Res Ipsa Loquitur

Monday, 1st October 2007

One of the subjects that accountants have to learn as undergraduates is what is known as Business Law, which are legislations that govern commerce. In the law of tort, we were taught the Latin phrase “res ipsa loquitur”, which means the evidence speaks for itself.

We’ll come back to this later…

Sometime in mid-August 2007, my wife and I had a time of fellowship over dinner with Joshua and his wife Florence.

[Joshua is the gentleman who wrote the book Walking on Water, which I blogged about here.]

Anyway, I shared with him that even though my senior pastor and I had our differences regarding grace teachings, at least the one thing that we had in common was that PLMC should be run as a cell church, which is the vision that our previous senior pastor had entrusted upon his successor before assuming the higher calling as TRAC President, overseeing all the English-speaking Methoodist churches.

Joshua however cautioned me that there was a fundamental difference between a "law-based cell" and a "grace-based cell". He explained to me that a law-based cell operates by a set of rules, eg. must meet at least 3 times a month, must multiply within 18 months, must attend WIN at least once a month, etc. Although it is good to set goals and directions, fundamentally if these are carried out by self-effort, then it will not be sustainable in the long run, as people will start to experience burn-out after a period of time.

On the other hand, grace-based cells are motivated to gather together as a response to God's love, and because everyone knows his identity in Christ, and not out of a sense of duty and obligation. As members are being fed the gospel of grace and Christ’s finished work, a transformation takes place within them, and they will participate in the life and activities of the church out of the overflow of the knowledge and reality of how much God loves them.

As I look back upon my own life in the past two years, I give God all glory and praise. Ever since I started listening to grace teachings, the LORD has given me so much zest and zeal that I can just go on and on.

Just like that bunny powered by Energizer that keeps on hitting the drum long after others had stopped doing so.

Before I became a cell leader, I was actively serving in my cluster, helping them to set up a website in May 2006, and then designing and distributing cluster tshirts (pictured left) in July 2006 and also calendars (pictured right) in December 2006.

When I was made a cell leader intern in October 2006, I arranged to get an acryllic plaque for all the other cell leaders and cell leader interns in my cluster (similar to the one I did for myself as shown on the right). It has the 3L logo at the top, photos of the leader and his/her spouse (where applicable) in the centre, and the birthday and favourite verse at the bottom.

Ever since ROOTSS was launched on Blogger on 17 Jan 07, the LORD has been the One giving me the passion and enthusiasm to blog every single day, so much so that there is even a "forward"-log (as opposed to a backlog) at the present moment. Hence this entry is dated 1 October 2007, even though we are still in September now :-)

The LORD also provided me with the energy to go to the post office on at least 10 occasions to send out the Destined to Reign books to more than 50 persons.

I have said it before and I say it again -- all glory and honour goes to the LORD, because if I had relied upon my own strength, I would have been totally exhausted by now, and especially so, in the light of the recent developments regarding my being removed from leadership and having to make a public apology because a dear brother was upset by my “excesses” in promoting the midweek services at NCC.

I used to think that the Christian life was like a roller coaster ride, with its ups and its downs, its highs and its lows. But I am now convinced that it ought to be at a constant high, because God Himself is the One who provides the wind beneath the wings of the eagle, as it were, to allow it to soar higher and higher effortlessly.

And it is my desire is to see this happening to everyone in my oikos! God has no favourites. If you feed on grace messages that emphasis Jesus' finished work, you can likewise be transformed and be on a constant spiritual high! You will get up each morning with much eagerness, and look forward to how God will fill it with divine appointments, and know that He will provide you the strength and power to live the victorious and abundant life. Amen?

Which brings me back to the title of today’s post. For any activity (be it cell meetings, or prayer meetings, or blogging, or book giveways) to be sustainable, it has to be grace-based. Law-based activities may start out with much pomp and panache, but alas they will not last. Res ipsa loquitur – the evidence will speak for itself.

Or to put it in layman's terms: grace teaching is to the believer what the Energiser battery is to the bunny :-)