We are sinners saved through grace, praising God! (1 picture + 1 experience with the Lord) 30-day challenge

Back from the ITERO, and back to work and the busy life! Wow, after such an amazing retreat where time stands still and everything is quiet, where people take their time to chat and fellowship, and where no one hurries up... - to North London where everyone rushes to work or school, buses and cars everywhere, you need to be careful not to bump into the many people on the street, even at night you hear the police and ambulance, etc. What a difference... Now I know that when we just take time to listen to the Lord, and even take some specific time away from the busy life, He can have a way to speak unhindered!

1 Picture for today - London Tube, London Underground

There are so many pictures you can take of the popular tube stations in London... - this one, I think, is in Bank Station, where many people change between the Northern Line and the Central Line. Especially when I go to Bower House, I change at Bank (especially since Tottenham Court Road tube station is closed for repairs on the Northern Line). I put this picture on Facebook and many liked it - so here it is also on the blog! :)

1 Experience with the Lord today - We are Sinners Saved Through Grace, praising God!

This morning we started getting into Psalm 51, which is a psalm of repentance - David is repenting before the Lord, admitting his sin and confessing. What a deep and what a precious psalm! I still can't wrap my head around this whole situation - how could David, someone who warred God's battles, who had a desire to build a house for God, and who was chosen by God since he was a teenager - this one, how could he fail so miserably??? The Bible simply says that he woke up in the afternoon and he went for a walk on the roof of his house, he saw a woman bathing, and... - he took her, he arranged for her husband to be killed, and then married her! This is awful, and this is not something that is recommended as a "Bible story"...

O Lord Jesus... Even when the gospel of Matthew starts, it says that David begot Solomon "out of her who had been the wife of Uriah the Hittite"(Matt. 1:6) - even in the genealogy of Jesus, this sin is like a stain there... After such a great revelation, David - a man after God's heart - failed so miserably... A man who enjoyed God so much, who wrote psalms and was on the throne, conquering the enemies and subduing the nations - this one committed such a crime that not even people in the world would commit... This even is so inexplicable that it's a shame that it happened, really...

But I praise the Lord for the ministry of the age which interprets and brings to light the spiritual principles in this story. David is just like us - we are all sinners, and we commit sin and transgressions. That's why we all sinners love this psalm - it is composed by a sinner and it is read and sung by us sinners. Only a sinner can write such a psalm - just as the famous song, Amazing Grace, was written by a sinner saved through grace, John Newton. This guy was so rebellious and so much against God that he did a lot of terrible things (which include slave trade, etc). But one day grace came and conquered even him... only a sinner can compose such a hymn and utter such words - and this is what makes our salvation beautiful!

We are just sinners saved through grace - and we will forever remember this. We may be alright today, but we may fail again tomorrow - it is God's mercy and grace we are still here. We are NOT angels - but as sinners, we can utter praise that the angels cannot! The angels don't know the joy of being forgiven and accepted by God even after failing miserably... We are forgiven much, therefore we love much. As sinners, we are made the masterpiece of God to shine out as the New Jerusalem - and even there, while shining brightly as the sun, we will still remember that it is the grace who did it all - it's not of us! Today we can offer a sweet and precious praise to God - He receives us when we return to Him and repent! All we need to do is repent and confess, and He receives us back and gives us grace!

We are not "looking for trouble", in the sense that we don't seek to sin, but as human beings things happen and we may fail, even fail terribly - to such an extent that others may shake their heads at us... O Lord Jesus... - even then, we can return to the Lord and repent. Yes, we are sinners, but we can repent and confess our sins, and He forgives us. Out of such a deep failure with a thorough repentance, married with God's forgiveness, something comes out - something for the building up of the church! What a wisdom! What an amazing plan! It's nothing of us, not of ourselves, not of our own effort or ability - but it is of God's grace! How we praise Him! How we love Him! We, sinners saved by grace, are being made the masterpiece of God!

... and this whole week it's a week on Psalm 51 - I am looking forward to pray over this Psalm, to meditate and muse on it.... May He produce the Solomon in us, the Christ who is experienced by us even in these failures, so that His house may be built! Praise the Lord!

One Meaningful Thing Today: The Most Important Thing In the Week, the LTM! (30-day challenge)

Today it is Sunday, also called the Lord's day, and there are many things I enjoyed doing / seeing / eating / being in... Many things I did today are meaningful and, sorry to say, there were some things, some words, some attitudes, and some thoughts that were not so meaningful - rather, when I think about them, it was a waste of time. What is time? How can you say some things are more meaningful than others? Well... coming back to the One Meaningful Thing I did today - and I think that both I'm happy, God is happy, and all the believers in the world are happy with it, is....

One Meaningful Thing I did Today - The Most Important Thing in the Week, being at the Lord's Table Meeting!

This doesn't mean that I missed the Table Meeting for a while, it just means that I had a renewed appreciation for the Lord's Table Meeting. Every Lord's Day, the first day of the week, the believers get together into the Lord's name to remember Him - the Lord fulfilled the Passover and replaced it with the new feast, the Lord's Supper, the Lord's Table meeting(Matt. 26:26-30). We can be those who weekly attend the Table Meeting and just "be there", or we can be active participants, giving our best cooperation to the Lord to enjoy Him at the feast! The Lord Jesus Himself instituted His supper and it is one of the only things He told us to keep after He departs - even until He comes!

The Lord's Table meeting testifies to God, to the heavens, to the earth, and to Satan and all his angels - to the entire universe, that,

• Christ has been our enjoyment throughout the week - we have labored on Christ as the good land, we have enjoyed Him as the rich produce, and now we come together to feast on Him - both individually and even more corporately, in the portion of Christ in each believer!
• We are One Body in Christ! There is one Body in the universe, and we express it here on earth! We stand as one with all the believers in each locality - for the whole universe to see!
• We eat and drink of the Lord until He comes - we want to hasten His return, bring Him back... we will eat and drink of this bread and cup until the Lord comes! 
• Christ has died for us and has been raised - so that He may be our life, our constitution, our daily supply, and even replace us organically that He may live in us and we may live Him out!
• The Lord is satisfied and we are satisfied - this table is so enjoyable, to man is so accessible, and to God is so satisfying! Here man and God meet and man enjoys God while God enjoys man!

I am praying every Lord's Day that the Lord would uplift my appreciation of the Table Meeting - I don't want the enemy to spoil the significance of what we weekly celebrate in the Lord's presence! I love getting together with the saints in the locality where I am - whether in Bucharest, London, Timisoara, Deva, Cambridge, Reading, Romford, Charlotte NC, Raleigh NC, New York City, Warsaw, etc - and enjoy the Lord together at the Lord's Table Meeting! This is the most meaningful thing that I, as a human being on earth, can do on Sunday / the Lord's Day!

Note: there is NO OTHER THING I consider that I could have done more meaningful and better than this. It is a privilege to be at the Lord's Table Meeting on the Lord's Day, to meet the King of Kings, praise the Lord of Lords, and enjoy the God of the Universe who now is our Father! Yes, there are other things, more human and practical, more tangible and outward, but this Lord's Day this is it - this is the MOST meaningful thing today!

Crystallization-Study of the Psalms(1) - so wonderful!

We are going these days through the video-training on the Crystallization Study of the Psalms, and I just love the Lord so much more when I see how wonderful He is in all the Psalms! On the one hand, the psalmists wrote out of their devotion for God, their sentiments, their experiences, and their feelings toward God and His house. On the other hand, many times God inspired the psalmists that they may write something which is a prophecy concerning Christ! Wow, Psalm 2, 8, 16, 22, 23, 24, and so on! Some Psalms just stand out and really declare Christ! Here are some portions I enjoyed and posted on the A God-Man blog from the recent summer training on Psalms(crystallization-study):

• Crystallization Study of the Psalms(1) – praising the Lord and speaking psalms to one another! Praise the Lord, we have started the video-training on the Crystallization Study of the Psalms(1)! We watched the first message entitled, the Central Thought of the Book of Psalms – and it was so rich! It will take us weeks to digest and our whole life to experience and enjoy the riches of Christ as presented in the book of the Psalms! One of the first matters that touched me in this message(and this is NOT a review of the whole message…) is that we need to be recovered to a proper praising the Lord.
• Crystallization Study of Psalms(1) – God’s system of grace and God’s system of government(message 2) - The second message from the Crystallization Study of the Psalms(1) is entitled the Revelation concerning Christ in God’s economy – and I was very much impressed with the two systems of God. There are two systems of God in the universe – two ways God relates to man and to His creation – which are the system of grace and the system of government
• God has perfected praise from the mouths of the babes and sucklings(crystallization-study of the Psalms) - Man can fall and man can sin, but man cannot overthrow the perfect will of God! What a statement – though man has fallen and is in a free fall ever since, man can never chage God’s will or overthrow His purpose: God’s purpose will be fulfilled! God desires to have a corporate man in His image filled with all His riches expressing Him and representing Him to reign over Satan, sin, and death – and eventually reign with God over the whole earth and bring in God’s kingdom to the earth!
• a governing principle in the Bible: the two trees with two lines, two flows, and two destinations! - It is so easy to read the Bible and try to understand it through your own perspective and way of seeing things – and especially when we come to the book of Psalms, where there are so many expressions of the sentiments, emotions, and desires of the psalmists… But we need to see that there’s a governing principle in the entire Bible! I was inspired and touched today by the fourth message in the Crystallization Study of the Psalms(1), entitled, The God-man who satisfies God’s desire and fulfills His good pleasure
• a detailed picture of Christ in His suffering of death – the redeeming death of Christ in Psalm 22 - In the recent Crystallization Study of the Psalms(1) I was very much impressed by the vivid portrait of Christ’s death in Psalm 22. In message 5 entitled, Christ in His Redeeming Death and Church-Producing Resurrection, the center and the main burden is the church-producing resurrection of Christ(Psa. 22:22), but in the beginning the brother encouraged us all to study, dig in, dive into, and get more deeper into the aspects of Christ’s death, His crucifixion on the cross.
• we need to see and cooperate with the pneumatic Christ’s shepherding as revealed in Psalm 23 - Praise the Lord for Psalm 23 with the proper interpretation and the high view of Christ in His ascension as the organic Shepherd! I really enjoyed in the recent Crystallization Study of the Psalms(1), in message 6 entitled, The Organic Shepherding of the Pneumatic Christ, the fact that the pneumatic Christ is the Shepherd, He is shepherding us, and He wants us to shepherd others also! The Christ whom we love, enjoy, and worship is the Shepherd!

O, Lord, amen! These messages are so rich...