My dear readers,

1. Serious Concerns

We cannot know our spiritual ill health and malaise except our Lord, the Great Physician, shows us. Let us come to Him and plead with Him, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me …" (Ps 139:23-24).

We may think ourselves to be rich, increased with goods, and have need of nothing, but our God says, "… thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" (Rev 3:17).

Not everyone fits the full picture of the Laodicean Church, but before the Lord, let us "search ourselves." In humble contrition of heart, ask the Holy Spirit to give us the spiritual eyesalve that we may see our true state – our lukewarmness, cold-heartedness, increasing worldliness, self-righteousness, spiritual apathy and pride, indifference to the things of God. Does any part of this description fit you?

Heed our Lord’s words: "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent" (Rev 3:19). Now, in all honesty and seriousness, let us search our hearts before the Lord.

2. If I believe that the Lord is returning soon –

a) Do I honour Him in all areas of my life?

b) Do I have daily Quiet Time - praying and reading His Word with fervent love?

c) How much time do I spend with the Lord each day?

d) Do I keep the Lord’s Day holy?

e) Do I attend the Lord’s Day Services? Morning and Evening?

f) Do I come to Prayer Meeting?

g) Do I tell others about the Saviour?

h) Do I have a part in Missions? Pray? Go? Give?

3. What then must we do?

a) Make right with God - now! Death is never far away. Act before death strikes.

b) Come to the Lord, if you have never truly repented of your sins and received the Saviour into your heart and life.

c) Go for the Lord, if you have never done so before: go and be His witness.

d) Give your life full-time for God. Our Calvary Pandan Church should have a pastoral staff of ten, even twenty.

e) Start Family Worship in your own home. The blessing is yours. Begin tonight. The family that prays together stays together. The Lord is waiting to bless.

f) Make Prayer Meeting your first priority.

g) Attend Sunset Gospel Hour every Lord’s Day evening. "He who honours me I will honour, saith the Lord."

Only one life ‘twill soon be past;

Only what’s done for God will last!

4. "They had been with Jesus" (Acts 4:12-20)

A Christian should bear a striking likeness of his Master. We have available many biographies of Christ, but the best and most eloquent are those written out in the lives of His followers. The apostle Paul refers to the "Christ-likeness" of the believers in Corinth as epistles "known and read of all men" (2 Cor 3:2).

If we were what we profess to be, and what we should be, then we should be living pictures of Christ. We should bear such a striking likeness of Him that the world would not have to hold us up for close scrutiny, and say, "Well, you have somewhat of a likeness of Jesus." Consider the disciples of Peter and John, in the eyes of the authorities "unlearned andignorant," yet they were impressed that "they had been with Jesus" (Acts 4:13).

Dear reader, look into your own life and ask, "Have I a resemblance to my Lord that others will also say that I have been with Jesus?" Is it too hard for each ofus to strive to live like our Master, to imitate His pure and sinless life so that men will see Christ in us? Think and pray this through.

Like Him! How can it be? By ourselves, impossible. But by His grace, we can. Let us be like our Lord in His boldness: never blush to own His name. Be like Him in our loving spirit: think kindly, speak kindly, do kindly. Be like Him in holiness, always going about doing nothing but good. Be like Him: self-denying, fervent in prayers, submitting to the Father’s will, patient and enduring all things. Most of all, as the highest Christ-likeness, be forgiving! Let us in all ways and by all means, so live that all men may say, "They have been with Jesus."

Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.

God bless all readers.

Yours faithfully in the Saviour’s Service,

Dr SH Tow, Sr Pastor