The Adventure of Discipleship

Discipleship is not the boring and joyless burden of bible study, prayer and attending church services until we are called home to heaven and fighting the temptation to find happiness and pleasure in the ways of the world.  It is the exciting journey of being in communication with our Heavenly Father - it is the abundant life filled with unspeakable joy and the peace that is beyond human understanding.

The good news of salvation is not only that we will go to heaven when we die but that we can live in heaven here on earth even when it feels like it is hell at times. Jesus died a horrible death on the cross to give us the power to overcome our fear of death and suffering. This is graphically described to us in Hebrews 11:34-40

“But others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free. They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection. Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons. Some died by stoning, some were sawed in half, and others were killed with the sword. Some went about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and oppressed and mistreated. They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground.

All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised. For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us.”

We owe a huge debt to these heroes of faith for showing us that the gospel is not about having a good life of happiness health and wealth here on earth but about bringing God’s Kingdom of Love, Joy and Peace from heaven to earth. To follow Jesus is to learn to live fully in God’s presence trusting that the God who gives us life is in the midst of all that life throws at us. We are called to be living witnesses of God’s power and love by putting all our trust in Christ.¹

But all of us are imperfect creatures who are being made perfect in love. Each of us is empowered to live in the presence of God by the power of the Holy Spirit through our faith in Jesus Christ. And through our example of faith we are to lead others to be similarly empowered.

Each of us is the greatest miracle for we are the children of God with the power of love to heal the world. The problem is that we tend to be the mirrors of one another’s fears, anger, greed, lust and doubts instead of being the windows of God’s love, mercy and grace. We are comfortable to remain children of God instead of growing up to become soldiers of Christ in the spiritual warfare raging around us.

Let us encourage one another to develop the full potential of God’s love in each of us and to refrain from criticizing, comparing or competing with one another. There cannot be any sibling rivalry in God’s family. Each one of us has a special and unique relationship with our Heavenly Father. We will all experience God’s love differently and in different ways. Let us cultivate the joy of sharing stories of our adventure of faith as we follow Jesus Christ our Shepherd of Love.

References:

1. Matthew Charlton, Upper Room Reflections, 22^nd May 2012

i-Problems & i-Prayer

Life is often punctuated with intrusions by death, interruptions by ill health, and irritation by difficult people. Such i-Problems are stressful but we have the choice to turn them into ideal opportunities to develop new insights and to see them as invitations to pray and draw closer to God.

Over the past two weeks I attended five funeral wakes - a patient, two old friends, the mother of a close friend, and my uncle. It was a time for deep reflection on the meaning of life as well as a time in which I experienced the truth that in praying for everything we do not need to worry about anything.

In our grief we can mourn and rejoice in the Lord at the same time. We cannot rejoice at the death of our loved ones but we can rejoice because of Christ's promise that He is with us always - especially in times like these. As we do so, we can find joy in the midst of sorrow.

My late uncle had shown me over the past few months, that "no life is so hard that one can't make easier by the way one accepts it."  He was not religious but his life was filled with contentment and a quiet joy even in the midst of his suffering. Through his life and death, God showed me the truth that His steadfast love never ceases and His mercies never come to an end.

It has been said that suffering is inevitable but misery is optional. Many see the Christian life as a burden rather than a joy. We try to please God by own human efforts instead of living the life of peace with God by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We struggle to enjoy life instead of finding the joy of discovering the love that God has filled our lives with. We want to know the answers to the problems of life instead of learning to live out the questions that life presents to us.

The psalmist expresses in Psalm 89:47-48, the feeling that many of us share:

“Remember how fleeting is my life. For what futility you have created all humanity!

Who can live and not see death, or who can escape the power of the grave?”

Og Mandino when he was stricken with prostate cancer, found that one must learn how to die in order to teach others how to live. He drew attention to the importance of our attitude as the deciding factor between suffering hell or enjoying heaven here on earth. We can choose to let our i-Problems conquer us or we can overcome these i-Problems with i-Prayer by rejoicing in the Lord and giving thanks in all circumstances.

G.O.A.T. OR S.H.E.E.P.

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”   Ephesians 2:10

It is encouraging that our Prime Minister has called for a National Conversation to chart the future of our tiny nation, Singapore. Indeed, we stand at a very critical time of history. The winds of change are blowing and our choices will determine whether Singapore becomes a cancerous red dot that is doomed for destruction or a bright shining red dot which is a beacon of light in a dark world of greed, lust and pride.

But what is critically needed in Singapore is not a National Conversation but a nation that is in conversation with our Creator. Towards this end, Christians have the awesome responsibility to become citizens of prayer. For our calling is to be faithful witnesses of the truth that we are the children of God. Not only are we fearfully and wonderfully made but we are God’s masterpieces, new creations in Jesus Christ, created for good works. We are called to be ambassadors of God's Kingdom. We are the imperfect instruments of God's perfect will through the power of the Holy Spirit so that peace will come on earth.

We need a spiritual revival so that we will not seek to become G.O.A.T. – the Greatest Of All Time, but we will become people who are S.H.E.E.P. – Seeing Heaven Everyday in Every Person. When we die, what will count is the love we have sown in the hearts of others rather than the achievements we have attained.  Recently I attended the funeral wake of a 96 year old lady and was touched by the testimonies of her grandchildren and great grandchildren of the love she had given them. It was a love that flowed from her faith in Jesus Christ. She left them with a wonderful testimony of God’s providential care for her and the family.

Og Mandino, who has been described as a most widely read and inspirational and self help author in the world, made the following observation in one of his books:

“If all our lives are truly plans of God, someone had better call a meeting soon to remind us, once more, what great miracles we really are.”

Indeed, the most wonderful secret is that there is a miracle in all of us – Christ in us, our hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). The problem is that we tend to focus on our pain, suffering, failures and defeats rather than the opportunities to grow in our knowledge of God and His perfect plans for our lives in such times. 

We are all looking for answers outside of ourselves instead of cultivating the spiritual disciplines to help us increase our awareness of the presence of the Living Christ in our hearts. It is through the disciplines of devotional reading of the bible, prayer and meditation that we can learn to die to self so that we can be filled with the love of God. We need to cultivate these good habits to overcome the bad habits of consumerism, materialism and elitism.

The greatest miracle is not what we can achieve in our lives but what God is doing in our lives each day.  The writer in the Upper Room devotional on 2^nd September 2012 reminds us that “living for God’s purposes makes us holy, and we are all special in our own ways. God created each of us different, for a unique purpose.”

So let us encourage one another to be S.H.E.E.P. – Seeing Heaven Everyday in Every Person.