind of the Holy Spirit. I spent several days meditating on what I was going to say and prayed hard that the Lord would grant me words to declare the mystery of Christ with boldness and wisdom. But I paid the price of exhaustion and this morning I am still tired from yesterday's exertions and I may take another day or two to recover.

Writing Endorsements

It was the second endorsement that I wrote for my former supervisor who is one of the top New Testament scholars in Australasia. I asked him in 2023 how many PhD students he had personally supervised and his answer was a staggering 55. I only supervised two DTh students during my time in Singapore, but one student changed supervisor mid-way as I marked her drafts full of red ink, as I could not understand her English half the time. The other, I suggested it was not her gift to do a doctoral degree as I saw her struggling reading just one academic article. One has to cite or interact with at least 100 learned articles and just as many commentaries and monographs for a proper doctorate.

Serving God with Joy

It's my first month out of a cage or the metaphor I gave in my farewell speech at the end of January, I will fly with wings unbound and those who are willing to accept my ministry I will bring them fly with me for God's glory. I am in full flight in less than 3 weeks out of a "job". I feel unbound and not just freer but free to do what Christ wants me to do. I have written over 100 pages for my commentary on John's Gospel from 13-21.

Three in a Row

I did not expect that invitations to preach would come so quickly. In fact I told my youth, a young man of 15 years old asking, "Is writing your side hustle?" I told him that writing would be my main hustle and preaching and teaching will be my side hustle. Yesterday, I visited a church member's newly rented place. The couple has four children, all regularly attending church and when I was asked to come to pray for the family and house I could not refuse even though I had already resigned. But last night one leader's wife whom we met at the stairs told me in the hearing of 5 or 6 others: "Pastor, we miss you", it has only been two weeks since I stopped attending the church I pastored for 15 months.