Chapter 1 A Consecrated Life - Far Eastern Bible College

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In Singapore, there has been a lot of talk about enhancing the value of our material assets through costly upgrading programmes. But do you know that there is a much better way to really enhance the value of all your earthly assets? Let God use them, and then they will help to produce results that are of far greater eternal value. For example, if you own a house, let it be available for holding a regular Bible study or fellowship meeting in your neighbourhood. If you own a car, let it be available to the Lord to ferry children or people to and from church. If you own a piece of property or land, let it be used by the Lord to establish a gospel outreach. If you own a computer, let it be used by the Lord to produce gospel or Bible study material, or as a means for your family to be edified through Bible software. If you have funds that have been sitting for a long time in a bank account, turn them into an interest-free loan to the Lord, to be used by Him for building churches, or Bible colleges. Invest what you have in the things of God, and you can have the wonderful satisfaction of knowing that the earthly possessions that you have to leave behind one day have at least found very great worth: in the priceless souls that have been saved from eternal death, in the lives that have been transformed into the image of Christ, and in the glory that God has derived for Himself from them. In the case of Peter who lent his boat to the Lord, he not only had the satisfaction of knowing that his humble little boat had been gloriously used as the Lord’s pulpit, Christ also gave payment as an added bonus to Peter after He had finished preaching to the crowd. In verses 4 and 5 of our text, we observe that Peter received a tremendous blessing from the Lord: he got the biggest catch of fish that he and his partners had ever seen in all their years of fishing! II. A Life of Obedient Trust in God Brings the Greatest Blessings To follow the Lord is to live in obedient trust in Him. Just as the words of a familiar hymn goes: “What He says we will do. Where He sends we will go. Never fear, only trust and obey.” One reason why 102 A Consecrated Life
elievers are sometimes reluctant to forsake all and follow the Lord is that they are afraid of the risk involved. We are worried about what our future will be like if we were to just step out in faith like Abraham, not knowing exactly where we are going. The uncertainty of just trusting in God brings the unsettling feeling that we are no longer in control of our lives, and we don’t know where this path will lead us. It is like driving along a road at night where there are no street lights and the car headlights are not working. We can’t see what is in front of us. We don’t know what is going to happen and that worries us. But when the Lord calls us to follow Him, He says to us: “Don’t worry my child, just trust Me, I know where the road leads and that is enough for you: just follow Me.” And the amazing thing is that when we do obey the Lord and trust Him to lead us, we find that everything works out perfectly well. We find that all things do work together for good to them that love God (Rom 8:28). We even experience great and wonderful blessings that we never expected. That was what the fishermen in our passage found when they trusted and obeyed the Lord. In verse 4, Christ gave them a command to obey: “Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.” Now this command would not have seemed to be unreasonable to Simon and his partners had it not been for the fact that this was what they had just spent the whole night doing! And so in their minds, they were expecting the same results as before—no fish. Now they were tired, they were weary and they were naturally afraid to waste more time and energy on more futile work. Would they be willing to launch out again into the deep sea at Christ’s command? What if they failed to catch anything again? This was the moment when they had to overcome their fear of failure by trusting in Christ’s command, not knowing what was going to happen. Look at what Peter said in verse 5, “Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.” And so with Jesus sitting in the boat, Peter and probably Andrew sailed the boat out into the deep and cast the fishing net into the water. They were willing to stake everything on the Word of Christ. Would you be willing to do the same? Are you willing to take the Lord at His Forsake All and Follow Christ 103
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Far Eastern Bible College Press Sin
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Contents Foreword..................
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Foreword A Consecrated Life—Roman
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Chapter 1 A Consecrated Life Text:
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God rather than our bodies? After a
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elong to him. He has to bear the lo
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from now on. It means living only t
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are afraid of embarrassment, and of
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Chapter 2 The Motivation for Consec
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people, but being mocked, insulted
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cross, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthan
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how can it ever be possible to feel
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suggested. It was done by the Roman
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permission to give Jesus a proper b
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Truly we must be greatly amazed tha
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was a church leader named Stephen.
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I. Busy in Doing Whatever the Lord
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Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Ari
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As Philip came nearer the carriage
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go around boasting to others about
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Abraham showed that he was willing
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life. It was not a static faith or
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There was no law in Canaan to prote
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Lord be proud to reveal Himself to
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honest to ask yourself, “Do I hav
Page 53 and 54: Chapter 5 Hindrances to Consecratio
Page 55 and 56: leaving behind any will and his chi
Page 57 and 58: But then something quite unexpected
Page 59 and 60: How frail your life is! The news is
Page 61 and 62: three generations. All the wealth t
Page 63 and 64: III. Be Rich Toward God, and Not to
Page 65 and 66: Chapter 6 The Objective Of Consecra
Page 67 and 68: Another person whose life was wonde
Page 69 and 70: II. Renew Your Mind and Conscience
Page 71 and 72: 5:16 says, “Walk in the Spirit, a
Page 73 and 74: We must maintain the desire in our
Page 75 and 76: To Be Like Him What can it mean to
Page 77 and 78: Through this Book, God has made kno
Page 79 and 80: 9. Does it come from or have the po
Page 81 and 82: from this then I must follow Him. T
Page 83 and 84: your feet; ye also ought to wash on
Page 85 and 86: But after he graduates four things
Page 87 and 88: straight furrow he must concentrate
Page 89 and 90: that we want to observe in the pass
Page 91 and 92: The reason why Basanio succeeded wh
Page 93 and 94: where Christians never faced persec
Page 95 and 96: Having seen what the motivation for
Page 97 and 98: What this passage prophesies is tha
Page 99 and 100: to even live for Christ, how then c
Page 101 and 102: My own turning point took place in
Page 103: partners had sailed back to shore e
Page 107 and 108: If God calls you today to forsake a
Page 109 and 110: III. The Grace We Have Received fro
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