stillhaventfound.org

What will you do if you are called to a ministry that, in human terms, has no chance of success?

Until ten years ago, Romania was a Communist country that persecuted true Christians severely. By a miracle, Josef Tson was able to leave the country in the 1960’s; called to the ministry, he studied theology in England. Upon completion of his studies, he announced that he was returning to Romania.

Some of his friends counseled him:

Josef, don’t do that! What chance of success do you think you have?

Josef replied:

Success? Success? That’s a typically Western way of thinking. In Romania, when one becomes a Christian, one doesn’t think of success. You think of losing your job, losing your income, of beatings, slander, and possibly martyrdom. I’m called to preach the gospel in Romania. So I’ll go.

…Listen to God’s call. Most of us are like Bartimaeus, blinded to the call of God if it includes discomfort, shame, danger, or a loss of income. The ease of life in this country inures us to the call to sacrifice. Tell God, with Bartimaeus, “Lord, I want to see!” Open your eyes to the joy set before you in this life, the opportunity to serve the king of the universe. What is God calling you to? Does it imply giving up your present career, or career plans? Does it imply selling what you have, and financing a ministry to those who have never heard the name of Jesus? Pray for vision!

(Taken from Suffering and Joy by Coty Pinckney)

Oh that God would raise up missionaries. I don’t wish the same things your parents want for you. They want for you security and insurance and nice homes. They want for you cars and respect. I want for you the same thing I want for my son. That one day he takes a banner…the banner of Jesus Christ. And he places it on a hill…where noone has ever placed the banner before. And he cries out, “Jesus Christ is Lord!” Even if it costs my son his life.

Oh when he’s 18 years old…if he says to me the same thing I said when I was a young man. “I’m going into the mountains. I’m going into the jungle.” And they say, “You can’t go there. You’re insane. It’s a war. You’re going to die.” When that little boy puts on his backpack, I’m going to pray over him and say, “Go! Go! God be with you. And if you die, my son, I’ll see you over there and I’ll honor your death.” (Paul Washer)

The above was taken from Paul’s sermon. Please go and listen to it if you have time. I can’t say I agree with everything he preached in his sermon because of my strong view of grace (bits of which can be found somewhere here). However, other than the concern that some things he said may sound slightly too legalistic for my liking, I wish every pastor preached like him. I’ll admit that one of the reasons why I have not been attending church that regularly for the past few years is that I can’t stand church. I don’t hear from the pulpit what I read in the Bible. The message of Christ was a radical message. Jesus, his disicples and the early Christians lived a radical lifestyle and suffered for their faith. They sacrificed their lives to serve God. They sacrificed their standard of living to help the poor. And they sacrificed their comfortable lives to reach the lost, not being afraid to offend others and suffer persecution. Nowadays, it’s just too difficult for comfortable Christians in the First World to live such a radical lifestyle. And so most pastors obligingly water down the radical message of Christ to fit this modern culture. Paul certainly doesn’t do so in his message. Here’s how he started his message:

I stand here today. I’m not troubled in my heart about your self-esteem. I’m not troubled in my heart about whether or not you feel good about yourself, whether or not life is turning out like you want it to turn out, or whether or not your checkbook is balanced. There’s only one thing that gave me a sleepless night. There’s only one thing that troubled me all throughout the morning. And that is this: within a hundred years, a great majority of people in this building will possibly be in hell. And many who even profess Jesus Christ as Lord will spend eternity in hell. You say, “Pastor, how can you say such a thing?” I can say such a thing because I don’t do my Christian work in America. I spend most of my time preaching in South America, in Africa and Eastern Europe. And I want you to know that when you take a look at American Christianity, it is based more on a godless culture than it is upon the Word of God. And so many people are deceived. And so many youth are deceived. And so many adults are deceived into believing that because they prayed a prayer one time in their life, they are going to heaven. And then when they look around at others who profess to know Christ, and see those people also just as worldly as the world, and they compare themselves by themselves, nothing troubles their heart.

Not only is American Christianity corrupted in many ways, but also the Christianity you get in most of the First World - Singapore included - and also many parts of the Third World. Our Christianity differs little from that in America. The books we read, the Christian leaders we respect and the pastors we invite to speak in our Churches all come from America. I’m not Anti-American. Indeed, if you ask me to name the three Christians I respect the most of whom I am personally acquainted with, all would be Americans. However, most of American (and Western) Christianity is heavily influenced by the materialistic and consumeristic American and Western culture. That’s why the radical message of Jesus Christ is compromised so easily.

…For years I’ve wondered what God would make of our son… Would he fulfill every North American parent’s dream by settling down in an enormous house with a nice wife and provide us half a dozen grandchildren to spoil? The unexpected answer arrived in the mail one day.

Dear Dad and Mom,

…In the country of Uganda, The Lord’s Resistance Army is committing atrocities against children that are too awful for me to put in this letter. Over the years they’ve abducted 50,000 kids and turned the ones they haven’t murdered into soldiers. I want to go to work with street children in Kampala. I’ll be living with local missionaries. It will mean lots of needles and I’ll need to raise a little money too. I once heard you say Dad that Jesus came to comfort us, not to make us comfortable. I guess I’ve been comforted enough, it’s time to offer some to others.

Your son, Steve

“Where do you think we went wrong?” I asked his mother. “Couldn’t he just have a beach ministry in Hawaii?” She grinned despite the fact she’d stuck herself with a sewing needle. “Maybe we blew it taking him to other countries or raising him on God’s Word,” I suggested.

“It’s what we’ve prayed for all these years,” she smiled. “That he would live life on purpose.”

And so a few weeks ago we hugged our firstborn son until his ribs squeaked there in the airport, as he embarked on a grand adventure half a world away. It’s funny the questions people ask when they hear he’s going to Uganda. “Aren’t you worried about his safety?” they say. And I’d be a fool not to admit that I have my moments. Check a list of the most dangerous spots on earth, and Uganda nears the top. But is safety what we’re here for? Isn’t the most dangerous place on earth the place of complacency? Isn’t Suburbia sucking the life out of more of our teenagers than any foreign country ever could?

I must be honest. There are times I’d rather Steve were staying home, making good money, putting it away for my nursing home bills. Yet I cannot hope for more than this: that my children will hear God’s voice amid a noisy culture, and that they will obey.

(Taken from Sharks Ahoy! by Phil Callaway)

Friend: Of course, God can use me in the Third World… But not everyone is called to go to the Third World. I don’t agree… I actually think there’s a lot of need for people in rich countries too. Although they’re rich, they’re poor in spirit, no?

Me: I don’t think everyone is called to the Third World, but i’m willing to stake my life that many, many more Christians are called to the Third World than they’d like to admit. There are three billion poor, hundreds of millions unreached in the Third World. Of course there are millions not saved in the First World too but 1) the number unsaved in the First World is much less than in the Third World 2) There are already so many more Christians living in the First World who can reach out to the lost there so it’s not an excuse to say, “But there are so many lost in the First World too, so I should stay.” Just compare how many missionaries and Christians there are in the Third World to reach out to the unreached people and help the poor there with how many Christians there are in the First World doing the same. The great need is not in the First World at all…

Friend: Haha… I know what u mean. It’s not an easy path to take especially if you have a family and everything… Like Jonah not willing to go… Eh, you haven’t answered me yet. Where are you going in 5-10 years time?

Me: I hope to marry and go to the Third World lor Can’t be a hypocrite and not act out what I believe right!

Postscript: To correct myself, there are more than “hundreds of millions unreached in the Third World”. If by “unreached” we mean those who are part of the Unreached People Groups (that is, people groups without adequate numbers of Christians - normally taken to be 2%-5% of the population - and resources for it to be evangelized), there are actually 2.5 billion unreached people. Yes, that’s slightly less than half of the world’s population of 6.6 billion people.

The number of Protestants in the world is around 800 million. If we consider Catholics with Protestants, there are around 1.8 billion in total. Though I don’t have the statistics with me now, my guess is that maybe 27-40% of Protestants and Catholics live in the First World and the rest in the Third World. So that makes it around at most around 320 million Protestants and 400 million Catholics who live in the First World. They (720 million Christians) would be reaching out to probably 800 million non-Christians in the First World. Meanwhile, you only have about 1.1 billion Christians reaching out to a whopping 4 billion non-Christians in the Third World - not forgetting the fact that 3 billion people in the Third World live on less than US$2 per day and Christians would do well to help them.

Therefore, while there may be more Christians living in the Third World than the First World, Christians in the First World make up 50% of the entire First World Population but Christians in the Third World make up only 20% of the entire Third World population. Furthermore, let us not forget that 2.5 billion of these 4 billion non-Christians in the Third World are from the Unreached People Groups which really means they are a lot more tougher to reach out to and thus would require more time and effort to do so than reaching to people groups that are already reached (duh!) - of which all in the First World are.

Considering all this, is God calling more Christians to live in the Third World to preach the gospel and help the poor?

On another note, we are all hypocrites. I too am one right now and will be even if I were to live in the Third World. No one will ever attain the ideal or reach the standard set before us, but we must try and do our best. Christians have been saved by grace and we live by God’s grace daily. Yet God’s grace ought to compel us to live for Him more and more. The call is to live more fully for Him and to be less of a hypocrite than we are. No sacrifice ought to be too great for the One we proclaim to love and follow and serve…

(from toothpaste for dinner)

What better way to start my blog with a little cartoon that so describes me and what this blog is going to be about! =)

Idealism is normally associated with young people - because, according to the “wise”, they are those who have not yet experienced the world and thus naively still hold dearly to their idealism.

However, I’m not that young anymore. I am not naive nor ignorant of how this world works. And while I certainly have a lot to experience in this world, I am not without experience in my life. Yet I still retain much of my idealism…

Rather than listen to those (mostly old experienced people who think they are wiser than they truly are) who look down on idealism, I’m so much fonder of these guys’ words:

It is through the idealism of youth that man catches sight of truth, and in that idealism he possesses a wealth which he must never exchange for anything else. (Dr. Albert Schweitzer)

The great challenge of adulthood is holding on to your idealism after you lose your innocence. (Bruce Springsteen)

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them. (Henry David Thoreau)

[Ahhh…no one beats Thoreau for wit, humor and true wisdom! =)]

Yes, this blog will contain a lot of youthful idealistic thoughts. As it’s not easy retaining one’s idealism in this world, there will be lots of times I struggle. Struggle to live a life as close to the ideal and perfect lifestyle that I believe God desires all Christians to live. We will all fail because we’re not perfect and never will be in this age. However, the call is to strive towards perfection - i.e. towards living that ideal life. The call is to deny oneself, take up the cross and truly follow Jesus. The call is to trust in Him, rather than in our own strength. It is to love all - even if that meant dying for others, which Jesus did. It is a call to pursue justice for the oppressed and suffering, to show mercy to the poor, naked and hungry. The call is not to build our own kingdom nor to lay up treasures for ourselves in this age. Rather, it is to build His kingdom.

Simply put, the call is to live out that idealistic and ideal life. It is certainly nothing less than that. Surely, striving to fulfill that call in a fallen world is a difficult thing. Yet being pragmatic for Christ is not an option. And the early Church knew that. They lived a radically idealistic life - a life I pray I’ll be able to live one day soon:

All believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. (Acts 2:44-45)

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had…There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. (Acts 4:32, 34-35)