by Elder Mike Chon

Who is your friend? Some people consider everyone that they know as their friend. Some only consider those closest to them as friends and the others as acquaintances. But how do we define someone as friend or not? As a believer we must go to the one source that defines and gives us the meaning to so many things in our everyday life. That source, of course, is the Word of God. Jesus defined his friends in John 15:12-17 and it may be surprising to hear what He has to say.

John 15:12-17
12“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

Jesus calls those that do what He commands to be His friends. Not only that but those that are His friends know Him and know His Father. What is even more amazing is that Jesus chose us to be His friend. If Jesus only considers those that are true believers to be His friends, then who do we consider to be our friends?

Who is your friend?

I written in the last several articles that encouragement is not just making you feel good, but it is ultimately for the purpose to help us love God and love Christ more. So whether it is through your children, through trials, or through other people we can be encouraged even though the circumstances may not appear “good” to those watching. Why? Because it causes us to examine ourselves and to consider the spiritual aspect of these circumstances, not just the physical circumstances itself. Therefore these circumstances are truly “good” because they encourage us to love God and Christ more. How about our friends who we enjoy being with? Aren’t they encouraging me since I enjoy being with them?

Who is your friend?

If true encouragement points us to love God and Christ more, then can an unbeliever truly do that? They will never intentionally encourage you to love God more in your life. They will never challenge you to live differently for God’s glory, or keep you accountable in the areas of your life that you are struggling with. They will never use God’s Word empowered by the Spirit to bring comfort in times of need. They will never remind you of the cross and the great sacrifice of Christ when we are selfish or unforgiving. They will never be an example of how to apply God’s Word into your life. They will never pray for you or with you. They will never understand why you enjoy speaking about the gospel all the time. The only thing they may encourage you to do is to pray more for their salvation. Can you truly call an unbeliever your friend?

Who is your friend?

Before we take this thought too far, I want to make sure that you are clear that I am not supporting “defriending” all unbelievers. Yes, I did make up a word. What I am saying however, is that those closest to you should and ought to be fellow believers that truly can encourage you to love God and Christ more in your life.

Who is your friend? Someone that is a friend of Christ and is able to encourage you to love God more. That person is your “true” friend. That person is the one that truly cares and loves you because they care enough to encourage you to love God more. They are not just there to make you feel good, but at times they may need to correct you, challenge you, exhort you, rebuke you so that you will love God more. They are also there to comfort you, to provide for you, to listen to you, to pray with you so that you will love God more.

Who is your friend? Someone that is fun to be with, or someone that is a friend of Christ? Someone that lets you complain and gossip, or someone that corrects and exhorts you? Someone that just has similar interests, or someone that seeks godliness? Someone that is your buddy, or someone that is your fellow soldier ready to fight the spiritual battles with you?

Who is your friend?

There is still something else that needs to be mentioned in understanding the depth of this thought. But it’ll have to wait until next time. Now some of you may not have a a true friend. Well, don’t be alarmed. Wait for my next article. Some of you may think you have a true friend. Well, get ready to be surprised.

Editor’s Note: Mike, I love you, and I love your articles. But you didn’t make up that word. 🙂

by Stephen Rodgers

This is the hub post for Elder Peter Lim’s two-part series examining church polity using the analogy of Star Trek. From this page, you can easily find and refer to all posts in this series.

All posts in the Star Trek and the Local Church series:

• Star Trek and the Local Church (Part 1)
• Star Trek and the Local Church (Part 2)

by Elder Peter Lim

When I wrote part 1 last month, I wasn’t able to get everything I wanted to say in it. Please refer to it before reading this article to get a better idea of what I’m talking about, especially about what Star Trek has to do with anything.

How the leadership structure of a church ought to be organized has been the topic of debates for a long time, probably since the Apostles were still around. I am generalizing here but Congregationalists tend to vote on everything, Baptists tend to have a head pastor who controls everything, and the Presbyterians tend to treat pastors as employees while the non-pastoral elders control everything. Please do not misunderstand my intentions here. I am not necessarily against denominations. There are many advantages to being in a denomination. There are various reasons for all this diversity of course and there are Biblical merits to each of these denominational polities. But therein lies a subtle problem: it is easy for the structure of the polity to dictate how issues get resolved, rather than Biblical principles. It is very easy to sidestep the priority of a plurality of elders, self-humility, and prayer for the tempting alternative of efficient decision-making, clarity of authority, and pragmatic solutions.

Some people hear of elders Retreats and our long meetings and think to themselves that the elders must be such close friends since we spend a lot of time together. It is true that we are friends, but perhaps not in the way many might think. Being partners in ministry at an elder level is a much higher level of friendship than mere friends in a worldly sense. (More on this in a future article) In some ways I think that the elders of LBC would be even closer friends if we didn’t have to deal with difficult issues that must be resolved. Battle scars result from having to discuss through difficult issues, especially when elders have differing views. Most people have the luxury of not having to deal with resolving differences of preference with their friends. To illustrate, let’s use the example of choosing a carpet color for the church. Most people don’t have to make decisions like these. They have the luxury of just living with whatever decision that has been made, and then criticizing whether they like it or not. The elders have the responsibility to make a decision on this, whether that entails making the decision themselves or appointing some committee to decide for them. If more than one elder has a strong preference on the choice, things get complicated very quickly. There is no written rule how to come to a decision when it’s a non-doctrinal issue. If the elders take a vote, there will always be losers. That can create bitterness. You may have heard that we only operate on elder unanimity here at LBC. That unanimity is not always accomplished very easily. There is much discussion and giving preference to one another. At the end of the day, there will be decisions made in elders meetings which don’t satisfy all the elders, guaranteed. It can often get to a point where an elder actually disagrees strongly with his fellow elders. How can that elder now support his fellow elders, especially in the eyes of the rest of the church? Only by humility and by the love of Christ. That disagreeing elder can show support for his fellow elders and even defend them because he loves them. Steve Preslar talks about his friend who says “Don’t confuse my meekness for weakness.” Similarly I’d like to say, “Don’t confuse the elders’ harmony with being mindless yes-men.” Mine doesn’t rhyme as well. Okay, mine doesn’t rhyme at all.

It would be foolish for a church member to lump all the elders together in one pot as if we all think the same way in every decision. We are not Borg. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I feel sorry for you…go watch Star Trek: First Contact) Unfortunately, some in the congregation actually hurt the church by trying to dig up dirt between elders. They may even gossip that elder A disagrees with elder B and that elder C isn’t happy about a decision that has been made. All of these things may even be true, but that is never the point. One should never say things like, “I agree with YOU, but that other elder is messed up.” It’s like when a kid asks his mom if he can play his Game Boy and upon hearing “no” he goes and asks his dad instead. Because of a selfish desire to get the answer he wants, he risks ill feelings between his parents. In the same way, no church member should tolerate that sort of comment from another fellow church member regarding anyone in the church, especially the leaders. Instead they ought to obey their leaders and submit to them and let the leaders lead with joy. (Heb. 13:17) Note that this is a Biblical command. How are you doing in it?

It may sound to some people that my last two articles here on the Beacon is a result of many frustrating disagreements that I have personally experienced with the elders of LBC. Let me put that gossip fodder to rest and emphasize that we have had many more agreements than disagreements. I’m happy to say that I have seen our elder board step up in many encouraging ways, far above I even expected. We have had more than our share of difficult circumstances to navigate through and many occasions where it would’ve been simpler to just quit. Much larger churches have told us that we are dealing with difficult and unusual problems that they’ve never had to go through. But God has blessed our church to this point where instead of a church split, we are purposefully planting a new church. What a blessed church we are, to be able to be used by God in multiple places. He has brought our church to the strongest we’ve ever been in the 11 year history of our church. More people have come to trust Him as Lord and Savior in the last few years than all the previous years combined. Friends, we are living in the “good old days” we’re going to be talking about in 10-20-30+ years. Praise Him!

p.s. For the record, it took LBC elders all of 10 seconds to agree on our carpet color choice out of the choices given to us by our landlord…and yes, there was more than one choice. 😉

by Elder Mike Chon

One not so wise man said “Life would be a lot easier if you didn’t have to work with people.” Yes, at times people can make life more difficult and inconvenient. From disputes and conflicts, to broken families, to even wars, people have caused enough damage to others that we would rather be alone than have to work with others. Now with the advances in technology you actually can live in a virtual world where people only know each other by username and never have to talk or see who you are actually working with. Instead of asking how you are doing, you can just look at their social network site and find out what is going on in someone’s life. For the unbeliever, this type of life may actually be preferred. They don’t see a reason for having to interact with others especially if the “others” interfere with their life, with their desires, with their rights, with their opinions, with their feelings, with their kingdom. In a consumer-centered, self-idolizing, pleasure-driven world, nothing would be more offensive than for someone to disrupt their “world.” But for the one that is born again, and is a true follower of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we live in this life in a completely different way. We actually can find encouragement from others, even those that make life difficult.

Remember as believers we encourage others not just for encouragement sake, but for a purpose. It isn’t just to make someone feel good about themselves, but ultimately it is to encourage someone to love God and Christ more. When we look at life we must remember that we can be encouraged in situations that my not appear “good” but ultimately it is helping us to love Christ more. That is why in Matthew 5:10-11 Christ calls us “blessed” when we are persecuted and reviled against. Not only that, but Christ calls us in Matthew 5:44 to love our enemies and pray for them. We are not to look at others who may discourage us or even persecute us as a curse, but instead we are to see them as Christ sees them, as instruments that cause us to love Christ more. What a great blessing we have to be able to experience hardship from others so that it would cause us to love God more! How gracious God is to bring people into our lives that show us that we cannot love others unless we love God first? How loving of God to bring people into our lives that make life so difficult which helps us to love God more and love ourselves less? That is why the “others” in your life are a blessing.

I will have to use my children as an example again. My oldest son, who is three and a half years old, has the great blessing of learning patience and loving “others” everyday. Our 2 year old son is the “other” in his life who constantly takes away the toys that he is playing with, destroys the train tracks that he helped put together and destroys the blocks that he built. Not only that but he now has an 11 month old sister who follows the steps of the younger brother in taking toys away and destroying train tracks. What a blessing it is to have a younger brother and sister who helps you to daily practice patience and love toward others! Even though I know my oldest will disagree that he is blessed, where else would he learn these things if he didn’t have a younger brother and sister? Where would you learn what it means to love your enemies, to consider those that persecute you as a blessing, if those people are not placed in your lives? God is truly wise beyond our understanding to graciously bring people into our lives so that they will help us to love others as Christ loved us. May you not react toward “others” with frustrations or anger, but instead use every opportunity to learn and grow in your love for God and Christ. Only because Christ loved us first can we love Him and also love “others.”

by Elder Peter Lim

Growing up in the mid 1970s, The original Star Trek series quickly became one of my favorite TV shows to watch. It was quite an amazing show since it portrayed interstellar travel in a way that was more than just a collection of shallow, outer-space, visual effects. The story lines involved many of the elements that modern science fiction movies include as well as social issues. Who can forget the episode where a man with a half-black face felt racially superior to another man with a half-black face simply because the other guy was black on the left side instead of on the right side? It also gave an optimistic vision of the future world which was largely ordered and moral instead of being full of chaos. Starfleet Command gave the overall leadership to the Starship captains. The captains were followed by the first officer, and then other commander-rank officers. Rare were occasions where there was confusion as to who was in charge. There was a proper chain of command. Any lower ranking member of the crew must obey any higher ranking member. When the captain was on an away mission, he designated exactly who would be in charge while he was gone. How you feel about a decision is irrelevant. This is leadership at its highest efficiency. No time to waste arguing about what to do next. The leader in charge makes all the decisions. Every military force in the world operates on similar principles of proper succession of command in order to maximize efficiency.

So what does Star Trek have in common with the local church? Very little of course. However, many people try to implement a Star Trek-like efficiency into the polity of the local church. They imagine that having a leadership structure that is similar to the ones used in Star Trek or the military or corporate business is the best way to run a church. I can understand how such a system can be beneficial if the primary goal is to maximize efficiency of an organization. However, the goal of a church is not to achieve maximum efficiency. The primary goal of a church is to maximize God’s glory. This is why God has chosen fallible men to shepherd His flock as elders. It is when elders give preference to one another in a humble way that God’s glory is maximized, not when the captain makes unilateral decisions. This is difficult because everybody thinks that their own way is the best way. It’s difficult to consider the possibility that someone else might have a better idea.

Being an elder can be a frustrating task. No wonder God considered character qualities to be of utmost importance when choosing elders. In 1 Tim. 3, there is no qualification for an elder to be a college graduate with an MBA degree. There is no qualification to have been proven in business skills by running a profitable business. There are only character qualities which demonstrate his proper standing before God and with relating to other people. Imagine a scenario where an elder goes home after a frustrating meeting and says to his wife, “Guess what, they didn’t listen to me AGAIN.” He and his wife would then start to harbor bitterness against the other elders or possibly start planting seeds of division within the church as they talk to other people about the bad decision made by the other elders. A Godly man would never make such a remark. He would understand that even if he believes the wrong decision has been made, that he might be wrong. If his opinion is later proven to have been the best way to go, he wouldn’t gloat about that nor be smug. A Godly man would seek to encourage the rest of the board and move on. Although the optimal decision wasn’t made, God is glorified because His character was demonstrated by a Godly elder.

This also means that the goal of elders meetings is not simply to make quick and efficient decisions in order to have short meetings and go home early. Elders meetings are fellowship times to keep each other accountable, sharpen one another, and shepherd the flock of God by caring for the people. This is not to minimize the importance of the efficient running of a church and its activities but merely to put people ahead of the programs. An excellent elder board will seek to do both tasks well. When work can be delegated to deacons, staff, and other church members, the elders can then be freed up to devote more time for prayer and shepherding issues, especially for each other. This is especially important because all elders are mutually responsible before God to present His bride the church spotless and blameless. But because elders are fellow sinners, there will be disagreement and conflict, guaranteed. When disagreements arise, it’s important to remember that these differing opinions come from fellow brothers whom we love dearly and more importantly, loved by God.

Please pray for humility and wisdom for the elders of our church. We are all too familiar with our own weaknesses and faults. It is a great honor and privilege to serve you members of Lighthouse!

by Elder Mike Chon

“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.” Psalm 127:3. In these times, children are usually looked upon as commodities, assets, as a goal in life, an inconvenience, a mistake, or a nuisance. God’s Word tells us that children are a heritage or gift from the Lord. It is the blessing of God that He would provide children to come into this life. Not only that but later in verse 5, God’s Word tells us that the father is blessed to have more children. “Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!” Like so many things in our life, Scripture is contrary to what the world would define as “blessed”. Usually when I tell someone about our family and how we had three kids under three years of age at one point, they usually say that I’m crazy and ask if I know how babies are formed. Sometimes I wonder if I missed that lesson in biology. But all kidding aside, there are many days that I wonder how I am blessed. (Please see my last article in the Beacon for examples.) Parenting is definitely a challenge but at the same time I am learning and realizing the truth of God’s Word that I am truly “blessed”.

One day as I returned home with the kids, my oldest was taking time getting out of the car. Then he took time getting into the house from the garage. He was intentionally stalling for no good reason. So as my patience was running out, my voice began to raise and become very stern. Then I found myself yelling, “You better get in the house right now!” At that instant, my son looked up at me and said, “Don’t talk to me that way!” This was the moment of truth. I could of allowed my pride, my anger, my frustration to lead me to discipline my son for speaking back at dad, but instead I realized the truth of his statement which revealed to me my sinful heart at that moment. I took my son aside and gave him a big hug and asked him to forgive me. As always, he was quick to forgive. My three year old son took the truth of Scripture, that out of the heart a man speaks (Luke 6:43-45), and rebuked me for being a hypocrite. Then again I realized how “blessed” I truly am to have a son that would reveal my sin to me and cause me to seek holiness in my life.

In our everyday lives we are faced with numerous trials and difficulties that come from life. Whether it is a death of a loved one, being laid off of work, not being able to find work, feeling lonely, physical pain, being unfairly treated, and the list goes on and on. What the world would see as a bad luck or worse, that “karma” is at work, God says that we are blessed. (1 Peter 3:14) All the trials of life are there to bring us to a deeper and closer relationship with God. (James 1:2-4) No matter how difficult the situation is and how hopeless at times it may appear, we must trust in the Word of God that we are truly blessed. Some of us are walking through the darkest and most difficult times of our lives. We look at Scripture and think that there is no way this could be a blessing. Only when we take our eyes off of our circumstance and off of the things that we physically can see and feel can we begin to see the great spiritual truth behind the Words of God. We begin to trust in the God that did not spare His own Son for us. We begin to trust in the world to come and not in the world that we live in. We begin to trust that life here is truly a vapor. We begin to trust that life is more than living comfortably or as expected. We begin to trust that God is truly good. We begin to trust that my spiritual life is more important than my physical.

If I were to just look at my kids and only see the challenges they bring, I would be like the rest of the world and see children as an inconvenience to my life. But instead, if I understand the purposes that God has for my children, to make me holy, I can find encouragement in knowing that through the most difficult moments God is changing my heart to be more Christ-like if I trust in Him and His Word. Likewise, our trials are in our life for a reason, and that is to make us holy. So if you are facing difficult times at this moment, the question to ask, is not “How am I coping?” or “How am I dealing with the problem?” but instead it should be “What is God teaching me through this trial?” “How is God changing my heart to be more holy?” May we look beyond what we see and feel and trust in the good God that is sovereign over all things, who desires His children to be holy (1 Peter 1:15-16), and say in our hearts that we are truly “blessed.”

by Elder Peter Lim

Some fun state mottos include “It Grows As It Goes” (New Mexico), “By and By” (Washington), “She Flies With Her Own Wings” (Oregon), and “Manly Deeds, Womanly Words” (Maryland). But perhaps the most memorable motto is New Hampshire’s “Live Free or Die”. This motto means serious business. They desire that the government keep their hands off as much as possible. They have no state tax. On one hand it speaks of a most noble desire to live with freedom above all else, even death. On the other hand it communicates a militant agenda, no doubt a reference to the values that led to the American Revolution. For Christians, our motto is similar to New Hampshire’s with some differences. It is based on Philippians 1:21 – For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Paul had a difficult time deciding which option was better for him. (Phil. 1:22-24) To be able to live his life, he knew that he would fill it with profitable activities (see my last article “Minesweeper, Solitaire, Sudoku”) and so his life would revolve around Christ and His gospel. To die would mean an immediate trip home to be with Jesus forever. This was a win-win situation.

Too often, many Christians don’t think the way Paul thought. We would rather live our normal lives doing all the usual things that other normal non-Christians do. We may even try to Christianify different aspects of our life in order to justify our lifestyle. (yes, I made up that word) For example, we go watch a movie or play basketball and call it fellowship. We idolize celebrities and entertain ourselves with worldly thoughts, ideas and TV shows and separate these areas of our lives apart from our faith. Most of us work for a living in order to take care of our families. We strive to get promotions at work in order to earn a larger paycheck and to move up the corporate ladder. Then we buy nicer cars and live in big houses in order to make life convenient since we are working so hard to sustain this lifestyle. Note that none of these things are necessarily sinful all by themselves. However, the question is not whether something is sin or not. The question is, are we living for the sake of the gospel or not. A non-Christian family can do exactly the same thing as the example above. Then what is the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian? The difference must be Christ. Imagine someone going through High School with straight As, getting accepted to Harvard, starting a company that grows into the Fortune 500, retiring at age 40 with $500 million in assets, but is not living for Christ (whether this person claims to be a Christian or not), this is the epitome of a wasted life. If we don’t live for Christ, it’s not worth living. I am proposing that as Christians, we adopt our own motto based on Phil. 1:21: “Live For Christ or Die.”

by Elder Mike Chon

Since February is “Encouragement Month” at our church, I was thinking about what it means to encourage one another. I first began to think about our church and how we can encourage each other, especially since every Sunday many opportunities are presented in how we can accomplish this. Whether serving in the different aspects of the Care Ministry or writing encouragement notes or even a music note, which by the way I’m hoping to see soon, which are all good ways to encourage one another. But the question we all have to wonder is “for what purpose am I encouraging my fellow brother or sister toward?” And hopefully we can all answer and say that we are encouraging one another so that we will help each other to love God and Christ more in our lives. As I began to think more about this, I couldn’t help but think about how my family, especially how my kids encourage me to love God and Christ more.

For those that do not know, my wife and I have three kids. Our oldest son is three and a half years old, our next son is two years old and our youngest is a daughter and she is 9 months old. You may be wondering how three such young children can ever encourage me to love God and Christ more. Let me explain. For those that know our family, you know that our three kids are pretty active and loud. Usually what you see at church is not even half of what occurs at home. Defining them as “active” is one of the biggest understatements that you can ever say to us. Here are a couple of examples of what our kids can do, especially our boys. One day, our boys decided to come into my office and within a matter of minutes they emptied my shredder and covered the entire office with the shredded paper. Then on another day, they managed to go into our bedroom empty out all the clothes from our drawers, pull all the sheets off the bed, and knock off the clock from the wall in a matter of a few minutes. Now these are a couple of incidents that our “active” boys can accomplish in record time. So how do they encourage me to love God and Christ more?

Before I had children, I always wanted children. But my motive for wanting to have children was purely selfish. The only reason I wanted to have children was that they were fun and cute, and that it was something that married couples have to call themselves a “family”. But soon I realized that having children is not about meeting my needs but instead they are one of the instruments that God uses to make me holy. There is not a day that goes by that God humbles me in my role as a parent. In my attitude toward my children, my selfishness, my anger, my frustration, my lack of patience, my lack of love, and my belief that I need to have control over them. Even though they make mistakes and even sin against me and with each other, my heart continues to be challenged in how I respond in those moments. As parents our greatest desire is to see our children love the Lord with all their heart, soul, and mind. My greatest fear is that I would provoke them and cause them to be discouraged (Col. 3:21). That they will grow up thinking that they need to please daddy and that they will be fearful of punishment if they don’t do that. What kind of God am I communicating to our children when fear of punishment motivates them to please another man? So how do they encourage me to love God and Christ more?

My children have shown me that being a godly parent cannot be done by reading books on parenting, by going to seminars on parenting, by listening to “advice” from other parents alone, but instead it needs to be founded on God’s love for us. Each day has its challenges, but through them and spending time with our children my love for them continues to grow. I cannot imagine the love that God has for us to be willing to sacrifice His own Son for people that hated Him. Not only that, but my children are the greatest examples of God’s forgiveness in my life. I have often asked for forgiveness to my children for my lack of patience, for my anger, for punishing them too severely, and they have always been so quick to forgive me and extend love to me. With all of these things, they remind me so much of the gospel that has saved me from the life that I once lived and how truly it is something that I don’t deserve. They are a daily reminder of God’s love for me and Christ’s sacrifice on my behalf. As parents, we face many challenges and difficulties, but through them all, we have the blessing to be able to grow in our love for our Lord and Savior through the ministry of encouragement from our children.

by Elder Peter Lim

When Microsoft introduced Windows back in the 80s and early 90s, it took the PC world by storm. Instead of the command line, black (or amber) and white, character based display, people could now intuitively manipulate blocks of windowed information around. Apple fanboys cynically snickered that this was just a ripoff of the Macintosh Graphical User Interface, happily ignorant of the fact that their beloved Mac had copied other lesser known GUIs from Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and even the Atari computer. But I digress. With the introduction of MS Windows to the masses, millions of people were also introduced to games such as Minesweeper and Solitaire. Countless hours were devoted to uncovering bombs, arranging cards in sequential order, and other important endeavors. Then came games such as Tetris and Sudoku which were both more addictive and more time consuming. Of course computer games are not the only sources of time wasting. All throughout history, men have wasted time through various activities such as kicking a ball through a frame, hitting a ball with a stick, sitting on the dock of the bay watching the waves roll in, or drawing pictures. Even as I write this, my daughters have picked up their Nintendo DSs and are happily collecting virtual Pokemon and HPs.

Such childish nonsense, one may think. Why don’t they get out of their time wasting activities and do something productive with their life such as [insert activity here]? Since evangelism is the only real profitable activity for a Christian (since it’s the one thing that can’t be done in heaven), he would fill in the blank with some activity that has something to do with evangelism in some way, shape or form. A non-Christian wouldn’t. This is true even if the activities that a Christian might do or a non-Christian might do are identical. Here are some examples:

Of course this is not to say that the chosen activities absolutely determine the condition of one’s heart. Only God knows the true condition. Our salvation is not earned because of what we do or don’t do. However, activities are a good indicator of what is contained in the heart. A tree is known by its fruit. (Matt. 12:33) Christians don’t always make good choices either. This is due to what I refer to as “man’s inefficiencies” of which I have too much of to my chagrin. We do need our recreational time too, don’t we? This need/want for recreational time (or entertainment) is the topic of a future article. Suffice it to say for now that Christians should be characterized by living for God’s glory, redeeming each opportunity for the sake of the gospel. We should endeavor to fill our lives with activities that are truly profitable that have eternal value. Let us not settle for living our lives in pursuit of worthless things such as the new high score in a video game.

by Elder Mike Chon

As the church plant to San Jose is quickly approaching (only 5 to 6 months away), I realize that there is so much to do and so much to prepare for. As well, there are so many things that we just don’t know about and are unable to prepare for until the church plant actually occurs. One thing we know, no matter what happens whether in the life of the church or our personal lives we can trust that Jesus will always be there. What greater truth can bring comfort to our soul when the future may appear uncertain or when we face the difficulties of life.

The disciples were faced with a daunting challenge of carrying out the gospel to the ends of the earth. They must have felt great fear and anxiousness as they thought back of all the mistakes they made while Jesus was there, but now have to face this world alone. Jesus, the great Teacher, knew what was in the hearts of these men as the time approached for Him to leave. As always, Jesus prepared a time and place for Him to instruct the disciples in regards to their fears. Immediately following the Last Supper and before the crucifixion Christ gives the disciples instruction to where to meet after His resurrection in Matthew 26:30-32. Then a second mentioning of where Jesus will be came from the angel in the empty tomb in Matthew 28:5-7. Finally, the risen Christ commands them to go to Galilee. (Matthew 28:10). There are three instances when the disciples were instructed to meet Him in Galilee either directly or indirectly. There must be something very important that Jesus wants to tell the disciples before He would leave to the Father.

When the disciples finally arrived in Galilee (Matthew 28:16) they must have been anticipating something very special. And it was. Jesus was going to give final instruction to the disciples before He departed so that they would be prepared for their new ministry without Him. These words are found in what is commonly referred as the “Great Commission” (Matthew 28:18-20). Many of us know it as the “Mission” of our church. As important as it is to “make disciples of Christ”, the conclusion of the Great Commission is as important but many times overlooked. At the end of Matthew 28:20, Christ says “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Jesus promises to the disciples that even though physically He may be leaving to the Father, Jesus will be with them always. This truth is true for us as well. That no matter what happens, whether in our evangelism, our family life, our work situation, or even during a church plant, that Jesus will always be there. Let us be comforted by the presence of Christ especially as we anticipate the church plant. Whether you are staying in San Diego or going to San Jose, that Christ will be with both of us, and through both ministries Christ will be glorified.