https://odb.org/MY/2022/05/07/love-like-mom

One of the things I still remember till this day is my mother sneaking a RM50 note to me before I was going to take the bus back to KL to continue with my University studies. I refused to take her money as she was not a working mother, just a housewife relying on a RM100 pocket money from my dad. Those were back in the days more than 30 years ago when my dad used to earn probably around RM1,500 as a teacher and our whole family had to live based on that paycheck. In fact when she passed away she left behind quite a sum of money although she never really worked all her life!

I’m closer to my mum compared to my dad in the sense that we could joke around. I would tease her and tell her jokes to make her laugh. Communication with my mum was usually easy and relaxed and should I say fraught with less protocol and decorum. Also she is always around when I was growing up unlike my dad who fir a time had to teach in the afternoon session or was away for his refereeing and scouting activities or had gone fishing. So I guess most children are inevitably closer to their mums because their mums are just always around at home while their fathers are busy at work. That should be true for most single income families which was the norm when I was growing up.

Paul used the expression like a nursing mother caring for her children when writing to the church in Thessalonica and that he worked tireless day and night so that he was not a burden to them. There is a sense that caring for our sheep is like a mother caring for her children, protective and yet sacrificial. Mothers will always be the first to eat the squirrel head while leaving all the meaty parts to her children and her husband. I see that in my own wife, who is always putting the needs of our family above her own. Always saving for a rainy day and coming out with most when something major happens. And uniquely so, God answers her simple prayers so quickly, probably driven by her genuine love and sincerity. God somehow magically answers a mother’s prayers and our family experienced just that last week.

As much as we look to the father as the protective and assertive shepherd as the role model for leadership and shepherding, we must never forget the role of mothers who are usually more sacrificial and selfless. Will we lay down our lives and put our needs aside, focusing on the needs of our sheep and those under us? Will we be the ones always praying for our sheep? My mum when she was alive used to pray a lot for me and my family. Can we be like our mothers?

Blessed Mother’s Day, all mothers out there!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/05/05/our-father

Coincidently, today my late dad would have been 80 if he had not passed on 19th March and tonight we would be having a dinner to celebrate his 80th birthday. Unfortunately, it is not to be. For the living, the lesson is life and death is in the hands of God – He makes the final call the same way He decides when Christ will return to herald the end of times. No one knows, only the Father. For us in the faith, we do not fear death as our Saviour has conquered sin and death. Though we die, we live for we have life eternal. We look forward to the day when we will stand with our Redeemer here on earth though our skin may have been destroyed yet in our flesh we will see God (Job 19:26). We will see our loved ones again.

I’m grateful today to have our Father in heaven – the privilege afforded me since I was a young boy at 14 when I invited Jesus into my life as my Lord and Saviour. I have gone through quite a bit of life all these past years. Studied, graduated, worked, got married, have 2 boys who are now in their young adulthood. All these years at work or in ministry, I have this privilege to call upon our Father in heaven in the name of Jesus. To speak to Him, to pray as Jesus taught us. To experience His hand upon my life, the work He has been and still doing in me, moulding me into the image of Christ. To work all things good for me who love Him and have been called according to His purpose. That through it all, my faith and integrity in Him remains intact. The ups and downs in life do not distract me from seeing His goodness, blessing me that I may be a blessing to others. The LORD is my shepherd and I know that I’m a sheep in His pasture and though He may lead me through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for His staff and His rod will protect me. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me for the rest of my days as I dwell in the house of the LORD forever. I know and am fully confident that He will complete the work that He is doing in me until the day of Jesus Christ.

Take time today to reflect and thank God for being our Heavenly Father, especially if our earthly father is no more. The LORD will always be our rock, our salvation, our fortress and our refuge. He is our deliverer and our protector. He will make our paths straight even as we use His Word as a lamp for our feet. Praise the LORD for His mercies endureth forever, His steadfast love never ceases! He is great and greatly to be praised! Amen

https://odb.org/MY/2022/05/04/a-heart-for-service

Serving God is usually in the context of a ministry in church or as part of a mission organisation. It is, at the foundation of it, serving the needs of the people. We are mostly concerned with spiritual needs, the bread of life that is the Word of God less the natural (as opposed to spiritual) bread of physical subsistence.

An interesting sentence in today’s ODB pique me and that is, “our goal is to meet the physical needs of the people to get to their spiritual needs”. The ministry in Carlsbad, New Mexico feeds the poor and hungry by giving 24,000 pounds (roughly 11,000 kgs) of free food every month to local residents. It’s about time the church starts feeding the poor especially in these difficult pandemic hit times. In 2 Corinthians 9, Paul praised the congregation at Corinth for meeting the needs of God’s people and also in many expressions of thanks to God. Feeding the hungry and meeting the needs of the people, whether God’s people or the larger community, is one of the ways, we as a church and as individuals, are giving thanks to God for His grace and faithfulness in our lives. Not to show people how generous we are but to thank God for His generosity and grace in our lives.

That is also a great principle to apply in all our service areas for God. Why are we serving God in doing what we do in church or elsewhere? Why do we serve God in church, in the ministry He has appointed us to, week in week out? For example, why do I wake up early each morning to write these devotionals to help others in their quiet time with God? Is it because I love God and this is the expression of my love and also my duty and calling? Yes, it is all that. But it is also to thank God for His goodness in my life and in the life of my family. For always providing me a way out, rescuing me when I’m about to fall off a cliff into the raging waters of uncertainty. Service is an act of thanksgiving, not a matter of duty. It is the expression of our love for God or if not, how else could we thank Christ for His sacrifice on the cross? How else could we thank God for His goodness and mercy? Paul often used the analogy of a slave having been redeemed? How do we repay the kindness and generosity of the person (Christ) who redeemed us and set us free? Not buying us over but paying the price and setting us free.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ – make our service for Christ our thanksgiving for His goodness and grace and mercy. So long as we have breath in us, serve Him with all our heart, mind and strength! God is good, all the time!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/05/03/longing-for-a-home

Psalm 62:1-8 brings forth 4 aspects of God that David describes. The LORD is our rock, salvation, fortress and refuge. It means God is our home, our peace, a place we cling on to and yet each of those 4 words have its respective individual meaning that helps us describe an attribute of God.

The rock or tsur in Hebrew means like a cliff and thus not easily accessible as a defensive strategy against our enemies. Meaning to say the LORD is our best defence against the attacks of our enemies. Salvation or Yeshua in Hebrew (the name of Jesus itself) meaning the LORD is salvation. It also means deliverance and thus as Jesus saves us and delivers us from sin and death, God is our salvation to deliver us from the hands of our enemies. Then we have fortress or misgav in Hebrew and it means a place of retreat, a safe place, a place of peace that God gives us. Lastly but not the least refuge or machseh in Hebrew meaning a place of hope and trust. Meaning to say that we could place our complete trust and hope on God.

As Christians and children of God we have this privilege, not given to others, to go to God from whatever we are, at our home, in our room, from our office, in the seat of the plane, as we are driving or in a train commuting to work, just whetever we are, to reach out to God in the spirit. As we close our eyes and pray, God is there with us in His holy presence, listening to our lamentations and supplications and as we speak, we know that He is our rock, our salvation, our fortress and our refuge. Like a snail or a tortoise withdrawing into its shell to defend itself, we may retreat into God for our peace and to recharge our tired physical beings before we rise again to conquer the world and do great exploits for God! The LORD and Christ will always be our place of refuge, our retreat, our hiding place to seek the counsel of God, to strategise and plan our next move.

When we are already in the faith, never run away from God. But instead withdraw or retreat into Him, into our hiding place. For He is our rock, salvation, fortress and refuge. Never run away from our troubles too as they will not go away. But get into God and He will energise us and help amd guide us to overcome our fears. The Lord is able and will give us a solution to break the deadlock, the impasse. He is after all the creator of the universe and all things in it and He is also our God and Father! Amen!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/05/02/father-of-lies-2

Part of the process of living the life of faith is to contend with voices that seek to divert our attention away from God. It could be the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes or the pride of life. Or it could be the pure temptations of the world, to find our place in the world and not in God. To focus on earning a living than to build our spiritual lives or to do well in our career and forgoing our ministry and service for God.

The voices could be our own self talk with our old self trying to assert dominance or the devil planting sinful and unrighteous thoughts in our minds. The devil is not able to read our thoughts but by observing our behaviour and speech and what we read and see on the Internet or TV, he could guess where we are headed and thus plant thoughts to lead us along the pathway of destruction. So if we watch porn, the devil can see that and will plant lustful thoughts into our minds so that we continue to indulge in this habit and then condemn us for our unrighteousness and thus bring us on a guilt trip of self condemnation. The devil is a bit like Google analytics, just that he is much craftier and much more experienced as he has seen and observed human behaviour for thousands and thousands of years. And I believe that Job was indeed one of the rarest of our species. In fact no one can beat the devil at this game since he is the one that led man to his first sin. He created this misery for the human race and is hell bent to make us hell bound.

Unlike Google analytics or other recommendation engines that track our behavioural patterns for commercial benefit or the espionage agencies for national security interests, the devil’s intention is to draw us away from God. Period. Once we are on the indulgent and guilt cycle, we will be less effective for God. We will be demoralised as we demonise ourselves. We will end up being our own accuser. We condemn ourselves even as we know there is no condemnation in Christ as we are washed clean by the blood of the Lamb. We will become less and less the person God wants or has planned for us. We will be distracted from God’s plans and purposes for our lives. In fact, if we continue to indulge in the vile thoughts of the devil, we might end up on the wider road to destruction. We will choose not to go on in the more difficult narrow path. We will slowly but surely take the path of least resistance. We will become like water streaming with the flow of the river rather than salmon swimming upstream against the currents as Christ fills us with the waters from His everflowing and overflowing river of life.

Do not believe in or be taken in by the lies of the devil. Do not be captivated by his pretty and enticing landscape. It is a deception and a facade as underneath all that is darkness and gnashing of teeth. The devil will present the world like a holiday resort but the reality of life is actually more like that of the resort workers. It’s a daily struggle meeting ends meet, raising families, putting bread on the table. Life is not always enjoying the sunrise and the sunset while sipping champagne at the pool! It’s an illusion and a lie!

God’s promises of the new heaven and new earth and the new Jerusalem are however real and for eternity. If we are already on that train to eternal life having been given the ticket by the death and resurrection of Jesus, why disembark now and start all over again? Read the Word, serve Him, give our time and attention to Christ, busy ourselves in God’s work and we will have no time to entertain and indulge in the deceptive illusionary fancy world of the devil. Focus on the fundamentals of our faith, keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, not on the father of lies! Resist the devil and he will flee from you!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/05/01/light

We know from science that darkness is the lack of light, meaning to say that without light, our natural eyes are not able to see. Darkness does not make objects or things go away, they still exist in the physical realm. It’s just that as humans we need to use our other senses like touch and hearing to feel or hear them, rather than “see” them. The obvious limitation is that without sight, our visibility if we could still use that word, is what’s within our finger tips. We could extend that a little by using a cane but that’s about as far as we can go. Our mobility and speed will thus be limited without eyesight. There is a Jason Momoa movie called “See” that tries to explore what it’s like to live in a world where humans are without eyesight.

But with light, we can see (actually in contemporary technology, we can actually see in darkness using infra ray but I’m not sure whether it works in complete darkness or it still needs some little light). The wonder of light is that we can actually see colours too! Colours are also a reflection of light as all the colours in the world are a combination of the colours in light itself (we learn about the colours from the rainbow). Thus it is pertinent to note that even God created light first after creating a formless, dark and empty world. Although it would have been possible for God to create physical things and objects first before creating light, He created light first. Even God wanted to see the beauty and splendour of the natural world, the animals, birds and life in the sea, the trees, the hills and the mountains, the fauna and flora as He creates them.

Spiritually, without light, we are in darkness. Our eyes are shut to God, the reality of God and the things of God. The scales covering our spiritual eyes need to be lifted up before we could see and understand the things of God. That is why conversion is never an intellectual discourse. It is a more a thing of the heart than mind, a matter of faith in believing in things unseen. Only the Holy Spirit can convict and convert.

The message today I believe is that as much as light is important to help us see in the natural beyond our physical reach (imagine if we were blind), light also plays an equally important role in our spiritual life and the light for our spiritual journey is His Word and the Holy Spirit. Without the Word and the Holy Spirit, we will not be able to see God, or relate to Him. We will not be able to see what God wants out of our lives, we will not have the vision of His plans and purposes. Like the blind man relying on his hearing and sense of touch, we will start to rely on our mind to relate to God. We will depend on our natural senses to reach out to Christ and not on the Holy Spirit and His Word. We will then make decisions or take action based on our feelings or what’s in our mind, forgetting faith and the leading of the Holy Spirit. So the implication is that we will be ultra conservative and dare not move or spend or use money. We will unable to take leaps of faith outside of our comfort zones. We need the power of His Word and the Holy Spirit as our light to maneuvere ourselves through the darkness. In fact with His Word and the Holy Spirit, we could even have the eyesight of the eagle and see much, much farther and further away!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/04/30/servants-of-the-night

In all of my working life I’ve only worked normal working hours. Of course I’ve worked late and long hours but they are still just stretched versions of the 9.00am to 6.00pm cycles. Nowadays more are working from home and the hours become less predictable – sometimes we start early like at 7.00 am and sometimes we end late like at 10.00 pm or 11.00 pm. In the corporate and professional sectors, work hours are less important than deliverables. In the end, we do what it takes to deliver our piece of work, whether it’s a contract, a board paper, an analysis or even a letter of offer. It’s not the hours you keep but your timely output that counts!

But there are people who work shifts like the police and health sectors although they usually take turns to work the so called “graveyard shift’. There are also people who work the night shift permanently like a member of my cell who leads call centre teams for foreign clients who are on a different timezone. More advanced countries do outsource their businesses’ call centres to Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) vendors in Asia like those in India, the Philippines and Malaysia. It’s a different world altogether for people earning such a living as our sleep patterns are out of sync with the general population but it’s still worth it because the pay is good. Yet on the other hand, there are hawkers, farmers, wet market people who need to sleep very early to wake up at 2.00 am to start their day preparing for their day’s work or sales.

What is the spiritual dimension to all this? I believe that first we need to be aware that some people need to stay awake while others sleep to make sure our airports, utilities, infrastructure run smoothly. There are sacrifices made by some for the convenience of and for the amenities enjoyed by all. Like for example, when we dispose household waste into trash bins, there are people working to take them way from us. Likewise in the church and ministry, there are a lot of preparations made and work done by various ones in the background for us to be able to be a part of a Sunday service. As a whole, in the Kingdom of God, many are at work praying at all times for God’s work to run smoothly all over the world or doing things unseen by us in the background so that our faith can prosper and continue to grow to reach out to many around us.

Can we work in the night, in the background, away from the limelight for the good of the brethren? Not in the shadows where we want to be hidden but in the night, in the background where only God sees. Will we serve God nonetheless when no one notices, acknowledges or praises us? Can we be servants in the night for the Lord? That I believe is the question this morning.

https://odb.org/MY/2022/04/29/spiritual-diagnosis

Some of us may have a tried and tested method of a past formula or a past practice that had brought us good results in the past. Maybe it brought us a better well being or prosperity or good business or career prospects and promotion. Since accepting Christ, things have not become better and better but due to the recent Covid pandemic, our situation may have become worse. We know that it has nothing to do with our decision to accept Christ or to give our lives to Him as the pandemic had far reaching consequences and affected nearly everyone, one way or another. And yet we are tempted to go back to our old ways, our past formula, our past practice. In the hope that there may be a change in our circumstance – desperate times require desperate measures.

The people of Judah during Jeremiah’s time did exactly that. They burned incense and gave offerings to the gods of Egypt, the Queen of Heaven (possibly, Isthar) and other pagan gods in clear defiance to the warnings from His prophet Jeremiah. But their situation turned worse because the LORD deserted them and allowed calamity to befall them.

In the modern day context, perhaps, we have gone on to try to adopt Feng Shui guidances. Or have looked into some new age practices, going into crystals and other stuff. Rationalising that all these are natural phenomenon, are faith neutral and thus do not compromise our faith.

The truth of the matter is that it was never a question of whether something else is of another faith or doesn’t bring us into another spiritual dimension or is part of nature. It is instead always a question of where does my help come from? Is it the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth? Are we relying on the One who watches over Israel, who neither slumber nor sleep and thus the sun will not harm us by day nor the moon by night? See Psalm 121.

Desperate times require desperate measures. If we are in a really bad situation, desperately reach out to Christ. He will surely hear us and help us. Don’t ever turn to other gods or other questionable practices especially those with a spiritual slant. Ultimately why lose our soul for temporal relief when we know very well that suffering produces perseverance and perseverance produces character? Let God be God in our lives, let Him truly be our God, our shelter, our stronghold and fortress. Let there be none other than Him in our lives!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/04/28/growing-in-faith

Every believer knows that trials and tribulations is part of Christian life. They are very much part of life as life is not a bed of roses ever after as in “happily ever after”. Life is life. It is not a fairy tale and neither is it a fantasy in our heads. Things happen, people get hurt, we get hurt. People get sick, people die. We suffer illnesses. We suffer losses. There are ups and downs. It’s never smooth sailing. Its waters can be as calm as that of a lake or as turbulent as the Indian Ocean.

Christian life is however fraught with more trials and tribulations, mainly because we are not to conform to the pattern of this world. We live our Christian life based on a different set of standards (right-side up) and sometimes we go through some trials because of the stand we make for Jesus. For example, we disagree with certain practices of our work organisation and we resign for ethical reasons. Some resign only after they found another job. Some resign immediately without a next job. Some resign for a lower paying job. But suffice to say, we will go through some hardship and suffering for making our stand for God. Or we follow God’s leading and there is a price to pay to be a working missionary in a spiritually closed or dark country.

I think the message today is that even as we go through life with probably more trials and tribulations as a believer compared to the man in the street, those suffering and hardship have some meaning for us in our Christian life, itt is not in vain. As a believer, God does a work inside us as we suffer but persevere. Bitterness in life makes everyone stronger but as a Christian, we will also grow in maturity in Christ. To be matured as a Christian is to live wisely and faithfully and that means we live harmoniously with our beliefs i.e. our actions are always consistent with our faith. We live as Christ would want us to. We are the same inside and out. We don’t be nice in front, but stab at the back.

We see pillars of faith, great men and women of God and we marvel at them. That’s on the surface. More often than not, there was much that had gone on before and unseen to the public. It’s like the 50 takes to make that perfect 30 secs clip. So much work and perseverance. To have maturity in our faith – we cannot avoid the hardship and suffering that comes with it. Persevere through, let God work in us and we will see the results in us in time to come. We will one day be the person God wants us to be. Amen!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/04/26/age-is-just-a-number

I’m now in mid-fifties and having been a youth and a young adult before, I can testify that there are differences in the things we could easily do when younger and which we could still do now but with more effort. I recalled I could spend the whole day shifting house on my own, loading and unloading stuff, packing and unpacking boxes. But now I dread the day when I have to move house again. Of course, we accumulate more things along the way but the energy to work at it the whole day is possibly no longer there or even if still there, will take a much longer time to recover. Or working late to finish a report, paper or an agreement. If I were to sleep at 3.00 am now and wake up at 5.30 am, the next day will practically be ruined! In the past, I could do that the whole week! Those who have done IPO projects will know what I’m talking about.

So age is not a mere number. But being young doesn’t mean that we cannot be spiritual and a leader and being older doesn’t mean that we can only be pew Christians or arm chair critics. Being young, we will have all the energy in the world but not the time as we balance our career with ministry. We may not have the experience, confidence and boldness but that’s really a “chicken and egg” situation. With practice, we can only get better.

But being older and retired, we may have all the time in the world but not the energy or the motivation to serve God with all our heart. Perhaps it is easier to become lazy and complacent, relying on our past contributions to justify our position or just an excuse not to contribute anymore. After all, salvation is not by works but by grace and our faith in Christ and yet we forget that we must love God with all our heart soul and mind and loving God means serving Him and living life as a living sacrifice unto Him.

Without belabouring the point, I think as much as age plays an important role in terms of experience and spiritual maturity and physical energy, we must always give our best whether we are younger or older. It is not right to say leave it all to the younger folks and just be a spectator and neither it is correct to say leave it to the more experienced and spiritual (meaning older) folks as they are better at it having done that for years. We know spiritual maturity and age don’t necessarily correlate. But that’s not the point this morning. The message today I believe is that we should all serve and do our part while we can no matter what’s our age. This is because there may come a day when we are afflicted with a serious illness and thus incapacitated or we are severely diminished in our ability to serve. Or we may be called home to be with the Lord. Serve God now while we can. Don’t wait till we retire or after we have achieved our career goals. And if we have retired, continue to serve God, don’t leave the work to the younger ones. Serve Him while we can, while we still have breath.