June 14, 2018

‘Consider carefully what you hear,’ he continued. ‘With the measure you use, it will be measured to you – and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.’ (Mark 4:24-25 NIV) 

I was waiting for my cardiologist in his office. There was a poster of a human heart on the wall. It said, “Use it or lose it”. I took it to say this. You need to use your heart in a healthy way. If you don’t, your heart will not be healthy. You will lose it. 

As I saw this poster, it reminded me of Jesus’ words in Mark 4:25. As I look back at my life, there were many times in which I set out to do something in faith; like coming to Canada to study theology at Regent College, Vancouver. When I decided to go to Regent, I had only been working in the marketplace in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for 3 years, fresh out of university. I had a profound experience of God at university in Australia. I wanted to know more of God and his Word. I decided that I wanted to spend 2-3 years in graduate theological education before I established myself vocationally. I decided to go to Regent College.

Looking back, I can say to myself that it took a lot of courage for me to do what I did. I had saved up for Regent during those 3 years of working in the marketplace. I did not know what I was going to do after that. It was up to God.

God changed me at Regent College. I did not only have a theological education. I also had a spiritual transformation. I would say that it took some faith in God to risk everything to come to Canada. I felt that God led me to Regent. Now there were times I wondered if I should be in theological education. There were also times I did not know if I was going to survive financially. But I do know that I grew in my Christian faith. I also have a settled conviction that because I exercised this risk of faith, God helped me grow in ways that I could not have imagined. Jesus says, “Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them”. In other words, use it or lose it.

Pastor Pye