A Year of God's Self-Sustaining Love and Abounding Favour

Thursday, 1st January 2009

Greetings dearest readers of ROOTSS and a happy and blessed 2009 to all of you.

I have been clearing leave intermittently over the past few weeks, but had to go back to the office over the past few days to shift my personal effects... into a new room.

The first thing I did after moving in was to anoint it (the door, the chairs, each corner, etc) with the anointing oil so as to dedicate it for the Lord's use. I also prayed that everyone who steps in for a meeting or a casual chat is because God has divinely appointed it to be so, as an opportunity for Him to manifest His self-sustaining love and abounding favour.

Which brings me to the title of today's post. 2009 is going to be a year of God's self-sustaining love and abounding favour.

Firstly, self-sustaining love. This was the term that Ps Reuben used at the service last Sunday (oh ya, in case you guys did not already know, my wife and I are currently on a sabbatical from our home church and are attending NewCre. We only go back to PLMC whenever Ps Reuben preaches). Ps Reuben preached on Jer 31:3, where God says that "He loved us with an everlasting love". This love of His is self-sustaining; it is not conditional upon our performance or our behaviour. Because God's very nature is love (just like His nature is truth), there are things that are impossible for Him (yup, you read me right there). One such thing that is impossible for God is for Him to lie. The other such thing that is impossible is for God to stop loving us. That is why Ps Reuben entitled his sermon "It's Impossible!" and you can listen to that awesome sermon (as well as other anointed sermons of his) here.

Secondly, abounding favour. The AMP version's of Lk 4:19 (where Jesus stood up to read the Scriptures in the synagogue in Narazeth concerning Isaiah's prophesy of Him) says:
To proclaim the accepted and acceptable year of the Lord [the day when salvation and the free favors of God profusely abound.]

This was the verse that Ps Prince preached on last Sunday, which I missed because we were in PLMC. I have not yet heard this sermon, but I'm sure that it was equally awesome from the feedback I get from the text messages /blog entries I read from Stan, Terence, Geri and Yi Wei, just to name a few.

And so, whatever the world may say about the doom and gloom this year is going to bring, we of the New Covenant let us together declare that the year 2009 is going to be an acceptable year of the Lord, where God's free favours profusely abound, and when He reveals to us more and more of His unfailing, unceasing, covenantal and self-sustaining love. Amen?