Praying for the 1040 tour is love!

JMA's most recent post told of obstacles they have been encountering on the 1040 tour. JMA called for us to pray, and pray we must, because that is the most important thing that we can do! Send JMA your prayer to support the tour!

Here's my prayer:
Our Father in heaven,

You are amazing and wonderful! We give you thanks and praise and all glory for the work that you are doing through Jaeson and the 1040 team. May You protect them, physically and spiritually, and bless the work of their hands. May You lead them and give them wisdom. May You fill them with the Holy Spirit and help them to stand firm in the Truth. God, may You help them with any and all logistics involved with the tour. May every vacant seat be filled at every single showing. May every heart be turned back toward You!

Father God, may You rain down Your love upon each and every single person who attends a 1040 showing, or watches the 1040 film. May Your love and Truth fill their hearts and souls. May we be empowered by Your love to live a life that is worthy of Your calling. Father God, we be humble and contrite in heart, leaning on You always, and loving You with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

In Jesus' powerful and mighty name,
Amen!

Crying out for the lost Part 2

Earlier, I had blogged about the challenge that Jaeson Ma had called us to, to cry out to God twice daily for the lost. Doing this for the first couple of days was quite exciting and fun; I would pray for whoever was around me at that time, my co-workers, my friends, my family, random strangers on the road. It was really refreshing to drop everything and spend a minute or two praying for those who had not yet received God's free gift of salvation.

But, just as human nature would have it, I started getting lazy, and the prayers started sounding the same...

Interestingly, God used my granny's funeral to refresh my heart for the lost. My granny's funeral was a very traditional Chinese funeral, so picture lots of chanting, and wailing, and people you never met trying to send their condolences. In the beginning, I spent my time trying to figure out what these people were actually chanting, but after awhile, I knew it was a hopeless cause, so I started praying for the people that were there. Every time the chanting got loud (and annoying), my desperation would grow, and the prayers that I shouted to God (in my heart) would get louder and more urgent. This went on for hours... from morning until night...

Although the funeral was a sad and long affair, but this episode showed me how many people were still lost. It showed me how many were still in darkness, clinging onto old traditions that cannot save them. Although I didn't get to use words to share the gospel with anyone that day, but I trust that God heard my prayers and petitions. I know that He loves us too much to forsake us.

Are you crying out for the lost too?

"Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, O Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. Give ear, O God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy."

Crying out for the lost

At the Kingdom Advance conference that I went to this past Saturday, we learned about how to make disciples, and one of the things that Jaeson Ma challenged us to do was to pray for the lost. Before planning any activities, or sitting down with anyone, prayer is the first thing we should do, and it is the most important thing we can do. Jaeson challenged us to cry out to God every day, twice a day, at 10:02 a.m. and 10:02 p.m. If the lost are to be saved, we need to cry out to God to remember His people, to save the lost, and to send out harvesters into the harvest field. We need to cry out in faith, trusting that our God of the universe will send the perfect people at the perfect time, to bring the Good News of His salvation to the hurting, needy, poor, and lost of this world.

So we set alarms on our phones, and we have been praying. I decided that I will not only be praying for harvesters, but I will be praying for those who are lost - by name. Today, I prayed for one of my close friends and my cousins. Tomorrow, I will pray for my dad and my coworkers. Most of all though, I pray that God will empower me to keep praying, to keep trusting, and to keep loving the lost.

Love challenge: "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."

Loving Dad Part 3

So my church is showing Jaeson Ma's 1040 movie tonight to raise funds for our new church plant. Jaeson Ma will also be there to perform one of his new songs. Needless to say, I've been looking forward to this event ever since I heard about it a few months back, and I was definitely one of the first to load up on some tickets, so that I could invite believing and non-believing friends alike to join me.

Sadly, my granny, who hasn't been feeling so well lately, passed away this past weekend, and after a long week away from home to be with her, my dad came back to HK today. So of course I dropped everything to spend time with him, to encourage him and to grieve with him. Poor dad. He loves my grandma so much. Although I'm going to miss being with my church to witness the revival that God will bring through this movie, but I'm so glad to be able to be an encouragement to my dad too. I pray that he will see and experience God's love, and be comforted, because God promises to comfort those who mourn. (Matthew 5:4)

Love challenge: Think of others' needs before your own.

Jaeson Ma!

Just by typing the title of the blog makes me feel like a groupie! And as a disclaimer, I'm not here to encourage anyone to worship celebrities or idols, or even be followers of people who bring the Good News of the gospel (see 1 Corinthians 1:10-17), but I merely wanted to do something as an act of encouragement for someone who has encouraged me.

I knew that Jaeson was coming to town for the Kingdom Advance conference, and my super inspiring friend invited me to one of the night sessions, so what better way to give him some encouragement than that night? So, after hearing Jaeson give an awesome talk about how to make disciples of all nations (as per the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20) and after worshiping and praying our hearts out for the city of Hong Kong, I very timidly stood in line hoping to just thank Jaeson for being an inspiration, and to give him the Love Cheer game (see below!)

Honestly, as I was waiting in line, I wanted to back out every other second, but my super inspiring friend encouraged me to keep at it. I'm sure Jaeson has his fair share of groupies and crazy people stalking him, and after a long night, I'm sure another giddy fan is not what he needed, but he graciously accepted the gift and said thanks! :) I really do hope that I could have been a tiny bit of an encouragement to someone who has encouraged so many around the world...

Love challenge: Being encouraging takes courage sometimes, but remember, God commanded us "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

The Love Cheer game goes like this:

A cheerful heart is good medicine Proverbs 17:22

You’ve heard before that laughter is the best medicine. Here in your hands, you hold the world’s best drug-free medication for the body and mind. Your objective is to heal as many people as you can, spread as much love as you can, by creating and sharing as much laughter as you can with those around you.

Instructions:

This game is like telephone pictionary, except with a twist.

It is played with an odd number of people; 7, 9, or 11 people work best. If you have an even number of people, one person can act as the time-keeper and judge.

Everyone starts with a piece of paper and a different colored pencil.

Write your name on the bottom of your piece of paper.

Choose 3 words or phrases (some have been provided for you below), and make up a complete sentence using these words. Remember, the objective of the game is to spread joy, so the funnier and more creative the sentence, the more laughter you will be able to create!

After you have written down the sentence, pass the paper to the person sitting next to you. This person now has to draw out the sentence that you wrote down!

When they are finished drawing, they need to fold down the paper, so that it covers the sentence that the first person wrote, and pass the paper showing just the picture to the person next to them. That person then has to write a sentence based on the pictures that were drawn by the person before them. Continue doing this, drawing pictures and writing down sentences, until the paper with your name on the bottom gets back to you.

Unfold your paper, and have a good laugh!

Suggestions:

• Juggle the difficulty by limiting the amount of time you can use to write your sentences and draw your pictures. For starters, you may limit sentence writing to 30 seconds, and picture drawing to one minute.
• Rotate sitting places to switch people up
• Everyone’s a winner in this game, but to up the competition, you may want the judge to keep points for the piece that has the most number of words correct at the end, whoever has the best drawings, the piece that is the most hilarious, or even give extra points for those who can guess which Scripture passage some of the verses are from.

Word list:

Some words and phrases to get your creative juices flowing:

• jamming with the band
• beat boxing and break dancing
• galloping horses
• Toy Story 3
• meting the president
• colorful & bright
• The Yellow Brick Road
• couples figure skating
• stand firm
• Love never fails
• helping someone in need
• praying for someone
• you & me
• heaven
• exchanging marriage vows
• best friends
• mom & dad
• yesterday
• afternoon tea
• Noah's Ark
• ... add your own!

Love Inspiration

Before we embark on this journey of love (starting July 1st), I would like to take a moment to give a shout-out to Jaeson Ma, because he inspired us to take on this love challenge and to live out love in real and practical ways, 3six5 days of the year.

I would not do justice using words to describe who Jaeson is, so instead, I will direct you to his blog: http://jaesonma.com/. He's currently on day 170 of his own 365 day love challenge, and I have to say, he has done some crazy and fun things in the name of love! As you read his blog, you may also want to check out his single, Love.

May you be inspired and encouraged to love others as well, persistently and self-lessly. And as you do so, may you be filled like you've never been filled before, because real love is not draining, but is something that renews the heart and soul.