REFLECTION ON IN-VIRGIL SATURDAY

Pastor Cheng Kin shared with us that traditionally the elder brother in the Jewish family would go and search out the younger brother who left home and then went astray. In the story of the “prodigal son” a.k.a. “the parable of the lost sons,” both the children were lost; didn’t know the heart of the father, didn’t know the love of the father except to make some selfish demand. This is the first time I am hearing the message about Jesus being our elder brother (the firstborn among many brethren) who came to seek us who were lost in sin and shame. It was so refreshing that Jesus did all that – died on the cross for me – in order that he might bring me back to my father, receiving my forgiveness and obtain my true inheritance.

The In-Vigil Saturday service was refreshing to my soul and a strengthening of my spirit.

Of course the song “Jesus Paid It All” stirred me in my heart and draw me into the worship of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ thanking him for all that he had done for me. I am forever grateful. Thank you for the cross, the mighty cross. This week has been truly a wonderful spiritual journey for me. Since last Sunday (Palm Sunday) I have been made so aware of Christ – who He is to me, – that really each day brought about a little insight into his love for me. It is so good to be able to feel his love embracing me once again, to feel his presence, and a beautiful encounter of my lover-king!

I don’t know about you, but the whole week has softened my heart, soften my spirit and I found myself once again wanting to be pliable in his hand. I want to give of my best to the Master once again. He has done so much for me – who for the joy (I am one of them) that was set before him that he endured the cross, despising the shame – indeed, shame the shame till there is no shame and became the glorious display of unconditional love, incredible power and impenetrable victory! Greater love had no man than this that he laid down his life for his friend – and I am his friend, his younger brother, and his servant.

I know that all the solemn reflections of Christ, of the cross, and of his death lead to the most glorious climax of his resurrection – Easter Sunday. That makes the difference. He is alive. He is alive. And the gates of hell could not hold him. And death was conquered once and for all. God be praised!

GOOD FRIDAY REFLECTION

Someone said that it shouldn't be called “good” Friday because “good” is too neutral a term. The events of Good Friday are the ultimate paradox—at once atrocious and wonderful, scandalous and beautiful, the worst kind of hate and the best kind of love.

Every year we go through the motion, the ritual, and the re-enactment of the Cross and crucifixion. I wonder how much of it really affects me, changes me, and moves me forward and onward for Him. I wonder how much I truly understand the severity of my own actions that causes the suffering and the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s easy to go through the motion – Lord, I thank you for the Cross, for dying for me, blah, blah, blah – and come out of the other side still back to square one; go on my jolly old way, do my own thing, and live my own life.

I don’t know about you, but I want more of life and I want to come into the place where Christ vicarious death means more than just an emotional rush where I shed some tears over but a truth that hits me real deep within that changes my perspective, that changes my way of life, and that changes how I value my life and my walk with the Lord. His death was no small matter – he didn't have too but he choose too, after all he is the Creator and all creation is through him and for his pleasure. Why has he got to suffer for his creation? He did it to show what true love is. He did it because he is love himself!

This weekend I want to make a difference. I want to stop being selfish, I want to stop being too occupied with what I can get out of my relationship with the Father. It’s time that I take a step back and have a check in my heart. I need to come to Jesus in a fresh new way because I had become jaded through the years. And sometimes because we think we know him when we don’t and that our knowing centers on what we know about him and about what he has done. That knowledge is good because it is the beginning of wisdom but still it is a starting point of truly getting to know him. We can read the bible, books and listen to sermons and think we understand him or know him but in reality we don’t. We can become so confident of our intimacy with the Lord. My experience is that the more I think I know him the more I realize that I don’t know him.

Take time for the Lord who gave his life to you unconditionally except to come to him in repentance!

SO WHAT? – IT’S PASSION WEEK AND EASTER

Let me quote my daughter –

Hypocrisy in the church is so subtle it blends in with the auto-spritzing air-freshener things. What is the point of holding a week-long spiritual performance if, for the rest of the year, no one lives like He's alive?

My response to her was this: “Well said and keen observation. Why not be the minority who shows the difference by turning the week-long spiritual performance into a week-long spiritual revival?” Sometimes, out of the frustration of not seeing things change for the better but the same old same old, that we get so jaded that we give up, let out some frustrated frown, and move on with our own agenda. But I would like to suggest otherwise. Throughout history revival started because there were a few people who dared to believe, dared to be different, and dared to pray till…. It is interesting to note that the majority of the people were not interested, had care-less attitude, and pretty much do their own thing.

I can only hope that our intention of holding prayer meeting for the whole week during the Passion of Christ does not conjure the idea of any special spirituality that we can gain but that it would just be the laying of a pathway for our spiritual experience and growth. I think her statement may stir some people to think she’s being critical or judgmental. That’s alright if people felt that way. I have being teaching my children to speak out and to do it boldly what they are thinking but make sure that it’s a personal opinion and observation always allowing others to disagree or to rebut. I can’t really fault her for her statement because by and large that’s the attitude many people have in relation to their Christian faith and believe.

Think with me, many people still don’t give priority to God in their lives. Sad to say but it’s true that only when we get into a jam that we start running to Him for help and when things are fine we jolly go on our way and do our own thing. Maybe it’s good for us, at this time of the year when the church solemnly reflect Christ’s vicarious death and celebrate His victorious triumph over sin and death for us, to take time to reassess, to reexamine our lives in light of His unconditional love for us. We need to do more than just spend a week in solemn reflection but uses it as a starting point for a life-long living out the truth of God, the reality of God, and our need for Him every day of our lives.

Let us make sure hypocrisy does not blend in subtlety into our daily lives that we think we are spiritually in-tune with the Father but we are actually religious in our rituals and in our duties. Let us make sure that our devotion to the Lord is a daily thing, our intimacy with the Father is an on-going relationship, and our piety is not ritualistic but vibrant, passionate and contagious. Let us be grateful people for all times because Christ paid it all for us!

Praise God He rose from the dead – our Christian faith is meaningful, real, and relevant! 

LIFE WITHOUT FAIRY TALE ENDING

Just went to watch Cinderella and came away feeling good that the story ends well like all fairy tale story should. I wish that real life would be the same but unfortunately that’s not always the case. And just because it’s not like a fairy tale story does not mean it is not good. I think a little of difficulties in life, a little trouble and suffering would do us good after all.

The Word of God informs us to “count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:2-4).

Notice James said that our attitude should be one of rejoicing when we face trials and testing in life. According to him trials and testing has a way of developing patience in all of us. Someone said that “patience is a virtue, possess it if you can; seldom found in women, never found in men.” How true, how true! We all need patience, otherwise we are incomplete – not matured and still lacking. But lacking in what? I think we can say lacking in love and kindness. After all isn't the prophet Micah tells us that the Lord requires us to walk humbly, show kindness and do justly.

One of the phrase I found fascinating in the dialogue of the show is when Cinderella’s mum was very ill and gave her daughter a last piece of advice: “you must find it in your heart to love and be kind.” All her troubles, all the injustices done to her, could not break her promise made to her mother to always be kind and that includes the animals. Does she holds to her dream? Yes. She did not resign to her misery though she gets frustrated and sad. But at the end she still rises up from her misery and finds some goodness.

I am reminded of the verse that Paul spoke of in Romans 8:28 - And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. As far as we are concern as children of God all things work together for good. As long as we love God and walk in his perfect will for our lives, all troubles, trials, and suffering will move towards a goal that shall be called in divine language “GOOD”. Only those who live with eternity in his heart would understand that no situation on earth has the final say regarding his state, his lot, and his meaning in life but only just a piece of the puzzle!

Whether my ending would be a fairy tale ending like Cinderella does not matter. It only matters how I see life through my suffering and beyond my suffering into the very face of the true King of king and Lord of lords. It is there that as I behold the beauty of my King that nothing in this world – the good, the bad, and the ugly - matters anymore. I would gladly give my all to be in the presence of my Abba Father gazing into his love, his majesty, and be embraced in the most secured arms of Him who loves me unconditionally. 

OVER AND ABOVE ALL THAT WE DARE ASK OR THINK

Last week I was down with flu, cough and fever. It was one of those days you feel awful – can’t sleep, cough like mad, and all your bones are aching like an eighty year old suffering from rheumatism. The downside of it all is that I don’t have better half to care for me, cook broth for me, and pray for me. But not all is lost – I have a wonderful younger son to serve me with water and medicine, eldest son to nag me to see a doctor, and a daughter to take me to see one. Well, I did get better and now up on my feet again.

The scripture for me this week was from Ephesians 3:20 (AMP Bible) - Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do super-abundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]—

This bible verse is one of the most positive verse that I have come across in the entire Word of God. It is full of hope, full of possibility, and full of God in it. Sometimes it scares me to think that God would be able to do all that for me – the poor, wretched, sinful me – yet, somehow I want to believe it, to live in it, and to see it happening in front of me. Don’t you want to? Look, the verse said that God is always working within us in consequence of the action of his power. He is so powerful that when he works to accomplish something it will always be done – no question about it. He is so powerful that he is able to carry out his purposes for your life and mine without interruption, without delay, and without mistakes – and he can do it super-abundantly, far over and above all that we even dare to ask and think infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes and dreams. This sound almost crazy but yet it’s what he said and what he promise! God has our best interest in his heart – he knows our every desire, he knows our very thoughts, and he held in high honor our hopes and dreams. Imagine that! Ponder on it! Hold it within your breath and embrace it tightly to your heart what the Lord has said about each one of us!

What is my dream? What is it that I am thinking about? What is my desires and hopes? Wow……

A GREAT ROCK IN A WEARY LAND

Since I came back from my needful holiday I found myself working non-stop. I love getting back into the game, so to speak but little did I know that I was once again caught up in the monotonous drag of a daily grind. If I am not careful I will grind myself to a spiritual halt – a burn-out! Honestly, there’s so much thing to do and so little time BUT life is not to be lived with such drag. I need to back off a little. Perhaps that’s why I am down physically – forced rest from work. I have been sick for the last four days and have not been eating well. Today I am much better therefore I write. Ha-ha.

Isaiah 32:2 - Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.

Reading within context, the Messiah, the God-Man Jesus Christ will be a hiding place from the cold penetrating wind of wintertime; he will be an impervious shelter from the unpredictable storms of life; he will be like streams of fresh and refreshing water in a dry place and the shade of a great Rock in a weary land. How true! Just by the very description of our Messiah and Redeemer Jesus Christ gives us the sense of assurance that there can never be any situation, circumstance or condition of life that God is NOT there in the midst of it to protect, to lead, and to supply!

There are many situations in my life that could make me question his existence, his love and reality BUT at the end I found that if I am not focus on “poor me” and allow him to speak through the circumstances and even the harsh condition of life I would finally be able to hear him speak – in stillness or even in the midst of the cacophony of noises. But if I choose to concentrate on WHY this and why that I would end up making an impatience demand for answers that I least expect and that could destroy the very reality of who God is! God is no-man’s debtor. He cannot be cowed into giving us what we want to hear but what we need to hear.

I know there are people who ended up with the picture of God as a monster – an image that they have painted because they were unable to relate with the Creator because they wanted answers on their own terms. There are some things that we may never be able to fully explain, to grasp, and to comprehend fully about Him and His work. There will forever be questions on the problem of evil, the judgment of God, why He hated Cain and love Abel. There will always be mystery about the work of salvation.

But for me my love relationship with the Father is simple – all that I need to know about Him is plainly written in His word to us (the Holy Bible); accept it, believe it, and apply it. The revelation of God will be made clear each day through the power of the Holy Spirit as I walk in obedience in my daily life. But if I choose to only understand if I can make complete sense, beyond reasonable doubt, and answer to every question succinctly then I have closed myself to any revelation from God who is the very source of my inability to know and explain everything!

MY BUCKET LIST

There are so many youths who have a bucket list - a list of things they want to do or experience before they die. Reading some of the things in their list is amusing because it's out of the ordinary, challenging most of the time, and an experience they wish to enter in, good or bad, smart move or not!

But I decided to have a bucket list too - not the type young people who are full of energy and zest are gravitating towards - but one that would shape me into a man of God, define me as a child of God, and be as close as possible to what God destined and purpose me to be here on earth. I am not a cockalurum (a little man having a high opinion of himself), for sure, but an idealist trying to achieve God's best for me. So here it is......ROMANS 12:9-18

01. Exhibit genuine love
02. Hate evil
03. Hold fast (tightly) what is good
04. Love others with brotherly affection
05. Outdo other in showing honor
06. Be diligent and hardworking - not lazy as far as passion is concerned
07. Serving God with fervency of spirit
08. Be happy - stay positive because I have hope in Christ.
09. Don't lose my cool when I encounter trials, problems or difficult people
10. Be a prayerful person - do it constantly
11. Be generous - see a need, meet a need
12. Show hospitality - welcome people into my home at all times
13. Bless people all the time with my words, attitude and actions - even people who back-stab me.
14. Be empathetic - rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.
15. I must live in harmony with everyone
16. Never be proud - associate with all levels of people as precious people of God.
17. I must never think even for a second that I am smarter than everyone else - that actually makes me look stupid!
18. Only repay goodness and mercy NOT evil for evil.
19. Think honorable, good and wonderful thoughts - I am what I think!
20. I will strive to be a peacemaker in all situation.

That's a tall-order!