A Journey of Drawing Near

Topic: A Journey of Drawing Near
Text Hebrews 10:10-22, James 4: 8
18 Feb 2018
 Pr Annie Wong

A journey of drawing near to God means drawing close to His presence, having a close and intimate relationship with Him.

Draw near = approach, come near, draw close, to come closer

1.     The privilege of drawing near (Heb. 10: 19-21)

The Jews drew near to God in the OT times through the Tabernacle by the blood of an animal sacrificed for the atonement of sins. The High Priest will go beyond the veil to the Holy of Holies to offer the sacrifice once a year with no assurance that it will be acceptable as he was also a sinner. In the event that the sacrifice is not acceptable, he will be the first to face the judgement of death.

However, through Jesus Christ the veil was torn apart from the top to bottom exposing the Holy of Holies and is now accessible to all who wants to draw near to Him.  By the blood of Jesus, we have full access to God as Jesus, the High Priest has fulfilled all the requirements of the Law. Jesus has provided us a new way to have access to God.

2.    The conditions of drawing near (Heb 10:22)

1.    A true heart
A true heart is a sincere heart. Without this sincerity of heart, there is no confidence in our access to God. We approach God with no attempts to put up a front or covering up our sins. We allow God to examine our hearts and make our every thought captive in Christ. We live a life of godliness that is transformed by His grace and not in bondage to sin.

An undivided heart John 4: 23-24 is a heart that is wholly dedicated to God alone. It is not divided between God and the world.

2. A confident heart 
We draw near to God in full assurance of faith and not by any system or ritual. For in Ephesians 2: 8, we have been saved by grace not by works but the gift of God. We believe that all God’s promises are true and we act on it by faith (Heb 11: 6) He is our Saviour, Justifier, Cleanser, Healer, Deliverer, Lord, Master and King.

3. A clean conscience 
“Our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience." Sprinkled here is the purging of our hearts from an evil conscience. We face situations where we do the very things that we do not intend to do. It is a struggle of our inner conscience that must be cleansed by God. A cleansed conscience is cleansed by the blood of Jesus given by the grace of God. (Heb 4:6)

4. A clean body 
We are to draw near to God with "Our bodies washed with pure water."  This is the daily cleansing of our soul by the Word of God. The process of sanctification exposes our sinful thoughts and through the cleansing of His words, we can draw near in purity.

The following are checkpoints for our evaluation.

* Am I seeing God anew in the Word through discovery and meditation so I am compelled to draw near to Him?

* Am I being sincere? Is my heart fixed on Him and undivided?

* Am I fully assured that only faith in Christ can bring me to God's throne?

* Am I coming humbly, realizing I can draw near only because of what Christ has done for me?

* Is there any sin in my life I haven't dealt with?

3. Taking up the privilege of drawing near (James 4:8)

“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” James 4: 8. We might have felt at times that God is so far away but It is not God that is far from us but we have moved far away from Him. He will be with us always for He is a faithful God who never leave or forsake us. He was and is and will ever be faithful to us. He wants to have an intimate relationship with us.

Let us draw near with a true heart, a confident heart, a clean conscience and a clean body washed in the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ!

Questions:
1. Meditate on Hebrews 10:19-22, how can we draw near to God?

2. Share your life experiences in drawing near to God.

How can l experience intimacy with God?

3. Is there anything you need with the Lord in order to change in the way you meet with the Lord in order to draw near to him?

A Journey of Letting Go

A Journey of Letting Go

Text: Isaiah 43:18; Philippians 3:13

Pr Lo Yi Ping ?

about a little boy who loved cars that could turn into robots; because he couldn’t let go of one part of his robot, he couldn’t experience his father’s goodness.

Being a disciple means you’re on a lifelong journey of learning to let go. When you first received Christ, or even having followed Jesus for decades. Just like “Looking Up”, it’s a decision of our hearts too. 

1.      Letting go of our BADS

• BAGGAGES 

o    1 Jn 1:8-9

o    He 12:1-2 

o    there is always that something, or rather, a few somethings, that hinder or stunt our growth; 

o    layers of baggages – traumas, hurts, past wounding from family or someone;

• ANXIETY 

o    1 Pe 5:6-7

o    Mt 11:28 

o    40% of our anxious thoughts are about things that would never happen

o    God knows how much we need to learn to let go of our anxiety; multiple times He tells us to be strong and courageous; anxious when we focus on the negative and on ourselves too much;

• WORLDLINESS 

o    Romans 13:12-14

o    James 4:4 

o    Many people are so eager to follow Jesus, but their attachments hold them back; example the rich young ruler who couldn’t part with his possessions;

o    We all have attachments, pleasures or passions that can become obstacles to God 

When we talk about letting go, past or present, it means letting go of not only the bad stuff. We excel at holding on to things we consider precious (memories, good experiences, milestones or anything significantly positive). These also need letting go.

2.      Letting go of our GOODS

• ACHIEVEMENTS 

o    Ph 3:7-8 

o    Paul was a man of many achievements, but his perspective changed compared to knowing Christ;

o    Is 43:18 – God was telling His people not to limit Him to what He had done before but to go beyond;

o    Henry Blackaby: To be loved by God is the highest relationship, the highest achievement, and the highest position in life.

o    This includes our successes in life, ministry, career, school, etc.

• AMBITIONS 

o    2 Co 5:9 

o    Ro 12:2

o    a brilliant guy who came to know Jesus; his ambitions became centered on Jesus.

o    Ambition/ambitiousness is good. Knowing God means ambitions are driven by God. Generally, ambition needs determination. Godly ambition however needs godly determination, which is a totally different thing.

o    Tim Keller: If you get meaning in life from family, work, cause, they enslave us. Building our lives on something besides God not only hurts us if we don’t get the desires of our hearts, but also if we do.

• APPROVAL OF OTHERS

o    Ga 1:10

o    2 Corinthians 10:18

o    It’s not a bad thing to want a good reputation. In fact, the bible does teach that a good reputation is noble. Being called to be salt and light does mean you need a good reputation. 

o    But we can let pleasing men become a problem, if we are not willing to let it go when it contradicts pleasing God

Letting go of the good stuff doesn’t make them invalid or insignificant, but it subjects them under Jesus’ Lordship, in favor of God’s best. God is above the bad AND the good in life. We hinder ourselves and others from experiencing the fullness of His grace and blessing when we box Him in with our “life experiences” and “human wisdom”. They can prevent us from experiencing God more fully, like that little boy and his robot car.

Essentially, all letting go boils down to only ONE kind of letting go. To be a disciple is to learn to let go of our SELF. 

3.      Letting go of SELF

• Matthew 16:24-25; Mark 8:34-35; Luke 9:23-24; John 12:24-25

• What does “self” include? Your: pride - your rights and point-of-view; possessions, preferences, power

• Jesus’ example: in his birth as a human, the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the desert, the garden of Gethsemane, the Cross of Calvary. 

Quote from EDWJ reading — “…We are made in such a way that we cannot give ourselves to anyone we doubt.” 

Do you trust God enough, to let go of your SELF, to surrender your life into God’s hands? 

Do you TRUST GOD AS YOUR ULTIMATE security & significance?

What is God inviting you to let go of, right now in your life?

A journey of Looking up

Topic: A journey of Looking up

4/2/18 by Rev. Renny Khoo

Looking up deals with the direction of our gaze

Looking up exhibits the decision in our hearts.

Sometimes we are put in determining circumstances in order to Look up.

In our journey we learn how to look up and start afresh to know whom we are looking up in this redemptive journey starting all over again.

1) Direction of our gaze- fresh perspectives .

This is the decision of our hearts to look up.

Isaiah 6 shows us that in the midst of despair our Prophet Isaiah look up and saw the lord seated on the throne high and exalted.Isaiah drew assurance and comfort from God that He is still in charge.

Sometimes we are cornered to look up in times of crisis.We need to look up to take refuge from the lord.The apostle Peter fixed his eyes on Jesus and walk on water when he gaze at Jesus and then sank when he turn away from Jesus and lost his perspectives .We need to learn to get our perspective right.

2) Decision in your heart -know where your help lies.

Psalm121 The psalmist lifted up his eyes to the hills and beyond to know where his help comes from.Regardless of our circumstances the Psalmist confidently knows that his help comes from God.

God is our personal God who is our creator and promise that he will never leave us as we make the decision in our hearts to look up to him all the time at different seasons and stations of our journey.

3) Determined circumstances-put into a place in order to see what God wants us to see.

Jonah refused to preach the word of God to the wicked city of Nineveh and ran away.

God have to use a fish to save Jonah and cause him to repent and return back to God and answer his call to preach to people of Nineveh.It is the desire of God to extend his mercy to save the people of Nineveh.We need to realign our hearts desire in alignment with God’s desire .

The disciple journey is a redemptive journey and not a journey out of duty but love.

We need to guard our hearts by spending quiet times with the lord to hear and see what he has to teach us to grow our faith into maturity.We have to return to the basic truth in our discipleship  journey in drawing our hearts align to his purposes.Christianity is not a religion but a person relationship with God.

We have to guard our lives against busyness and respond to serve our God.We need to grow our faith to maturity by serving to experience God and grow intimacy with our lord.

There are plenty of things we can do to serve our Lord to have lasting effects eternally.

  

Questions:

1.Share an experience where you look up to God.what happened?What made you decide to look to God? What does this experience tell you about God and yourself?

2.Read Psalm121.circle recurring words in this psalm.How does the psalmist feel and think about God. What do you think the psalmist wants us the readers to know?

3.As we embark on the Discipleship journey,what are some things you think God is trying to show you in this journey? What do you intend to do about it?