Visit at The Vine - Sermon on Faith

It's true every single time - when one thinks he's "doing a favour for God", he would be blessed a thousand times more in return. TToday, I went to church with Susan and her daughter as they were now looking for a church. While I thought I was accompanying them, God has given me many blessings along the way.

I was early when I arrived Central, and I waited at a Delifrance. It was a quiet sunny morning. Sitting next to the window, enjoying the sunshine, sipping a cup of hot tea, seeing the empty street below... I felt really sweet, sweet in God's love.

Then we went up to The Vine. They have a guest speaker today, her name is Janine Kubala. The subject of her sermon is Faith. Her sermon really touched my heart.

Janine shared the story of her life: how it was biologically impossible for she and her husband to have their own children, how much she has dreamt for her own kids since she was small, how close at one point she thought she was pregnant for 5 months, how devastated she was when she found out that was not the case...

She has withdrawn her faith from God then, she said. Faith is a different thing from believing: as said in Bible, Satan also believes in God. Faith goes beyond that and faith is something else. When what we see/ hear/ touch/ sense is different from what God tells us in His words, it is Faith that bridges the gap. And at that point in her life, though she still believed, she has withdrawn her faith to God. Because she didn't wanna get disappointed again. The cut was too deep and the disappoint too big...

And when she read bible then, she only read the book of Job. The things that caught her eyes:

1. that God really loves us - He loves Job. Yes, just like a father, crazily in love with his own boy. That's our God. (Job 1:8)

2. And God wanna give us so abundantly. God is crazily in love with us. No matter how rich Job was in the beginning, He still doubly gave him His blessings at the end. Didn't matter Job couldn't spend that in his life. God just loves us so much that He wanna gives us so abundantly and excessively.

3. And Job's wife, she's the mouthpiece of Satan in the book of Job. She spoke of cursing God, no hope, and death. (Job 2:9) - Doesn't Satan want to wisper the same line into our lives?

And it brought much thought and reflection and confession to Janine. And it was so different a confession another group of people make in the Bible: Daniel's 3 friends. Also facing difficulty, these 3 guys making a totally different confession: while putting their faith in the Lord, their love for God never, NEVER, depends on the outcome of how God answers their prayer.

... (and they replied to the king)... we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.
Daniel 3:16-18

It's such a powerful confession! We need to personalize it make it our own prayer, our own confession! Yes, be it to cure our disease, be it to have babies, be it for whatever! That we need to put our faith in God and equally importantly, the "BUT EVEN IF", even if God doesn't grand us our prayer, He's still our God, our Love, our Lord, our Saviour - the One who loves us most.

***********

Janine's sermon greatly stirred in me. Since 4 months ago we have been learning this lesson of faith. I have learned to put my faith in God. And yes, I understand, now I need to learn the next level, the "But" part about it.

But more importantly, I felt so much so much love from God. Yes lots and lots of love. Even if I am just writing this now, going back to the church in my mind, I can still feel God's love, very strongly. Very strongly.

Thank you, my Lord. Thanks for your love. So much love.

***********

And finally Janine and her husband do have 2 kids now. They adopted their first son about 3 months after the "false pregnancy" incident. And Janine shared tones of miracles which they have experienced thru the adoption process. Their first son is Samuel, because he's God's answer to their prayer. And few months afterwards, they adopted their second son Johnathan. After they got this name from Holy Spirit, they then found out this name means "a gift from God".

Didn't Janine share earlier, that God wanna bless us so much that He'd doubly bless us, just like He did to Job, no matter if we can "spend" all those blessings in our life?