NSCF 7: Divine Life

trees, originally uploaded by mincaye.

(What follows has little direct bearing upon the overall manner in which the camp has challenged--and is challenging--me, but is more of a reflection on an ongoing journey in my life more than anything else.)


ON Wednesday night, Uncle Earn Soo read from John 15. I quote the following from John 15:5, The Message;

"I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant."

This brings to mind one of the most fun songs sung during camp--'Yesus Pokok.' (In fact, the only artificial 'trees' in the montage above are the officers doing the actions for the song.)

Yesus pokok dan kita cabang-Nya
Tinggallah di dalam-Nya
Yesus pokok dan kita cabang-Nya
Tinggallah di dalam-Nya
Yesus pokok dan kita cabang-Nya
Tinggallah di dalam-Nya
Pastilah kau akan berbuah


I suppose all of this meant a lot to me because they reminded me of the Fruit of the Spirit--the theme Darren, Leon, Chien Yih, Jon Kuek and I chose for the Christian Union in our year (2004).

What good is 'life on the vine' (also the title of a book by Philip D. Kenneson, which I used as a reference guide for that year) if we do not produce fruit? Galatians 5:22-23 puts it thus;

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."

I fall far from this mark of spirituality, and along the way have learned never to underestimate God. Indeed, as Steven Curtis Chapman has sung, he 'gives purpose to chance': the fruit of the Spirit happened to be an interesting theme, so we chose it.

But at that time, I could never have guessed just how much God would do with it. Until now, the cultivation of this fruit in my life remains ny greatest challenge as far as apprenticeship to Jesus is concerned.


There are other instances in which agricultural symbols are used in the kingdom message, such as the mustard seed. In the picture above, you can see some of the largest trees in STM, before which Caleb and Aaron are standing, and beneath which Yi Jing and Shueh Yi are doing their quiet time.

And yet, all these giants began as inconsequential, insignificant seeds. Hence I was also reminded, in the course of camp, never to despise the day of small beginnings. God got some things moving in camp--little beginnings, one may say.

I want to be a part of whatever he is working out in the lives of these students. And then, there is the 'divine conspiracy, which is what Dallas Willard calls God's effort to subvert evil with good, via his apprentices, whomever and wherever they may be.


Truly, this leads us back to life on the vine and the fruit of the Spirit; how else can the apprentices of Christ subvert evil with good unless they themselves live lives that exhibit the fruit in abundance?

In so many ways, this is the failure of the general understanding of the famous verse, John 3:16;

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

It has been taken to mean that those who believe in Christ will get into heaven after they die--and little more. However, this 'everlasting life,' especially as the first-century Jews would have understood it, seems to imply a full life, both here and now and in the hereafter.

In not perishing, those who have chosen to follow Christ will not be 'unfruitful,' and in having eternal life, they will bear the fruit of the Spirit in all seasons.


Something Willard wrote stirred me. He suggested that the fires of heaven may indeed be hotter than the fires of hell. Many will say they look forward to heaven, without giving any thought to what they make of their lives on earth.

But, as Willard writes, death simply confirms what we have become. And, in Brian McLaren's words, we are becoming on this side of heaven's door, the people we will be on the other.

What are we living for? What are we living towards? Are we living a merely mortal life, concerned with our own selfish pride? Or are we living God's 'divine life'? Are we indeed living 'the vine' life?

Those who will enjoy God's joy in eternity, are those who are learning to live in that same joy now.


No song gripped me at camp with such emotion as 'O Mighty Cross,' whose chorus brilliantly illustrates the connection between Christ's sacrifice, his teaching on the kingdom of heaven, and his purpose for those who choose to be his apprentices: a full life lived in goodness.

And just as a seed must be buried before it can become a tree, we must die to ourselves, denying our selfish ambition before God's will can have any effect on our lives.

His sacrifice on Calvary
Has made the mighty cross
A tree of life to me.