The AMI QT Devotionals for November 11-12 are provided by Christine Wang who, along with her husband Ulysses, recently planted the Renewal Church in Sunnyvale, California. A graduate of New York University, Christine is a proud mother of Audrey and Noah.
Devotional Thoughts for Today
Cultivating Obedience (Part 2)
Jonah 3:1-3
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth
Yesterday, I shared how God didn’t relinquish my husband Ulysses and me from the call to China after we had run from it. Instead, He relentlessly pursued us and allowed us time in the “belly of the fish” to experience Him.
RETURN: While God never relinquished us, it was us who, under the Lord’s tender guidance, were finally able to relinquish all of our weak reasons for disobeying and returned to His calling on our lives. Praise God for giving us second chances and not passing us over when we initially refuse! In September 2012, our family went back to China. We spent the next two years there ministering to a local church and learning so much about ourselves. We were stretched and challenged—it was so difficult but so good. It began to work in me a faith to obey Him who is trustworthy. It was a critical refining period and little did we know it would prepare us for what was to come…
REVELATION: The story of Jonah seems like it could have ended at chapter 3 with Jonah’s obedience to return to Nineveh. Amazingly, it doesn’t. Chapter 4 shows the very real and raw emotions Jonah feels after obeying God. Our obedience could easily be just about performing the task given to us. But we need to remember, God doesn’t need us to do anything. I am reminded of that fact from seeing Jonah’s rather insincere preaching (he hoped that the Ninevites wouldn’t repent and be destroyed as a result—Jonah 4:5-9) resulted in the repentance of an entire nation: “The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth” (Jonan 3:5).
So then why does He choose to partner with us to carry out His will on earth? It is an incredible truth that God loves us so much that He wants to transform us and reveal His heart to us in this process. Learning to obey God has fundamentally transformed me and given me a bigger heart for others. When He called us to SF last year to plant a new church, we went through a similar process, but this time, rather than two years, it took a little over two months to say “yes” again!
In Matthew 12:40 says, “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Ultimately, Jesus empowers us to say yes because He obeyed the Father and said yes to the Cross. He relinquished all of His rights as the Son of God to save us. Because of that and the power of the Holy Spirit, we can also relinquish and obey!
Do you believe God wants to reveal and transform you – not just get you to perform a task? He cares about you, not just what you do. Wherever you are in the process of turning that NO to a YES, remember that He seeks to work in you!
Prayer: Lord, I thank You for Your sacrifice that you made on the cross. Transform me and fill me with Your Holy Spirit so that I could surrender and obey You completely and wholeheartedly. Amen.
Bible Reading for Today: Jeremiah 11
Run. Why is it that whenever God calls us to do something, our first reaction is to run in the opposite direction? I know for myself, it is always because of my feelings of inadequacy, insecurity and fear. Maybe you would fill in that blank with different things that only you struggle with. Whatever the case, we often find our lives filled with, “I can’t, Lord.” I heard a sermon once preached where the pastor said, “Call it for what it really is. Your ‘I can’t’ is really, ‘I won’t.’” For me, that was all too true. Thankfully, God wanted to change my “Nos” to “Yeses.” There are four things we experience during that process. I will share two today and the rest tomorrow.
The AMI QT Devotionals from November 6-12 are provided by Pastor Paul Liu, who pastors the Grace Covenant Church Singapore. He is a graduate of University of Illinois (BA) and Biblical Theological Seminary (M.Div.). He and his wife Ailsa have three beautiful daughters.
Shocking! That’s not an unusual response to the content of the Bible, since the Bible is filled with realistic portrayals of sin and tragedy and failure: Abraham, the father of faith, lies through his teeth. Moses, the deliverer of his people, was a murderer. David, the man after God’s own heart, committed adultery, had the woman’s husband killed, and covered up the whole affair. None of it is softened or rationalized away. We’re just shown the ugly truth about sinful people so that we might see how awful sin is and its consequences.
An undeniable fact of contemporary life is that we live in a MULTI-TASKING world—we’re always doing multiple tasks at the same time. So the other day I was just being a product of my culture by doing two things at once: preparing pour over coffee while cooking ramen noodles. Neither of these things is that difficult by itself, but doing both at once was a bigger challenge than I anticipated. The pour over is done in measured pours over three and a half minutes, so you get an even extraction from the coffee beans. For ramen, you want to take the pot off the boil when the noodles have cooked for just the right amount of time—not too soggy and not too hard. But because I was doing both at once, time became my enemy and I ended up rushing the first thing and being late for the next—ending up with sour coffee and soggy noodles. I had ruined both (depending on your tastes).
As a man, I have to humbly admit that a lot of my own ‘self-talk’ involves these words, ‘Be a man!’ more often than I care to admit. When there’s a decision to be made and I’m feeling torn – ‘Be a man!’ When my feelings are hurt and I’m licking my wounds – ‘Be a man!’ When I have to say something hard but true to someone who I hope doesn’t reject me – ‘Be a man!’ Now, I’m not saying this is only for men. ‘Be a woman!’ is a great line as well! But it does tell us that it takes courage to live with integrity. ‘Be a man’ or ‘Be a woman’ means: Don’t let fear keep you from doing what you know you ought to do. ‘Be a man’ or ‘Be a woman’ means: Don’t put off the necessary for fear of the imaginary. We need courage to live for God – which is what we see in today’s passage.
I’m not sure if this is a trait more common to men or women, but I’ve often been guilty of testing fate by letting the gas tank run all the way to empty. I know I shouldn’t do this, and it’s probably an excuse to say I’m testing the fuel efficiency of my car or wanting to know how many miles to the gallon I’m getting. But I keep doing it, in spite of all the warning systems around me: my wife, the actual light on the dashboard, the occasional loss of power when I press the gas… When will I ever learn?
Have you ever looked in the mirror and not liked what you saw reflected back? Of course you have. We’ve all gone through puberty… But where we might think a pimple or a rebellious strand of hair ruins everything, the reality is usually quite different. We oftentimes think worse of our looks because we’re insecure. The reality probably is—it’s not that bad.
During World War II, some soldiers serving in France wanted to bury a friend and fellow soldier who had been killed. Being in a foreign country, they wanted to ensure their fallen comrade had a proper burial. They found a well-kept cemetery with a low stone wall around it by a beautiful Catholic church and a peaceful outlook—this was just the place to bury their friend. But when they approached the priest, he answered that unless their friend was a baptized Catholic he could not be buried in the cemetery. The fallen soldier wasn’t. Sensing the soldier’s disappointment, the priest showed them a spot outside the walls where they could bury their friend. Reluctantly, they did so.
The AMI QT Devotionals from October 30-November 5 are provided by Emerson Lin. Emerson, a graduate of University of California, San Diego, serves as staff at Kairos Christian Church, while studying at Talbot School of Theology. He is married to Annie. They will soon leave for E. Asia to serve as missionaries.
“Are you serious? Again?” was my response as I read that a 29-year old man named Sayfullo Siapov used a truck to plow through a lower Manhattan bike path this past Tuesday. I had the same response for all these senseless killings that have been happening in United States: from Charlottesville to Las Vegas and now New York (and before the ink is dry, another random violence took three lives in Colorado). Considering this (and also the tragedy happening abroad, like the recent deadly attack in Somalia that took the lives of more than 400 people), I can’t help but feel a sense of hopelessness. Will things get better? The answer is yes!
If someone were to ask you to name your three closest friends, would it be difficult to list off, or easy? Regardless of whether we are introverts or extroverts, friendships are one of the most important things in our lives. Good friends celebrate the joyful times and walk with us through the tough times. So, in order for people to become friends, they need to genuinely enjoy spending time with one another.