https://odb.org/MY/2021/09/16/from-mess-to-message

There must have been countless lives changed from mess to message since knowing Jesus, throughout history as recorded in books, magazines, testimonies in rallies and churches all over the world. I’m sure we have heard of such testimonies among our local community and church, at our workplaces, colleges or schools. He or she was in a mess, but God came in and they became shining beacons of God’s glory. Of course, the change did not happen overnight and yes, there were relapses back into mess. But over time, we see believers becoming softer in heart, stronger in character, more cultured, more forgiving, more compassionate, more caring and a kinder person – or just plain different but a better human.

There are two points I think God is saying to us today. The first is that although change will take time, it mustn’t take forever. There is no excuse to keep on delaying transformation within us as the longer we fight it, the longer will it take for God’s glory to be seen and His power manifested in our lives. We must persevere on, inch by inch and not take one step forward but 3 steps backwards everytime. Running the race and progressing is the name of the game!

The second point is that it need not always be a full catastrophic mess to a shining and glowing message. Change can come from whatever stage our life is presently and it can be from a small mess but nevertheless the message needs to remain. The message must be constant. Our testimony before God and man must be maintained in all that we do. Maybe our speech used to be punctuated with swear words but now we speak in a more cultured way. Perhaps, we should now pray out loud to praise God in front of the congregation. Maybe that’s not such a dramatic change but it is still a constant “on the job” improvement of our life. Our testimony is kept intact, the message remains.

When I quit smoking “cold turkey” more than 20 years ago, it was a dramatic change as I started to like to eat more and more like some sort of substitute remedy. Partly age and partly reduced metabolism, as well as a more sedentary lifestyle spent hours at the desk; over the last mote than 20 years I have put on nearly 30 kgs! From thin and scrawny to an overweight fat boy! Quiting smoking helped my health in the long run and is a good testimony. Fortunately, because of Christ in me, I did not turn to drugs or drink and became an addict or alcoholic. But the testimony needs to be maintained. So, I need to lose weight (good for my long term health too) and over the past two years, I have lost around 5 kg and hopefully over the next two years, I will lose another 5 kg. I will never get back to my weight during my smoking days but at least there will be a constant change.

From mess to message; to me, it’s a constant thing. No need a big mess to start with. Any mess will do. The thing is to make it into a message for Christ, big or small, little or major. We are all “work in progress” but we must be constantly transforming pieces of “work in progress”, not stagnant or regressive and thus denying God’s workmanship and glory!

https://odb.org/MY/2021/09/15/the-ocarina

The Prophet Isaiah uses the metaphor of the Potter and the Clay in Isaiah 64:8 to describe the relationship between Israel and God and by extension through Christ, between us who are in the faith and God. However, if we read Isaiah 64 carefully, we will sense that there is a feeling that God had already left Israel to their sins because they had continued to sin against Him – they felt that the LORD had hidden His face from them and had thus given up on them. Isaiah was sort of pleading with God when he declared that the LORD is the Potter and we are the Clay that we are all the work of His hands. Isaiah then went on to exalt the LORD not to be angry beyond measure and not to remember their sins forever.

The question this morning is are we the Clay that God can work with as the Potter. In its natural form, the Clay is inanimate and thus is a picture of total submission. The Clay just yields as it is shaped by the Potter as He spins the wheel and His hands mould the Clay into the form that He wants. The Clay doesn’t do anything as it can’t – it is not a living thing.

Now imagine that the Clay is alive and can move since it is a metaphor of us as living believing beings. Will the living Clay be like the inanimate Clay, allowing God to shape us as He wished. Or will the living Clay now move against the hands of God, avoiding His touch, jump off the wheel and run away? Will the Clay now want to remain in its original form and thus refuses to be moulded? Will the Clay now resist and rebel against God shaping it?

As much as Isaiah exalted God that He is their Potter and they are His Clay, the reality is that they were a bunch of rebellious, disobedient Clay that had rejected the hand of God. That is probably why Isaiah felt God had given up on them. They were living Clay not behaving in its natural inanimate form.

Ask ourselves today – are we the Clay that God can work with? Although we are not inanimate but alive, can we be like the inanimate Clay when God works in our lives? Can we just let God shape and mould us as He pleases into an instrument that brings forth His glory like the ocarina in today’s ODB? Will we yield our will to Him or will we fight and resist Him? Will we go the way He directs and open new frontiers with Him or will we walk our own familiar path, our comfort zone? We all know that the Clay can only become pieces of beauty after it goes through the heat in the furnace. That’s a topic for another day. For today, we need to accept God’s hands working us into the shape and form He wants before we are ready to serve Him in a deeper way, to do great things for Him in the Kingdom of God!

https://odb.org/MY/2021/09/14/outside-the-camp

In Hebrews 13:11, the author of Hebrews uses the phrase “outside the camp” and in verse 12, the author mentions that Jesus also suffered outside the city gates, in the sense that He was crucified “outside the camp”. It was the place where the sacrificial bodies of the animals are burnt while the high priest brings their spilled blood as a sin offering to God in the Most Holy Place in the Temple. It was also the place where lepers live in seclusion, isolated from the mainstream of society during ancient times and the time of Jesus. There was however an exception in a leper who thrived despite his condition as he was the commander of the powerful Assyrian army and God healed him through Elisha after he humbly obeyed the seemingly stupid instruction to wash in the Jordan river for seven times (see Naaman in 2 Kings 5). But generally and in most cases, lepers were isolated from society and this is true until perhaps 50 years ago even in Sungai Buloh, Malaysia (used to be the 2nd largest leprosy settlement centre in the world, see http://www.thewayhome.my/History.html)

Do we still have sections of our contemporary society banished to outside the camp? Perhaps the slums in the larger cities? People who live on the streets perhaps? Drug addicts, people of unsound mind, discards of society? In the time of Jesus, there was a demon possessed man living among the tombs (see the Gerasene in Mark 5:1-10). Will we reach out to such people and extend our love and have compassion for them?

In Hebrews 13:11, we are urged to go to Him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace He bore, to the place where our Lord was crucified, to the place where He died for our sins. Will we heed God’s call to go outside the camp? To reach out and have love and compassion for those society looks at in shame, in disgrace? To those in the slums, on the streets, or condemned in prison.

Even among our friends and colleagues amd relatives, there could be some who have somewhat been banished to “outside the camp”; not physically and perhaps not intentionally by society, but psychologically and in the social hierachy sense. Perhaps they lost their self esteem, confidence and status after losing their high paying, top of the line and powerful jobs due to the pandemic and are now surviving by their retrenchment payouts, life savings or by doing Grab or Food Panda. Or perhaps some had lost their businesses or are afflicted with a life threatening illness. Or some are just people who are retired and thus no longer command the status, power or influence they used to have. None of these people are physically outside the camp and yet they are now at the fringes in terms of the role they play in society. Can we reach out to them with compassion and love like Jesus did to the widows, the crippled and the tax collectors? Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, the Son of God – died for our sins, crucified outside the gates of Jerusalem, banished and condemned outside the camp among the criminals, the scum and discards of society. Will we go to those outside the camp like Christ did?

https://odb.org/MY/2021/09/13/a-living-document

Psalm 1 is probably one of the of most popular and beautiful of the Psalms, besides Psalm 23 and perhaps Psalm 63. To me, Psalm 1 is beautiful as it contrasts the righteous and the unrighteous (called wicked here) and highlights 3 main outcomes for the righteous (those who are with God and who side with Him) – they will prosper, they will be able to stand in judgment and God watches over them.

According to Psalm 1, the distinct contrast in outcomes arises as one decides not to walk in the company of the unrighteous but instead meditates on the Word day and night and he is described as blessed and like a tree planted by streams of water with full sustenance and thus bears fruits in season and have nice and healthy leaves.

This leads us to the subject matter of today’s ODB, the power of the Word in bringing the life of God into our lives and the power of God into us. The Word is a living document as the Word was at the beginning, the Word was with God and the Word was God. Scripture is living as it not only embodies God, but is God Himself. As much as it is Logos (as it was originally written in time and literary context), it is also Rhema (that speaks to us today and right now to our situation, what we are going through). As the Word is God, and as it describes the various interactions between God and men in literal form, it is perhaps God’s best gift to humankind for us to know and understand Him better (of course nothing beats His gift of His son, Jesus Christ to die for our sins). It is the recorded interactions, seen through human eyes, of God dealing with His people, forgiving and saving His people as they repent from their sinful and rebellious ways and return to Him, of Jesus walking here on earth as a human being like you and I, of His love and compassion, of how the early believers and the Apostles dealt with issues of doctrine and life, all of which are still relevant and applicable today in our present world. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. There is just so much to glean and learn from the Word.

I think a practical pointer to read the Bible is perhaps to read a few translations (NIV, NKJV etc) and also the paraphrased Bibles like the New Living Translation, the Message, the Amplified Bible etc. Reading across versions should help us see different facets of the translations of the original written language and hopefully through all that, the message that God is speaking to us at our relevant time comes through – breaking through the Word into our mind and understanding or as some say, “the Word comes alive in our very own eyes”! Have fun exploring who God was throughout history and who God is now and who He is to us and in the days to come as we read and study the Bible more and more! I pray for understanding and His wisdom and discernment to be upon us by the power of the Holy Spirit as we diligently read and study His Word!

https://odb.org/MY/2021/09/12/a-single-act

https://www.bibalex.org/SCIplanet/en/Article/Details?id=13515

Paul taught in Romans 5:12-19 that as one disobedient act by one man caused separation from God by sin and condemnation, one obedient act of another man brought reconciliation to God for the multitudes of sin and eternal life plus all the blessings of heaven upon us. The one act of faith by Jesus and His life story impacted the disciples and the believers then, and perpetuated the faith that grew from strength to strength by the power of the Holy Spirit, a faith that grew from a handful of believers into millions around the world today. It is not the effort of these handful of people that the faith grew by leaps and bounds, but by the power of God. The Oregon honey mushroom, the largest organism in the world the size of hundreds of hectares, illustrates how the Kingdom of God has grown and will continue to grow.

Jesus said in Matthew 17:20 that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed (meaning it need not be big), you can say to this mountain to move and it will move (meaning if one places our faith in God, no matter how small, God is able to do much more). Jesus physically demonstrated God’s multiplication power in two instances recorded in the bible; the feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000. The point is it doesn’t matter how little you have, in God’s hands it can become thousands.

We have read about this in the lives of missionaries who toiled the hard soil for years only for us to see the results after their life times from one converted soul to villages and provinces won for Christ. Like the headhunting Batak community who killed and ate the many missionaries that went into the interior of Sumatra to reach out to them and yet today, the Bataks are known as Christians.

Whatever we are doing for God; however small it may look, however minute an influence it may make from whatever little corner of the world we are stationed – just carry on doing what the Lord has placed in our hearts. Do it faithfully, day in and day out. Be a good and faithful servant, serving His purposes through whatever little God has placed in our hands. We may not see the results now or in our life times, but so long as one soul benefits, so long as one soul may be touched, we continue to toil the ground for Christ!

https://odb.org/MY/2021/09/11/from-wisdom-to-joy

Ask any active older folks (like those around 80 or so) about life and there will likely be pearls of wisdom like pace yourself (as in today’s ODB) or enjoy nature or don’t hold grudges or smile, to name a few examples. Usually people who are older are wiser as they have eaten more salt than us, a colloquial and Chinese way of saying that they have gone through more in life than us.

Proverbs 3:13-14 teaches that blessed are those who find wisdom, who gain understanding as she is more profitable than silver and yields better return than gold. That’s very true as wisdom is the best investment of all. However, Proverbs 9:10 advises that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Therefore, as much we know from the life story of Solomon choosing wisdom over riches is the right choice, wisdom in the context of Proverbs is actually the fear of the Lord. What the fear of the Lord does is to draw us closer to God – in the Old Testament, the fear of the Lord is another way of saying to love God and His laws and percepts. In the end, true wisdom in the “Proverbs sense” is to know and love God; to fear Him, to put Him first in all things. Jesus taught this in another way, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). In other words, put God first and you will have tangible things like wealth and riches, and intangibles like love, peace and joy.

If we are asked to choose today between wisdom and riches like God did with Solomon; what would we choose? Surely we will choose wisdom, right? This is because we can have wealth if we have wisdom. But it is actually Matthew 6:33 that Jesus taught – because wisdom is God (wisdom in Proverbs is the fear of the Lord). Thus, if we choose wisdom, that is we choose God always in all the things that we do (seek ye first the Kingdom of God), all these things (including wealth and riches) shall be added unto us.

In conclusion, the”wisest” thing anyone can do as a human, a mortal with an immortal soul/spirit that lives on forever, is to choose God and as we choose God and continually choose God throughout our life (every step of the way until we grow old and depart this earthen vessel) – we will find the joy and all the goodness of God, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

https://odb.org/MY/2021/09/10/like-a-symphony

In Philippians 2:1-4, Paul urged the Philippians to be like minded like Christ, to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

This concept is probably alien to most of us when we first knew Christ as we will naturally value ourselves higher than others and do things for our selfish ambitions and self interest and very rarely will we put the interests of others first. We were brought up in the world and that is exactly how the world works – what’s in it for me?

However, as we are now children of God and co-heirs with Christ, we ought to be like minded with Christ. Christ put Himself at the level of a lowest servant (though He was the King of kings and the Lord of lords) and was obedient even unto death at Calvary. He allowed Himself to be fully and totally humiliated before men and God. The Creator of mankind subjecting Himself to the torture, degradation and shame by men when He could easily have destroyed all His tormentors in an instant, a blink of an eye, is really the ultimate picture of true humility. He did that out of love and compassion for you and I, for all humanity. Endure just a bit more although it’s so painful, degrading and humiliating – for the sake of all before and after, that all may be reconciled to the Father and have life eternal, that all may be freed from the bondage of sin, the shackles of the evil one and have the scales of their eyes lifted to see salvation!

So as Christ had gone through all that for our sake and had humbled Himself to the extreme, can we not be little humble ourselves when we interact with others? Can we not think of the interests of others in all that we do and not only put our own self interest above others like before? Can we no longer conform to the pattern of the world but let our selves be transformed by the renewing of minds as in Romans 12:2? Really – what’s the point of knowing Christ and accepting Him as our Lord and Saviour if we are not one bit like Him? Did Christ die for our sins in vain if we are still stuck in our old wordly ways after accepting Him? We cannot and must not remain as we were. If we have not moved on, now and today is the time to change and be counted as one of His!

https://odb.org/MY/2021/09/09/hotel-corona

2 Corinthians 5:14-20 speaks a lot of reconciliation, between us and God through Christ as well as a ministry of reconciliation and for us to bring forth a message of reconciliation. As a new creation in Christ, the old has passed and as Christ had reconciled us to God, we should likewise attempt to reconcile other people back to God by bringing them the message of the Gospel that Christ died for their sins and salvation is by the grace of God.

But as ministers with a ministry of reconciliation, we should also reconcile people in our midst. Family feuds cannot go on forever. Past quarrels cannot be left unresolved. Our friends should not stop speaking to each other. Like the Corona Hotel in Jerusalem (the life story in this morning’s ODB) which united and reconciled people of different faiths due to and despite their common ailment, we should reconcile those among us who are still feuding after many days, weeks, months or even years.

Reconciliation with God brings us to the road to eternal life, the narrow path that leads to God instead of the road that leads to destruction. Thus, reconciliation among feuding persons will lead to harmony, forgiveness, compassion, kindness and love – all factors necessary for their reconciliation with God. In order for God to forgive us, we need to forgive those who had trespassed against us. Let go of that quarrel, that fight, that feud – forgive if you’re the party wronged and apologise and say sorry if you are the party who did the wrong – and move on in life and in God. If we are still unrepentant and allow pride to control us, to overpower us – we will be stuck in the past and will miss out on all that God wants to do in our lives and lose our testimony in the process. This applies if we are already in the faith, in fact, this applies especially if we are already in the faith. Should we be proud and boast that that as people of God redeemed by Christ and reconciled to God that we are not able to reconcile with our family, friends and colleagues?

There are no excuses anymore! We who are tasked with the ministry of reconciliation, to share the message of reconciliation to reconcile man to God, we ourselves must practice reconciliation in our midst! Pray, commit it to the Lord and just do it! Step out in faith and reconcile…

https://odb.org/MY/2021/09/08/send-me

Throughout the Bible, we see God choosing and calling different ones to fulfil His specific will. God called Abraham out of the Ur of the Caldeans to Canaan and as Abraham responded in faith, the nation of Israel was born and Jesus came through that line that Isreal became an utmost blessing unto the whole world, reconciling mankind to God. Then Joseph was called to go to Eqypt first as a slave, then a prisoner and later he became the prime minister and as a result of his faithfulness, he ended up saving the surviving Abrahamic clan led by Jacob from intense drought in Canaan then. That bunch of folks ended up settling in Egypt and over 400 plus years became slaves when the ruler of Egypt changed after Joseph’s demise. God then called Moses and as Moses responded in faith, he freed the nation of Israel from slavery back to the Promised Land (Canaan) although in the end, it was the new generation raised in the wilderness that made it into Canaan led by Joshua and Caleb. Then we saw how God anointed Saul and later David and later Elijah followed by Elisha to name a few prominent examples of God’s calling.

In the era of Jesus, God sent Jesus to die for our sins and then called the 12 disciples and later Paul, Barnabas, Priscilla and Aquila, and host of others during the time of the Acts of the Apostles.

In modern times, many had taken heed the calling of God to be missionaries like Hudson Taylor to China or Eric Lund to Spain and the Philippines (today’s ODB) and thousands and ten thousands of others including present day missionaries like my own cousin and her hubby who have been reaching out to the Tibetans and residing in China for the past decade or a pastor and his wife affiliated with my local church and who have been working among the local aboriginal tribes for more than 40 years.

Is God calling us to do something for Him that is part of His sovereign will and part of His specific will for us? Is God calling us to His plans and purposes for us? Have we explored and discovered what are those plans and purposes of His for us? Are we fulfilling our destiny in Him?

I’m doing my part to fulfil His calling to me to write these commentaries as faithfully as I can day in and day out as He inspires the right words in my mind. He has a further calling for me that I hope I will be bold enough to respond in the coming years. What about you? What’s His calling for you? Will you step out in faith and respond like how the many thousands and tens of thousands before us did throughout history? Will we respond to serve Him and see His glory fill the whole earth? As much as we are like Isaiah, a man of unclean lips, the LORD will cleanse and sanctify us for His work as we respond to His call. Be bold and courageous for the LORD our God is with us!

https://odb.org/MY/2021/09/07/complete

While we can only be fully complete in Christ, I think we should not dismiss the notion that our better half completes us in the context of a marriage that is sanctified by God. Besides continuing the family line and thus the perpetuation of the human race, marriage brings together two distinct individuals to become one flesh before God (Genesis 2:24). In the union of marriage, Christians believe that our spouses are other children of God specially chosen by God to complement us – thus in the natural sense, to complete us. That is why marriage is for life, till death do us part or until the Lord returns.

I find this to be true in my own marriage. I’m more relaxed but my wife is more uptight. To those who are acquinted with the DISC analysis of personalities – my wife has a strong D, while I’m strong in I, S and C. I’m more of a relationship person, non-confrontational while she will speak her mind in anything that she sees to be wrong, especially to me! In the arrow analogy taught by Pastor Albert Kang, she’s more arrow head while I’m more arrow shaft and tail. That is why when our boys want something, they come to me first! Even in music, she plays the piano and I play the guitar and she sings harmony naturally while I am better at just singing the straight melody.

In a true Christian marriage sanctified by God however, as much as our spouse completes us in the natural, there is still that spiritual dimension and most of us believe in a triangle with Christ as the Lord of our lives and thus our marriage. The same way as Christ is the Lord of our family and home, He is the Lord of our marriage. Therefore, we fulfil the will of the Father in Christ but we are stronger in all that we do for Him as a couple. Two is better than one for if one falls, the other can lift him up (Ecclesiastes 4:9). But ultimately, Christ is the Head and we are His body.

If we are married or planning to marry one day, always put Christ as the Head but remember that our spouse is to complement us to make us a more complete person in Christ. There is no need to compete with him or her in the things we do to prove we are better as we will always be better together as a couple!