The craziest story I've ever heard.
Reflections from January of second year.
“So there was this woman named Mary, and one day an angel appeared to her…
…shepherds came to worship this baby, and the angels were singing…
…he was healing the sick, casting out demons, even stopping storms…
…the religious leaders hated him…
…and his disciples ran away and abandoned him…
…they twisted some thorns into a crown…
…but see, he chose to be condemned to the cross and die…
…the tomb was empty!…
…he appeared to them…
…and so the disciples started going and telling everyone about Jesus.”
“…Wow. That was the craziest story I’ve ever heard.”
“The best part is, it’s true.”
LIFE Course
The opportunity to tell the whole gospel story - perhaps the highlight of my January - does not come by easily, at least in my experience. Especially to someone who has never heard any of it before.
But that was the situation I found myself in during week 3 of LIFE course with G.
We had asked two big questions over the first two weeks: ‘What’s your foundation for the good life?’, and ‘What’s wrong with us and our world?’.
We explored what the bible had to say about them: Life should be good because God made the world good, however because of sin - human rebellion against God - it is instead cursed, broken, and painful.
Week three asks “Is Jesus still good news for life today?”. Before we got too far into the questions, I thought to check - “Do you actually know Jesus’ story? As in, what happened?”
She didn’t.
Cue my impromptu presentation amalgamated from the four gospels - hitting on the main story beats and whatever felt important to mention in the moment.
When I finished she sat for about 5 seconds in stunned silence.
The tone of the session had shifted. That tone continued into our fourth session.
G isn’t a Christian yet. When we read Romans 10:9 - confess with your mouth and believe in your heart - she said that she feels ready to confess Jesus, she believes the stories, that Jesus died for us. However, she’s still unsure what it means, or feels like, to believe in her heart. She’s still grappling with the gospel and in her words ‘on the journey’ and hopes she could call herself a Christian one day. Maybe even soon!
Please pray for G to repent and believe in her heart that Jesus Christ is Lord and that God raised him from the dead.
And pray for my co-labourer C (we led the course together) who will hopefully be reading the bible one-to-one with G.
Friends, thank YOU so much for your partnership in the gospel. It’s your prayers, your care, and your giving that allow me to do things like this - to tell the gospel to the lost sheep that God is bringing into his fold.
Attack of the Salt Invaders
My trainer Alan, the new apprentice Jay, and I spent January teaching the book of Jude through a series of Kids Spots titled Attack of the Salt Invaders. In Attack of the Salt Invaders, heroes Alon Muskstix and Mayor Martianmallow (played by me!) learn from the book of Jude how to defend planet Candytron against the nefarious dictator Lord Zalt. We learnt that:
We need to defend faith in Jesus (v3)
It’s terrible to reject Jesus and be judged (v15)
Keep building up faith in Jesus (v21)
God is strong and helps us not to fall (v24)
Pray that God would keep us and help us not to fall!
Also, please pray for CapKids which is starting back up tomorrow!
Preaching
On the 19th of Jan, I preached on Jude 17-23. I’ll post the recording here soon, so keep an eye out.
The preparation for preaching felt more rushed than I was comfortable with, but that led me to learn something about myself.
On Saturday, we had our preaching practise run. Usually, we’d schedule it for Wednesday or Thursday so there’s more time to make those improvements before Sunday. You can imagine how I was feeling when I was finishing my script at 12:30pm on Saturday right before the session.
I delivered the sermon, and as was his custom, Alan asked me how I felt about it.
“Not great, I guess.”
“What didn’t you like about it? Cos I think it’s good.”
I blanked.
I couldn’t think of anything to say. Why didn’t I like this sermon?
On reflection, I realised I felt that the sermon ought to be bad because I hadn’t hit my own expectations about time management and readiness. I had judged the output based primarily on how I felt about the input.
I’m still working out what to take away from that realisation.
But at least I know I can praise God for working in my weakness!
As is the case most of the time that I preach, I prayed for it to be an opportunity to share the gospel with the non-Christians in my life.
G from LIFE Course came along, which was a nice expression of the friendship we’d formed over the previous two weeks.
A non-Christian friend from high school, V, also came along.
My cousin’s side of the family, all of them non-believers, came too!
Praise God for my parents’ boldness in inviting them and my dad’s skills and perseverance to live-translate for my uncle and aunt!
Pray that God would grow the seed of the gospel in their hearts, and bring it to bloom, turning their hearts to Jesus who is the only one who can give them mercy.
Who are you seeking to share the gospel with this year? I’d love to pray for them.
Til next time!
Rad