Wisdom of the gate - story of Rehab - Joshua 2

At the gate of the new breakthrough which leads to our inheritance of the promised land, there is a sinner. If we just brush her away, condemn her, we lose our opportunity. But if we listen to her, and find out what she needs, and look after her, then she'll be the key to our new territory. Sometimes it doesn't look related, but that's actually how the Lord opens His gates for us. Everyone of us has been called into certain areas. Sometimes we're so focused on the posession of the promised land we brush the "Rehabs" away when God has put them in our path. Salvation can be the key. Doing good to a certain person that God has put in your heart can bring you to a whole new arena. Reinhard Bonke ministed faithfully to one person in Nigeria, then that person leads him to the president, then the whole country opened up to him, and after that came the million salvation. Joyce Meyer served faithfully to her father and her relatives, and she believed with all her heart that this led to her success in ministry. So, is there any sinners in your way or people to help that the Lord has put in your heart? see beyond the inconvenience and all the hassle, if you mind the Lord's business, He will mind your business.

Prov 1:21 - Wisdom cries out at the gate of the city.

Stones of the 12 tribes, the importance of remembering -- Joshua 4

Thinking about the stones...it reminds me of the NT where Peter was refered to as a rock upon which the church is to be built on. So it's a kind of foundation? To me it's like a will, when someone dies, he leaves a will, which legally he passes his material possesion down to his next generations. The stone speaks of a legacy that God has granted to the children of Israel, a foundation, an inheritance that they can build their lives upon.
Why do we need to remember? Because say if my father leaves me a house in his will, if I don't claim it, it won't be mine, if I don't believe it, I don't think it's mine, and if I don't remember it, then I won't use it and take possesion of it. I might still work my guts out all my life trying to buy a house, while not realising my father has already given me a mansion to inherit. Sometimes other people will be envy of my inheritance and try to steal or change that will that my father leaves me, and if I don't fight for the truth, if I just believe every lies that the enemy suggests, I could very easily lose that foundation, the inheritance I can receive at the beginning of my life without having to work for it myself.
The stones are a new monument. Up until now they've been busy trying to win God's approval. It's only an 11 day journey from Egypt to promised land, but God kept them going round and round for 40 years. Trying to win God's approval is a hard thing, it took most of the lives of the Israelites. It took Jesus all those whips and the cross. And after that we're signed with a legacy: We don't have to prove to God any more, God is on our side now! This is such a mansion for us to start our lives on. Sadly, there're so so many people just letting the enemy cheat their mansion away, and work their guts out tring to pay rent.... They're still working on their own salvations! I think that's why God repeated the importance of the stones: We got to remember, we got to take posession what's already ours!

Church Thessalonians: Church China? - 1 Thessalonians 2

1Thess2:7 "as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. "..... but the mother was taken away!!
In my Bibles before the main text of each book there's a bit of explantions about the whole book, In my NASB version it says, "Paul founded the church at Thessalonica during his second missionary journey. He had taught there just three weeks when he had to leave suddenly because of the opposition of the Jews. Recent converts from paganism were thus left with little external support in the midst of persecution." The companion Bible version explains, "The church of the Thessalonians was planted by Paul, in association with Silas and Timothy. Although some of the Jews believed, it was composed mainly of Gentiles, and their joyful reception of the message as the word of God was the prelude to active missionary operations in all Achaia and Macedonia, a territory about as large as Great Britain. In this respect especially they were a model church. From them sounded forth "the word of God", and they became examples to believers, showing the power of that word in their lives. The apostle writes in a joyful spirit, for he had just received from Timothy glad tidings of their faith and love." ......
It seems to me that the church is like a baby, and the mother was there for three weeks, then was taken away.
This reminds me of a post of Phil Baker's a while back, "Before going to China I met with one of the missionaries who had been expelled in 1950. "We felt so sorry for the church we left behind," he said. "They had no one to teach them, no printing presses, no seminaries, no one to run their clinics and orphanages. No resources, really, except the Holy Spirit." It appears the Holy Spirit is doing just fine."

Where is the power? - 1 Thessalonians 1

I've been thinking all morning about 1Thess1:5 "for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction..." I think I experience this verse a lot more in China. Just for example, I was working in an office, and my boss' mother was in the last days of cancer, fully spread, could die any day. God told me to speak to him, a few friends went to his home to pray for his mom, his mom got healed instantly. The healing of her heart was even more incredible than her physical healing. I saw salvation, miracles,etc all the time, it would be very odd that we went to a weekly meeting without sharing any miracles. Here it's the opposite, the same me, but it would be very odd that I go to a weekly meeting having some testimony to share. I know of a pastor couple here in Sydney. When they go to Malaysia, in one meeting it could be 20 people raised up in wheelchairs, 2000 people baptised in the Holy Spirit, but they have a church here for 20 years, still the same size, very few miracles. Reinhard Bonke had a million salvation in Africa in one meeting, but I highly doubt that he can get the same number here. The question is why? Why there's more power manefested in third world countries? Spiritual strongholds over the nation? It seems there must be more strongholds over there than here. Leadership? There are all kinds of witchcraft and idol worship and antiChrist stuff over there. Poverty? knowledge? What can the churches and Christians do to bring the power level back?

What I find the most different to me personally is the structure and system of the church. In a big church here like Hillsong, there are 10,000 members roughly. But how many preachers? a handful. In a cell group, it's supposed and also only allowed to study already printed material. and the pattern is same.The cell leader has very limited freedom as how he runs and explains the material. If anyone tries to do something according the promptings or the Holy Spirit or share his own message, he'll get this look, "who do you think you are," and worse, he'll think this for himself, just like what you thought when you had the urge to raise your friend from death. And if he doesn't change, he'll be regarded as disobedient. In China, it's different. Every believer from day one is regarded as a minister. And the system and structure of the church support that belief. The leaders believe that for the believers, and the normal believers believe it for themselves. Everyone's required and encouraged to preach. If you can't preach for an hour, you can start with 5 minutes, and the leader will help him. And the whole group is very supportive.If he says something wrong, the group will correct him, but won't stop him from preaching. In countryside, a lot of the times are, if you've been a Christian for one week, you'll be sent out as a pastor. I've mentioned this before, a country boy in our group, only polishing shoes in the street to make a living, he has heaps of problems in the first year, like he was still trying to kill someone, steal, terrible temper, fights, but everyone believes in him and encourages him as a minister, then the second year he went back to his villages healing everyone. When he left some of the diseases would come back, but when he went back to the villages, they'd be healed again. I doubt he'd get very far in a church here. He doesn't have the look, and he doesn't have the communication skills, nor any education and intellegence. The persecusion keeps the church sizes small, but the small size releases the ministers in everyone. But in western churches, the Holy Spirit in everyone is persecuted and limited by the set pattern and system of the churches.

Salt -Colossians 4

Col 4:6 Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person. Salt is what makes the taste complete. Grace is what makes a person's life complete. Grace is to see a person in God's eyes, not our own eyes. When we look at someone, it's easy to just look at the outside, and place judgement according to what we see. And that's incomplete and not fair to that person. When we pray for someone, God will give us wisdom and insight as to how He sees that person, and that's grace, and without this grace, the taste has got something missing.
For example, if we see Rehab, it's very easy and likely that we'll just see her as a sinner, a gentile, a prostitute, but if we see her with grace, she'd be one of the bloodline descendant of Abraham, that leads to Jesus. What a difference that will make! Without the salt, her life will be so incomplete.

Adam city - Joshua 3

Trying to think about significance of the city of Adam......
A piece of gold when found in the field, it's not pure gold. First, it has to get rid of the mud, which is outside sin, then comes the hard part, that's the seperation of the fine gold and gold like stuff, like copper,etc. These other stuff that mixed tightly with gold speaks of our natural goodness of soul, our own good wishes and our natural strength to do good. To seperate these stuff it needs a fire. true gold will stand the fire, but other stuff won't, they'll last for a while, but eventually they'll melt and be exposed and fall apart. When God calls us to do something, it's never meant for us to do it in natural strength, it's got to be a supernatural thing. We all go through these three phases, like Moses, first trying out in his natural strength but failed quickly, and then was led to the desert to experience the fire. and when he came out of the desert, he's ready for the supernatural. Fire comes from God. Or, God uses our enemies to be the fire. In Joshua 3, the water speaks of opposition, it's a fire that comes against our natural strength. Adam city speaks of combined first stage person, like Moses before entering the desert. Adam has sin. Up until now, the Israelites have been experiencing fire -- the opposition coming from God. But now, it is a new day for them. God's trial is done. The copper's gone, there's no more need for fire. The gold is ready for it's true value. Their opposition is no longer from God, but it's going to be from the enemy. And God is calling them to enter into the true battle. And when they obey and step out purely in faith, God stopped His opposition due to our sinful natural that comes from Adam. Now God is all for us, and there's no enemy that can stand.

Rehab: Is lying ok? - Joshua 2

Nobody can stand before God and say he's sinless. Man sees the surface, but God sees the heart. My daughter gave me a card today, it's not a bought card with flash printings, just a plain white paper, but I can see she's spent quite a bit of effort trying to make it look nice. She cut the edges in a wave like shape and colored along, and she drew some pictures with pretty colors. Nobody told her to do so. In the card she wrote,"Dear Mummy: I love you. You are my sunshine. I know a song. It goes like this. Its your birthday, Its your birthday and we want to say, many happy, many happy returns of the day. Happy happy birthday birthday birthday happy happy birthday Our best wishes. Your my second best friend. love Ellie" (First best friend is Jesus)Well, this card to anyone else has no market value, it's just a piece of junk that goes straight to the bin. But to me, I know this is her best gift to me, she has tried the best she could to make me happy, and I treasure it. Maybe that's how God sees Rehab? Yes, she lied. But for a sinner, this is the best that she knew how to give to God, and it's from her heart. Her best gift looks like a little child's messy artwork. But to a loving Father, that piece of messy artwork is not a piece of rubbish, but a precious gift that He will not condemn.

Pray to know His will - Colossians 1

I decide to use NASB version. Verse 9: "...pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding," What the Word spoke to me most this morning is to know His Will, and pray for others to know His will. If we know His will not only in big directions, but also in daily everyday life, at work, with friends, raising children... we learn to listen to the little promptings in our spirits as what we should do, who we should talk to...Our lives will be different. I think a lot of energy are missing, wasted and misused simply because we don't know or are not sure what God's will is. And His will is rooted in His Word. If we know His will, we'll do life with a different passion, strength and result, "like a tree, yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers."

Updates from the next day:
I was just talking here yesterday morning about pray to know the will of God, then yesterday afternoon there raised a pressing issue to me that I really needed and wanted to know the will of God, basically I need to make a big decision and take actions today to two choices that are going definately different directions. This morning I woke up still feeing very disturbed, then I reminded myself of the verse I read yesterday, to pray to know the will of God, so I prayed and asked God to reveal His will clearly to me this morning when I go to Hillsong women. And the speaker went up, the first thing she said was, I felt the spirit of the Lord is saying to some of you this morning....., and tears just flowed into my eyes, it was exactly a word that I needed to hear. And now I know what His will for me in this situation is. Sooo, pray to know His will.... it actually works.

Legalism - Colossians 2

This chapter to me is like the prodigal son, he can be told to stay home and do all the right things, he can act like his older brother, with the religious outfit but hiding the sin inside. But at the end of the mess, he's convicted, and he wanted to do all the right things without being told. Maybe that's the difference of living under the law and living in the Spirit? Sometimes I think God created man not so that he will not sin, but he has a free choice to sin, but then also have a choice to come back in the spirit. He doesn't want the man that didn't sin, but He wants the man that sins, but comes back through Christ. What the law does is like a father who overprotect the son and wouldn't let the son leave home. And if the prodigal son doesn't have enough freedom to leave home, he'd never discover the truth and weight of sin, and he'd never repent, and the sin stays within him, and the father doesn't have a returned prodigal son. I think God rejoices in the returned prodigal son that wants to do all things right himself rather than a son that's been bound and told to do right. Maybe that's why He hates the pharasees so much because they robbed Him of the joy of returned prodigal sons.

Husbands, love your wives

My favourite verse today is Joshua 1:8 "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you sall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperious, and then you will have success." God didn't command Moses to be strong and courageous, because the foundation of success hasn't been built yet. So many people felt the calling of God, and just want to step over the foundation part and go straight into posession mode, they try to be strong and courageous, but soon finds out that it doesn't work. Moses' life is a foundation for Joshua, to let him know what will work, what will not work. And if you build upon the foundation of verse 8, you'll be safe, if anything astray, you're in for trouble. ... Proverb 1:8-19 to me seems to be a continual part of Col 3 of yesterday. Husbands, love your wives. It's a most precious thing to see a man love with full passion. It's hard to see a man love in love's full strength, that's why it's so beautiful in movies to see man love with a passion and romance. It's not hard to see woman romantic, but hard to find real romantic man. That's probably why the enemy tries so hard to steal the love of man, and usually once the first love of man's gone, it's very hard to get him passionate again. Probably the weakest point in man is the lust of eyes. The enemy works so hard to get, distract, kill the man's love through their weak points. I've seen many women hurt in relationships, and after a while they can still love with passion. But if a man gets hurt, when he's fully in love, especially when he's young, it might take a lifetime to heal. And sadly for most men, their first love can never be regained. And when the love of men's gone, you can't blame that the women find it very hard to submit. I think too much teachings are focusing on to get women to submit, but not enough teachings to really help men to love properly.