By Rev Dr Edward Goh
I thank God for the opportunity to join the youths for two of their four messages during the recent church camp from 12 to 15 June. The youth speaker Joseph Chean, director of YWAM Singapore, came across as a sincere God-loving and passionate leader among the youths. Though not from a Reformed tradition, God has used him to minister to our youths. It was heartening to see that two-thirds of them stepped forward at the end of the final message to commit their lives to God. My prayer is that our youths will catch a biblical vision of God’s goodness and sovereignty in their lives within the grand scheme of His Kingdom purposes.
God has a plan for each of our lives! There is none in the whole universe who loves us as God does. Joseph reminded the youths of Ps. 139, of how all the days of our lives were written in God’s book before there was yet one of them. God’s thoughts about us are so vast that the Psalmist said if we were to count them, they would outnumber the sand. But the ultimate demonstration of God’s love for us is in the sending of His Son. The Lord Jesus came to live, die, and rise again on our behalf. God also sent the Holy Spirit to draw us back to Himself. God is like the father in the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15, eager to lavish His love and grace on us if only we will humbly return to Him.
How then should we come to God? Joseph pointed the youths to the Lord Jesus in the Gospel of John, who showed us what it means to live before our loving Father. Christ’s food was to do His Father’s will and to finish His work (John 4:34). He did nothing of His own initiative, but was always looking to the Father, doing only what His Father was doing (John 5:19). This is because He sought not His own will, but that of His Father (John 5:30).
This reminds me of John 15:5 that apart from Christ we too can do nothing. Hence, Heb. 12:1-2 call us to turn from every sin that entangles and look to Christ instead, the author and perfecter of our faith. For He alone can enable us to fear and serve God all the days of our lives, even from our youth if God so grants us.