Home-Sickness

When I was in Korea for a week, I missed everything. From American bathrooms to hamburgers, to home and just knowing where I was. I'm a type of person who likes to know where they are, whether it be a city name or just knowing I'm heading north, south, east or west but in Korea, my sense of direction was completely off. So when I finally knew I was on my way to the airport to go back home, I was excited to know that I was heading in the right direction..that is I was going back home to New York.

But these thoughts crossed my mind while I was slowly approaching the airport, "Why do I want to go home so much?" I did miss things that could only be found at home but I started to ask myself, "Why do I want to leave so badly?" Simply, because Korea wasn't my home. This wasn't the place I was meant to be in. If I had to live in Korea, sure I could survive because it had the things I need to live but I did not belong there. My life was in New York.

I couldn't help but connect this to Narnia because C. S. Lewis does a great job portraying this sense of not belonging and desire for home in The Horse and His Boy. This is similar to the longings within all of us for heaven but I started to realized it was actually for the presence of God. I think we often get confused with what heaven is suppose to be because we see it portrayed with pictures of clouds, angels, a lot of light and halos but heaven is simply being in the presence of God for eternity. That here on earth, as we spend time in His presence, the longing for heaven grows because we get a taste of it and know what it will be like. And just like when I was in Korea and wanted to be back home, so will we start seeing we weren't meant to live here on earth but we were meant to be in heaven, in the presence of God.

I'll finish this post by borrowing something else from C. S. Lewis: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy because they were there to arouse, to suggest the real thing. That real thing is heaven.”

Prayer & Faith

Faith is more than belief. The devils believe and tremble, but they do not trust. Faith is TRUST. It is not an opinion, not a fiction, not a supposition. Faith is a faculty of vision, a process of verification, an assurance of knowledge, a logic of life. Faith demands an honest and impartial mind, a pure and disinterested motive, a loyal and steadfast obedience. This is the faith that works to the justification of the ungodly, the sanctification of the unholy, and to the mighty power that prevails in prayer. -Samuel Chadwick

Guest Speaker - Basil McLaren

These are the links from the message today:

• Covenant Seminary
• Reformed Theological Seminary
• The SBS Podcast

Also, if you guys want to keep in contact with Basil his email is basilmclaren@gmail.com

Life of the Body

The Presence of the Spirit is vital and central to the work of the Church. Nothing else avails. Apart from Him wisdom becomes folly, and strength weakness. The Church is called to be a "spiritual house" and a holy priesthood. Only spiritual people can be its "living stones," and only the Spirit-filled its priests. Scholarship is blind to spiritual truth till He reveals. Worship is idolatry till He inspires. Preaching is powerless if it be not a demonstration of His power. Prayer is vain unless He energizes. Human resources of learning and organization, wealth and enthusiasm, reform and philanthropy, are worse than useless if there be no Holy Ghost in them. The Church always fails at the point of self-confidence. When the Church is run on the same lines as a circus, there may be crowds, but there is no Shekinah (Glory of God). That is why prayer is the test of faith and the secret of power. The Spirit of God travails in the prayer-life of the soul. Miracles are the direct work of His power, and without miracles the Church cannot live. The carnal can argue, but it is the Spirit that convicts. Education can civilize, but it is being born of the Spirit that saves. The energy of the flesh can run bazaars, organize amusements, and raise millions; but it is the presence of the Holy Spirit that makes a Temple of the Living God. The root-trouble of the present distress is that the Church has more faith in the world and the flesh than in the Holy Ghost, and things will get no better till we get back to His realized presence and power. The breath of the four winds would turn death into life and dry bones into mighty armies, but it only comes by prayer.

-Samuel Chadwick

David Livingstone (Missionary)

Thoughts on the life of David Livingstone by Leonard Ravenhill

“In Scotland, nine miles out of Glasgow, there’s a great big house, a national memorial to David Livingstone. In it there is a model that shows the room where he died, where for years and years he prayed. It’s like some of those houses in India that are made of bamboo and leaves woven in. And there he is, kneeling over a bed, if you can call it that—two bamboo rods with some leaves on it—and a candle flickering there. They said every night he would kneel at that bed and you would hear him crying with his hands raised, “God, when will the wound of this world’s sin be healed?”
He fought the Portuguese slave traders. He did many, many marvelous things. Why? Because he had a Gethsemane of his own. His precious wife died and he buried her in the jungle. And the baby she bore died. He buried the child at the side of its mother. Another child he had died—he buried that one.
But the grief didn’t change his zeal for God. It added fuel to the fire. “The devil’s trying to rob me. The devil’s trying to hinder me.” And he worked with greater zeal. He prayed more than ever he had prayed. They said that night after night his voice would echo through the forest, “Oh God, when will the wound of this world’s sin be healed?”
Dear God! all our pastors are concerned about is adding one or two members! Or getting another bus to bring the people in! I say again, there can be no revival without travail.”