https://odb.org/MY/2022/02/01/love-on-the-go

The Gospel of Matthew uses 5 teaching blocks to wrap around the story of Jesus, of which the first and last were the longest and appear to stand in contrast to one another. The first block, the Beatitudes or the Sermon of the Mount, presents the ideals and principles of living in the Kingdom of God while the last block, speaks of the consequences if those ideals and principles are not adhered to or disregarded.

In Matthew 25:31-40, Jesus taught about the need to treat others well as when we do so we are doing the same to Him. It is like those people that are around us, that we meet in the street, that we interact with in our daily life at work or wherever is a proxy of Jesus, a representative of Him, a persona of the Lord. If we are kind to them, we are kind to Jesus. If we are mean to them, then we are mean to Him. If we exert authority and oppress them or cheat and swindle them with trickery or deceit, then we are doing the same thing to Jesus! Not only do we ask ourselves what would Jesus do in that situation, we need to tell ourselves that everyone that we deal with is Jesus and if so, will we ever be mean, cruel or vindictive with anyone ever? God is represented in each and everyone one of them. Surely, we will be kind and forgiving to Jesus if we were to meet Him in person, face to face! So in the same rein, surely we will be kind and forgiving to everyone if everyone is a proxy or representative of Christ!

Blessed Chinese New Year, everyone! As we enter the Year of the Tiger, may we apply and live out the ideals and principles for the Kingdom of God in the Beatitudes as Jesus shared in the Sermon of the Mount and may we indeed treat everyone we meet and know, whether in our family, church, community, at work or in the streets, with love and compassion, kindness and forgiveness and see Christ in every single one of them! If we are mean, cruel and vindictive to them, then we are likewise mean, cruel and vindictive against our Lord Jesus Christ!

Just when preaching in church at the pulpit, I think I’ve teared up twice already. Once due to a sad situation that directly affected me and another when the Holy Spirit touched me and spoke to me intensely through my own message. In both, it was quite an embarrassing situation but I somehow did not squelch the tears. I guess the story here is that when God moves, it is alright in fact good to let it all flow out, whether tears of joy and gratitude or even sorrow. In my second experience above, it gave credence to the principle that a message should speak to the speaker first.

In other instances, when alone and in worship, it is much easier to shed tears of gratitude and thankfulness just knowing that God is with us. Sometimes in worship, the presence of God is so strong and real that we just cannot contain our emotions and it should be like that. When God touches us, just allow the moment to flow and soak in His presence – allow Him to speak to us, to correct us, to strengthen and encourage us, to edify and minister to us even as we minister to Him in worship. He is God and doesn’t need us and yet He is happy to dwell in the praises of His people, His children as our praise and worship is a sweet incense, a sweet aroma unto His throne.

I think the takeaway today is to let ourselves go when God moves in His presence and envelopes us. It could be when we are preaching, when we are leading worship or when we are alone worshipping Him, reading His Word or even when we are listening to a song. Allow the moment to overcome us. Let our emotions out, let our guard down. Allow the Holy Spirit to touch and convict us, to lift us up. Don’t squelch the tears, don’t rein in the emotions. Let the LORD be God, let Him rule and reign, let Him take control for He is our God and our King!

Happy Chinese New Year to all who are celebrating! Xin Nien Kuai Le! May this coming year be a better year for all of us and may our Father in heaven pour out a greater portion of His anointing upon us that we may be strengthened and empowered to do more for Him and His Kingdom of Grace!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/01/30/are-we-there-yet-2

Are we there yet, Lord? Like our kids asking the question many times on a long distance road trip – are we there yet, Pa? The difference I guess is that no matter how many times they ask, we know that there is a definite end to it and it’s a matter of hours or minutes or kilometers.

When it comes to unanswered prayers, do we know for sure it will have the ending we had hope for? To be sure I think we need to ask a few basic questions. Is our prayer in the will of God? Is it as per God’s calling for us? Is it part of what God is doing in our life, what God is doing in our midst? Or are we just hopeful that things will turn out the way we want them to? And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28 NKJV). There is a sense that as much as we love God, our prayers must be in line with God’s calling and purpose for us. Then everything will work together, will come together for good.

The other point is of course whether we have unforgiveness in us? Do we hold hidden grudges against man? Are we resentful for who we are, where we are today? Maybe someone had hurt or rejected us before? Perhaps someone had done something evil to us? Or we were denied an opportunity? Have we forgiven and forgotten about that? Or do we bring to remembrance those memories every now and then to feed our soul, our emotions?

Or do we have sin in our life? Some known sin that we have difficulty overcoming, extinguishing. Some sin that is still bugging up after all these years. Can we break free? Remember that sin and unforgiveness are major hurdles preventing us from reaching God.

Are we there yet, O Lord?

My prayer for all of us is that may we be near. May our prayers be just around the corner. God is going to come through for us. It could be a breakthrough, a revival that we have been praying for, for our church and ourselves and our family. Are we there yet, Lord? Will you be answering my prayer soon, O Lord my God?

Be that as it may, you will always be my Lord and God, my Saviour and my Deliverer. You are nevertheless the only God and King that I know. You are the only one that I worship and adore. You are my King of Glory, the lifter of my face. To you all glory and honour and power and dominion! Amen!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/01/29/perfect-like-christ

Matthew 19:16-26 sets out an interaction between Jesus and a rich young ruler, the latter meaning someone with authority and wealth. So this young ruler asked Jesus what it takes to enter the Kingdom of God and Jesus replied, keep the commandments. But the young ruler pressed Jesus for more and Jesus answered, to be perfect (meaning complete or in maturity), he should sell all of his possessions and give to the poor. Jesus then ended that discourse by telling the disciples that it is difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God and even easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. But He said, even though with man it is impossible, with God all things are possible.

People had used this passage to contend that therefore it is better to be poor than rich because it is quite impossible for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God. Actually I think it doesn’t matter whether we are poor or rich because in the end, we are not able to fulfil God’s criteria for righteousness on our own as a human being. Salvation is by grace and not works. It is a gift of God. On our own, whether we are rich or poor, of high standing in the church or not, socially held in high esteem or not, of high academic qualifications or not, holding a high position in the government or at the private sector or run a successful business or not, or whether our parents and grandparents were diligent servants of God or missionaries – we, on our own, can never enter the Kingdom of God. It is only through the sacrifice of Jesus, His blood that was shed on the cross of Calvary that God is able to look past our sin and iniquities and accept us as unblemished. When Jesus said that it is impossible with man but all things are possible with God, He was actually talking about Himself being the ultimate Lamb of God to die for the sins of mankind as He alone was without sin and blemish to be the Lamb to atone and redeem mankind from the first sin of Adam.

So in this era of the church in the last days, is it true that the rich and powerful and successful will find it difficult to enter the Kingdom of God? Do we have to sell all our possessions, resign from our jobs, give up our businesses in order to enter the Kingdom of God? Surely not! As we are not relying on ourselves but Jesus to gain admission and acceptance in the Kingdom of Heaven. Remember it is impossible for us to go in on our own steam, on our own merit. We must thus be forever grateful to Jesus for opening the door to us and inviting us into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Having said that, I think that for maturity and perfection, there could still be elements in our lives that hinder us from growing more into His glory and those are the things we must look out for. Maybe it’s our wealth, our pride in our jobs or position, our success in ministry, our office as a pastor or elder or deacon or leader of a church. Everything we have, be it material wealth or fame or power or talents and position, use it wisely for the purposes of the Kingdom lest these things prevent us from being the person God had planned for and wants us to be in Him. Don’t let these trivial things cloud our judgment and distract us from the real issues at hand. Keep on walking the narrow path and keep our eyes on Jesus, the perfector and finisher of our faith!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/01/27/squash-the-beef

I think one of the most difficult challenge anyone who has come to faith faces is this ability not to hold grudges. It is easier said than done! Some say forgive but no need to forget. But seriously, if we remember, can we genuinely forgive, especially if we keep on remembering? Some say time will heal. Really? As you can see in today’s ODB, time did not heal, people still remember after 50 years!

If we read Paul’s exhortation in Romans 12:12-21, we will see that we need to not only forgive but also bless the person who hurt us, who caused us harm. It’s really an out of this world standard. I think not achievable with our own strength, but only if we are strengthened by the Holy Spirit. When we say, vengeance is mine, says the LORD – it really does not mean that we pray that God will strike this person down with lightning or rain him or her with hailstones from heaven! How is that blessing that person if we ask God to seek revenge for us?

Let bygones be bygones. Someone had harmed or hurt us, let it go. Squash the beef! Not keep the beef! Forget about it. Banish it from our mind. Focus on the good things of God ahead of us. On the many wonders and miracles Jesus has in store for us in our journey with Him on the road to heaven. Not only forget our past hurts but also our past achievements and look ahead to the new milestones He has for us. There is too much to do to be bothered by our past, to be bogged down by our history. Dwelling on what could have been done or even what we had done is not much use unless it helps our future. If it’s lessons learnt and how not to make the same mistakes again, yes by all means! Other than that, forget the past and move on.

Let us be like Jesus and pray for our enemies and those who had harmed us in the past including the government with its institutional racism and all other faults. For they do not know what they were or are doing. Pray that God will bless the country, the government and all who had hurt or harmed us. Let the will of the LORD be done here on earth as it is in heaven! Always remember and be reminded that we are all pilgrims on this journey to heaven. We are merely passing through this world. Don’t let things that happen here bog us down, instead let us march on! Onward, Christian soldier. Marching as to war. With the Cross of Jesus, going on before. Christ the Royal Master, leads against the foe.

Always remember that our fight and struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the principalities, against the powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12)!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/01/26/genuine-happiness

True happiness? Isn’t that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Elusive and yet many still feel it’s achievable and thus have not given up hope chasing it. Perhaps it’s the carrot to spur the donkey on and we are donkeys to believe in fairy tales.

Riches and honour or money and fame we know don’t bring true happiness. Why? Because we know that once we have, we want more. More money, more fame, more honour. The human appetite is insatiable. The first billion to the next. The first Datukship to the next. The first platinum album to many more to come. The first house to the next. The first Rolex or PP or AP to the next. Even cameras, from 1 inch to crop to full frame!

Power and pleasure are even worse. The moment is fleeting but the quest may even take a lifetime. Is it all worth it? The power to decide the destiny of thousands. With great power comes great responsibility. Power and pleasure are dangerous pursuits as they tend to get addictive. We want the next high, the next big thing and the reality is that it is a downward spiral as the aftermath of the mountain top experience is down at the pits. That is why drugs and drink are just not worth the trouble. The hangover is just too much of a headache (forgive me for the pun)!

True happiness comes when we are able to deal with the ups and downs of ordinary life. Life is mostly ordinary. 24 x 7, 365 days. If we can deal with that, we can find true happiness. But as God has put eternity in our hearts, ordinary life may be too long a toil for us. We cannot live in the ordinary for eternity. We need something out of this world to look forward to. In the end, Solomon, the wisest man during his time and perhaps the wisest man of all time, concluded – true happiness can only be found in God.

We are made in His image and He has put eternity in our hearts. Thus we can only find true happiness in Him. This is because only God can make the ordinary extraordinary and only God can make our life meaningful beyond the riches and honour, money and fame and power and pleasure. Our satisfaction may only be everlasting in God because He gives us eternal life and everlasting life here on earth and in the time to come. Jesus is the truth, the way and the life. The one and only truth which is the only way to God and thus the only life we may find refreshing, satisfying and everlasting. If true happiness is the Holy Grail of life, then we’ll be surprised that it’s actually not elusive as the answer is and has been staring us in the face all this while! We are made by God and to be like God – thus only God can satisfy our deepest need and longing! God is spirit, and so are we. Seek out God with all our heart, soul and strength and we will find true happiness.

https://odb.org/MY/2022/01/24/the-potters-wheel

We have often heard of the analogy of the Potter and the Clay to describe God shaping our lives as it’s an analogy that God uses in Jeremiah 18 to describe how He shapes Israel. It didn’t matter that the clay was marred, God is able to reshape it into something beautiful. We also know that even broken pieces may be made beautiful again as God remakes and reshapes our broken lives. Of course the key to all that is our willingness to be clay, to be reshaped by God into the sculpture He wants us to be.

I think the message today is that this Potter and Clay relationship is a continuous one. It is not a one off situation at the time we accepted Christ where God took our brokenness and made us into a new creation. It is instead a continuous relationship of God shaping us over the years from the day we first knew Him until the day we die. That means more and more of our broken lives or more and more of our brokenness will be made new by God as we let Him work in us. The fact that God is the master Potter is undeniable. The fact that God will want to shape and mould us into something beautiful, into something He is proud of is without doubt. He is God. He is LORD. Through Christ, He sees past our sins and will mould us into becoming more like Christ in our character and thinking that we may be more Christ like in all that we do and think. The question today is whether we are willing to allow God to continue working in our lives, turning more of our brokenness into beautiful sculptures? Are there areas in our lives that are still inaccessible by the Spirit of God, that we have kept hidden and locked away? We already know that we cannot hide from God for He knows all things and yet there are things in the past that we are still unwilling to face up with God.

I just like to encourage everyone today that God remains our Potter and we remain the Clay even if we have been at this for many years. The LORD is still actively working at moulding and shaping us even after all these years. Will we open up more of ourselves to Him? Or else we may be beautiful in parts but not in whole. Allow God full access to our lives that He may reshape and mould every aspects of our lives. Let Him make a complete work out of us!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/01/23/this-is-grace

We know that it is by grace that we are saved, not our good works although as a child of God, we are made for good works and thus will inevitably do good works for God. Grace is undeserved forgiveness and love. We deserve to die for our sins but God chose to forgive us and gave us eternal life instead through Christ. It’s like we have been convicted of a crime and was pardoned. Up to there it is mercy but instead of only being pardoned, we are also given a new lease of life, like we are given a piece of land in another place to start a new life. Now that’s grace. God gave us something new, eternal and meaningful life instead of endless misery and suffering in hell that we deserve because of our sins. The blind beggar was not only forgiven his sins (eternal life) but was also healed of his blindness (meaningful life).

The question this morning is that while it is well and good for us that God has shown us grace and mercy, are we showing grace and mercy to others? The Chinese has a saying, don’t kill him off, give him a new road to walk on. Actually what that really means is to let him find his opportunity again in life in another way. That is why when people do wrong at work, employers seldom make it into a police case. The employee will be terminated but usually to the extent that he may get another chance somewhere else. Or he may be forgiven and given another chance without losing his job. As we are not God, it will probably be tough for us to go the extra mile to find an errant employee who had committed wrong another job somewhere else. That’s the true extent of grace but it is unnatural and we will perhaps be overdoing it. I think for us to be gracious is really to be forgiving and to give others another opportunity, another chance. If it’s not a disciplinary issue but just a clash of working styles or work cultures, then perhaps we could take the additional step to help him or her find another place that he or she will fit in better. That’s the essence of grace and mercy. We are quick to forgive, to support and slow to punish and condemn. Like God is able to turn us around by showing us grace and mercy, we will likewise be able to turn those around us by showing grace and mercy. Thus grace and mercy are not just values we practice only because God had shown us grace and mercy but these are values we adhere to because there are also positive consequences. Often the values we are instilled through Christ, by being Christ-like, like having love and compassion, being generous, being kind are not just moral standards that we need to adhere to as Christians. It’s not a compliance regime. God is actually teaching us to be better persons, persons that we ought to be as creations made in His image but all these values have good and positive consequences and vibes. When we treat people better, people will become better people and that can only be good in whatever context, whether it’s in our church, our family, our cell group, our company or our department. Treating people with grace and mercy is always good!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/01/22/still-seeking

Isn’t it an oxymoron to say we are hiding from God? We can’t hide from God basically because He is all seeing and all knowing. David proclaimed this very clearly in Psalm 139. No matter where we are, at the farthest ocean, up in heaven, in total darkness – God is there. Even our deepest thoughts, God knows. That is why although we may fool man, we can never fool God as He knows our heart, our motivations. He knows whether we are sincere or we have an ulterior motive or an evil plan in the things that we do.

Yet, we do hide from God. Just like Adam and Eve, we want to think that God is like us humans. We can hide from people and thus we can hide from God. We are ashamed of ourselves. We have done wrong. We didn’t do our best. We allowed our flesh to take charge, we gave in to the temptations of the world. We compromised our standards. So we hide.

Don’t hide. God knows where we are. He is compassionate and forgiving. When the LORD met up with Adam and Eve who emerged from their hiding, God for the first time took the life of an animal and made them clothes from the animal’s skin. You can see that in verse 21. The LORD is compassionate and forgiving and cared for Adam and Eve even though they had sinned and disobeyed Him. The consequences of their sin led to Man being banished from the Garden of Eden and as a result was denied access to the Tree of Life and He had to send His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins and by accepting Jesus as our Lord and Saviour and seeking God’s forgiveness for our sins, we will one day be able to partake of the Tree of Life again, as promised to us in Revelation 22. The Tree of Life makes it possible for Man to live forever. It is the key to eternal life.

The other notable thing I like to point out today from Genesis 3 is that the serpent is a very crafty creature. He twisted the commandment of God and created doubt and desire in Eve and Adam. They were deceived and mankind suffered the consequences. The deceiver is still very much active in the present age especially in these end times. Thus we must always be on guard against all the deception that is in the world and not allow ourselves to be unwittingly misled. Always refer back to the Scriptures and the accepted interpretations and not form any views of our own in isolation. Allow the Spirit of God to speak to us and guide us in the correct path and may His Word indeed be a lamp unto our feet! Amen

https://odb.org/MY/2022/01/21/give-while-you-live

I think it’s a good proposition to give while we are still alive. Of course if we are barely making ends meet, it will be tough to do so. However as believers we also know that when we give sincerely, it does open up the heavens in terms of the outpouring of blessings. This is something for us to experience ourselves but the logic is that if the Lord prompts us to give, perhaps it is likely that the Lord will not want to see us go hungry as a result of us responding to Him. We should experience it ourselves.

But if we have more, we should perhaps not think too much when it comes to giving except that we also need to prepare for our retirement and old age. Perhaps we could also prepare ourselves by going into self sustaining practices like growing vegetables, rearing poultry and livestock, using ground water and solar energy. We will then need less capital to sustain us in our old age. Those practices will also help us in preparing for the coming great tribulation that is expected in our life times.

I think the principle remains that we give while we can, while we are still earning and have some excess. We save up for the future but we should also help others. That also applies in the area of serving. Serve while we are still able, when we are still strong and have energy. Don’t wait until we are retired and old. Serve God now in whatever way we can as we respond to His call upon our lives. What happens if we are striken down by an illness later on? We might be incapacitated. Then we will not be able to serve God much or anymore.

Give while we are still alive. Serve while we are still strong and have breadth in us. We don’t know when will be our day to depart from here, life and death is in the hands of God. Give and serve while we still have time here on earth. Don’t wait any longer. Do it now and unto the Lord. He will help us fulfil His plans and purposes for our lives!