HOW COME? .... Who Will Go For Us?

Revelation 3:17-18
You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

These words to the Laodicean church caught my heart. Something resonated. Often how we think of ourselves may not match what others think of us, ... especially what Christ thinks of us. They thought they were rich and didn't need a thing. In effect, they were pitiful, naked, blind!

Blind?
Hmmn ... even without a statistical survey I wouldn't be wrong in saying that 95% of Malaysians are blind! We were not born with that condition; but our fears, our hardness of heart, and our wanting only happy things has struck us with a great blindness.

A Great Blindness?
Yes, How come we keep getting hit every few years and months .. and still have not learnt? JE, SARs, Bird flu, Tsunami, floods? What did we do? We were rocked for awhile, then sighed a relief that we weren't terribly affected, and forgot all about it. Same with the conditions of our socio-economic imbalance and injustice. We see the rising crimes, the unequal distribution of resources, the discrimination. We feel violated. Then we go our way, thanking God we weren't terribly affected. How come?

How Come?
How come the effect didn't move us enough to do something? Where are the Christians and the CFs, helping to clean out the remains of the terrible floods? Where are we in talking with the flood victims and holding their hands? The same happened in all the issues I mentioned above. We sent our money, we prayed a prayer, and stayed on in our comfort! We have cut ourselves off and are unwilling to get our hands dirty. We do not want the inconvenience of not having easy answers, struggling the long fight against injustice and discrimination. We have left the Lord's question to Isaiah (Isaiah 6:8), "Who will go for us?," unanswered.

Who Will Go For Us?
Jesus called the church in Laodicea to buy from Him gold refined in fire, clothes to cover their nakedness and salve to put in their eyes. I am calling myself and you to this, too. My friend, we cannot pretend any longer that we are rich. We must answer the call, "Who will go for us?" in Malaysia, into our society, into people's lives. We need to be out there, pouring out our lives into our nation, society and other people's lives. The newspapers reported that they needed 1500 counselors to help the flood victims to walk through their trauma. We may not all be counselors, but we can hold hands, can't we? Will you go?

Maybe you have a different view, or your own heart's concerns. Do share, yeah?!

You Tau Kah?

Do you know who your neighbour in campus?

Looking back at my campus years……
I remember when I first stepped into the campus; I was given the opportunity to meet so many new friends, as we were all going through the same phase together. Staying in campus gave me the opportunity to get to know my friends – their different backgrounds, hometown, course, religion, race & even language. I remember having 3 groups of friends. The first group were friends that stayed at the same block as me. We went for lunch & dinner together. The second group of friends were my Christian friends in Christian Fellowship and the third group of friends were my course mates. I don’t know about you, but I searched for a place where I could belong. I found it in my group of friends where I felt comfortable and could just be who I am.

I believe campus is a place where we are given the opportunities to reach out by just being a real friend to people around us and sharing with them the journey we go through. Do you know that Christian Fellowships exist for its NON-MEMBERS? If we are so caught up being only with Christian friends, organizing activities that only builds our own members up, then we’ve got it wrong.

Do you know who your NEIGHBOR in campus is?
- course mates, room mates, apartment mates, project/assignment mates, lecturers, tutors, cleaners, admin staff and the list goes on-

Can I challenge you to open your eyes and see the needs around you - the people in your campus. Come let’s build genuine friendships with them, inviting them to know our lives and our stories. Let us learn to receive their lives and their stories, creating a place where they feel safe & allow them to be themselves.

Let us re-examine ourselves & our CFs……Do you know who your neighbor in campus? You Tau Kah?

You Dare Meh?

Honestly, I wish it was a plea instead of a dare. But Christ himself was unapologetic in this tour-de-force of counter-culture. 3 chapters out of the 1189 chapters in the Bible: that’s just a small fraction. 0.25231 % to be exact. Yet, the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is Christ saying potently “See, this is how you should live. This is the pattern of your Legacy”.

The question is: “You dare meh?”

You dare meh? To capture the SHOCKING SPIRITUALITY of being blessed for things that are weak and useless; of the poor in spirit, of the mourners, of the persecuted. (Matt 5:1-16)

You dare meh? To pursue the AUTHENTIC RIGHTEOUSNESS where anger and lust spell murder and adultery, where exacting justice meets its match in God’s perfection in loving even our enemies. (Matt 5:17-48)

You dare meh? To possess an AUTHENTIC RELIGION of no more charades and masks, but only to stand alone before your Father in giving, prayer and fasting. To possess a heavenly treasure and leave behind earthly worries. (Matt 6:1-34)

You dare meh? To enjoy AUTHENTIC RELATIONSHIPS with men and with God to “do to others what you would have them do to you”. (Matt 7:1-20)

You dare meh? To embrace AUTHENTIC COMMITMENT and choose the small road and the narrow gate, to build your life on, and ONLY on, the foundation of Christ. (Matt 7:21-29)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s (1906-1945) study of the Sermon on the Mount carried the title “The Cost of Discipleship”. It was to cost him his life as he died in a Nazi prison for daring to be counter-culture. Prevailing culture with its blend of materialism and moral relativism does not parade itself as blatantly as what Bonhoeffer had to stand up to, yet Marva J. Dawn recognises how this culture creeps into our lives and the life of the church. She lists some of its effects: Postmodern Pluralism, The Loss of Truth in Postmodern Times, The Loss of Authority and Mentoring in Postmodern Times, The Loss of Community in Society, The Quick-Fix Mentality and the Breakdown of Disciplines and Practices and The Rejection of the Actuality of “Sin” (M.J. Dawn, Unfettered Hope, 2003). Run a checklist of these with our lives, it sounds awfully too familiar, doesn’t it?

It’s time to live Counter Culture, Christ has shown us how, but it’s going to cost us. It’s going to cost us being popular, common, conventional, regular, standard and usual. The Sermon on the Mount provides a blueprint for leaving a true legacy behind: a shocking, peculiar and authentic legacy. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21a). Will you READ it? STUDY it? LIVE it? You dare meh…?

LEGACY LIVE!

Oh please! It's not a t-shirt, neither do we want it to be a bumper-sticker kind of empty doxology. It's who you are!! It's what you leave behind as you live your life. It's a calling hanging over your head. It's your name tag as God's missionary on campus and beyond.

Yup, that's the only thing that doesn't change. Your status might, your financial success might, but your identity remains ~ MISSIONARY ON SITE. And right now, your site is your campus.

I laugh my head off (that's why I'm the headless one!) when Christian students in campus tell me they want to go on missions. How blind we have become ~ the missionfield we have been sent to, we do not want to acknowledge. Do you know how many failed missionaries we produce at our annual convocations in our campuses?

What do we do? We live our lives well. We touch other lives. We fight for others' rights. We go out of our way for them. We share with them Jesus' love and sacrifice for them. With every passing day, every week, every semester and every year, ... we leave behind legacies. "Live" in and through our lives.

Come on, this is your missionary news letter. Share your success and share your obstacles. We must challenge each other on. Remember, it is "Legacy Live!"

WORDilicious Investigators

Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, Magnum P.I. They are a club of their own. Private investigators who never fail to surprise you with a twist to their investigations. These days in Malaysia, the numbers of private investigators are increasing. They investigate threats, investigate frauds, but mostly they investigate desperate wives' fears of their husbands having affairs. It's a thriving trade.

Happily we have started our own Wordilicious Investigators! Launched officially as an enterprise in 2006, this is our second year running. But we are old hands at this, many have done the same over the years under different names ~ and it is WORD-delicious! Hungry anyone?

B.U.R.P.
After meals, burps are in order. Many of my friends and you included often give a satisfied burp after a hearty meal. I hope to hear you burping after a WORDilicious one. That's what W.I. is about, men and women who 'eat' God's Word, letting it digest into their system, transforming into a loud B.U.R.P. Building Up Radical People! :)

WHO INVESTIGATES WHO?
Often, those who study their Bibles, "Wordilicious Investigators" think they are called to investigate the Word, dissect what it says and put it together again in a way that makes sense. I beg to differ! I believe we are called to allow the Word to INVESTIGATE us. It questions our living, our conscience, our mission, our values and our compassion. The Word investigates our lives and calls us to allow our lives to be answer to its questions.

EAT HIS BOOK
Hurry! Hurry! Your time in campus is running out. If not now, then when? When will you sign up to be a Wordilicious Investigator (W.I.)? Investigate the Word, or rather let it investigate you. Come together under the Word as WIs. Discover that Acts, Haggai, Zechariah, Revelations and the rest of the 66 books are waiting to investigate your life. Eat His book and live. You may look foolish going against the way society is going, but you will sure be a radical disciple.

What do you say? What is your story about B.U.R.P.; about Who Investigates Who; about Eat His Book? Chip in your say, tell us the cost, challenge our simple view or decry the Word as a boring, unalive book. Investigate and be investigated!

Feeling old in the new?

A Happy New Year to you!!!! How did you see the old year out and the new year in? There's just this excitement and anticipation surrounding the ushering in of a new year huh?

Some years, I find myself caught up in the general expectant atmosphere, other years, I find myself saying "same ol, same ol..."

Do we feel old in the new year? Been there, done that......What's different? New Year resolutions? What's that but just another glorified promise to ourselves to do something we haven't been able to do for the whole previous year? What makes us think we can accomplish it THIS year?

For some of us, ‘new’ simply means another semester starting. Anyone started thinking of all the work ahead already? Some have already started semester! And already wallowing in assignments. Is there really anything 'new' in a new year? Or is it just old tired minds and spirits in tired bodies entering a new page of the calendar? Is there hope that there is really something new for us?

Maybe there is hope for some of our problems. We see things clearing up in this year. Some instances of reconciliation? Graduation? Starting work? Starting a new course? Making new friends? Making a new start or new promises?

What if we don’t see how certain problems can be cleared up in this year? Painful and hurting relationships continuing just the same, having struggled to juggle things last year, this year (with the promise of more assignments) may be worse!!

How are you entering this new 2007? With hope, and something to look forward to? Or with a sense of resignation, that things are just gonna be the same, no hope for improvements.

Come, have your say about what entering a new year mean to you. Share with us how YOU are entering 2007. Or maybe you have some tips on how best to enter this new year. We’d like to hear them.

Mugz-n-Buzz

Hello there!!! Have you grabbed a mug? Then join the buzz!! We have our mugz, and are ready to buzz with you. This blog is for you to buzz with us.

Come lets talk and comment about the happenings we see around us, what's happening to people, what we hear as we walk in campus.
We can't 'buzz' on our own, so, do feel free to drop a 'buzzie'(comment) and let's hear what YOU have to say.

Mugz-n-Buzz was born to share our thoughts and to hear YOUR thoughts on different issues, trends and challenges of our day. Our hope and dream is that this will become a spot which widens your life experiences through the buzzing of your peers. We also hope to be where you are, to see what you see, to hear what you hear, and to feel what you feel.

So, treat this, as an invitation to be a MugzBuzzer. Have YOUR say in this place.

Ps..Let’s give each other the freedom to have our say while respecting differences. And may this place be one where we encourage and build up each other.

Check It Out!!!!

Look familiar? Yeah!!!! The Wordilicious Investigators Conference also saw the launch of the new Legacy Live tshirt.
Next up, look out for the lauch of the Mugz-n-Buzz blogspot in January!!!!