Theme of the Year

“So he answered and said, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ” (Luke 10:27 NKJV)

Our consistent prayer to the Lord is to help us build a relational church; and in 2016, we augmented this prayer with the expression – being a beloved disciple of Christ by cultivating our inner life (which is a vital discipline to grow in practice each year). To increasingly see and experience the reality of this type of relational building from within and without the church, we need to first be loving “the LORD our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind,” daily. Unless we are growing in love with God, we will find it an uphill climb for us to “love our neighbour” as ourself. The fact is, if left on our own, we will position “I, me, myself” over and above our neighbour.

How do we give “I, me, myself” a knock-out blow? By engaging in prayer the way Paul did when he told the Thessalonians: ““We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers,” (I Thessalonians 1:2) Paul did not just dive into supplication and prayed about needs first, he first thanked God for all his fellow disciples in Christ. When we do likewise, we will experience what Dietrich Bonhoeffer said concerning the dynamics of a true Christian community:

“A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner.”

With the Lord’s new season for the church each successive year, let us choose to hear new sounds of thanksgiving and prayer arising from our hearts. Let us do acts of faith, love and hope in a world in need of Christ – declaring that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. We will not become tired of doing good to all, especially those belonging to the household of faith, when we serve from the inside out ~ to that end, becoming beloved disciples of Christ by cultivating our inner life daily, and loving God and neighbour together.

Francis Chen

Lead Pastor