the Characteristics of the Christian life (Life-Study of 1 Thessalonians msg 2)

I read the life-study for today, message 2 of the Life-Study of 1 Thessalonians, and I was simply blown away! Wow, I never ever thought even in my highest appreciation for the Christian life that these three  characteristics of the Christian life - turning to God from idols, serving a living and true God, and awaiting the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ - are SO RICH in meaning, sense, application, and experience! I am still amazed at what the ministry of the age has dug out in the Bible, pointing to us the obvious - it's there, in black and white letters, we just need to put some effort into "digging it out"!

O, Lord Jesus.... I need You, Lord, in the reading of the life-study of 1 Thessalonians! Especially as the video training on the Crystallization-Study of the Psalms(part two) is coming up this week, Lord, I need You so much! I give You my time, Lord! How to redeem the time in such a way that I don't get into TOO MUCH and get too little, neither do I get into only some portions and not be serious on the schedule? O, Lord...

Three Characteristics of the Christian life

1. Turning to God from idols - not just turning to God from sins, but from idols! Everyone worships something / someone, even if they are self-proclaimed atheists (who mostly worship themselves). God created us with a spiritual stomach to contain the Triune God - and when we hear the word of the gospel, we are filled with appreciation for Him and drop any other idols to be joined to Him in an organic union! This is the "work of faith", which joins us to God and strengthens us to drop our idols (who can be anything or anyone that replaces God in our life).

2. Serving a living and true God - our God is living, and He can be seen as the living God by our living today! He is living now in us, and we love Him - in love, we allow Him to live and be expressed in us. He corrects us, guides us, instructs us, speaks to us, fellowships with us, and lets us know how He feels about every aspect of our living. I was touched by this paragraph, "What about your God? Is He a living God to you? The proper Christian life should bear a testimony that God is living. The reason we do not do or say certain things should be that God is living in us".

3. Waiting for the Son of God - we have a hope, the endurance of hope, which is the return of the Lord Jesus that we may meet Him! We don't live an aimless Christian life, and we are not rooted or grounded in this earth. Our hope is not in the earthly things, in positions, careers, etc, but in the coming of our Lord Jesus! The Lord Jesus is our hope, our future, and our destination!

... wow, you need to read this message! This genuine Christian life is for the church life, so that God would get what He desires, the Body of Christ to express Him on the earth in a corporate way! O, Lord, gain the Body of Christ!

the Bible is the living word of God, so real and nourishing! (1 Picture + 1 Experience with the Lord today) 30-day challenge

I was mentioning somewhere else that I started this Bible reading schedule, where you finish the whole New Testament in 3 months. I'm now in my second month and I'm going through Acts... It's not easy, some days I forget about reading, while other days I read 6-8 chapters... The average is to read 3-4 chapters every day. I have to say, even though I read the New Testament many times, going through it again in a consecutive way is so good! The Bible is really the living Word of God - it speaks to us and nourishes us! I love it when I have a 30mins or even 15mins to read the Word... But before then, here's

1 Picture Today - The Greenwich University in London

This is one of the many pictures I took of the Greenwich University in South East London, close to the Greenwich Maritime Museum and the Greenwich Mean Time. It is composed of some old buildings ;) that look very cool, and has lots of large and tall halls for lectures and stuff. Many times when you walk through you hear the students practicing the musical instruments... and when there's a nice weather, there's lots of people out on the grass! I apologize for this shallow introduction to such a wonderful university in London, but to find out more please visit the University of Greenwich website or University of Greenwich on wikipedia, the Greenwich maritime museum website, the Greenwich Mean Time / the GMT, etc. The best thing about this place is that there are SAINTS there, there are homes open around the campus, and there are many seeking students there!

1 Experience with the Lord - the Bible is the living Word of God, so real and nourishing!

What is the Bible to you? Is it just a book of knowledge? Is it a book of history? Or is it a book about God and His plan? Maybe you have read the Bible many times, but did this book become to you a book of life? I grew up reading the Bible, so I don't know as much history of my own country or of the world as much and as thorough as I know the history in the Bible. But at one point in time I had to make my own decision to continue reading the Bible and to continue feeding on the Lord. Actually, every day I need to make this decision - to drop other things and make time to read the Bible.

There are so many ways to read the Bible, but I recently started this "3 months reading through the New Testament" schedule, and it's going pretty good... - especially since there's the lettheword.com website where I can log in with my facebook credentials and input my daily reading! :) And I also have a companion to pursue with! That's so good... Now, as I'm reading through the New Testament, I am so impressed by the life of the Lord Jesus... He had 4 biographies that described many aspects of His life, His reaction to things happening, the persecution and opposition He encountered, the things He taught, the things He did... - so many things about Him.

But the Lord's life was kind of "tragic", since He died when He was 33 1/2 years old... Yet He resurrected and now - as we read in the book of Acts - He is with us all the time! It's amazing to see that the same Peter that the Lord rebuked and exposed so many times, the same Peter who denied the Lord - this one, after receiving the Lord's breath(John 20:22) / after receiving the divine life, he took the lead to speak for the Lord! And in one day there were 3000 people who received the Lord, and on another occasion 5000 more! What a difference does it make when you have the divine life! Peter became so mature, he took the lead in opening the gates of heavens with "the keys of the kingdom of the heavens" for the Jews (in Acts 2) and for the Gentiles(in the house of Cornelius, Acts 10).

As I'm reading the Bible, I'm so supplied and nourished! I love the Lord so much more, and I am so glad I can be washed by the water in the Word! I may not remember everything, but as I'm reading I love the Lord more and I know Him more.... It's not just words on the paper, and it's not just stories - even in Acts where we see that the Christian believers in the first century were persecuted and killed, we also see the Lord Jesus so present with them, giving them peace, speaking through them, strengthening them... There's a flow of the Spirit, there's a sweet church life, there's a speaking of the truth in the Bible... - it's the LIVING WORD OF GOD! I love the living Word of God, the Bible! It is so real, so nourishing!

I am praying that I would continue in this - it's a DAILY matter, a daily slot in my schedule - and I would read the Bible until I meet its Author! Let's pray for one another about this - that we would continue and persevere diligently in reading the Word of God daily... And maybe in the meantime I would get some companions who would also run with me in this!

not I but Christ; not us but the prayers! - one meaningful thing I did today (30-day challenge)

The title is pretty self-explanatory, but just to have a certain background against which the title may "shine out"... we human beings are amazing "creatures" - always developing, accumulating information and knowledge, growing, etc. We learn to walk and to speak(as babies), we learn to read, write, exercise, have performances in the classes we're interested in, etc. We are being trained to be "better people" our whole life. We go to kindergarten, grammar school, high school, university, post-grad, Ph. D, post-doc... all these things we do to be trained to know, to know how to do things, to invent, to be someone...

Sometime during our life the Lord Jesus, the Immense Magnet in the universe, attracts us to Himself and captivates our attention - we believe into Him and are captivated by His charming beauty(Heb 12:2 + note). When we are regenerated, something interesting happens - we receive another life, even another Person into us! Until now we decided to do, say, be things - but now there's another Person, Jesus Christ, living in us! He is "bothering us" and "speaking to us", giving us life and peace - or giving us the sense of death / uneasiness / unpleasantness when we are in some places or do some things that the Lord doesn't like! We who used to do "whatever we want" now listen more and more to this Wonderful One within us.... - and this brings me to,

Not I But Christ; Not Us But The Prayers! - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today

As believers in Christ we daily learn that if we turn to the Lord within, if we exercise our spirit, we get more LIFE and we become more like Him! So we choose to turn... There's conflicts between us and the Lord - we hold our ground, choose things according to our pleasure and preference... loose the Lord's presence - then return to Him and repent + confess... fail again, make mistakes + return to Him... until there's a choice to be made - just like Paul said in Gal. 2:20,

I am crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who lives, but it is Christ who lives in me! And the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

More and more in our daily life and in our experience we have this deeper realization - Lord, no longer I but Christ! I want to enjoy You and experience You to such an extent that the old self is crucified, even my person without Christ is on the cross, and Christ is the One who lives in me! Christ organically replaces me to live in me! But it is still I who live - Christ is NOT "using me as a mindless robot to do His will" - NO! I still live - I live in faith, in the organic union with the Lord! This faith is not of me - it is of the Son of God, who loved me and just gave Himself up for me!

The Lord will get us to the point where we realize that IT IS STILL I WHO LIVES - though we love the Lord, we love the Word, we love spending time with the Lord, it is still Stefan who lives, not Christ! When the Lord shows us this, we desperately pray and give ourselves to Him, and we learn to give Him more ground in us, allowing Him to make His home in our hearts... - until little by little, it is "some of me and some of Him", "less of me and more of Him", "none of me and all of Him". Christ WILL be formed in us; Christ WILL live in us, and Christ WILL be fully expressed through us - today we are learning to cooperate with Him in this....

On the other hand, in working for the Lord, coordinating in the church life, serving the Lord in different practical services, helping with the children of the young people, serving with the students, etc - in all that we do for the Lord, He wants us to FIRST PRAY. The younger we are in the Lord, the more full of natural strength we are to do things for Him. More and more though, as time goes by and the Lord is faithful to speak to us and expose us, our natural strength and natural capacity - in His mercy - is running out and is being exposed to the uttermost as being useless to Him! And then we come to the conclusion, I CANNOT DO THIS, I CAN'T SERVE THE LORD!

This is going from one extreme to the other - from "I can do this - bring it on!" to, "I can't do it, I give up!". What the Lord wants us to realize is that yes, we can do it, and no, we can't do it! First of all, we need to PRAY! Before we do or speak anything for the Lord, we need to pray. Why do we try to work so much(and yet accomplish so little) when we can accomplish much more by our prayer than by our working!?! What are we trying to DO FOR THE LORD? He is Almighty, He can do everything - what can we do for Him? It is an insult to the Lord to try to do something for Him without first consulting Him and praying to be one with Him....

When David in the Old Testament wanted to build God a house, God told him that He wants to rather build Himself into David first and then what comes out of David(Solomon) will build a house for God. First of all, we need to be thoroughly mingled with God by praying ourselves into God. And then, once we are in God, one with God, we can do something for God - and this is actually God doing something in us and through us. So then it is No Longer Us, but the Prayers! We pray ourselves into God, we pray God's prayers which are put in us, and we pray out God's will to be Done! We execute God's will on earth by uttering the prayers that He need to move on earth! Wow...

<< the above is just something I realized today while I was doing my job at work (and I realized that it is STILL STEFAN WHO LIVES, NOT CHRIST) and as I was walking home after the home meeting (and I realized that IT IS SO MUCH OF ME TRYING and not so much of praying...). So today I want to choose the Lord - to be infused with Him and mingled with Him to the point that it is Christ living in me! Also, why try to do so many things - which things, by the way, need to be taken care of - when you can call a brother and pray together to be built up into the Triune God and be mingled with Him!?! >>
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This article may be one of the last ones on this theme - on this challenge - since I have to "change the challenge", the 30-day period is almost up now... What do go for next? On the one hand I have been encouraged by all the testimonies and sharings and comments of all the readers - either here or on twitter or via facebook - to go on... But I think I want to go for something a bit different but on the same topic kindda... What about... "One London Picture (with description) + One Verse I enjoyed today(with a short sharing)"? - I am eagerly waiting for your comments on this matter - I want your opinion / feeling on this(that is, if you have read the entire article until down here)!