notes from discipling a nation part 1

As promised my notes on 'Discipling a nation' talk by Peter Tsukahira.

Who is a disciple?
Someone who is disciplined. A discipled follower of Jesus. You can't be a disciple until you have a revelation of who God is 'personally'.

When you choose to go God's direction, you discover that God planned that path a long time ago. In the kingdom of God, every single person has a unique calling from God, specific to your design. In your calling its not about result, its about obedience. For some of us, its more than one gift but the holy spirit gives and God does not take back, even if you don't use it. Sometimes the gift is a big surprise. When you start using your gift, then there's a supernatural empowerment that comes upon you. That is why gifts are different from talents.

There's a difference between people who follow Jesus and disciples of Jesus.
Matthew 13
His disciples was the focus of his entire ministry. Because his disciples will make other disciples and that is how the kingdom of God grows. Trees don't struggle to bear fruit in their season, they just do when they reach maturity. They just bear fruit.

John 17
Two types of 'word' in the bible; Logos, Rhema.

Logos.
God's idea, God's thought, God's purpose. John 1:1, Revelations 19:11

Rhema.
"The voice of God", When the holy spirit speaks to you. Romans 10:17. The holy spirit brings rhema.

How do I get guidance from the Lord?
(At this point he went to talk about light houses and bouys and how ships use to to get their orientation at night when figuring out where the harbour is way before gps was a thing. The main idea is that there are three lights they look out for and when they are aligned the captain of the ship knows he's heading the right way)
You need to get points of guidance that line up so you know what God is saying.

1. Logos - God's word, the bible. You're got to know what the bible says.
2. Rhema - The voice of God speaking to you by the Holy spirit (in prayer)
3. Your circumstances - The council of trusted servants of God; Pastors, mentors, spouse...

Prayers

Developing a prayer life involves seeking God, waiting to heat his voice and learning to recognise his voice. There are three kinds of prayers:

• Petitions - Asking for things.
• Intercessions - Praying for people.
• Meditation - Listening to God's voice.

This is you: "Father here I am, listening, speak to me". Shut out everything else, go into your closet. (Not necessarily where you keep your clothes but some where private where you won't be disturbed), go on a walk. God can speak through dreams, visions...

When all these lights line up, you're in good shape. If one is not in line, wait. You can't force it.

How to understand the bible

Read it word by word, line by line, book by book. Do I understand what it says? No? Go back and read it again. If it makes sense don't look for other sense (his opinion).

• As you are reading the bible, context is king. Don't pull out verses and use it ignoring the surrounding context.
• Not all translations are created equal. NASB, NKJV are word for word translations (he prefers these), NIV is a thought for thought translation (there was a joke that NIV stands for Nearly Inspired Version. Clearly not a favourite. Personally I don't have a problem with NIV, though I mostly use NLT. Just got an ESV bible recently, still not used to it, though it comes highly recommended from people I respect.)
• Israel and the Jewish people makes the bible come alive. (He advocates visiting the holy land, I mean Israel)

God's morality will tell you about what he will do and it should guide your prayers. But it will not tell you when or how. To know that you need to know God's purposefulness. God is immensely purposeful about everything he does. 

The bible reveals by faith, the identity of God and Your identity in God.

Clearly not a coherent piece but those where the points that I managed to scribble down. Hope it blesses you somehow.

-ONWARD!

travel does you good

Travel does your heart some good. I just came back from Kuching from a friend's wedding. It was great and its always nice to meet long time friends. Maybank and Malaysian Airlines conspired to keep me there longer than I planned but it was not a waste. I got the opportunity to listen to two nights of Peter Tsukahira speaking about discipleship. I'll share my notes some other time but it was really nice. Some of the things he shared were not new to me but he has a way of explaining it very clearly and give practical applications.

Meet Destiney

Look who I met. Isn't she pretty? She has a bad habit of sleeping in the day and staying up all night. And her mummy and daddy have to take turns to look after her at night. I'm so happy for pst Chung and Aunty Pei Sing.

-ONWARD!

random monologues

Maybe you can't take it, just like I couldn't. But its okay. I'm fine with that. Its for the best. Live long and prosper. Really.

Why can't things just go according to plan? Why is it that every time you try to organise things it always, almost out of rebellion wants to get disorganised and random. Its like trying to force two north poles of a magnet together. As soon as you let go it does its own thing.

They say you learn to make good decisions by making lots of bad ones. Well that's a bit scary. Actually its very scary considering that your bad decision might course someone their life, if you're like a doctor or a pilot or someone responsible for other people which is pretty much everyone alive. It can also course you your own life, or happiness or something good. But that's the way it is. Makes me think of Ecclesiastes when the wise man was saying everything is vanity, a chasing after the wind. And it is. Really.

What if you could suspend all your fears? What if they didn't matter anymore? What would you do? What won't you do? That's a dangerous way to think and to live because you could be caught in two extremes. You could be very nonchalant and quite frankly destructive. On the flip side you could be more daring yet tempered with a gentle dose of caution and common sense. Either way its dangerous but only one way is beneficial.

Switching gears.

Will I ever love again
An interesting question. Almost everyone who had 'loved and lost' as they say, ask this question. On twitter it seems like there are a lot of people in this category. You think that he was the best thing that ever happened to me, or no one can make me feel the say she did or you can't find a person like that anymore. Its very difficult to see people hurting, especially if you can relate. Like if you had this terrible migrane and its not a usual thing for you but there was this one time when it hit you and you felt like its the worst thing in the world but you got over it and if someone came to you and said: oh man! I have this terrible migrane, you can relate and 'feel their pain', as they say. Most of the times there's nothing you can do except just reassuring them that it will pass, take medication, rest more and stuff like that.

Being with someone changes you, losing them changes you again. There's a tendency to become cynical and scared but its not necessary to feel that way. At least I don't think so. Sometimes its no one's fault and things just happen. Like those magnets. Like I said in the previous post, there are things that make you unique and different and attractive to at least one person. And I know its a small number but it counts. (One of these days I'll post about the influence of one person). And it will be a shame, and a general disservice to yourself and to everyone else to become cynical, angry jealous, and other ugly expressions because something 'bad' happened to you. And you lose that something special. You're not unique in your experiences. People go through worse stuff and still find a reason to smile and be nice. Some of the kindest people have had their heart broken, so giving excuses and sulking is just not sexy attractive.

Will I love again? Absolutely. If you want to. But you must want to. It may take time to get back on your feet and clear your mind and decide what you want. But sure, why not? Everyone is flawed in at least one way that drives your crazy. They will get on your nerves, they will hurt you, they will say not so nice things about you. Can you deal with that? If its too much then consider staying by yourself. You'll probably find something to fill your life with joy. Or not. Who knows? We all harvest what we plant. We all reap what we sow. That sounds better. Giving your heart away is the most unselfish thing humans can do.

-ONWARD!

You

We've probably heard this before: "There are things that only you can do really well." And we believe it but most time the problem is, well, what are those things I can do better than anyone else? Good question. As tempting as it is to offer an answer, not that I have one, I feel like that question opens the door to discovering new, different things about yourself that you never knew.

I love to write. Most times I'm not coherent, and sometimes I don't know what to write about but there's always a compulsion to write. I remember back in primary school, there was this girl I liked and I was too shy to talk to her so I wrote a letter expressing myself but never actually sent it. In fact that note never left my house. That was the earliest memory I had of me, wanting to put something down. I also love playing badminton. I'm not half as good as I want to be. And it seems like I don't improve after playing for a few years. But I enjoy it. I really do. Recently I started playing the guitar. Well playing is a little bit of a stretch. I know a few basic chords and as long as its not a fast song and its a really really simple song I can manage changing chords and stuff but I learned that I enjoy these things.

Well what are you really good at?
I have no idea. But here's my point. You will never find what you are good at until you try lots of stuff. And there will be things you know right away, no that's definitely not for me. And some things you kind of grow into as you get older. Like talking in front of people. It gets better because you outgrow your fears and over the course of your life you would have been put in enough situations where you have to talk to a lot of people at the same time that you just get used to it. Even better at it.

There are indeed some things that you can do better than anyone else. And sometimes its not things that are 'marketable'. It could be as simple as always being there for your friends, listening to them 'complain' and share their feelings and stuff. Not everyone can do that. Most people can tolerate it for a while until they cannot take it anymore. That's something. Use it. Do not disregard it. Do not belittle it. Use it.

When God spoke to Moses and asked him to go set the people of Israel free. Moses complained. Typical right? But God asked him, what is that on your hands? He had a staff (Exodus 3 & 4 if you are curious). A staff is a starting place, something familiar, to ease you into something unfamiliar, even uncomfortable but ultimately good.

This year I didn't really want to get too involved in doing things because I felt so unhappy with a lot of things and it is really my loss but I really feel like I need to step back and "search my feelings" haha. No. Think about why I'm doing all these things or not doing all these things and have a good reason. Today I was reminded to hope again. If you were hanging off a cliff by a thread called hope. That thread is strong enough to carry your weight back up if you won't let go. So this is really for me. To hope again. To encourage myself in the Lord, as my mommy always reminds me. Man can she spam.

There are things you can do really well, better than anyone else, simply because it is you doing it. You bring your uniqueness, your personality into it, you bring yourself into it. And it is good. My encouragement is to keep doing those things. Because its not always the fastest that wins the race, but the persistent.

Matthew 24:13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

-ONWARD! Like a boss.

27

Yesterday was my birthday and throughout the day, all I kept thinking was how faithful and merciful God has been. Thank You Lord for one more year.

-ONWARD!