https://odb.org/MY/2022/11/04/he-redeems-our-pain

The story of Naomi in the book of Ruth in the Old Testament is a story of how the LORD God redeemed an Israelite woman living in a foreign land (they reloacted to Moab when severe famine hit Judea) after her husband died and her two sons who married Moabite women also died. From a wife to a widow to a childless mother because her sons died, Naomi was in dire straits.

She had two Moabite daughters in law, Orpah and Ruth. She thus returned to Bethlehem in Judah and although Orpah remained in Moab, Ruth chose to follow Naomi back to Judah to live the rest of her life as a foreigner in a foreign land, the land of her husband and mother in law. But the LORD saw their plight and provided Ruth with a kinsman-redeemer, a close relative to take over the responsibility of a husband, in Boaz and Boaz married her. Ruth who was childless bore a son named Obed for Boaz. Obed became the father of Jesse, the father of David whose line came the baby boy named Jesus through the Virgin Mary.

A shattered dream and yet God transformed it by providing a kinsman-redeemer whose line bore the saviour of the world, of mankind. How many of us have lived a life of shattered dreams? Dreams that were buried and died because of circumstances we were in. For example, the quota system in the public universities and families who just made ends meet. In my generation, we had to excel in the public examinations to qualify for the choice courses in the public universities if we wanted to do engineering, medicine, dentistry, law or even economics. There was only one route and it was STPM and we all strived to score 5 As or at least 3As 2Bs. If we didn’t do as well, then we need to take whatever course was offered as our families then couldn’t afford us a foreign university education, not even a private twinning programme. Of course it was prior to the days of the government education loans called PTPTN and in those days we also didn’t have so many local private foreign-affiliated universities and generally families were also less well off than now.

There could have been other dreams that we had missed like an opportunity to serve as a missionary for Christ due to the need to earn a living. Or to pursue our own career choices due to our unique circumstances.

Whatever was our situation, Naomi is the example of God redeeming us of our shattered lives, our broken dreams. It’s a real life story in the Old Testament preserved in perpetuity as a reminder and testament to God’s people of His grace and mercy, of His redemptive power to change and transform lives despite our adverse circumstances or unfavourable “make do” situations. The LORD can and will help us break free and provide us a new life, a lifeline into a promised land like He brought out 600,000 Israelites and their families out of Egypt into Canaan in fulfilment of His Covenant with Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish nation. Naomi is a wondrous testimony of God’s goodness, grace and mercy, of His everlasting love and faithfulness. He is indeed a God that we can cling on to and put our entire faith and trust on. He is our LORD Redeemer, the redeemer of our faith and soul!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/11/03/hearing-christ-not-chaos

John 10:1-10, 27 are famous teachings of Christ that centred on Christ being the shepherd and we as believers His sheep. The main thrust of the teaching is that we as sheep recognise and know the voice of Christ as our shepherd. This illustration is taken from real life as real sheep in general are trained from young to recognise and listen to the voice of the shepherd and will not respond to the voice of strangers. As part of their life, sheep are brought to grazing grounds to roam and feed freely but they need to be gathered together to return to the pen when the time is up. Thus they need to stop grazing and return when the shepherd calls.

So some of us may ask – how can I be sure that I’m able to recognise the voice of Christ, the voice of the Holy Spirit as He calls to guide me in my life? Well the simple answer to that is that Jesus says so! If Jesus says that His sheep knows His voice, then we as His sheep know His voice. It is true because Jesus is God and God never lies.

But we ourselves know the actual reality of our situation. Are we really able to recognise His voice? Or are we listening to our own voice or that of the devil?

Once we have accepted Christ, we can hear Him as our spirit man has been born again and made alive. This means our spiritual senses have been awakened. We become aware of the spiritual world and since Jesus is our Lord and the Holy Spirit lives in us, we will know His voice. But practically, we need to practice this and fine tune and hone our ability. Like a musician or an artist, we need to practice to be good at our craft. Same goes with hearing the voice of the shepherd. We need to consecrate ourselves, seek the forgiveness of the Father for our sins and as we seek Him, we will hear His voice as we pray and read His Word. God speaks to us when we pray and meditate, when we read His Word. We will know when He speaks as we will recognise His voice but we can confirm His spoken rhema word with His written logos Word or from the agreement of others who pray with us or from signs that He may give us.

Christian life as a believer is a journey with God, with Jesus His Son and the Holy Spirit. As we journey on and strive to achieve His plans and purposes for our lives, follow and listen to His prompting in our heart. Listen and obey. The more we listen and obey, the clearer will we be able to know when He speaks. Practice makes perfect! Be assured this morning that as believers we will know His voice when we hear it! We are His sheep and as His sheep we recognise the voice of our Shepherd, the Shepherd of our soul.

https://odb.org/MY/2022/11/02/grasping-gods-word

One of the fundamental things we learn as a believer in Christ is to read the Word of God, the Bible. There are direct teachings there as in the Old Testament law, the actual teachings of Christ in the Gospel as well as instructions and exhortations of Paul and the other Apostles contained in the various letters to the church and also the revelation of the future given to John. And yet intertwined between the lines are also stories of the LORD interacting with His people in the Old Testament and New including Christ walking on earth as a full fledged human being. As we read, we also glean spiritual principles and learn about the person of God Himself. As we read and pray, guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit in us, we also communicate with God. We hear Him speaking to us through the pages of the Bible, we see Jesus coming alive before our eyes as we read and we see the Apostles and the great men of God living for God as we continue to read. Truths are manifested. Hidden mysteries of the Word are revealed to us. There is thus both the logos and the rhema, the historical context and the present reality of Christ in our midst. The written as well as the spoken Word.

Thus having a line between the rings of the barn and house doors as a means not to get lost in the blinding snow is an excellent illustration of what the Word can do for us in our lives. The line of sight to the Word and God Himself will make sure we don’t get lost living life as life throws us blinding snow, sand storms, hurricanes that destroy and disrupt. But if we have the Word of God in us we remain steadfast in our faith and trust in God.

That is why Paul also taught us in Ephesians 6 to put on the whole armour of God as we march on to take back physical territories and those in our lives from the evil one. Put on the belt of truth to protect against the lies and deception of the devil. The breastplate of righteousness to protect against the taunts and accusations of the devil. The shoes of peace to protect against the confusion and division sowed by the devil. The shield of faith to protect against discouragement and fear. The helmet of salvation to protect against doubt and unbelief with the assurance of salvation. And finally take on the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God, which Paul uses the word rhema here, to penetrate strongholds in our lives and other places as it is sharper than a two edged sword.

Take time each day, no matter how busy or stressed we are, to read the Word. It is indeed the lamp of God to guide our paths and our life line to the everlasting peace that only God can give. 10 mins or more, read and reflect, pray and let the Almighty God, our Father in heaven and His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit to speak to us in our hearts of hearts.

https://odb.org/MY/2022/11/01/better-together

The book of the Acts of the Apostles written by Luke who also wrote the Gospel according to Luke, documents the journey of the early church and how its people were empowered by the power of the Holy Spirit and spread the message of Christ in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. It was community living devoting themselves to the apostles’ teachings, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer. They sold their possessions and had everything in common, helping those in need and the Lord added unto their number daily.

In history, there have been communities who had emulated the common living of the early believers but most did not flourish after some years or at most lasted one or two generations. I guess the demands of modern living makes it difficult for large communities to continue living in common indefinitely.

But I think the life example of today’s ODB devotional reading is something every modern church community can emulate with different ones among us chipping in to help a struggling family to live a normal life. Someone giving the mother a job, another renting them a home with reduced rent and yet another lending them a refurbished car to use. I witnessed that before in my own life when the lay pastor of my former church passed away leaving behind a widow with 5 growing children. It has been 12 years since and the family is doing well with two of the elder children having finished college and already working now.

Chip in to help a brother or sister in need. That’s the spirit of the community living in Acts. We don’t need to do it exactly how it was done as the world then and the world now is quite different. But that doesn’t mean we can’t emulate the spirit of togetherness and community giving that they practised. Maybe we could help a family with a small monthly allowance of RM300. It is small but could help them buy groceries for a week or two. Do what we can to help each other especially if we have the means as that is us storing up our treasures in heaven where moss or rust will not destroy or where the thief will not break in and steal. Every good deed that we do, every helping hand that we extend no matter how small is growing our riches in heaven that will be our inheritance in Christ. We should use as much as we have on earth that is within our power and influence to help others as ultimately it is our treasures in heaven that we will have when we leave this world behind.

https://odb.org/MY/2022/10/31/opportunities-to-shine

Jesus’s teaching on the light and salt of the world in Matthew 5:13-16 should be familiar to most of us. It is basically that salt should remain salty because if salt loses its saltiness, it will be thrown away and trampled on the ground as an illustration that we need to maintain our saltiness to remain relevant and useful to others. As for light, the teaching is that light to be useful cannot be hidden the same way a town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Do you light a lamp and put it under a bowl? No, we put it up high so that it can illuminate the house for everyone. Thus we should let our light shine before others that they may see our good deeds and glorify the Father.

The point Jesus is making here is that we should take every opportunity to let the light of God inside us shine and do good deeds. Help others as much as possible. Be like a scout, do at least one good deed a day. Be nice and kind to others that as we shine for God, our Father in Heaven will be glorified. The thing is how do we glorify the Father and not ourselves in the process as the tendency is for people to identify with us if we are doing the good deed.

I think the best way to glorify the Father when we do good or help people is to always identify ourself as a believer. We must proclaim that we are a Christian and even better, we should say that we are doing this for God. The Lord prompted us to lend our helping hand and so here we are in obedience as well as based on the compassion and love and grace that He has put in our hearts. We are doing good because He has been good to us. He has blessed us tremendously, that is why we are helping others.

As a believer we cannot avoid being good and doing good. Our character is to be Christian-like and that means being good. But always remember to give all glory to the Father, to God. We shine our light as a beacon of hope to others so that the name of our Father may be glorified. Remember that. Don’t take the glory for ourselves.

https://odb.org/MY/2022/10/30/hope-in-god-2

It is true that in the contemporary context, we want things instantly. Even in television, when Netflix releases a series, it is at one go with 12 episodes or more. There are still TV programmes that are released one episode a week but Netflix has bucked that trend. So if you have 12 episodes released at one go, you may binge watch all over a weekend. Then it’s all over even though it would have taken months for the production crew to make those episodes. Sometimes we forget the effort, work and time needed to make certain things that we just consume in an instant. Or the engineering and effort taken to make the latest mobile phones that we just take for granted the latest features complaining that they are still not good enough etc.

I think the lamentation in Lamentations 3:24 is apt in the context of our current contemporary world. “The LORD is my portion, therefore I will wait for Him”. Translated, “my portion” means my inheritance or literally my part or my share or my lot as in the division of profits in a partnership. In other words, we have a stake, a share or a portion and that stake, share or portion is God Himself, the LORD God Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth. Meaning to say that our inheritance when we pass away and leave this world is God. We will get Him, He will be ours. And this is confirmed in Revelation 22 as heaven and earth will be one and the LORD will dwell among His people. So why would we not wait for Him? Christ’s death and resurrection have placed a seal on that portion, that guarantees as an added assurance that our portion is secured and sealed.

The same way as minutes of a television programme will take hours to conceive, create, shoot, produce and edit – there are certain things even in the spiritual realm that takes time to come to pass. Not just a matter of a waiving of a hand to dissolve or resolve a situation in an instant. Of course God in His supreme miraculous power could do it but there are ramifications in all directions. That is why certain things need time to materialise. I recall recently in negotiating a contract I had this difficult situation with a vendor who didn’t agree with something but just went round deleting chunks and chunks of the language in my draft contract. I had to tell him off that it was not only rude and unprofessional but also creates so much work for me as even a deletion of a defined word in a contract has ramifications in other parts of the document and I would have needed to relook every single sentence and phrase that has that word.

The world has gotten more complex nowadays. A change here may need changes there and there and there. As much as God relates to us directly and personally, there are millions around us and our interactions alone could be in the thousands. Any decision or action by Christ is never just about us alone. So let us wait for Him. He is our portion. He knows exactly what we are going through and will come through for us, in His time as He will make all things beautiful in His time. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. It is renewed every morning.

https://odb.org/MY/2022/10/28/for-the-sake-of-the-gospel-2

Dr Nelson Bell, a surgeon whose first job was in the Love & Mercy Hospital, Jiangsu – the only hospital then in a city of at least 2 million. He was born in 1894, so the year he started in Jiangsu was around 1916 and he stayed on for another 24 years to just around 1940 or WW2. He is the father in law of Billy Graham as his daughter is Ruth Bell Graham.

Billy Graham as we all know is one of the world’s most influential evangelist and as a couple Billy and Ruth were also well known for their simple and righteous lifestyle and upright and godly character. They are both well respected by many within and beyond the Christian world. One of the few who were never embroiled in any money or sex controversy and yet so well known to have preached to millions for salvation.

I just like to highlight this morning the heritage of Ruth who was born and who grew up in China in the early 20th century whose father was a medical missionary to China for at least 24 years, from the young age of 22 till 46 – basically his peak years as an adult totally given to God for His service.

It is rare nowadays to hear of missionary heritage or families and in my own local church I can only see of potentially only one person and another one who had left. It is rather sad to see that fewer young people are dedicating their lives to full time ministry and missions.

The message today is however on our character as a person as the best means to reach out to others with the Gospel. The message of Christ is not just preaching Christ crucified and resurrected as the path to eternal salvation but living out that life as a person in school, college and at work. Are we a responsible and dependable person? Are we righteous before God and man? Do we practice the Christian values we learn in church? Are we like Billy and Ruth Graham and Nelson Bell? Do spend time reading about these giants of the faith and my prayer for us is that as we read about them, we will be inspired to genuinely and honestly live for Christ every moment of our lives!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/10/27/sister-to-brother

We all know that in the church and ministry, we are all family with one another – brothers and sisters in Christ whether older or younger men or women. In 1 Timothy 5:1-2, Timothy exhorts us to treat the older men as our father, older women as our mother, younger men and women as our brothers and sisters in purity, meaning to say, we are all co-workers in the Kingdom of God and not objects of desire or love. There should be purity in the church although there is a place for relationships between single unmarried men and women.

Intimate relationships between married and unmarried believers or members of the church is against the fundamental teaching of the church that marriage is a life long commitment between one man and one woman. In ancient times, there were polygamous relationships but that was a different era and time when nations go into wars frequently and men got killed in the battlefield leaving widows and children behind to fend for themselves. Thus there was a need for families to be taken care of when men were usually the sole breadwinner then and most vocations were the domain of men. Thus there were rules then for blood brothers to take over the family of another brother who died. Polygamy was a necessity in those times but no more in these modern times of equal rights and women flourishing in the workforce. In fact women outnumber men in universities and colleges nowadays and in public universities, the ratio can be as high as 60/40 since admission is not based on gender but our examination results.

At the practical level, counseling should be done based on gender and at most between couples and the counselled. This will avoid issues of getting emotionally involved with the person we are counselling or advising or mentoring. This is practiced strictly in my local church – we do not encourage inter-gender mingling unless in a group setting to avoid unnecessary complications which may throw the church into disrepute. But in the end, the best way to avoid wrongful relationships and sin is still to follow 1 Timothy 5:1-2 and to treat every other believer as family like a father, mother, brother and sister. I will add every believer is our partner and co-worker in ministry. Our first and foremost objective is to serve God and fulfil His plans and purposes for our lives and for the church. Relationships may still be important if we are single and unmarried as it may be God’s will for us to have a life partner/spouse but everyone should tread with purity and caution so that we always maintain our holiness and righteousness before God.

https://odb.org/MY/2022/10/26/walk-on

There is this belief that preachers always hold on to when they preach, that is, the Word of God will not return void, that it will achieve its purpose. It is actually Scripture from Isaiah 55:11, an actual Word from the LORD as proclaimed by the prophet Isaiah speaking on behalf of God. God declaring that His Word that comes out from His mouth will not return to Him empty but will accomplish what He desires and achieve the purpose for which He sent it.

Thus when we preach the Word whether from the pulpit as the speaker for a worship service, or as part of a bible study fellowship or in an evangelistic meeting or in a funeral or wedding, know that the Word that we speak on has power and authority and can change and transform, can bring joy and peace to our lives, can guide and encourage us in the situations we are facing and bring us forward in our life struggles and issues. But note that the Word of God in such a context is not necessarily the message we are preaching but the Scriptures we are basing our message on. That is why it is a fundamental rule that preaching should always be based on Scriptural texts or references. We need to expound the Scriptures like Jesus did when He was walking the earth. Expound and go deeper into the Word, teach and reveal what God is saying to the congregation and in the process, the Scripture that is expounded which is the Word of God will accomplish what the LORD desires amd achieve the purpose for which He sent it. Every preacher has his or her own way to deliver a message but message without a Scriptural base spoken like a public lecture on broad topics will not likely meet the criteria in Isaiah 55:11. Preaching must be about the Word of God.

Although witnessing and sharing the Gospel can be just about our testimony and the goodness of God in our lives, how we have been charged by the power of God or His grace and mercy, it is important to witness and share with the actual Word of God. Scripture by itself has power as it is the spoken Word of God and thus we should preach, witness and share using a few Scriptures, for example, John 3:16 or Romans 3:23 or John 14:6. We should share with the Word or share based on the Word and when we do that, we know that the Word as spoken will not return to God void. A seed is planted and the Holy Spirit will nurture and nourish that seed to fruitfulness in Christ.

Be a blessing unto others by sharing the Word of God as the Word of God is full of power and authority!

https://odb.org/MY/2022/10/23/true-change

When we accept Christ into our lives, He reigns over us and lives in us as part of our lives. We live life with Him leading the way for us. We do not become Christians or only take a Christ-like character and personality when in church or when dealing with Christians. If we are kind to a stranger, we are kind to a stranger whether alone with believers or non-believers. If we live a life where our actions and reactions to our surroundings and people around us are dependent on who we are with, then there is something fundamentally wrong with our beliefs. Being a believer is never just about the faith we profess, not a question of filling up a form and stating we are Christian but living a life that is centred on Christ with Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. Lord means He is the person that we obey and put our hope and trust on.

That is why we always need to be changed and transformed as a believer. It’s a life long and continous thing. We live not for our selves and our families only but for Christ and God and for the Holy Spirit.

As much as we will probably not attain perfection here on earth and will likely be work in progress throughout our life here on earth, it is still a question of degree of who we are in Christ. As we look back 5, 10, 20 years, can honestly see the transformative changes we have experienced in our lives? Have we become a better person, a kinder person in Christ. A more helpful and supportive person? A more generous person? Willing to give and let go more of our money and possessions? Do we pray more for people in need? Do we speak to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit more? Do we pray to become a better person in Christ? Do we have more compassion and love? Do we more easily forgive those who hurt and harm us?

As we worship the Lord today in Sunday worship service, let’s evaluate ourselves and see whether we are a better person in Christ compared to who we were 5, 10 and 20 years back. Are we doing more for Him, serving Him more in ministry, giving more of ourselves and our lives?

Have a blessed Sunday, everyone!