[/caption]This is the 2nd part of my sharing for Winter Conference. Last blog, I talked about the highlights that I took out, Initiative Evangelism (during our free time and night time), and also my visions in how God wants me to impact the world. For this entry, I will basically finish up the rest of my experience at Winter Conference.
Our speaker for this conference is Tom Cullen. He's a pastor at a Chinese church in Scarborough. I thoroughly enjoyed all the main session. He covered a lot of important depth of the Bible in the Old Testament and how we can play part of God's story. He encouraged us to always read the Bible in CONTEXT. He used few examples of how the verses or passages are taken out of context, such as 1 Corinthians 13.
Pastor Tom went through:
The survey of Genesis: The story of God in creation;
The survey of Deuteronomy: The story of God's grace;
The survey of Ruth: The story of God in redemption;
The survey of Jonah: The story of God in mission.
Pastor Tom knew his stuff and I thank God that He called him to speak at conference, blessing us with the word of God, encouraging us and challenging us. For those who went on conference, indeed you may be fed with good knowledge of the Old Testament, but I encourage you (and myself) to use it and go out and share this message with our friends because "knowledge puffs up, but love builds up."
The workshop this year is pretty good this year. I went to three seminars: How to Love difficult people, Why is the Old Testament awesome, and Make the most of your time. I won't go into a lot details on the workshops because there would be lots to cover.
Personally, I do struggle with loving difficult people, especially my family. Sometimes I am selfish towards them and not care about them. Because they are non-believers, they talk about stuff that it's hard for me to participate. God is using me to love them and I want to show that love to them so that they would see Christ in me.
Old Testament is awesome! PERIOD. Interestingly enough, I am taking Willing School of the Bible, and the course is covering all of the Old Testament. So far, the course is awesome! God is good.
I need to find my notes for the last workshop (Make the most of your time). This is what I took out: find a purpose and manage your time to meet that purpose.
During the day of evangelism, C4C did an outreach in a totally new way. We used facebook, msn, phone, and other technical innovation to help advance the message of the gospel through the use of the media and the internet. Long story short from my experience (check the photo on the top), it started out with prayer and empowerment of the Holy Spirit to guide me to talk to whoever is online. Also, I specifically prayed for my friend to be online so I may have another spiritual conversation with him. And praise God! My prayer was answered. He and I had a long spiritual conversation about Grace vs. Religion. I explained everything he needed to know about the difference, and he understood the difference. Ultimately, I want to show love and I want to love him as much as possible to help him discover who Jesus is and what His goal was on earth. Therefore, I shared the gospel with him for my fourth time. However, in the end, he would say that he does not believe in the existence of God, and I didn't know what to respond to him. Although I thank God because he is very open to both arguments between theist and atheist because there is no concrete evidence...yet he leans on the other side more.
If you are reading this, and you do not believe God exist, then may I submit to you to consider the life you are living in. This world we are living in will all die and fade away. Actually, we will die some day. If I am DEAD WRONG that God exist (or if God does not exist), then no hard feelings for me because I do not have anything to lose (think logically =D ). However, if you are wrong, then you are making a BAD gamble for your eternal destiny. I do love you because I do not want you to make that gamble. For those who are in Christ, we have the full confidence that Jesus is alive and has all the authority of ruling over all the heavens and the earth, and that those who receive Him as Saviour and Lord shall inherit eternal life; therefore, we do not need to make that kind of gamble. If you are not a Christian, then what is your craving in life? Do those cravings fulfill all the satisfaction in your own life? What if Jesus is the one who can fulfill those cravings?
Jesus was talking to a Samaritan woman who was getting water at the well, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (Context of this passage is found in John 4)
If you want to know more about Jesus, then you have to know the basics of why I believe, which is ultimately the Gospel that is explained in this link.
I shall end my Winter Conference experience here. I want to end this post with a quote by my friend, Kevin Thomas, that truly applies to the desires that I have.
"So what do I want to do? I know what I don't want to happen. In my final moments before I take the road that exits this life, I don't want to look back and just see a diligent student who did well in school, got a high GPA and academic accomplishments to boot. I don't want my life to become about a great professional who always put the project first. I don't want to just see an hard-working engineer who wrote great code and built impressive systems; no one will remember either of them. I won't want to see my possessions, certificates or accolades that only accumulate ever thicker layers of dust; none of them will give me any comfort at that time. An impressive resume will become meaningless, for no one will ever use it to make a hiring decision ever again. Any money (or lack of it) that I accumulate will have an exchange rate of zero on the other side of this life.
I want to pour my life out to the very last drop for that which will bring life to people's hearts. I want to tell them about the Living One, the Christ without whom there is no Land of The Living. Loving people has become very important to me. I want to love those around me with all the risks that come with it, even if I get hurt in the process; the hurt won't matter anymore on the other side of this life. What good is it being a stingy miser with my words, affection and actions? Who am I saving all my capacity for love, anyway? Am I planning to hoard it carefully and spend it all on those whom I meet when I cross over into the Land of The Living? That's so stupid!
I have come to the conclusion that as great as it is that we are able to develop innovative technology, building better systems of any kind will not ultimately change the condition of the human heart, out of which all things flow. Neither will the approach of taking power out of the hands of the few and putting it into the hands of the people; it is pointless if the heart doesn't recognize the One who possesses and bestows all power, understand what true power is, and how to wield it. Without bringing people to the knowledge of the Living One, the Giver of Life, I have come to the belief that every other accomplishment in my life is ultimately meaningless.
I want to shine the light of the Living One in the Land of the Dying, so that those who are dead will see His light and come along with me on my journey with Him to the Land of the Living. If I die in the process, I'll get there all the faster. "
May God bless you as we journey this life together by His grace and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
1 Thessalonians 3:11-13 "Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you,so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints."
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