https://odb.org/MY/2023/02/21/protect-your-heart

As mentioned in my blog post yesterday, Jesus taught before that it is not what’s outside that defiles a person, but what comes out from within us. So if we didn’t follow the tradition of our elders in washing our hands before we eat, it is not fatal to our spiritual life (although that could lead us to consume bacteria together with our food). What could be detrimental is our evil thoughts and intentions that lie within us. https://ronnielim.com/2023/02/20/traditions-versus-gods-law/

Thus, coming back to the weighing scale judgment system employed by some faiths for salvation, I also mentioned before one problem; it may cause us to be mathematical in our good deeds and evil actions and yet not changing our hearts inside us. Thus, we may continue to do evil even as we do good deeds, as we may atone for our evil later. https://ronnielim.com/2023/02/17/white-as-snow/

A fundamental change that comes with believing in Jesus Christ is the change of our hearts, and that to me is one of the more significant goals of the Gospel. The message of the Gospel brings salvation to our souls, but its overarching aim is to make us to be more like Christ, and that is most importantly, in our hearts. It is only with a genuine change in our heart that we may depart from the natural human tendency to repay evil with evil. We will not be able to be kind and forgive those who hurt us (one meaning to the concept of turning the other cheek and loving your enemies as advocated by Jesus) if our heart is still that of our past and not the new creation in Christ. Our hearts must turn towards God and remain so. The one that is of the world will, however, try his level best to turn us back to our old natural self so we are evil again.

How do we guard our hearts? It practically means to keep watch and be vigilant for anything that may draw us away from God and His righteousness. Proverbs 4: 20-27 teaches us to internalise the Word of God and resist temptations. The Psalmist prayed that God would create in us a pure heart (Psalm 51:10). Paul taught in Philippians 4:8 – whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable; anything that is excellent or praiseworthy, think those things. In verse 7, Paul then exhorted us that as we rely on the Spirit, the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus!

Guard our hearts, and pray that God guards our hearts for us by His Holy Spirit. It is the gateway to our soul. It must remain pure, holy, righteous, and true to Him until our last breadth.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/02/20/whats-truly-needed

In Mark 7:8, Jesus admonished the Pharisees and Scribes for focusing on the traditions of the elders but neglecting the spirit of the law. So when the Scribes and Pharisees questioned Jesus why His disciples ate without washing their hands, Jesus turned around and asked them why is it that they had set a rule that allowed the Jews to neglect their parents if the Jews had committed to support them financially? Meaning to say that the financial support to the temple allows the people to disregard their responsibility to their parents. Is that right, Jesus asked? Jesus then continues with the teaching that whatever that is external does not defile a man and that what actually defiles a man is what comes from within. Thus, external traditions like washing of hands before eating is just a human tradition and is not as crucial as the Mosaic Commandments, for example, not to kill, not to steal or not to covet which all stemmed from evil intentions and thoughts from within. It is Jesus’s teaching here that led to believers today to be free to eat any animal (except blood and food offered to idols for other reasons) as compared to the Jews that have strict rules on kosher food.

I don’t think Jesus advocated the total discard and disregard of human traditions as these practices are passed down from generations. There would be good practical reasons for such traditions. But times have changed. For example, the size of ovens and thus there is no present need to cut the meat into two when the reason why that was done in the past was that the meat couldn’t fit into the oven. Thus, with the refrigerator, there is no need to preserve meat with salt and sun, and yet this tradition is continued as people like the taste of such meat.

Yesterday, I led worship in church but forgot that it was a communion service and thus did not prepare a communion song as was our church tradition. But as our service was hybrid (vis Zoom too) and there were slides involved, a last-minute song inclusion would have been too complex to manage a few minutes before the service started. Fortunately, the master of the ceremony (chairman) was understanding and used my last worship song as the communion song. The song was about our love for Christ but has no mention of His blood or Calvary. Our pastor elder was equally understanding when he sang the same song as the end of service/closing song.

Human traditions have their merits. Like the communion song, which provides order to the service and gives emphasis to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Nevertheless, the important thing is still that God is worshipped, and His goodness is celebrated during the worship service, and the other songs did just that. In our daily lives, be prepared to break our own human traditions or the way we do things as the Holy Spirit prompts and leads us or as the situation or circumstance may demand.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/02/19/revival-comes

Most of us who have been Christian for a while would have, at some point in our lives, hope and prayed for a revival in this land. We marvel at the transformation that comes with a revival, the power of the move of the Holy Spirit. Revivals are usually accompanied by true repentance of sins, and from what I have read about revival in other places, these are usually preceded by some spiritual marvel like the physical appearance of an angelic being or manifestation of signs and wonders or deliverance from demonic forces.

I think for Malaysia, we have experienced a few notable revivals that had a lasting impact on the populace. The first is the revival brought by John Sung in the late 19th and early 20th century, which swept across Malaya and brought many in the Chinese community to turn to God, particularly the Foo Chow in Sitiawan. Till today, the Foo Chow community has been strong adherents to the faith, although it has been more than 100 years now since that John Sung revival. Yes, many of the Foo Chow were already believers in China before they stepped foot in Malaya, but this John Sung revival would have converted those who were not and sustained their strong faith till today.

The other revival that I know of is the one in Baram, Sarawak, that turned an entire Kelabit community to God, which came in 4 waves, and the last of which is the Ba’kelalan revival. https://christianitymalaysia.com/wp/the-bario-revival-the-four-waves-and-its-impact/.

Another revival that I know and am a part of is the one in the late 70s and early 80s, which swept across West Malaysia and brought the power of the Holy Spirit into many lives and led to the birth of many churches including the mega ones in the Klang Valley today. My family and I were beneficiaries of a group of University Malaya students who gave their lives to God and went into full-time ministry, which led to the planting of many churches across Malaysia, including my local church in Kota Bharu, Kelantan

I believe fervent prayers will turn the heart of God and bring revival to the land, but I also believe that discovering the sovereign will of God in what He is already doing and will do in our midst may be the more practical key to finding where is His revival. Ultimately, it is His absolute discretion, grace, and compassion on when and where to move, and we can not dictate our hope and wishes on Him, although if we fervently and collectively pray in one heart, we may move the hand of God. Continue to pray for revival in our land, and one day, we may see it happening right before our eyes! Perhaps a good start will be more of us repenting from our sins, turning away from our wicked ways and returning to God!

https://odb.org/MY/2023/02/17/cleansed-completely

Most religions use the concept of a balancing scale between good deeds and evil acts to adjudicate what happens next in our afterlife. Religions that believe in heaven/paradise and hell will send you to the former if your good deeds outweigh your evil acts, and if it’s the other way, then it’s off you go to hell. For religions that preach reincarnation, then the weighing scale will have you reborn at a minimum as a human and, perhaps, a better status human if your good outweighed your bad.

At first glance, the weighing scale appears to be a fair and reasonable determinant. Who can argue against more good deeds versus bad? Surely, the good should prevail and be accordingly rewarded. Except that we do not have a proper scale for the plusses and the minuses. How much good is good and how much bad is bad? If you donate a million dollars to charity, will that counter weigh your murders? Criminals certainly hope so if they survived the rigours of criminality and grow older, but do we know the scale of destruction brought to countless lives with, for example, pushing drugs? Can our donations outweigh the destruction we had wrought? We do all sorts of evil things as all powerful politicians but turn all religious when we retire to atone for our sins. Is that right if we get to go to heaven? Isn’t that somewhat like a backdoor entry?

For us who follow Jesus Christ, we know that salvation is by grace, not by works. After accepting Christ, we have to have works and become a better person like Christ. No matter what we do, we know we can not outweigh the sins in us as our sins originated from Adam. Humans on their own cannot atone sufficiently for their sins. When the LORD introduced the law through Moses for His first chosen nation Israel, the children of Israel struggled for years to follow. In fact, the Jews have introduced a whole body of interpretive laws to put even more details into the law, and modern-day religious Jews are near drowning from the sheer weight and complexity of such laws.

This leads us to the second problem with the balancing scale concept – it doesn’t really make us a good person in our hearts. It’s possibly all external, and sometimes it could just be a ‘show’ to do good while we are still evil and rotten inside us. We would tend to treat all this mathematically even though we don’t really know how it all adds up. We may want to look at it like we need to meet a certain threshold to qualify for the ticket to get past the Pearly Gates. Unfortunately, we may not have changed much inside. Thus, even as we are doing good deeds to atone for our past evil acts, we may do an evil thing again right now since we may atone for it later. If we are not transformed inside, nothing will stop us from continually being evil even when we are doing good.

The way to heaven is only through Jesus as He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is God in flesh, the creator becoming the created to live among us. The only way to salvation and to one day be a part of Revelation 22 with the new heaven and earth and the new Jerusalem with God living amongst us is believing in Jesus Christ by faith. As we invite Jesus into our lives and allow Him to work within us, we will be transformed to be like Him. And if there is a weighing scale at the end of our life after we knew Christ, our good deeds will surely outnumber and outweigh our evil acts and by many fold, as the latter will be so few and far between!

As a child of God in Christ, we are cleansed free from all sin, white as snow. The work now lies ahead to fulfil His plans and purposes for our lives and to become more like Christ within us with the power of the Holy Spirit living in and amongst us.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/02/16/reflecting-his-light

In John chapter 1, John describes Jesus as the Word (Logos) who was there at the beginning. He went on to state that the Word was with God and was God. In John 1:4, it is written that in Him was life, and the life was the light of men. In verse 14, John then stated that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, that we beheld His glory, the glory as the only glory of the begotten Father, full of grace and truth. Thus, Jesus was the Word and that He was the source of life and the light for mankind as Jesus was with God at the beginning and was God.

Although we understand the Word (Logos) to mean the written Word of God as in Scriptures, Logos as enumerated by John has a broader meaning. In Greek thought, then prevalent, Logos means the source of life, the source in the universe that brings forth life. Logos was the force that existed even before creation, before Zeus and all the gods in Greek mythology. Thus, John asserted that Jesus and the Father were both that Logos as the Holy Trinity that existed at the beginning, before anything even existed. That is why the Word (Logos) was the source of life and light for humanity.

Applying this to the concept of light for paintings, the principle is reflected light is never as strong as source light. Reflected light belongs to the shadow (background) and must support and not compete with the source of light. Thus, as a life that came from God, we will never be as strong as the source of life in God and must likewise support and not compete with God. Our lives should reflect His glory, His light, His life. That is why He must come forth, and we must be in the shadow (background). Let Jesus be in front, take the limelight, and be the prominent one in our lives. Like the case of John the Baptist, proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom of God, the one whose thongs on His sandals he was not even worthy to untie (Luke 3:15-17).

This morning, as we start our day and go to work or college, just remember that Jesus is the source of life and light. Without Him, we have no life and no light, too. Let our lives therefore reflect His glory and light as we put Him in the forefront, and we withdraw into the shadow so that His life and light truly shine forth from our lives!

https://odb.org/MY/2023/02/15/juror-number-8

It is one thing to go against the crowd in terms of us not comforming to the pattern of the world, but this is more of us having the courage to be honest in a particular situation. This is actually not as straightforward as we may want to think it is. For example, if a lady asks us whether we think she is fat, being completely honest is quite suicidal and may also be devastating to the inquirer. Yet we are not to lie. So perhaps a good solution is to side step the question to avoid being honest or lie. Another situation is when confronted with a difficult question in a meeting with the big boss like the CEO. As much as people say negative things about ‘yes men’, it may not be advisable to be completely honest if the answer will embarrass your boss or your big boss. So perhaps the solution is to fudge the answer in such a way that we are non-committal on the answer without being completely honest and yet not lying.

In today’s ODB life example of the movie, 12 Angry Men, the eigth juror took a dissenting view and expressed doubt on the culpability of the person charged and in the end convinced all the other jurors to follow suit. The test for criminal culpability in law is that of beyond reasonable doubt, meaning to say, if we have doubts, we don’t convict as the accused will be deprived of liberty or life if found guilty. Thus, we can not afford to make a mistake. The consequence is jail or death. In civil cases between aggrieved parties like a suit for a breach of contract, the standard applied is lower, that is, on balance of probabilities. This means if we think on a scale that the plaintiff is 51% entitled to his claim, we give judgment to him. Thus, the context of Exodus 23 is very much in a lawsuit or the administration of justice. In such instances, we must not bear false witness or use the justice system to oppress the poor or the foreigner, and that includes bribing the judge to achieve a favourable result. There must be fairness and justice when we conduct ourselves in a court of law, whether as a plaintiff, lawyer, prosecutor, or judge. Let the truth prevail and let the aggrieved party be entitled to his claim in accordance with the law if indeed that was the truth.

In other instances, I think we should still exercise honesty with courage but also wisdom. Just because we are Christian does not mean we have to be completely honest all the time. We must still not lie, but I think if the situation is not conducive for us to be completely honest, we must avoid answering the question. In Genesis 12 and 20, Abraham lied twice about Sarah, his wife, as his sister, and in the second instance when the King Abimelech took Sarah into his harem, the LORD intervened and threatened to destroy the King. In that instance, God told the King the truth of the situation.

In conclusion, I just like to say that we must always exercise wisdom in our dealings with one another and others. Honest courage is indeed a virtue and should be aspired to, but there could be times when we need to exercise wisdom in our ultimate choice of words.

https://odb.org/MY/2023/02/14/rejoicing-love

Today is the day we celebrate love, the romantic love between lovers. The love that two persons in love build their lives upon. The love that lovers base and plan their future. With this love, the world is their oyster. They can conquer the world and achieve great things together as a couple where they dream dreams of shared destinies.

To Christians, Valentine’s Day is worldly and may even be of the devil, but true love should nevertheless be applauded and celebrated even if we may be wary of its pagan origins or the commercial capitalism of the celebrated day. As much as the name of the day is based on a 3rd century Christian martyr, St. Valentine, the Catholic saint’s life and work were never about romantic love. Furthermore, the celebrated day of 14th February was based on a 15th February pagan festival named Lupercalia, a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture.

There is merit in celebrating romantic love except that true love transcends youth, beauty, means, achievement, success, and health. Romantic love, if it is love that is true, should be consummated only in marriage, and the Christian marriage vow typically embodies the promise to hold the other for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, in health, to live, to cherish, till death do us part or till Christ returns. It is a vow to take no other flesh except our beloved, and it is until the day we or our better half perishes.

It’s a lifelong commitment, and we stick with one another through thick and thin, no matter the hardship or illness that may befall us, whether we have a job or not or whether our business is a roaring success or a dismal failure, from black to gray hair. We don’t run at the first sign of trouble. Instead, we protect and shield when our love is threatened. We love even if she doesn’t love us anymore because Christ will still love us even if we don’t love Him, and He first loved us when we didn’t even know Him yet.

Love is not just a feeling but a verb. That means we consciously choose to love despite our loved one’s weaknesses and idiosyncrasies, despite our emotions. We love because of who she is, not because of what she can give us. Love is selfless and not selfish. As Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 13, love is, inter alia, long-suffering and kind, patient, does not envy, does not seek evil, does not seek its own, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things!

Happy and blessed Valentine’s Day, everyone! Let’s celebrate true love as God is a God of love and is love! Let’s love our loved ones with true, genuine, everlasting, and enduring love of God!

https://odb.org/MY/2023/02/13/when-hard-pressed

There are two ways to deal with fears : avoid and run away, or face them head-on. I guess the former is the natural option taken by most people. We have a fear, so we avoid. A simple thing like driving, which comes naturally to people who drive, will become a major burden and issue if we are or have become fearful of the road. No doubt we may have passed the driving test and have a valid driver’s licence, and yet we have not overcome our fear of driving, and thus, we are not able to drive on the highway with fast moving and heavy vehicles or in busy cities with lots of traffic. As we have avoided, we did not get the experience, and thus, we are not able to do so confidently, especially if we had gone through driving lessons years ago. The solution is actually to face our fears head-on, and if we have now forgotten, it’s time to take lessons again. There is no need to go through the tests, but a refresher course to reacquaint ourselves to driving again. The skill to drive is a necessity, especially if we need to deal with emergency situations. Face our fears and practice, and soon, we will be able to drive again.

Another example is public speaking, like giving a speech or preaching from the pulpit. I was particularly bad at this. My line of thought freezes. I will miss out on large chunks that I had wanted to say. While natural speakers will go on and on, I dread the time on the stand and always feel why it is taking so long to finish! Words don’t come naturally as I don’t have the gift of the gab. But the maxim, “practice makes perfect,” rings true here as the more we do it, the more confident we get. Although it will still not come naturally like those who can mutter thousands of words off the cuff, I’m now more confident and am more at ease. Preparation is key, and the more we prepare and internalise and practice, the better we will be.

As we have the Lord on our side as believers, we can look to Him for strength and guidance as we face our fears. If it’s due to a past traumatic experience, God can heal us. If it is due to a lack of natural talent, the Lord can help us in our preparation and help us manage our fears on stage, especially if His calling for us is to preach. Often, in preaching from the pulpit, a life transformed is the key to impactful and meaningful preaching. Somehow, the Holy Spirit works better in our midst if our lives are a living testimony of the goodness and reality of God.

The message this morning is to face our fears. Don’t run away and avoid. We need to take the leap of faith with God. If the baby eagle feared and did not take the first step to jump off the cliff and fly, it may remain forever perched on the high mountain, and the time may come when its body outgrows the strength of its wings. By then, if the grown eagile jumps, it may well jump to its death. Don’t be afraid. Move forward. The Lord is with us. Face our fears, whatever that may be, and we will overcome!

https://odb.org/MY/2023/02/12/information-and-evidence

John 21:15 is interesting as John mentioned that Jesus did many other things as well. If every single one of them were written down, he supposed that even the whole world may not have room for all the books that would be written. John 20:31 states that these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Thus, the perspective of the Gospels is that they had to pick and choose the major and more significant landmarks or milestones in Jesus’s 3 years plus of ministry as there are just so many things that He did and probably taught. The Synoptic Gospels will corroborate each other as they write about the same things, but John is a bit different as he focused on the diety of Christ, that Jesus was the Son of God and God Himself, incarnate in human flesh and form.

What I like about the bible is that it tells the stories of the lives of different and many people as they are impacted by God and as they relate to God, and that includes the good and bad as well as the embarrassing. For example, no attempt was made to cover up the sin of David with Bethsheba, although David is regarded as the finest of Israel.

The Old Testament is a testament to the goodness of Yahweh God while the New Testament is more about Jesus Christ as set out in the Gospels, as well as letters written mostly by Paul as he preached Christ resurrected and crucified. Nevertheless, these are stories of how the early believers lived out their faith and about His goodness upon their lives as they spread the faith out of Jerusalem and Judea, to Samaria, and to the lands of the Gentiles. The early church faced similar issues that we face today, like persecutions as well as false teachers. Division within the body. Contemporary faith issues like circumcision and homosexuality. Dealing with the pull of the world and materialism.

What I like to encourage us this morning is that our lives are a continuation of the goodness of God from the stories in the bible. We are like the people in the bible interacting and relating with God, living out our faith. We are in the world and yet not of the world. As we write and live out our own life stories, I believe there are scribes in heaven recording our lives, and like the writers of old, they will write the milestones on our spiritual journeys but without covering up our weak moments, weaknesses and sins. The books of our lives will be too voluminous if everything we ever did was recorded, but it remains that our lives will indeed be a testament to God’s goodness and love and compassion. The stories of Jesus were written, so we may believe that He is the Messiah and the Son of God. Will the stories of our lives be written that others may believe in Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God? Will the stories of our lives be written as a testament to God’s goodness, love, and compassion?

https://odb.org/MY/2023/02/10/come-home-3

I had the same privilege of adopting a stray kitten that came into the deck of our home when she was only around 2 weeks old. She’s now a fully grown one and a half-year adult cat with her own place and potty. Whenever she’s threatened or scared, she will run back to her place. From a stray cat on the streets, she now has a permanent abode.

I recall when I first arrived at the capital city of Kuala Lumpur many years back to further my studies at the University of Malaya or “when I started college,” as the Americans would say. In my first two years, I stayed at in-house residential colleges within the university grounds. Subsequently, I rented a room about 7 km away from the university, having bought a beaten down old motorcycle, which afforded me more mobility than just my pair of legs. Later, when I started working, I was still renting the room that I had stayed as a student until I got married. That’s when we started renting a whole house, and it was at an upcoming suburb about 20 km from the city centre where I worked. We had no choice but to go further away as that was the locality we could afford to rent a whole place to ourselves and was sort of the middle distance between my wife’s workplace and mine. We later bought our first home, and now, after moving twice, we have sort of settled in our present abode as something of a permanent address. It was a long process to finally find our permanent address.

But with God, we have a permanent home in Him the moment we accepted Jesus in our lives. We are anchored in faith in Him. He is our North in our compass of life – the only point that is truly constant and unchanging. He is our rock and salvation. He is our place of refuge, the redeemer of our soul. There is no process of renting a room first, renting a house or apartment later before we “graduate” to our own home. Straight off the bat, we have a permanent place in God. Jesus is ours the moment we accepted Him into our lives. No temporary renting or probationary period. Or, in an alternative metaphorical example, we need not start with a social visit visa before moving on to permanent residential, then to citizenship. We are straightaway citizens of heaven from day one! In fact, in John 14:2, Jesus promised that He would go home to prepare a place for us as in His Father’s house, there are many mansions. We get a house to our name the moment we are in the family.

The message today, I believe, is that if we had wandered away far from home, it’s time to come home to Jesus. He was our first real spiritual home, and He must remain our home until our very last breadth. Come home to Jesus if we have strayed from Him. Always remember we immediately had a mansion in our name on the first day itself when we became citizens of heaven here on earth. Hang on there, and we will one day enjoy eternity in the house of the Lord!