I Got A Heart Transplant
This is the story of how God gave me a new heart for my home church.
It is not of public knowledge (well, not until now that it's in my blog), but since I got back from Thailand last June, I have shared to my closest circle of people that the Lord has called me to pursue cross cultural missions. In preparation, God has been leading me to people who would guide me toward the next steps. One of the first few people whom God used were my former teacher and her husband (Mr. and Mrs. A), who gave me an advice to study the book of Acts because it is where God teaches the role of the church in sending out missionaries.
I strongly believe that in every work, God will use His church to accomplish what He wants to be done. With this in mind, I have spent the whole month of June studying the book of Acts, thinking that I will be able to understand the process by which my home church will send me out. Acts 13 is a crucial chapter as it describes the account where the church at Antioch sent out the first missionaries (Barnabas and Saul). While studying through Acts 13:1-3¹, I had some questions: 1) Did the Holy Spirit speak only to church leaders about setting apart Barnabas and Saul? 2) Have we been praying and fasting like those five prophets and teachers? It was written that the Holy Spirit spoke WHILE they were praying and fasting.
A lot of things happened in between. Recently, I wrote our senior pastor a letter to formally ask for the blessing of our church which, after a discussion with him and two other close sisters in Christ, was not given to me. The Lord has been very gracious and patient with me to let me understand completely why my senior pastor cannot give me the blessing yet. The process was painful (and I mean with buckets of tears included) but it was necessary.
(You may also want to read my testimony right after my talk with our senior pastor: LINK)
MY HEART WAS SICK OF THESE TRUTHS:
1. There is no perfect church.
2. The gruesome and horrible truth about me is this: I have been with my home church for 6 years now; I have served in several ministries; I have been leading a discipleship group; I have been participating in every way I can BUT I have also been bottling up bitterness in my heart all these years. The reason? I cannot connect with a divided culture. I knew how a united family looks like. I had it outside the church. I am not doing this to bring down the name of my home church. But this is the truth of my own experience. My church has a divided culture that needs to be broken. I am blessed to be a member of a church that is now experiencing growth pains. What a privilege it is to be a witness AND participant of this stage. We are beginning to transform from a culture of disagreement into a Biblical community, by the grace of God! My senior pastor is right when he said that God is moving within our church - but it is not an overnight thing.
HERE IS HOW GOD PERFORMED MY HEART TRANSPLANT:
God is making me wait not because our church is not yet ready to send out a missionary, neither because I have not yet completed our School of Missions training program. It is because God has put me in my church to testify of God's power to reconcile me to my own church and its people.
My home church is definitely not in scarcity of gifted and godly men. We are blessed with A LOT of gifted people in the church! And I really mean A LOT!!! What we need is to UNITE IN CHRIST AND WITH ONE ANOTHER. To be willing to have our hearts fixed by the Great Healer.
It is true that Satan can blind us to the truth - even as we read the Bible - God's Word. Satan is putting his best foot forward in preventing God's people from doing His will (to unite all nations with Him and one another).
We must pray hard for the Holy Spirit to help us see and hear clearly.
THIS IS MY PRAYER FOR EVERY CHRISTIAN CHURCH:
That in our unity in diversity, the glory of Christ will shine through even to the darkest and hardest of hearts! ♥ It is not hard to see Christ in the midst of a group of believers who uphold the true message of the Gospel: LOVE.
¹Acts 13:1-3 "Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off."
It is not of public knowledge (well, not until now that it's in my blog), but since I got back from Thailand last June, I have shared to my closest circle of people that the Lord has called me to pursue cross cultural missions. In preparation, God has been leading me to people who would guide me toward the next steps. One of the first few people whom God used were my former teacher and her husband (Mr. and Mrs. A), who gave me an advice to study the book of Acts because it is where God teaches the role of the church in sending out missionaries.
I strongly believe that in every work, God will use His church to accomplish what He wants to be done. With this in mind, I have spent the whole month of June studying the book of Acts, thinking that I will be able to understand the process by which my home church will send me out. Acts 13 is a crucial chapter as it describes the account where the church at Antioch sent out the first missionaries (Barnabas and Saul). While studying through Acts 13:1-3¹, I had some questions: 1) Did the Holy Spirit speak only to church leaders about setting apart Barnabas and Saul? 2) Have we been praying and fasting like those five prophets and teachers? It was written that the Holy Spirit spoke WHILE they were praying and fasting.
A lot of things happened in between. Recently, I wrote our senior pastor a letter to formally ask for the blessing of our church which, after a discussion with him and two other close sisters in Christ, was not given to me. The Lord has been very gracious and patient with me to let me understand completely why my senior pastor cannot give me the blessing yet. The process was painful (and I mean with buckets of tears included) but it was necessary.
(You may also want to read my testimony right after my talk with our senior pastor: LINK)
MY HEART WAS SICK OF THESE TRUTHS:
1. There is no perfect church.
2. The gruesome and horrible truth about me is this: I have been with my home church for 6 years now; I have served in several ministries; I have been leading a discipleship group; I have been participating in every way I can BUT I have also been bottling up bitterness in my heart all these years. The reason? I cannot connect with a divided culture. I knew how a united family looks like. I had it outside the church. I am not doing this to bring down the name of my home church. But this is the truth of my own experience. My church has a divided culture that needs to be broken. I am blessed to be a member of a church that is now experiencing growth pains. What a privilege it is to be a witness AND participant of this stage. We are beginning to transform from a culture of disagreement into a Biblical community, by the grace of God! My senior pastor is right when he said that God is moving within our church - but it is not an overnight thing.
HERE IS HOW GOD PERFORMED MY HEART TRANSPLANT:
Last night during our prayer meeting (19jul17), the message was about Acts 13:1-4. Cute timing, right? I was excited about the message so I prayed for myself and and the church to be moved towards better understanding of missions.
I have read Acts 13 a couple of times, as I have mentioned earlier, but it was only during last night's message in our prayer meeting that I noticed some practical things. (P.S. Day 2 of my prayer covenant with some of my missions partners) This may sound funny but it was only last night when I completely understood that the enemy can really blind people - even the believers - to see the truth in God's Word.
Going back to the two questions I had when I first read Acts 13, God answered through Pastor L. my question about the Holy Spirit speaking only to the leaders. He said that we cannot be sure since it is not written HOW the Holy Spirit spoke. It could be through one or any of the five teachers and prophets who were praying and fasting, then, told the others about it AND then they prayed and fasted again before laying hands and sending off Barnabas and Saul. When I got back home, I searched for and read several studies about the profile of the five men. Then in one study in Bible.org about The First Missionaries, this was stated:
Upon reading that, my heart is filled with joy now because I finally understand why God is making me wait. (Thanks to the people who are praying with me! And ultimately, thank God for the Holy Spirit who has given me eyes to see and ears to hear CLEARLY).I have read Acts 13 a couple of times, as I have mentioned earlier, but it was only during last night's message in our prayer meeting that I noticed some practical things. (P.S. Day 2 of my prayer covenant with some of my missions partners) This may sound funny but it was only last night when I completely understood that the enemy can really blind people - even the believers - to see the truth in God's Word.
Going back to the two questions I had when I first read Acts 13, God answered through Pastor L. my question about the Holy Spirit speaking only to the leaders. He said that we cannot be sure since it is not written HOW the Holy Spirit spoke. It could be through one or any of the five teachers and prophets who were praying and fasting, then, told the others about it AND then they prayed and fasted again before laying hands and sending off Barnabas and Saul. When I got back home, I searched for and read several studies about the profile of the five men. Then in one study in Bible.org about The First Missionaries, this was stated:
"Here is the ideal for any church. Leadership by a plurality of gifted and godly men is definitely the ideal, and it paves the way for real church growth, the kind of growth that results from sending out missionaries and planting new churches."
God is making me wait not because our church is not yet ready to send out a missionary, neither because I have not yet completed our School of Missions training program. It is because God has put me in my church to testify of God's power to reconcile me to my own church and its people.
My home church is definitely not in scarcity of gifted and godly men. We are blessed with A LOT of gifted people in the church! And I really mean A LOT!!! What we need is to UNITE IN CHRIST AND WITH ONE ANOTHER. To be willing to have our hearts fixed by the Great Healer.
It is true that Satan can blind us to the truth - even as we read the Bible - God's Word. Satan is putting his best foot forward in preventing God's people from doing His will (to unite all nations with Him and one another).
We must pray hard for the Holy Spirit to help us see and hear clearly.
THIS IS MY PRAYER FOR EVERY CHRISTIAN CHURCH:
That in our unity in diversity, the glory of Christ will shine through even to the darkest and hardest of hearts! ♥ It is not hard to see Christ in the midst of a group of believers who uphold the true message of the Gospel: LOVE.
Image source: http://www.madhyamam.com/en/sites/default/files/imagecache/w604/Heart-transplant.jpg
¹Acts 13:1-3 "Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off."
Comments
Post a Comment