A Life of Consecration: Concept of Value

-

Have I ever mentioned how challenging the Christian life is? Mainly it's because every day our Christian life is full of choices. Yes, our God is so great that He has given us the capacity and opportunity to choose. However, we must know what determines our choices because eventually what we choose becomes the daily practicality of our consecration to the Lord Jesus.
"As such, how we choose depends upon our valuation of things, and our valuation of different things determines and is related to the degree of our consecration. In this sense, we are consecrating ourselves each day by the choices we make." - Andrew Yu
What determines our choices is our concept of value. This is simple logic: you would always go for the more valuables, wouldn't you? So that part is easy. Now the more challenging piece is the presence of the proper vision to assign the proper valuation. If we do not see the value, we won't bother to pay the price. The question is "what's the worth of Christ to us?" 

Doctrinally, without any hesitance, I would say "Christ is preciousness itself." Yet in my experience, how I need a deeper seeing of who He truly is to me. Recently I just began to muse upon the Lord's worth again and again, repenting of my habitual ignorance of who He is and what He has done, is doing, and will do. More specifically I've been recently touched with His giving Himself for me. Christ suffered and died for me. Not only that, He resurrected and became the life-giving Spirit so that He could get inside of me. Now He is living in me!

Being Christians does not mean we escape trials and tribulations, but that in the midst of all those we would experience more of Him and more of His shepherding. Our valuation of these trials must then change. Instead of complaining and lamenting, let us seek the Lord to grant us the proper vision of who He is in the midst of our complex situations.

Eventually when we treasure someone, we would also treasure that person's deep longing. What Christ deeply yearns is His church, the bride of Christ. If we truly know the value of the church in His heart, we would give our whole life to be the church that He desires, wouldn't we?

Lord, grant us sight! Grant us the proper vision!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Christians on Campus - The Reason I Went to College at UT Austin

-
Image
John 8:32 on the UT Tower in Austin, Texas About Christians on Campus For decades, members of Christians on Campus have endeavored to focus on Christ and Christ alone. In-depth Bible study, building up spiritual companions, and mutual fellowship in the homes are some among many highlights that characterize the club activities with Christians on Campus.  My Experience with the Club I'm not a paid marketer. I'm just a living testimony of how Christians on Campus has changed my human and spiritual life. I don't even know how to begin thanking the Lord for His mercy and sovereignty in placing me where I need to be, so that I can grow. This series of blog posts on Christians on Campus is just my personal testimony and experience as a young Christian in college, nothing more, nothing less. So let me begin here.  Christians on Campus was the reason I went to UT Austin. After I graduated from high school, I had to go abroad for college (I'm from
Read more

Summer 2012 Puerto Rico Blending Trip: The People

-
Image
Please read my previous post to find out more about the island of Puerto Rico . Without a doubt, Puerto Rico has it all:  nature and culture . Yet what I enjoyed the most was meeting Christians, young and old, and having a rich fellowship with them (despite the language barrier that we had since I don't really speak Spanish). I also met a lot of college students who were affiliated with Christians on Campus. Their endeavor to reach the young people on campus, to bring the gospel to them, to fellowship, and to dive into the Word of God was too precious!  From Puerto Rico with Love. I realized that even though we were so far apart geographically, we all, in Texas and in Puerto Rico, had been endeavoring to do the same thing: gaining young people for God . Furthermore, even though we didn't speak the same language and weren't brought up within the same culture, there was always a prevailing atmosphere of love and joy among us. At the end of
Read more

Crossing The River Jordan

-
Image
"And the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant of Jehovah stood firmly on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel was crossing over on dry ground, until all the nation had completely crossed over the Jordan." (Joshua 3:17) I attended a virtual crystallization-study of the Books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth. Like always the in-depth trainings held by Living Stream Ministry have been landmarks in my Christian life, prompting me to come to the Lord Himself to dwell on the revelations unfolded in these sessions of spoken messages. I take them as messages spoken from the Lord Himself. This time I was struck by the record of the children of Israel crossing over the River Jordan to enter into the good land. The parting of the Red Sea is quite famous, where the children of Israel exited the world (Egypt) and the ruler of the world with his evil forces (Pharaoh and his army) were buried. In our Christian life, the crossing of the Red Sea is a picture of our baptis
Read more

Only Lovers Can Be Mighty

-
Continuing from my last post on our Christian mission in choosing to be part of the mighty ones  is another quote by R. Kangas, inspired by the divine romance portrayed in Song of Songs chapter 3: "We are not trained to be mighty ones merely by being sent to a barren place to pass through one hardship after another. Rather we are trained by maintaining and nurturing our love toward our Beloved. Our Beloved is the mighty One. His love prevails... We should not allow the enthusiasm of war or the thrill of victory to interfere with our steady, developing, ongoing romance with the Lord." The mighty ones are God's army, beautiful in the Lord's eyes and terrifying to the enemy ( Song of Songs 6:4 ). Yet what's so astonishing about this army is the fact that all these ones are firstly LOVERS! In a sense, to the mighty ones, they do not go to war to win, they go to war to "waste" their lives upon the One whom they have loved. To the mighty ones, this spiri
Read more

MVP: The Most Valuable Person in the Lord's Eyes

-
Image
Last week I wrote Only Lovers Can Be Mighty . Being a lover and a warrior are two sides of the same coin. This week though I was reminded of a fellowship I had with Mr. Danker, an older brother in the Lord, concerning: Who would be the most valuable person in the Lord's eyes? Previously I considered being a lover and being the most valuable person as pretty much identical. I mean if you're a lover to someone, then by default, aren't you the most valuable person in that someone's eyes? Our answer would, of course, be yes. Now let us consider together. If that lover of yours truly, deeply, fervently, crazily love you, but simultaneously strong in the sense of always insisting upon his/her ways, styles, concepts of values, standards, and opinions; is he/she still practically the most valuable person in your eyes? Tough question, isn't it? But I would say practically no. Please do not misunderstand me here. I have not defined the characteristics of a true lo
Read more