Dear brothers and sisters,

I am still very busy doing my research. Praise the Lord I can still discipline myself to write this spiritual journal to share with you.

Sorry
This happened last Wednesday. I know one of my weaknesses is I am not that sensitive to people's hint and sometimes even their needs. Yet, I need to do pastoral ministry. God helps me!
Actually, the lecturer who always plays ping pong with me already told me Wednesday slot is for lecturers. I am a student and I am not supposed to be there to play. Yet, I go there every Wednesday afternoon at about 4.45 to play. Last Wednesday, I was told by the lecturer that I was not supposed to play as the principal would play at that time. Only then, I realized I was so insensitive. I felt bad and guilty about it.

The principal is also my lecturer and I enjoy being taught by him and I learn a lot from him on church and society. In that incident I also felt embarrassed that I was so insensitive. I did not like the feeling at all. I wanted to say sorry to him as soon as possible. However, deep down in my heart, I had a few struggles not to do it.

Was it necessary to do it? Had I offended him? Was I really insensitive? I need courage to say sorry? I need to let go of my pride? I had to show my ugliness to him? No matter how I tried to reason with myself I could not come to terms with it. So, I decided to do it.

The next day was the usual time of the college weekly chapel service. I was looking out for him. I saw him entering into the main entrance of the chapel. I reminded myself to do it. However, normally, I just do it. This time I was nervous and I could feel my heart beating fasting, I struggled and hesitated to do it. In the end, I believe Jesus wanted me to do it as the uncomfortable feeling was there. Praise the Lord I did it. I was sorry that I occupied the slot for lecturer at the ping pong table. He responded with a smile and said something to the effect like it did not matter. However, it was a big deal to me.

Brothers and sisters, in life, I believe a so called small matter like that counts. I am very much learning to say sorry to all people whom I offended. I pray that you do.

A faithful disciple of Jesus,
Pastor Law Hui Seng
(KK, STS, 10th April, 2011)


Posted by Teresa Han

Dear brothers and sisters,

Today I am 45 years old! I aspire to live as old as John Wesley (88 years) and beyond his age as his whole life is such an inspiration to me. His basic theology for all the Methodists is to love God (Jesus) and man. These are Jesus’ commands and he held them so dear to his hearts. I aspire to obey Jesus like he did. He was so compassionate for the poor and needy, love the sick, the prisoners, labourers, the oppressed and the slaves, etc. I want to be a disciple of Jesus following his footsteps.

As I learn to draw near to Jesus and love Him, I am amazed by how He blesses me throughout all these years. One of the very significant things that I am blessed by Jesus is this, I experience over and over again that Jesus is everything to me. You know what, my slightest thought of Him, everything in my life will fall into His perspectives. I know what he expects me to do. All the more, if my thought goes His crucifixion, my whole being will just experience a great fellowship with Him! I pray that I am able to say this again at the age of 90 years old, another 45 years later.

I had a great encounter just now. My hand phone service was disrupted. I told my wife (who is in Miri and with our 4 children and I am here in KK studying at STS) this morning my telephone could receive sms and telephone calls but I could not call out. She must make it a point to call me every night at 8 o’clock as I want to talk to my twin sons (who are poor in Bahasa Malaysia and they are studying in primary 6, facing the public examination UPSR this year). Last Saturday, my wife went to get their report cards and the teacher said one of them would fail if he still showed bad attitude towards BM! This is a wakeup call for me. I really do not want him to fail in BM. I prayed about what to do with it. I told God I wanted my son to get at least a ‘D’, a pass for his BM. Then, God gave me the idea to get my twins to write one BM sentence a day (8 to 10 words) and understand the meaning of every word and remember each sentence. In 5 months’ time (UPSR in September), they would master 150 sentences! With this effort, they should be able to pass.
I want to call everyday at 8pm to get them to read the sentence to me and I test them the meaning of every word. I make sure that they do it and they will develop confidence in this mission language! I also pray that such effort will help one of them to change his attitude towards BM. I always encourage him over the phone that he can do it as he is doing the sentences for 4 days now. As a responsible father, in a distant land, I look forward to that important talk with my 2 sons. I told them I was going to call them every day at 8pm to check on them and I always make it a point to encourage them. You see my father’s heart desire and how I long to talk to them and do my best for them.

The telephone service is disrupted and my communication with them is affected. I made a separate arrangement for my wife to call me and so that I can have important talk with the 2 children. It is my mission every day, my desire to do it every day. However, my wife did not call me just now! I used the college fixed line to call our home fixed line. But the line was bad and I could hear them, they could not hear me. I was so desperate to talk with my children that I called the fixed line at least 10 times though they could not hear me. I was hoping that they knew it must be daddy’s (husband’s) calling by this kind of call so that they would call my hand phone and talk. I even prayed in my heart that my wife would be touched by God to call me. I believe this kind of divine intervention very much. Then, I heard my eldest daughter said it must be daddy. Even after that, I still called a few times, hoping that my wife would call back.

What happened then? While calling with frustration and hoping in my heart that my wife and children would know it was me, I suddenly came to think of God, my heavenly Father. I was meditating right at the phone while calling. I can imagine my heavenly father who loves me who has something important to tell me for my good (like I want to encourage my twin sons everyday to learn BM and be confident to pass everyday); who tries all means to catch my attention but I am so distracted by many things in the world (like my wife who was caught up with children and forgot about my 8pm appointment with her), then, I am not open (and I am not sensitive at all) to God’s communication with me. I miss that important God’s message for me for my life.

Praise the Lord, God answered my prayers! After more than 10 times of telephone call reminding using the fixed line, my wife got the signal that it was me! Finally, I was able to communicate with my twin sons and I got to encourage them! I was glad that finally I could communicate with them. I believe anyone of you who is serious with God, you will agree with me that God would like to do it to you also, that is He wants to communicate with you and tell you important message (though I also believe He can also do it to anyone whom He wants to communicate).
Therefore, have you allowed anything to distract you from God in the person of Jesus speaking to you on something important?

A Faithful disciple of Jesus,

Pastor Law Hui Seng

(30th March, 2011. Birthday at KK, STS)

Posted by Teresa Han

Dear brothers and sisters,

Praise the Lord, though, I am getting busier each week with lots of reading to do in preparation to write for fruitful papers that will help my future ministry, I am still very motivated to write a simple weekly reflection. This reflection has been the key reason that undergirds all my life and ministry. I pray that you all get the message of the word of God from Jesus. It was also emphasized in my theology of ministry class by a German, Lutheran pastor.
I am the Vine – Jesus Says
John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:8, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
All this while what makes me as a disciple of Christ in my capacities as a husband, a father, a son, a friend, and a pastor is the person of Jesus. I am ‘terribly’ linked with Jesus in a very deep and personal relationship. A relationship which only Jesus can understand. I understand Jesus as the vine, where I get eternal life, love, understanding, justice, wisdom, faith, hope, mercy, grace, affirmation, encouragement, solutions for my problems, etc. I do not see Him as the God whom I get something from. I see Him the Lord and master of my life. If He says I should die now, I am willing to obey. My life is in His hand, He can decide whatever to do with me. I worship Jesus as God, Almighty God. Do you? Is your God Almighty in the person of Jesus.
Therefore, Jesus can do without me. By all means, I do not save anyone from going to hell; my teaching, preaching of God words and my life and ministry do not transform anyone. Ultimately, as I remain in Him, and I remain as His branch, I am that little branch which becomes His channel, it is Jesus who saves and transforms lives, not me. Apart from Jesus, I cannot bear fruit and become His beloved disciple. I ask Jesus to use all my resources like my brain, my ability in 3 languages, my personal relationship skill, my mouths and my out of tune songs, my ping pong skill, my wife and children, my money, my time, my laptop, etc, to make disciples of all nations.
As I live with a mentality and outlook of life that apart from Jesus, my vine, I cannot do anything, I live everyday as the last day of my life. As a result, what I can do today, I will not postpone it. As soon as I receive a prompting from the Holy Spirit, I shall act. Do you?

A faithful disciple of Jesus,
Pastor Law Hui Seng
(6th March, 2011, at KK, STS)
Posted by Teresa Han

Dear brothers and sisters,

Praise the Lord for another very fruitful week. For this week I meditate a lot on the writings of a German pastor who died of martyrdom in the Second World War.  He wrote many books. One of the most famous ones is “The Cost of Discipleship”.  He talked about cheap grace and costly grace and how to be a disciple of Jesus. I used his material to preach a few sermons quite a few years ago and I was impacted by what he taught based very much on the sermon of the mount. I would like to share with you my thoughts on Jesus’ teaching of how to love your enemies and pray for them. I pray that you will be blessed by my sharing.

Eat Into My Soul

I develop very personal relationship with Jesus through loving my enemies by praying for them. As a result of Jesus such teaching, I become very sensitive towards my own feelings towards other people.  My slightest dislike, hatred, jealousy, unforgiveness, complain, uncomfortable feeling, condemnation, negative thought, etc about someone, be it my wife, children, or anybody out there, I go to dialogue with Jesus in my heart about the reason(s) for it. I do not want to allow those feelings to remain because they “eat” into my soul, they try to isolate me from focusing on Jesus teaching especially on the sermon on the mount. I always use sermon on the mount in Matthew to guide me in my relationship with people and God.

Dialogue With Jesus

In my dialogue with Jesus, I always ask Jesus these questions: Why do I have such feelings? Why I am hurt by it? How should I overcome such feeling? Am I worried by it; disturbed; threatened? Every time I give a fleshly response like a self-centred, selfish, my personal interest, pride, face, personal desire and glory, any sinful thought or attitude answer; the spirit of Jesus will always alert me of my fleshly desires.  He directed me back to His word on the sermon of mount and in the Bible. As I allow His word to be the final authority of my life, I choose to obey His word in my mind, my conscious and my being, I always experience peace, closeness with Jesus, reconciliation with people, seeing people from God’s perspective of love, and accepting them as imperfects.

I Make No Enemies

After I go to Jesus to deal with all the negative feelings in my mind and conclude by obeying His words and after that, I always pray to forgive or bless the other person.  It is so powerful. I make no enemies. I can love them with my imperfect love. This is how I do it. I accept them as God’s children (both Christians and non Christians).  How can I dislike, hate, hurt, condemn God’s children whom He loved so much by dying a sacrificial death on the cross? I accept them as imperfect people. I accept them as people who have their strengths and weaknesses. I am challenged by Jesus to focus on their strengths rather than weaknesses.  I am also challenged by Jesus to be understanding towards them.  May be he behaves like that because he does not have good sleep last night; he has a quarrel with his wife; he is frustrated at work; he is frustrated at work; he is sick; his children give him trouble; there is misunderstanding or miscommunication somewhere, etc.  These understandings help me to give people all the space to make mistakes or even to sin against me. I pray that I turn all of them into opportunities for me to help them to fear and honour Jesus.

I Love People As He Or She Is

What do I get as a result of loving my enemies and praying for them?  First and foremost, I receive the joy of the Lord; I live peacefully and harmoniously with anybody out there; I can face Jesus’ questions and I have no guilt and shame in my heart; I felt accepted by Jesus all the time; I feel I am a strong disciple of Jesus; I love people as he or she is and I love all nations, races and tribes.  This helps me to do a lot of missions.

Will you join me to love your enemies and pray for them?

A faithful disciple of Jesus,

Pastor Law Hui Seng

(27^th Feb, 2011, KK)

Posted By Teresa Han

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,


Praise the Lord, we are in communication in this manner again. You can be so far away but I can let you know what is happening in my life. I can witness to you on how real and how good Jesus is to me.

Two weeks ago I lost my pen drive which contains 3 years of information on my sermons, weekly reflections, good articles, minutes, etc. It is my original source and only copy! It is a very good record of my life. At first I was worried, anxious and troubled. For quite a few hours, I could not overcome my negative feelings and thoughts in my mind. I did not like those hours at all. My mind was on it even when I played ping pong!

After a good struggle, I came to Jesus and allowed Him to deal with me. He said God even took care of the birds in the air, they had no worries to find food; the lilies of the valley grew without human care, why should I worry about my pen drive. He said He would return it to me. That was the assurance from Jesus! I told quite a few persons who were concerned about it that the pen drive would be returned.

I asked the student body to make 2 times of announcements during weekly Thursday assembly. I asked the librarians to be on the look out for it. I asked many people to pray for it. I myself at least prayed 50 times about it. My prayers were very simple and naive. I asked Jesus to convict that person’s sin and returned it to me. As I prayed, I imagined Jesus communicating with the person. I told Jesus I had full trust in Him; I was exercising my faith towards him. I told Him the witness of the whole community of STS is at stake, and the great character of honesty is at stake. After prayers like that, everyday, I waited in expectation of its return.

Praise the Lord, that person put it back to my pigeon hole. A few lecturers and fellow theological students who prayed for me and showed concerns for me were so happy that I got it back.

Bother Jesus

This is a small matter to a lot of people but it is a big matter to me as the information is very valuable to me. However, personally, even a so called small matter like that I would like to bother Jesus as my relationship with Him allows me to do it. And I strongly believe that Jesus knows all the time I am going to bother Him with small matter.

Another reflection that comes out of this experience is this: If as a human being desires so much to find back the lost pen drive, how much more my heavenly Father desires His children who are lost to come back to Him!

May I pray that you build up a personal relationship with Jesus like I do. Do bother Jesus with small things.

A faithful disciple of Jesus,

Pastor Law Hui Seng

(20th Feb, 2011, KK)

Posted By Teresa Han

Dear brothers, sisters and friends,

I enjoy every second and minute of my time in STS. I now know how stressed I was in the past. Though studying involves some level of stress but I am so relieved here. I really spend time reflecting on my ministries in the past as I read the lecturers' recommended good books. All these readings help me to be self-critical. It means I have to ask myself: what is wrong (or right) with my thinking, attitude, actions and behaviour? I need to ask the same questions for my family, my church (especially Sarawak Chinese Annual Conference), and the society I live in (Sarawak in particular and Malaysia in general and the world at large).

Confession of my sin is part of being self-critical. I had a little encounter which is significant for me to share with you. I played ping pong with a lecturer just now. At a critical point when I was just leading by one point, and I was one point away from the game point, her ball actually touched the edge of the table and she could not see it and hear the touch. However, I heard the slight touch on the edge. I did not confess as I usually did. I award the point to myself and therefore, I reached the game point to go on and win the game! My conscience, the Holy Spirit, and Christ, my Lord did not let let me go. I felt guilty even while I was playing the next match. The tension in my heart was to confess to her or not. The accusations of wrong kept coming back to me. I did not want to tell her as I wanted to save my FACE & PRIDE!

GUILT & CONFESSION

At last, the final game was over. The guilt was all the time there as I began walking out of the sports hall and down the staircase to go back to the hostel. I asked myself, "Do I want to live with my guilt? Can I just forget about it? Nobody knew, she did not know, but Jesus knew and I knew. As I walked further down the staircase, the question kept coming back my mind was, "Do I want to live with the guilt or not, or just confess my sin to her?" Praise the Lord, I choose to obey Jesus and I told Him I did not want to live with my guilt. Right there and then, I quickly told myself my face and pride were minor issues, compared to the guilt and unholiness that I am going to live with forever. I choose to be honest with Jesus. I obediently walked up the staircase and confessed my sin to her. She said it must be during the close match! I said so. Though she laughed about it but deep down in my heart, my guilt was gone. My soul was uplifted!

Praise the Lord I am able to practise what Jesus said, "Let your yes be yes. Let your no be no." I pray that you all will join me to be honest with Jesus and obey Him in minute details in our life. Be honest with your conscience and Jesus, our God and master.

A faithful disciple of Jesus,

Pastor Law Hui Seng

(13th February, 2011, at STS, KK)

Posted by Teresa Han

Dear brothers and sisters and friends,

It is with much enthusiasm and excitment in writing this weekly reflection to you!

Praise the Lord I flew back last Friday night as planned and met my family and stayed with them till Tuesday morning before we flew here (KK) to celebrate our CNY. Last Saturday, I conducted a marriage blessing at GMC and preached at Bethel Church on our life goal was to glorify God and be like Christ. Today I preached at Agape Methodist Chruch (KK, Lintas Square) and conducted the monthly Holy Communion. I still preached with fire, passion and conviction on the person of Jesus, praise the Lord.

A few GMC brothers and sisters in Miri asked me about my studies in Sabah Theological Seminary after 1 month. I said it was heaven for me here! Why? The lecturers and fellow students and everything are excellent. We live together as one big, harmonious, and joyful family. The lecturers and librarians are very helpful in my learning. All my prayers on the manpower needed for my thesis were answered. Jesus gave me the needed qualified people to supervise my future thesis on how to be a BM speaking pastor.

I also learn a lot from a fortnightly translation of the seminary's chaplain weekly IN-REACHING & UPLIFTING, from English to BM. It is not only great learning from him but it is also sharpening my skill of translation which I acquired from my university days. I can bless at least 60 indigenous theological students if they read my translation. It is a big bonus for me in STS!

Praise the Lord for granting me and my wife a quick recovery from the virus attack just before the CNY eve! The reunion with my in-laws was very meaningful as I spent time sharing with them. My father-in-law is 94 years old now and we could play Chinese chess together!

Never Give Up

As I do my weekly reflection, attend lectures, read bible and books of all kinds, prepare 2 sermons, observe my family members and society and played Chinese chess these last 2 weeks, I learn a lot about not giving up on doing God's will (what is right).

Abraham Lincoln (a Christian, a former United States President in the 19th century), studied law and experienced a bad business which took him 15 years to pay the debts in 1833. He was elected as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1834, re-elected in 1836, 1838 and 1840, and served in the post until 1842. In 1860, he was elected as the President and he was re-elected for the second term in 1864. On 1st January, 1863, he issued the famous Emancipation Proclamation, declaring the slaves of the Confederacy forever free. He died a tragic death by gun-shot in 1865. I see this faithful disciple of Jesus who stood by what Jesus desired him to do, through numerous defeats, he never gave up. He knew God's will of setting free the slaves and he stood by it and even paid a dear price of death for it. However, he and others transformed the nation of US. Just because he did not give up on standing for what is right! Can you and I do the same?

I see also in our patriarch, our spiritual fore-father, Abraham, a faith who never gave up on doing God's will. He obeyed God's calling to leave his comfort zone of his hometown to head towards a promised land which was not specifically identified yet. He did not give up on God who asked Him to sacrifice his only son! He did not give up in pursuing the Promised Land when he faced so many enemies and obstacles. Deep down in his heart, I see that he stood by God's will for him. He might make lots of mistakes, and he might be discouraged, disappointed, hurt and defeated many times. Because he stood by God's will, he never give up on God's will. A great character of perseverance and faith which I need to emulate!

Jesus, my Lord and Savior, gives me the greatest boost of what it means not to give up on God's will. With all the sufferings you can imagine right from the days of His early ministry at the age of 30 years old till the crucifixion on the cross, He was faithful to do the father's will to die a sacrificial death to redeem mankind from sin and hell. He overcame all the temptations of giving up to the devil and avoided all the sufferings. Can I and can you, withstood all the sufferings that come with doing God's will?

My father-in-law did not give up on a Chinese chess game which appeared that he was going to lose and finally he turned around and defeat me in a surprise move!

The challenge for your life is this: As you are certain of dsing Jesus' will,do not give up when the going gets tough. Persevere as Jesus is with you all the way.

A faithful disciple of Jesus,

Pastor Law Hui Seng

(6th February, 2011, Sunday, KK)

Posted by Teresa Han