June 25, 26, 2022
From the Pastor’s Desk: Rev. Simon Lee
Dear brothers and sisters of RCAC,
In this summer quarter (July to September 2022), starting next week, we will be preaching on Christ Our Healer, the third part of our series on the Fourfold Gospel, the very heart of the distinctives and theology of the Alliance Church. Christ is not only our Saviour and our Sanctifier, He is also our healer. In the fall (October to December), we will end the series on Christ our Coming King.
In this series, we are going to start by introducing our Alliance distinctive on healing – looking at healing from the perspective of the salvation in Christ: “by His stripes we are healed.” We will then look at 4 stories of the healing of God found first in the Old Testament, followed by 5 stories of the healing by Jesus found in the New Testament. These stories will tell us that God indeed heals the sick in different circumstances. We also see how healing is an important part of Jesus’ ministries while he was on earth.
We are all very concerned about our physical health and rightly so, because if we are not healthy, we cannot enjoy anything else in life. Therefore, it is important that we all lead good healthy lives, eat well, sleep well, and have healthy lifestyle. But for many of us, trying to lead healthy lives is often a big challenge.
Rev. Rick Warren of Saddleback church wrote a book with Dr. Daniel Amen and Dr. Mark Hyman in 2020 called The Daniel Plan: 40 Days to a Healthier Life. It is much more than a diet plan. The 5 key areas of The Daniel Plan are: Faith, food, fitness, focus and friends. Biblical principles are first and foremost. Then learning the right foods to detox your body and lose weight is key. We all know that exercise is important. We need also to have the right combination of food and fitness. Finally, friendship is most helpful in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. We can see that this “5Fs”is a good guide to a healthier life, just like Daniel in the days of old.
However, we still can be become ill because we are mortal and frail, and sometimes sickness is beyond our control, as we have seen in the past three years with the Covid-19 pandemic. Now that we have the vaccine, we should do our best to get vaccinated to be more protected against the ever-changing virus. When possible, we should still use all the precautionary measures available. Those who have very weak immune system should take extra precautions. When we develop symptoms, we should stay home and quarantine ourselves to help prevent the spread of the virus. Let us all do our best to stay healthy for ourselves and each other. (Next week: Christ Our Healer (2))
Your servant in Christ,
Rev. Dr. Simon Lee,
Senior Pastor