As each New Year arrives it is our hope, by the good providence of God, that we shall have a better and more prosperous year than the previous year. It is a custom of many to make New Year's resolutions with good intentions of keeping them, as though that will bring greater happiness in the coming new year. While it is commendable to make resolutions to cease bad behavior and to endeavor to improve our conduct and character, we know from Scripture "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt. 26:41). We need God's grace to enable us more and more to live according to His will. The Apostle Paul said, "By the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10). As we understand God's will for our lives from His Word, we must cast ourselves completely upon His grace to cease bad behavior and to endeavor to be more like Christ in our conduct and character.

In the book of Micah, chapter six, Judah, the Southern kingdom of Israel, was suffering affliction from the chastening hand of the Lord. They were searching what they might do to please God, because their sins had brought divine judgment upon them. In Micah 6:6-7, the people of Judah were considering how they might change their ways in order to please God, asking, "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" The prophet in Micah 6:8 reminds Judah how the prophets had already revealed God's will for them saying, "He hath shewed thee, O man (God speaks to Judah as one man), what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Our best resolution is to live according to the Word which the Lord requires of us by His grace.

The 2009 Presbyterian Convention in Pakistan

Thank the Lord for a faithful Presbyterian and Reformed Church in Pakistan. This faithful testimony of the Gospel began in Lahore, Pakistan, in the late 1960s with the formation of the Bible-Believing Lahore Church Council, Lahore, Pakistan, (BBLCCL) working in partnership with Westminster Biblical Missions, Inc. Today the Bible-Believing Lahore Church Council has grown to approximately fifty congregations with about thirty-nine pastors. Other ministries within the BBLCCL consist of a Presbyterian Theological Seminary, four Calvin's Academies with about 2,500 students, a Bible Literacy Program, two medical clinics, and a sewing class for women. The small beginnings of the BBLCCL were blessed of God and established in 1973 when Sardar Ahmed Din, who worked for the Consulate at the Pakistan Embassy to support his family, opposed the liberal trends of the World Council of Churches within the Lahore Church Council in Lahore, Pakistan. Rev. Din led a small group of faithful Bible-believing Christians out of the Lahore Church Council and organized a church that would stand upon the Word of God alone and faithfully confess the doctrines of the Westminster standards of the Reformed faith.

The Beginning of the Convention at Lahore, Pakistan

By the providence of God, Rev. Din, in the early 1970s was introduced to a faithful Presbyterian minister in the United States by the name of Rev. Earl Pinckney. Providentially, Rev. Pinckney and a number of other Presbyterian men were in the process of the formation of a mission board and asked Rev. Din to join them. This was the beginning of Westminster Biblical Missions. Soon after organizing the first congregations of the BBLCCL, the Presbyterian Theological Seminary was founded to train men for the ministry. Since the mid 1970s graduates of the seminary have been preaching the gospel and planting Presbyterian congregations. In 1993 the BBLCCL congregations began meeting at Calvin's Academy #1 for the first Annual Presbyterian Convention. Guest speakers were invited to conduct worship services and Bible studies for the congregations and other guests were welcomed to attend for a time of spiritual refreshing in the Word of God. These meetings typically lasted four or five days with upwards of three thousand people in attendance.

The Sixteenth Annual Presbyterian Convention

Last year the Presbyterian Convention was cancelled because of the high risks of terrorists attacks. Although the terrorist alerts remained this year, precautions were taken so that the Presbyterian Convention of 2009 could convene. The Rev. Jonathan Merica, a minister in the Reformed Church in the U.S. and pastor at Calvary Reformed Chapel, Stockton, California, was invited to be the guest speaker. He welcomed the opportunity to minister to the people of God. Rev. Merica presently labors as the Assistant to Rev. Dennis Roe, the General Secretary of Westminster Biblical Missions and a minister in the RCUS. Rev. Emmanuel Gill and Rev. Sardar Din were the translators for the worship services and Bible studies into the Urdu language. Rev. Merica was very grateful for the several men who provided security while traveling through the dangerous areas where terrorist threats were more prevalent. He praises God for His protection and leading of the convention meetings. During one trip to the worship service at Lakho Dehar on November 2, the driver unwittingly decided to travel a different road. Had they not changed their route, they would have been at the scene of a suicide bombing, where six police officers were killed and others injured. During Rev. Merica's stay there were terrorist bombings that occurred in other areas of Pakistan. One occurred in Lahore, but not close enough to be a danger to our Christian brethren of the BBLCCL. Sadly, bombings are becoming more frequent in the Lahore area. We need to pray faithfully for the protection of God's people in a land that is militantly hostile to Christianity.