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On the wall of my dinning room, there is a photo frame which was a gift from a dear family in Christ. Frequently, I would read its imprinted quote. It serves as a constant reminder to me of what kind of attitude toward life should be, especially when I was not in a good mood. The quote says, “Dance as though no one is watching; Love as though you’ve never loved before; Sing as though no one can hear you; Live as though heaven is on earth.” It is a “modified” version from Mark Twain’s famous quote of “Live Love Laugh” – “Dance like nobody is watching; love like you’ve never been hurt. Sing like nobody is listening; live like it’s heaven on earth.” Both of them have similar insightful meanings to life.

There are two pictures slotted on the frame, one is my graduation picture with my wife and the other one is a memory picture of my family taken on my 20+ years of wedding anniversary with my wife. To me, these two pictures remind me of how gracious our God is. It represents two milestones of my life journey. The first one is a personal endeavor to achieve higher education level, with my wife’s help (PHT = Push Husband Through). And the other is a reward of God for entrusting me with a family and 3 children. Is my life journey always smooth? Certainly not! Can I live like it is heaven on earth? Not yet. Can I dance like nobody is watching? Not sure, haven’t done that. Can I sing like no one is listening? In the bathroom, maybe. Can I love as though I’ve never loved before? This is a hard one. How about you, my dear brothers and sisters, what are your answers to those questions?

Last Sunday, Rev. P. C. Lo gave us a good encouragement from his topic of sermon: “Faith and Living Courage” (Psalm 3). He asked us: “Are your life journey getting smoother and smoother or getting tougher and tougher?” Oftentimes, we may be in a tough life journey, per Rev. Lo. He mentioned that there once a pastor said something like this when people meet together, “For people who are under age 30, they would talk about education degrees and resumes; for people who are age from 30 to 50, they would talk about experience and trials; for people who are over age 50, they would talk about illness and sickness.” This is a keen observation of our life.

Then, Rev. Lo used his recent experience in attending a wedding ceremony to illustrate that marriage life is supposed to be like a journey with love and encouragement between husband and wife. He indicated that first part of our life is accompanied by our parents while the second part of our life is accompanied by our spouse, which was a plan of God. How about King David’s life experience from Psalm 3? Is his experience worth us to ponder upon and learn?

Rev. Lo told us that Psalm 3 was authored by King David under a low valley of his life – his son Absalom betrayed him and wanted to kill him. Per Rev. Lo, King David would need a great courage to face the betrayal, and then he would need an even greater courage to face the difficulty in trusting God. Because, how can a prayer get a negative result – his enemies increased in multitude (Psalm 3:2). We could see a similar betrayal from mankind on Jesus, our Lord. However, it is quite a different story of Jesus from David’s because our Lord is sinless while David knows he is a man with sins. David felt powerless and distressful in facing difficulties because of his own sins. From Psalm 3, David experienced several difficulties in his life (Psalm 3:1-2):

• The betrayal of his own son
• The reconciliation between his faith and reality he encountered and observed
• His own sins

However, David’s faith sustains him through the difficulties – he believes that God has never departed from him and he trusted God completely (Psalm 3:3). That is a faith deserved to be pondered upon. During life difficulties, you may seek help from your friends and families or yourself. David was writing psalms to express his situations and difficulties to God. He was pouring out his soul to the LORD just like Hannah’s prayer to the LORD (1 Samuel 1:15). In essence, this is a faith that God will listen to our prayers and He will provide the best; regardless of we are in trouble or not in trouble.

Then, Rev. Lo shared with us his personal experience in facing difficulties. He prays consistently and earnestly every morning 6:00AM for the ministries in CCHC. He believes that as long as we keep doing our part – pouring out our soul to Him — He will protect and provide. Finally, Rev. Lo pointed out that we need to learn from David’s experience because his faith not only sustains him through difficulties, but also transcends malicious attack from others into forgiveness (Psalm 3:8). David’s faith reveals his essence of life during difficult situations. Let us all be reminded.

My dear brothers and sisters, can we live like it is heaven on earth? We should be if we could completely trust our Lord’s faithfulness. It is not easy but let us learn from David’s experience.

In the past week, I was entrusted to take care of a puppy from a friend. Walking the dog suddenly becomes one of my daily routines in the morning and in the evening. During this “routine exercise”, I had a chance to observe my neighborhood slowly. One of the neighboring houses was doing a home improvement. The owner of the house had someone come in to rebuild his stepped walkway between his driveway and his house entrance. The walkway was built using rocks instead of original concrete slabs. After a few days, the irregular shapes of the rocks were fitted perfectly by the hired hand, to form beautiful stone walls and steps. I was amazed how skillful the hired hand is, if you know how difficult it is to fit irregular shape of things together. In the building process, the worker has to dig a strong-enough foundation, to chisel out minor part of the stones, to apply cements to glue them together and finally maintains everything in straight line. This improvement project was quite fascinating. I believe for those who have such an experience would know what I am talking about.

Last Friday in our jointed small group meeting at FCON, we were discussing apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians. One of the verses caught most people’s attention is apostle Paul’s pleading:

I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel …我勸友阿爹和循都基，要在主裡同心‧我也求你這真實同負一軛的，幫助這兩個女人，因為他們在福音上曾與我一同勞苦‧ (Philippians 4:2-3a)

From Paul’s pleading, we can observe that serving hearts from Euodia and Syntyche were not questioned here. It is the “same mind in the Lord”, however, that is to be emphasized. The eagerness in serving combined with personal preference and working habit is sometimes similar to fit irregular shapes of objects together – It is very difficult without a lot of shaping work. Someone used a term “同工？同攻？(Co-working? Co-attacking?)” to describe the difficulty of co-working phenomenon observed nowadays . I think it is very lively.

In fact, finding a church that is perfectly fit to us is rare the case, if not impossible. It has been said that “There is no perfect church in this world, if you can find it please tell me and I will be glad to join that church. Of course, after I joined, the church would become imperfect.” In any church, certain tradition, styles, people, or programs, etc. may make us uncomfortable. However, it is God’s will that He wants us to fit together with one another. From church serving and co-working, we can learn how to listen, to react, and to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. Apostle Peter encouraged us that we are like living stones,

“….. are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 你們來到主面前，也就像活石，被建造成為靈宮，作聖潔的祭司，藉著耶穌基督奉獻神所悅納的靈祭‧1 Peter 2:5”

Similarly, apostle Paul indicated to us that in Him, we are

“….. being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.你們也靠他同被建造成為神藉著聖靈居住的所在‧Ephesians 2:22”

My dear brothers and sisters, I admit that it is not easy to be built together because it requires personal commitment and sacrifices. However, in Christ, everything is possible. We just have to remember that He is the potter and we are His clay…..

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Last weekend, I had a chance to watch an old Billy Graham’s evangelistic crusade event from a TV broadcast. It is great to watch Rev. Graham’s heart-felt preaching in front of a huge crowd. In his preaching, one of the story illustrations impresses me very much and it prompts me to do a soul searching myself. I don’t remember all the details but the main idea goes like this (sorry if I misspoke some of the details, or you already knew the story):

A couple has planned for watching a Broadway show “My Fair Lady” at NYC for a long time. Finally one day, they got the life-time opportunity to go to NYC to watch the show. Due to its popularity of the show, tickets were not available for them to purchase from the ticket office. Under this dismay condition unwilling to admit to their friends and families that they didn’t get to see the show, they came up a “great” idea. They purchased a booklet in front of the theatre which has detail storylines and actors of the show. They also thought it is necessary to have additional proof in order to convince their friends and families. In searching for the proof, they saw there were torn “half-stub” tickets left on the ground – which were used by others to enter the theatre and were trashed by the ticketing clerk. They were quite happy to pick two of the half-stubs up. After thoroughly studied the booklet they purchased, they could recite clearly what was the show and who was the main character, etc. Back to home, they started to detail the storylines of the show to their friends and families. Aided with the half-stub tickets, their friends and families were totally convinced that this couple has seen the show…. 🙁

My dear brothers and sisters, this is a sad story with a solemn message if we view it from Christian belief perspective. Analogously, we can consider the couple as persons who have no “born again (born from the above)” experience from the Spirit, according to Rev. Graham. Their life experience would be imitating Christian belief only – he or she could recite Bible scriptures, attend all church services and programs, still, has no real life experience with and hope from the Lord. This is a soul-searching question worth to ask ourselves.

In the Gospel of John chapter 3, the same “born again” question was asked by Nicodemus, a member of Jewish ruling council, to Jesus. That conversation was very fascinating and enlightening. As Jesus indicated, “…no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again (or born from the above)” (John 3:3). It is evident that Nicodemus couldn’t comprehend Jesus’ teaching at that time. “How can this be” was a question repeatedly raised by Nicodemus. But, my dear brothers and sisters, we should be very clear in our mind that we were born from the above and we have the eternal hope that He promised us:

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

神愛世人，甚至將他的獨生子賜給他們，叫一切信他的，不至滅亡，反得永生‧因為 神差他的兒子降世，不是要定世人的罪，﹝或作審判世人下同﹞乃是要叫世人因他得救‧信他的人，不被定罪‧不信的人，罪已經定了，因為他不信神獨生子的名‧ (John 3:16-18)

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It was two o’clock afternoon; my wife was not back yet due to a doctor’s appointment. I was nervous that we may miss the registration time for the Summer Conference at Hofstra University. An hour later, my wife finally came back. I asked my kids start to load their luggage and personal belongings. My wife was also preparing. I wasn’t paying much attention to whether we have everything ready or not because I was busying in checking the car and its tire pressure. Moments later in the car, I asked everyone if everything is ready to go. They all said, “Ready”. Here we go…

The traffic was heavy when entering into Bronx area and the Throngs Neck Bridge was packed with cars. With slight delay, we arrived at Hofstra University smoothly. After checked in, we started to drop off kids to their dormitories. At the Colonial Square in the campus, my daughter was unloading her luggage, my wife said, “That is daddy and mommy’s luggage, don’t get it out yet”. “No, it is mine.” My daughter responded. My wife and I suddenly realize that our own luggage which has the same style and color was left at home. At that moment, we were all laughing hysterically because of this embarrassing thing my wife and I did. We also realize that we had better find our necessities quickly since we planed to stay here for another three days.

This embarrassing experience gives me an interesting perspective. Not sure if you have ever been stayed in an apartment, my family did. At that time period, we restricted ourselves to buy only necessary stuffs because its space is limited. However, when we moved to a house, we started to cumulate furniture and a lot of things that may not be really necessary. Soon we find that we are out of space already. This leads me to ponder upon a question, “Do we carry too much unnecessary baggage during our journey of faith?” My answer would be “yes”. In fact from the apostle Paul’s letter to Timothy, we can see the similar concern. He reminded Timothy that it is imperative to be free from other civilian affairs in order to be a good solider of Christ.

No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer. 凡在軍中當兵的，不將世務纏身，好叫那招他當兵的人喜悅‧(2 Timothy 2:4)

Therefore, anything that hinders us from focusing on God can be considered as “unnecessary baggage”.  My dear brothers and sisters, do you still remember our Lord Jesus sent out the 70 others to harvest His field? Are you aware of how he instructed them?

“Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road. 不要帶錢囊，不要帶口袋，不要帶鞋‧在路上也不要問人的安 (Luke 10:4)”

This is because our Lord wants the 70 others to remember that there is no need to worry about their daily needs – He will provide if they have faith in Him. And, they should not be wasting time in greeting anyone because time is precious in doing God’s work. What a promise and reminder to us. May God help us to learn how to focus on Him without carrying unnecessary baggage.