https://odb.org/MY/2022/05/18/crave-him

Bread represents food. At the minimum, we must eat at least bread or rice or noodles (in our context, maggie mee!) even if it’s plain and empty of egg, meat or vegetables. At times of war or famine, just a scoop of raw rice or flour to cook into a pot of rice or bake into a loaf of bread will do. Some people live to eat but the truth is we need to eat to live, like all animals and living creatures. We are made such that continuous sustenance is a prerequisite to survival. Food and drink is essential and necessary for the living.

Before Jesus started His ministry, He spent 40 days in the wilderness and one of the temptation He faced was the challenge by the devil for Him to turn stone into bread, the devil knowing that He was hungry and His body was craving for food. But we know that Jesus rebutted the devil by quoting Scripture that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. The question then was not whether Jesus could do what the devil challenged Him to do, but whether He should abandon His goal of a 40-day fast to prove to the devil He could do that. Sometimes we let pride take control and forget our goal in life. For example, we ended up doing something we regret because of pride forgetting at that moment that we are to be a mirror image of Christ. We are challenged and we let go our burst of rage or conniving heart to manipulate a situation as though we are playing devil’s advocate when we are really being the devil!

The main message this morning is however that as much as bread or rice (meaning to say, in context, the means in which we put food on our table) is essential to our survival as human beings, God is still more important. Jesus is the bread of life that as we eat and drink, we will never ever grow hungry or thirsty. There is the eternal dimension in the sense of the upcoming tree of life that we will enjoy one day as revealed in Revelation 21 but more importantly, even here on this earth, we will never go hungry and thirsty if we put our trust in God. The devil will always say that we need to do what’s necessary to survive (turn stone to bread to break the hunger and fast) but the truth is man need not live on bread alone as God will ensure that we as His children will live even as we put our trust and surrender our lives fully to Him. God brought manna from heaven during the 40 years the Israelites were in the wilderness, will He not make a way for us to continue to serve Him? We need not bow down to any other gods and idols and we need not test the LORD our God. Place our trust in Jesus the Bread of Life and He will give us rest and we will never ever go hungry or thirsty!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/05/16/the-fierce-struggle

Even as we were created in the spirit before our physical bodies came into being, there is actually in parallel an immense world out there in the spiritual realm that are unseen to us. Our physical human senses are not able to see, hear, smell, taste or touch that world because our 5 senses are made for this physical world. Yet we know they exist. There are occasions when the spiritual realm are able to penetrate into the physical realm like when we pray and God moves in signs and wonders, through healing and deliverance. Or there are people bestowed with a 3rd eye or a 6th sense to see the spiritual world that exists side by side with us. However, as much as the spiritual realm exists in parallel with us, it is not a world inhabited by departed spirits. When we pass on in this physical world and give our body back to the soil that it was created from, our spirit goes back to God and all will be resurrected on the day of Jesus Christ. The question then is whether we will go on to enjoy the new heaven and new earth and live with God as revealed to John in Revelation 21 or will we banished to a place of gnashing of teeth?

The final destination of the human soul is determined by what it does here on earth while its human body still have breadth. That is why many have described the believer as only being a pilgrim passing through the earth on the way to eternity. It’s a pilgrimage fraught with trials and challenges, and yet we are also empowered with the grace, goodness and power of God to overcome and cone out victorious.

That is why Paul reminds us that our fight is not against flesh and blood but against the principalities of the air, the dark forces, the evil rulers and authorities that are in the heavenly realms. They are always fighting with our heavenly hosts and angels to take control of the spiritual realm so that the souls of humans are either drawn to the world or to God. Prayer is our God-given weapon to call upon the heavenly hosts to fight for us against the vile and evil schemes of the evil one.

The fight is always for the souls of mankind. That is the real fight. All others are just peripherals. What we go through in life is just like a play although it is real to us. Because in the end, we will live for eternity. The physical is only temporal, but the spiritual is eternal. Thus whatever we do in the physical to survive amd continue to live in the physical, we must always bear in mind and give emphasis to and prioritise the eternal. Are we storing up riches in heaven? Are we doing what God had planned for us before the foundations of the world? Can we be like Job who look to the day when he knows that his Redeemer lives and though his skin be destroyed, he will see God. Job was an excellent picture of what happened in the spiritual realm having affected the physical and yet the soul of man (Job) was intact as his faith for God was unwavering.

The message today I believe is to look beyond the physical when we face issues in life. There is more to life than that, much more. The battle is being fought in the spiritual realm and we can help out by praying for our heavenly hosts to always protect and preserve the souls of man. We serve God in church to meet the physical and spiritual needs of our fellow brethren but always remember to pray and intercede in the spiritual realm as there is where the real fight lies.

https://odb.org/MY/2022/05/15/monkeying-with-the-cosmos

When we do our daily devotional with God based on ODB, we can not avoid seeing repeated subject matters as there are 365 days to a year. In other words, certain themes may be spoken about again and again, although the writing or the content may be fresh. We face the same issue with satellite pay TV when compared against user generated content in YouTube. We in pay TV used to be the Goliath with more than 100 channels compared to terrestrial TV, but now we are the David when compared against the sheer immensity, depth, and how current YouTube content is. Totally no match!

Thus today’s ODB speaks about the fact that the universe has a creator and the creator is God. However the twist is that Jesus was also there at the beginning. That God created the universe and entire cosmos together with Jesus Christ the Son. So even though Jesus appeared on earth through the virgin birth of Mary about 2,000 years ago, He existed well before the foundations of the world.

Which brings us to the question this morning? When were we created? Did we only come into existence when our father’s sperm and our mother’s egg became one? Did we come into existence only at conception? Our physical human body only came into being at conception, which is undeniable. However, our spirit was created only then, too? Is it at the point of the conception of our human physical body?

In Ephesians 1:4 Paul declared that God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. Meaning to say that even before the physical world, the universe and the cosmos, were created by God, He had already created us in the spirit. Our existence as spiritual beings even predates the creation of the first physical man, Adam that even as God gave him breadth after making him from the soil of the earth, his spirit had already existed in the spiritual realm. We will one day be sure of this when we meet God.

In the meantime, I just like to encourage everyone again that we are all special and unique in the eyes of God. He loves each and every one of us like a father and mother love every single one of their children. We may have a few offspring but God has billions and yet He loves each and every one of them.

Blessed Sunday, everyone! As we dwell in God’s presence today, know that you are loved dearly by God and there is nothing that He will not want for us if it is in His will. He always wants the best for us. Trust Him with all our heart, our mind and our strength for He is our God and we are His children!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/05/14/the-gift-of-repentance

When we accept Christ, what’s usually emphasised is the eternal life that salvation brings. That salvation is God’s gift to mankind as God loved the world so much (Joh. 3:16) that with the death and resurrection of Christ, we are redeemed from sin and the sting of sin which is death. So although we die, we live for Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life (John 11:2).

But salvation although it’s free (it is not by our own effort or good works), it is not without a cost. It cost Jesus His life. It will also cost us our lives as much as we are saved by grace. Fundamentally, salvation comes with the repentance of the heart. We need to repent from our sins. There must be a transformation of our minds to not conform to the pattern of the world. Our old self must be crucified daily as it tries to assert dominance over our new self in Christ. Our lives must then be a living sacrifice for God since Christ has redeemed us with His blood. There is a cost to following Jesus as we need to carry our own cross daily even as we may ask Jesus to carry our yoke for us and put on His yoke which is light and easy (Matthew 11:28). Using legal terminology, although there are no conditions precedent to accepting Jesus – Jesus accepts us as we are – there is a condition subsequent and that is the repentance of our hearts and it will permeate us thecrest of our lives.

In the ancient days, God will punish His people if they sin and rebel against Him and yet when they repent, He will relent and forgive them as He is gracious and compassionate and slow to anger. He is still the same and what more since the blood of the Lamb has erased our sins.

We cannot be saved if our hearts have not repented. That is why Paul advised in Philippians 2:12 that we each need to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. James even went further and asked – what does it profit if someone says he has faith but does not have works. Can faith save him?

As much as some say that Christian life is not a bed of roses, it is also not paved with gold. But we are assured of a better life in God on earth as in heaven – because if we were to ask our Father in heaven for bread, will He give us a stone or if we were to ask for a fish, will He give us a snake? (See Luke 11:11).

In God we will live our optimum life. We will fulfil our potential in Him and become the person He had planned us to be since the foundations of the earth. We will become the best we could be if we are with God by being able to realise our fullest potential in Him. He will restore what the locusts had eaten and complete His work in us till the day of the Lord.

https://odb.org/MY/2022/05/13/finish-strong

When it comes to our spiritual walk, the natural tendency is to get weary and slack off. Not backsliding but just our fervency or intensity reduced. It could be due to a variety of reasons, among of which, is just plain fatigue. Sometimes we face the same issues over and over again, so we get tired and kind of worn out.

The exhortation by Paul in Acts 20 is thus a good motivation for us to keep things hot. Paul considers his life worth nothing and his only aim is to finish the race and complete the task God has given him. Meaning to say nothing else is on his mind except to finish the race and complete his God given task. He is fully focused and totally committed.

For us, Paul’s 100% focus might not be practical as we have our work, our career, family and other obligations to think about. In fact, for me, my work occupies most of my thoughts most of the time. It is not practical because our job pays our bills and put food on the table. Also as we approach retirement, we who are not on a pension scheme, need to build up substantial savings for our old age.

However, having said that we also know that our life here is temporal and an eternal destiny and inheritance await us in heaven. There is thus also a need to store our treasures in heaven and sow into the kingdom. Further we also need to be focused on fulfilling God’s calling for us on earth, to fulfil His plans and purposes for us so that we are conformed to the image of Christ that we may test and approve His good and pleasing and perfect will for us.

My exhortation for us today is that whatever we need to do to survive in this world, make sure we don’t compromise our destiny in heaven, make sure we stay true to His narrow path and make sure we sow into our heavenly treasures. Treat others well. Treat others with dignity. Give people their due respect. Serve God with all our heart. Work at our character to be consistent with the image of Christ. Fulfil God’s plans and purposes for our lives. Run the race consistently and finish strongly to complete our God-given task! As we dwell in His presence, I know that He will take away all our weariness and rejuvenate us to fight another day for His cause! Amen!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/05/12/walking-by-a-blessing

I think some of us tend to think that if we give our lives to God, not only accepting Christ but fully surrendering our lives to Christ which is actually the same thing, we will lose out in terms of what we could achieve in the world. So we either refuse to enter into a relationship with God or we have one foot in the Kingdom of God and another in the world. Perhaps some of us feel that spiritual standards are just too high for us to be successful in the world since in the Kingdom of God, we pursue God and His purposes for our lives and not riches or fame.

But have we thought that our lives might actually be better off with God on our side while living in accordance with His percepts? For example, the Israelites need to be in Israel for the Messiah to come. And so God arranged for someone to overrun the Babylonians and free the Israelites in order that the prophesy in Micah 5:2 may be fulfilled. In history, that person was Cyrus the Great of Persia who invaded and defeated Babylon and gave permission for the Jews to return to their promised land. In Isaiah 48, God thus commented that wouldn’t it have been better if they had listened to Him earlier and thus would not need to be exiled to Babylon in the first place?

The point to ponder today is that perhaps our lives would have been better if we had listened to God and had given our lives to Him earlier. Maybe we need not go through all the challenges in making a living and charting a career on our own steam? Maybe we like the Israelites had walked by a blessing that has been staring in our face all this while like that little rock of gold in today’s ODB’s life story?

What is gone is gone. The past is the past. Crying over spilled milk will not bring back the milk. What’s important is the future and the road ahead. Repent and give our lives to God and step fully on to this side of the line. Don’t be half hearted but live our lives fully for God and His plans and purposes for our lives! We need to be like Peter and jump into the water to Jesus, can’t remain one foot on the boat and one foot on the water. Just not possible.

https://odb.org/MY/2022/05/11/always-worth-sharing

It is interesting to note that Paul uses the picture of a Roman processional victory with spices and fragrances in 2 Corinthians 2 to illustrate the point that in a way we are like captives and spoils of war that Christ has captured for His glory and purposes. Unlike the real POWs who in ancient times ended up as slaves in return for their lives, we are free people liberated from sin but tasked to share the Good News and serve in the Kingdom based on our calling and gifting. In a way we are bond servants (slaves) to Christ and in a way, we are His property as He had redeemed us with His blood. But He also made us co-heirs with Him with a rich inheritance in glory that is accessible now even here on earth with a greater inheritance awaiting us as our Father prepares a place for us in His mansion of many rooms in heaven. We are slaves with the rights, privileges and authority of sons and daughters that nothing whether on earth or in heaven nor any principality or power of darkness may separate us from the infinite love of God. Christ is proud of us as He puts us through the victory procession – we are the fruits of His victory on the cross.

We therefore have an obligation to preach and share the Gospel to the people we meet so that more will have the privilege to become sons and daughters with Christ, to be co-heirs to the inheritance in glory and in most times, sharing the Good News may require the same tenacity of faith that we expend daily to live out the Christian life. If we have been sharing Christ to our friends and colleagues and family through word and our conduct and character – continue on and don’t give up! Salvation is in the hands of God and that person’s will and yet we must try to facilitate the work of the Holy Spirit as much as we can. Our constant sharing of our lives and word will inevitably leave an impression, the question is whether that impression is pleasant and lasting or ugly and fleeting? That is why it is essential that our life testimony matches the Gospel we preach. As much as we are not the one determining the conversion of faith, we ought to be the instrument that God uses to enhance and augment, rather then degrade and lessen it. The message of the Gospel is strong and powerful by itself as it is the Word of God and yet we may by our negative testimony blunt its impact. Share and live our life as Christ intends and we will see the fruits of our labour and we may have our own victory procession for Christ!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/05/10/engraved-grief

I just shared a message in church on Romans 8:28 last Sunday that took Job as one of the life examples of what is the “good” or agathos in Greek and my take is one where our faith and His plans and purposes are preserved despite the adverse circumstances we may go through in life. Job who was very wealthy was left penniless, with all his children killed and contending with painful boils and yet he preservered on with his faith in God intact. He refused to curse God and die. In fact he declared that even if God were to slay him, he will still trust God (Job 13:15) and in Job 27 verse 2 onwards, Job declared that even though God has made his life bitter and has denied him justice, he will not say anything wicked. In Job 19:25-26, Job was convinced that his Redeemer lives and after his skin is destroyed, yet in his flesh he will see God.

Job is thus the perfect example for us on how to grieve with God for the losses, disappointments and grief we go through in life whether it is our loved ones or things or positions that are dear to us. We do not fully understand the ways of God but as He is God, He knows best and will only want the best for us. But most importantly and the most precious thing that we have which is our faith in God is preserved and not destroyed in the process. That’s the spirit of Job. Even if God allowed certain events to occur in our lives like in the case of Job, will we remain true to His cause, faithful to His calling for us, steadfast to fulfil His plans and purposes for our lives, continue to allow Him to mould us to be like Christ (Romans 8:29)?

The message today is grieve we must and yet we must learn to grieve with God. Not be angry at God or curse or condemn God or sulk and withdraw ourselves from God. Everything has a purpose and the Lord will reveal His purpose in time to come. He will make all things beautiful in His time. He will carry on and complete His good work in us until the day of Jesus Christ. That we all know as Paul said he knew in Romans 8:28.

Today’s life story in ODB aptly describes the challenge we face as Christians. The planter wants to see his sunflowers bloom while the deer in his neighbourhood seeks to devour their leaves and stems because they are food to them. So it’s a constant battle to see them bloom in spring before the deer eats them all.

It’s a good analogy of our Christian walk as the devil and his cohorts try to devour whatever growth we have in our spiritual life, in our character and personality as we seek to mature in Christ so that we remain as infants, powerless to impact his kingdom of darkness. Worse the devil may distract and tempt us and bring us totally away from God that we end up on the wide road to destruction, instead of still running the race on the narrow road that leads to eternity.

Christ however brings us to fullness by His blood amd God will complete His work in us and bring it to completion as He who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).

It is not stated in the story but I guess the way he would have protected his sunflower crops is to probably fence up the area. But sometimes the deer could find a way through the fence and thus some are lost. Thus a planter’s work is always to care for his plants as well as his fencing. In the spiritual sense that fencing care is what Christ does in us daily even as He has brought us to fullness by His blood. We need to be moulded daily to effect a genuine change in our character as a person and to have real spiritual growth in us. The transformation from head knowledge to life changes take time and that’s the daily grind of the planter repairing and putting up fences to protect his sunflower plants. But unlike sunflower plants who remain static at where they are planted, we humans in our folly may we breach the fences and wander out to see the “world” and get distracted and devoured in the process! The Good Shepherd will come and rescue us but it’s a constant battle, right? If that’s true of us, isn’t that a sad reflection of who we are in Christ that Christ constantly needs to watch out for us to rescue us? If so, aren’t we still infants still drinking spiritual milk? When will be graduating to meat? When will we grow up and start fighting battles for God? Do we remain in the wilderness or are we like Joshua and Caleb entering and conquering the Promised Land for God and ourselves?

https://odb.org/MY/2022/05/08/how-great-is-our-god-2

The fact that each of us are fearfully and wonderfully made is not just something that the Scriptures declare with hopeful intent – meaning to say, we are not sure but hopeful that it is true. No, we are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made as each and every one of us although have the same general characteristics as a species, we each have unique identifying elements. Science has discovered and proven that our fingerprints are unique. Later it was discovered that our iris are uniquely made and now it has been proven that our blood vessel patterns are different from that of another. There are probably other unique identifying features that have yet to be discovered in the context of secured identity but we are all certain that we are different from each other even if we are identical twins.

The complexity involved in the creation process to make billions of unique individuals demonstrates the greatness of God as He also created heaven and earth and all the other things in them. Every single plant, tree, vegetation, insect, animal, bird of the air and fish in thr sea are all uniquely made even though unlike man, they do not have a spiritual dimension to their being. Not only that, but God despite the complexity of time and space, is able to relate and communicate with each and every one of us on an individual day to day basis. Each of us have a special and unique relationship with Him, we are all on a separate track to greatness with Him as He moulds us into the image of His Son, our Lord and Saviour. Unlike humans who tend to look at us as another worker in the assembly line to be discarded when we are no longer useful needed or just a statistic and a name in an Excel, the LORD loves and cares for each and every one of us as precious stones – like we are His collection of gems that He wants to look at and admire. We are all beautiful and valuable to Him. No one else can ever replace us in His eyes, we are indispensable to Him, irreplaceable ad we are the only ones who are us to Him! There can only be one Ronnie Lim to God!

As we worship Him today in our Sunday worship service, let’s remember His greatness. Let’s remember His love for us, that we are all unique and wonderfully and fearfully made. We are all special and irreplaceable to Him. Worship Him, give Him our best. Praise Him and let His presence come and envelope us that we may be strengthened and refreshed in Him to do great exploits for Him in the week to come. He is God and He alone is our God!