Delivered Out of Culture, Transferred into Christ’s Kingdom
“Beware that no one carries you off as spoil through his philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.” (Col. 2:8)
“Giving thanks to the Father… who delivered us out of the authority of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” (Col. 1:12-13)
The book of Colossians was written because the church in Colossae had been pervaded with culture, and the saints had been distracted from Christ by culture. The enemy of God uses culture to replace Christ; he will try to use the good aspects of culture to replace Christ. (The All-inclusive, Extensive Christ Replacing Culture for the One New Man, msg. 1, I, I.B)
In Colossians “the authority of darkness” refers especially to the good aspects of culture and of our natural being. God has delivered us out of all this and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, where we live under a heavenly rule and restriction. Because we love Him, we desire to take Him as our person and as our life. Let us allow the pure Christ to fill our being and replace every aspect of our natural human life with Himself. (Life-study of Colossians, pp. 35, 427)
United States
“Let the name of God be blessed from eternity to eternity, for wisdom and might are His. And it is He who changes the times and seasons; He deposes kings and causes kings to ascend.” (Dan. 2:20b-21a)
“I exhort therefore, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men; on behalf of kings and all who are in high position, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all godliness and gravity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of our Savior God, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth.” (1 Tim. 2:1-4)
Pray for the saints to know that the heavens do rule in the midst of the present world situation and that the purpose of God’s heavenly ruling is to complete God’s elect so that Christ may be preeminent. Pray that a peaceful situation would be kept in the United States and throughout the globe for the word of the Lord’s recovery to go out. (http://www.Beseeching.org, Days 128, 117)
Our Young People
This past weekend, young people, serving ones, and parents gathered on Zoom to hear the Lord’s speaking in the SoCal YP Blending Conference. The topic was “Faith, Love, and Hope” from 1 Thes. 1:3. From LA, 75 junior high and high school brothers and sisters participated, in addition to parents, college students, and serving ones, and we believe each received precious seeds from the speaking and were refreshed by seeing one another.
Praise the Lord for His rich and timely word! Please pray that the faith of our YP in LA would grow, that they would be rooted and grounded in love, and that their hope would be in the Lord’s coming.
Recorded sessions may be viewed at http://www.scyp.com/ypblendingconference.
Bibles for America
In 2020, BfA gave away a record 135,000 copies of the NT Recovery Version to people all over the United States, a 20% increase from 2019’s total. They are looking to the Lord to give away even more Bibles in 2021. In addition, BfA is continuing their efforts to spread God’s Word through digital channels, and is seeing record traffic to the BfA Blog from all over the world. To read more about BfA’s milestones in 2020, please visit the 2020 Year in Review.
Our hearts are full of thanks to the Lord for all He has done. Please pray that He will continue to bless BfA’s labor in this new year, and use the difficult outward environment to turn many more people to Him.
Lisbon, Portugal
Please pray for the migration of burdened saints to Lisbon, one of six designated European cities. Lisbon (Portuguese-speaking) is the capital of Portugal, the westernmost country in Europe. It stands out in history for being the port through which the Portuguese expeditions of the Age of Discoveries departed. Today it is one of the great European cultural centers. There is a burden that a church will be established there shortly. There are currently 14 saints meeting in Lisbon.
Announcements
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Morning Revival: Week 1 of The All-inclusive, Extensive Christ Replacing Culture for the One New Man (Thanksgiving Conference).
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The International Chinese-speaking Conference (ICSC) will be held online on February 13 to 14. More details will be provided at a later time.
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LSM Audiobooks are now available in English for a handful of titles on platforms such as Amazon and Audible. Visit http://www.lsm.org/audiobooks.html.
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Andrew Yu Memorial Meeting: The 70-minute online memorial meeting hosted by the church in Anaheim on January 8 is still available to be viewed at http://www.memorial-meeting.org.
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Living to Him has a new podcast series with excerpts from Brother Andrew’s speaking, particularly to working saints, available on all major podcasting services at http://anchor.fm/livingtohim.
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Ways to Give: Information on setting up online giving through Subsplash, as well as where to mail checks while our meeting halls are closed, are at http://www.churchinlosangeles.org/members/offerings.