https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/28/what-only-the-spirit-can-do

It is interesting to note that Jesus timed His death and resurrection with the Jewish calendar of festivals, celebrating the Passover with the disciples just before His death on the cross. The Passover then became a model for our own Holy Communion ceremony as believers of Christ.

More interestingly, the Pentecost, which is the Jewish celebration of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, became the day the Holy Spirit first descended upon the early believers of Christ in Jerusalem, thus signifying the first fruits of the resurrection of Christ and bringing with it the supernatural power of God, which embolden the believers to proclaim Christ among the people. In the early days of the church, many were added daily! I had mistakenly thought all this while that the Pentecost is a day unique to Christian culture as the day of the Holy Spirit!

I was filled with the Holy Spirit the day I was baptised in water by the beach 2 years after I had accepted Christ into my life. With the baptism of the Holy Spirit, my past fear of the demonic disappeared. The nightmares I used to have every now and then about the movie Exorcist and other horror movies vanished. I could move in the spiritual realm and sense what’s happening, although I’m probably not the most sensitive or the sharpest around. I believe the infilling of the Holy Spirit gives us that edge in the supernatural realm. We have more boldness to move in signs and wonders and pray for healing or some believe to have the confidence to command healing. But as powerful is the Holy Spirit in our lives, we still do things in the name of Jesus Christ as that’s the name that is above all names, the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings.

Blessed and happy Pentecost Sunday, everyone! Praise the Lord if you are already filled with the Holy Spirit. If you have not, pray that the Holy Spirit will fill you and His power manifested in you that you may be bold in Christ to proclaim the Good News to the lost, the broken hearted and the desolate. The signs and wonders may demonstrate the power of God, but these are still peripheral compared to the plans and purposes of God in our lives and those we are ministering. Ultimately, may His will be done here on earth as it is in heaven!

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/26/jesus-is-the-answer

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s response to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in Daniel 3 is the standard that we all aspire to as believers when confronted with situations in life that test our faith. If we read Daniel 3, we will see that the 3 friends of Daniel believed and trusted that God will rescue them from the furnace of fire. But their faith was so exemplary that they said that even if their God did not rescue them, they would still not bow down and worship the golden image made by Nebuchadnezzar. Their stand was not dependent on God delivering them. Their stand was that no matter what, they would not worship other gods except Yahweh.

So we give tithes and offerings to the church. We still give even if we do not see any tangible direct return from God. Are we giving because of the 10-fold blessings as some prosperity Gospel preachers had preached and advocated before? Surely, if we were to give RM1,000 to God, we don’t expect God to give us back RM10,000? We give because we love God, and we know that we need to support His work. We give because all we have was from Him anyway, out of His grace and mercy upon our lives. The RM1,000 is only a fraction of what we have, which was ours because of His goodness upon our lives.

Having established the above principle that we will give to God and worship Him alone regardless of His deliverance of us in the unique situations of life that we face, the fact is God will stand with those who stand with Him. There was a 4th person in the furnace that was lighted 7 times hotter. Many believed that He was Christ Himself comforting and protecting Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego so that they could quench the fury of the flames (Hebrews 11:34).

Daniel 3, as well as Daniel’s own escapade in the lions’ den in Daniel 6 with King Darius of Persia, are all examples of faith displayed and how God stood with Daniel and his 3 friends. And if we faithfully give to God our tithes and offerings, surely He will open the floodgates of heaven to bless us in return (Malachi 3:10), especially if we give not out of abundance but of whatever little we have.

We can not deny that the end times are just around the corner. Increasingly, we will see more signs and witness more of the events foretold in the book of Revelation. The day will come, perhaps even in our generation, that we may need to choose taking the mark of the beast and worship him in order to buy and sell. Daniel 3 and 6 will be our examples to follow. We will stand with Jesus and Yahweh even unto death, but I believe that God will stand with us even as we stand for Him. But even if He doesn’t deliver us, we will nevertheless not bow down to the beast!

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/25/all-for-jesus

As I’ve said before in these pages, I grew up as a believer in a church that emphasises the core group, believing that a church should be 80% core rather than 20% as is the norm. The church had aspirations to plant churches everywhere, I think by then we already had around 20 branches nationwide and was looking at 100 churches. Thus, quite a few of us had aspirations to serve God by going into full-time ministry. By then, we already had 20-30 full-time workers (most already commissioned and a few still in training). Theoretically, it was possible to support such a large pool of pastors as the financial structure was that tithes were exclusively for full-timers fashioned after the Levites of old. Thus, if we were to dedicate our lives to serving the Temple of God, the people of God would be the source of our support. Corollary to that, there was an expectation that the congregation who are working in the secular world will give 20% of their income to the church since it is a congregation that is 80% core. It was the era of the powerful move of the Holy Spirit in Malaysia circa late 70s and early 80s which led to the establishment of many independent churches, and many believers were inspired to give their lives to God, to serve Him fully in the church and ministry.

Over the years, however, the universal church realised that we will actually be a more effective witness if we are in the world rather than exclusively in the church. Colossians 3 is one of those teachings that support the contention that we should give all to Jesus wherever we are. In whatever we do, whether in word or deed, we do it all in the name of Jesus (Colossians 3:17). We are serving Jesus full-time even in our day jobs, in our career in the secular world. If we are ambitious in our career, we are ambitious for Christ, and it is not giving God second priority. It is not putting our job first and ministry second as our day job is our ministry for Christ. We are the light of the world. So, how can the world see our light if we are only in the church? Remember always that though Paul is an apostle, he was a tent-maker. Although the church supports him, he also has his own source of income to live on.

The other thing is that from what I have gathered from the experiences of those in full-time ministry; working in the church is not radically different from the world. They face the same issues like politics at the workplace. There are KPIs and sometimes favourites among the leaders and power struggles. They deal more in the issues of life and general administration than spiritual matters. Of course, the motivation is never the P&L, and yet finance and support is a big topic in any church. All of this is not surprising as the people running the church in full-time are all humans, too. Pastors are flesh and blood like you and I.

The message today is thus Colossians 3:17. Whatever we do, we do it for Christ. At work, in school or college, in ministry or church, we do it for Christ. We need not give up our day jobs to serve God. We can serve God fully in our secular day jobs. But if we have a calling to go full-time, by all means, go ahead. Just that it is not for everyone and we need not feel we are lesser in the Kingdom of God if our calling us to remain in the secular world, toiling at the “land” God has given us. Whatever our “land” – we must allow God to flow it with milk and honey for His glory!

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/24/blessed-routine

As humans, we can not avoid getting into a routine. We wake up, pray, do our morning devotion, take a bath, get ready for work, go for breakfast, and then off we go to work. In our daily commute, it’s either that bus or train ride or in Malaysia the usual drive and rush hour traffic. Like for me, every morning, I face the same congestion just a km away from my condo. At least 5 mins to clear before we enter into the LDP highway, and then it’s about 7-10 mins more to the parking lot of my office. Then, it’s work, emails, and documents to review before we break for lunch until we come back in the afternoon. Maybe an MS Teams meeting or two before we are back on the road to go home. Later, it is dinner, and maybe we watch a bit of Netflix or Youtube or catch up on some other work before we go to sleep to prepare for the next day. Weekends, it’s more relaxed back home at our house in the smaller city with household chores to do, and Sundays are just packed with churchwork before we return to our city condo for the next work week. Every 6 months or so, we try to break the routine with a vacation, or we chill if there is a bank holiday (what we call a public holiday in Malaysia). In every work week and weekend, we try to incorporate some exercise by walking or hiking as much as possible.

Is our routine boring? It can be as it is repetitive. Even if we are retired, we will fall back on a regular daily routine. So some complain about our daily routine as boring. Is there a meaning to this life? Is all this meaningless as Solomon asked before in Ecclesiastes 2? We are made to eat to survive, and for modern humans, that just means work in order to have money to put food on the table and meet our other needs.

If we find our daily routine boring and meaningless, what is it that we want? Live a life that is devoid of any routine? Wake up as we please, sleep as we please. Spend one whole day playing video games, one whole day shopping, and another day hiking up the hills? Is that our goal in life? To break free from these self-imposed daily routines?

For me, I’m good with boring daily routines because I’m able to break them during weekends with my service to God. I also have a daily routine writing morning devotional commentaries. In fact, I start my day with God’s word, and it refreshes and gives meaning and purpose to my daily routine. I know my life is fulfilling God’s calling for me for this season of my life. I know that I’m living out His plans and purposes for my life. Yet I have my own dreams and vision of what I like to do once this phase of my working life is over. Perhaps be more involved in missions and helping out the work of God in other places. Perhaps travel a little more without limitations on annual leave, just that when we are not working, we will have less money. But when we have more money because of work, our time is tied down. That’s life!

If we read Ecclesiastes 2, the conclusion is that everything is meaningless unless we have God in our hearts. God has put eternity in our hearts, and thus, if we have an eternal plan, our boring daily routine becomes meaningful as it is part of our fulfilment of what God wants for us. All that we work for and toiled will be left for someone else to enjoy (Ecclesiastes 2:18, 21). Actually it is OK if those who will enjoy the fruits of our labour are our loved ones and their loved ones. That’s the reason we have family. But it is always better if we work hard and toil in parallel for things eternal and to store riches in heaven, as those things we will get to enjoy when one day we live our eternal life with Jesus and God.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/23/not-a-dream

The story of Peter’s escape from jail described in Acts 12 happened approximately 3 years after Paul’s conversion. The Apostle James, the brother of John, was already put to death by sword then by Herod, and Peter was awaiting trial in jail being chained with two guards at his sides and with two others standing guard outside his cell. Peter was, of course, inside a prison building with various other locked doors and gates.

Despite such security and locks, an angel appeared before Peter and brought him out of the jail safely, opening but not breaking, all the chains and locks along the way until he was out in the street, miraculosly without alerting any of the guards and sentries.

Peter described it as if it was a dream or vision. Reading the story, it felt as though everyone in the prison was under a kind of spell, except that it was not of occultic but heavenly origin.

Sometimes, when we go through some very good times, we want to pinch ourselves to see whether we are dreaming or if we are really experiencing those times? This experience is called “derealisation” or “depersonalisation” and, if chronic, is regarded as a disorder. But it is quite a common mental health condition usually induced by stress. I recall that I had experienced this before when I was involved in preparing my previous company for IPO twenty years back. The long hours made us feel as though we were living in a dream.

As believers, if we are experiencing good times, praise the Lord and thank Him for His goodness. When the heavens open, His blessings can be tremendous and overwhelming as His grace is overflowing from the brim. Even kings and rulers of old sought such divine intervention in the lives of their nations. The LORD was with Joseph, and He prospered Joseph, and the Pharoah who sought his counsel benefited from God’s wisdom in him and saved his nation from the 7-year severe famine.

Christian life is not a bed of roses, as we often hear. There are trials and tribulations, hardship, and suffering. Many had faced death and torture, and many had been martyred for the faith. Therefore, if we are going through a patch of goodness, rejoice with joy that the LORD is opening the heavens to us! But even as we enjoy the glory of His presence and bask in the abundance of His blessings, always remember that to God, His work always comes first. Continue to serve Him with all our hearts and see how we may, in turn, bless His work and His faithful and fervent servants.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/22/tell-the-story-2

To prove something, we need corroborative evidence, meaning to say, something additional to support our assertion of a fact. So if you assert that A had punched you, you could support that by showing the effects of the punch like a blue black or swollen mark on your body. Still, it’s actually not good enough as the injury could be self-inflicted or that it could have been caused by someone else. But because you had asserted that A had punched you, the court may believe you. The defence will then try to cast aspersions on your testimony. For example, if you had recklessly accused other people before or had a habit of making false accusations or you have a reputation of lying. This will likely result in the judge discounting your testimony, giving less weight to your evidence. That is why, in court cases, the best evidence, if available, is the account of an eyewitness – another person who actually saw what happened. The testimony of an eyewitness is very strong corroborative evidence. In modern times, laws of perjury are to ensure that the eyewitness tells the truth. Even during during ancient times, there were already laws against perjury. For example, the 9th Commandment of Moses’s law was not to bear false withness against your neighbour.

Thus, John, in writing the Gospel of John, asserts that he testifies to these things and wrote them down and that they (the people then) know that his testimony is true. John witnessed the last supper, Christ’s agony at Gethsemane, His crucifixion, and His resurrection. On top of that, he also witnessed the transfiguration with Moses, Elijah and Jesus, representing the Old Covenant, the Prophets, and the New Covenant. And at the last book of the Bible, John wrote down what was revealed to him in a vision of the last days from the second coming of Christ, the judgment of both believers and non-believers (the judgment seat of Christ vs the Great White Throne judgment) as well as Eden recreated in the new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21).

As believers, we must have our own “eyewitness” account of God’s goodness in our lives, especially His calling for us and His plans and purposes for our lives. If we are unsure, the clue is that they are all usually aligned with His Kingdom purposes and His work – God’s sovereign will. Abraham was called to uproot his family and move to a foreign land so that God may create His people out of His descendants, and the LORD made the First Covenant with him where his people will be God’s people and He their God. The first 12 disciples were called to be Apostles of Christ, and 11 of them went on to proclaim Christ crucified and resurrected. From being the fiery persecutor of the people of the Way, Paul became the torchbearer to bring the message of the Gospel out of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

Can we like John and the countless others in the pages of the bible and beyond and throughout the ages, testify as eyewitnesses to the goodness of Christ in our lives? How our lives have been transformed, how He has blessed us and our families, and how the Holy Spirit has convicted and guided us to serve Him in His Kingdom with our talents, time, and finance? How the more we give of ourselves to Jesus, the more we are blessed with His everlasting peace and comfort as the living waters flowing from Him overflow from deep within us? We are forever grateful for His gift of eternal life and for His continued presence in our lives. We are always thankful for the Holy Spirit convicting and guiding us along the path of righteousness.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/21/our-choices-matter

As we go through life, whatever age we are, we need to make choices. Some choices are easy, and some are difficult. But we usually choose something that in our view is the best choice for us. So if we were to choose a job, we would choose one that pays the best and gives us the most in career prospects. The ease of travelling to work is sometimes measured in terms of time and expense. Thus, for example, it’s ok to travel long and far if the pay and prospects are good.

But as believers, we ought to have another factor to consider when making choices. Is the choice we make in the will of God? Or put it another way, will the Lord be pleased with our choice? In this respect, there should be both the general as well as the specific will of God that we should look into. The first is our call to righteousness and holiness and the latter more His calling for us personally. Thus, in the case of Joseph, he wanted to remain upright before God, and thus, he avoided advances by Potiphar’s wife, and we know that, as a result, he suffered the consequences. But as the LORD was with him, God turned around his situation. Although Joseph landed in prison as a consequence of his choice to remain upright before the LORD, it became a place of opportunity for him to interpret the dream of Pharoah and, in the end, saved Egypt and his family back in Canaan from the coming 7-year severe famine.

As for God’s calling for our lives, besides the vocation that He had chosen for us, I think His call has more to do with His work than purely our physical well-being. We will not purposely be harmed or afflicted as a result of our choice for Him, but we probably can not avoid some hardship. In other words, a choice for His specific will for our life is not necessarily a choice for a tough life but will likely not be the one that is the most comfortable. Thus, if it involves a few hours of travel to another city on a Sunday to help out a work compared to another church just 15 mins away from home, the latter may not be the obvious choice to make.

As we grow in maturity in God, may we always have Him in our hearts for the choices we make, both in relation to His call to us to righteousness before Him as well as His plans and purposes for our lives. Always make a choice that puts us in the centre of His will so that we are always living in the glory of His presence while waiting for Jesus’s second coming.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/19/you-are-heard

The question asked in the book Physics is whether there is a sound if a tree falls in a lonely forest with no animal nearby to hear it? The obvious answer is, of course, there is – a sound is a sound, even if no one hears it. But is it that obvious? If we think deeper, what is a sound if no one hears it? Will there be such a thing as sound if everyone in the world is deaf and devoid of hearing? Will the word ‘sound’ even exist as part of the human vocabulary?

It is the same with vision. We ‘see’ because there is light, whether natural sunlight or artificial light that is powered by electricity. But if there is no light, then everything is darkness, and we see nothing. We ‘see’ things because light is reflected by the things the same way we see colours as the colours of the rainbow are reflected to us.

The aforesaid are all very philosophical. But thankfully, the LORD hears even if we are all alone in a sea of humanity. He is God, and He is omnipresent and omniscient. He knows everything, and also everything about us. He knew us before we knew Him. He knew us even before the foundations of the world. So long as we call upon Him, He will hear us – even if we are non-believers, He will hear us. He loves all humankind. Many may be called, but few are chosen. Salvation is only for those who believe in and call upon the name of Jesus Christ, God’s one and only begotten Son sent by Him to the world so that we may not perish but have life everlasting (John 3:16).

The tree may fall in the lonely forest, and perhaps there are no animals nearby to hear it. But God hears it. He hears and sees every occurrence and detail in all creation. Call upon Him, and He will heed your call. If you are His and He is your God, He will have a responsibility to take care of you like fathers and grandfathers do. He is our Shepherd if we are His sheep of His pasture.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/18/grandmother-research

It is a common perception in Malaysia that if we leave our children to be taken care of by their grandparents, they will be spoilt. In other words, overly loved. Zero chance of abuse and neglect but 100% likelihood of too much caring and love. It is thus good and bad, but nowadays, as most parents are working to make ends meet, this situation is pretty much unavoidable. There are babysitters we can send our children to, but our family homes will always be the preferred choice if available.

I think one of the reasons why grandparents dot on their grandchildren is that they see it as their renewed chance of parenting. Most didn’t have that opportunity when they first raised their own children as they were busy working. When they were parents, they could have left their children to be cared for by their own parents or babysitters, and thus, now that they are retired and are grandparents, they get to relive those moments they missed when their own children were growing up. Also, I think grandparents are less concerned about character building of their grandchildren (perhaps they think that should be the responsibility of the parents) and thus will likely not want to see their grandchildren learn anything the “hard” way. Grandparents will tend to “facilitate” the learning process more than parents.

It is thus interesting to know from Zephaniah 3:17 that the LORD takes great delight in us. Zephaniah is one of the less known prophetic books in the bible, a minor prophet, and yet speaks of God’s delight in His people, His children, a picture, I think most will have trouble imagining. To many of us, as much as we are now able to interact with God, He is still like a headmaster, making sure we are all good and obedient and do as instructed. Although we know that God shares in our joys and sorrows, we are less inclined to think of Him like our grandfather.

I never knew my paternal grandfather as he had passed away just before I was born. My maternal grandfather was kind and loving but passive when it came to the many grandchildren he had. When young, we always ran to him to give us a dime or two to buy some sweets or snacks. Other than that, he was not much involved in our lives.

Our Heavenly Father is like a grandfather to us, not a headmaster. He is overly loving and caring and may even spoil us. That is why, as much as He is a disciplinarian and may discipline us, He gives us many chances to repent and return to Him. He is most happy when we are doing well in Him. He takes delight in our achievements and progress in Him as we allow ourselves not to conform to the pattern of the world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. He will make all things for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Do not be afraid. Return to Him if we have strayed. Remember the parable of the Prodigal Son taught by our Lord Jesus? God is just waiting for us to return so He may throw us a feast and give us new robes and a new ring to wear.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/17/god-remembers-names

In Isaiah 43, the LORD declares that He knows Israel by name. “He who created you, Jacob. He who formed you, Israel. Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have summoned you by name. You are mine.” In verses 5, 6 and 7, the LORD assured Israel not to be afraid, for I am with you. I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. The LORD reiterated that He will say to the north, “Give them up” and to the south, “Do not hold them back”. “Bring my sons from afar, my daughters from the ends of the earth – everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made”.

Isaiah 43 was proclaimed after the invasion by the Assyrians of Samaria and the exile of the northern kingdom of Israel in 772 BC, as well as the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of Judah by the Babylonians in 586 BC. God punished the Israelites for their insolence and yet promised to redeem them in the future. In the later years, the Israelites returned and rebuilt the ruins of Jerusalem, and this culminated in the creation of Israel in 1948 when the whole diaspora of Jews finally had a state, a homeland – in the present day, nearly half of the world’s Jewish population live in Israel.

At the spiritual level, Isaiah 43 speaks of the calling of God of His children in that He knows each and every one of us by name, the same way He knew Israel by name. The way God interacts with ancient Israel as depicted in Scripture is representative of how He interacts with us individually as believers in Christ. Thus, as much as He may discipline us, His love for us remains steadfast; it never ceases. He is determined to see through His plans and purposes for our lives. We are called by His name, He knows us by name, and we are all created for His glory.

The message this morning is that if we believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, that He died for our sins and is our Lord and Saviour, we have the assurance that God who knows us by our name, has already written our name in the Book of Life. He knows exactly who we are. When we face Him on that day, we need not identify ourselves with our IC number or the address that we used to live in or the job that we used to work or the service that we used to do in His Kingdom. We need not say I am so and so who used to lead your bible study in that life group, that house fellowship, who used to work in that company, who married who and had how many children etc. He sees us, He knows who we are by name and deed, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, where our name is already written in the Book of Life. To me, that is the ultimate significance that the LORD knows us by name. We need to pray and work hard and make sure that Matthew 7:21-23 does not apply to us on that day.