https://odb.org/MY/2021/12/16/what-are-you

Born, raised and growing up in Malaysia, most if not all of us would have experienced some form of racism as minorities. In fact, Malaysia is well known for her institutionalised racial discrimination that every Malaysian knows that if a level playing field was established in all economic sectors, we could at least be on par with Singapore in terms of economic and social development. As it is, we are now even trailing behind our other neighbours like Thailand and Vietnam. We are so blessed with a multi ethnic community and an English speaking heritage courtesy of our British colonial masters and yet our politicians managed to squander away that headstart in life.

I grew up in a state with 99% of its population of the majority race and although it is one of the nicest states to live in, I could not have escaped racism one way or another. After so many years I could only recall an incident or two and now in retrospect, it is easy to forgive and forget. But I do know that it was not easy to do so when I first experienced it then. It may look trivial now but it was something big then for a teenager growing up! Now with more maturity and experience in life and in God, I acknowledge the impossibility of people with a different racial, religious and cultural upbringing to fully accept others as one of them.

Fortunately, in Christ, we are all the same and equal before God – whether we are Jew or Gentile, male or female, rich or poor, educated or not, Malay or Chinese or Indian or white or black. Our blood is still red and our hearts will all cease to function if we don’t take care of our bodies. We are all equally susceptible to Covid-19 and we all stand an equal chance to get infected if we are not fully vaccinated. There is no discrimination when it comes to cancer or viruses or bacteria.

If we have ever experienced racial discrimination in our lives, forgive and forget and let the past be bygones. We make do with whatever opportunities God had made and will make available to us and do the best under the circumstances. As I have implied before, it is better to be discriminated against and be in Christ than be the one discriminating and live in darkness. It is better to have less opportunities and privileges in life but with Christ than have all the opportunities and wealth in the world but without Christ. Ultimately what we have stored in heaven that counts for eternity. Pride and prejudice are part of life even in homogeneous societies but in God, everyone is a child of God, everyone is a co-heir with Christ and everyone has been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Everyone is equal before God and everyone stands an equal chance to fight the good fight and finish our own race to our own finish line. Make the most of it!

https://odb.org/MY/2021/12/15/i-am-his-hands

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/regional/2017-07/10/content_30053359.htm

When we start working, we try to learn and master the traits of the trade we are in. We want to be good at what we do, the business we are in; whether it is in legal, accounting, sales, marketing, IT, HR, procurement, corporate finance, logistics, data science, engineering, architecture, teaching, medicine, nursing or whatever field we are in. We start of by being a generalist, but a good one and then slowly over time, we find our niche. What we really like, what we are really good at. So if we are in IT, maybe we have branched into IT auditing as an internal auditor or if we are in corporate finance, we now focus on M&A and IPOs. Or if we are in legal, we are specialised in commercial litigation.

There is a sense that it is similar in the Kingdom of God. As Paul commented in 1 Corinthians 12, the body is not made up of one part but many. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of smell be? The point is there are many parts and each plays a crucial part. The foot cannot say that because I’m not the hand, I’m not part of the body.

I believe as the body has many parts and every part needs to play its part for the body to function properly, the church needs to embrace diversity and harness the giftings and talents of everyone for the benefit of the whole body. We know how difficult it is to live if just our little toe is hurt or if our kidney is not functioning properly. The church will not be able to fulfil its potential in God if everyone is not given the opportunity to plays his or her God appointed role – the toe needs to be healed so we can walk and run properly.

Everyone has a unique talent and as much as the church needs to identify and harness our unique talents for the sake of the Kingdom of God, we ourselves need to find our own niche in the Kingdom of God. If we want to go on a mission trip with an established preacher, we must find something useful to do to help the mission as not everyone can be the preacher in the team. Maybe we can play the guitar and lead in worship, or be the interpreter or be involved in the audio visual aspects of the trip to record the events and produce a mini documentary. Or if the mission trip is large, we can be the organiser to arrange for transport and accommodation. In the process as we serve, we will find our niche. It can be in the context of a church, a mission organisation or just a single mission trip to the interiors of Borneo. The point is what is our niche in God, where we can and will realise our fullest potential in God. We start at the basics, the fundamentals and then we find our niche and specialise. Everyone cannot be the eye as there are only two in the body. Everyone cannot be the liver as there is only one in the body. Discover our niche and focus on that, there will be much to be done and the time is short as daylight will not always be with us. When night falls, the work becomes ten times more difficult!

https://odb.org/MY/2021/12/14/what-should-i-say

One of the first things we learn as a believer is to pray. In fact, our first step towards accepting Christ is to say the sinner’s prayer, by admitting that we are a sinner, asking Father God to forgive us of our sins and to repent from our sins and then accepting Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour of our lives, acknowledging that salvation is a gift from God, freely given by His grace and mercy but cost Him the life of His one and only beloved Son at Calvary. We pray all that in the most precious name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Over the years we would have learnt about different types of prayers – from intercessory prayer to commanding healing to casting out demons but the simple prayer that we speak in our hearts, perhaps even before we said the sinner’s prayer, is probably still our favourite. Just a still small voice in our heart reaching out to God, to Jesus, to the Holy Spirit; knowing that He will hear us and help us through our difficulty, our struggle, our fears, our anxieties, even our tears and sadness as we lose things or people we hold dear in our hearts.

Say a little prayer, before God, before Jesus Christ, before the Holy Spirit. We may have messed up, made a mistake. Ask God to forgive us for the error of our ways, for the hurt and disappointment we caused. Ask God for comfort and strength to carry on our quest for Him, to continue to walk in the faith, always choosing the narrow path. Say a little prayer whenever we feel we are all alone, that no one understands us, that everything around us is too overwhelming, perhaps there is too much on our plate. Say a little prayer if we are anxious for the future, for the future of our children, for the future of our nation. Be like Nehemiah – what should I say? Say a little prayer before we say it. It will do a lot of good to have God on our side, to have God having our backs even if we have messed up. Say a little prayer…

https://odb.org/MY/2021/12/13/a-worthwhile-wait

I think this is one of the major issues those of us in the faith always face – how do we trust God to do what’s best for us? As humans, we have a tendency to take things into our own hands. We are impatient. We want fast resolution. Even in counselling people, we tend to want to step in or advise a quick resolution rather than wait for God to move or let things unfold further. Sometimes time will tell the sincerity of a person but we are quick to jump to conclusions and make impulsive judgments and decisions.

Two classic cases of taking things into our own hands in the bible. The case of the Northern Kingdom Israel’s King Hoshea seeking Egypt’s help to avoid paying a tribute to the Assyrians – see 2 Kings 7:1-4, which is what is alluded to in today’s Scriptural reading in Isaiah 30:15-19. In the end, the Assyrians came in and destroyed them.

The other case is that of Saul who couldn’t wait for Samuel to arrive to offer sacrifices to the LORD before going to battle and instead took the role of the priest and in the process, he lost the battle and later his throne to David.

The principle is clear, we must seek God’s help and wait upon Him – there are just no two ways about it.

Thus God declares in Isaiah 30:18 that the LORD longs to be gracious to you and blessed are those who wait upon Him. In the story of Jesus resurrecting Lazarus who was dead for 4 days, Jesus took His time to go to Bethany although He was determined to go despite previous threats. See John 11. The thing is Jesus delayed so that everyone could see the glory of God and believe – it can only be a miracle if one is raised from the dead after 4 days! The timing and will of God is perfect and cannot be rushed although He may be determined to intervene and rescue us from our situation. In John 11 we saw that Jesus was deeply moved by the situation and wept. Yet He allowed the timing and sovereign will of God to take precedence.

Trusting in the love and compassion of God is more meaningful as that means God personally and directly helped us. I experienced this when I faced some devastating news four and the half years ago and through it all, I experienced His love and compassion although I didn’t deserve. The Lord literally remade my future in the process and I can truly say that His plans for me is to prosper and not to destroy me because only He could do what He did!

Where does my help come from? My help comes from the maker of heaven and earth, the creator of all things. Those that wait upon the LORD shall indeed mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint!

https://odb.org/MY/2021/12/12/heroes-tyrants-and-jesus

I recently heard someone say that Paul’s story is second only to the story he told, the story of his Jesus and Him crucified. The story of Jesus who didnt remain in the grave but was resurrected and is alive even today! After being turned-over by Jesus Christ Himself in a vision on his way to Damascus to look for and arrest Jews who were following the Way then, Paul became the bridge between Christ and the Gentiles and in the process formulated the theology that formed the tenets of our faith, beginning from a faith by a Jew for Jews to one with universal appeal to all men, that now spans across all corners of the globe, transforming millions and millions who responded to His call upon their lives in the past, in the present age and the age to come. Paul had to suffer more than most of us in the process and yet he never wavered from his goal to preach Christ and Christ crucified to the Gentiles, all the way to Rome, the center of the world then. All this coming from a man born around the same period as Jesus and yet never had the opportunity to have met and interacted with Him in the flesh like you and I.

Can we be as driven as Paul to preach Christ crucified? Can we be as driven as Paul to start and grow churches, to nurture and raise up men and women to take up the cross and fulfil Christ’s calling for them? To support, encourage, counsel and shepherd people, cell groups, outreaches and churches across nations? Paul is a good role model for us to follow and emulate, his passion for his Saviour, his drive to preach Christ crucified to the leader of the known world which he knew would have led him to his death. He followed his Saviour to the tee, he obeyed his Saviour till the end, till death he did his part as he had written before that for him to die is gain but to live is Christ. In other words, while it is an advantage and thus a gain to die for Christ; if he lives, he only lives for Christ and Christ alone.

This morning as we praise God and worship Christ as the Lamb of God in our churches, the One who died for our sins that we may be reconciled to the Father, let’s ponder upon our own lives – are we seeking first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, are we storing up treasures in heaven and are we fulling God’s calling for us? Let the thoughts, exaltations, lifestory and sacrifice of Paul for Christ to preach Christ crucified be an inspiration for us to realise our full potential in Christ ourselves, no matter how old or young we are, no matter how eloquent we are or not, no matter how bold or confident we are or not. Paul did not speak with the eloquence or wisdom or confidence of man but with the power of God. Let us likewise respond and be like Paul and do like Paul did! Blessed Sunday, everyone!

https://odb.org/MY/2021/12/07/the-perfect-name-2

Even as I sit at the beach this morning waiting for the sunrise – I have been away these past few days on holiday in a beautiful resort in Tanjung Jara, I read this morning’s ODB and pondered upon the first coming of Christ, foretold by Isaiah many years prior during the reign of King Ahaz in the Southern Kingdom of Judah slotted in between the prophesy of God bringing in the Assyrians to take the children of Israel into captivity. Christ came to bring hope to Israel in the spiritual sense although they expected it in the natural to overcome the hardship under the Romans. Christ came as God in flesh, the Immanuel, as John put it. How apt since Christmas is here in just 18 days. What a year it has been! More is to come with the new variant and possibly other new variants! Chaos and depression may reign again as much as the world is on the road to recovery in the new normal amidst rising prices and dwindling household incomes.

There is a sense that as Covid brought drastic changes to the way we live, we will never be the same again. There is a sense that the situation will get worse in time to come and our longing for the bustle of life pre 2000 may never materialise. Those days of chasing after the next growth number is probably gone. They may never come back. These days it’s a question of preserving our current numbers that we don’t fall into red.

Preachers have preached – the signs of times are for all to see. Never before anything like this has happened in the history of man at a global scale. Christ is coming again and it is in our generation. It will be Immanuel again but this time He will come as King in both the spiritual and natural sense. The time will come when all will be judged although some will be saved by the blood of the Lamb shed at His first coming. There will the great tribulation.

This Christmas let’s ponder on the hope that was but also that is to come. Put our hope and trust in Jesus, our Lord and our King. Strengthen our faith in Him. As He comes as King, let’s make sure we are part of His Kingdom and that we will live with God as He dwells among His people in the new Jerusalem, the new heaven and new earth, where there will be tears no more.

https://odb.org/MY/2021/12/03/truth-and-tiaras

The catch phrase today is really since we are children of God, then we need to act as children of God. John was very clear in 1 John 2 that if we are children of God, we will not continue to sin because Jesus came to take away our sins. In Jesus there is no sin, so no one who lives in Him continues to sin. He came to destroy the work of the devil. Thus no one who is born of God will continue to sin.

Is that the reality in our lives? I think the point here is there must be a determination not to continue sinning simply because God is in us, we live in Him and thus we have the power to overcome temptation and to defeat sin. We may still sin but if we still sin, we must always repent and ask God for forgiveness. Will we continue to do that 100 times or 1,000 times? After some time, we will surely be able to come out tops! And we can as we know God, we are born of God, we are children of God!

The other thing in 1 John 2 is John’s emphasis that we be ready when He appears again. He starts off the chapter by asking us to continue in Him so that when Jesus appears we will be confident and unashamed. We are not afraid of facing Him. We are bold knowing that we have lived a life worthy of His blood that was shed for us. We know that we have responded to His calling for us, we are living out His plans and purposes for us. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him.

We have heard already that Christ will come again in our generation. Yes, no one knows except the Father. But there are signs of the times. What if Christ truly comes again this generation? Are we prepared and ready? Let’s start today if we are not. Christ is gracious. He will help us prepare ourselves. Don’t delay or procrastinate anymore. Let’s respond to His call now, today and not another day! Amen

https://odb.org/MY/2021/12/02/celebrating-diversity

It is ironical that as stated in the story on the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 that God scattered humans and confounded their language, that we are now trying to unite peoples of diverse creed, colour and language in the church as well as out of the church. The church itself has a pathetic record in this in that just two hundred years ago, people who capture, transport, sell and trade in human slaves were people who professed to be Christians. Slaves were chattels, an economic asset and as humans can reproduce, they could be the means for their owners to multiply in wealth while providing them with food and lodging only type of cheap labour for life.

Is unity really achievable? We see that in America there are white and black churches, no doubt a testament of their past in slavery. And even within such churches, there are middle class and blue collar churches if not among churches, then within the churches themselves. As outsiders and observers, we cannot do much about the situation because no matter what we may want to say about it, churches are communities of believers that have got together and evolved over the years and thus each church has its own dynamics of interacting, gathering and reaching out among its people.

I think as individuals in a particular church, what we can do is to embrace that diversity breeds multiplicity and the more diverse we are as a church, the broader will be our appeal to the masses and the more diverse will our ability to reach out. As much as we like to gather as like minded and same type of people (whether in terms of race, education, social status, age), we should accept diversity and take advantage of the diverse sub-cultures within our community of believers. Everyone is unique and have special God-given gifts and talents. Our role as church leaders and members is to identify and allow such multiple talents and giftings to grow and flourish in our midst so that we can all serve God and fulfil His plans and purposes for our lives and our church together as a community of believers. Embrace, capitalise and make use of our diversity, rather than fight or overwhelm it. I believe much may be achieved if everyone is given the opportunity to do their part effectively.

https://odb.org/MY/2021/12/01/someone-may-need-you

Before the lockdowns and partial lockdowns imposed due to the pandemic, there were some who professed the faith and yet refused to attend church. There could be a variety of reasons including golf or cycling on a Sunday morning or just wanting to chill during the weekend after a long work week etc. The pandemic sort of made these reasons superfluous as the lockdowns didn’t allow golf or cycling and church can now be attended from the comforts of one’s home. Not only that, we can now attend any church service in anywhere in the world so long we have a good broadband connection and the church concerned runs an online service. However, attending church online is different and lack the human touch – the human interaction, fellowship, the congregational singing which ushers in the presence of God in an atmosphere only corporate worship could.

The point made by today’s ODB is that we attend church because someone may need us there. We could worship God on our own with our family but people who need us are not at our home. That is why it is uplifting and encouraging when we see people dress up and attend church on site. We ourselves get encouraged. Thus others will get encouraged when they see.

In Hebrews 10, the writer of Hebrews emphasised the confidence we now have in Christ Jesus to approach the throne of grace, to enter into His presence, reminding us to not neglect meeting together so we may spur each other towards love and good deeds, and encourage each other until the day of the Lord. Not neglecting meeting together as some have the habit of doing.

There is thus a lot of good meeting together. Once the churches open up, do our part to encourage the brethren by just attending church on site whenever we can. There is much more to Christian life and ministry than just attending church, but the least we could do is to be there in church as someone may need us there. Be that someone to that someone. Be an encourager of the brethren. That’s the least we can do. Amen

https://odb.org/MY/2021/11/30/for-others-sake

I can’t imagine how it is like to be deep in a cave in near and complete darkness with rising waters and not knowing whether anyone will actually come and rescue us. Darkness is disorientating and although our eyes can adjust to darkness, it is impossible to see anything in complete darkness. This is because the source of sight is always light. The source of colours is light. What we see with our eyes as reflected by our retina and translated into electrical waves into our brain are reflections of light. How much we can see is always a question of how sensitive are our retinas to light and animals who are nocturnal naturally have much more sensitive retinas. Certain species of fish also have very sensitive eyes but those that live in very deep waters create their own light. So being in near and mostly total darkness for this bunch of kids in Thailand not knowing what fate awaits them must have been a very harrowing and distressing experience that no one will wish on another.

We know that Jesus is the light and through Him we will be the light of the world. But imagine ourselves before we knew Jesus. We were in total darkness when it comes to matters of the Kingdom. Maybe we knew something on the surface and thus were not in total darkness. Maybe most of us were in near darkness with any genuine light being a considerable distance away, very dim and flickering. The truth was hidden from us before the Holy Spirit convicted and lifted the scales off our eyes. We lived in spiritual blindness, in darkness to the way, the truth and life. If God didn’t send Jesus to rescue us and deliver us out of the miry clay, we would have drowned in the darkness, descending into the abyss, into nothingness. The bright sunshine of heaven where everything is illuminated by the glory of God and where nothing is hidden was very, very far away from us indeed.

Now that we can see the light and we live in the light where heaven is within realistic reach and where sometimes we get a glimpse of heaven or a touch of God or a taste of His glory, where the Psalmist mentions that even touching the hem of His robe fills us with such peace and joy and power – do we want to go back to our old life of darkness? Do we want to go back to the cave again where we are not confident and do not know for sure that anyone will come and rescue us? The waters are rising and we find it difficult even to breathe and the more we worry, the worse it becomes. Do we want to live a life of constant worry and despair and not knowing whether our final destination will be a perfect one?

My dear brothers and sisters, live in the light and move forward, forgetting what is behind as Paul taught. Strive forward look heavenward, we are already in the light and let the light guide us through. Don’t descend back into darkness, where the ultimate end is the fire and the gnashing of teeth!