Monthly Archives: June 2014

THE GOSPLE ABOUT JESUS CHRIST, BY KIANG P LEE

Greetings again friends! What is the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the message to mankind from God the Father who gave His Son out of His unfathomable Love to save man from his sins. It is His desire to make good His promise to unify mankind as His children for all eternity through His Son Jesus as our atonement. (Gen.1:26-27) John tells us, “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1John 2:2) He sacrificed His Son to make our eternal glorification with Him possible. (John 3:16) As a token to His promise He also promises to give us a friend in the Holy Spirit to be with us throughout our earthly life and to be there in the future resurrection to raise us from the dead.(Rom.8:11) His one desire is we will find nothing but a life of pure eternal joy in His presence. (Psa.67)

Our Father’s words to us is, “Fight the good fight. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called…” (1Tim.6:12). We are called to immortality made possible because Jesus as the second Person of the Trinity, came down to earth and who took our humanity in Himself to save us from the corruption and death in our sinful nature. He gave His life, so that we might gain eternal life through Him. That is what the Gospel message of Jesus Christ is about. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” (Gal.3:13). The law demanded our lives, but “by the grace of God He was given to taste death for every man.” (Heb.2:9) Peter says, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” (1 Pet.3:18) 

Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus (Wiki Commons)

The purpose of the gifts we have been bequeathed is to share and make known this wonderful Gospel to all. (Matt.28:18-20) But before we can share this wonderful message of man’s salvation with others, it has to begin with us. It has to be real to us before we can make it real to others. Nothing can be shared genuinely to others unless unless it is real to us first. Jesus said, “Whoever is ashamed of Me and my Words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when He comes in His glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” (Luk.9:26) If we are embarrassed about our association with Him as His followers, our faith is not genuine. If the eternity He has prepared for us is not real to us, then certainly we cannot share it with others. He goes on, “Whoever acknowledges Me (and the Gospel) before others, I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns Me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.” (Matt.10:32-33, emphasis added). Jesus asked, “What will it benefit a man if he gains the whole world yet loses his life (in Jesus)” (Matt.16:26, Holman CSB, emphasis added) Life is far more than spending it on our fleshly indulgence. Jesus said life is more than about food, and our body is more than about the clothes we wear. (Luk.12:23) In other words, we can get so caught up in the transient things of life that we are blinded to the reality just beneath it. He said to look beyond the veneer of the material, and into the reality God presents to us in His Son.  

What could be more foolish than denying our very Creator? Certainly, He ought to be ashamed of us because of our depraved and corrupt humanity. Paul was inspired to write, “But God demonstrates His own Love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom.5:8) Yes, despite our corrupt spiritual condition, He emptied Himself to become one of us, and to die in our place so we may share His place in glory. The Bible goes on, “Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledges that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phi.2:9-11)

The Gospel is about the Person of Jesus, as the Son of God, who superimposes His redemptive self over all of humanity, and under His liberating shadow we exist today, and enter the rest of our eternity with the Father in Him.

The reality we see in Jesus who now lives His life in us by the power of the Spirit is what we share with others. He does not expect us to do this work in our own power. It is impossible for any human to do the work of God. So he gives us help. What was the gift given to the disciples on Pentecost when the work of the church started? It was the Spirit’s power to preach the Gospel with courage, and without fear or favor. The Spirit is the light of God in the life of man. The Spirit is the gift of God in the believer. If God’s gift to man is his calling and destiny, then Herald* the Spirit is the power who animates man’s gift for the purpose of preaching the Gospel. Like Peter’s ability to fish, the Spirit changed his gift to be a fisher of men. Or like Paul’s tent-making skills and turn it into a gift of building churches through Asia.

We are reminded of the commission Jesus gave His followers for all time, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt.28:18-20) It begins in our earthly lives where God has given us gifts to define our individual ‘personhood’ in Christ so we can know and see Him in our personal relationship and destinies. (Rom.12:6; 1 Pet. 4:10) We are given a work to do, and He gives us gifts in the Spirit to do them. That’s how Jesus lived His earthly life, and how He related with His Father, His disciples, and the people. As a boy Jesus told His family, “Didn’t you know I had to be about my Father’s business.” As an adult He never deviated from His mission and calling, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.” (Luk. 2:49; John 4:34) He said, “My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I too am working.” (John 5:17)

John Tal Murphree, in his book, The Trinity and Human Personality, informs us, “On our part, relating with God also requires a recognition of our separate individuality from Him and His difference from us. We must accept our status before Him as dependent rather than independent, creature rather than Creator, servant rather than Master, human rather than divine. Such is the moral dimension of the relationship.” (Pg.49)  In other words, I am trying to emphasize we relate with God through the gift of personhood and calling He bequeaths on each of us as His children. The opposite picture of the ‘false self,’ would be independence from Him, where we would assume the mantle of creator rather than created, master than servant, and we would take on the divine prerogative and made it human privilege in deciding our destinies. We were made to be replicated in God’s image, not in our image of the “false self.”

Blessing:

Until we meet again in my next post, may the blessing of the God who ceaselessly expresses Himself in His dependable Triune Love, be with you today and give you strength for authentic creative “Triune Living” as a Bula man-river.*

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to write me in the space provided below, or email me on bulamanriver@gmail.com.

Kiang                                                                                                                                                            (Your Servant in Christ) 

*The “Bulamanriver” is the metaphor describing the union of man with the Love of the Triune God flowing in humans, making possible the “Triune Life” – the source of the miraculous life in man. Man is the “riverbed” and the Spirit is the “living waters” that cover him and flows to all in his valley (destiny). (John 7:37-39)

*Herald is the name I have affectionately call the Holy Spirit

NOTE: All information from this website is copyrighted. Any use of its content should be acknowledged by citing the website, address, date of acquisition and information pertinent to original authorship.

THE MIRACULOUS LIFE – NO ORDINARY LIVING! BY KIANG P LEE

Greetings again friends around the world!

I would like to share a true life miracle with you, my readers. My wife, two family friends, and yours truly, were privileged recipients of God’s saving grace. I remember the miracle like it happened yesterday although it has been years now. I share this miraculous event to impress upon us that when we enter into a relationship with God, we will walk a life of miraculous activity which He intended for humans to live from the moment of man’s creation. Adam and Eve lived with God in Eden experiencing this miraculous life. When they alienated themselves from God’s presence the miraculous life stopped, awaiting the second Adam who would restore man’s place in God’s presence. Man has always lived under God’s sovereignty no matter what, but not in relational oneness in the bond of Love which produces the miraculous life which the second Adam makes possible. That comes as a matter of choice on man’s part.

This momentous event took place when the Son of God came as the Immanuel, God in the human flesh in the person of Jesus, fully God and fully man, to restore man back to the miraculous life which is man’s birthright. (Isa.7:14; Matt.1:23; 2 Tim.1:7; Eph.3:20-21) Hence, we see Jesus went about doing good through God’s miraculous power which we read in the four Gospels. (Acts 10:38) By taking our humanity upon Himself, Jesus, through His defeat of Satan in the Judean wilderness, His perfect life, His sacrificial death for our atonement, His human incarnational resurrection and ascension, fused our humanity forever to the very Triune Being of God. Man can now enter a life of miracles as his birthright. Miracles come wrapped in God’s Love expression for man. God is divine and we are mere mortals, and when the two intersect in the bond of Love, miracles happen.

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Jesus Walking on Water, Artist – Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (1817-1900) (Wiki Commons)

Keep the “end” in mind – that’s a vital nugget of wisdom in the journey of life. Beasts don’t set goals. They behave spontaneously through their God-given instincts in the moment and for the moment. But humans live in the present relative to his past and with an objective “end” (future) he has set out in his mind to achieve. There are many “ends” humans can craft for himself, but life’s true “end” is to live for our heavenly Father’s purpose of living in His presence. The Creator set for man his “end” from the beginning: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule.’” (Gen.1:26-27; Rom.8:29) Everything we do in life must have this overriding purpose behind it. His image is He is divine and immortal and He is Love by nature. (1John 4:8: John 4:24; Neh.9:6)

There’s only one way to achieve God’s objective “end” purpose for man – it has to take a hands-on miracle from God Himself. It’s that plain, it’s that simple. Immortality and Love is God’s image in His Tri-Personal Being, and for man to attain that objective requires God’s direct input. It is impossible for man to attain the purpose of God for him so miracles has to be part of his life. That brings about a constant miraculous activity in man’s journey on this earth. So the miraculous life we experience as humans is a foretaste of the immortal life we will share with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. It is a trailer, a preview, of God’s movie of man happening in real life, if you like. It is your birthright and mine to live the miraculous life as a human, and eternally in immortality in Christ. Paul said, “For the Kingdom of God is not in word but in power.” (1 Cor. 4:20) The miraculous life humanity is ordained to live stems from God’s power. It is for man to make a choice, as God gave Adam, whether he will enter into this relational oneness (Love) with Him in faith through His Son in the Spirit’s move.

God affirms the miraculous life He has given humanity through the promises He has given us in His Word, the Bible. To read more, go to: http://bulamanriver.net/11339

Here’s what I wrote about my miraculous experience in my book, “Bulamanriver – The Miracle of Triune Living”:

“The year was 1996 – the night of November 9th to be exact. I was living and working in Fiji in the South Pacific. The day, like any other, was fraught with its usual hectic demands of work. Yes, even in this beautiful idyllic paradise on earth, the strife of life is no respecter of your world. Little did I know the extraordinary event that lay in wait and about to unfold before me—that day will forever change the course of my life.

“Scheduled to take an early-morning flight to Canberra, Australia, my wife and I had to drive to the other side of the island where the international airport is located. A couple, friends of the family, traveled with us on this two-and-a-half-hour drive. The night was black as could be, with only the car’s headlights slicing through the pitch darkness. This stretch of the road ran straight and level for about a quarter mile with a bridge at the end and then turned sharply left around a mountain on the far side of the bridge.

“At around 2:30 a.m., the one thing most dreaded by drivers happened: I fell asleep at the wheel. I drove off my side of the two-lane road, drifted into the opposite lane, and finally went off the road onto the stopping lane. By now the car was not aligned with the bridge ahead to take us safely across the river. Instead, we were heading for a nosedive into the waters below the bridge.

Intense Blinding Light

“My short but deep sleep was the kind you just don’t get out of unless you are vigorously shaken. Then something amazing occurred. In my mind’s eye I saw the most blinding white light I have ever seen. The light was so intensely bright it woke me from my sleep. As I opened my eyes, astonishingly, there before me I saw the source of this intense white light – literally in front of me. I now looked directly at a person clothed in dazzling white garment to his feet, standing in front of me. With his right arm outstretched he held up his lamp, the source of the brilliant light that woke me. He would not move out of my way. He never flinched but stood his ground.

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Intense Blinding Light Awoke Me From My Deep Slumber (Pic: Wiki Commons)

“All this happened so fast my immediate reaction was to swerve to evade a head-on crash into the person. As I veered left, I found myself on the road landing on the road again and crossing the bridge. The spot where the person in dazzling white garment stood led directly into the river below. If he had not stood his ground, forcing me to turn sharply to avoid a collision, we would have headed straight into the river and most likely died of drowning—leaving seven parentless children behind.

“What happened next was equally astonishing. The bridge, made of concrete and pipe railings, lit up the dark night. Yes, the whole bridge was ablaze in brilliant white light. So as I swerved to avoid the crash into the person with the lamp, I was unwittingly maneuvered onto the bridge. The bridge’s railings turned into lights, something like fluorescent tube lights with a more intense brightness about them. By the side rails of the bridge I saw more people, all dressed in dazzling white shorts and short-sleeved shirts, walking along happily chatting and delighting in each other’s presence. All I could remember from their demeanor in those fleeting moments was the aura of complete joy and peace that radiated from their presence. It was a short but unforgettable few seconds in my life.

“My mind reeling, I wondered what had just happened. As we crossed the bridge and made the ninety-degree turn, we had a good view of the bridge we crossed. All we saw was nothing but pitch darkness, the brilliant light-show evident no more. I drove slowly for a few moments trying to collect my thoughts. “Did you see what just happened?” I asked my wife. She nodded, equally dumbfounded, and said she did. I asked my friends, and they said they too saw what happened. We all sat silent for a moment as the truth sank in: we had just tasted a miracle of angelic intervention.

Angels to the Rescue

“God sent angels to rescue us from certain death. (Psa.91:11) At the hotel, my wife and I knelt to thank God for His love and mercy for keeping us all safe. Seven children would have lost their parents that pitch-dark morning, but for the grace of God. It would be an understatement to say the event affirmed and solidified our weak human faith in God’s existence, His sovereignty over our lives, and unquestionably, His extraordinary Love.

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A Bridge in Nadi, Fiji Similar to One Crossed by Author, With Its Steel Pipe Rails Lit Up Like Fluorescent Light in The Pitch Dark Night (Wiki Commons)

“I know the Lord saved us for more reasons than His awesome Love for us. You see, a friend from the nearby village had told me stories of lives lost to the awkward bend in the road—but why spare us? I had read about one such tragic incident at this very bridge in the local newspaper not so long ago. As this event kept replaying in my mind, and I recognized God’s unerring hand in my life from before and after the event, I kept asking “why” because I felt no more deserving than the next person.

“When I think of the people who have lost their lives in that river it’s hard not to see yourself as special to Him. God brought me to see that what He did for us that pitch-dark night, He would do for anyone – yes, you and me and everyone. Yes, I was special and so were my wife and friends and all of humanity. Everyone is precious in His sight. I was not any more special or exclusive to Him than the next person. His love is for all, and no one person can claim exclusivity to it. And as for the people who perished in that river? As we shall see, God’s Love never left them.

God is Love

“God Loves all humanity, make no mistake about that. However, the secret to the miracle-life is to have Him Love us intimately – like the apple of His eye (Psalm 17:7-9). Doesn’t this make God partial? Isn’t this the selectiveness we just discounted? God gives us the freedom to make choices. Freedom, as we will see later, undergirds the Love God extends to man. There is no Love without freedom and no freedom without Love. Love and freedom are relational and reciprocal by nature, for “God is Love.” (1 John 4:8) Therefore, because of God’s Love, we have a choice to make. We experience God’s Love intimately when we reciprocate His Love through the exercise of our free will—when we Love Him in return.

“That is the difference. God’s Love is impartial; He has unreservedly set aside His Love for every man, woman, and child for all time, and nothing can make Him change His mind. He sacrificed His only Son to prove His Love for all mankind. However, this intimate relationship can be made to happen in human reality. God waits upon man to choose to freely Love Him as He has chosen to freely Love humanity.

The Person with the Lamp

“As for the Person holding the lamp, I believe He is more than an angel. His attire and the lamp are symbolic of His station. The Person who held that lamp emitting the blinding white light on that black November night was none other than Jesus Christ Himself. The brilliant light emitted from the lamp is analogous of Him as the Personified Word (Ps. 119:105). He is the Word of God, who guides man. He is also the Author of the literal Word of God, the Bible, who wakes us to see our human weaknesses which does not conform to God’s image. The bridge represents the crossover we make when we express faith in Him as our Savior.” (Excerpt from: “Bula Man-River – The Miracle of Triune Living”)

Yes, miracles become a way of life when you receive Jesus and the Holy Spirit live in you as His temple, where God says, “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people” (2 Cor.6;16).

If you wish to read more, please obtain a copy of my book, “Bula Man-River – The Miracle of Triune Living,” from Amazon.com, Banrnesandnoble.com; Xulonpress.com, or my web site: www.bulamanriver.com,

Blessing:

Until we meet again in my next post, may the blessings of the God who ceaselessly expresses Himself in His dependable Triune Love, be with you always. May the Spirit enliven your spirit and make all things concerning you possible as you live the “Triune Life” as a  Bulamanriver.*  Be strong in the Lord’s joy.

Kiang,                                                                                                                                                                  (Your Servant in Christ) 

Bulamanriver” is the metaphor describing the union of man with the Love of the Triune God flowing in humans, making possible the “Triune Life” – the source of the miraculous life in man. To read the many facets of life of the Bulamanriver, go to my website www.bulamanriver.com where you can order a copy of my book.

All scriptures are taken from the NIV Version 2011, unless stated otherwise.

Note: All information is copy-write. Any information obtained from this website that is used for publication should be acknowledged by citing the website address, date of acquisition and information pertinent to original authorship. For general guidelines regarding web citations see The Guide for Citing Electronic Information.

BULA MAN-RIVER* MEANS THE RIVERBED (MAN) EXISTS FOR THE “LIVING WATERS” (SPIRIT) BY KIANG P LEE

Greetings friends!

I would like to elaborate on why I call a true follower of Jesus a “Bula man-river.”*

Man is the riverbed, and the Holy Spirit is “Living Waters,” hence the Bula man-river. (John 7:38) Like a glove to a hand, there is a natural fit between the riverbed (man) and the “living waters” ( Holy Spirit). They exist for each other. They exist as one so that the Bula man-river’s* existence is codependent upon the other. Neither one can act in “solitary mode” without the other being affected. They exist to live in the “Triune mode” for the Spirit brings man to the Father through the Son. Together they live as unified being with the Spirit bringing man into the “Triune Life” of God in heaven. If we remember that, we will understand the “living waters” is all man need because the riverbed exists to be filled and completed by it. There is no other purpose for the riverbed (you), except to be filled with the “living waters” (Spirit). In that condition, man’s response is to follow the lead of the Spirit if the “living water” is to continue unabated and be filled to the river’s banks. It takes effort in our participation to “carry our cross” daily and follow Jesus and stay hidden in Him, as the waters cover the riverbed. We keep the Spirit “unquenched” and flowing in the Bula man-river (2 Tim. 1:6). The Spirit helps to keep the riverbed filled and buried in the watery cover of Jesus’ Word of power. This is the life of miracles in the Spirit.

Mountain Landscape with River Valley and the Prophet Hosea, By Flemish Painter Gillis van Coninxloo (1544-1607)

‘Flow’ to Others

“Flow” or hydrology is the central driving force of a river’s ecology. “Flow” means movement and life. It’s the opposite of inactivity and morbidity. “Flow” does not stop or get bottled up in us but overflows to others – “to spread the aroma of the knowledge of Him everywhere” (2 Cor. 2:14-16). To “flow” means to be missional in our outlook to life. It is to live a life of purpose in Jesus, who “flows” in man into the valleys and communities every day. As we experience this joyful Triune Life in Jesus, we are to seek and share this awesome life with others. With the conviction of Jesus’ mediatory work (“flow”), we now look to Him and follow His example of doing good to all in the valleys we will course through  (Acts 10:38; 2 Cor. 2:14-15).

God has made us “unified beings” joined to Him as He is in His Son by the Spirit’s power. This life is all conveyed in the metaphor of the river, the riverbed (man) and the “living waters” (Spirit). A unified being is a universal being, not a “solitary being.” God seeks relationships with other human beings as naturally as He loves us individually. Whether we realize it or not, we are all river-dwellers, and we all live downstream from one another. We benefit from the generosity of other people as we live like rivers, “flowing” into the lives of people in our valleys and communities. The interaction of life experiences of other people with ours, all happening in one common water source of Jesus Himself. Certainly, no man can live to himself, and no man dies to himself (Rom. 14:7).

Perhaps no other human endeavor forces us to apply so many disciplines to harness the power and miracle of the river and its waters. Its dynamism connects to so many economic, social, and environmental concerns on which we find common ground for relationships through its generous free-flowing waterways. This is a powerful metaphor, but it is spiritually real. It is God’s reality for man to become Bula man-rivers* that never stop flowing to others (John 7:38).

Dualism

The Greek philosophy of dualism has dominated modern thinking in religion and education: life is compartmentalized into two worlds man lives. There is the spiritual world, and there’s the physical/material one, and never the twain shall meet, let alone agree. This veil of blindness has hindered man from experiencing the three-dimensional Triune Life in Jesus. G.K. Chesterton said that men are incomplete thinkers. “We want things in fragments, that way we do not have to think about our inconsistencies. That way, we do not mind when our work contradicts our ideals (or principles), or when our politics contradicts our faith, and we keep each thing in its watertight compartment.” (The Apostle of Common Sense, p. 19) Even in our laws, there is a separation of church and state. One is spiritual and the other is secular. Coupled with the unproved theory of evolution, we live life unsure if we are instinctive beasts or transcendent beings.

We live this dualistic persona, taking our spiritual life to “church” on Sunday mornings and subsisting like evolutionary beasts the rest of the week. However, the river never gives a picture of such a life lived in dualism – the supernatural and the physical/secular is one expression of life. There is only one life and lived as one. The spiritual and the temporal are fused together into one single expression of life – Christ and the Bula man-river* flowing as one “unified being.” The first movement of the Bula man-river* is to live as a “unified being” in relationship with the people in his valley. Paul, by stating, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me,” proves the fusion of both the physical and spiritual life into ONE in Jesus and the Spirit before the Father (Gal. 2:20).

The valley is the world, not only in all its beauty, but its ugliness as well. The river never differentiates or discriminates; it waters all in its path. It is man’s dualistic thought that makes him live a life of contradictions and opposing values. We can’t live as Bula man-rivers* of God with generosity on the spiritual side and self-centeredness on the physical/material side. The Love of God waters all and accepts all, and that is why Paul said “there is no law against love” (Gal. 5:23b, 22-23).

The Oxbow,  Connecticut River Valley, by Thomas Cole (1836)

The Bula man-river* receives the whole of Christ in the “living waters” – both His divinity and glorified humanity. This means Jesus is with you in all your activities – in your place of work, in your hobby, when you are at a wedding, or watching a favorite sport, and in all circumstance of life. The river teaches us that Christ is ever present with us, in our brokenness and our good times, in our struggles and our peace, in our joy and our sadness. He is part of our every experience as a human. Nevertheless, when we compartmentalize our lives, we suffer from the disorientation of trying to live in two worlds with contradictory posture to each other. We live in the presence of God all the time, and Jesus is in us all of the time. In the movie Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell said, “Yes, God called me to be a missionary, but He also made me fast.” Either way, whether Liddell is performing missionary work or running in the Olympics, Jesus is fully and completely in his life. We have that freedom to be what we are gifted as a person. When you are at a baseball game, He is immersed in the game also. This is the vicarious humanity of Jesus living in us. This is Trinitarian living being experienced as the Bula man-river.*

Blessing:

Until we meet again in my next post, may the blessing of the God who ceaselessly expresses Himself in His dependable Triune Love, be with you today and give you strength for authentic creative “Triune Living” as a Bula man-river.*

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to write me in the space provided below, or email me on bulamanriver@gmail.com.

Kiang                                                                                                                                                            (Your Servant in Christ)  

*The “Bulamanriver” is the metaphor describing the union of man with the Love of the Triune God flowing in humans, making possible the “Triune Life” – the source of the miraculous life in man. Man is the “riverbed” and the Spirit is the “living waters” that cover him and flows to all in his valley (destiny). (John 7:37-39)

NOTE: All information from this website is copyrighted. Any use of its content should be acknowledged by citing the website, address, date of acquisition and information pertinent to original authorship.