Wrestling with God

https://odb.org/2023/12/19/the-meaning-of-a-scar

The story of Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32:22-32 was a breakthrough that changed Jacob from a cunning and conniving man (who tricked his father Isaac to give to him the blessings of his brother Esau) to one who prevailed in persistence. Jacob named the place he wrestled with God as Peniel because he saw God face to face, and his life was spared. God also renamed him Israel. It is from Jacob that the Israelites derived their name as a nation, that is, a person who struggled or wrestled with God and prevailed. In Genesis 32, Jacob refused to let the man go unless He blessed him, and that man (who was God in human form) blessed Jacob and changed his name to Israel.

I guess in the spiritual realm, there may be a need to wrestle or struggle with God before we get a breakthrough or a new name. The context, of course, is not to resist God or His calling until we get our way. The LORD doesn’t work like that because we always have a choice. In any situation with God, we could always walk away. It is also not our place to ask the Almighty “Great I Am” to follow us.

To me, to wrestle with God is to cling on and not let go of Him until He grants us His blessing, His grace, and anointing that we will indeed have a breakthrough. In response to His calling, we hold on to it until it is fulfilled. We have to be as persistent as Jacob and like Jacob, we may end up with a wound and a scar, but that’s a small sacrifice for the transformation we will experience in our spiritual life.

Be like Jacob. Be persistent with God. Follow Him and fulfil His plans and purposes for our lives. Do not wrestle with the LORD so that He follows our way. That is NOT the spiritual principle from Jacob’s encounter with the LORD!

Our God is near

https://odb.org/2023/12/18/my-god-is-near

I think if we are facing some major crisis or an important exam or presentation like a board meeting or a performance like singing in an event or preaching in church, it is difficult not to be anxious. We are anxious because we are worried that things will not be smooth or will not work out or we may not do as well as we could. Or if a loved one is hospitalised, we are worried that the end result is bad.

But Paul teaches in Philippians 4:6 not to be anxious about anything but in every situation, by prayer and petition (supplication), with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. In verse 5, Paul reiterates that God is near. In essence, God hears our prayers and knows what we are going through. Thus, being anxious or worried will not change the situation or make the outcome better.

I guess if the outcome is somewhat within our control like an exam, presentation, or sermon, we could prepare better. In a lot of situations, it is 90% preparation and 10% delivery. In situations beyond our control, our anxiety adds nothing but may even be harmful to our own well-being.

In any case, prepare as much as we can if the situation allows and then leave everything to God. He knows best. But note one important point, present our requests in prayer and petition, with thanksgiving. Always be thankful and grateful for His abundant grace and mercy in our lives, especially His gift of salvation. Because of that, we are assured of our destiny. In the end, what matters is that we have God with us, and we will be with Him in eternity. Therefore, put our trust and hope in God. Don’t be anxious about anything. In all situations, commit them to God. He knows best.

Christmas gathering

https://odb.org/2023/12/17/christmas-dilemma

Most of us would usually be busy in church when the Christmas season comes. There will be lots of activities and lots to do as most churches gear up for their main evangelistic event of the year, for some the finale to cap the year. This year, my family and I are not involved in the activities and thus have more time to chill and enjoy the year-end festivities. We are having a New Year’s Eve gathering with our cell group at our place, so there will be some work there, but that’s the week after Christmas.

Besides being a time to remember and celebrate the birth of Christ, Christmas is a great time to gather with family and friends to catch up and celebrate the goodness of God. For some families, it is a tradition to enjoy a great time together. But for those who are active in church, church usually takes precedence, with less time for family and other gatherings.

I think a balance needs to be made that we remain active and yet take time off to meet as a family and with friends. Perhaps the food may not be that elaborate, and everyone could chip in as a potluck to lessen the burden on the host since most are busy in church. While many are not able to avoid their ministry responsibilities, let’s still make it a point to meet up to just enjoy the time together, putting aside work and ministry. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!

Merry and blessed Christmas, everyone! It is a week away, but let the festivities begin as we celebrate the goodness of God in our lives through Christ Jesus! Have a great time worshipping God today, and may the Holy Spirit move powerfully in our midst today and touch all of our hearts!

Equal before God

https://odb.org/2023/12/15/equal-before-god

Life is never equal for everyone. I used to wonder and even lament why I was born in Malaysia to ethnic Chinese parents (with Baba Nyonya blood in my mum’s side) where we faced institutional discrimination from when we were young. They say the Chinese are rich, but we were certainly not. Until the day my dad, our sole breadwinner, retired as a primary school teacher, we were still making ends meet month to month. The retirement brought him a gratuity after 35 years of government service. That was his life savings, and there was finally a significant surplus in the family balance sheet. I used to wonder why I was not born into the majority race in Malaysia? But after knowing Jesus, I count it a blessing I was not. As migrants and a minority, we had to be resilient to face the world and still come up tops. With God on our side, we have fared better as a family without the benefit of inherited wealth and despite facing obstacles unique to our situation in life.

But God is fair in the sense that when it comes to our faith and who we are in Him, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Not only in terms of humanity but also the inequality of our birth is irrelevant and inconsequential to Jesus. He came and died for our sins regardless of who we are in the world, whether Jew or Gentile, whether a beggar or a billionaire, an infantry or a general, a Chinese, Malay or Indian or Kadazan or Iban, Persian or Arab? So long as we are humans, our blood is red, and we will be susceptible to disease and old age, and one day, all of us will die and meet Jesus. Will it be at the Great White Throne Judgment or the Judgment Seat of Christ (bema, in Greek)? Do we believe by faith that Christ died for our sins and was resurrected on the 3rd day, and do we accept Him as our Lord and Saviour? Are our names written in the Book of Life?

On reflection, after working for more than 30 years now and having lived for more than 50 years, my conclusion is that it doesn’t really matter who we were born as. It is for us to make something out of our lives, but most importantly, we are all equal before God. Each and every one of us is given an equal chance to accept and know Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. God will help and mould everyone who comes to Him for Him to fulfil His plans and purposes for our lives. He loves and cares for us all in equal measures. In the end, that’s what matters the most. Life may not be fair, but God is.

Paul wrote it so beautifully in Romans 8:38-39: For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

My exhortation to all of us today is to forget the past and what is behind, and instead strain toward what is ahead and press on to win the prize for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus. Make sure we make it past the finish line with our names still written in the Book of Life! Hallelujah! God is good, all the time!

Be still and know that I am God

https://odb.org/2023/12/14/appetite-for-distraction

In the present world of mobile apps, we spend an inordinate amount of time on our phone or tablet, just browsing, whether on social media, YouTube, or just catching the news. This is particularly so with the younger generation so much so that pay TV as a business model is now well past its prime. In other words, if you’re still in the business (I was for more than 20 years), you have no choice but to plough on. It is still profitable, but profits have reduced drastically to less than 20% of what it used to be. Thus, if they used to bring in RM500 mil for their shareholders, they now struggle to even make RM100 mil. Partly due to boring content and partly due to competition from global players, with the most significant impact coming from the change in content consumption habits due to the advent of social media and handsets getting more and more powerful by the day. There is still a place for the big screen whether at home or at the cinema but it is limited. Thus, in Malaysia, would you trade your Astro for Netflix? Most likely, if you are not a live sports fan.

This change in content consumption habits may also impact some of us in relating to God. For example, we may not be able to get away from our phones or tablets to just be quiet before God. Or spend our free time meditating on the Word when we are more inclined to browse, to find out what’s happening, say in the Isareli-Hamas war, or whether the US is still funding Ukraine or how far China is progressing in making 5nm chips without advanced topography tools or have they started making the latter on their own? Or we may just turn on the TV and watch YouTube or Netflix or Astro.

The world is very busy, and a lot of information is disseminated every moment, much of which is accessible by us one way or another. When we catch a breather, can we somehow pray and meditate instead of jumping on our phone or tablets or TV? Can we pick up our guitar or play our keyboard and worship God for an hour or two, and pray and meditate upon His Word? Our hearts have to be genuinely still and rested to be able to hear that still small voice of God speaking to us. We need to be still to know that God is God and Jesus is Lord – Psalm 46:10 – Be still and know that I am God.

Perseverance triumph trials and tribulations

https://odb.org/2023/12/13/overcoming

The story of Anne Sullivan, the subject matter of today’s ODB, bears similarities to Joseph son of Jacob of the Bible. Despite one misfortune after another, they prevailed in the end. In the case of Anne, she developed a method to teach deaf and blind people how to read, especially Helen Keller, a well-known blind activist for the blind. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Sullivan

For Joseph, from being sold to slave traders by his own brothers to being thrown in jail for at least 11 years for a crime he didn’t commit, he rose to interpret dreams for the Pharoah and became the second in command in Egypt. In the process, through God working in him, Joseph saved Egypt from famine and eventually saved his own family. The Jacob household, the remnant of the descendants and family of Abraham then, remained in Egypt for 430 years and became slaves to the Egyptians after Joseph passed on. By the time God raised Moses to free the Israelites from Egypt and bring them to Canaan as the land promised to Abraham (present day Israel), their adult men already numbered 600,000.

I doubt anyone would have suffered the misfortunes of Anne or Joseph (except Job). But even if we did, if we know the Lord, He is able to achieve His plans and purposes for our lives notwithstanding all that we had gone through and are going through. Like Joseph, even though his brothers intended him harm, God brought salvation to the children of Abraham and preserved the line and nation for Jesus to come to the world to save mankind. As many as 6 million Jews were massacred during the Holocaust in WW2, there remained approximately 14 million Jews in the world today. The Jews preserved on despite attempts and professed plans to end their existence.

We are assured of a life in eternity if we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one goes to the Father except through Him. Yet if we hold on to Him, He is able to bring us out of our present day trials and tribulations and sufferings and achieve His plans and purposes for our lives. Perhaps our situation is not like that of Joseph, which led to the survival of a nation. Nevertheless, our response to God will determine the faith and direction of our own family, children, children’s children, and generations down the line.

Strong tower

https://odb.org/2023/12/12/strong-tower

Proverbs 18:11-13 teaches that: the name of the LORD is a fortified tower, the righteous run to it, and are safe. The wealth of the rich is their fortified city; they imagine it a wall too high to scale. Before a downfall, the heart is haughty, but humility comes before honour.

It is ancient and Godly wisdom that although wealth is something tangible that we can rely upon to sustain us – even for generations, it has a tendency to snare us falling into the pride of life, the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh. With wealth, we are more likely to fall, particularly in pride and then into debauchery – living a life driven by wealth and worldly pursuits with no or little regard for the LORD. That is why God teaches us from Proverbs that our fortified tower is only the LORD. Choose God over wealth, and with wealth, we still choose God. Make sure our heart is not haughty as the LORD teaches – humility comes before honour. In other words, being humble is more important than saving face.

There have been people who have lost all to maintain their pride and ego to prove; for example, they can lose that much. It is a silly pursuit because God is the real safe harbour, the genuine fortified tower. He is the ONLY path to eternity. That is also why Jesus taught us to store up our riches in heaven where moth and rust may not destroy, and thieves will not steal. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?

There were some who pursued wealth so that one day they would have financial freedom, and yet when they have wealth, the wealth possessed them to acquire more and more. Like the ring in the Lord of the Rings. It is ironic and yet true; the rich are stingy and hold on tightly to their millions, some even embracing their money to the grave rather than blessing others. Alas on the other side, earthly wealth is of zero consequence. Naked we came, naked shall we go.

God is the real strong tower. Not our career or position in life. Definitely not our wealth. Choose God over wealth and when wealthy, still continue to choose God. Solomon did the former well but faltered in the latter. His conclusion in Ecclesiastes? Life without God is meaningless.

Naomi and Ruth

https://odb.org/2023/12/11/more-than-enough-4

The story of Naomi and Ruth really shows off God’s grace and compassion that despite the misfortune of losing her husband and two sons in their sojourn to a foreign land due to famine, Naomi persevered on in life and returned to Israel. Ruth, a Moabite, followed her mother in law to the latter’s home country to start a new life as a foreigner. Naomi and Ruth didn’t have anything except their clothes on their backs.

But God had a law that required land owners to leave something behind for widows, orphans, and foreigners to glean some leftover wheat to live. In the process, Ruth met Boaz, and he married her, a widow, as her guardian-redeemer. They had a child named Obed who became the father of Jesse, who in turn had David as one of his sons.

Ultimately, it was from the family line of this union of Boaz and Ruth, a foreigner, that Jesus Christ, the saviour of the world, was born. It is an amazing story of God’s compassion and love in challenging times. But in Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz, we find a life lived with integrity and adherence to the law. For example, Boaz, as a wealthy landowner, did not mistreat or take advantage of Ruth, a poor and desolate widow, but treated her with honour and dignity. God, in turn, honoured him.

As much as this is a message of the LORD’s love and compassion, it is also a message on conducting oneself with honour and integrity. We mustn’t take advantage of other people’s dire situation and vulnerability for our own gain. But always conduct ourselves with integrity and honour before God. Do what is right and pay what is rightful. The honour that comes from God is worth much more than the best bargain we may extract from a misfortune.

Living sacrifice

https://odb.org/2023/12/07/giving-like-christ

Continuing on the Christmas theme of generosity, one of the distinctiveness of Christmas is the giving of gifts. We can trace this tradition to the Magi – the 3 kings of orient land – who travelled from afar following a star bringing gold, incense, and myrrh (symbolising kingship, deity, and death) to baby Jesus in Bethlehem. The birth of Jesus foretold years ago to virgin Mary is God’s ultimate sacrifice and gift for the world so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Giving of gifts denotes a measure of sacrifice by the giver as the 1905 Christmas story of The Gift of the Magi goes. O. Henry penned a story of an impoverished wife selling her beautiful hair to buy her beloved husband a gold chain for his pocket watch and the husband selling his pocket watch to buy his beloved wife a set of combs for her beautiful hair. It was a great sacrifice by the couple for each other, but unfortunately, it was mismatched. As much as it was touching, it was also sad, particularly so when they didn’t have much to begin with.

In Romans 12:1, Paul exhorted us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God as our true and proper worship. Paul then continues in Verse 2 that we do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we may test and approve the good, pleasing and perfect will of God. To live our lives as a living sacrifice that does not conform to the pattern of this world is our rightful gift to God in view of His mercy and grace. We offer all we have although He deserves more as the song Alabaster Jar goes.

This Christmas season, let’s spend some time to ponder on how we have been a living sacrifice for God and how we may get better at this as the days go by. Our time to live for God is limited – we will not live forever on this present earth. We may have the gift of eternal life, but how we live on this earth will determine how we will live in eternity. Remember, Jesus taught us to store up our treasures in heaven. Following the Christmas tradition, perhaps we could consider giving sacrificial and meaningful gifts to our loved ones this Christmas that will reflect our generosity in God.

The true meaning of Christmas

https://odb.org/2023/12/06/st-nick

The tradition of Father Christmas or Santa Claus is reputedly based on a generous person named Saint Nicholas of Myra who used his wealth and inhertance to help the poor and needy. Thus, the fable is that he goes around dropping presents via chimneys to children who were good throughout the year. He stays in the Arctic circle and uses a bunch of flying reindeer as his main mode of transport. It’s a tall tale but nevertheless a good one based on a very important attribute of Christ – generosity, which in turn speaks of God’s grace, mercy, and compassion.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas

Of course, we know the true meaning of Christmas is Christ’s birth and God’s love for mankind as Jesus reconciled man to God by His blood shed on Calvary. Christmas is essentially John 3:16 in action, personified. It is certainly not about Santa Claus, but I think there is no need to condemn Santa or avoid him like a plague. Instead, we should, as believers, if we could, uphold Christmas traditions like the decorated Christmas trees while affirming the true meaning of Christmas. Take Santa with a good cheer! These traditions are good to be preserved as they are our link to the world. The world sees Christmas as Santa, presents, and Christmas trees. We should thus use these traditions to connect with them and convey the true meaning of Christmas in the hope that John 3:16 will become real in their lives one day. The great thing about these traditions is that they are universally accepted, and many embrace these symbols, and some even celebrate Christmas even though they are not Christians!

Make it a point to reach out to someone with God’s love this Christmas season. Make use of Christmas symbols and traditions that people are familiar with. Use them to preach Christ. Saint Nicholas’s generosity is to be applauded and celebrated. Most importantly, he himself was a believer who took to heart God’s love, and the world knows him as a good man. Hopefully, through our own good deeds and generosity as we preach Christ, the world will also know us as good people and see Christ reflected.