Battle Log

Wednesday 8 March 2023

Posted 8 March 2023, 4:58 PM by Hung Kwan. Permalink

Battle Log of Operation 513 at Sunnybank on Wednesday 8/3/2023 from 1300-1500

Today, again I served solo at Sunnybank so I prayed for fewer but deeper conversations. God answered my prayer. Basically, I was led to share with a Filipino couple who came here on a working visa. They had been waiting for their route of bus for a while already but I was still moved to approach the husband, Peter. Firstly, I tried to connect with him through my rare trips to Manila many years ago, but mentioning about OPN 513 team which is now serving in Manila doing same street outreach like me doing here. He showed interest and appreciation of what we are doing here and there in his home country. I tested the water saying Philippine is generally recognized as a Catholic country and ask if he professes Catholic faith and he straight ahead admit he is a Catholic Christian. So I switched testing his assurance of salvation which he failed utterly flat and square. He is not sure if he can go to heaven and claimed that all he can do is to be a good person even before I brought up the "Good Person " tract to challenge his thinking. When I asked how good you have to become to earn your way to Heaven, then he noticed Jesus still play a role in our salvation. Then I further challenged him if he thought the redemptive work of Jesus dying for us to take our place to receive the punishment of our sins is effective enough? He of course answered that it should be effective enough, then I asked why you still think you have to rely on more good works to earn your way to heaven. It was clearly stipulated in the Bible Eph 2:8-9 that it is solely because of the work of Jesus and not because of our good deeds so all we have to do is to accept Jesus' salvation by grace through faith in Him and Him alone. I used the story about the Story Bridge to demonstrate, good work can never use to offset crime. Story Bridge actually bears the name of the donor Mr Story who was a wealthy man doing a lot of charity including donating the building of the Story Bridge and donating the land in St Lucia for the founding of University of Queensland. The motive behind was to ease his guilt of murdering another fortune explorer from NSW in the early 1900. He killed that guy and robbed him of 9 Sterling Pound which become his capital fund and made him rich. He and his family kept it as a secret and only was disclosed 30 years after his death. I asked Peter if he disclosed his murder crime while he was alive, will he be able to appeal for waiving the charge of murder because of all the great charity work he had done. The answer was obviously negative. Similarly, I asked
Peter would he thought his good work can compare to Mr Story donating Millions of Dollars for charity and social community welfare purpose. If not, would he think it is enough to offset the sins that he and us the human as sinners have committed so far and throughout our life. The answer is obviously, not. So I helped him to establish that good deeds never will count in term of salivation and acquiring eternal life by admission to the heaven Kingdom right away at the moment we admit and accept Jesus as our Savior and the Lord of our life as per Eph 2:8-9. And on this basis, God further promises to make us a perfect masterpiece or unique arts of human life created firstly by the work of redemption of Christ. Then our life will be transformed step by step, day by day towards perfection by doing His work. It means our redeemed born-again life will bound to return back to perfection if we choose to walk with God and to lead a life on mission with God. As long as we have those correct awareness and understanding of the plan of God, we will not be misled to feel unsure and not confident to be able to admitted to our eternal home readily prepared by Jesus.

The timing was just good and the bus came after I finished my sharing and clarification with Peter.

View previous Sunnybank (QLD) report (1 March 2023)

Sunnybank

Sunnybank Team (QLD)

Meets 1-3pm Wednesday afternoons at the Sunnybank bus stop on Mains Road.