Vision of the future

Yesterday was Addie's graduation, our ELLCO ladies went in force to support her. We had such great spirit when Addie was called to stage to receive her diploma, ie. we were pretty loud! I was overjoy that I almost cried! Addie has worked so hard to get her degree and she will now serve full time to do ministry work at our church. Praise the Lord as Addie is a wonderful teacher!

During the ceremony, Rev. Kong Hee from City Harvest gave a graduation address. I was so captured by his talk. It was more a sermon than a mere commencement speech. He talked about the trials and tribulations that we as Christians will inevitably face. The importance of mastering money but never allow money to master us. But the most striking message was we must be Christian with a vision! He talked of the difference between Judas Iscariot and Simon Peter. Judas betrayed Jesus because he allowed money to master him. When he heard Jesus prediction of His own death, he didn't know what to do. He has been so used to being the treasurer of Jesus and the disciples that he feared what may happen once Jesus died. So he sold out Jesus because he didn't have a vision of the future. Rev. Kong said, a man without a vision must surely goes back to his past. And that is what Judas did. And at the end, he killed himself because he has no vision of a future. Then there was Simon Peter, a fisherman that dropped everything to follow Jesus. But when he denied Jesus 3 times, he too was crushed. After Jesus died he also lost the vision and went back to becoming a fisherman. But then Jesus came back to Simon Peter and said "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some. When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish." John 21:6 At this instance, Simon Peter knew that it was Jesus that gave him the message and he embraced the vision again.

It was such a powerful sermon that my trying to write snippet of it can do no justice. But just that Rev. Kong Hee reminded all of us that as Christian, we will face frustrations, difficulties and moments of weakness where we may backslide. But we must be on our guard to fight and we must embrace the vision. A vision of where God wants us to go, a vision of the future.

And so I pray that we will keep on with our vision. Our vision where Christ has intended for us to go. That we know He will light up our path eventhough at times satan may try to come and put up obstacles and cast darkness over us. That by faith we will ensure we will keep that vision in our heart and our soul and to forge forward bravely. Halleluja!