“All we see today didn’t come from nowhere. Someone paid a price for it. May it be said of us, that our children’s children will look at us and say thank you for being faithful.”
Speaking about the need for local Christians to return to their first love, Jason Chua told attendees at One Thing Gathering 2018 about the narrative God has written, that Jesus is coming back to make every wrong thing right – and how we all get to play a part in it.
“We can trust in Jesus’ leadership. He’s the one building the church, we are merely partners with Him.
“So if God has written a narrative that is certain and sure, and Jesus’ leadership is perfect, then the real question is this: Do we know what God is doing in our generation?
“And if we trust God’s leadership, are we yielded to what He wants to do or what we want to do?”
As he paced across the stage at RiverLife Church‘s Main Auditorium, he raised a striking point: “We constantly ask God: ‘What is Your will in my life?’
That question can come from a heart that wants to be great in the eyes of men. The better question to ask in light of God’s narrative and leadership is this: God what are you doing in my generation – and how can I be a part of it?
Behind a worn Bible on the pulpit, he impassioned: “Behold the Man. Look straight into His eyes. Allow the Holy Spirit to take you into the Word. Trust the leadership of Jesus.
“There is a real man behind this Word and He is looking for young men and women to be caught up in His plans and what is on His heart.”
Jason then moved on to speak about Singapore’s 40-year cyclical review since the Billy Graham Crusades in 1978.
“This 40th year thing … I believe it’s from God. I think it’s an invitation from God. It’s not just about making it to some 40th year mark – but for the next 40 years! I feel with my heart that God gave us a clear word because He’s inviting us to be a part of what He’s doing.
“I see an invitation from God to our nation as a collective people. Not just the young, but also the old. God is inviting all of us in this hour, He is calling us higher to see Him and to know what is on His heart.”
The 32-year-old founder of Burning Hearts moved on to compare Singapore with the Church of Ephesus in Revelations.
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.” (Revelations 2:2-5)
This is us, he said. “We work hard. We work until we are dying and we don’t even know it. And these sound like good things to have – don’t they, pastors? If your congregation was hardworking, long-suffering. Isn’t that good?
Jason said the Ephesus church was the premier church of the first century. Paul himself spent three years discipling and teaching them as many turned from magic and pagan worship to Christ!
But Jason said Jesus had one thing against them – that they had forsaken their first love. “And yet we don’t see them anymore. If you go to Turkey today – they are in ruins. I think they did not turn from their ways, which is why their lampstand was taken.
God desires your heart more than what you can do for Him, he said.
If what has once burned brightly has gone dim, God has an issue with it, Jason continued.
“And He will do anything to get that heart back, even at the expense of taking everything away from us. What we have, what we own, what we put our confidence in, our freedom of worship – if these things if they are hindering us from loving God, He can take them away overnight.”
Citing Job, Jason said that God had done it to him: “I was an underachiever in a land of overachievers. I tried all ways to get things so I could feel like I could match up to those who who were doing better than me.”
But Jason said that God saw something missing. What used to burn bright, when he was a 15-year-old boy who had first encountered and experienced God, had faded into “complacency and passivity”.
My prayer to God is that my surrendered life will become a reference point for the next generation – a picture of what wholehearted love means.
Speaking about his experience in Kansas, Jason said God had pealed away layer by layer of his life away there.
“I thought that God was so mean. I’m already so poor and you still take from me. I’m already underachieving and you make even more pathetic. Why me?
“God stripped everything away, to the extent that I was left with nothing. But I see now that God taking things away from my life was the only way I could enter the chamber of His heart. I began to see that all He wanted, was that this heart of mine would be His.
“And when I came back to Singapore, I had the God-given courage to live a way that looks foolish to others. But in the eyes of God, it’s precious.
“My prayer to God is that my surrendered life will become a reference point for the next generation – a picture of what wholehearted love means,” he said.
Jason posed a challenged to the youths in the audience: “Is Jesus worthy enough for us to live a certain way? If you truly know what He’s like, He’s worth it.
“People think I live a dumb way, selling all I have for a prayer movement. You can’t monetise prayer. People ask me, isn’t this a bit too extreme? To live a life of devotion that doesn’t make sense at all?”
Jason confidently continued, that in comparison to how Christ has lived for us – his lifestyle of less was nothing. Jason said that Jesus left his first-world heaven for a third-world earth; his personal sacrifice was of no comparison to Jesus’.
“My prayer is that God will raise up people who will live extreme lives for Jesus. I want this generation to be a reference point for the next generation, to know what whole-hearted love looks like.
“God must have His inheritance in Singapore.”
Jason said that what he experienced in Kansas City wasn’t just for him – it was also for Singapore.
I want your gaze and your heart – that was the word that God had given to Jason. In Kansas, Jason had pressed God on the destiny of Singapore: “All we are doing is building our own things, caught up in our own little lives, doing whatever we want to do.
“Back then I felt like God had forgotten Singapore – no clear word. But right now, when there is, what are we going to do about it? “
Jason said God told him, “I have not forgotten Singapore” – over and over again. “I want your gaze, I want your heart. In the midst of all these beautiful things I’ve given to them, I want your gaze, I want your heart.”
He’s more interested in whether the fire in your heart is burning, than what you can do for Him.
As he began to close, Jason said that God wants our gaze on Him and He wants our heart.
“Before even doing anything for Him, would you give him your gaze and your heart? He’s more interested in whether the fire in your heart is burning, than what you can do for Him.”
“He’s looking straight into the heart of Singapore right now. Until you’ve been undone by the Lord, you cannot do anything for Him. Until you begin to see who He really is, be undone for Him, you can do nothing for Him.
“I’m not talking about ministry and serving. I’m talking about what God wants to do for the nation,” he said in reference of Singapore being a missionary-sending nation. “How can we be a sending nation unless we know the One who sends us?” he asked.
Addressing both the young and old, he continued: “Will you respond to this next invitation for the next 40 years? My prayer is that the lampstand of Singapore will stand burning when He returns.
“I tell young people, I don’t just want to burn while I’m still young. When I have grey hairs, I still want a heart that burns. When I sit on my rocking chair, I want my grandchildren to say, ‘I want to be like you granddad, you were sold out for Jesus.’
“Even if I don’t see His return, I want to die burning.”
Happening from July 19-21, 2018, for the first time in Asia, the One Thing Gathering calls for young people who have purposed in their hearts to live with abandonment and devotion to Jesus, to do His work, be His voice and see His transformation in the nations.
To register your attendance, visit their page. Night sessions are free!
