This weekend was Missions Outreach at HOC5 and was awesome. The speaker motivated me in many ways through his message. I never understood the passage from Luke 16:1-13 "The Shrewd Manager" but he explained the parable. 1. What we have - our job, position status, income, family, health, is all from God. God entrusted us to manage things while we're here on Earth. He is the owner of everything. What did we bring to the world? Not even a diaper. What will we take when we die? I suppose nothing as well. We should not be selfish about what we have because nothing is "ours." 2. We should use our life wisely to serve God. He made us exactly who we are today so He can use us in church and to bring others to Christ. Just like our body gets healthier when we exercise, we need to exercise our spiritual gifts or else they will fade away and God will prune us and use someone else. "Use it or lose it" So, what can we do with what we have? We can use our home, our car, our talents to serve others and God. Invite people over to share the gospel; drive others who can't drive, to our church. And don't give up: keep asking them, there has to be a week when they will join and have no excuse for not coming. God will open their heart. 3. Have wisdom to invest our time in what is worthy, think about the eternal values. 4. We should be thankful for those God brought to our life- who encourage us, love us, spend time with us when we are down, etc. We should invest in time with others, reach out to them who are on the way to Hell....
May God help us to apply this to our daily life.
"Give what you cannot keep to gain what you cannot lose."
In 3 days, me and the team are going to Taiwan. It's my first experience going on a STM trip. I'm excited, because first, I never had a desire to go on one, (who wants to go across the world, get bug bites and immerse in hot sticky weather?) but this year, I have had this great desire to experience all that God made me to be. I want to serve Him by loving those who never heard anything about Jesus and sharing about Him to others.
Second, I heard that it is I (our team) who come home filled with blessings and gratitude. We are blessed in America, we are in abudance of resources and have freedom to believe in God. Over there, they are under alot of influence in Ancestry worship. I can also speak Taiwanese and Mandarin which allows me to build good connection with the Locals and students whom we are working with. That is a great privilege and blessing God has given me before going.
I need prayer for this journey because the spiritual battle is on with the Devil. But- the battle belongs to the Lord. I need to keep trusting and being encouraged when things go wrong or the weather is uncomfortable etc. I hope we build strong bonds with each other so that we can work as one team.
There are many shortcomings that I see in me and have in me, but I don't want to let these discourage me. So I pray that I won't get tempted by these thoughts.
We're going to Taiwan on a short term missions trip this July. One of our bonding / serving activities was going to Glide Memorial Church in SF to serve lunch to hundreds of home-less and low-income families. We were so excited, having signed up few weeks ago. I even talked to the coordinator by phone and email a few times. She should have known we were coming on the 12th... through all this time....
We carpooled to take Train and BART all the way to SF and when we got to the door , it said it was closed ONE DAY OF THE WHOLE YEAR for staff training. I was so disappointed about what happened. I even took the day off for it. Sometimes things happen out of our control and expectation. But I have to again be reminded that everything happens in God's view and plan. Every event , every minute is planned by God. Even though we can't see what's the reason behind it, it may be for some reason beyond our thoughts. We got a brief overview then headed for lunch and returned back to our training.
I'm excited for our team, because we're growing and bonding every time we meet. I pray that we will continue to do so and give glory to God through all our planning and serving.
