Ronnie's Thoughts

Esau and Jacob

https://odb.org/2024/10/28/getting-rid-of-baggage

The forgiveness by Esau of the cunning but changed Jacob is one of the highlights of the book of Genesis and serves as an example of what God expects from us as His children when it comes to our own forgiveness of others.

Jacob committed two major “transgressions” against Esau. The first is buying Esau’s birthright with a bowl of soup – see Genesis 25: 29-43. The second was, with his mother Rebecca, tricked Isaac to give his blessings to Jacob by pretending to be Esau – Genesis 27:1-29. The father’s blessings in Jewish tradition are akin to the last will and testament but encompass more. It includes the spiritual blessing of the covering and goodness of God Almighty. It is reserved for the firstborn. Although Jacob and Esau are twins, Esau was the elder. But Jacob tricked Isaac to give him that and then fled the scene.

Isaac had his fair share of trials and tribulations in facing the trickier Laban, but in the process, he became quite wealthy, perhaps because of the blessings of Jacob opening the heaven’s doors and blessing him. In Genesis 32, he was to meet Esau, and he was fearful and terrified that Esau, with his 400 men, would take his life. But in Genesis 33, God turned the sitiation around for Jacob as Esau forgave him and accepted his atonement for his past transgressions against him.

In our context, it is time as Christians whom God first loved and forgave through Christ Jesus, that we ourselves must move on and leave our past emotional baggage behind. Forgive and even forget. What’s passed is past. Leave them behind. Don’t carry a heavy weight around our neck while we progress in our spiritual walk. God must have had a purpose to allow those things to happen. There’s no point drunking poison, hoping someone else will die. In fact, don’t even pray for God to avenge us. It has happened, and let it be. Because of what we had gone through in the past, God will have better and bigger things for us, even on this side of eternity! Be like Esau – forgive Jacob, and move on.

Have a great week ahead, everyone! May the LORD our God grant us wisdom and discernment in all that we do that we may glorify Christ in all things! Amen!

Born again

https://odb.org/2024/10/27/born-again

John 3:5-6 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

The most fundamental aspect of our faith is the need to be born again in Christ Jesus, and in this context, Jesus uses the phrase, “born of water and the Spirit” in John 3:5. It means that we have gone through the process of accepting Jesus in our hearts as our Lord and Saviour, who died for our sins and reconciled us back to God the Father. Our salvation is by the grace of God, justified by our faith in Christ Jesus and not by own good deeds as the original sin of man can only be washed clean by the redemptive and sacrificial blood of the Lamb of God on the cross. In the process, we are also given the Helper, the Holy Spirit, who dwells in our hearts.

In other words, we have personally accepted Jesus into our lives. Once we have done that, our spirit is made alive, and we can communicate directly with God with the help of the Holy Spirit. We thus have a new birth in the spiritual realm. The spiritual realm is now open to us, and we can operate in that realm, interceding for the saints and fighting spiritual battles with spiritual forces. That is why believers have two births and only one death, but those who reject the message of the Gospel have one birth but two deaths (physical and later eternal death).

The message this morning, I believe, is a reminder that once we are born again, we are activated spiritual beings. We are and always have been spiritual beings. It’s just that once Christ comes into our lives, our spirit is activated and made alive. We have power and authority in Christ Jesus. We have a destiny in Christ. God’s plans and purposes for our lives are also activated, and we need to align our goals and aspirations with God’s plans and purposes.

Have a good time praising and worshipping God today in church at the Sunday worship service today! Remember that we are born again activated spiritual beings! We will be able to meet the Father face to face as we worship Him in spirit and in truth! Hallelujah, Praise the Lord!

Running away from God

https://odb.org/2024/10/25/whale-watching

Jonah in the belly of a large marine creature

While it is generally true that if we do not respond to God’s calling, He will choose or call someone else to do the work. The principle is true because the sovereign will of God will be achieved independent of the originally chosen one. Thus, when Saul didn’t meet the LORD’s expectations, He raised up David and Jesus came to earth through the lineage of David. When Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus and accepted the silver from the Pharisees out to kill Jesus, the LORD raised up Paul to be next Apostle of Christ even though Paul did not have the privilege of living with the Christ during his 3 years plus ministry tenure on earth. Nevertheless, Jesus met and taught Paul in the spiritual realm, showing him certain things that he was not allowed to tell the world.

2 Corinthians 12:2-4 NIV: I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. 3 And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— 4 and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.

There are, however, times when God will pursue His chosen one until he relents and accepts his calling. Jonah is a great example. When God asked that he preach to the people of Niniveh for them to repent, seeing their wickedness, he ran the other way. But God pursued him until the belly of the great fish. Jonah was about to die, and he called out to God, and the LORD answered him.

Jonah 2:1-2 NIV: From inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. 2 He said: “In my distress, I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead, I called for help, and you listened to my cry.

In the end, Jonah preached, and the people of Niniveh accepted his message and repented of their sins, and God spared them their lives.

If God calls us, don’t run away. Let Him achieve His plans and purposes through us because His plans and purposes are for our lives. We will live in the centre of His will when we positively respond to God’s calling for us. If we are like Moses, who felt he was handicapped, God gave him his brother Aaron to be his spokesperson. Likewise, God will send us help to train us up in our areas of weakness. Commit and trust our lives unto Him. Nothing is better here on earth than living in the house of the Lord as surely goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives – Psalm 23:6. Relent and allow the goodness and blessings of God to overwhelm and overflow in our lives! Hallelujah, praise the Lord!

Feed the hungry

https://odb.org/2024/10/24/food-for-the-hungry

In Isaiah 58, Isaiah prophesied in verses 3 to 9 about God’s rebuke to the Israelites about their self-serving fasting to fulfil their religious obligations, hoping to gain some personal benefit for themselves. Actually, there is nothing wrong with such an approach to fasting except that at the same time, they ignored the needs of the less fortunate before their eyes – the hungry, the unclothe, and the homeless. It was much worse if they had fasted and were also the ones who oppressed the needy. Verses 6 to 9 are reproduced below:

NIV 6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to lose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter — when you see the naked, to clother them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. 9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk.

The poor and needy will always be there. In a laissez-faire economy, you work and earn your keep. Some for lack of education or opportunities earn less, but if they are willing to hold two jobs, they are likely to get through unless they have large families to feed. There is nevertheless a question of practicalities of living within your means. Still, there are others who live in a cycle of drug addiction, crime, violence, unemployment, and imprisonment to the extent that it might be better for some to be inside than outside without food or shelter.

We as individuals can never solve the needs of society. But we must have compassion. In anything we do, whether we have a role in government policy or not, we should support efforts to eradicate poverty, homelesness, and hunger. Everyone should be given a roof over their heads and a hot meal.

The message in Isaiah 58 is that we must know our God and what is in His heart. He seeks to help the unfortunate the downtrodden and the oppressed. We can not solve the woes of the world, but at the very least, we must not be part of those who perpetuate such injustices. Instead, we must be selfless, have compassion, and do our part whenever we can. In the end, what’s in our hearts must match our actions in praying and fasting. Then, the glory of God, the LORD our God will be our rear guard!

The Comforter

https://odb.org/2024/10/23/the-spirit-is-present

After Jesus died and rose again, He ascended to heaven 40 days after His resurrection. On the 50th day, it was the Jewish festival of Pentecost, which celebrates the giving of the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai. The night before Jesus was crucified, He had the last supper, and it was the day of the Jewish festival of the Unleavened Bread, also known as the Passover which celebrates the passing over by the Angel of Death over Jewish homes in Egypt marked by the blood of an unblemished lamb. Thus, we will see that Jesus’s last days on earth had a lot of symbolism intertwined with the festivals in the Jewish calendar, somewhat tying Christ to the Old Testament religious laws introduced by God during ancient times.

When Jesus ascended to heaven, it left a vacuum in the hearts of the disciples of Christ (Apostles), although with the 40 days Christ spent with them and other close followers, they caught the vision of His true mission on earth. The physical Jesus was no more, even in the form of His glorified body. But that held the promise of what we could expect of our bodies at the end of age. Jesus gave the disciples a promise in John 14 25-27 NIV:

25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.

The promise was His Father in heaven will send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who will teach them all things and remind them of everything Christ had said and taught them before. The Holy Spirit descended in a rushing wind and tongues of fire on the Apostles and other believers on Pentecost and empowered and emboldened the Apostles and other believers. The rest, as they say, is history. The faith spread like wildfire engulfing Jerusalem, Judah, and Samaria and across the Greek world of the Gentiles and later to the rest of the world. We are who we are in Christ today from the first fire 🔥 of Pentecost with the descension of the Holy Spirit. The faith spread and prevailed despite persecutions and all sorts of obstacles by the ruler of the world.

Going back to the original promise of Jesus in John 14, for us modern believers who have both Jesus and the Holy Spirit in our hearts, be reminded that the Holy Spirit will comfort and encourage us like He did the disciples. Do not be afraid or be troubled when we face difficult situations in life or at work. Be bold and courageous like Joshua! Trust that the Holy Spirit will help us and embolden us as we plough through life. Jesus is our Lord and Saviour, Father God is our Heavenly Father, but the Holy Spirit will teach us all things and grant us wisdom and discernment in our walk of faith. He will prompt us to do the right thing at all times, He is the voice in our conscience and more. He will lead us to what God’s will is in all situations. He will lead us to fulfil God’s plans and purposes in our lives and for us to live in the centre of His will!

We thank you, Lord Jesus and Father God, for giving us the Holy Spirit to be our Advocate and Comforter, to stand with us in all that we do! Amen!

Transformed from the inside

https://odb.org/2024/10/22/transformed-from-the-inside

One of the struggles faced by any believer, I believe, is the desire to be true to God from the inside. The journey of transformation may go this way. We conform on the outside but remain carnal and selfish on the inside. People can only deduce who we are from our external self, like the way we speak and act, but no one knows what is really in our hearts, even Satan doesn’t know. Thus, we become hypocrites like those people Jesus condemned in Matthew 23:23-33. We are “spiritually” beautiful externally but rotten on the inside. No one can really tell, except God, our Heavenly Father.

Then, later, we realised that being a hypocrite is not only terrible but also tiring. It’s just a facade, an appearance that’s illusionary. In a rebellious streak, we show the world who we truly are. So we do not conform anymore, and our external become like that of our inside; carnal and selfish. We only have one life to live. Why should we live any other way but the way we want? Children raised in strict Christian families have a tendency to morphe this way and just throw caution to the wind as they grow up and become adults. A time may come when they may break free from the shackles of strict family rules and become who they truly are.

Actually, I think the best way is to gradually transform but always from within first. Battle within ourselves. Pray for our Father’s intervention in our spirit. Ask for the strength of the Holy Spirit to break free from our natural tendencies. Learn to be selfless from within. This way, our external self will reflect Christ who transformed us from within. This, I believe, is the message of Matthew 23:23-33. Clean the inside first, and the outside will be clean.

Ultimately, even if we may fool everyone in the world, God knows who we are. Jesus knows our true self. On that day when we face Jesus, our true self will be for all to see. Jesus looks to our hearts and not our outside as only our spirit will face Him. How are we to explain to Him that after all those years of His grace and goodness, we are still as rotten on the inside like we were before we knew Him? The gift of the gab and twisting words will not help us when what’s seen by all is only our spirit. We have nothing to conceal our inner self on judgment day as it is our inner self that is judged. Our salvation may still be intact as we are justified by our faith in Christ, saved by the grace of God. But what a hollow victory will that be? Can we hold our heads up high to Jesus and say we have fought the good fight if we had been a fraud all this while?

No amount of rationalising will help as Jesus knows our hearts, our true self. Work on insides in ernest. In the end, what’s inside us that counts. Discard our old self, our carnal nature, and our selfishness, and embrace and become the person God truly and always wanted us to be, even before the foundations of the world! Fulfil His plans and purposes for our lives. Strive for the prize that awaits us as we look upwards to Christ, the author and finisher of our faith!

Jesus, the branch from David

https://odb.org/2024/10/21/the-branch

Jeremiah 33:14-15 NIV: 14 ‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfil the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah. 15 ‘In those days and at that time, I will make a righteous branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land.

The sculptured Cross at the Chapel of the Holy Cross, Sedona, Arizona

Just the day before, as we were talking, my wife just mentioned that one of the significant differences of our faith that reflects the reality of God is the fulfilment of the various prophesies in the bible. Jeremiah, a prophet of God with the book that bears his name, active during the reign of King Josiah until the fall of Jerusalem prophesied about the coming of Christ during those ancient times. God spoke through Jeremiah of raising up the Messiah, which is Jesus Christ, the righteous branch, through the line of David. The sculptured cross at the Chapel of the Holy Cross, Sedona, beautifully symbolises, by its old dead vertical trunk, the old tribes of the Israelites who rejected God while other trunk that is reaching upwards and branches out represents the flourishing tribe of Judah and the line of David.

Jeremiah 33:14-15 is one of the many prophesies of the Old Testament fulfilled by Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, we have a whole book of Revelation that speaks of the future, the signs and times before the second coming of Christ, the great tribulation, the Great White Throne of God, the Bema Judgment Seat of Christ until the new heaven and new earth, and the new Jerusalem with Christ and God living among His people once again.

In the span of our lives, we may have received our own fair share of prophesies. Be patient and continue to persevere on in our walk of faith. The day will come when the prophesies for our own lives will become reality in the course of the LORD’s own timing in accordance with His perfect will. Some prophesies may only be fulfilled when we are spiritually ready in our hearts. Don’t give up believing and trusting God. Instead, continue in our steadfast love for Him, serving Him with all our strength, soul, mind, and heart; allowing the Holy Spirit to transform us day by day into the image of Christ!

Have an examplary week ahead, everyone fulfilling God’s plans and purposes for our lives! I pray that the LORD our God will grant us wisdom and discernment in our daily tasks as we discharge our responsibilities at work, in college, at home, and in church! Amen!

The payoff

https://odb.org/2024/10/20/the-payoff

When we think about the payoff for our faith, we inevitably look to the present and the natural. In fact, this is how most believers pitch the Gospel, that Jesus will transform our lives for the better. Jesus will heal us. God will break bondages and the shackles of sin. The deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt is a picture of how God brings us from a life of slavery in the world to a life of freedom and victory in the Promised Land. From living under the rulership of the ruler of the world to the kingdom of God where we live in the centre of the will of God for our lives. On earth, the best place to be is the place where we are fulfilling God’s plans and purposes for our lives. The kingdom of God is where His children are living in His will, wherever we are is the kingdom of heaven.

The promise of a better and more fulfilling life is premised on one of the fundamental teachings of Jesus Christ recorded in Matthew 6:33 NKJV:

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

As Solomon in all his wealth and grandeur and wisdom concluded in Ecclesiastes, everything is meaningless unless we have God, Jesus teaches that if we seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness first, all these things shall be added unto you. On top of a place in eternity in the new heaven and new earth in Eden recreated, we will have an abundant life here on earth too! A life lived with God and Jesus as our Lord. Will a father give you a snake if you ask for a fish? Luke 11:11-13. Surely God will not give you a horrendous and difficult life if you are His child? We will not escape the daily struggles of life that everyone goes through by becoming believers, but we will have the Holy Spirit and Jesus going through life with us. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you!

The payoff will thus be here on earth as well in heaven. The goodness of God and His grace and mercies and blessings will follow us for the rest of our days as we dwell in the house of the Lord forever and ever.

Have a great time worshipping God today! Let’s give Him all glory and celebrate His goodness in church today! He deserves all honour, glory, and worship! Amen!

Elijah fleeing from Jezebel

https://odb.org/2024/10/18/scraped-butter

In the Transfiguration, Jesus met Elijah and Moses. Spiritually, Jesus represented the New Covenant while Moses represented the Old Covenant and Elijah the Prophets. Or seen in another perspective, Jesus represented the grace of God, while Moses represented the Law, and Elijah represented the power of God. Besides Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as the forefathers of the faith and Moses, the bearer of the Mosaic law, Elijah can be considered as one of the key and major figure of the Old Testament. He performed miracles with the power of God, foretelling the coming of Christ and the latter’s healings, signs, and wonders.

In 1 Kings 18, at Mount Carmel, Elijah called fire from the heavens and consumed a drenched bull followed by rain during a long period of severe famine and drought. The 450 prophets of Baal tried from dawn till dusk to call fire and failed. With the victory, Elijah killed all the 450 prophets of Baal. When Queen Jezebel, the patron of Baal during the reign of King Ahab, heard the news, she vowed to kill Elijah. Elijah, just fresh from the highest peak of his career as a prophet of God, feared for his life and ran as quickly and as far away as possible from Jezebel. After reaching Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant behind and travelled one day into the wilderness, and then as he laid down to rest, he asked God to take his life. He confessed to God that he was no better than his ancestors.

The LORD did not take his life but sent an angel to later wake and feed him twice. After that, he travelled 40 days and 40 nights to Mount Horeb and, in a cave, met God in a still small voice, a silent whisper. God was not found in the wind or the earthquake. In the process, the LORD relieved Elijah of his calling and instructed him to mentor and pass on his anointing to Elisha.

The preplexing thing about arguably the most powerful prophet of God as recorded in the bible is that despite his witnessing of God’s mighty display of power before his very eyes, he feared for his life when he was threatened by Jezebel. After proving that Baal was nothing compared to Yahweh at Carmel, he ran for his life. He admitted that he was no better than his ancestors. He was afraid and fell into depression despite being one of the most powerful of prophets.

I feel that the lesson for us is that no matter what we may have achieved for God in our lives, we may still reach a stage when we may suddenly feel we are unworthy of God’s love. We may feel God is not there for us anymore. Or that we have exhausted God’s grace or anointing. Or that we are a spent force or have burnt out. We may, like Elijah, fall into depression. It may not be as soon as Elijah, so soon after his peak. Nevertheless, depression may come.

None of us are immune from depression. We need to be watchful and always go back to God. In Elijah’s case, God nursed and stregthened him back to strength. Later, the LORD met him at Mount Horeb and gave him a new commission. If we are ever in such a situation, seek out Jesus for Him to give us rest and perhaps a new calling and commission. We will then have a new lease of life in God. From Carmel to the wilderness to Horeb! Amen!

Manna from heaven

https://odb.org/2024/10/17/gods-provision

It is one of the great and amazing miracles in the Bible that the Israelites could survive in the desert for 40 years without any proper farming. In fact, a whole new generation was raised in the wilderness to enter the Promised Land with Caleb and Joshua. To put the scale in perspective, there were about 600,000 able bodied male adults (20 years and above) who were delivered from Egypt, and if we were to include women and children, the Israelites in total should number circa 2 million.

God fed them manna from heaven every day, where a new ration will come in the next morning, and they were to take as much as they needed for their daily needs. The manna can not be kept overnight except for the ration that came on the day before the Sabbath, which would last two days. It speaks of the daily provision of God in our lives, that as believers, we somehow will never go hungry. God provided water from the rock that Moses struck with his staff. The Israelites were not moving about in the wilderness in those forty years as they actually spent most of their time in an oasis south of Canaan called Kadesh Barnea. As much as God is a God of miracles, He is also practical in using nature, which is also His creation and provision for humanity.

An important lesson for us today, I believe, is that no matter how much we may be struggling in our lives, our God will meet our needs. He will ensure that we will not starve. In fact, over time, He will prosper us and give us an abundant life here on earth, a life that is filled with His love, joy, and peace. Do our part. Obey Him and serve Him. Believe in His provision and providence. Commit our lives to Him. He is El-Shaddai, the Almighty God, the All Sufficient One. He is Jehovah Jireh, our provider. Amen!