https://odb.org/MY/2022/11/29/a-hot-meal

Matthew 25:40 is a concept that Jesus espoused encouraging us to help our lesser brethren in their times of need. Jesus begins at verse 34 by inviting the righteous to come and take their inheritance in the Kingdom that was prepared since the creation of the world. This is because they had fed Him when He was hungry. They had given Him a drink when He was thristy. They had clothed Him when He needed clothes. They had visited Him when He was in prison. They had looked after Him when He was sick. Meaning to say when the righteous had helped those of His brothers and sisters who needed help, they had helped Him. It is similar in concept to building treasures in heaven; that is, what we do for God counts towards our riches in heaven. Such riches are intangible here, but they will mean something solid and real when we are in heaven. Those riches could also be the inheritance that Christ spoke about in Matthew 25 verse 34.

This concept of being kind to others in the Kingdom and broadly being kind to everyone (storing treasures in heaven) is radical because it goes against the grain of the world, then and now. The world either takes kindness for granted or just refuses to be kind to others. Everyone minds their own business and goes about life not being involved in the lives of others. You do your thing, I do mine. I’m not obliged to help you as you need to help yourself. In fact, I’m in need of help myself! Why should I be kind to you? Are others kind to me? Do they give me a green pass? Do I get a special treatment, a VIP lane? I get treated like everyone else. So get in line. That’s life! Life doesn’t afford anyone any special treatment. You get life as it is. What is it in for me if I’m kind to you? Nothing!

Except that Jesus taught that if we are kind to another brethren and I would say another human being, we are actually being kind to Him. Jesus thus gives us a reason to be kind to others. Everyone we meet and face in life is Jesus personified, and if we think that way, we will always be kind to everyone lest we ended up being unkind to our Saviour and Lord, who died for our sins and saved us from the sting of sin which is death.

It is strong and difficult teaching but helps us break through our conventional thinking to only think of our own interests most if not all the time. It is teaching that will alleviate us from only storing riches on earth for our old age to storing riches in heaven for our life in eternity. It helps us focus more on the spiritual than only be mindful of the natural. Our work in the world still needs to be done – at least we are not only putting aside some for the rainy day, but we are also putting some in heaven for the time when we are there!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/11/27/so-beautiful

Before I had Ivan and Daniel, I never quite understood the fuss people had over babies and toddlers. Everyone were like saying how cute they were, and yet, for me, they seemed overrated. They were just babies and toddlers. Nothing too special. They were messy and looked so fragile. So I never carried a baby or child before until I had my own. I was afraid that if I had made a wrong move, I could have broken an arm or a leg.

That all changed when I had my own baby and child. Of course, my wife had to carry them in her womb for nine months and deliver them, but they were mine as they were a product of our marriage union. Suddenly I realised what the fuss was. They looked really cute and handsome! I remember being fascinated by their tiny fingers and toes. Their tiny hands and legs. They even had hair on their heads! (But customary for Chinese families, we had their heads shaved for their full moon celebration).

Why the change in me? Obviously, when the baby is ours, the whole perspective changes. They looked cute. Although they are still fragile, I quickly learnt how to handle them, to carry them, help them to sleep, to feed them, change their diapers, but despite all that I never did bathe them until much later. Bathing babies carry high risks, and so that I left to the experts who were my wife, our helper, and mum in law.

That is why if my outlook on babies could change drastically when they were mine, how do you think the Lord looks at us when each of us are uniquely His? Paul declared in Ephesians 2:10 that we are His handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. We are specially and uniquely created by God. We are His. Like our own babies and children are ours, we are God’s very own.

This morning, as we go to church to worship Him and listen to His Word being preached, remember that God loves us. We are His. Each and every one of us is His. We are all uniquely created by Him. Despite our weaknesses, despite our stubbornness, our pig headed-ness; He loves us and will continue to love us. Why? Because we are all His, redeemed back by the blood of Jesus on the Cross of Calvary. God loves us.

Let’s give Him all the glory and honour that He deserves. May His name be exalted all over the earth! Amen!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/11/25/enduring-hope

In the natural, we know that every living, breathing, and moving creature needs to be born or given birth to before it comes out into the earth and live. It is mostly a situation of an egg and a sperm becoming one and being fertilised, just a question of whether the embryo is developed inside or outside the body. That’s our first birth.

We also know that every living creature has a life span – with mosquitos probably living for a few weeks, but humans living around 80 years on average, and some animals like tortoises living even past 120 years. Whatever is the average life span of our species, we will eventually die. That’s our first death.

But if we accept Jesus Christ into our lives as our Lord and Saviour and repent of our sins, we will experience what Jesus called a born-again experience (John 3: 3-7). Of course, we are not going back into our mother’s womb and being reborn as someone had asked Jesus before in the past. It’s the spiritual birthing of the spirit that is the fundamental core of our body. Once we are born again, we are able to relate to God in the spiritual realm and will become more aware of the happenings in that realm that despite us living in the physical world, there is another dimension that is hidden from us and yet is a hive of activities. Paul mentioned before in Ephesians 6:12 that our fight is not against flesh and blood but principalities and powers of darkness in the high places. That is thus the second birth only experienced by believers.

As much as Revelations 21 speaks about the new heaven and the new earth and new holy city of Jerusalem with God dwelling among His people for which those who are victorious will inherit and God will be their God and they His people. Revelation 21 also foretells in verse 8 the ultimate end for those who are cowardly, unbelieving, vile, murderers, sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulphur. That is the second death, and it is an eternity spent without God.

The question worth pondering today is whether we will truly be experiencing the second birth only, or will we also be sucked into the second death. The logic and theory is that it is one or the other, and yet we know that after experiencing the joy, peace, and grace of the second birth, some people do descend back into darkness and will thus be risking the second death. As believers, let’s make sure we remain at two births and one death only!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/11/24/hopes-and-longings

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life (Proverbs 13:12). We all have our hopes and aspirations, and the older we get, the less confident we are of seeing them come to pass. Sometimes, it is just a hope and desire for someone we love to be on a normal path, but he or she chose the road least travelled. Sometimes, these hopes are our dreams that we have left buried like the Shunammite woman in the time of Elisha (2 Kings 4:8) who had lost her hope for a child as her husband was already old.

Our hearts could be sick when our hopes are not fulfilled, and yet, with the passage of time, we have learnt to accept the reality of our situation. Time heals, they say. But if the hope or longing is fulfilled, it is a tree of life. Something that could last us for eternity as the expression, “the tree of life,” is the key to eternal life at the Garden of Eden before the fall. Indeed, hope and longing fulfilled will make our heart settled and happy, particularly experienced by people who had found their soul mates and life partners consummated in marriage. Or if we have found that the thing we do is really what we have been made for, that sweet spot of who we are and what we do in life merging as one. Or we are right now fulfilling God’s plans and purposes for our lives.

Like the Shunammite woman, God can restore a lost hope. In that story, Elisha prophesied to her that she will have a child somewhat in return for her generosity in providing him a permanent place to stay whenever he was in Jerusalem. God rewards our generosity to others, and sometimes, this could mean resurrecting our dead dreams and hopes, our buried longings and aspirations. We are seeing that unfolding right before our eyes, even as Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is at the cusp of fulfilling his hope and aspiration of finally becoming the Prime Minister of Malaysia after being the PM in waiting since the time of Dr M.

Like Anwar, God can do the same for us if not now, one day. Just continue to do what we do best for Him. One day, the LORD will reward our labour of love. Amen

https://odb.org/MY/2022/11/23/trusting-our-future-to-god

Just by way of illustration but based on true events – let’s say we had bought a piece of stock in the open market for RM1.50, and it has lately been hovering between RM0.90 and RM1.20. To buy and sell at the current price range means we are losing money compared to our original price, but if we could buy at RM0.90 and sell at RM1.20, we would theoretically be breaking even (excluding stamp duties and broker commission) and if we manage to do that twice or more, we would be making some money. But what happened to me was that after I bought it at RM0.90, the price dropped further to RM0.80, and now I have lost RM0.70 for the first stock and RM0.10 for the second stock bringing my total loss to RM0.80 when I would have only lost RM0.30 if I had sold the first stock at RM1.20.

The point is we will never know what will happen next, and stocks are probably one of the best illustration because the price could change the next minute and this is particularly so when it comes to crypto currencies.

But take it further into our lives, and although the reality is likely to be less dramatic, we could be breathing one minute and no longer breathing the next. This is because people have died from a heart attack or cardiac arrest just like that. We could be communicating with them on WhatsApp one moment and the next total silence because they are dead. Or just a simple thing like what happened to me at breakfast yesterday morning. One moment, I had just started drinking coffee from the glass, and the next moment, I actually dropped the glass and spilled nearly 80% of the coffee onto the table, my shirt and pants! Fortunately, I only spilled it to my side of the table, and thus not a drop went to my wife’s side. It was dramatic as everyone in the shop looked at me, and the workers were kind in cleaning up the mess I made. If I knew that this would happen, I would have gripped the glass tighter or drank using the spoon. But we will not know and can’t know. That’s how we are made. We have no power or ability to see the future, not just in months or years but even in the next second or minute.

What then is our plan for the future? We take what life throws at us? We try to plan as much as we can but react and adapt as we go along? Yes, that’s what most of us will and can do. But the Bible teaches slightly differently. In Ecclesiastes 2, although we see that life is vanity or meaningless, by the end of the book, the author (believed to be Solomon and the wisest man alive then) advises that we trust our life and future to God. Life is meaningless at the core. We are born, we live, and we die. We don’t know exactly what lies ahead. We come to the earth naked, and we die naked. Yet if we have God in our lives, we will see that life is meaningful and purposeful because we could fulfil God’s plans and purposes for our lives. God have set eternity in our hearts, and with Jesus in our lives, we have eternal life. Though our body will die, our spirit will live on, and one day, our body will be resurrected with Christ.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, even as we go about our daily lives today, commit our life and our future to God. Trust Him with our future. Give Him our lives that His will may be done in our lives. Although we still do not know what will become of us the next moment, we know our life is in good hands if it is with God. Follow His voice and prompting in all that we do, and life will not be vanity anymore! Our life will then be purpose driven, driven by God’s plans and purposes for us!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/11/22/faith-in-action-2

One of the basic facets of our faith in Christ is this teaching in James 2, in particular, verse 26 that faith without works is dead. If we have faith but no works, it is quite useless. But if we have works but not faith, it is also useless because without faith, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:16).

We all know that salvation is a gift from God. We are called by God to be His children. Although many are called, few are chosen (Matthew 22 :14). In the end, not everyone responds to the call. But fundamentally, we cannot work for our salvation. We are saved by the grace of God. We are saved because Jesus died for our sins as the final sacrifice to atone for the sins of mankind, once and for all to break through the spiritual veil that separated man from the Father caused by the original sin of Adam and Eve at the Garden of Eden. Salvation is thus never a question of how hard we had worked in terms of our good deeds to compensate for our sins because we are stained by the original sin of Adam. Not a question of a scale as good deeds cannot outweigh the original sin without the atoning blood of Christ.

Having said that, once we have faith and believed in Christ Jesus as our Lord and Saviour and have reconciled with God, we then need to demonstrate our faith by our good works. If we are saved and continue to live in sin and do evil, are we then representative of God’s love and grace for our lives? We are saved by His grace and by the sacrificial blood of Christ but we continue to sin and do evil? We then become the ungrateful servant in the Parable of the Ungrateful Servant as taught by Jesus.

As James so clearly and rightfully pointed out, like the body without spirit is dead, faith without works is dead. If we are saved and thus we have Christ in us, we cannot avoid doing good. Did Abraham not demonstrate his faith by obeying God to sacrifice Isaac? Did Rahab not risk her life by helping the spies? Did Jesus not die for our sins on the cross? Our faith in Jesus has to be followed by our good works in Christ. That is the natural output, the most natural path after gaining salvation as the road to salvation will be and is paved with our good works here on earth which will translate spiritually to our treasures in heaven. We can say figuratively that our road to heaven is paved with gold, the gold of our good works for Christ in recognition and remembrance of His love and God’s grace in sending His Son to die for our sins that we will not perish but have life eternal!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/11/21/reading-backwards

For us who don’t know, the Gospels are accounts by four people (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) of the life and ministry of Jesus. While John and Matthew were part of the 12 disciples or Apostles of Christ, Mark and Luke were part of a wider circle of 70 Apostles. Another interesting fact is that the first 3 Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke – are called Synoptic Gospels because they are written in a similar chronological order, broadly speaking, and narrates similar events albeit in a slightly differen my angle, while John covers a wider time frame and focuses on some core theological matters taught by Jesus.

John 2:2 contains a statement that breaks the chronology of the events when it referred to something at the end at the near beginning by writing on the resurrection of Christ and how after that the Apostles understood what Jesus meant by destroying the temple and rebuilding it in 3 days. It is also interesting to note that the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation which speaks of events of the future and written in a symbolic style was an account by the same John. Besides Peter who is considered the leader among the Apostles, John is regarded as closest to Jesus and John refers to himself as the disciple that Jesus loves.

It is thus a good approach to read the Bible forward and backward, for example, starting at both Genesis and Matthew or even Revelation. In other words, we start at both the beginning as well as the end. Some people read novels by reading the ending first or watch television dramas by starting with the last episode before going to the first. I’m not sure that for novels or TV dramas, we should start at the end but there is certainly nothing wrong to do so with the Bible. When it comes to reading the Bible, the most important point is to read it regularly on a daily basis. Doesn’t matter where we start so long as we do and continue to do so.

Just like to end today’s devotional commentary by saying that even as GE15 had resulted in a hung parliament for Malaysia and although it is not the change that most of us among the more progressive voters were hoping for (compared to the fundamentalists or the far right), I believe we must continue to trust God that He is in control of everything and that if the change we had hoped for doesn’t materialise this time, it will do so in the future. Continue to pray for His will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

https://odb.org/MY/2022/11/19/god-knows-you

If we read Psalm 139 carefully as written and expressed by David, we’ll first see that no matter where we are, God is there. Whether it’s the heavens or the depths of the sea or the fartherest east or west, God is there.

The LORD has searched us and knows us. He knows our thoughts and when we sit or arise. He knows our going out and our lying down. Before we even speak, He knows what we will say. Where can we flee from Him? He is in the heavens and the depths of the sea. He is there at the edge of dawn and the far side of the sea, meaning, whether it is the east or the west, He is there. Even night and darkness cannot hide us from God.

For me, the wonderful thing about the way David wrote Psalm 139 is that God is not just everywhere (omnipresent) and knows us inside out (omniscience) and is all powerful (omnipotent), but He is everywhere, knows us inside out and is all powerful for us. He is everywhere, true. But He is also everywhere for us. No matter where we are, He can save and protect us. We are never out of reach of His hand. As a believer, we know He is just a prayer away, a prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and His beloved Son.

At the personal level, I think the best way forward with the Lord is to be as honest as possible with Him when we speak to Him. He knows our innermost desires and thoughts. For example, if we harbour ill feeling or hatred or anger because someone did something bad or evil towards us, ask God to help us get over such thoughts. No point hiding them as at most we can only pretend they are not there. But as God knows our heart, pretending they are not there will not make them go away and we know having unforgiveness and hatred will only make things worse as that could be a barrier in our relationship with the LORD. David proclaimed that the LORD has searched him and He knows him. Let the LORD search our hearts and even reveal to us things of the past that still bother us even subconsciously and let Him heal us. We need to move on and move forward in Him. Ask Jesus to take away our excess baggages and to take His yoke that is light and easy.

Malaysians who are voting today, have a blessed day voting for the right party and candidate at our polling station! Pray for His will be done for Malaysia even as He knows our desire for a better future for our country, for our children and children’s children. Take care and God bless!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/11/18/thoughts-and-prayers

Peter’s experience with the angel that helped him miraculously escape from prison (Acts 12:4-11) is different from Paul and Silas’ experience in prison (Acts 16:16-40) where an earthquake broke open the prison doors with the prisoners not escaping which led to the salvation of the prison keeper and his family. The difference is perhaps because Peter was going to face possible execution the next day but Paul and Silas were actually released the next day by the magistrates who had put them in jail at the instigation of the people, in particular, the owner of the slave girl who had a spirit that enabled her to foretell the future. While Paul and Silas’ miracle occurred when they were praying and singing hymns, Peter’s miracle was due to the church continual prayers for him. Both were supernatural in nature and prayer had a major part to play in both.

There is power in prayer; that’s for sure. Prayer can move mountains, figuratively speaking, as prayer moves the hand of God. God being the Almighty who created heaven and earth is surely able to do all things and prayer is the trigger for Him to move supernaturally and miraculously. Does it mean that every time we pray God will supernaturally come into the natural and change events and the course of history? No! But something happens in the spiritual realm and that may set a chain of events in the natural that may eventually change the course of history if our prayer is in the will of God.

So if we have been praying for GE15, we can see that a series of events had led to a change in tide against BN despite them having scored landslide victories in Johor and Melaka at the beginning of the year. We know the reasons for the winds of change but I’m sure the prayer of the saints had something to do with it. From despair and exasperation, we now have hope for the future. Issues have gone beyond race and religion. The narrative is we are in this together, everyone of us in the effort to save the country from doom and destruction. Although incumbency weilds tremendous benefits, any government will know that the toughest time for elections is always during bad economic times but circumstances have been such that the ruling coalition have had no choice but to call for early elections. Are all these factors mere coincidences? Or did our prayers make the difference in the spiritual realm?

Do not discount the power of prayer for big events like GE15 or even for smaller but still significant events or situations facing people we know who may request for our prayers. Pray continually for our nation as well as our friends and family. Pray for God’s will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. Continue to pray until we see the glory of God exalted all over the earth. Continue to pray for His will be done for Malaysia and most importantly continue to pray for GE15 as Malaysia goes into the polls tomorrow! Happy voting!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/11/17/onwards-unswerving

It is indeed ironical that as I am contemplating when to retire that the LORD speaks about finding our rest and joy in love and service. In 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12, Paul exhorts the church that was birth from his missionary visit to live a quiet life, mind their own business, work with their hands so that in their daily lives they win the respect of others and do not need to depend on others.

Not just a question of service or ministry in the church but working in the world to be self sufficient. That is why in my view pursuit of worldly wealth and savings is important so that if one day we were to serve God full time, we are still self sufficient and need not depend on any organisation or church for our subsistence. Not to be rich but to be self sufficient.

Having a job and career is often a necessity for most of us as we need to earn a living, that is, we need to earn for our living. We cannot continue to depend on our parents once we reach adulthood as they need to start saving up for their old age. Few are born with a silver spoon.

Of course if we have a calling to go full time for God we should also pursue that. But it is not likely that all are called to go full time as if so who will support the church? That is why most churches nowadays advocate an initial career in the world to gain working experience and build up some savings before going full time. There is thus a case for lay leadership and market place ministry, that is, our mission field is our work place. Going full time for the Lord need not always mean working in the church or ministry although there is a place for that. For most of us, we should always be full time with God in all that we do in particular our job and career. It is also a better place to serve, with interaction with our colleagues and customers and vendors. There are more opportunities to shine for God. More avenues to reach out and show God’s love.

That is why Paul implies that we should find our rest and joy in our work. As we work with our hands, we gain the respect of others and thus can be a better avenue and platform for the Gospel.

Continue to do what we are called to do at our workplace so that we have an avenue to reach out and at the same time gain the respect of others and be self sufficient without needing to depend on others. We accumulate our own wealth and savings so that if one day we want to serve God full time in missions, the church and ministries we need not depend on others for finance. We have our own finance to serve Him full time.