Today I was reading chapter 3 of 'Drawing Near', by John Bevere.
he talks about some churches which have grown lukewarm. Quoting from Revelations 3 - "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold not hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth." (v15-16,NIV)
The cause? in the very next verse. "You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked."(v17) We allow the things of this world to satisfy us. One way to detect this life satisfaction is to listen to what we are excited to talk about. Do we love to talk about the amazing things God is doing in our lives? Or do we get more excited talking about our plans for our ministry? Or do we get most excited talking about sports, school, common friends etc. I admit, this must be corrected slightly for our Asian culture, but still.
To be clear, this is not sin. This is only a failure to take hold of all which God has to offer us, to settle for the smallest fraction of God's goodness.
v20 is often used by evangelists, calling the unsaved to repentance. The verse is familiar to all of us - "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." (v20) Yet this message was being said to the church. God is knocking at the door of our churches, and asking to come in. This is further confirmed in verse 22, "He who has ears, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." (emphasis mine)
We will hunger for what we feed on. This concept is similar to what Rick Warren pushes with his '40 days to form a habit' message, but I prefer John Bevere's take on it, because it gels so well with what I've been experiencing and hearing in my own life.
We will hunger for what we feed on, and this is true with real food. If we are always eating junk food, we will crave more junk food. But when we make that deliberate step to change our eating habits, to take more vegetables and fruits, it may start our being very difficult, but then we learn to tolerate it, and then later to enjoy it. It's taken me a couple of years to love my dark green leafy vegetables, but I'm so glad for it. Similarly for my Bible reading, or Christian literature. It's starting to become a habit - not a discipline, but something I enjoy and look forward to. It's so amazing. "A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb." (Prov 27:7) And it's also painfully obvious that I've never made blogging a habit. =) but it's not terribly important, so that's alright.
Jul 18, 2007
My life must be Christ's broken bread
My love his outpoured wine
A cup o'erfilled, a table spread
Beneath his name and sign
That other souls, refreshed and fed,
May share his life through mine.
Albert Orsborn, ex-general of the Salvation Army.
I'd include the other verses as well, but I don't fully understand them. What is the winepress? Why is the fruitful vine a burden?
Jul 6, 2007
Encouragement
Hebrews 3:13 says, "But encourage one another daily, as long as it is
called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's
deceitfulness."
I was greatly encouraged yesterday, as I met up with a few friends who
had just been on a mission trip to the Philippines, as they testified
non-stop about the goodness of God as shown through the trip. It was
not a time of great signs and wonders, of miracles that gave glory to
God, but more of an eye-opening trip, as God showed each of them more
about themselves, and humbled them through the faith and the witness
of the very people they had come to serve.
It amazes me that anyone could bring themselves to preach about
tithing to the extremely poor, or about faith to those in dire
straits. We, who have never been through the kind of hardships they
face every day, surely have no right to even speak of these things to
them. Yet God's grace was abundant in them, as they accepted the
message, and by God's grace, the message even ministered to some of
them.
And as I read this verse, I remembered the wealth of emails I had
received these past weeks testifying of God's goodness. And I've been
putting off reading them, because I've just grown cynical about such
things, but as some of my friends said yesterday, these things are
there to encourage us, and keep us from becoming hardened.
Elsewhere in Hebrews 3, it refers readers back to Ps 95. It talks
about the journey of the Israelites through the desert, and how they
angered God until He declared that they would never enter His rest.
And this is an analogy for our lives too. The Israelites were
obedient to the call to leave Egypt, an obedience borne out of the
fear of the wrath of God. But like many Christians, they became
complacent, demanding, disobedient, and lost their inheritance.
This is a warning to those who believe that once saved is forever
saved. Believing in your heart and confessing with your mouth that
Jesus is Lord is a continual process, and disobedience will disqualify
us from our eternal inheritance just as surely as it did the
Israelites. For our God is an unchanging God, the same yesterday,
today and forever.
called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's
deceitfulness."
I was greatly encouraged yesterday, as I met up with a few friends who
had just been on a mission trip to the Philippines, as they testified
non-stop about the goodness of God as shown through the trip. It was
not a time of great signs and wonders, of miracles that gave glory to
God, but more of an eye-opening trip, as God showed each of them more
about themselves, and humbled them through the faith and the witness
of the very people they had come to serve.
It amazes me that anyone could bring themselves to preach about
tithing to the extremely poor, or about faith to those in dire
straits. We, who have never been through the kind of hardships they
face every day, surely have no right to even speak of these things to
them. Yet God's grace was abundant in them, as they accepted the
message, and by God's grace, the message even ministered to some of
them.
And as I read this verse, I remembered the wealth of emails I had
received these past weeks testifying of God's goodness. And I've been
putting off reading them, because I've just grown cynical about such
things, but as some of my friends said yesterday, these things are
there to encourage us, and keep us from becoming hardened.
Elsewhere in Hebrews 3, it refers readers back to Ps 95. It talks
about the journey of the Israelites through the desert, and how they
angered God until He declared that they would never enter His rest.
And this is an analogy for our lives too. The Israelites were
obedient to the call to leave Egypt, an obedience borne out of the
fear of the wrath of God. But like many Christians, they became
complacent, demanding, disobedient, and lost their inheritance.
This is a warning to those who believe that once saved is forever
saved. Believing in your heart and confessing with your mouth that
Jesus is Lord is a continual process, and disobedience will disqualify
us from our eternal inheritance just as surely as it did the
Israelites. For our God is an unchanging God, the same yesterday,
today and forever.
Jul 5, 2007
Made perfect through suffering
In Hebrews 2:10 thereabouts, it suggests that Jesus was made perfect through the suffering he endured here on earth, which seems to me a strange thing. How can God be made more perfect?
Further down in the chapter it explains that this was partly to do with Jesus' role as a mediator on our behalf and high priest, who is now better able to empathise with our sufferings, having gone through many of them.
it reminded me of something i read in a book some time back, which posed the conundrum that when God created the earth and man, He knew that it was going to descend into the sin and anarchy that we have now. But He created it anyway.
The book went on further to propose that suffering is key to greater glory. there is no glory in being a middle-class person from an average family who grew up to do something great. There is great acclamation for the boy who came from a poor and broken home who grew up to do that same great thing. It's like that quadriplegic who completes triathlons, with his dad pulling him all the way. We admire them because they had a much tougher route to get to where they are now.
Why did God allow Satan to wreck all this havoc in what was once a 'good' world? Because what comes out of the chaos has been tested and proven.
Further down in the chapter it explains that this was partly to do with Jesus' role as a mediator on our behalf and high priest, who is now better able to empathise with our sufferings, having gone through many of them.
it reminded me of something i read in a book some time back, which posed the conundrum that when God created the earth and man, He knew that it was going to descend into the sin and anarchy that we have now. But He created it anyway.
The book went on further to propose that suffering is key to greater glory. there is no glory in being a middle-class person from an average family who grew up to do something great. There is great acclamation for the boy who came from a poor and broken home who grew up to do that same great thing. It's like that quadriplegic who completes triathlons, with his dad pulling him all the way. We admire them because they had a much tougher route to get to where they are now.
Why did God allow Satan to wreck all this havoc in what was once a 'good' world? Because what comes out of the chaos has been tested and proven.
Jul 4, 2007
The Creator
In days long past,
every possession was hand-crafted lovingly by an artisan,
and it was easy to imagine a Creator God who did the same.
In the days of the Industrial Revolution,
possessions are cranked out ceaselessly by impersonal, uncaring machines,
and it is easy to imagine that the Universe works in this way too.
But Who created this machine?
every possession was hand-crafted lovingly by an artisan,
and it was easy to imagine a Creator God who did the same.
In the days of the Industrial Revolution,
possessions are cranked out ceaselessly by impersonal, uncaring machines,
and it is easy to imagine that the Universe works in this way too.
But Who created this machine?
Jul 2, 2007
Wanted: Me
Been doing alot of thinking of late. It started with feelings of guilt, about certain things which I've been putting off. Things which aren't really my responsibility, but which would be good to do anyway. And the train of thought derailed into a far-ranging discourse on serving God, and what exactly it is we are called to do, helped along by various discussions about our life's purpose and how we glorify God.
I reflected back on my journey with God, starting from when I first started to get serious about this whole God business some six or seven years ago, way back in Sec3, where my idea of glorifying God meant putting all of my heart, mind, soul and strength into worship. Shouting out the songs at the expense of my voice, analysing each line and word of every song to see if I could truly mean the words that were being sung, and being quiet if I couldn't. It was all the love that a child knew how to give. The rest of my life wasn't particularly significant - I spent approximately half my waking hours playing computer games - but I worshipped God the only way I knew how.
I remembered how when I went to JC, loving God meant setting aside time for him each morning to seek His presence - the first time I had ever managed a consistent quiet time. I was not satisfied to give Him 15 minutes of my morning on a crowded train - I desperately wanted God's presence each day, giving myself huge amounts of leeway time so that I wouldn't feel any time pressure when I came before Him. Getting to school at insane hours to enjoy the quiet hours with Him. Before I cracked open my Bible, I would sit and pray until I felt God's presence with me, and then I would start reading. Yet I coasted through the other parts of my life, blessed in all abundance with intelligence and good friends.
Over time, I was convicted of the need to use my gifts to serve God. I felt that the next step for me was to move out and begin serving, to stop being a parasite living off the church, but an active, contributing member. I felt that God gave me gifts so I could use them to bless His people, not to hide them under a bushel, a prompting made all the more urgent by the multitude of gifts I knew I had been given. And this new direction has challenged me greatly, forcing me far from my comfort zone in some circumstances, leaving me often weary in mind and body. And in doing so, I have been discovering new strengths, new gifts, and I know that God's been working in me, to repair the broken bits and to strengthen the working bits. And it's been great.
But wondering at these feelings of guilt, which are gradually becoming more familiar, I come to the realisation that I have wandered from my first love. I have subscribed to the belief that doing significant things is the measure of my day, and by extension the measure of my worth. Although I have heard this message many ties before, it has never struck home like this. I remember ending many days with regret at time wasted on worthless things, set upon by thoughts of self-condemnation. And measuring myself by this yardstick, I have come to measure others in the same way, leading to a judgemental attitude.
I pondered upon the analogy of a parent-child relationship, and reflected on how that relationship was independent of any outside success or failure on either person's part, dependent only on mutual love. I thought about the stories I've heard about children who felt overburdened, and ultimately unloved, because of the weight of parental expectation, and I remembered that my God is not like that. My God is the perfect Father, and He loves me with a perfect love that is unchanging and unshakeable.
We were looking at a discussion question which asked us what our primary purpose in life was, and I answered that it was to glorify God. My answer has changed. Our primary purpose in life is to love God. A lesson I was taught a long time ago and had forgotten till recently was that if you had done nothing else of worth in a day except worship God, then that day had been well spent for that reason alone. I remembered Micah 6:8, which had been my favourite verse once, a long time ago, which tells me that the Lord requires nothing of me but to love mercy, do justly, and walk humbly before my God. I imagine the joy which a parent would feel, when a child comes back beaming from a day of fun and relaxation, and I imagine that God would be the same way. After all, God is happy when we are happy.
The caution then, is not to take this lesson overboard. As in bringing up any child, there are times to love them and times to discipline them; times to comfort them, and times to challenge them. As I have been challenged, I hear this call to remember my first love, and to shift my focus to where it should never have left. But even as I feel more justified now to do things which are relaxing and recreational, I must not make them the focus of my life, and I have no idea how the lines are drawn. But one thing I know - that as long as I make room for God in my life, I am moving in the right direction.
I reflected back on my journey with God, starting from when I first started to get serious about this whole God business some six or seven years ago, way back in Sec3, where my idea of glorifying God meant putting all of my heart, mind, soul and strength into worship. Shouting out the songs at the expense of my voice, analysing each line and word of every song to see if I could truly mean the words that were being sung, and being quiet if I couldn't. It was all the love that a child knew how to give. The rest of my life wasn't particularly significant - I spent approximately half my waking hours playing computer games - but I worshipped God the only way I knew how.
I remembered how when I went to JC, loving God meant setting aside time for him each morning to seek His presence - the first time I had ever managed a consistent quiet time. I was not satisfied to give Him 15 minutes of my morning on a crowded train - I desperately wanted God's presence each day, giving myself huge amounts of leeway time so that I wouldn't feel any time pressure when I came before Him. Getting to school at insane hours to enjoy the quiet hours with Him. Before I cracked open my Bible, I would sit and pray until I felt God's presence with me, and then I would start reading. Yet I coasted through the other parts of my life, blessed in all abundance with intelligence and good friends.
Over time, I was convicted of the need to use my gifts to serve God. I felt that the next step for me was to move out and begin serving, to stop being a parasite living off the church, but an active, contributing member. I felt that God gave me gifts so I could use them to bless His people, not to hide them under a bushel, a prompting made all the more urgent by the multitude of gifts I knew I had been given. And this new direction has challenged me greatly, forcing me far from my comfort zone in some circumstances, leaving me often weary in mind and body. And in doing so, I have been discovering new strengths, new gifts, and I know that God's been working in me, to repair the broken bits and to strengthen the working bits. And it's been great.
But wondering at these feelings of guilt, which are gradually becoming more familiar, I come to the realisation that I have wandered from my first love. I have subscribed to the belief that doing significant things is the measure of my day, and by extension the measure of my worth. Although I have heard this message many ties before, it has never struck home like this. I remember ending many days with regret at time wasted on worthless things, set upon by thoughts of self-condemnation. And measuring myself by this yardstick, I have come to measure others in the same way, leading to a judgemental attitude.
I pondered upon the analogy of a parent-child relationship, and reflected on how that relationship was independent of any outside success or failure on either person's part, dependent only on mutual love. I thought about the stories I've heard about children who felt overburdened, and ultimately unloved, because of the weight of parental expectation, and I remembered that my God is not like that. My God is the perfect Father, and He loves me with a perfect love that is unchanging and unshakeable.
We were looking at a discussion question which asked us what our primary purpose in life was, and I answered that it was to glorify God. My answer has changed. Our primary purpose in life is to love God. A lesson I was taught a long time ago and had forgotten till recently was that if you had done nothing else of worth in a day except worship God, then that day had been well spent for that reason alone. I remembered Micah 6:8, which had been my favourite verse once, a long time ago, which tells me that the Lord requires nothing of me but to love mercy, do justly, and walk humbly before my God. I imagine the joy which a parent would feel, when a child comes back beaming from a day of fun and relaxation, and I imagine that God would be the same way. After all, God is happy when we are happy.
The caution then, is not to take this lesson overboard. As in bringing up any child, there are times to love them and times to discipline them; times to comfort them, and times to challenge them. As I have been challenged, I hear this call to remember my first love, and to shift my focus to where it should never have left. But even as I feel more justified now to do things which are relaxing and recreational, I must not make them the focus of my life, and I have no idea how the lines are drawn. But one thing I know - that as long as I make room for God in my life, I am moving in the right direction.
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