https://odb.org/MY/2021/10/19/doing-what-needs-to-be-done

Today’s ODB raises an interesting point on what it means to sacrifice for the good of others based on Galatians 5:22-26 on the fruit of the Spirit. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Against such things there is no law.”

The background to Paul’s arguments is the debate then whether the new believers can have their sins forgiven by faith in Christ alone or do they need to also adhere to the law of Moses. Thus if we have the fruit of the Spirit, through Christ, can the law of Moses then nullify Christ’s forgiveness of our sins through our faith in Him.

In this pandemic, the parallel question then is whether we are willing to self isolate for the sake of others? We may have freedom to move about as the Movement Control Order is now lifted, but will we be willing to self quarantine and only go out for necessities? For countries where everything is now back to normal, will we be willing to put our masks on for the sake of others? The ironical thing about this pandemic is that self protective actions like self isolation/quarantine and wearing of face masks protect us as much as they protect others. This is because when we wear face masks and self isolate, we prevent others from getting the virus from us in case we are asymptomatic carriers ourselves. It’s the same with vaccination, will we vaccinate for the sake of ourselves and others? Vaccination will not 100% prevent deaths but it is good enough to prevent serious illness and even if we may still carry the virus, it will be a mild one too. The vaccine in our body would have helped our immune system fight the virus and thus it is unable to cause serious harm to us or others. However, we are still at risk even with vaccination or we are infected with a weak virus if we have comorbidities as our immune system would have been weakened.

I believe the thrust of Galatians 5 is that while the law is the law, it is the spirit of the law that’s more pertinent. So if we are not following the law of Moses to the letter but we live by the Spirit and have the fruit of the Spirit by our faith in Christ, are we in transgression? Will God still forgive us our sins?

The rules for the pandemic is an excellent picture of what Paul is trying to convey. The MCO have been lifted. We are now free to travel inter-state. But will we still self isolate for the sake of others? Will we follow the letter or spirit of the law? Is Christian life about following rules and regulations or is it about following Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour?

https://odb.org/MY/2021/10/18/a-time-to-speak

Ecclesiastes 3 is probably one of the more well known passages from that book. There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time dance. A time to tear and a time to mend. Lastly but not the least, a time to be silent and a time to speak. This also reminds me of the Hymn – In His Time – which goes, “In His time, in His time, He makes all things beautiful, in His time. Lord show me every day. As You’re teaching me Your ways. That You’ll do just what You say in Your time…”

There is thus a time for everything and even God Himself has His own timing in the scheme of things; which brings us to the time to be silent and the time to speak.

I have always struggled with this. When I first started interacting with people at a young age, I used to listen in when my father speaks with other adults, with his friends. Sometimes I interject and join in the conversation. But my dad will tell me off later that when adults speak, children should just keep quiet and listen. It is a time to be silent because it is inappropriate for a child to speak up in adult conversations. At work, I learnt the hard way as to when it is appropriate to speak and over time, I realised that it is not what you say that matters but who you are to say what. Certain things can only be said with appropriate seniority and experience.You just cannot embarrass your superiors or correct them in public even if you have the correct facts. Without someone senior lending his or her weight for you, what you say will not carry much weight unless you yourself have a huge reputation and credibility.

I guess it’s the same with ministry. We carry the anointing of the Holy Spirit with the lives we live, with our life of sanctification and being a living sacrifice. The anointing will only flow if our hearts are sincere and genuine, and our lives sanctified and set apart for God. Clever words will tickle the ear, but Spirit-filled words will bring forth transformation and empower lives as we know the Word of God is powerful and penetrates hearts like a double edged sword.

As a person that prefers silence to confrontation, I’m less prone to speak up. It’s a weakness because I may just let things slide and worsen before intervening. Yet I also think that sometimes it’s a strength as a deeper work can be done through conciliatory efforts than confrontation. Antagonimism pushes people away and invokes a similar response while conciliatory discussion draws people in and allows for more genuine change. And yet, some things need to be said because they are clearly wrong and may lead to disastrous consequences. In the end, spiritual discernment and Godly wisdom will help us immensely on what we should do as we allow the boldness of the Spirit to envelope us. This is most crucial for people like me who like to stay clear of confrontations and remain quiet because I realised that there are matters that we will not be able to avoid a direct heart to heart talk as we mature in the Lord.

There is a time for everything and God has His own timing. We need to be in tune with the season of the times, especially God’s seasons. Despite our individual personality trait preferring silence, we need to speak up to correct wrongs, to rectify mistakes, to forgive transgressions against us and to seek forgiveness for our own trespasses or wrongful behaviour. Time will heal but there is a time for everything including a time to remain silent and a time to speak up, a time to tear and a time to mend.

https://odb.org/MY/2021/10/17/our-rosetta-stone

One of the distinguishing element in our faith compared to other faiths, even other Abrahamic faiths, is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirt is the Helper Jesus promised will come to help us after He leaves this world (John 14:16-17). The world will not receive Him for they will neither see Him nor know Him but we will know Him for He will dwell with us and be with us. In John 16:3, Jesus said that the Spirit of Truth will guide us in all the truth and He will speak what He hears and tell us what is to come. He will receive from Christ what He makes known to us. We see in Acts 2:2 how the arrival of the Promised Helper, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, empowered and embolden the believers then which led to the explosive propagation of the faith throughout Jerusalem, across Judea, Samaria and the rest of the Roman Empire and later all over the world.

There was a marked transformation of the believers with the arrival of the Holy Spirit. From being reserved, confused and afraid, they became bold, purposeful and driven. As a result, there were signs and wonders, the Word was expounded, people believed by the thousands as minds were opened to understanding the Word and hearts were convicted by the Spirut of Truth. The exposition of the Word was followed and accompanied by the demonstration of the power of God.

What parallels can we apply this morning? I think we should be reminded that as we explore the mysteries of the Word and the Kingdom of God, we must always ask the Spirit of Truth to guide us to all the truth. As we read the Word, may our eyes and mind and heart be opened to new revelations of the Word, new insights that will inspire and encourage us that God is alive in our midst and within us. Pray for the gifts of the Spirit that as we exercise our faith to pray for others that signs and wonders will manifest through us and that as we command healing, people will get healed and pray that we will be given the spirit of discernment, wisdom and understanding to do our best for God in all situations. Let the Holy Spirit tell us what is to come so we will have a prophetic bend in our ministry that we may have a vision for our church, that we will be doing what God is doing in our midst, that we will be moving in the direction of the move of God. Not what we think God wants us to do but what we know God is doing and will be doing as reveled to us by the Holy Spirit.

Thank you, Holy Spirit for your love and compassion and your guidance in our lives, for your power and boldness granted us, for the discernment, knowledge and understanding granted to us of the Word and the mysteries of the Kingdom. Help us oh Holy Spirit to do the Father’s will for our lives and help us respond to our Lord Jesus Christ’s calling for us that indeed, Hallowed be the Name of our Father in heaven and may the will of our Father in heaven be done here on earth as it is in heaven! Amen!

https://odb.org/MY/2021/10/16/living-well

Stephen Covey taught in one of his 7 habits of successful people is to begin with the end in mind. So we imagine ourselves at our funeral, what people will say as our eulogy, what will be written on our tombstone, how will our loved ones take our death. From the end that we like to see, we live our lives such that we will achieve that end one day. It’s a good way to psyche ourselves to live for God because we also know that we do not determine when will our end be. We could leave earlier than as imagined.

Death is the destiny of everyone, the living should take this to heart (Ecclesiastes 7:2). This basically means we will all die so take heed of that. As our days are limited, we need to use whatever time we have to live responsibly for God. To achieve God’s plans and purposes for us. To do what God wants us to do. To be the best that we can be in God, to realise our fullest potential in God.

The key takeaway today is that we know that we will all die one day (our destiny) but we do not know at all when (in God’s hands). Thus, the sooner we discover our other destiny, the better. What’s our destiny in God? What’s the thing God wants for our lives? Are we living that out already?

I think this simply means that if we are not able to achieve God’s plans for us at where we are, we should pray and ask God where we should go. If our job currently prevents us from achieving God’s purposes for us, we need to consider how to adapt more or find another job. If we need to further equip ourselves to achieve our destiny in God, take those steps quickly. In real life, there are lots of considerations as the living needs to live too and that means dealing with issues of life and having the means to live. Yet if we take note of death that will come for which we do not know when, we need to take account of our lives constantly. As we begin with the end in mind, we need to live now that life in God that we always wanted. Let’s start the journey now and delay no more.

In conclusion, death is not the end. For believers it is the start to our eternal life. We don’t know for sure what will eternal life be, how it works in that dimension, in that world. But we do know that we should store up riches in heaven because that’s our ultimate home. Earthly riches are good for earthly living but eternal wealth will last us for eternity. What’s the balance in our EPF account in heaven? The storing up of riches in heaven is done while we are on earth, while we are still on earth. Take note of that. Secondly, have we achieved what God has set out for us to do? Death is our destiny, but what’s our destiny in God while we are still in the land of the living?

https://odb.org/MY/2021/10/15/sealed-orders

If we have learnt about God’s will before, we will know that there are broadly 3 types of God’s will. The first is His sovereign will, which will proceed no matter what mankind does. For example, God’s will for Christ to die for our sins or His second coming or the new heaven and new earth as revealed in Revelation 22.

The second is God’s general will or some call moral will. These are basically God’s laws and percepts as set out in Scripture like the Ten Commandments or the detailed ones in Deuteronomy or Jesus’s New Testament “love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and secondly to love your neighbour as yourself.”

The third one is God’s specific will for us. One preacher even preached that this will be the one question God will ask us one day – have we done the thing that He had created us for, that He had planned for us since the beginning of time? Have we fulfilled His plans and purposes for our lives? As each of us are unique and special with our own talents and individual character and personality, God has a specific plan for each of us. In today’s ODB, the writer wrote about our sealed orders, the set of instructions specifically meant for us as an individual in the Kingdom of God. That is why as I’ve written about before (in my past writings prior to the establishment of this blog) that we all have individual lanes to run the race of faith and our goal in this regard is to strive towards our finish line. We are not competing with anyone (maybe we can look to others to inspire us as a role model or mentor) but we run our own race within our own lane to reach our own finish line. We wear our own race colours which is that of Christ, we are in Team Jesus!

Besides the need to fulfil God’s calling or His specific will for us, what’s also important to note is that God’s calling will also bring the best out of us. Every father’s or mother’s deepest desire is to see their children fulfill their fullest potential. Every coach’s dream is to see his or her charges become the athlete they are meant to be. Every teacher’s goal is to see their students do the best they could in their exams and lives. I believe God is no exception. He wants us to fulfil His plans and purposes for us, knowing that as we do so, we will become the best we could ever be in Christ. That’s the thing that makes us tick. That’s the thing what when we wake, it drives us forward. We just want to do that day in day out. Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4). Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:33). Ironical as it may seem, as we strive to fulfill God’s calling for us, we will find that the very thing God called us to will become the desire of our heart. As we seek Him first, the very thing that He called us to will be the thing that will be added unto us. What we want and desire most will actually be just doing what God has called us to do. Why? Because our fullest potential in life, the best version of us will emerge as we fulfil His calling for us. It will bring us the most joy, we will be most at peace, knowing we are doing what we were meant to be doing. That’s our destiny, that’s the raison d’etre of our existence as a human being, as a child of God – fulfilling God’s will for our lives!

https://odb.org/MY/2021/10/14/a-vital-beginners-guide

In Romans 6:16-23, Paul used the metaphor of a slave to describe our relationship with sin in our life before we knew Christ and our relationship with God after we knew Christ. He used that metaphor because it was something the people in Rome were familiar as some of them were slaves before.

Slavery is alien to us now in the modern world even though there are analogies. For example, we could be slaves to our work – most, if not all of us, cannot live without a job. That is sad, but life is sometimes like that. There are sad situations.

Slavery is a chapter of history we want to forget as slaves were mere chattels, an owned possession like livestock or a piece of furniture that may be bought and sold, and slaves serve an ongoing life long economic benefit to their owners. It was tragic that slavery even existed in human history. Somewhat similar to cattle raised for milk except that slaves are fellow human beings. That is why it is so cruel and tragic to be a slave. During ancient times, slaves were usually prisoners of war. They are spoils of war who chose to be slaves, instead of death. They get to live but their lives were no longer theirs, they were now owned by their owners.

When we were yet sinners, our lives were owned by sin. We cannot control our propensity to sin since sin controlled us. We were driven by our own selfish desires since we were owned by sin. We were slaves to sin. We have no say over sin in our lives. We do as sin dictates.

But once Christ who died for our sins redeemed us from sin, we became free from sin. Christ was like another slave owner who bought us over from our former slave owner. He paid the price with His blood and conqured sin. So we are now owned by Christ because He paid the price for our liberty, our freedom. But note that the teaching is that although we are set free as slaves to sin, we did not become a free man of our own. We were redeemed not to be a free man but to be slaves to God instead. We are now owned by God. Our lives are still not our own. We are God’s people. We now are slaves to the living God, the Great I Am, the Almighty God, our creator and the creator of all things. Not only that, as co-heirs with Christ, we are also God’s children. God is now our Heavenly Father as much as we are slaves to Him. The difference is that as much as our lives are God’s and are to serve Him, we have the status of sons and daughters who dine at the main table at the house. We are not relegated to eat in the kitchen. Like Mephibosheth, we have a lifelong place at the King’s table.

So Paul argues that for the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. In other words, why would anyone want to remain as slaves to sin since its end leads to destruction and death? The alternative is God and eternal life through Christ Jesus. There is no middle road here or a third path. It’s either to the left to sin and death and destruction, or to the right to Christ and God and eternal life. The choice may be obvious but to some it is still not clear cut and remains debatable. I pray that the Holy Spirit will lift the scales from your eyes so that you will see the obvious choice!

https://odb.org/MY/2021/10/13/burning-words

I think everyone who has ever used Microsoft Word with Microsoft Outlook would have experienced the disappearance of your entire piece of work (like your mark ups and edits) when you close your document without saving it. If you go to the Temp folder, you will probably be able to save some of your work as autosave would have preserved your work at certain intervals. But the safest way is to always save a new copy either locally or up at the cloud after you have opened the document from your email.

Also most often than not, you will be able to reproduce the same edits and markups again even if you had to start from scratch. Just that it will take time. Thus it is not surprising that an author may reproduce his work even if his manuscript was destroyed by fire or in our present context, his hard disk crashed or his computer was stolen. Of course logically the rewritten work will probably not be exactly the same.

However, when it comes to God, God being God, He is able to reproduce the exact words, and add on more! We see this today when God through prophet Jeremiah sent a warning to King Jehoiakim to repent. The King burned the scroll but God had it rewritten to the exact words and added the consequences to the King’s actions. See Jeremiah 36:27-32.

As humans we may remember what we wrote and rewrite the same. But with God, we know that not only can He remember and rewrite like us, but His Word has power and will come to pass. God created the world with His Word and thus He speaks things and events into existence. His Word also reveals His heart, His love for us. He warns us to remember Him in our ways and to take heed of the consequences of our actions. If we ignore His Word, we do so at our peril as the consequences are real and will likely occur. It is not so much a prediction but it is more a foretelling of the future as the consequence of us choosing to ignore His Word or worse, the calling of the occurrence of those consequences as spoken.

I just like to say today that most of the things spoken to me in the prophesy I received from a preacher that didn’t know of my circumstances then in 2017 had already occurred. I have had new opportunities, my debts have been fully repaid. I have seen recently how my network and contacts of years past are now helping me achieve my work goals. In fact, my past network and contacts are also helping me in my present spiritual journey. I’m becoming a shepherd to a group of young adults in my cell group. And I believe a big inheritance will come my way as per my spiritual inheritance in Christ as I respond to His call on my life and continue to yield myself to His purposes. No doubt the prophesy was spoken to encourage and edify me then, to give me hope, to lift up my spirit. But the thing about God’s Word is that the things spoken do come to pass; things actually happen. Not mere words of encouragement but words that create and call into occurrence and existence events and situations. Thus God’s Word indeed has power as can be seen in numerous occasions in Scripture or as seen in Jeremiah’s case today or even as seen in the prophesy I received.

If God has ever spoken a personal Word to you, I encourage you to hold on to the Word in faith and as you respond to Him, I believe you will see the things spoken coming to pass one by one. Just trust God and march forward in faith to the goal that God has set for us heavenward in Christ.

https://odb.org/MY/2021/10/12/the-greatest-teacher

As we grow up and start school, we realised that there are weaker and brighter students, basically students who are either slower or quicker to catch up and understand the material taught. Because there are a variety of subjects in school from languages to math to natural science and social sciences, not everyone can absorb and do well at all subjects. Those who could and who worked harder will top the class. Some may argue that those multi disciplinary subjects may not be useful in real life. Maybe it is true for some subjects but we all know that the 3 R’s (read, write and arithmetic) are actually quite essential for ordinary living.

We also realised that as we grow up that we could be good at certain things or knowledgeable at certain subjects. Like I had a friend who knew all the Marvel characters inside out. Or someone who knows plants or insects or cars or cats or dogs or warships or submarines etc. In fact with Google, one can be an overnight expert on any subject matter! Thus, knowledge itself is diverse and the means to acquire knowledge more accessible nowadays with the advent of technology.

But in the midst of all that we know that God is the source of all knowledge and we have access to God as believers. Can we learn math from God? Theoretically, it’s possible but historically, it has never been recorded anywhere (to my knowledge) that He had appeared in front of anyone to teach math! So, we pray that as we learn math that God will help us understand, to open up our minds to work out, absorb and remember the workings. Or we could pray that God will impart His knowledge on us as we learn it.

What is the message today? I believe that as much as knowledge is much more easily accessed nowadays with Google and the Internet, we must acknowledge that the source of all knowledge is still God. We need discernment to know what knowledge is good and what is bad, what is healthy and what is unhealthy. Even in the pursuit of Christian knowledge or following the teachings of Christian teachers, past and present, there is so much diversity in sources and numbers. There are possibly thousands of books and articles just on a subject like faith and there are many topics within the realm of Christian studies.

We cannot deny that our mind is limited. That is how each and every one of us are made. But the knowledge out there appears to be unlimited and infinite, at least compared to the capacity of our mind. In addition, our time for study is also limited.

Therefore to everyone who is pursuing knowledge, I think it is best we pray and consult God every step of the way to lead us to the right direction and the right source as God knows what’s best for us, so that we make the most of our limited time to learn and acquire the best and most suitable knowledge and skills that will help us serve God better and fulfil His plans and purposes for our lives. The world is an oasis when it comes to acquiring knowledge but we need to pick and choose wisely and carefully with Godly discernment, guided by the Holy Spirit.

https://odb.org/MY/2021/10/11/at-the-kings-table

The story of Mephibosheth at 2 Samuel 9:6-13 is heart touching. I was touched when I first heard it preached and even as I read it today, I’m still touched.

It’s an intriguing story about how King David because of his love for his good friend, Jonathan, gave Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s crippled son, a life long place at his table. Not only that, King David also returned to Mephibosheth all of King Saul’s property including the household of Ziba, Saul’s steward (his children and servants) to farm the land and serve Mephibosheth. Rather than being left to fend for himself as a dead dog (as Mephibosheth described himself) for he was a disabled person needing help from others, he was returned his rightful place as a grandson of a king.

King David restored not only Mephibosheth’s status as someone who eats at the King’s table but also gave him back his inheritance. Mephibosheth thus had the means to sustain his status with Ziba’s 15 sons and 20 servants now serving him.

It was intriguing because Saul was David’s enemy, the man who wanted to kill him a few times to deny him his place at the throne. As history will tell us, in most if not all tussles to any earthly throne, whether royalty or political, the direct foe and his or her descendants are usually destroyed, wiped out or totally isolated, even in present times but especially during ancient times. Chinese Emperors of old were known to kill an entire family line of their rivals the same way an alpha male lion kills off all offsprings of the previous alpha male when it takes over a pride. David displayed the abundant grace of God although he was human like you and I.

Mephibosheth reminds me of a prophesy I received 4 years back that God will bring a great opportunity my way that will settle all my debts, will give me recognition for my efforts all these years and I will come by a big inheritance. Restoration will come my way in the days to come.

But more importantly at the wider level, Mephibosheth speaks of what God plans to do with our lives as we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. It is a beautiful picture of the salvation of Jesus Christ that God will restore us our rightful place at His table as His children although in the past we could only hope to eat off the crumbs that fall from the table. As children of God grafted into the Royal Family of God as co-heirs with Christ, we are now privileged to eat all the delicious dishes and servings that a king and his family eat. For those who had been on a tour to China, they will he acquinted with the Emperor’s meal and that’s precisely what we may now enjoy as sons and daughters of the living God! In addition to our status of children of a king, we are also blessed with our full inheritance in Christ, which is eternal life but also the full power of God working through us as we yield ourselves to God. Mephibosheth is an excellent picture of God’s abundant and overflowing grace – will we not respond to God’s calling and serve and love Him with all our heart, all our mind and all of our strength?

https://odb.org/MY/2021/10/10/for-others-sake-2

Romans 14 is about how we use our freedom in Christ on debatable issues in our faith, not fundamentals. It is about how not to condemn others who don’t adhere to our convictions or how not to act in such a way that causes others to fall.

I think the issues that come under this category are like whether to watch fast action but violent movies, or horror movies. Should we celebrate the Jewish festivals as per the Old Testament? Should we celebrate Easter or Christmas as they were originally pagan festivals. Should we give more than 10% of our income as tithes and offerings. Should we listen to pop music or watch Korean dramas? It is not about whether Jesus is the Son of God or whether He had actually rose from the dead to conquer sin and death. There is no debate when it comes to fundamental issues of faith.

I have a personal experience with smoking and was struggling over it for many years as I recalled that I picked up smoking about the same time that I accepted Christ (not as a habit but just as a smoke although over time it became an addiction). Initially, I didn’t believe it was not a good thing from a spiritual point of view. I knew it was wrong because I was too young. But that’s different from it being wrong from a faith perspective. When I became an adult, I rationalised that this is a matter of personal conviction as the bible did not explicitly prohibit smoking like it didn’t prohibit consumption of alcohol or eating of pork. However, the local Christian culture (I’m not sure whether it’s the same elsewhere) was such that people don’t actually smoke and you tend to be looked at differently if you did. In the end, you cannot continue to smoke and be considered a matured Christian. I know it’s probably more perception than genuine personal growth but perception is equally important for testimonial purposes.

In Romans 14 the issue I believe was whether new Jewish believers of the faith should or should not eat pork, which is prohibited under Jewish law. Paul did not specifically address the issue directly but his advice was more along the lines that if you believe you should not, it is alright to continue to do so but you mustn’t impose your conviction on others. In other words, don’t condemn others who chose to eat pork.

So if you believe that you should celebrate Jewish festivals, go ahead and do so but don’t condemn those who didn’t and don’t insist that everyone else should do so. It’s the same with alcohol. If you believe that you should not drink, go ahead, don’t drink but there is no need to impose that on others.

In the end, when it came to smoking, besides the fact that my wife opposed it – I didn’t want my children to end up being smokers. It was bad for health – period. But more importantly it was not an exemplary testimony to others in the faith and to those who are outside the faith. Perhaps as Christians we should not drink too or watch violent or horror movies or listen to pop songs. If that’s your conviction, adhere to it but you should not condemn those who don’t have the same conviction and neither should you impose your own convictions on others. But there are also issues which are debatable and yet we ought to conform for the sake of others like smoking. Remember these are debatable issues, not fundamentals. Thus perhaps we should just conform for the sake of Christ and others.