O the joy - being brought back to Christ

A Monday in Kenya. Upon preparing my viva for Wednesday, the Lord uses a sweet way to encourage me to love Him deeply. 

Humanly, this is a strange feeling. I've worked so very hard for many years (in many ways, not just academically) and finally have come to the final stage of my PhD. I am preparing to defend them, yet feel a bit not sure what else needs to be prepared. I have revised some potential viva questions, and I have read through the thesis once after submission. And now, I seem to just need to enjoy Christ to fill me with all the reality. 

1) Being brought back to Christ and not be distracted by many things 

When we visited the church in Nairobi, they were on this morning revival concerning "labouring on Christ as the good land". As I was listening to their sharing, I realised so many things can distract me from Christ. When the children of Israel entered into the good land, their manna ceased and they had to labour on the goodland. However, we later came across this term "jubilee". The year of jubilee indicates in the 50th year, people can return back to their apportioned land in the goodland. So what happened to the previous 49 years? This means for some reason, some people just lost their lands. It could be possible they over spent their inheritance, or it simply because they did not labour on the goodland. I do not know exactly what happened to them. Nevertheless, one thing we know is that those who lost their apportioned land got distracted by something else, disabling them to labour on the goodland. Satan is really good at taking away our energy and time by introducing many goals to us. The enemy deceived us to pursue goals that were not necessary so we could be wasted. 

On Monday, when the church in Brussels entered the new MR (2023ITERO-M), the key burden of this message concerning being brought back to Christ and not being distracted by many things reinforced this point. Here, there are other things that Paul mentioned that can distract us. It is the flesh, constituted by many good things, such as doctrines, ethics, morality, teachings, and culture (Philippians 3:3-7). Paul's attitude is to "count all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse that I may gain Christ (Phi 3:8). 

2) O the joy

The Lord then reminded me of this very hymn that I enjoyed when i was a young person and also when I was in Cardiff. 

Oh! the joy of having nothing,

Being nothing, seeing nothing

But a living Christ in glory

And being careful for nothing.

And His interest here on earth!

This is John Darby's testimony, which is similar to Paul's. Although we do not have evidence that he got a PhD degree, his depth with the Bible has inspired many generations. His talents allowed Him to gain a reputation, status, and wealth in the world. However, the Lord is way too glory, that towards the end of Darby's life, where he only had some food from the saints and a humble dwelling. He was able to say to the Lord: "Lord, I still love you".