Personal Prophecy from Amos Jayarathnam

A dinner invitation to John & Martha Johney’s home? I was told prophet Amos Jayarathnam would be present too. Wonderful …great. Furthermore, I used to enjoy his late dad’s and mum’s hospitality. Even better, Amos will probably pray and prophesy over each of us. 

AMOS JAYARATHNAM, A PROPHET

Amos has the marks of an authentic new covenant prophet: holy, godly character, Word-based, humble, tried and tested and found faithful in years of ministry and hardship, and many of his prophecies have substantial accuracy. This I can attest to, for he has ministered in our church over many years. He is one of the few friends of World Revival Prayer Fellowship of whom we can say, “kaki lang”, which translated from Hokkien dialect, “one of us”.

John had invited Paul and Miriam Chan, my wife Jenny, my daughter Elaine, and myself. Dinner was a feast of flavours, colours, textures, smells and the taste was plain delicious. The fish briyani  was the first I have ever seen or tasted, and I liked it. Martha packed some briyani in an ice-cream tub for me to bring home, and I am now writing on that energy because I had it for lunch a few hours ago. 

Amazing and amusing stories of faith and God’s interventions in the politics of Indonesia and Sri Lanka, and laughter peppered the gulps of water, roasted chicken, chapatis, curries, and mango salad. 

After dessert, the gear shifted with Holy Communion and when Amos started to pray and prophesy over each one present including the domestic helper. We recorded our prophecies on our voice recorder app in our phones. This is one of the advantages of mobile phones: we can record and later transcribe our personal prophecies, and this is important, because our memory usually misses out on important details. Personal prophecies need to be prayerfully assessed, meditated upon for the Holy Spirit to throw further light on them, and interpreted in the light of God’s word and his past dealings in our life.

WRITE, WRITE, WRITE

This is the umpteenth time over many years that I have received this prophecy, and I am glad that with my recent retirement, I have already begun to write more regularly on my blog. At least I have taken some steps to obey the Lord. I was too busy earlier with studies and ministry burdens to write much, but now there is more space for me to do so. 

The prophecy to me is that there is a lot I can write about: manuals, teachings, messages to the Body of Christ. That writing is timeless and can bless God’s people of different generations. God’s riches in my life can be released to bless, lead people to truth and free people from lies. Giving the balanced Word can renew people’s conscience according to the true knowledge of God and not according to the world’s values and expectations. 

I like the part where the prophetic word urges that I do it slowly, not under pressure of deadlines, but according to the inspiration and motivation that the Spirit gives. I believe that discipline is important, but I have been in the place where discipline is futile, because there is no sparkplug. So I liked this bit of instruction to me about when, how and what to write.

The prophecy encouraged me to model myself after apostle John in the island of Patmos, living in solitude and prayer, giving God the space to grant revelation and inspiration, so that I could write to instruct and inspire hope in God’s people.  This restfulness, focus and inspiration need to permeate my writing. As an introvert, this suits me fine. My prayer room, my home, the parks nearby can be my Patmos. 

Do pray for me as I seek to obey the Lord. He has stirred my desire to write and I pray he will be in the front and back and center of all my writing – whether in this blog, in future e-books or in other social media like Instagram. 

Have you received personal prophecy from others before? What do you think of them? What has been your experience?

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Preaching a Christmas sermon

This meditation was written during the Christmas of 2016. I read it again this morning as I was tidying up my website. It has a freshness and relevance to it. I decided to repost it:

INCREDIBLE TRUTH

The wonderful truth, the magnificent truth, the incredible truth of the Christmas story is that God came to this hopeless, blinded, wayward world dressed in robes of humanity to live with us and suffer for us and die in our place. God dwelt among us as a babe, as a toddler, as a child, as a teenager, as a working young adult. He identified with our suffering, divided, and uncaring world. He revealed himself to us so we could know him through his words and deeds. He came to make salvation and union with God possible. Without the incarnation there would be no salvation, as much as without the cross and empty tomb there would be no redemption.

PREACHING DURING CHRISTMAS SEASON

There are many characters or “lampstands” in the Christmas story: Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, wise men, shepherds, Simeon, and Anna. However, when we preach about the characters in the Christmas story we need to hold before the congregation the main thing: Jesus was God incarnate who came to reconcile rebellious humankind to himself. The characters were like menorah lampstands shedding light together so that we can all see that God sent Jesus to save us from all our sins.

Without ignoring this contextual truth, we can look at some smaller picture highlights and use them as focused points of relevance. I am thinking of all the seniors. There are four of them and their journeys lend secondary insights that we could apply to lives of seniors today.

MANY SENIOR CITIZENS IN CONGREGATIONS

There are so many seniors in the churches in Singapore. During the heyday of the revival among evangelicals and the charismatics many youths came and followed Christ fervently. Most of these people are now gray-haired and white-haired and no-haired in our churches. If ladies stop dyeing their hair for a year we will indeed get a clearer impression of the ageing of our congregations. And there is a spirituality for seniors just as there is one for the kids in Sunday School. The seniors have to learn to navigate in a godly way some of the transitions and experiences they will encounter from 55 to 95. The four inspiring seniors in the Christmas story addresses some of them.

Seniors will face a faith challenge. As they near the end of their life, they will think more deeply about faith and life after death.  They will think about God, about religion, and about death and eternity. Zechariah’s story of a disappointed faith restored is a good story to inspire people to think about the quality of their own personal faith, and how God wants to assure them when they have doubts.

ELIZABETH’S STORY

Elizabeth’s story is one of deep disappointment, shame, sadness and barrenness. She would have often recalled her past and felt she had failed to make a meaningful life. However, the angel came along and intercepted her pain and tears and delivered the impossible. In her senior years, her life took on purpose and meaning for she and her husband would have the privilege of rearing John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Messiah. This inspiring senior prods us to realize that even in senior years and beyond retirement there can be a higher purpose and great weight attached to living out our faith till death or Jesus comes.

SIMEON’S STORY

Simeon was another godly senior, a prophet without a card. A man ahead of his time. 400 years of silence – no prophetic word to Israel. Suddenly Simeon filled with the Spirit, guided by the Spirit declares by the Spirt the destiny of the child Jesus when the parents came to do Mary’s purification rites and the child’s dedication. Then he prays, Lord I am now ready to go home. I am ready to die. I have seen the Messiah and it is enough. Simeon was able to pray like that because he lived well –he walked in the Spirit and did not gratify the lusts of the flesh. Seniors in our churches need to learn to live well so that they can die well.

ANNA’S STORY

Finally, there was Anna. Great material for inspiring seniors. Seniors will need to learn to grieve well for they will lose loved ones, lose health, lose investments, lose their beauty and they would need to learn to grieve well. As well as Anna who lost her husband at the probable age of 21 after seven years of marriage. The text is silent after that but indications are that she grieved well and had no bitterness towards God or man for she spent her years in dedicated prayers and fasting, serving God and his people and the Temple. What an inspiring elder.

Advent has four Sundays leading up to Christmas day. Do consider preaching a series on inspiring seniors in the Christmas story. Singapore churches need to hear a relevant word for them. Let’s not always focus on the young; speak up to meet the needs of the elderly and inspire them to finish well.

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A day’s retreat

I continued to walk even after the Camino Ignaciano of the previous year. Walking is a good exercise. More than this, I find God, and feel blessed to be able to walk regularly in paths surrounded by God’s creation: the sky and grass; the foliage of trees and bush, branches and flowers; and the birdsongs. They have a soothing, calming, peaceful effect on me. 

On Tuesday I met with some of my camino friends for a day and a half of retreat and recollection. It began with a walk from Monfort Centre at 7 am. The morning was remarkably cool and the sun shone friendly upon the landscape. We walked in the Chestnut Drive Park. It was a lovely park but somehow, I was bothered. 

My mind was too occupied with analysis. Instead of immersing myself in the whole experience, noticing what I am feeling, sensing, touching, smelling, hearing, I was analyzing what I saw, thinking, “I must come here again”, “Never been here before”, “Where is this path connected to?” “Where are we now?” I was thinking and not feeling, gathering information and not savoring the experience.  

After the hike, we had a period of silence and reflection until 4.30pm when we met together for a planned experience. I reflected on how the hike as well as the lunch which I gulped down, and realized I was like an observing from outside the experience looking in. I was not present. I did not savor the full experiences of the hike and the lunch. I was lost in thought and analysis. I have noticed that this has been my functional mode of living out each day, this detachment. I had been an observer of life not a full participant. It is like being half-dead. Not fully alive to life’s fullness. 

I journaled this observation and prayed the Lord will grant that I will be able to grow in awareness, and be more fully present to life’s daily experiences. 

At 4pm we met and did a decoupage of a glass bottle. We were asked to express our dreams, desires, feelings or prayer through the craft of decoupage. I chose to express my prayer of the day. I looked for colors and patterns in the napkins on the table and expressed my prayer through the decorated bottle. I observed that I was fully absorbed in the craft and lost track of time and surroundings. Right until it was all done and I continued to talk to the Lord while my prayer, my finished “work of art” stood proudly on the desk.

I totally enjoyed this experience of my hands and creative instinct taking charge instead of logical analysis, my right brain dominating my left brain. I felt like signing up for a systematic decoupage course. It will do me lots of good. 

We had a fun evening celebration with snacks of cheeses, biscuit thins, nuts, fruitcake, and wine or Coke. We took turns around the table to share what the artwork expressed. Listening to everyone express their desires, reflections and prayers was a blessed thing. May God grant all their prayers.

The next morning the hike began at 7 am again. I am beginning to appreciate the early morning hike. The day is so fresh and the air crisp as the sun gently and gradually peeps out of the horizon. I was more intentional in being present and I truly was. Beautiful. This mini-retreat is proving to be meaningful and fruitful.

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