Dear…
For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
2 Peter 1:11
I am on a short trip overseas to pay a last visit to a friend whom I have not met nor spoken to these past 3 years. It is one tinged with sadness and regret for we will no longer have the opportunity to engage in the convivial banter that has characterized the last two decades of relationship.
Where he will be next only he will now knows, much as the elaborate funeral rites will reflect his belief system.
For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?
Ecclesiastes 3:22
Last Saturday, I had a good chat with my dad. Garnered a little bit more about our family lineage.
My maternal family used to be from a wealthy family in Xiamen. And they were still wealthy when they first landed in Singapore in the 1930s, but with time and profligate heirs, nothing of material value was soon left.
Interestingly, my paternal grandfather used to live in a Tulou(土楼) in a poor coastal part of Fujian province. Like many in his district, they braved the high seas to seek better fortunes in Nanyang, ending up in Singapore.
We would have been a lot wealthier, my dad reminisces, if he had been wiser in present valuing his then pretty strong cash flows from his business into land in Singapore in the 1950s.
Hits and misses it has been for my father, but what truly matters is God calls, and he has responded albeit at a much later stage of his life and has now wisely invested for eternity.
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him Who called us by His own glory and goodness.
2 Peter 1:3
Journey, this was the thought that our good Lord impressed upon my heart at the break of dawn today.
With age, I guess my repository of memories provides ample room for savoring the once great moments, and reflect with a tinge of regret, the less than memorable ones. And with age, one is more cognizance of the fragility of life.
Apostle Peter said
I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.
2 Peter 1:13-14
With this short sojourn in Bangkok, this thought did strike me. The 3 countries that our good Lord has placed in my heart back in April 2009 as my ministry grounds is coming fully to fruition.
I first started with Japan back in mid 2013( a year after answering Godś call to step out of my comfortable nest at Merrill Lynch), next was China in Aug 2013 right into Changsha, Hunan Province, the birthplace of Mao Tse Tung, communist Chinaś great father. And for double measure, into a China Muslim business people convention held in Changsha.
Thailand, the land that I spent 20 years formulating relationships. That door was closed for the past 3 years till now.
The three are now running concurrently, though no longer in her nascent stage, but far from conclusion as yet.
Will Christ return or will He take me home once all three are done and over with? And when will that be? And what constitutes done? Or will there be a new and different calling?
What about you? If I were to refine a couple of words in 2 Peter 1:13-14 as follows
I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as YOU live in the tent of this body, because I know YOU will soon be put aside, as our Lord has made clear to me and YOU.
For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
2 Peter 1:21
Almost all of us spent an inordinate large part of our life seeking goals as defined and understood by us. And it is almost always about what the secular world values, wealth, power, pride and prestige. Very compelling yet always temporal. A journey that is very much about ourselves.
As King Solomon the wisest man the world has known rightly pointed out, it is all meaningless, this chasing after the wind.
All men has to die. So should we be better off seeking the God of resurrection?
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16.
God Blesses
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