Campus Gospel Outing (May 5-7, 2023)
From May 5 to 7, there were a total of 24 campus students (out of which 3 are gospel friends) who went to Port Dickson for the Campus Gospel Outing for three days two nights. There was a total of three sessions of gospel meetings. Praise the Lord that He is the One who gets us together in one accord for His gospel.
In the meeting on the first day, we saw that purpose of God’s salvation is high and great. We often think that God saves us because we are sinful and pitiful. Indeed the Bible show us the human perspective of God’s salvation. However, we have to see God’s salvation from God’s perspective. This means that we should not only view God’s salvation from man’s condition; we should also view God’s salvation from heaven, from eternity.
In eternity past, God had a good pleasure in Himself (Eph. 1:5). This good pleasure in God became His purpose, and based on this purpose He made a plan (v. 9). According to this plan, God created everything, including man, who is the highest created life. After God created man, He placed man in front of the tree of life in the garden of Eden (Gen. 2:8-9). His purpose is so that man would receive God as life, that God may be man’s content. Thus, our creation was not accidental. We were created to contain God Himself as life.
In the evening of the second day, we enjoyed Hymns, #1232 together. The first two lines in stanza one speaks of the fallen condition of mankind. Before we were saved, we were all “dead in sin, in a world of utter discord.” Before man could receive the tree of life, the crafty serpent came to deceive Eve, injecting the poison of sin into man. As a result, sin came into man and man was usurped and damaged by Satan, causing man to have no part in God’s plan. Man does not know God, does not know the gospel, and does not know God’s will. Therefore, we need to see the central issue of the whole universe, that is whether man will stand on God’s side in order to be gained by God or on Satan’s side in order to be gained by Satan. Dear saints, let us rise up to choose to stand on God’s side to be gained by God. We cannot allow Satan to use his schemes to deceive us any longer. We sounded the call and encouraged the friends again and again that to believe in the Lord is now! As for all those who already believed the gospel, all the more the opportunity must be seized to be baptized! Praise the Lord, that night one student made this glorious decision to be baptized into the Lord’s name.
In the third day morning’s meeting, we were further helped to see that after we have received God’s life by believing, we still need to consecrate ourselves to God that God’s life can grow in us. Consecration is not a fearful matter. It is because we have been drawn and constrained by God’s love that we consecrate ourselves to the Lord, handing the authority over to Him. We are not consecrating ourselves to the Lord to do something for Him. Rather, God only wants us to be a branch in the vine, abiding in Him constantly. In our daily living, we just need to exercise to have an uninterrupted fellowship with Him and let His life live out through us—this is the life that pleases the Lord.
