Simply Katherine, a Christian blog

On my post last week concerning the transitioning from the living of a life of struggle to the living of grace , I ended with a question: What does that mean " to have all your spiritual struggles interwoven with life and joined to life "? This question originates from a quote from the book, "The Bridge and Channel of God" by Witness Lee: "The question you should ask is: How can one come out of a life of struggle and self-effort and enter into a living of spiritual spontaneity? The answer to this question is that you need to have all your spiritual struggles interwoven with life and joined to life. Then at a certain stage you will spontaneously be joined to the automatic law of life. In Romans 8 this law is called 'the law of the Spirit of life.' " Before going into further elaboration, I would like to point out that there are three words for life in Greek. The first is bios , which means the physical life; the root word of biology. The second i

Recently I have been reading a book entitled " The Bridge and Channel of God " by Witness Lee. The first four chapters of this book were spoken to college-age Christians in 1953. Some of these chapters consist of very practical spiritual questions and answers. Today I'd like to write about one of the questions asked by one of the college students in the book: How do we go from a living of grace to a living of reality? Firstly, the book clarifies that according to the truth, grace is reality: "In fact, Christ, life, grace, and reality are one." However, the author continues to expound on the two levels of the Christian living. The first level of living being a living of self-struggle, where you use your own strength to enjoy God's grace. For instance, when someone speaks unpleasant words to you, you will patiently smile and try not to lose your temper. Seemingly this is a proper thing to do, yet it involves self-effort. The second level of living

Recently I have encountered another interesting question, "What if my prayer is conditional? Is that okay? Can I pray a conditional prayer?" In other words, can we pray something like "Lord, I would like to serve You but will You promise to take care of my life, my family, my financial situation, et cetera"? A true story has pricked my heart. There was a sister in the Lord who served for a long period of time. She devoted her time in so many ways. However, in the latter part of her years, she began to consider that she had gained nothing out of her many years of hard labor and sufferings. So she gave up her serving life to catch up on all the things that she had missed out in "life." What happened? I was told that she didn't have a mind to suffer. The motive of her service was not to lose but to gain. My sister happened to hear this story so she called me over the phone with a realization that she didn't have a mind to suffer. It was her qu

Genesis 3:24 says, "(God) drove the man out, and at the east of the garden of Eden He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned in every direction to guard the way to the tree of life." The Tree of Life When God created man, He placed man in front of the tree of life so that man may partake of it and receive the eternal life. Yet man chose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Consequently, sin entered into man and became one with man. In his fallen condition, man's body became flesh, his soul became the self, and his spirit was deadened. This is why God blocked the access to the tree of life after man's fall lest man would partake of the tree of life while in sinful condition. Sin and eternal life cannot co-exist within man because God Himself is that life; how can then God and sin be hand-in-hand? The Cherubim, The Flame, and the Sword There is a more thorough elaboration on the significance of these three items guarding the tree

I know I always have the same excuse, but more than ever, recently I feel like I've been buried in paperwork plus all sorts of other responsibilities on top of that. I don't mind being busy that much but I think the Lord is putting me to a stop for a bit. I'm sick with a cold and two injured toes. So FINALLY, I have time to blog! About two weeks ago, I flew to California to visit some Christians who are attending a Biblical Truths and Character Training. During my time there, I had a conversation with one of them, a good friend of mine. It all started with a question, something like, "Katherine, being in the training is like living in a special bubble. It is very easy to enjoy the Lord here, but when I go home, I feel like there are so many distractions, many things I used to enjoy doing that I wouldn't mind going back to." Then she sighed. In a sense, her question encompasses all of our questions. We do love the Lord, but it's very difficult to love o

Yesterday I went to my favorite bookstore and found Andrew Murray's Absolute Surrender.  As I was flipping the pages this morning, I found a striking portion on pages 101-102 within a chapter called Christ Our Life . Andrew Murray "And then comes the last thought: Christ in us as our life and our strength. That is the crown of all. The young convert ordinarily understands very little of that. Many a believer has lived long in some experience of Christ with Him as Guide and Helper, but has never yet come to realise what this other means: Christ in me, my very life and my very strength. And yet that is what the Apostle Paul tells us is the great gospel mystery, the mystery that was hid for ages and generations, but has now been revealed; the mystery of God's people, of which has says "the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you." Christians, the riches and glory of our God in heaven are manifest to you in this -- God wants you to have C

This week has been a busy week for a lot of my friends. For me, it's more like a downtime week since I've been not feeling well. So I decided to learn a little bit of piano on the new keyboard that I just got from a good friend. As I was practicing some chords, the Lord Jesus reminded me to say a little prayer. So I prayed, with a little tune: O Lord, my heart often untrue. My consecration dwindles too. Yet Thou, the never-fading One, Fighting for me, my heart is won, Conquered by Thee again. To Thee who bled and died for me, The One who came inside of me, I repent for my fickle soul. I plead Thee saturate me whole With Thyself and Thy heart.

Last week I wrote about Christ as the Resurrection and the Life . Furthermore, to experience Him as such hinges upon the fact that Christ lives inside of us and He wants to be our source of life. Few weeks ago I was sharing my testimony with some freshmen about how I got involved with a Christian club on campus. Mainly I felt like I had to present what was the emphasis of this club from my personal experience. Honestly, it was not like I prepared anything beforehand but I felt watered by the Lord myself as I was speaking concerning my own experience of Christ with the club. I personally feel that the highlight of this Christian club is the prevailing opportunities for all to not only dive into the Bible but also to speak for Christ, of Christ, and to speak forth Christ into others. What is so special about our speaking? Are we qualified to speak for the Lord? How is our speaking related to Christ as the resurrection and the life? Good questions! But there are more good que

I've been reading my last post again and to my surprise, it has helped me quite a bit this week because I was rather thrown into a complex situation, mainly from within.  So basically, the beginning of every school semester is one of the busiest months of the year for me. I'm helping with a Christian club. I have responsibilities and practical services to do. I feel like the Lord is telling me, "Katherine, Katherine, you are anxious and troubled about many things." ( Luke 10:41 ) The Lord has reminded me again and again that it doesn't matter how great the need is, how marvelous the service is, we need to turn to the Lord and sit at His feet, loving Him and ministering to Him, just like Mary did.  But then, when the rubber meets the road, when I do need to bear the responsibility to coordinate and serve with others, I was reminded of the account in the Gospel of John chapter 12. It's an account of the Lord Jesus having supper in Betha

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 "

The Lord Jesus Christ is the unfading One!   Many things have transpired since the last time I wrote a blog post. I went to Mrs. L's burial service, went to Maine for a trip, my paternal grandmother passed away, and I've had a super busy summer being a staffer for a UT Christian club in Austin. Also I just got back from a long family trip. As every day went by, I was lamenting on the fact that my time with the Lord diminished rather fast. My body was just tired from all the activities in these past few months. I think almost everyday, I simply told the Lord how tired I was.  One night during my family trip, I was sleeping after a long day of driving up to the mountain. In my dream, I met my late paternal grandmother, a true person of prayer, worrying about her children and grandchildren. Now I'm not into dreams and all that but my spirit was stirred up in my sleep.  I told her not to worry, not to look back. I told her, "Our Christ wil

It's been one year and a half since I wrote a post on this series, " Conversations with Mrs. L ." Yesterday morning, Mrs. L peacefully went to be with the Lord at the age of, I believe, 95. Days prior to her departure, Mrs. L was still memorizing Ephesians 1:17, pray-reading His word, and asking some young sisters in the Lord to sing hymns to her. I had been trying to see her whenever I could but in these recent years, she was too weak to receive out of town guests so I did not get to meet her. It is okay, I have no regret. I treasure the rather brief time that I've had with her. Although my tears have not yet stopped flowing, Mrs. L's passing was peaceful, graceful, inspiring, humbling, and fragrant. Mrs. L, we called her "our dear sister Lee," had a very particular portion in the church. She is a true pattern for us, the young sisters. The loss is massive because she was a pillar in the church. Her prayer life was strong and stable, both weapons an

I know. It's not a game, it's a war. On one hand, Christ has won the victory through His first coming. He died an all-inclusive death that took care all the negative items in this universe, including Satan himself. Not only that, He resurrected and became the life-giving Spirit to indwell us and be everything to us. He also ascended, proving that indeed He had successfully accomplished God's redemption plan. However, as long as practically He has not yet become the centrality, the center , and the universality, the everything , of our lives, of this whole universe, there's a war. It seems like the whole world is going against our Bible reading time, our prayer time, our morning time with Lord, and on and on. It seems like we lose our temper and run out of patience all the time. There's a war. The way to fulfill God's ultimate plan in the divine history is by Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit in our spirit. (Please see references under th

I apologize for the long pause I had from blogging these past months. I moved to a new place so I've been incredibly busy and still am. So in the midst of my busyness. My sister sent me a message telling me, " I think I do not love the Lord ," and there she was in the middle of her stay in an intensive Bible truth and character training. I wrote her back, " Did you mean you do not love Him enough ?" Few minutes later, she replied, " No, I mean like I don't ." Then we decided to pick up the phone and have a little fellowship while she was roaming around the grocery store and I was in the parking lot of another grocery store in another part of the country. I asked my sister to clarify what she meant by not loving the Lord, and she explained how suddenly it hit her that she may love the Lord because she wanted something from Him. As I was listening to her, it dawned on me how often I felt like "I don't love the Lord" myself. Yu

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a ministry series meeting for Christian students in college. The topic was about Christ's second coming and what our response and attitude should be. According to Daniel chapter 2, the destiny of the great human image (which symbolizes the totality of human government: past, present, and future) is to be crushed by a stone cut without hands, which signifies Christ who was crucified and resurrected. Throughout the ages, human government has been part of the world system, which lies in the evil one ( 1 John 5:19 ). This does not mean we are now rebels against our own government but in essence, we must see that in His second coming, Christ will establish His kingdom on this earth by crushing and replacing human government with all its unrighteousness and corruption. There is so much to be said about human government and its destiny but more importantly, how does this vision relate to us? We do not want to be rooted in the world and oc

"Where the church is, there is Christ, and where Christ is, there is the church. You can never separate Christ from the church. Whenever we speak about the church, we must know what Christ is and how He is related to the church." ( The Life and Way for the Practice of the Church Life , p. 33) The Church Life The church life needs practice, not just theory. Thus my attempt to expound on this matter will never be adequate. Nevertheless, I have been recently touched, convicted, and adjusted in my view concerning Christ and the church. Usually when I see the church, I simply regard it as a body of believers, who are related by and in the divine life. In other words, I see the church as a living entity, the enlargement of Christ Himself because Christ is our life (Colossians 3:4) and our being together to express His Person is literally the extension of His days on this earth. The Lord Jesus is living again on the earth through us. Yet there is a practical side of

In my other post, The Application of the Law of Revival , I quoted that it is very simple to open ourselves. We can tell another sister or brother in the Lord that we are oppressed and old. Actually in the same book, The Law of Revival , the author even specifically mentions how we may see each other everyday and talk about many things yet are not aware of each other's spiritual condition. Then the section continues, "To be open does not mean to speak a frank word or to rebuke others. That is to spread death. To be open is to pour out and speak forth our true condition." Our God is Flowing Last week I wrote about being practically revived by persevering in prayer. In a sense, persevering in prayer to break away from our condition and to press on to care for the Lord's need is a personal exercise. Yet since we are members of one another, in the Body of Christ, the Lord will not allow us to be self-sufficient even in the matter of revival. This practice of ope

I've been waiting to be able to write this one. I think I'm still digesting all the things I've read from The Law of Revival , endeavoring to practice being revived. A practical revival should follow, don't you think? It's been few weeks where I've been, let's just say, down . I just felt so worn out within and without. I wish I could be burning and zealous for the things of God. You know, contacting and shepherding people, going on the gospel, be involved with a Christian club on campus, and so forth. Yet I just could not attain to whatever I was supposed to be or do. Does this sound familiar to you? The Lord Jesus is good. He has provided two ways for me to go on and be revived. Persevere in Prayer Recently some of us have been endeavoring to develop a prayer life. So I'd say it is not a coincidence that there has been a continuous stream of obstacles and oppositions coming our way.  Ephesians 6:18 says, "By means of all p