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There are several things burden our minds recently. One of them is my son’s college application. Even though we had gone through the process of my daughter’s application previously, it is still a painful process because it is for a boy 🙁 One of the key elements in the application process, as school counsel instructed, is to write personal achievements and an essay. The emphasis in the content, in general, is about one’s leadership and awards during the school years. In other words, you have to emphasize that you are “somebody” in your field. I realize that this is a culture prevailed under today’s environment.

This lets me think of an old Chinese saying, “寧為雞首，不為牛後”. A common interpretation is one should have the ambition to become a boss, no matter how small is your business. This mentality can easily be observed from our common greeting phrase “What is your profession 你在那裏高就 ?” Frankly speaking, there is nothing wrong with the pursuit of becoming a “somebody” in your field. It is, however, one’s inherent motivation should be examined – do you use it to brag or boast?

Dwight L Moody, an evangelist and publisher who founded the Moody Church and the Moody Bible Institute, once said, “Moses spent forty years in the king’s palace thinking that he was somebody; then he lived forty years in the wilderness finding out that without God he was a nobody; finally he spent forty more years discovering how a nobody with God can be a somebody. It is an insightful illustration of how a “nobody” can be “somebody” only when he is with God. This also reminds us that only God’s recognition is important!

Apostle John indicated to us that Christ was the Word and He is Son of God (John 1:1-3). In other words, He is “somebody” in God’s eye and through Him, all things were made. However, when “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us 道成了肉身住在我們中間 (John 1:14a)”, Christ became Jesus in flesh, i.e. from “somebody” becomes “nobody” from this world’s view, because Bible told us “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 他到自己的地方來，自己的人倒不接待他 (John 1:11)”.  This, nevertheless, didn’t prevent Jesus from completing God’s plan – the Salvation to mankind. His submission to God exemplifies us how a “nobody” from this world’s view could become “somebody” in God’s view. He also promised that to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God (John 1:12) – we can be God’s children (somebody) if we receive Him as our Lord.

Do you want to be “somebody”, my dear brothers and sisters? Then, let’s submit to God’s instruction and follow His will to live a life that is setting apart from this world.

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Ran into an acquainted manager in the hallway last week and we conversed a little bit. He told me that he is retiring from the company by the end of this month. I was a little bit surprised because he was not thrilled about his retirement. He shook his head and said, “The culture of the company now is quite different from it used to be and it is not fun to work for the company anymore”. I shook my head too because, before I met the manager, I just had another similar conversation with one of my department colleagues regarding our job situation. Our situation comes from our management’s perception – we didn’t do a good job in our area.

Someone once said, “How you treat someone is directly from how you perceive him.”  It tells us that we form a perception and then we act on it. One’s perception, in general, would be influenced by several factors. How we perceive are mainly from what we see and what we hear. When a perception is biased due to incorrect or deceitful information, it would then generate actions that could create hurts or consequences. The manager I acquainted thinks it is not fun to work for the company anymore hints me that there is a feel of betrayal in his encounter.  On the case of my job situation, we spent a lot of time in trying to change a perception that management had. This is certainly not a fun thing to do 🙂

From these two cases, I find that I need to be very careful in forming my perception. As I am very limited, I sometimes am easily to be misled from what I see and what I hear. In the past, this has been a problem for me – I know that I should not be doing that but my perception drives my behavior. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, as our Lord taught us that we should not judge or we will be judged too (Matthew 7:1-2), let’s examine it first before we act on our perception. I am sure God will be whispering to us, through the Holy Spirit, which way is correct, if we could wait for a moment to consult Him….

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It has been tough for me in the past two weeks. I was accompanying my younger sister at hospital. She is fighting for her life while her attending doctor couldn’t offer much help.Each day, I spent a few hours with her at the hospital. During my stay in the area, the weather was unbearably hot and humid. Fortunately, the hospital facility is relatively new and nurses are kind. Following my sister’s daily up and down condition, my heart also fluctuates. The blessed part is she was pleased and felt peace in her mind when I prayed for her. I still remember the first day when I entered her room at the hospital. I was shocked to see a very different appearance than the one I used to familiar with. The illness has tortured her so fast and so severe that I couldn’t even recognize her initially.

My sister’s condition reminds me of the image “in the valley of the shadow of death” that king David wrote in Psalm 23:4. King David hinted us that God is with him and therefore he fears no evil (不怕遭害) . I see this as a promise given by God to His children. For this reason, introducing my sister to the Gospel became my first priority. I do hope that God would be with her and His rod and His staff would comfort her in her situation. I do realize, however, that under the environment of prevailed Buddhism and folk religion, I would encounter much resistance in breaking loose the deep-rooted bondage in my sister’s mind. By God’s grace, at the end of my stay with her, I saw the Holy Spirit’s amazing work – my sister is willing to accept the Lord. As apostle Paul indicated, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved —you and your household. (Acts 14:31)”

In Psalm 90, a prayer of Moses the man of God, Moses indicated to us that “All our days pass away under Your wrath; we finish our years with a moan. 我們經過的日子都在你震怒之下 ；我們度盡的年歲好像一聲歎息(Psalm 90:9)。” It gives us a vivid picture of our life in this world – we are under the wrath of God because of our sins. The only way out is to recognize that He is our creator and He has devised a plan, through His son Jesus Christ, to deliver us from the wrath. Per apostle Peter, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved  除他以外，別無拯救；因為在天下人間，沒有賜下別的名，我們可以靠著得救 (Acts 4:12) 。”

The past weeks’ experience serves a good reminder to me that our Lord is gracious and He is in control over any difficult conditions. Our Lord reigns!

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Hot and humid days are oftentimes difficult to bear. Last week’s hot spell finally came to a relief in the weekend. By taking advantage of the cooler weather, I went to a local lake to relax a little bit – bass fishing. A little girl came to me in the middle of my casting. “Can you help me?” she pleaded. I turned around and looked at her, wondering why she came to a stranger like me, alone. Then I saw her hand was holding a fishing pole, a big blob of tangled fishing line with a float and a hook spawn over the fishing reel. I admire her courage in thinking that I wouldn’t reject her. I told her that it is not worth time to untangle the line now but I will help her to reattach the line to the float and the hook. Five minutes later, I cut off the tangled portion and used fresh line from the reel to reattach everything back.  She was happy to go back to her parents and fish again.

In the past two years, I started to pick up the hobby of fishing. I spent time in local creeks, ponds and lakes to enjoy my relaxing time, with my wife’s permission, of course. 🙂 As I recall, there are various situations could make my fishing trip disappointing or sometimes struggling – for example, bad weather, poor water condition, incorrect fishing gear, baits and lures, or, too many people at the same spot, fish is not in the mood of biting, etc. The most frustrating experience, however, is to untangle fishing line. I still remember in the early stage of my learning to fish, I could spend half of my time to straighten out tangled lines. Coupled with my novice experience and low cost fishing gear, the fishing reel and line just didn’t work together well at all – I couldn’t cast it far and they always tangle after my casting. I was struggling most times to find a lead in order to untangle the line.

When I think of the fishing experience that I had, I was wondering if there are lessons for me to learn. I would say, sometimes our life is similar to fishing. In our journey of life, we may set many goals or objectives, ambitiously. Then we cast our lines out hoping that our effort would be rewarded by achieving what we want. When environment and conditions were not in our favor, we ran into difficulties – tangled lines. At that time, we are struggling to untangle the lines – to overcome the difficulties. The question is what is our approach? Are we basing on our own wisdom and methods to solve the difficulties or do we rely on our Lord’s wisdom? The difference could be 40 years vs. a month – if we look at Israelites’ experience. Instead of travelling from Egypt to the land of Canaan in a month, they spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness. This is when they used their own understanding instead of following God’s instructions.

In recent daily Bible reading, we read the story of Naaman’s Leprosy healed by prophet Elisha (2 Kings chapter 5). Again, we saw how our understanding and wisdom are so limited in facing difficulties. The initial scoffing from Naaman against Elisha’s instruction of “go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you and you shall be clean. (2 Kings 5:10)” is a good example. I was always wondering if Naaman rejected the idea of dipping in the Jordan river, what is the end result of him? I think he is going to suffer from the disease undoubtedly. Isn’t this the same situation we ran into frequently – we rely on our own understanding in solving situations and we struggled! This reminds me of my favorite verse from the book of Proverbs chapter 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding你要專心仰賴耶和華，不可倚靠自己的聰明” If in all our ways we submit to Him, He promised that He will make our paths straight (Proverbs 3:6).

For sure, there are always tangled line situations in this world, as Jesus indicated to us in the gospel John 16:33. We just have to remember that our Lord has overcome the world and there is no any trouble that our Lord couldn’t handle.

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A privilege is an advantage, right, or benefit that is not available to everyone – usually a relatively small group of people enjoys it. In my working company, we have “restricted parking spaces” for high-level managers. They enjoy the right to park their car on a reserved space that is close to the building and is always available to them. This privilege is to recognize their status in the company. There is another type of privilege called “handicap” parking spaces – these are for people who are unable to move as well as normal persons. This special privilege has been adopted as a law in every public place such as schools, malls, stores, etc.

Have you ever seen people who are not handicapped but parked at the handicap spaces?  I did and actually very frequent. The other day I stopped by a local Walmart store, while I was looking for a space to park, I saw a car quickly came from my behind and parked her car into a handicap space. Then, I saw a woman came out with kids walked directly into the store. To me she is certainly not a handicapped person. Later I did find out that she does have a handicap tag hung on her car. At that moment, I was confused and thinking about how to reconcile the definition of “handicap”.

Most of us may hear a common opening such as, “It is my privilege to be here, etc. etc……..”.  In our life journey, we may be given different privileges to do something or to make something. Don’t you think that is necessary for us to use the privilege rightfully?  I think so. For example, as a father, I have the “privilege” to bring up my kids and raise my family. You can argue and call this a “responsibility”. But when I said it is a “privilege”, it bears a different meaning because it is a “God given” privilege.

In our spiritual journey, what kind of privilege we have as God’s children? The Bible taught us that we could come before His throne of grace confidently that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16). And, we can have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus (Hebrews 10:19). In addition, we could talk to Him directly, anytime and anywhere because His Spirit is dwelling in us and the Spirit would intercede for us. Finally, we have the privilege to reign with Him in His second coming.

When a privilege is abused, there are certain consequences could follow it. In the example of handicap parking, I was not happy to see people abused the privilege. The emotion prompts me to despise such an act because it would strip other true handicaps’ need at that time. Similarly, as Christians, we should be faithful in using our privileges. When we couldn’t live a godly life, we let other people lose confidence to God. Moreover, we would have difficulties to enter the Most Holy Place and talk to our heavenly Father with confidence. Isn’t this a significant matter?

During our last Friday’s group meeting, we studied the book of Hebrews, chapter 10. The author reminded his fellow Jews, “How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 何 況 人 踐 踏 神 的 兒 子 ， 將 那 使 他 成 聖 之 約 的 血 當 作 平 常 ， 又 褻 慢 施 恩 的 聖 靈 ， 你 們 想 ， 他 要 受 的 刑 罰 該 怎 樣 加 重 呢 ！(Hebrews 10:29)” I was reminded unequivocally too.

My dear brothers and sisters, we were granted a privilege to enter God’s family and to come before Him confidently. May our Lord help us to treat this privilege seriously and enjoy the privilege while we can.

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Change is usually not welcomed by most people. People resist the kind of change that, they think, would make his/her situation worse than better. Most people have no problem in changing job when it means higher pay; or to move to a bigger house in a better neighborhood. If change is required because of job loss, health problem, family problem, etc. Then, it creates ill feeling and resistance. Someone used to say, “No one likes to change, unless it is absolutely necessary.”

Recent announcement in my working place, which provides an opportunity of early retirement to employees, was an interesting topic for many of us. From the hallway talks that I have heard, there were not many people like to take the option. Besides doubts and confusions with the announcement, I believe there were resistances to change too – knowing that there is going to be a drastic change in life style. One of my colleagues even told me that he is afraid of retirement because he does not know what to do after and he may not have enough medical benefit to cover himself. This reminds me to ask myself, “Do I have a similar problem too?” I think I have no problem because I know it is going to be better – I can have more time to serve the Lord and enjoy my life, if Lord is willing.

When we first met our Lord and accepted Him as our Savior, the Holy Spirit transformed us into a new creation – the old has gone and the new is here (2 Corinthians 5:17). It is a change came from God, like prophet Ezekiel said, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 我也要賜給你們一個新心、將新靈放在你們裡面．又從你們的肉體中除掉石心、賜給你們肉心。(Ezekiel 36:26)”.  We received the new heart and new spirit to our old flesh and He urges us to change our old behaviors. Because of our sinful nature, resistance to change continues to surface – we struggle to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We tend to go back to our old habit and old life style. However, the Scriptures reminded us that the change is necessary because it is the will of God.

Therefore, as Christians, change is necessary if we want to grow into a full measure of Christ. Our old self is never meant to inherit the kingdom of God, as Apostle Paul said, “I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 弟兄們、我告訴你們說、血肉之體、不能承受　神的國．必朽壞的、不能承受不朽壞的。(1 Corinthians 15:50)”.  As a result, the change we are undergoing now shall enable us to inherit His kingdom.

No doubt about that we will continue to experience difficult situations or face all kinds of challenges during the process of change. We just have to remember that we have our Lord the great shepherd. He will lead us through peaks and valleys of our journey of life because He promised that He will be with us and will never forsake us.

My dear brothers and sisters, we may resist changing our old life style and habits. But, please remember that it is God’s will that we were predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29). Let’s be reminded that the change of giving up our flesh desires that are hindering us from following the Lord is necessary. May our Lord bless you and keep you as always.

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Standing in front of a vending machine, I was looking for a snack to jump-start my body, as it was a long day at work.  I understand it is not good to my body but I feel that I need something to pump up quickly. I told myself, “It is just a snack bar, nothing biggie.”  A few days later, I ended up doing the same thing again.  Later on, there always a voice, “See, there are so many good stuffs here” in my head, when I walk pass the vending machine. Every time, I have to tell myself, “Don’t look at it, don’t look at it”.

A snack bar may not be a biggie but it is not nutritious to my body either. As it is not a “normal meal” and it couldn’t provide full nutrition but high sugar. I find that sometimes it is very difficult to resist my flesh desires even I know it is not good for myself. There is an old saying, “It is easy to say than done 說比做更容易 ”. This is exactly the situation that we all have experienced. Apostle Paul, in the book of Romans chapter 7, enlightened us that our sinful nature is the most difficult one to overcome. This reminds me of a story that I read before. The story goes something like this,

A brother talked to another brother who is a church leader. He said, “In all our meetings, you have to watch out one person carefully. You have to watch him like a hawk — discipline him and restrain him constantly without leaving room to him.”

“Who is that?” The church leader said it curiously.

“He is your “old self””, the brother responded.

I think you probably would agree with me that it is difficult to restrain and discipline our “old self”.  That is the reason Apostle Paul indicated to us that the only path to live a triumphant life for our Lord is to “put our old self to death” (Colossians 3:5). This will be a life long journey for us, I believe.

A snack bar may not be a problem but it could be a sign of give in. We are all very familiar with that we may not be able to prevent birds from flying over our head but we can prevent them from building a nest on our head. If we let slipping and drifting occur to our faith journey, sooner or later, we would see a big backslide. Andrew Murray, a missionary to South Africa and a Christian pastor, once said, “Many Christians backslide…They are unable to stand against the temptations of the world, or of their old nature. They strive to do their best to fight against sin, and to serve God, but they have no strength. They have never really grasped the secret: The Lord Jesus will every day from heaven continue His work in me. But on one condition—the soul must give Him time each day to impart His love and his grace. Time alone with the Lord Jesus each day is the indispensable condition of growth and power.”

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, we have to watch out and encourage one another and speak truth in love. Most importantly, make an appointment with our Lord daily in order to be nurtured by His words. Then, His Spirit will guard us and guide us.

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Last week I was gardening with brothers and sisters in the church. In the middle of it, I found a black spot on my left arm and I thought it was just a kernel of sand. So, I wiped it out but saw blood coming out a little bit. My initial reaction was it is a bug bite, no biggie. Later in the morning, I found additional two around the neighbor area on my arm. By the evening, the swell on my arm became apparent. Concerning the swell, I thought it is necessary to seek consultation, in case it is tick bites. The next day, I consulted one of my brethren who is a doctor, I was told that I need to take medication and a blood test, so I went to my primary doctor’s office the next day. After a check up, I was prescribed to have antibiotics. The doctor also perform a blood test of tick bites on me, even she didn’t think so. I find that both my brother and my primary doctor are all very careful in looking into my condition – they want to be sure that a right diagnosis is performed. I do appreciate their thoughtfulness and carefulness.

This experience lets me think of two incidents occurred a while back in my hometown. They are very eye grabbing. One is receiving wrong medication (吃錯藥) – a pharmacy filled a wrong medication to a prescription and caused a severe consequence. The other is a wrong funeral service (家屬辦錯喪事) – a hospital sent a wrong body to the family of deceased for funeral service. Of course, the result is disturbing. These incidents are likely due to human negligence and a problem of recognition. It might be understandable if the root causes of these incidents are because of human negligence. However, it becomes a serious matter if the personnel who are in charge couldn’t correctly identify the medication or the identity of the deceased, because of the likeness of the medication, or the likeness of physical appearance of the body, respectively. This generates a perspective that I would like to share with you.

Oftentimes, we make decisions based on our own understanding and perception for a matter. As a result, we may be confused easily or even making mistakes under various conditions and environments. You could call it poor judgment. However, there is another side of it called “deceit” – when our understanding and perception of that matter were distorted, then, a correct identification is often impossible.

Chinese has an old saying, 『路遙知馬力，事久見人心 (It takes a long distance to realize the strength of a horse, and it takes long time to learn one’s heart) 』. It tells us that it is difficult to learn one’s true character without spending time with him / her for a long period. This is true to our journey of faith too. Jesus used the analogy of tree fruits to teach His disciples about the identification of false prophets. He said, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 好樹不能結壞果子；壞樹不能結好果子 (Matthew 7:18)”. Jesus wanted His disciples to be carefully watching out the false prophets because they come to them in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. (Matthew 7:15). And, the method to recognize them correctly is by their fruit – their deeds.

The life lessons are always good for us to learn. We understand our limitation in making good judgments or decisions, every time. However, we could improve our odds if we spend time with our Lord daily and consistently. This way we shall have His wisdom and guidance in making good decisions because “The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him凡等候耶和華，心裡尋求他的， 耶和華必施恩給他。(Lamentations 3:25)”

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Last Sunday, early in the morning, I was waked by noises in the kitchen. I decided to get up and find it out. It was my son who was busying in cleaning and arranging the dishes. Then, he went down to the laundry room to dry the clothes. I suddenly realize that he was trying to use actions to express his love to his mom, because it was mother’s day. I was glad to see his “moment of maturity (Mom)”.

I think most of you would agree with me that the role of a “mother” is very important to a family – she takes care of almost every aspect of living and therefore it would feel like an empty shell if a family without a mother. To a husband, there is a good model of wife of noble character in the book of Proverbs that is fond of by most of us, “A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.才德的婦人，誰能得著呢，他的價值遠勝過珍珠‧他丈夫心裡倚靠他，必不缺少利益‧他一生使丈夫有益無損‧(Proverbs 31:10-12)”

The commitment of a mother is generally well recognized and remembered. Just look around and think a little bit, you will find, “mother nature”, “mother tongue”, “mother country”, or even, “我的媽呀!”…..? Ha..ha..ha… Seriously though, if a mother has only 5 minutes of commitment (五分鐘的熱度) or “Moment of maturity (Mom)” then you can imagine there will be all kinds of troubles in the family.

You may be agreeing with me that it is easy to please someone or attract someone’s attention in a short period. And, it would be difficult to maintain that kind of high excitement from someone in the long term. For a young couple, this could be obvious to them – there will be challenges lie ahead if they maintain the mentality of MOM. In fact, that is one of the reasons that God established the marriage life for us in order to train us. 🙂

In the family of Christ, is our Christian faith has the symptom of “MOM” too? This is a question worthy of pondering. We can be very enthusiastic in serving God initially, but fall behind as soon as we run into difficulties, frustrations, or other various reasons. That is an example of moment of maturity symptom. I think, there are always peaks and valleys in our journey of faith, but maturity should be, undoubtedly, our end goal. Honestly, what kind of maturity is our end goal? To be mature in knowing the Son of God attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ is our goal as Christians (Ephesians 4:13). Our maturity shall be progressing if we are persistent like apostle Paul’s attitude, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 向著標竿直跑、要得　神在基督耶穌裡從上面召我來得的獎賞 (Philippians 3:14)”

My dear brothers and sisters, the mentality of MOM could become a problem in the families, in the churches, and in this society, if we didn’t realize it. To overcome the mentality of MOM and pursue the full maturity in Christ is a challenge that we need to take daily. May our Lord bless you in the effort of becoming mature in Him.

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The other day in the hallway of my working place, my colleague told me an interesting encounter from his sister recently. One day, his sister found an abandoned small dog around her neighborhood. She saw the doggie was adorable and therefore she brought her into her house, washed, cleaned and fed her. Several days later, she brought the doggie to a veterinarian to have a checkup and a shot – in order to adopt the doggie as her pet officially. The veterinarian looked at my colleague’s sister a moment, with a funny face. He then told her that the doggie is actually NOT what she thought was – it is a “possum” instead!

Sometimes, we may mistake something (someone) into something else (someone else). This is very likely due to certain circumstances – it could be either we didn’t or couldn’t see it clearly or we were misled. As my age progresses, my eyesight are no longer as good as I was. Therefore, please accept my apology if I mistook you for someone else or didn’t recognize you in certain occasions. 🙂

In terms of misleading, Chinese has an idiom called, “掛羊頭賣狗肉to hang a sheep’s head while selling dog meat”. In modern language, you can translate it into “What you see is NOT what you get”.  Essentially, this is a scheme of cheating / misleading people and is common under today’s environment, as almost-like-genuine products are prevalent. The trouble is we couldn’t tell them apart by using our flesh eye easily.

In my college years, my roommate used to listen to rock/country music. One of his favorites is “Rhinestone Cowboy” from Glen Campbell. At that time, I really didn’t pay much attention to its lyrics and I always felt that it is too noisy for me because of its pop music nature. In addition, my lousy English didn’t make much out of it either. After a while, however, I seem to get used to it. As most of you probably know, “rhinestone” is an artificial jewel made of clear glass. Therefore, a “Rhinestone Cowboy” represents a fake cowboy instead of a genuine one.

Think about this for a moment, there is something worthy of pondering. To become a Christian, we believe that Jesus died for our sin. Because of His sacrificial act propitiates God’s righteousness and we are justified in front of God. When our faith in Jesus Christ is not genuine, then His blood can’t redeem us and therefore we can’t be justified.  The key here is a genuine faith. We read many examples in the Gospels that Jesus criticized Jewish Pharisees and Ascribes for their hypocrisy and lip service attitudes. 『這百姓用嘴唇尊敬我，心卻遠離我‧他們將人的吩咐，當作道理教導人，所以拜我也是枉然‧These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules. 』(Matthew 15: 8-9)

That is because God sees one’s heart. Without a genuine faith, it is impossible for us to please God.

My dear brothers and sisters, the author of the book of Hebrews called us to persevere in faith because it is the genuine faith that we can stand in front of our Lord (Hebrews 10:23-24). The apostle James also teaches us that a genuine faith needs to have actions to accompany it. He indicated that:

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 只是你們要行道，不要單單聽道，自己欺哄自己‧因為聽道而不行道的，就像人對著鏡子看自己本來的面目‧看見，走後，隨即忘了他的相貌如何‧ (James 1:22-24)

May we encourage one another to walk on the journey of faith truthfully!