rest...

1 John 3:18-20

Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us.

Ever wonder how God is so at rest? It’s not because we appease Him with our love and worship. It’s because He loves so beautifully.

In a world where we so often see examples of shallow or fallen love, it’s God’s love that absolutely amazes me.

His love is meant to be our inspiration for loving people. Instead of using the example of our love to love Him, we are to use His love as an example to love.

United’s Second Chance has these lyrics: How could greater love than this… ever possibly exist? Consume my thoughts as I rest in you…

It’s living a life of love that truly sets our hearts at rest.

Prayer for the week: Father, it is your love that forgave my sin, fulfills my destiny and brings freedom. Thank you for treasuring relationship with me that you would give it all for me. Your love is more than real and is how I want to love you and others.

under...

Romans 6:6

For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Sometimes it feels like grace is such an ‘impractical practice’. After all, by definition, we do nothing when we live under grace.

But that is the point. The very things we need forgiveness from, the very things we want fulfillment in, the very things we want freedom for, don’t ultimately come from us.

For those of us who have strived to change ourselves, I am sure we have found it an onerous task. Don’t we read that self-control is fruit of a Spirit-filled life (Galatians 5:23), not a method to achieve it? Don’t we read that the Spirit is a gift (Luke 11:!3), that is, it comes by grace not by us being ‘spiritual’? We have a choice, to believe what we are conditioned to think or to read the word given in Scripture.

You can’t happily live in sin and claim to be “under grace”. And in the same way, we don’t avoid sin by setting up the greatest set of rules to keep us in check.

Under grace, we become “slaves” to righteousness. Grace breaks the power of sin.

Prayer for the week: Father, it is your love that forgave my sin, fulfills my destiny and brings freedom. Thank you for treasuring relationship with me that you would give it all for me. Your love is more than real and is how I want to love you and others.

purpose...

Luke 4:18

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

Jesus quotes a messianic prophesy from Isaiah to declare his purpose on earth. Not only is the Spirit and Jesus as one on this purpose but it’s the same purpose that His Father has (John 5:19).

The thing that people found so hard to believe back in Jesus’ day is still the same thing that we struggle with – that Jesus came not to be served but to serve (Mark 10:45).

He truly wants to have a meaningful relationship with us. He truly is everything we need. Are we looking everywhere else for a sense of freedom, release, healing and favour?

Or have you let Him into your world where He can start to do all these things in the best way?

Prayer for the week: Father, it is your love that forgave my sin, fulfills my destiny and brings freedom. Thank you for treasuring relationship with me that you would give it all for me. Your love is more than real and is how I want to love you and others.

treasure!

Matthew 13:44

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

The kingdom of heaven comes at a great cost. But it is a cost that we could never pay.

The parable of the hidden treasure is not about what we must do to earn the kingdom, but what it cost to bring us into the kingdom. Jesus explained that the man is himself (v37) and the field is the world (v38).

You are the treasure!

Christ knew the joy of relationship with you (Hebrews 12:2) and pursued you with everything He had.

This love is not superficial, it is real and He wants to know you so deeply and passionately.

Pause and take a moment to realize how much He wants to know and love you.

Prayer for the week: Father, it is your love that forgave my sin, fulfills my destiny and brings freedom. Thank you for treasuring relationship with me that you would give it all for me. Your love is more than real and is how I want to love you and others.

proud...

Hebrews 1:11

Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.

Jesus is not ashamed of us.

Sometimes, you may hear the accusations of the enemy, or maybe wrong preaching, that claims that there are times when Jesus is ashamed of you. Perhaps, that every part of our life is being filmed and will one day be played in heaven to our eternal shame.

If Jesus is not ashamed of us who are we to claim to be so holy and righteous that we are ashamed!

No, Christ did not come to shame us but to call us brothers and sisters.

He stands in front of His Father and presents you proudly (v13). It is Christ’s great joy to tell you everything about our heavenly Father (v12).

So sing it like Sister Sledge – We are family!

Prayer for this week: Father, thank you for your love that sees everything I’m not and still qualifies me to do great things! Father, I can be confident in what you can do through me. I have not been called just to be saved but to something much greater. Speak to me and direct my steps.

because...

1 John 4:19

We love because he first loved us.

He loved us.

I have full confidence in calling Revolution a place of love. I have full confidence in saying that all of us are called to love this generation. I have full confidence that there is a movement of love and grace that is set to take this generation into the presence of Jesus.

Not because of how good we are.

But because He loves us.

That love is the reason why. And that love is more than enough.

Prayer for this week: Father, thank you for your love that sees everything I’m not and still qualifies me to do great things! Father, I can be confident in what you can do through me. I have not been called just to be saved but to something much greater. Speak to me and direct my steps.

dad?

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

Just as in the natural, a good father goes to his child in times of troubles without the child even asking, so it is with our heavenly Father.

A child does not have to call out, ‘Oh father who bore me at great cost and hath given thy seed more than enough; who am I to ask yet thou I humblest come and ask whilst in period of need’. A cry itself will bring the father to the child’s side!

God has called us all to be light in this world, a balm to the hurting and emancipators of burden.

He comes to us anytime we need Him, for He knows you are called to do the same to the friends, family and young adults around us.

Prayer for this week: Father, thank you for your love that sees everything I’m not and still qualifies me to do great things! Father, I can be confident in what you can do through me. I have not been called just to be saved but to something much greater. Speak to me and direct my steps.

before...

John 17:24

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”

Jesus was clothed in glory. But even before he was bestowed with glory, He was loved. Even before Jesus created the world (John 1:3), He was loved.

Did you know that Jesus gives us this same glory (v22)? The glory is given to Jesus because He is loved, and the glory is given to us because we are loved (v23).

This is a love that is to be known and relied upon (1 John 5:16). Jesus’ revelation of his purpose and the glory of it all was grounded in a revelation and trust of how much he was loved.

If we have been given glory and are not living in it, don’t allow it any more! Don’t allow the enemy to whisper in your head that you don’t have a hope, that people are against you, that no one believes in you. It’s not true! You are loved and have been given the same glory that was given Jesus!

Prayer for this week: Father, thank you for your love that sees everything I’m not and still qualifies me to do great things! Father, I can be confident in what you can do through me. I have not been called just to be saved but to something much greater. Speak to me and direct my steps.

somebody...

Romans 8:30

And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

There is a part in all of us that wants to shine.

When I was young and played basketball, I didn’t dream about playing on a Saturday in a C-grade competition. I dreamt about playing in the NBA. In my backyard, I won scoring titles, MVP awards, Championship rings and gold medals. Unfortunately, I was not called to the NBA (darn my short parents)!

It’s a shame when anyone believes they’ll never be anybody. And it’s a shame when in the name of spiritual maturity or church unity, people are told that they shouldn’t shine. No wonder that people strive in their own strength to achieve something of worth and value, even if it is what the world tells them is worthwhile and valuable.

It is God that has placed a great sense of plan and purpose in your heart. And it is only God that will take you to the fullness of it.

When you are doing what you have been called to (in your job, studies and ministry), He will glorify you.

Don’t think about life as what you have and don’t have to do, but what is it that you have been called to?

Prayer for this week: Father, thank you for your love that sees everything I’m not and still qualifies me to do great things! Father, I can be confident in what you can do through me. I have not been called just to be saved but to something much greater. Speak to me and direct my steps.

chose...

1 Corinthians 2:27-29

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

God has not chosen the great to do His will, but the willing to do great.

More than that, He specifically chooses to use all those things in us we consider reasons for us not to be used.

Let’s be honest, we ask God “Why?!” on so many areas of our lives.

We think about ourselves and the things that we aren’t, and therefore all the things we can’t achieve. But I can testify to the fact that he took a stuttering young man with no confidence, to speak and tell people of the confidence that they can have in Christ.

If you could do things in your own strength, He wouldn’t choose you.

What’s that fear you have, the weakness you wish you didn’t have? I declare that God is ready to choose to use you!

Prayer for this week: Father, thank you for your love that sees everything I’m not and still qualifies me to do great things! Father, I can be confident in what you can do through me. I have not been called just to be saved but to something much greater. Speak to me and direct my steps.

better...

Hebrews 11:4

“By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings.”

If you go back to Genesis 4 we see that Abel offered the firstborn of his flock. The writer to the Hebrews makes it clear that it wasn’t the actual act that was pleasing to God but that it was Abel’s faith.

Abel believed God, that the firstborn of his flock was an offering that would please God. Do you see the type of Christ? Romans 8:29 calls Jesus the firstborn of many and Hebrews 9:14 that Jesus was a much better offering. Abel believed a type of the gospel!

Hebrews tells us that Cain’s fault was that he did not have faith. In contrast, Cain brought fruits of the soil and God was not pleased. In the church today, we often bring offerings of fruit and hope that God will be pleased: I am self-controlled, I am kind; this is what I believe I should be rewarded for.

Only one offering was acceptable – the firstborn of heaven: Jesus. It’s our offering of faith, our submission to the finished work of Christ that pleases God.

Are we believing and taking action, or just acting like we believe?

Prayer for the week: Father, thank you for the covenant of grace that is by faith. Your love poured out in your blood speaks a better word than any sacrifice I could make. I can expect great things not because of my great acts but because you reward faith. I ask for right believing so that it may lead to right living.

right...

Romans 1:17

For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith”.

Our lives are meant to be lived in constant faith. In constant right believing.

Now this is not a faith in what we can do but what He has done.

Our existence becomes truly alive when we live by faith! Right believing leads to right living.

This verse directly follows the probably more famous statement by Paul about how the gospel “is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes”.

But what do you believe about the gospel? Is it really good news? Are we surprised that the gospel is hard to share if it’s about how a person has to change themselves to become holy and blessed?

Is it about a righteousness from ourselves or the righteousness of God?

Prayer for the week: Father, thank you for the covenant of grace that is by faith. Your love poured out in your blood speaks a better word than any sacrifice I could make. I can expect great things not because of my great acts but because you reward faith. I ask for right believing so that it may lead to right living.

forgotten...

2 Peter 1:9

But if anyone does not have them [goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, kindness, love], he is nearsighted and blind and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from past sins.

You cannot believe what you have forgotten.

That is what makes reading the Word and hearing the preaching of Christ’s word so important. It’s meant to remind us of the great gift of God. We are no longer in bondage to our old sin, we are new creations.

The thing that will sustain you is not some great moral character within yourself. You will do the right thing when you think upon the right thing. The next time you’re making a decision on whether you should do something dodgy, think upon the cross and what He has saved you from and see whether you still act the same way!

The fruit of a free and holy life is lost when we lose sight of what Christ did for us and who we now are.

It is His love that drives us toward a pure and holy life.

Prayer for the week: Father, thank you for the covenant of grace that is by faith. Your love poured out in your blood speaks a better word than any sacrifice I could make. I can expect great things not because of my great acts but because you reward faith. I ask for right believing so that it may lead to right living.

believe...

Galatians 3:14

He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Abraham lived before the law was given to Moses. He didn’t have to do any good thing to receive his blessings. He was blessed simply because he believed God (Romans 4:3).

More than that, he believed what God said about him (Genesis 15:5-6).

Scripture repeatedly tells us that we are now under the blessing of Abraham. God now does the same thing with us and He did with Abraham. He declares a good thing over our lives and then blesses us because we believe it!

He declares that sin has no hold over us. He declares that we will receive all things. He declares we will be healed. He declares we will be rich.

Believe and be blessed!

Prayer for the week: Father, thank you for the covenant of grace that is by faith. Your love poured out in your blood speaks a better word than any sacrifice I could make. I can expect great things not because of my great acts but because you reward faith. I ask for right believing so that it may lead to right living.

impossible...

Hebrews 11:6

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Faith that is pleasing to God is not merely believing in something. We believe many things: that the buses will come tomorrow, that the sun will rise, that a red light will eventually turn green, etc. Everyone has faith. The justifying faith spoken of here is whether we believe the right thing about God.

Faith, this right believing, is what is credited to us as righteousness (Romans 4).

The Father has instituted a covenant of grace through faith where right believing, not right doing, is pleasing to Him. That’s why when we believe on Jesus and His sacrifice for us we are put in right standing (Romans 10). What we believe about Him matters.

Who do you think would know the most about Jesus? God himself. And God puts His own testimony in those who believe in Jesus (1 John 5:10)!

What a vicious cycle it would be if we were rewarded and punished based on what we did. The hope of man is not in doing good things but in believing the right thing.

Prayer for the week: Father, thank you for the covenant of grace that is by faith. Your love poured out in your blood speaks a better word than any sacrifice I could make. I can expect great things not because of my great acts but because you reward faith. I ask for right believing so that it may lead to right living.

this is revolution

revolution meets as a community of young adults every friday night at perth christian life centre on 3 rangeview place in canning vale, western australia

here is a photo recap of last night...

cost?

1 John 4:10

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God won’t forgive me without punishing me… God won’t bless me or heal me unless I sacrificed something… God won’t save my family unless I… God won’t prosper me unless I… God won’t do X unless I do Y… This has all got to cost something right?

You are right. That would all cost a lot. In fact, it cost the very Son of God.

Have you got something more valuable than that with which you can barter with God?

One of my favourite movie quotes is from The Village: “The world moves for love; it kneels before it in awe”. I used to think that the most important love, the love that would change the world, was what we did for God. But the Word says that that’s not really even love!

In the midst of wave after wave of secularism and a slow death of the human spirit, God is not afraid to proclaim that His love never fails and there is life in it. There is coming a fresh sound that proclaims that the Son is more than enough. His grace is sufficient.

This is love.

And this is Revolution.

Prayer for the week: Father, your love comes right when I need it. It sets me free whenever I feel bound. Jesus, I come alive when I’m with you. I ask for your grace to abound over me.

through...

Romans 8:35,37

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Will there be some trouble coming in 2008? Am I going to go through hardship? Some of those times have already come for me in 2008. And there’s probably more to come.

But that can’t separate me from my means of conquering – the love of Christ.

Note that we are not conquerors outside of Christ. Every time I try to conquer anything myself, it is bound to be short-term, if it works at all.

His love is not nebulous nor impractical. It is the gift of the cross and it is my means to victory.

I see Revolution surging in 2008, 2009, 2010 and long after we’re gone because of the conquering love we build in our lives.

Prayer for the week: Father, your love comes right when I need it. It sets me free whenever I feel bound. Jesus, I come alive when I’m with you. I ask for your grace to abound over me.

free...

Titus 3:3-5

At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

There is one solution to everything we feel bound by. And it was not anything we did.

Did you know a slave has no rights? A slave, no matter how strong-willed or determined, can not break his bondage to his master.

Yet to those – and even to ourselves - enslaved to addictions, wrong ways of thinking and bad habits we so often preach that people are their own keys to freedom.

I’m looking forward to this year being brilliantly free! Not because of anything I do but because God’s love is always in front of me. I’m making sure that what Jesus did, not what I could do, is what appears before me when I want to make a change.

The love of God, the gift of Jesus, sets me free.

Prayer for the week: Father, your love comes right when I need it. It sets me free whenever I feel bound. Jesus, I come alive when I’m with you. I ask for your grace to abound over me.

right time...

Romans 5:6,8

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly… God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Do you know when the right time for God to show His love for us? It wasn’t when we were good! It wasn’t when we felt good!! It wasn’t when we were worshipping Him!!!

It was when we were still powerless. It was for my powerlessness that Christ died.

If we’re always taking things into our own hands, we’re not giving God the opportunity to show us His supernatural ways. If I’m always claiming blessing based on what I’ve done, I’m not giving God the opportunity to freely give me all things.

God’s love always comes at just the right time.

He shows Himself this very moment that you need Him.

Prayer: Father, your love comes right when I need it. It sets me free whenever I feel bound. Jesus, I come alive when I’m with you. I ask for your grace to abound over me.

alive...

Ephesians 2:4-5

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.

Everything that is set up in this world eventually dies. Fallen creation is dying. Everything I try to grasp at in this world fades away. My attempts at sustaining myself only highlight its futility.

Thank God that He restores my life when I am with Christ! God does not expect us to revive ourselves.

Jesus is not a vitamin supplement, something extra to fit into life. He’s not a dessert, a reward for having a good life. He’s our complete sustenance!

When you are feeling like there’s no life in you, go and feed on His love. Just put yourself in a place to receive, just as you are (you don’t clean yourself before taking a shower!). You will come alive when you are with Him!

Prayer: Father, your love comes right when I need it. It sets me free whenever I feel bound. Jesus, I come alive when I’m with you. I ask for your grace to abound over me.

all...

Romans 8:32

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things.

Everyone has their dreams. That special someone they are after. The life they want to live. That house. That car. That job. That ministry.

Now if God can do immeasurably more than all of this that we imagine and ask for (Ephesians 3:20), why would I not graciously receive?

Did you know that Jesus was heaven’s absolute best: The “beloved Son” (Matthew 3:17); the one whom “all God’s angels worship” (Hebrews 1:6); the one of whom “the heavens are the work of (his) hands” (Hebrews 1:10).

The Father gave him for me!

And then promised He would give me all things.

I don’t have to strive for the above, putting all my effort into work and career, flash clothing, projecting an image, building reputation, etc. Don’t give up the ‘impractical’ time spent with your Father in prayer, worship and Word. Don’t give up the ‘inconsequential’ time spent connecting a new person and serving in the church.

How can I receive a gift if I work for it? Imagine if someone told me they’d give me a Maybach but instead I toiled away to earn a Toyota?

He will graciously give all things to me!

Prayer for the week: Father, how great is the love you have poured out that you now call us children. You are a perfect father whose perfect love drives me to trust and rely on you alone. I can look forward to the best because you gave your best.