Nathaniel Chow’s Following God

Thank God for bringing the spiritual parents of C-Mo and me, Pastor Nathaniel Chow and his wife, together with their team of apostles to Hong Kong to have a wonderful connection with us and to pray with us together in our Fortress Prayer Meeting.

Everything is in God’s time. In 2008, we moved to Tsuen Wan from North Point and were holding the J101 100-Night evangelical meetings. Pastor Chow and his wife also came to support us. On March 18, 2008, we read Numbers 21 at Morning Devotion and he shared the message together with me. We were “God’s Help for Joshua” duet (as his Chinese name means “God’s Help”) then. Sixteen years later, on April 16, 2024, they came to join us and we happened to read Numbers 21 during Morning Devotion again. The truth it unfolded was a timely encouragement for us. I really knew that God was confirming us His presence with all these. God Helps Joshua!

When C-Mo and I were studying in Taiwan, we met Pastor Chow and his wife in the university fellowship of Bread of Life Church in Taipei and they sent us back to Hong Kong to establish 611 in 2001. Today they are sharing with us how they have been following God.

Pastor Chow shared that he was unclear about how to follow God initially and just served as circumstances demanded. He started from students’ affairs and then became a chief officer, and later a senior pastor. He did not have a clear vision on church building but rather, he had certain negative thoughts, like “Jesus is lovely, but the church isn’t”; “Jesus doesn’t have any problems but the church does”; “there is hope in Jesus but not in church”. He was touched by God only when he read the book of Ephesians, “that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.” (Ephesians 5:27) The church was not to reduce problems but to increase God’s glory. He then realized that glory had nothing to do with the size of the building and the number of people inside. In thinking about how to fill the church with God’s glory, he was moved by God to read Romans, “For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.” (Romans 8:19) Each of us is to serve and follow God in His glory so as to become a mature son of His. Before maturity, a church tends to pursue gifts, power and healing rather than submitting to and living according to the Holy Spirit. We need to know that the creation is waiting for the revealing of a group of sons of God who are willing to follow Him upon which His glory would come. In retrospect, he saw how God has kept releasing revelations on a “glorious church”, teaching him to establish glorious churches from generation to generation.

I still remember when I was attending service at Bread of Life Church in Taipei in 1976, I kept jotting down notes while listening to Papa Chow’s message on the glorious church in Ephesians. Over all these years I deeply appreciate how my spiritual parents submit to and follow the Holy Spirit. Though facing the tradition and many challenges, they allow the Holy Spirit to work freely at all costs. Today God is using Bread of Life Church in Taipei as a very influential church and the BOL Global Apostolic Network has become a great blessing to Taiwan as well as the whole world.

Dear brothers and sisters, I am grateful to have the Bread of Life family. Let’s follow God and submit to the Holy Spirit together and serve His Kingdom together! Amen!■【2024.04.21】