Living a PDA lifestyle

Today i attended service at Covenant EFC and listen to my favourite preacher Pastor Edmund Chan spoke. He spoke about 3 impt principles of love that is described on Roman 13:8-10 :




1) The permanence of Love
Toks about love as an on-going obligation. Love is not a feeling, but an act of the will.

2) The primacy of Love
The greatest commandment that is stated in the bible, is to love...So love fulfills the law.

3) The practise of Love
Love is an action word

Actually, what really spoke to me, was the call to lead a PDA life. What is PDA life?
(P for Personnal revival, D for Divine appointment, A for Active Obedient. ) PDA lifestyle is to me, a lifestyle which see a person walking closely to God, be sensitive to His will, and be obedient and submissive to do His will.

I was having my mentoring session with Pat(my mentor) on saturday at Bras basah Foodcourt eating the best best Bah Chor Mee in town. I was sharing with him that how difficult it is for me to balance or if not, letting my passion for God's work be more than my passion of music. Then Pat wanted me to change my perspective, my way of looking at things. He said that having the passion for music is a good thing. As a musician, playing music is definately the one of most exciting things in life, i dun have to suppress it at all. He told me that being a Christian musician is not about juggling the passion for music and God all the time.

Then he reminded me about what pastor Edmund has introduced to me in IDMC 2005, living the PDA lifestyle. Living a PDA lifestyle starts with personnal revival. When i looked back on myself, Yes!!! I indeed has some personnal revival in my life. Each night of prayer walk, i will pray that i can be drawn closer to closer to God...My QT becomes more meaningful and the urge to seek God becomes more intensified. There is this revival in the Spirit in my life now.

Up next is Divine appointment. I need to ask God for the ability to discern which is His divine appointment that He has planned for me. Alot of time, we heard the Lord's prompting for us to perhaps go and help a brother in crisis, but we always find excuses for ourselves not to do so by telling Him that we are doing something more important. Maybe practising guitar for up-coming gigs as something more impt than helping a brother with his ministry work. On the other hand, helping others too much and neglecting our own family or ministry that God has made us stewards of, is also not the way. Pastor Edmund shared about since young, God has taught him to give....and he really find the joy in giving...it came to a point where by God has to stopped him. God spoke to Him and said: " Son, did you ask me first about giving?" Basically, not all situations that we encountered are divine appointments...We need to be able to discern which is.

The last carriage of the train is Active Obedient. This is i think, the most difficult part in the whole life style. When facing rehearsing for gig and the divine appointment that God has made for me to share gospel with perhaps someone i met on the train, which is more impt? Knowing God's will is for me to put aside my "self discipline practise regime" to spend a night or so to share gospel with someone i don't know, am i willing to obey Him. Pastor Edmund spoke of Pastor Tony's example. Ps Tony met this couple at the end of a prayer meeting, and saw the lady crying. At first he thought it was a tiff between the couple but he realised that the distance cousin from HongKong of the lady has passed away. Because the cousin do not have a church membership in Singapore, the lady actually asked Ps Tony whether CEFC could conduct the funeral. At this point, Ps Tony realised that this could be a divine appointment set up for Him. He actively obeyed and asked the couple whether they could make their way down to Singapore Casket immediately to discuss the funneral arrangement. He also called to make arrangements for other pastors to help him took over his pastoral duty in church for the weekend.

He was at the funneral discussing the arrangement and he found out that there were alot of non-christian relatives which includes the husband of the deceased. So, at the wake, he shared the gospel. During the Altar call, He asked whether anyone wished to receive Christ as his/her personal saviour, there was an awkward silence... then he began to ask God that:" Maybe he has made a fool of himself again..." But then, miracles happened, hands began to raise up including the husband and the daughter of the deceased. Amen!!! Pastor Tony obeyed God's divine appointment and God used him to save 11 souls that evening. He was lost in the awe of God.

So living a PDA life to me means that, doing what God told me to do at the moment. Whatever is it practising my guitar, or helping a granny cross the road, if i can identify it as a divine appointment, i will actively obey. Now the main thing for me to do is, to pray for personnal revival and discernment to know which is His divine appointments.

I think this is a very impt lesson learnt to live my christian life. Whatever i do, i hope that it's all according to God's will. Hope this will bless those who read this blog.