As Malaysia was not in the list of the countries where the book could be delivered to, I requested Emi to sign up on my behalf, hoping to get it when I was in Japan in June. During my stay, the book still did not arrive. Several weeks after I came back, Ah Yu posted it to Batu Pahat from Japan. I spent two days to devour the whole book, putting aside others that I had bought earlier but had not even browsed through a single page. This founder of Gospel For Asia, a ministry that trains and supports native missionaries, inspired me a lot with his obedience to the Lord and his compassion for the lost souls in the remote areas in Asia where the Gospel was not yet preached.
During my outing to Mahkota Parade several weeks ago, I walked into Thai Kuang bookstore. There were two long rows of new and used books for clearance. My eyes were sharp enough to notice the names of a few Christian authors. K.P. Yohannan's was one of them. This was his second book published in the USA where he had been a popular speaker at missions conferences to raise awareness about God's unchanged calling to Christians to spread the good news of salvation to the ends of the earth.
Here’s an excerpt from the Chapter 6:
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The Lost Message of the Cross
But something is still very wrong.
Why are so few living out of the "not I but Christ" life-style that Paul describes in Galatians 2:20? Although God eagerly desires to manifest Himself within us, I believe it is because so few of us have learned to let the cross do its deadly work in our flesh on a daily basis. We haven't yet come to a full understanding of the cross.
We must return to Calvary. The glory and presence of Christ will return to our lives and churches only when we have rediscovered the cross of Christ.
The cross has two operations. First, on it Christ paid the penalty for our sins and thus bought our eternal salvation. But it doesn't stop there. The second work of the cross provides for our ongoing sanctification -- the daily, continuous crucifixion of our flesh. This great doctrine is not very popular lately because it requires a voluntary acceptance of death to ego or self.
Someone has put it this way, "If self is on the throne, then Christ is on the cross. If Christ is on the throne, then self is on the cross."
This is why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:10 that we are "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." Accepting death to my ego is the only way to manifest the life of Christ. Putting my "self" to death is the only way to exchange my life for His.
I believe that this is the real meaning of Galatians 2:20 where Paul says, "I'm crucified with Christ."
So here is the spiritual law of the flesh: The measure to which I will manifest the life of Christ is the same measure to which I am willing to put my "self" to death.
When Jesus walked on earth, God was showing us not only what He was like but also what He wanted man to be like. Jesus had authority and power because He constantly submitted Himself to the will of the Father in every matter. Christ pleased the Father and reflected the Father perfectly because He perfectly put to death His flesh. And we repeat this cycle as we submit to our head, the Lord Jesus.
This is the life that is connected to Jesus, the head, on a decision-by-decision basis. It is the submitted, dead-to-self life that the Lord can animate and used for His glory. It is the only kind of life He will empower and use.
If we're rightly connected to the head in this way, it would be hard to imagine making any decision without first submitting it to Christ for His approval. What would that do to the way we spend our time? What does Christ say about TV and the films we view, the music we listen to, or the catalogs and magazines we read?
What about our activities -- church, clubs, leisure time, friendships, hobbies, prayer, service, sports and study?
What about our relationships with boyfriends, girlfriends, mentors and role models? Whom do we idolize and pattern our lives after?
What about our purchases, both the large and small ones? Is our shopping basket under His control? Does He direct the checks we write? What about the "big buys" -- our car, home and insurance?
And of course, there are those major decisions in life -- full-time missionary service, career and job plans, education and the choice of a mate.
For the Christian, none of these things is any longer a personal decision. It is not what others say, what self says or what circumstances dictate. The only valid question is always, What does Christ say to me about this decision?
But most of us find ourselves making even the big decisions without prayer and waiting for guidance from the Holy Spirit.
Obviously, the gap between this kind of biblical Christianity and the shallow spirituality of our day is a significant one. How different is this kind of self-sacrificing faith from the pleasure-seeking, self-serving, wimpy religion so often preached and practised in our churches!
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This message is not only for the western countries. If you are a Christian like me who is so blessed with material comfort, I highly recommend this book to you.
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