Christ- the Beautiful One

https://odb.org/2024/07/31/the-beautiful-one

Have you ever experienced a situation where you meet someone who looks normal, but as you get to know him or her, you find that he or she is pretty attractive. That is because as much as beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, it is also skin deep. There is more to a person’s beauty than just his or her appearance. The same way when you hear a preacher preach. Someone with less eloquence and theatrics may deliver a touching sermon because it was inspired by the Holy Spirit and comes from the heart, made more real and meaningful by the vulnerability of his or her real-life experiences.

In Isaiah 53:2,3 (NKJV), it is written:

For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
3 He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of [e]sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

In the NIV, they used the phrase, “He has no beauty or majesty that attract us to Him.” Yet once we discovered the significance of what He did for us, for you and I and the millions before and to come, we see how beautiful Christ is. There is no description of how He really looks like in the Gospels or in the Acts of the Apostles or the letters written by the Apostles who had the privilege to live with Him for those 3 years plus. Perhaps to reinforce the point that His beauty lies in His mission for mankind.

In Isaiah 53:5,6 – Isaiah so beautifully describes His mission:

But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes, we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

He enabled us to make peace with Father God and healed the spiritual chasm that separated us from God as God laid on Him the iniquity and sin of all mankind. As the Lamb of God, He was sinless and blameless and that qualified Him to be the perfect sacrifice to atone and redeem the sins of humankind.

Indeed, Jesus Christ is the beautiful one! The most beautiful of all! One day, the day may well be sooner than later, He will return in all His beauty and glory and will take His rightful place as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords here on the earth! Hallowed be Your Name! Hallelujah! Hosanna to the Highest!

A life worthy of the Lord

https://odb.org/2024/07/30/a-meaningful-hyphen

Colossians 3:10-11:

10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience.

In Colossians 3:9, Paul wrote that he always thanked God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and continually prays that the members of the church in Colossae will be filled with the knowledge of God’s will through all the knowledge and wisdom that the Spirit gives that they may live a life worthy of the Lord in every way – bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God and most importantly strengthened so they may have endurance and patience while giving thanks to Jesus who qualifed them to share in the inheritance of the saints.

The thing about Paul’s writings is that every sentence is profound and loaded with spiritual truths and wisdom! I believe one can constuct a sermon on the foundation of just one or a few verses of his letters, but it will be very tough indeed to preach a message based on a whole chapter!

I just want to pick one point this morning and that it is possible to live a life worthy of the Lord as the Holy Spirit empowers us with the knowledge of God’s will through all knowledge and wisdom that the Holy Spirit gives. The Spirit will give us the endurance and patience to live such a life worthy of the Lord to the fullest, in response to His calling for the various seasons of our lives and achieving His plans and purposes for us. The Holy Spirit will empower and guide us, strengthening and encouraging us during our down times and cheering us during our highs. Some of us may suffer for the sake of the Gospel, but we are happy to go through them as proud battle scars for the Lord!

I like to encourage us, including my own self, that whenever we are discouraged and sad and feeling downtrodden that we can call upon the Spirit to lift up our spirits to continue His work and the ministries and responsibilities our Heavenly Father has entrusted us through our Lord Jesus Christ. We may indeed live a life worthy of the Lord for the rest of our days to come, and when we meet Him face to face, we will surely be able to say that we had done our best to live a life worthy of Him! Praise the Lord!

Daniel

https://odb.org/2024/07/29/the-unseen-king

Daniel was exiled in Babylon as a teenager like many Israelites at that time, after Jerusalem and Judah were overrun by the Babylonians. History repeated itself – like the patriarch Joseph, Daniel became advisers to kings of ancient civilisations, in his case, Babylon and Persia. Daniel was an adviser to 3 kings – Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Darius. It showcases the amazing power and providence of God that an exiled immigrant may rise to the position of adviser of a superpower’s king and not only one but 3 kings!

The other significance of the book of Daniel lies in chapter 10. In Daniel 10:10-19, we see the often quoted narrative of an angel (believed to be the archangel Gabriel) speaking to Daniel the prophet and telling him that he was delayed by 21 days by the prince of the Persian kingdom (meaning a territorial spirit of the highest order) and that he only managed to overcome the Persian principality with the assistance of Michael, another archangel. Although there are smattering accounts of angelic appearances in the bible, this is one of the few that described the spiritual warfare in the heavenlies between demonic and angelic forces. However, as the bible’s principal message is to proclaim to the world God’s loving and covenant relationship with Israel and by extension us Gentiles too, less emphasis is placed on celestial beings. So we only know the names of a few like archangels Michael and Gabriel.

The message this morning is that as much as we can only see the natural and tangible side of things, remember and be reminded that as Paul taught us before, our battle is not against flesh and blood:

Ephesians 6:12 (NKJV) For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Sometimes, things occur on earth because of the cosmic warfare by celestial beings, and thus, we must always pray for our spiritual warriors in the heavenlies so that God’s will may be done here on earth as it is in heaven. We can do our part for God’s work in our midst by setting aside time to pray. Pray in general and then in specifics as we are led by the Holy Spirit.

Have a good week ahead, everyone! May the LORD our God bless us with wisdom and discernment to deal with our challenges at work, and may Christ bless the work of our hands as we strive to give glory to God in all that we do. May the Holy Spirit guide and lead us to be a part of the work and move of the LORD in our midst, wherever we are! Amen!

Worship that transforms

https://odb.org/2024/07/28/transforming-worship

If we know how to play an accompanying musical instrument like a guitar or a piano or keyboard (we don’t have to be very good at it), you may find worshipping a more personalised experience as you have full control of the music, especially the key you want to sing in. Alternatively, we can just play worship songs on Spotify or YouTube and worship together with the songs.

As we sing and worship, we enter into the spiritual realm and sit at the feet of Jesus like Mary did. In worship, we may touch the train of his robe as it fills the temple even as we enter into His presence and His throne of grace. That is why some songs say that in worship, we see the Lord face to face.

It is true that worship doesn’t change God – it transforms us instead. It makes us have greater hope and trust in Him, and even in dire situations, we know He reigns and is in full control. Sometimes, worship changes situations. Sometimes, it doesn’t. But it can and will certainly change and transform us. No matter the circumstance and situation, what matters is that our faith in God is unwavering, unchanging. We are nevertheless steadfast and firm in Him.

Perhaps we don’t worship Him daily in our quiet time. Perhaps we only pray, commune with Him, and read His Word. But we should worship at least once a week, in addition to the corporate worship at the gathering of the congregation of God’s people. Have a personal time of worship. Personalised it. Make it our own time with the Lord. Worship Him for He deserves all our worship. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the author and the finisher of our faith. Worship Him and let worship transform us from within, from within our spirit, as we worship Him in spirit and in truth!

Have a wonderful and exhilarating time today worshipping God this Sunday morning! Meet Him face to face and let Him touch and transform us! Amen!

The stain of sin

https://odb.org/2024/07/26/jesus-removes-the-stain

One of the things I dread is eating my favourite Malaysian food and getting a stain on my shirt or pants. For example, from curry mee or hokkien mee or even wan tan mee. Fortunately, curry and black sauce can usually be removed if we immediately wash the stain with a bit of soap. But one ingredient, if present, may make the stain removal really challenging even if washed immediately is kunyit (tumeric in English). I love Malay food, and one of their favoured ingredients is tumeric. I recalled once holding a fried fish wrapped in a plastic coated paper, which resulted in a dripped oil stain onto my new M&S shirt. As they had seasoned the fish with tumeric, it was a disaster!

Thus, the concept of sin and its stain is very real as God is holy, and He can not accept the presence of sin in humankind; present because of the fall of Adam and Eve. As a consequence, we do not only have the stain of the original sin, but our flesh is also prone to sin being self-serving, selfish, and naturally egoistic. We are constantly challenged by the 3 elements that plague mankind – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is of the world (1 John 2:16).

However, Jesus died on the cross for our sins. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). We are now unblemished like the Lamb of God as the blood of Christ washes us clean as snow that there is now no condemnation before God as the redeemed of the Lamb (Romans 8:1) but note that for those who do not walk in accordance with the flesh but who walks in accordance with the Spirit.

In life, some stains are difficult to remove, like our past misdeeds and mistakes, even with the passage of time. Some do come to haunt us. But God is a God of second chances. He is able to see past our stains because of Christ. Therefore, dear beloved, let’s forget what’s behind and in the past, and reach out and forth for those that are before and ahead of us – Philippians  3:13. Let’s push on in our walk of faith and reach for the crown of glory that awaits us in Christ Jesus – our Lord, Saviour, and Redeemer! Amen!

Never will I leave you

https://odb.org/2024/07/25/really-live

I learned the illuminating truth about God’s healing in the first few years of my Christian life when I read through page by page an autobiography by Joni Eareckson. That was about 40 years ago. The truth is that God doesn’t heal everyone all the time. The fact that He heals is by itself supernatural and miraculous, but when He doesn’t heal, He is still God, and we are only human. The day will come when our decaying bodies will be replaced by our glorified bodies, and we will not have sickness or illness anymore.

The key takeaway from Joni’s life, if you have read her book, is that the struggle with God’s healing was only for a few early years after her accident. She quickly accepted that God’s will for her was to glorify Him despite her disabilities, despite her unhealed condition. When we are unhealed, we bring glory to God instead of shame because our attitude is that we still want to serve Him. Joni is still alive today. She’s 74 this year, and throughout all those years, she had never stopped being an evangelical Christian author, radio host, artist, and founder of an organisation accelerating Christian ministry in the disability community. You may read more about her here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joni_Eareckson_Tada.

In the case of Pastor Ed Dobson of today’s ODB life story, his struggle with ALS that gets worse over time was characterised by his pining his hope on God despite his worsening condition. Hebrews 13:5 – Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. He passed away fifteen years after he got the disease. But he never lost hope that God will never leave nor forsake Him.

I agree with Pastor Benaiah Naresh, who spoke last Sunday at our local church. Every one of us should read and understand the book of Job. What happened to Job was not his doing, and yet despite what he went through, he never once accused God and sinned against Him.

Job 19:25-27 I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes–I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!

Even way back then, during ancient times, Job already had the revelation of the Holy Spirit about the resurrection of Christ and of himself one day!

Whatever we are going through today, whether it has something to do with God healing or not healing us, know like Pastor Ed Dobson that He will not leave nor forsake us! Persevere through and fulfil His plans and purposes for our lives like Joni did till today, until our dying breadth. Be like Job, never accuse or blame God. He has His reasons. Trust Him. Put our hopes and ambitions on His purposes. He will see us through.

God is our refuge

https://odb.org/2024/07/24/my-true-refuge

If we have been with our spouse, say, for fifty years, from courting days until we grow old together like the Chinese say, from dark hair to grey hair, it may be really tough and difficult for us to carry on living if our spouse departs the earth before us. We would have been through thick and thin, from having little to more, with sickness and good health, to raising children when they were babies to young and seeing them through until past their tertiary education into their own working and even marriage lives and for some, tending to our children’s children! That is why it is not uncommon for spouses to depart one after another, in close succession, as the loss may be too much for some to bear, like an unfillable vacuum.

But as believers and children of the Most High, the Almighty God, the Great I Am – we know our lives are not in our hands but in Him, our Heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. In Romans 14:8, it is written: If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. In other words, as much as it is difficult to carry on living, we must, for the sake of Christ, as Christ redeemed us and died for our sins for a purpose. We are now the Lord’s. Our lives are not our own.

It is true, as proven from ancient times even during the time of the Psalms, that our LORD is our true rock and refuge. When our world crashes down and we don’t want to live anymore, He is our shield and our strong deliverer. He gives us help and protects us. He is our tower and our stronghold.

Nevertheless, God is spirit, and we are mortals living here on earth dealing with flesh and blood day in, day out. As much as our battles are against spiritual powers in heavenly places, our daily living is in the natural, and we are very much a part of the affairs of the world, even as we are not of the world.

As much as God will be our ultimate source of solace and comfort if we ever need to face the harsh reality of losing our soulmate early, my view is that, in the natural, we should completely immerse ourselves in fulfilling God’s plans and purposes for our lives, in ministry and serving Him. Witness and preach the Gospel. Train up and make disciples for His Kingdom. In no time, we will grow old like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses, Joshua and David, and the many great and mighty men and women of God before us, and the time will come for us to depart this earth and be reunited with our loved one in heaven.

Great rejoicing in heaven

https://odb.org/2024/07/23/time-to-party

There is great rejoicing in heaven whenever a sinner repents and comes into faith in Christ Jesus. The parable of the prodigal son narrated by Jesus Himself in Luke 15:11-32 illustrates this very well. When the prodigal son returned after wasting away his inheritance in wild living, the father accepted him back wholeheartedly with much joy and rejoicing, putting on him his best robe, sandals and a ring on his finger and he threw a feast for him with a fattened calf.

This is strengthened by the two parables just before the parable of the prodigal son where Jesus spoke about the lost sheep and the lost coin where both the shepherd and the woman who lost the coin spared no effort to search for the lost and calls a feast when they find their lost sheep and coin. We know everyone in heaven will rejoice whenever a sinner repents and comes to God.

For us who have been around for many years in church and ministry, we know that the journey of faith is often fraught with perils, pitfalls, and hazards – the challenges, the ups and downs of life. Like the parable of the soils, many are like the word that fell among the thorns where the thorns grew up and choke the word. Thus, they are like those who, after accepting Christ, fell away as they are choked with the cares, riches, and pleasures of life. Many are also like those who fell among the rocks who hear and receive the word with joy, but with no root, they believe for a while and fall away when temptation comes. Sadly, even believers who have long been in the faith and have served faithfully for years may suddenly give up on Christ after something tragic unexpectedly happens in their lives.

There is a need for every one of us at whatever stage in our walk with Christ to always persevere through, come what may. As Paul so cleverly and rightly pointed out in Romans 8:18 that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. In other words, whatever we are or will go through here on earth, the glory that awaits us in eternity far outweighs all!

The message this morning is that we must always be watchful – continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving (Colossians 4:2) as finishing well is much more important than starting well. We need to finish the race and cross the finish line. It is our personalised race against the finish line. It is our race alone with Christ at and on our side. We are not competing with anyone except against the viles of the evil one and the temptations of the world. Keep to the narrow path, and we will be good! Continue to fulfil God’s plans and purposes for our lives, and we will be good! Never cease serving Him in His church and His Kingdom of Grace, and we will be good!

Good works for God

https://odb.org/2024/07/22/instruments-for-good

Ephesians 2:4, 5, 8 to 10:

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

The above teaching by Paul in Ephesians 2 encapsulates a very basic foundation of our faith, and that is, our salvation is by the love and grace of God. We are saved through our faith in Jesus Christ, who died for our sins. We are not saved by our works, so no man may boast of his achievements that qualified him to be saved. We are, after all, sinners at core and require the redemption by the Lamb of God to be unblemished before God.

However, having been saved by grace and justified by our faith in Christ, we are then to do good works, which God had prepared in advance for us. Thus, our salvation is not just for us to have a place in heaven and life eternal but also for God to use us for His plans and purposes while on earth. Salvation is not just about the afterlife, but it is very much about the present, too. In fact, what we do now on earth has a bearing of where we will eventually be in the new heaven and new earth. It is inconceivable that after having been saved, we instead do evil works, causing destruction or loss of life. That is why it is impossible for any man to gain salvation by killing others as salvation is never by our works, and any scheme motivated by evil intention is doomed to eternal damnation.

The message this morning is simple. Do not take our salvation for granted. James taught before that faith without works is dead. Our faith and salvation must be supported by our service to God and humanity. Do a good deed every day. Serve and love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Never cease to persevere on in our walk of faith.

Have a good week ahead, everyone! Let’s do good works for our Lord, Jesus Christ who, by the grace and love of God, died for our sins and through His sacrifice on the cross justified us our salvation before God!

Single parenting

https://odb.org/2024/07/18/renewing-our-strength

Single parenting is a more recent phenomenon, at least in our Malaysian context. Partly due to the rise in divorce rates as more women are gainfully employed. In fact, the ratio of women to men in universities and colleges now borders at 2 to 1. With better education, women may even have outnumbered men in the workforce. With financial independence, women can raise up their children on their own without the help of men, whether financial or otherwise. But single parenting is not limited to women as there are men too who are single parents. There are divorcees, but there are also widows and widowers. Not everyone remarries.

The struggle can be daunting, especially if there is no help from our own older parents or other family members, particularly when the child is young. In the city, homes are expensive and small. Leading to fewer extended families. Although there are daycare centres, it is difficult for single parents to go out at night. For example, business dinners or even hanging out with friends or going dating. In a way, it perpetuates single parenthood. If the entire responsibility and expense of raising up a child is on a single parent, it is very tough when coupled with the stress and pressure of work. But you can’t quit as your job puts food on the table and pays the bills.

Isaiah 40:29-31 proclaims:
29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

In the end, if we put our hope on Jesus, God the Father will renew our strength. We will soar with wings like eagles and will run and not grow weary. God will give us the strength to overcome the struggles of life and persevere through with our faith intact. In a blink of the eye, the children will be all grown up, and we will look back at the past 10 to 20 years with gladness and joy in our hearts. The goodness and blessings of God are real and tangible. Don’t ever give up! God is with us!