Our Lives are the Best Testimonies in FGBMF Ministry
As born-again Christians, it is natural to celebrate our status as children of God. As the Happiest Men on Earth, it is natural to celebrate through sharing our testimonies, singing, dancing and enjoying one another's fellowship. Indeed, there are few pleasures greater than leading men and their families to a saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and seeing them transformed by the Holy Spirit.

Market Place Ministry

However, we must not forget that each of us is called by our Lord to not only preach the good news of salvation but also to live as salt and light to the world (Matt. 5:13-16).

What does it mean to be salt and light? Simply put, it is to make a difference to those around us by being living examples of the glorious work that God has done through righteousness. It is to bring `flavour' into lives made meaningless by sin and to bring light to sin-darkened lives.

The FGBMF is a marketplace ministry and in order to effectively evangelise the marketplace, we must not only share the Truth but also live the Truth so that those we interact with daily - whether believers or non-believers - cannot help but see the love and power of God in our lives.

Our life speaks greater volume than our preaching. Do what we do speak so loud that others cannot hear what we are preaching? The loudest hallelujah cannot drown out the sermon our lives preach. Lukewarm Christianity not only cause those we are trying to reach to mock our God and but it also harden their hearts against the gospel.

What It Means To Be Salt and Light
Our national president, Dr Abraham (Peter) Tong, shared in the Annual Members Conferences last year that to be salt and light is:

•	To prevail against moral and spiritual corruption
•	To demonstrate our Christ-like character of love and care
•	To adopt transparent, honest, clean and trustworthy lifestyles
•	To proclaim Jesus as God, Saviour, Healer, Deliverer and soon-returning King of Kings.

Jesus warns that if we lose our 'saltiness' - we stop being a positive influence and an agent of change.

Who says it is easy to follow Christ? Did he not say, `Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple`?

What is this cross Jesus is talking about? Is not the cross a symbol of death? When we come to Him, we are expected to die to self-interests and seek only His interests.

Yet it is only when the going gets tough that our real character shows through. What do we do when we are confronted with a choice between maintaining a Christian testimony and compromise in dubious deals? What if that deal means the difference between survival and destruction? Would we trust God's faithfulness in such a situation?

Food For Thought
Ponder over these thoughts:

•	You Are Under Observation! The moment we declare ourselves as Christians, we are under scrutiny by all around us. We are expected to have a different standard of morality that extends to the way we conduct business, relationships and lifestyle.
•	You Have Only Two Choices You have two choices: to follow Jesus totally, even if it costs you something but by which you bring glory to God, or to compromise your standard and bring shame to Him.
•	You Serve an `Inconvenient' God The God we serve is an `inconvenient' God. He expects you to die to self and to seek Him first above anything else. Without that total commitment you cannot follow Him. He says, `Give me all or nothing.' To be salt and light demands a dying. And who says dying is easy for any one of us? But after the dying, how great the living!
•	You Can't Be Salt and Light Without Obedience It is through our obedience that God works and transforms us into the image of Christ. Declarations of love for God means nothing without obedience. "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me" (John 14:21). You demonstrate your love for God through obedience to Him and you cannot bear fruits or have the fruit of the Spirit manifest in your life unless there is submission to the Lord. And surely you cannot be salt and light if the fruit of the Spirit are not obvious in your life.
•	Your God Must Reign In Your Life! Matt: 6:33 says, "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." A kingdom has a king. If you seek the kingdom of God, you are saying He reigns supreme in your life. And when the king is in His rightful place in your heart, you cannot help but be a blessing to all you come in contact with. You need not even preach about Him; there will be the `flavour of heaven' around you. And people will want to know what is that you have that they are not having.

We are in this world but not of the world. Some of us declare our love and commitment to God at fellowship meetings and Sunday services but spend the rest of the week operating according to the ways of the world. So, we compromise and go with the flow.

We say Jesus' teachings are good but `not practical' in the present world. We are deceived into believing that obedience to Jesus will cause us to be poor, to lose out or be inconsequential in the marketplace. At the same time, an even greater deception is that because we are prospering God must be condoning our dubious dealings. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Worldly rewards and punishment are usually immediately apparent whereas those from God may have to wait a while.

A Call for Self-Examination
Yet even as the Lord calls us to be salt and light, He knows we are `but dust'. He understands our weaknesses and does not expect us to be able to take up His cross with our own strength. He has equipped us to be Word-centred and Holy Spirit-powered. It is the Word and the Holy Spirit in us that gives flavour and light to our workplace. We are weak but He is strong and we can do all things through Him who strengthens us.

This is a call for re-examination of our lives. How does the world see us? If we were to ask friends or relatives who are honest enough to give us the truth as to what they think of us as Christians, what do you think their answers would be? Dare we proclaim to the glory of God: I am salt and light to those around me? Or do we bow our head in guilt?

As we enter 2003, let us as one body seek an honest answer to this question: Am I truly salt and light in my sphere of influence?