Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ,

Thank the Lord for the smooth carrying out of the Annual Congregational Meeting of Tabernacle BP Church for the year 2012. Through the reports of various ministries and fellowships, we are thus reminded that we are members to be identified with the local church. And as part and parcel of the corporate witness for Christ, as well as the Gospel to the unbelieving world at large, members of Tabernacle BPC are committed to faithfully discharge their stewardship by the exercising of their spiritual gifts from the Holy Ghost. It must be understood that as far as Church membership is concerned, it is the member’s commitment to the church as well as the Church’s commitment to every member. Individually, each one of us is to serve God with joy and corporately, we are to serve with one another in a joyful ministry. Both functions and stand in relation to one another, whereby serving the Lord comes with joy and not with heaviness of heart. The Word of God is apt to challenge us to the end that we may serve one another and above all to serve God with joy. How then do we achieve both ends?

1. To have True Corporate Worship

John 4:23 and 24, “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” The best testimony which the Church gives to the world is through worship. In actuality, the Lord’s Day Worship constitutes the collective Christian witness of who God is, to an unbelieving world. And worship is the reflection of who we are in relation to the living and true God.

2. To Walk in Christ

Colossians 2:6, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.”  As in Albert Barnes Commentary, “So walk ye in Him,” is to continue in those views of Christ; to live in the maintenance of them and to let them regulate your whole conduct. The word “walk”, in the Scriptures, is used to denote the manner of life and the sense here is, that they should live and act wholly under the influence of the conceptions which they had of the Saviour when they first embraced him.

3. To Keep the Peace and the Unity

Philippians 1:27, “Stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel”. Philippians 2:3, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.”

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Gospel of peace. And therefore, Christians should live in peace, to be peacemakers and to be men and women of peace. In this day and age, there is nothing more precious than peace and unity in the Church. Peace and unity that rejoice in the truth of God’s Word, will promote the cause of Christ but the absence of peace and unity will make any work in the church to be burdensome and inevitably, the disappointments of failures to come.

4. To Pray for the Leaders

The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:11, “Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.”

Prayer is the backbone of every ministry and fellowship. To be included in our regular and consistent life of prayer before God’s throne, is to remember the leaders of the church. Christian leaders need a greater intercession of others because :

a) They have greater responsibility and accountability.

b) They are subjected to more temptations.

c) They are in a more intense spiritual warfare.

d) They are seen publicly and are subject to gossip and criticism.

The challenge is to pray more for them than to gossip about them.

5. To Co-Labour with the Leaders

1 Corinthians 3:9, “For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building. We are nothing in reference to ourselves and therefore we can do nothing of ourselves in the work of God.” The world can hire the best professionals to do the job but the purpose of God for the church is for the members to work together with their leaders putting their talents together in some ministry or another in the church for the glory of God.

We are not only to pray for the church but in the same light to evaluate our own spiritual walk with the Lord. What are our spiritual goals for the remainder of the days in 2012? What steps do we take to soar to greater spiritual heights? May the Lord help us.

Elder Douglas Ho