Pastor's Corner
October, 2000
"Praise our God, O peoples,
Let the sound of his praise be heard;
He has preserved our lives
And kept our feet from slipping"
This is part of a praise psalm (66:8-9) written for people to sing glorious praises to God who delivered them in the past. Sometimes it was the deliverance from wicked attacks, other times it was the preservation from further decay. Looking back at these twenty years of our church history, we too have had experienced many evil attacks and had made wrong decisions on our own. I think if it weren’t for the grace of God, we would have slipped into a depth beyond restoration. Therefore, I believe it is appropriate to borrow this psalm to praise God for what He has done for our church.
Twenty years is not a short time by any stretch of imagination. In human development, twenty-year old is a turning point for most people. For many, it is leaving the "rebellious and the notion of know-it-all" stage and entering in "Am I ready to be on my own?" stage. We are given the capability to look back in past years and evaluate our decisions. Some were silly, some were defiant, some were great, while others didn’t make any different one way or the other. What makes a person successful is the discernment to glean through the past and have the courage to develop the positives and eliminate the negatives.
What is true for an individual is also true for a church. We should ask for spiritual discernment to evaluate our past ministries and a sincere heart to make adjustments in order to faithfully fulfill the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. The world we live in tells us that doing our best sometimes is just not good enough. We are demanded to perform with desirable outcome. Anything short of the desirable is deemed to be failure. But we praise God that He doesn’t look at the outcome. He alone is responsible for what is to come. All He wants from us is to try and keep on trying. At the very end, it isn’t the result that will be rewarded. It is our effort. Time and again, the Bible says, "Well done, good and faithful servant!" Faithfulness is the key word. This is the reason why we praise God amidst all the failures and successes . . . of course from human’s perspective.
Happy Anniversary!
Pastor Larry
