My family and I were blessed by a recent trip to the annual Chicago Chinese Christian Conference, held between Christmas and New Years. We were also able to have a ministry table too. The conference had pastors from Singapore and Malaysia as well as other local nationals to share God’s heart for the nations – God’s global mission to redeem people from every tribe, nation and tongue.
I especially was moved by the pastor from Singapore, who preached 3 sermons on Isaiah 6, where Isaiah receives a vision of God and as a result is confronted with his sin and God’s forgiveness. As a result of this internal transformation, Isaiah then rises to answer God’s call for “who will God for us?”
This reminded me that this year, I am praying for God to give us a fresh vision of God this year, a vision that accompanied with His presence convicts of sin and leads us to His forgiveness through the redemption bought by Jesus AND then obedience to follow God. Interestingly, the pastor challenged the attendees to stop evangelizing and instead start loving people in the name of Jesus, asking how they can pray for them, tell them that God loves them and help them. By this he did not mean to actually stop evangelizing, but to stop focusing on evangelism but rather, as we lovingly obey God, we will love those around us and then in the context of loving them will share the Good News with them.
So I pray that God give you a fresh vision of Himself this year, a vision of Him that causes you to see in a new way your sin in light of His holiness and then to see afresh the goodness of God in the redemption of Jesus Christ and His forgiveness. And may God bless you, as this begins to happen, with an obedient heart that says to God, “Here I am, send me!” And then go – go to whoever God puts around you and love them in the name of Jesus and see what God does.
Turners at WFI 