https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/16/who-am-i-4

It’s the first time I have read of someone self declaring himself as the Emperor of the United States, as mentioned in today’s ODB posting. He was Joshua Abraham Norton. He printed his own currency, wore royal clothes made by local tailors, and even wrote to Queen Victoria of England to marry him so that their kingdoms may be united. People laughed at him, and because he didn’t have an army, he was not considered a threat to the government of the day. In Malaysia, we have also seen self-proclaimed Sultans attempting to trace their lineage to the Malacca Sultanate of old, but as we have more than nine royal houses in the nine Malay states, the government clamps down on such claims.

Unless we are born of royal blood like Prince Harry or William, we will never get to be royalty. We could, however, if we marry into a royal household like Meghan Markle did. But still, we are not considered as a full blooded royal, and although we may carry royal titles, we will not be part of the succession line. The ancestry is essential as it establishes our credentials as a royal, and even if we are not wealthy and do not exercise any royal functions, we are proud of our bloodline and heritage.

It is interesting that God uses the same approach for us as His spiritual children. Matthew began his book by tracing the geneology of Christ to David, the greatest King of Israel, and declared that He is of Son of David as well as the Son of Abraham. This means that as much as Jesus is the Son of God and was the Logos at the beginning, His birth on earth, although humble, is of royal human origins and ancestry. He is thus a king in His human bloodline and is also an Israelite, a Jew, being part of the many descendants promised by God in His Covenant with Abraham.

In John 1:10-13, John declared that He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognise Him. He came to that, which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who receive Him and who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

In 1 Peter 2:9, Peter exalted that we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people. Likewise, Paul wrote in Romans 8:17 that if we are children, we are heirs – heirs of God, co-heirs with Christ.

No matter who we are born as, no matter how humble our beginnings, if we are in Christ, we have a spiritual heritage to King David and Father Abraham through Christ Jesus, our Lord and Saviour. Even if we are a slave owned by another human like a chattel, we are nevertheless of the royal house of David through Christ.

So who am I? I think it is less important that we define ourselves than to allow God to define us. We are all children of God as we believe in Jesus Christ. Let our Heavenly Father shape and define us in accordance with His will that we may be the person whom He has always wanted us to be. Let us live in the glory of His presence, in the centre of His will, that our heritage in Him may always be protected and preserved for eternity.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/15/exploring-the-stars

I am an ardent fan of documentaries, especially those concerning nature, whether animals or just earthly or even extra terrestrial phenomenon. Even the deep sea is not accessible to most. There are interiors of jungles that humans have not explored and high mountainous regions and vast deserts that we have not fully understood. It was only through the disappearance of our MH370 that I learned about the Indian Ocean and that it is a piece of open waters that people do not venture to due to its treacherous nature. As I grew older, I only knew that even in the high seas and 40,000 feet up in the air, there are predefined paths of navigation that everyone follows.

I guess I prefer facts to fiction, although the make-believe moving pictures world of movies, tele-dramas and soap operas have a function to play for the human psyche – as a source of momentary entertainment and fantasy out of this world. We sometimes live out our own fantasies through the movies!

There is just so much to learn and discover out there. With the accessibility of YouTube and user-generated content, we realise that there is just so much that we ourselves do not know. A whole body of science and probably a few million people are dedicated towards providing health care to human beings as a whole, and yet, despite the billions of dollars poured towards cancer research, we have not been able to find an antitode to cease the metastasis of cancer cells.

The more I learn and discover about new things, whether in relation to our own human bodies or that of nature, the more I marvel at the hand of our creator God. The complexity of all things from the invisible world of microorganisms (invisible to the naked eye and yet physical) to the atomic building blocks of our human and animal cells, to the chemistry composition of various minerals and soil and many other living and non-living things in this world, and the existence of a whole spiritual realm as evidenced by para-nornal activities all point to a force infinitely more powerful and all-knowing than us. The Greeks call this force Logos (translated as the Word), and John starts his book by declaring it to be Christ, who was with God at the beginning.

But the greatest thing ever, to me, is that this Creator God who created all things in all their intricacies and complexity is also our own very God. He is our Lord and Shepherd. He is accessible to us. His presence comes and dwells in the praises of His people. He is our God, and we are His people.

What’s the message this morning? Be assured that nothing that we will go through here on earth can compare to the glory that awaits us in Christ Jesus. No matter how challenging the world around us may become to us, for all the injustice that we face, for all our inadequacies and weaknesses and shortcomings, be thankful that the Creator God, our Heavenly Father, has chosen to take us to be part of His family, His Kingdom. Do good even if others were to harm us. Is that stupid? No, because that’s what Jesus taught us to do. Be thankful that we know Jesus and have Him in our lives as our Lord and Saviour. Do everything possible within our own power and might, to make sure that we are on that narrow path to eternity. We have the ticket already. Don’t drop the ball or let the devil and his evil cohorts take it away!

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/14/loving-leadership

When I accepted Christ, the first church I joined was a Methodist outreach in my small town of Pasir Puteh, Kelantan in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. There were 3 of us local students who accepted Christ during those days through efforts of outstation Christian teachers stationed in our small town. It was a memorable experience, and I was there for around 2 years before my shepherd introduced me to the charismatic movement.

My second church, which was based in the capital city of Kelantan, had a more teacher-disciple or master-student leadership style. It was a branch of a group of churches headquartered in Petaling Jaya. The motto of this church is that as believers, we are an army of God. Thus, discipline and obedience were core. While most churches comprise of 20% core and 80% peripheral in terms of commitment of members, this independent church believes in 80% committed and 20% peripheral. I recall, for example, that it was mandatory for those in the core to pledge 20% of their income to the church, 10% for tithes, and 10% for offerings as the former was exclusively for those in full-time work, while the former was to cover overheads and incidentals like rent etc.

During my 8-year stint in the second church, I learned a lot about God, at times appeared forced or in conformity to the in crowd, but which I still cherish till today; for example, being faithful to a given task no matter how small or insignificant it might be. We used to take turns preparing communion, from the cooking of the unleavened bread to the preparation of the fruit juice. Or cleaning up the worship hall and arranging the chairs for the weekly worship service. There was no need those days to hire cleaners as we had a significant core who did all those work for the church.

Later, a group of us left the church and started our own, and as a breakaway group, we had to do everything ourselves. With all of us, then holding day jobs, we worked for the spiritual good of ourselves and our fellow members in the congregation. It was certainly not to the extent of Paul working tirelessly to provide for the needs of the Thessalonians as was stated in 1 Thessalonians 2:7-12, but we had to fend for ourselves with no more support from the mother church. Any independent startup church will go through this phase, and I will not be surprised if they need to support the church lile Paul did – working tirelessly so that we may provide for the needs and survival of the new church.

I think there are pros and cons to the different church leadership styles, whether authoritative and even dictatorial or conciliatory, and by consensus. In the present day, the latter appears to be more prevalent as people are generally more educated, well informed, and exposed even if we are new to the faith. But too much flexibility means slower transformation of our lives as people tend to postpone and delay making faith commitments even to God despite hearing the call and prompting of the Holy Spirit. A firmer push by the church leadership may sway things a little quicker, but in the end, it is still the work of God and the Holy Spirit in our lives.

I am touched by Paul’s love, resolve, and determination in the way he cared for the congregation in Thessalonica like a mother loves her child, giving everything he has to see them through their spiritual journey. I am sure there are still leaders like that in our midst, and I pray that more of us will be like Paul when we care for those under us.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/12/hows-my-driving

I think some of us become ‘transformed’ persons when driving, and I myself am no exception. Changed, but not in a good way! While in day to day life, I’m less confrontational and usually conciliatory, I can be fairly aggressive when driving. For example, I hate queue cutters. Sometimes, if at all possible, I will not let them pass. My wife will nearly always say, “it’s OK, let them pass – maybe they made a mistake and were not intentional.” I, for one, believe 9/10 of them had evil intentions! Or if someone suddenly cuts into my lane without signalling, it can give me a shock, and I will honked at them, not loudly – usually just to tell them off but if it was a dangerous manoeuvre I can blast my horn at them for driving so dangerously. Another are the road hoggers who do 80 km/h on the fast lane of the highway, causing a long queue or those who drive on the emergency lane. There is nothing much we can do about such irresponsible people, but it still gets to me sometimes. There is, therefore, a gap between our actions and our convictions when some of us drive, and that includes me, and it’s not a good testimony of our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

In James 1:19-20, James advised that we should be quick to listen, but slow to speak and slow to become angry as human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. The background to that verse is actually about the disparity between the rich and poor; that is, the anger of the poor will not bring about righteousness (better translated to justice in the context). It is true because our anger against any ill-treatment by the government or our employer organisation will not bring justice. We only hurt ourselves when we get angry as we will harbour retaliatory actions or vengeful thoughts, all of which are useless against entities much larger than ourselves. True justice can only be achieved by God, in His time, and whether in this world or thereafter. It’s better to commit such matters to God, or else we will be like taking poison hoping our adversaries will suffer the consequences. The idiom says revenge is a dish best served cold, but as believers, our God is our vengeance, and justice will prevail one day through Him!

Driving is actually a good way to test our righteousness in God as my wife always reminds me. If we are more forgiving and more patient on the road, we will truly become a better person in real life, a better child in God, a better servant of our Lord Jesus Christ.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/11/god-sees-understands-and-cares

In general, most of us are anonymous in a crowd. Unless we are a well-known person like a celebrity, a prominent politician, or a famous sportsperson, we will just be an unknown someone in the crowd. It is only when we are placed in a social group like our workplace, our school, or our church that we have a name to our face. We then have an identity. That’s just how human beings have evolved. Everyone’s a stranger unless we have known him or her from somewhere. There are also just too many of us for everyone to know each other.

Although we are anonymous to each other, if we were to take a bird’s eye view and break down each and every one of us, all of us are going through something. In a crowd in a mall, some may be there to window shop, some to buy something, some to eat a meal or a snack, some to meet someone. But everyone is going through something or on a journey. Thus, anonymous we may be, everyone is a precious soul trying to cope with the demands of this natural life, and hopefully, make it past this temporal world unto the realm of eternity. We are too complex a being of our spirit, soul, and body to just live this life on earth only. There must be more to life after death.

The beauty of this whole scenario is that as much as we are anonymous in a crowd and no one from outside is able to see what’s going on behind closed doors and drawn curtains, God sees each and everyone of us whether we are His children or not. He sees understands and cares for each and every one of us. If we don’t know Him yet, He will give us many chances to know Him. If we are superficial in relating to Him, He will draw us deeper to Him. Jesus will draw us closer to His Father, our Father. The Holy Spirit, the Helper given to us after Jesus ascended to heaven to be with the Father, will convict and guide and strengthen our faith.

We are never and will never be anonymous to God. Our entire history as a natural being born into this world is at his fingertips. He knows us inside and out. In fact, our future is also known to Him. Our struggles, our trauma, our sufferings, our tears and sorrows are known to Him, and He sees, understands, and cares for us. In fact, He was right there with us through our valleys and mountain top experiences in life. He sees and knows all those moments when we honoured Him by not doing evil, all those moments when we did good and helped another person in need despite our shortcomings. He saw those times when we sent money to people in need, and those people experienced that God cared for them through us.

Sometimes, we feel we are anonymous and all alone in this world fighting our own battles on our own. We are never alone, for Jesus is always with us, right there beside us to support and help us along. His presence is always only a prayer away. Put our trust in the Lord, and He will make our paths straight.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/10/stolen-gods

Before I knew Christ, my family dabbled a little in idol worship. My dad was from a Catholic background but wasn’t a practising believer. My mum was from a Taoist family. In fact, my maternal grandfather was a Taoist medium with a large altar at home. A few things I still remember till today is the smell of joss sticks at that house (we call it 239) as well as the distribution of roasted pork on days of festivities. I recall that my mum’s side of the family loved to buy numbers, and like most Chinese families, the pursuit of wealth and success via wealth were a major preoccupation in their lives.

Thus, inevitably, worshipping idols or the deities behind those idols, especially in the Malaysian Chinese community, is very much about riches and making it in this world. Life was hard then, and although my maternal grandfather earned quite substantially as a medium and Chinese medical practitioner, he never actually owned any property and passed on without much. Money that came by easily was also lost easily. But nevertheless I would say that he lived quite well, having had two wives and raising 18 children.

As Christians, we are also concerned about whether we can make it in this world as most of us are not born with a silver spoon. In fact, even if we are educated and hold good jobs, very few of us could afford not to work. Few of us own high-income generating estates or vast lands like the upper class in England.

However, as believers, I think most of us are less focused on making it in the world than making it in God. As much as our salvation is a gift from God by His grace and our faith in Christ, we know we have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. There is a sense that we need to work at staying on the narrow path to salvation and not be distracted or tempted to take the broad and easy road, which leads to destruction. Riches will help us live this life more comfortably, but as believers, we know that whatever sufferings we go through here on earth can not compare to the glory that awaits us in eternity. Because Christ died for our sins to save us, we are eternally grateful and indebted to Him to serve Him in His Kingdom. Thus, what should be upmost in our minds is whether we are living in the centre of His will, whether we are fulfilling His calling for our lives – His plans, and purposes for us.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/09/known-by-god

To me, the most touching thing about the resurrected Jesus’s encounter with Mary as narrated by John in chapter 20 and verses 11 to 18 of his book is that Mary, not knowing she was speaking to Jesus, instantly recognised Him when He called out her name Miriam (which is Mary, in Aramaic). She, in turn, addressed Christ as Rabboni, meaning my Master, my teacher. Physically, the resurrected Christ was unrecognisable as Jesus as He was already clothed in His glorified body. Even when He first spoke, Mary didn’t know it was Him, perhaps because she did not expect Him to be resurrected. But when He called her in a way only He could, she immediately knew it was Him, Jesus.

John 20 establishes that Jesus was resurrected after He died. It is the message of Easter that Christ died for our sins to redeem us and that He defeated the sting of sin, which is death. It gives us the hope of the glory that awaits us one day as we fix our eyes upon Him heavenward. For I know my redeemer lives, and that in the end, He will stand on the earth. Though my skin may be destroyed, even in my flesh, I will see God. Job 19:25-26. That’s in the future, one day.

In the present day, we are assured that Jesus knows us by name like He called out to Mary or like the LORD called out to young Samuel in 1 Samuel 3. Most importantly, we are assured by faith that when Jesus calls us, we will, like Mary and Samuel (after the third time), know that He is Jesus and our God. He will call us by our name that we will instantly recognise that it’s the voice of God as we are His sheep and His sheep recognise His voice. Not just from the way He calls our name, but our spirit and soul will resonate and know that it is Him. Like the special and personal way our spouse and loved ones speak to us that we are most familiar with, we will know.

As I’ve written before in these pages, recognising God’s voice may require practice, but we are assured by faith that we will recognise Him. We will know when He speaks to us. We are His sheep, and He is our Shepherd and sheep recognise the voice of their Shepherd.

My dear brothers and sisters, I pray that as Jesus calls and speaks to us that we will experience the peace that surpasses all understanding. That His peace will guard our hearts and minds as we live in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/08/truth-seekers-2

When I was a young Christian growing up, one of the questions I came across was that were there already people (humans or pre-humans?) out there when Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden? This is because when Cain murdered Abel, both Adam and Eve’s first offsprings, and Cain was punished to roam the earth; God gave a warning that whoever kills Cain will be avenged for 7 times by God. How could there be anyone out there when Cain and Abel were the first offspring of Adam and Eve? This could be because it was a literary style of the ancient world to highlight only certain significant aspects of the creation story rather than corroborate the factual accuracy of the story. Or God could be speaking to animals or pre-humans?

Just ten years past, I attended a talk at a local seminary and came across for the first time the debate about young earth during the Q&A time. I asked the speaker what that was all about, and he somewhat condenscendingly answered, “Where have I been all this while that I wasn’t acquinted with this topic?”. I have to admit that I do not make it a point to follow the various debates and controversies explored by the Christian world, most of which, in my view, are academic discourses. I later found out that the young earth theory probably came about to answer the discovery of fossil remains of dinosaurs when the latter was not explicitly mentioned in the bible.

Recently, there have been conspiracy theories on Covid-19 vaccinations as taking the mark of the beast and, as mentioned in today’s ODB, the issue of whether the earth is actually flat. A few years back. I also came across discussions on the Nephilim as being offsiring of the union between fallen angels and humans, perhaps as a way to answer the presence of giants like Goliath of the Philistines. However, I recently watched a video of Chinese basketball star Yao Ming, arriving at KLIA, and his 7 1/2 feet frame indeed made him look like Goliath of the Bible! With advances in medical science, we now know the reasons for these exceptionally tall humans.

While all these discourses may be useful to develop our spiritual outlook and worldview, I think we should not spend too much time dwelling on such things. Ultimately, what really matters, in my view, is our own spiritual journey and walk with God. Are we fulfilling the plans and purposes of God for our lives? Are we being transformed to become more Christlike in our character? Are we serving the Lord in the church and ministry? Are we doing anything meaningful for Jesus in the Kingdom of God? A lot of these questions do not have clear-cut answers in the present time, and some of them may probably be answered only on the day of Jesus Christ!

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/07/hunt-for-inner-healing

Everyone goes through traumatic moments, whether in our childhood or even as adults. There are bound to be times we faced dramatic situations at home, in school or college, or even at work. We could have witnessed our parents’ quarrels or seen a road accident, or we ourselves could have been mugged, molested or harassed or we could have experienced bouts of bullying and racism.

In my youth, I had seen before with my very own eyes an arrested person attempting to flee from a police van only to give up when the policeman discharged a revolver into the air as a warning shot. Some memories are vague, and some are as clear as daylight. I guess the more traumatic ones are embedded in our memory. These experiences and memories sometimes resurfaced in dreams when we sleep or are recalled as we witness or read or watch something similar. The more traumatic ones may becone recurring nightmares. One thing is certain, these past experiences shape our personalities and even outlook in life and may make or break some of us. For example, we could become more reserved, withdrawn, or introverted due to a failed relationship or rejection. Or spiritually, we have become too cautious when we should step up in faith more often.

Isaiah, as a book, is sometimes referred to as the fifth Gospel as it is essentially a message from God of warnings to Israel to keep the faith and the destruction that comes with disobedience in the first half, with the other half on the restoration of Israel. The book, however, is intertwined with the promise of the Messiah and how He is key to the restoration of Israel. Thus, if we look at ourselves as adopted children of Israel through Christ, a lot of what God speaks of Israel in Isaiah may apply to us as spiritual Israel. Isaiah is prophetic as it speaks of the future, and Jesus came and fulfilled His Messianic role. In fact, Isaiah is probably the most quoted of Old Testament Scripture in the New Testament, having been quoted 62 times. Isaiah is thus a favourite book of preachers, especially those who like to operate in the prophetic realm.

Isaiah 61:1-3 speaks of the one who will restore the broken-hearted and proclaim liberty to the captives. The opening of the prison to those who are bound and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. To give them beauty for ashes. The oil of joy for mourning and the garment of praise for heaviness.

If our past trauma has held us captive and bound us from fulfilling our purposes in God and shaped us to be fearful of walking in faith in Christ, Christ is there to heal the broken-hearted and set the captives free. Look to Christ, the Messiah, to break us free from our past that is holding us back in God. We need to break free from the shackles of our past and move forward to the glory of God. Allow God to heal us, to restore all that the locusts had eaten. All that we could have been in Christ, we could now be in Him. Allow Him to do a thorough inner healing within our soul, that God may shape and mould us in His fashion into that sculpture of beauty that is worthy of His crown of glory. It will take time, but this needs to start today, now.

Have a blessed Sunday, everyone, basking in the glory of His presence as we worship Him this morning! Hallelujah, for the LORD, our God reigns!

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/05/grace-and-change

As Christians, we are familiar with Paul’s writing to the church in Rome – that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, to be received by faith (Romans 3:23-26). It speaks of the original sin by Adam that has plaqued humankind since the beginning of time and was only overcome by the death and resurrection of Christ in Calvary. The original sin also led to mankind having the nature of sin.

In Ecclesiastes, Solomon declared that the LORD has put eternity in our hearts, and as we can see from Genesis, when God created man, He created us in His image. Thus, we are, in essence, spiritual beings, although in the natural, we are physical beings. Our physical bodies may die and return to earth, but our spirits live on and return to God until the day of Christ when all will be judged.

Due to the nature of sin in us, we have a natural inclination to sin or or to go against or rebel against God. However, once we are born again, having accepted Jesus in our lives, our spirit has awakened, and as Paul puts it, we have a new self, we are a new creation in Christ. With God living in us and with our new self, we will now be able to overcome our human self who was born with the tendency to sin or go against God.

There is no doubt that the Lord will accept us no matter how wretched we have been, as illustrated by the story of Moses in today’s ODB. And even if we had known Christ and had turned away from God, but if we repent and return to Him, He will accept us with open hearts as illustrated by the parable of the Prodigal Son. The God we know is a God of second and third and fourth chances.

However, I do not think that as believers, we can continue to sin and yet remain in the faith. This is because essentially sinning is going against God, and thus, how can we continue to be rebellious against God if Christ is our Lord and lives in us? Moreover, with the power of the Holy Spirit available to us, we will surely be overcomers! Our old and carnal nature has passed away. We are a new creation in Christ! As we allow the Holy Spirit to work in our lives, we will surely be transformed into the image of Christ that Christ wants us to be! Be that person whom God had prepared and planned for us even before the foundations of the earth!