I Am Who I Am

https://odb.org/2024/03/18/i-am-2

I just shared a message yesterday in my local church from Joshua 1:1-9 on God’s encouragement to Joshua and, by extension to the Israelites and by adoption, us believers of Jesus Christ as the spiritual Israelites. God commanded Joshua to be bold and courageous (NIV) or be strong and of good courage (KJV) for He will be with Joshua wherever he goes. It was a promise founded upon God’s promises to Moses, and His promises lives on despite Moses having died. The promise of the promised land “from the river to the sea” girdled by Joshua and the Israelites boldy and courageously, and carefully, keeping and obeying the law (His Word), meditating upon it day and night, for them to be successful and prosperous in God. When we reach Joshua 24, we will see that the LORD did all as He had promised in Joshua 1 and Joshua promising that he and his household will serve the LORD.

The Great I Am, the Almighty God, made the same pronise to Moses in Exodus 3:12 that He will be with Moses when he goes up to the Pharoah to demand that he releases the 600,000 adult Jews from slavery together with their wives and children. It later led to the exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, into the wilderness where they spent 40 years living in the presence of God where one whole generation died including Moses and Aaron before they reached the stage in Joshua 1 preparing to cross the Jordan River into Canaan.

The LORD God will be with us because of the blood of Christ shed for our sins, but consequently, as we obey and follow His Word. He is the Great I Am, the one and only living God, the creator of heaven and earth, the creator of the universe and everything in it. He is also our Heavenly Father and our Good Shepherd. As we commit our ways unto Him, He will make our paths smooth. He is the one who will make all things work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes.

Have a great week ahead, everyone! Be grateful and thankful that the Great I Am is our God and LORD. Let’s commit the week ahead to the LORD and pray that His Holy Spirit grants us wisdom and discernment as we look towards Christ and navigate through the week with its various obtacles and challenges!

Kingdom minded

https://odb.org/2024/03/17/kingdom-minded-leadership

I guess when we were younger Christians, when we brought people to Christ, we wanted to bring them to our own church. This is practical in the sense that we could then shepherd them ourselves, and at the same time, we contribute towards the growth of our local church. Of course, when it comes to languages, we may end up sending them to the Chinese-speaking congregation if they are more comfortable relating to Mandarin or Cantonese speakers and in some churches like my local church, that’s a separate congregation by itself. This gets tricky when we work in another city while our home church is in another. Thus, we will have little choice but to direct them to a local church as it is not reasonable to expect new believers to travel 70km to 100km one way to attend church.

However, as we gain maturity in Christ, we will come to a realisation that we are all in this together. Ministry work is Kingdom work. Thus, we will suggest the church that will bring the best out of them in Christ. The particular church that will best nurture them and a place where they can fit into the congregation as a church is essentially a community of believers. A place where they will find their home is more important than being in our own church. A place to serve and raise their family and grow in the Lord.

Have a good and personal time today worshipping God today, everyone! Please pray for me as I will be sharing the Word at my local church today. Pray that the Word will be articulated in a way that will touch and move the hearts of the congregation, and the Word will achieve the purpose it is intended for. May the Holy Spirit move powefully in the congregation today! God bless your day and the week ahead!

Wealth

https://odb.org/2024/03/15/hated-in-kansas

For most of us who started with humble beginnings, life would have been a struggle in the sense that we ate what was on the table at home. As I was watching a program on top food places in Teluk Intan yesterday, I realized that we rarely ate out when we were growing up. Only once a month, perhaps we ate at a restaurant and called dishes. I have very little recollection of hawker food in Sitiawan and none at all in Pasir Puteh when growing up, although I do remember the RM1 char kuey teow that we sometimes buy at the roadside stall in Simpang Empat. We also seldom buy new clothes, and as I grew older, we did get some hand me downs from friends. I remember working for 3 months in Johor Bahru to buy a nice pair of Adidas shoes in Singapore at circa RM100+. At that time, it was RM1.10 to the Singapore Dollar!

Some of us might be better off now, having accumulated some wealth over the years. The question is, what do we do with our little wealth? We have to prepare for our old age as we still need a roof over our heads and food on the table as we enter our senior years. We may also want to travel more without needing to do too much leave planning (probably none at all!). For travel, it’s best to start when younger as our weaker knees and failing eyesight may deprive us of the full experience when we travel in our golden ages.

I think Ecclesiastes 5:12 is very telling. It says – the sleep of the labourer is sweet, whether they eat little or much, but as for the rich, their abundance permits them no sleep. I hope that we will all not have so much wealth that we can not sleep at night worrying about the ROI of our investments or how the value of our money is decreasing annually because of inflation. Solomon then continues in verse 13 – I see a grevious evil under the sun, wealth hoarded to the harm of its owners.

It is indeed tragic if our wealth brings harm to us in the way that too much rich food poisons the body. Instead, why don’t we follow Jesus’s advice not to store riches on earth? Instead, let’s store up riches in heaven where the thief will not steal or the moth and rust will not destroy? Thus, if we have wealth, why don’t we use it to bless others who are in need? We give in accordance with our ability and in response to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. But I guess we shouldn’t give until we need charity from others. Keep a reasonable amount for our old age and for our children to inherit, but don’t bring too much to the grave!

Offer bargains to God

https://odb.org/2024/03/13/cries-of-distress

Have we ever offered bargains to God when faced with desperate and distressing situations like a depressing medical diagnosis, a financial quagmire, a bleak or uncertain future, or the loss of someone close? We may want to say if you heal me, O Lord, I will do this and do that for you. Jesus, if you get me out of this situation, I will forever be your servant.

I think there is nothing wrong in offering bargains to God because that’s something deeply personal between you and God. But if we look at the Covenant of God with Abraham, God’s promise to be the God of the Israelites is conditional upon them obeying His law and percepts. It’s a given that we worship no other gods for God the Father to be our God and Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. The LORD will be our shepherd if we are His sheep.

Thus, I think the only real bargain we need to offer is the reciprocal promise to be faithful to the LORD and to follow and obey His Word. If we live our lives in accordance with His Word, He will surely bless and protect us since we are, after all, His children and are co-heirs with Christ to His abundant inheritance in the saints.

As we give our lives to Him and serve Him, He will lead us to fulfil His plans and purposes for our lives. He may or may not heal us of our medical condition. He may or may get us out of our financial challenges. But He will certainly be with us in all that we are going through, and our future will not be bleak. He will surely fulfil His promises for our lives. He will help us through our grief for the loss of someone close to us or our past dreams that have died and show us a future that will be filled with His love, joy, and peace. We will have a new start in Him and a breakthrough in our personal challenges. We will soar again like an eagle in His loving arms!

Courage in Christ

https://odb.org/2024/03/12/stand-up

Queen Esther is one of the shining examples of someone who put her life at stake to save her people. It was in a way similar to the courage displayed by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Daniel’s 3 friends) when facing King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, except that in Esther’s case, she had the choice to keep quiet and mind her own business. She could like most of us need not have taken the risk and step out in faith.

You may read the account in Esther 4:10-17, where she told Mordecai, her cousin who adopted her as his own daughter, that it is the law at the court of the Persian King Xerxes that anyone who approaches the King in the inner court without being summoned will be put to death unless the King extends the golden spectre and it has been 30 days since she was called. Modercai answered her somewhat prophetically that if she refrained from helping, it didn’t mean that she would escape the fate of the evil plot to exterminate the Jews (although the King didn’t know she was Jewish) and God would achieve His purpose some other way. After contemplating, she decided to intervene and approach the King. Her famous words were, “If I perish, I perish.”

Many believers have over the years since the days of the book of the Acts of the Apostles uttered similar words in their hearts of hearts. If I have to die for Christ, then so be it. From the martyrs put on stakes and burnt to death to those thrown into the ring to be devoured by wild beasts as entertainment for the Romans back in the day. To the many who were asked to recant their faith in Christ but refused and froze to death in the snowy winter night in China. One day, we, too, may be tested on our faith.

We may not be called to put our lives at stake for our faith in the present. However, there could be many instances when we may be called to stand with and for those facing injustice. Some may have been dealt with a cruel twist of fate, losing their loved ones to sickness and thus their sole means of survival. Will we stand in the gap if Christ prompts us? Or will we be tenpted to look the other way? Let’s pray for the courage to do the right thing in obedience to God’s voice in our hearts of hearts.

Realm of the dead

https://odb.org/2024/03/11/embrace-today

I think it’s tragic that when we are about to die that we regret not having made much of our life that God gave us. Like in the novel, Nicola, who was born with wealth and talents, felt she had wasted her life and thus refused to acknowledge that she has terminal cancer. I hope none of us will ever reach such a sad conclusion on our dying bed.

Ecclesiastes 9:1-7 teaches that we should eat and drink with gladness. Enjoy our life with our wife. But remember our creator, the LORD our God, follow His ways and obey His Word and enjoy and embrace every opportunity that He provides us to live and love.

We need to balance between the present and the future. Delaying immediate gratification to later may be a good principle to follow to save up and invest for the future. Yet we must also live in the present. Not in the past and not always for the future. Do what we can do today. Do for God what we can do today. Don’t wait until we are older or when we are ready or retired. Our time on earth is limited. Our time may even be cut short by infirmity. We may not live until a ripe old age. Thus, remember God today and do what we can for Him today.

If we begin to take accountability for our responsibilities to God today, for the fulfilment of His promises, plans, and purposes for our lives today; we will not have any regrets when we finally enter into the realm of the dead. It is the realm when we will not be able to do anything anymore in the world of the living. We will meet again at the end of time, but as far as the realm of the living in the present, we will not be able to do anything anymore.

Let’s live life to the fullest in God, in the centre of His will, enjoying every day as He provides, and serving Him to the best of our abilities. If we are in our golden age, are we just counting our days to leave this world? No! Live on, enjoy life, and continue serving God. We may still have years to live in God.

God’s creation

https://odb.org/2024/03/10/god-made-them-all

The diversity of nature is a testament to the magnificent power and glory of God from the world of microorganisms of bacteria, cells, and viruses to the oceanic plankton, algae that produce as much as half of the earth’s oxygen. I guess that the other half is produced by the photosynthesis of plants. The continued availability of fresh water on land despite the oceans and seas holding 97% of the earth’s water in salted form. As humans strive to explore the deep space beyond our terrestrial existence, the immensity of the universe makes us feel like we are just a mere drop in the vast earthly oceans or a mere bacterium on this vast earth. Yet, there are still areas on earth itself that humans know very little about. As humans need air and water to live, civilisations are always built on lands close to water sources. The sea is off-limits because we can’t drink the water, and neither can our lungs access the oxygen in the seawater. But the day will come when the sea will be no more as revealed to John in Revelation 21.

Nature showcases the power of God. If we are still in the faith when we breathe our last, one day, we will get to live in the new heaven and new earth in our glorified bodies. We have a glimpse of our eternal life in Revelation 21, but a few passages in Scriptures will not be enough for us to imagine what that world will be like and how we will live with God living amongst us. However, we trust God to make sure that everything will function in perfect equilibrium like the nature we know now. The earth itself was broken by sin and the fall of man and is groaning for the day of liberation. In other words, the earth itself is waiting for the new heaven and new earth of Revelation 21, where perhaps the present uncertainties of nature may finally be tamed!

This morning, as we worship God in His splendour and glory, let us trust Him with our lives and our future. The future, like nature, is unpredictable. We don’t know when it will rain and whether the rain will bring too much water into the system, leading to flashfloods. For us here in the tropics, we crave the rain for our plants and crops, but also, it’s a refreshing touch on an otherwise hot and humid day. Trust that the LORD will make our paths smooth as we put our faith in Him. Like His creation declares His glory, He can and will make our lives likewise, what more when we are also His creation and are created in His own image!

Using whatever we have for God

https://odb.org/2024/03/08/its-enough

The story of Moses with his staff is a good example of us using whatever God provides to answer and fulfil His calling on us. When Moses threw his staff to the ground, it became a snake, but when he picked up the snake by its tail, it became a staff. It was miraculous, and thus, people will believe that he is a messenger of God.

When it comes to serving God, we use whatever little we have and just move forward. For me, I have been writing this blog for more than 2.5 years now, although I started doing these devotional commentaries much earlier. I have Pastor Albert Kang of Faithline International Ministries to thank, in guiding and encouraging me to start a blog. The blog keeps a record of my writings compared to just writing and forwarding WhatsApp messages. The point is I used whatever I have to help others in their spiritual journey as my response to a call from God. It’s a simple blog, and I only have my thoughts. No audio-visuals or fancy pictures, as what I have are only words. And yes, I try to make consistency a feature. So I write between 5 to 6 days a week and take a break when I am travelling. It takes about 1.5 hours every day, and I wake up as early as possible to seek God and do this first before my usual routine and work start to push me back into the daily grind. We give Jesus whatever little we have and let Him make the best of it like the boy with the two fish and 5 loaves of bread.

Just a further thought. We may have our humble beginnings when we started our ministry in God, and that also includes churches. God will use whatever little we have and bless and multiply our little for His glory. But when we already have more, we should then shift into a different mindset, and that is to give God our best. This is because Jesus deserves our best. Yes, it’s true that all this stuff is peripheral. God accepts our worship even with a cappella and in wooden structures with ceiling fans only. But shouldn’t we upgrade when we can well afford better stuff?

To close, I just like to say that we must serve God now. Don’t wait until we have more or are better equipped. Start now with whatever we have and respond to His calling. Start with whatever little we have. The Lord will train and equip us as we move along. Don’t be afraid. Instead, be strong and courageous (see Joshua 1:9) for the LORD our God will be with us. He will bless the works of our hands and turn little streams into rivers of everflowing waters!

God our refuge

https://odb.org/2024/03/07/strength-and-tenderness

The temptation to sin is always present all around us. It could be the work of dark forces in the spiritual realm, or it could also be naturally occurring as a lot of times it could also be an internal perception. Meaning to say, instead of some invinsible being putting temptations along our way, temptations are just what we see. After all, sin is rebelling against God, being off the mark of righteousness. Our flesh naturally wants to go against the Lord. It is for our born-again spirit-man, our new creation in Christ, to overcome the desires of our flesh. This will be a constant and lifelong battle.

Thus, we should make it a quest for us to outlive the temptations around us. At the end of the day, so that our faith and righteousness may still be intact, and we are victorious. As much as our Lord will be the judge of our success, He also offers us a helping hand. He is our refuge and our protector. We may run to Him for strength so that our new inner man will overcome our old flesh, the latter always wanting to assert control and draw us away from God.

Remember that the fight is not only about issues of morality but also who is in control of our destiny and future. Are we ourselves asserting control, or are we fully surrendered to Jesus as our Lord and Saviour? Are we living in the glory of God’s plans, purposes, and promises for our lives, or are we wanting to live our own lives? The LORD our God, Jesus Christ, our Lord is our refuge and the protector of our lives. We may and must seek Him in times of trouble and challenges.

Just yesterday, I offered words of encouragement to a Muslim colleague who recently suffered a mild stroke and is still undergoing medical treatment. It has been more than 4 weeks now. I wished her that may the Almighty God be her protector in her difficult time of struggle to normalcy. This is also my prayer for all of us that as we may sometimes struggle in life, to outlive the temptations around us, we must make the LORD our God our protector. Seek Him out in prayer and supplication, for He is indeed our refuge!

Salvation and good works

https://odb.org/2024/03/06/good-works-ready

I like this phrase – we can not be saved by our good works, but we are saved so that we may do good works. Salvation is by the grace of God. We are saved by accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour and by confessing our sins and asking God to forgive our sins. As we repent and turn away from our sins, Jesus brings us into the Kingdom of God as co-heirs to His eternal glory and as children of God. We thus become a part of the family of God, a part of the universal church. Our mission in life here on earth would thus be to serve God and do good. Even though our good works may not save us, as believers and disciples of Christ, we are called to do good works. Doing evil is definitely out of the question – it is as far as the east is from the west.

This fundamental principle of our faith that addresses the age-old question – is salvation just a matter of saying the sinner’s prayer? Is it a question of registering our names in the Book of Life? Once registered, eternally registered? I think not. But I also think that it is neither a question of one day there, another day not there and then there again.

My view is that once we accept Christ into our lives, our names are written in the Book of Life. Then, it is a question of us living a life worthy of His name. Are we on the narrow path that leads to eternal life? Are we on that spiritual trajectory to heaven? Are we on the road of righteousness to salvation? Are we doing good works with our lives? Faith without works is dead. We have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

Is our love for Christ and God genuine and real? Will we do what’s in the heart of the Father? These are questions that only we ourselves may answer with God. But ultimately, it’s a deep personal decision. Have we given our lives fully to God, or are we still holding back and denying ourselves the opportunity to live in the fullness of His grace and anointing? The more we do His will here on earth, the more we are prepared for our life of eternity.