1 Corinthians 2:1-5, 3:12-13
1
…When I came to you, I did not come with
eloquence or human wisdom, as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.
2
For I resolved to know nothing while I was with
you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
3
I came to you in weakness with great fear and
trembling.
4
My message and my preaching were not with wise
and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,
5
So that your faith might not rest on human
wisdom, but on God’s power.
Thank you for praying for me and Pastor Tim
while we were in Malaysia and South Korea on our personal missions trip. Indeed, it’s not by our own power or ability
that we can minister God’s truth and love to others, but it’s God’s power
residing in us. One of my more memorable
experiences was visiting a leprosy hospital in Malaysia and having a chance to
do personal evangelism there. Many of the men were only half dressed, and
almost all were missing a foot, leg, or other body parts. I was so reluctant to go inside the male
patient ward, but the female evangelist who brought us there and my husband
marched in without hesitation and started talking to the patients. I decided to stand by the entrance and take
pictures. God saw my weak faith and moved
a little old man in a wheelchair to come right up to me, talked to me, and
invited me in. I told him truthfully
that if he didn’t invite me, I would not have gone inside. We struck up a conversation, and I felt during
the course of our conversation that God was telling me that this leper was very
lonely. Almost all the lepers were outcasts
in their families due to the stigma of their illness, but one of the Chinese
churches there visits them every week.
(How’s that for local evangelism?!)
Even though this leper did not believe the Bible is true, I told him
that if he feels lonely, he can always talk to God. When human relationships fail, he can reach
out for God. I asked to take a picture
of him so that I can pray for him when I get back home. Incidentally, my husband ended up leading the
male patient he was conversing with to Christ!
How about you? We cannot serve on our own strength, nor in
our own timetable, and definitely not in our own past experiences or
education. Faith is not exercised in
doing the things we’re good at or comfortable in (v.4-5), but faith gets
stronger when we obey God in the things that test us and make us uncomfortable. The longer I walk on this journey with
Christ, the more I realize that God wants me to say “yes” to Him on harder, faith-stretching
tasks and experiences. If I had refused the
leper’s invitation, I would have missed out on a memorable experience to bear
testimony for God. Even though it made
me very uncomfortable, I’m glad I obeyed God.
Lastly, I’d like to leave you with this
thought. In the end, all of us will have
to answer to God for how we live our lives and how we serve Him. “If any man builds on this foundation [Jesus
Christ] using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be
shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire
will test the quality of each man’s work.”
(1 Cor 3:12-13)
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