Step by Step with Jesus

We celebrate the joy of Christmas with the birth of the infant Jesus. But in the midst of all our holiday celebrations at the end of the year, the cries of the new born struggling to adapt to a brand new world outside the womb brings to mind the words of St Paul in Romans 8:22-23

“For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us full rights as His adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.”

God’s gift of salvation in Jesus Christ has given us all a new identity as His beloved children and a new vision of life in His Kingdom here on earth. But we are still in the world even though we may not be of the world. We will encounter problems and storms in our lives sooner or later. However, we have God’s promise of His Providence, His Healing and His Protection against evil as we pray the last three petitions of our Lord’s Prayer.

The key to living as God’s child in the Kingdom of heaven lies in the surrender of our will as we pray, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The discipline of submitting our will to God in all the areas of our lives is a simple and yet a most difficult one. It requires us to search our hearts daily and to be a living sacrifice by seeking God’s will rather than our own. This is the spirit of the Covenant Prayer of John Wesley:

“I am no longer my own, but Thine.

Put me to what Thou wilt, rank me with whom Thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed by Thee or laid aside for Thee,       

exalted for Thee or brought low for Thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things to Thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thou art mine,

and I am Thine. So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven. Amen”

The Covenant Prayer is a commitment to follow Christ by putting God first in everything in our lives. It is to live our lives not in our own strength but in God’s. For many years, I have prayed this prayer during the Watchnight services on New Year’s Eve. Unfortunately, like all new year resolutions, the commitment to live out the spirit of the prayer soon fizzled out with each passing day of the new year.

Towards the end of 2013, I was led to read the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of the Alcoholics Anonymous programme. It was an inspiration for a spiritual journey of honesty and humility - to truly live a totally surrendered life to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. May the Lord lead me to walk step by step with Him each day in 2014.

Sharing the Joy of Christmas in the new year

Christmas has come and gone and soon we will be celebrating another new year. Christmas is a season of celebration and of joy.  The good news is that God has given us the precious gift of His only beloved Son. The question before us is how we can share the joy of Christmas - the good news that Jesus will make a difference in our lives and in the lives of those we meet.  

The reality is that all of us are struggling with weaknesses, addictions, fear, pride and guilt. We are like the Jews who were in bondage in Egypt. We are all slaves to sin through our egos. Jesus did not come to demand that we give up our pleasures in life. He came to set us free from our slavery to sin so that we can transcend the 4 “F”s of the primitive instincts of feeding, fighting, fleeing and reproduction (fornication) which lead us to greed, anger, fear and lust.

It is only when we are set free from sin that we will be able to live the abundant life as children of our loving Heavenly Father. But God’s free gift of salvation means nothing to us if we feel that we have not sinned. But all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (Romans 3: 10-12)

The first step is therefore of repentance – to acknowledge our slavery to our egos, the world and the evil one. We need to be like the prodigal son who came to his senses after losing all he had. We need to be like the alcohol addict who recognizes his helplessness to overcome his addiction and to turn to God for the power to do so.

Jesus is the answer to all the problems we are facing in the world. Jesus is the turning point of human history and mankind has made tremendous advances in society over the past 2000 years. However, we must be careful not to be overzealous or self-righteous to force others to accept our beliefs. Jesus is the gospel that the world needs to see manifested in each one of our lives. As I held my newborn grand-daughter in my arms, it was an experience that brought to mind my need to rest in the arms of our Heavenly Father. The cries of the newborn are also a symptom that we are born into a world of pain and suffering. But Jesus died on the cross to set us free from guilt, fear and death. 

Jesus came as a new born child to teach us that we need to be like the new born in our dependence on God. Our calling as followers of Jesus is to be the windows for the world through which they can see Jesus lifted up in our lives and He will draw all men to Himself.   

We do not need to try to be good or righteous. What we need is to learn to surrender our will to Jesus Christ as Lord in our hearts. But this is not such an easy thing to do. It is by faith that we live out the mystery of Jesus as the incarnation of God – Jesus with us and in us. This is what makes our Christian faith different from the other religions. Let us therefore live as children of God, not in our own strength but because Christ is in us.

May 2014 be a year filled with the love, joy and peace of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.

The Wonder Of Christmas

The wonder of Christmas is the message of “God’s astounding and radical intervention in human history” in the birth of a child. It is indeed an amazing and astounding message that Love Came Down At Christmas through a new born child. Through a new born child, God is teaching us three important truths about the mystery of love and life.

In the helplessness of a new born baby, we are reminded of the first important truth – our total helplessness and our need for the grace of God to live a life that is fully human. The most important thing we need to do is to "make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God." This is the third step in the Twelve Steps of the Alcoholic Anonymous programme for recovery from alcohol or any kind of addiction.

The first step of the Twelve Steps is the acknowledgement by the addict of their powerlessness over alcohol. Likewise, we too need to confess our powerlessness to live a life of love, joy and peace. Like the addicts to alcohol, we too need to take the second step in the Twelve Steps which is to come to a belief in a Power greater than ourselves to overcome our self-centeredness and selfish nature. As Paul reminds us, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We do the things that we do not want to do and fail to do the good that we want to do.

The second important truth that the new born child teaches us is that we need one another. Love is not a feeling but our commitment to seek the good of another regardless of the response we may receive. God is omnipotent but He came as a baby to show us the power of His love as well as the power of powerlessness.

The third important truth is that children are God’s messengers to remind us to live our lives here on earth with spiritual eyes and ears attuned to the voice of our Heavenly Father. As we do so, we will reframe our image of God. We can then develop a loving and intimate relationship with our Abba Father. Jesus came, died and rose from the dead so that we can sing “Because He Lives.” We can be assured that we can face all our tomorrows without fear because Christ lives. He holds our future and life is worth the living:

“How sweet to hold a new born baby,

And feel the pride and joy He gives.

But greater still the calm assurance,

This child can face uncertain days because He lives!”

May this Christmas rekindle our wonder of God’s love and inspire us to live our lives with agape love in the new year.

Advent - A Time To Be Born

“He chose to give birth to us by giving us His true word. And we, out of all creation, became His prized possession” James 1:18

There is a Christmas carol that spells out the truth that Christmas isn’t Christmas till it happens in our hearts. It tells us that somewhere deep inside us is where Christmas really starts. It is when we give our hearts to Jesus that we will discover that Christmas will really be Christmas for us. Otherwise, Christmas will just simply be a time for merrymaking, holidaying and partying.

Advent is the season for reflection on what it truly means to be a Christian. It is a time for Christ to be born anew in our hearts. It is also a time to reflect on how we have only kept Jesus as an infant in our hearts instead of enthroning Him as King over all of our lives.

Jesus came to bring us the gift of truth that we are the children of a loving Heavenly Father and the gift of joy of living in the Kingdom of Heaven in the here and now. The gospel is all about what Jesus has done for us. We are invited to respond by accepting God’s amazing grace. Christianity is not about what God will do for us when we believe in Jesus. When we focus only on God’s blessings instead of our responsibilities as His beloved children we will not be able to live fully in a world that is filled with pain, suffering and death.

Jesus came to show us how to live and how to love as a human being who is totally filled with the love and grace of God. He came to be with us when we face temptation, hunger, fatigue, weakness, suffering and death. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit through the obedience of Mary and Joseph. Jesus came to give us our spiritual DNA as the children of God so that we can be the channels of God’s agape love.

Mary’s response to God’s invitation to bear the Christ child – be it unto me according to Your Word – is an example for us all to follow. It is a stark contrast to the disobedience of Eve who believed Satan’s lie that we can be like God, knowing both good and evil. It is this lie that keeps us in darkness and alienated from God. And it is therefore no surprise that our modern world has so much knowledge but so little wisdom to make the best use of our knowledge.

Eve, the earthly woman was created from Adam, the earthly man. The virgin birth of Jesus is God’s way of redemption as Mary, the earthly woman, gives birth to Jesus, the first born spiritual man. To become a child of God, we need to be born of the Spirit. The virgin birth of Christ, His total obedience unto death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead is the simple gospel of God’s love and power in this world darkened by sin and evil.

It is our identity as a child of God that shapes our beliefs, thoughts, attitudes and values. Our vision will then be to bring God’s Kingdom to earth and our mission will be to do His will. When each of us are living as a child of God, the Holy Spirit will bind us together as the Body of Christ to serve the poor, heal the sick and deliver those in bondage to sin and evil.

May Christ be born in our hearts anew this Christmas!

The Spirituality of Autumn

On our arrival in London, we found the roads carpeted with light golden leaves. Soon the tree branches will be standing bare in winter. It was a graphic depiction of the Lenten Spirituality that I was reading in the devotional, A Well Worn Path, by Dan Wilt. Christians, according to him, are a people called to live in Lent which means “to lengthen our days.” He made the point that our days can be very long when our wayward hearts are tested with inner wrestling and turmoil so that our faith can be proved to be genuine.

The falling leaves in autumn teach us that there are many things in our lives, both good and bad, that we need to let go if we are truly seeking God’s Presence in our lives. The season of autumn draws our attention to the need to let the Spirit of God examine our hearts, our motives and our thoughts that are keeping us from an intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father. It is a time to make room in our hearts for Christ as we prepare for the season of Advent.

The good news of Advent is that God became man in Jesus Christ so that we can become more Christ like, not by our own efforts but by being reborn again in the power of the Holy Spirit through our faith in Christ. But so often we are tempted to make God in our own image. We want to live our lives in our own ways and to fulfill our own desires. We are more interested in finding answers to our problems rather than seeking God through our problems.

Rebecca Kruyswijk noted that it is simple to hand out godly advice with a spiritual air, to speak wise words about past failings and to talk about personal growth. But she reminds us that our real problem is not our desire to follow Jesus but our competitive nature and our pride. There is a spiritual war within each one of us which we can only win because of what Christ has done and through the Spirit’s work in us.

The spirituality of autumn is a Lenten spirituality – a time for reflection and repentance. It is a time to examine our failures as well as our successes and reflect on how they have drawn us closer or further away from God. In times when we feel that our world has come to an end, we can remember that “just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.”

The good news is that Love Came Down At Christmas. Let us prepare our hearts to receive the good news by spending time with God in prayer and meditation.

Tadpoles or Caterpillars

We are living in a world of change. What we can be most certain of is change.  And change is occurring faster and faster each day.  Our lives are being transformed with the changes in our world even though we may not be aware of it.  The most important question is what are we changing into – are we becoming more dehumanised and changed into human doings or are we becoming human beings who are new creations reflecting the love of God?

In God's creation, we see pictures of the wonder of transformation in the tadpole and the caterpillar. From living in the water, the tadpole is transformed into a frog that lives on land. The caterpillar, on the other hand, undergoes the remarkable transformation from a caterpillar crawling on the ground to a butterfly flitting from flower to flower in the air.

The good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ came into the world so that we can become new creations – we are to live in this physical world as spiritual beings.  The tadpole and caterpillar can help us understand the kinds of transformation that we are going through.

The tadpole changes into a frog by gradually growing limbs and losing its tail. At the same time it develops lungs to enable it to breathe on land and loses the gills that it uses to breathe in the water.  The caterpillar, on the other hand, begins its metamorphosis into a butterfly by losing its legs. It goes through the process of becoming a cocoon that looks like death for the caterpillar. But the cocoon is the beginning of the new life for the butterfly.

The metamorphosis of the tadpole into a frog depicts our pursuit of knowledge to accumulate more and more so that we become human doings. As we do so, we lose our passion for the beauty of God’s creation in our physical world. We seek to dominate nature instead of being stewards of the beautiful and wonderful world that God has created.

The transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly, on the other hand, gives us a beautiful picture of the miraculous change of being born again through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is a process of dying to our old ways so that God can transform us by reforming and purifying our past so that we can live as spiritual human beings in a physical world. When we change and understand that death is not the end but the beginning of a new life, we will begin to see our sufferings and problems from a new perspective.

Suffering and problems become God’s refining fire to purify the gold of love that is in our hearts. When our eyes are filled with tears, we can only see the fire but not our Master’s hand and so our hearts are filled with fears.  But our Master is carefully watching for the purified gold in our hearts to reflect the faithful and everlasting love that His beloved Son died on the cross to show us.

Francis Collins, a brilliant scientist who headed the Human Genome Project, a study of DNA which is the code of life, addressed the paradox of why our life is more a vale of tears than a garden of delight.  He concurred with C.S. Lewis that part of the problem is our desire to see God as a grandfather in heaven – “a senile benevolence who like to see young people enjoying themselves.” But Jesus came to show us that God is our loving Abba Father who loves us too much to leave us as we are. The challenges, frustrations and suffering in our lives is “God’s megaphone  to rouse a dead world.” They are to keep us from being “shallow, self-centred creatures who would ultimately lose all sense of nobility or striving for the betterment of others.”

Sharing from his personal experience of his daughter who was raped while she was a medical student, he realised that we will never fully understand the reasons for our painful experiences. However, he began to dimly see that his daughter’s rape was a challenge to him to try and learn the real meaning of forgiveness in such terribly heart wrenching circumstances.  His daughter also saw her experience as one that gave her the opportunity and motivation to counsel and comfort others who have been sexually assaulted.

There will therefore be times when we may feel that God is not answering our prayers. Nothing seems to be happening in our lives and we feel spiritually dead like we are in a cocoon. At such times we need to pray for patience as we wait for the right time to break out of cocoon so that our spiritual wings will be properly formed and strong.

We can bring our tears and fears to the Cross of Christ so that so that He can turn them into the strong and beautiful wings for us to fly above our vale of suffering. The ways of the world will turn us into frogs but God’s ways will change us into butterflies to pollinate the world so that it will be a garden of God’s love.  Let us become butterflies and not frogs.

Sowing Seeds Of Hope

All of us want to have God's blessings for comfort and pleasure in this world.  Our modern materialistic world equates “ultimate happiness” with getting what we want, having the love of family and friends or achieving our personal ambitions. But true happiness is not found in living whatever way feels best to us but in living the life that we are created to live.  God’s calling is not to worldly success but to faithfulness. And the greatest test of our faith is the suffering we face in this world. C. H. Spurgeon tells us how our faith can be tried:

“Faith must be tried, and seeming desertion is the furnace, heated seven times, into which it might be thrust. Blest is the man who can endure the ordeal!”

We do not like to be reminded of the reality of suffering. No one can escape suffering but we can choose to let suffering turn us into miserable and bitter persons or to use suffering to transform our pain into the heavenly gold so that we become joyful and better persons.

In the gospel of Mark (chapter 10:35-45), we read of how the sons of Zebedee, James and John asked to be seated at the right and left hand of Jesus when he is in heaven. In response, Jesus asked if they are able to go through the baptism of suffering.  They replied they can.  Jesus then told them that they will indeed do so but they cannot be guaranteed the positions in heaven that they have requested.

This does not mean that we are to celebrate suffering or to invite suffering into our lives. We just need to face the reality of suffering so that we will not be filled with fear but can stand firm on the blessed assurance that the steadfast love of our Lord never ceases. Some people may question how can there be a God of love with all the suffering we see in the world. But the truth is that suffering is a by-product of love - the more we love the more suffering we are likely to face.

There is no human being who will not taste suffering sooner or later in life. But the good news is that there is hope in suffering because of the cross of Christ. To bring hope to people in need in our troubled times is the calling of all Christians. I was reminded in an Upper Room devotional that seeds of hope are sown through every kind word, through acts of mercy and through teaching and learning.

One important lesson is that we do not have to understand all of God’s ways with us. We need to practice the discipline to see more and more from God’s perspective especially when little things don’t go the way we had hoped. As we do so, we will not be burdened with the accumulation of petty cares and frustrations. We will then not waste our emotional energies on petty problems but save them for the more serious problems that come our way.

A Pollyanna and second hand faith that is focussed only on the blessings of God is a faith that is built on sand.  H.A. Williams, an Anglican theologian makes the following observation:

“That is why for most of the time resurrection means little to us. It is remote and isolated. And that is why for the majority of people it means nothing…… People do well to be sceptical of beliefs not anchored in present experience.”

We are too self-absorbed and inattentive to hear God’s whispers of love.  We are too easily distracted and side-tracked by fear or selfishness. We are obsessed with our own life stories instead of the greater story of God’s love in the world.

Brennan Manning makes the point that the dark riddle of life is illuminated in Jesus. Understanding the meaning, purpose and goal of everything that happens to us can only be learned from Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life:

“Without deliberate awareness of the risenness of Jesus, life is nonsense, all activity useless, all relationships in vain. Apart from the risen Christ we live in a world of impenetrable mystery and utter obscurity – a world without meaning, a world of shifting phenomena, a world of death, danger, and darkness.  A world of inexplicable futility.  Nothing is interconnected. Nothing is worth doing, for nothing endures. Nothing is seen beyond appearances. Nothing is heard but echoes dying on the wind. No love can outlast the emotion that produced it. It is all sound and fury with no ultimate significance.”

We need to understand that our life is hidden in Christ. As we pay attention to the nudges of the Holy Spirit we will have a first-hand experience of what the resurrection of Jesus means in our daily lives. Only then will our faith be grounded on the Rock of Christ.  We can then affirm the truth that Paul shared with the Corinthians:

“That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produced for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we cannot see will last forever.”                                   - 2^nd Corinthians 4:16-18

Live The Eternal Life Before You Die

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even though we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you are saved!” Ephesians 2:4-5

The good news of the gospel is that Christ died on the cross so that we who are the “living dead” in the marketplace of the world may find the true and abundant life that is in Christ. We are slaves to our sinful natures seeking happiness in material pursuits that can never satisfy our souls or we struggle against our sinful natures trying to please God through our futile human efforts.

Many Christians spend so much energy trying to save others from hell after death instead of making others hungry and thirsty for heaven in the here and now. We are called to live out the truth of John 3:16:

“For this is the way God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”

Our calling as Christians is not to save others but to share our Saviour, Jesus Christ with others. We do so by living our lives with grace in full dependence and trust in God so that others may see the joy of the Lord in us.

Many people do not want to talk or think about death. But as Christians we are to proclaim with our lives that for us to live is Christ and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21) When we face temptations in our lives we are to remember that we have been crucified with Christ and that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives within us (Galatians 2:20). As we struggle with our problems in life, we can hold on to the truth that we can do all thrings through Christ who gives us strength (Philippians 4:13)

Margaret Bottome shares the following encouraging insight:

“Ah! I needed the ocean of His love, and the high mountains of His truth within. It was wisdom that the “depths” said they did not contain, and that could not be compared with jewels or gold or precious stones. Christ is the wisdom and our deepest need. Our restlessness within can only be met by the revelation of His eternal friendship and love for us.”

Our home is God – not only after we die but in the here and now as the following verse from a poem by an unknown author tell us:

“And now “my Home is God,” and sheltered there,

God meets the trials of my earthly life,

God compasses me round from storm and strife,

God takes the burden of my daily care.

O Wondrous Place! O Home divinely fair!

And I, God's little one, safe hidden there.

Lord, as I dwell in Thee and Thou in me,

So make me dead to everything but Thee.”

To the caterpillar, the chrysalis or pupa is dead. But to the butterfly, it is life. Let us encourage one another to be butterflies and not caterpillars so that we will be dead to the world and be alive to God. As we do so, we will live in the eternal life here and now.

voices

Focus on health, not cost of medical care

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FROM

PATRICK KEE

-

23 AUGUST

There has been much discussion about healthcare costs in Singapore. It is important to distinguish between healthcare and medical services, as much of the debate centres on reducing the cost of medical care rather than improving our citizens’ health.

If our citizens are healthy, they need not worry about the cost of medical services. Just as the Government has propagated the concept of Total Defence, we must promote the concept of Total Health, rather than focus on illnesses and treatment.

For example, diseases arising from infections such as dengue fever, tuberculosis and influenza are effectively reduced by public health measures, and not by building more hospitals.

Diseases arising from malnutrition and poverty are best addressed by improving the economic and educational status of people.

Efforts to reduce smoking, alcohol and gambling addictions will go a long way to improve physical as well as social, familial, emotional and spiritual well-being.

Helping the elderly to “age in place” and to be active is critical to prevent the lonely old person from becoming frail and sick. Investments in building up communities of seniors to support one another will reduce the need for more nursing homes.

This requires programmes and funding to help active and fit elderly help other elderly neighbours who are frail. We must stop thinking of seniors as a problem; they are an important resource of people with expertise, experience and time.

Unnecessary expenditure on futile treatment at the end of life is best reduced by re-introducing Ars moriendi, or the art of dying well. If we want to live well, we must learn how to die well. Unfortunately, modern society has a phobia about discussions on death and dying.

To reduce the cost of medical care, we must stop worshipping medicine as an idol with clay feet. Ancient Greek philosopher Sophocles astutely observed: “One word frees us all of the weight and pain of life. That word is love.”

The challenge before Singaporeans is whether we will realise the need for a compassionate, cooperative society by putting love, not money, at the centre of our lives. The world will be different the moment we do so.

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THE CROSS LENS

The primary objective of reading and meditating on the bible is for transformation rather than for information. Unfortunately there is much teaching on bible study but not on bible meditation to help us transform our lives and to gain a heart of wisdom. We are encouraged to read and memorise biblical verses but not how to think about the verses we have read and to apply them in our lives. Edward De Bono has described 6 thinking hats to put our thinking into action. He created a useful framework of To/LoPoSo/Go as a thinking skill. Christians need to learn thinking skills and it is important to recognise the very important difference between “Christian thinking” and “non-Christian” thinking.

The difference lies in what we are thinking about and why we are thinking about them. As Christians, we are called to have the mind of Christ and to be dependent on God and not on our own wisdom or the wisdom of the world. The values and beliefs of the world are rooted in materialistic and selfish desires rather than the will of God. Worldy thinking is focussed on how we can be successful in this world and how to win friends and be happy.

The apostle James has warned us that faith without action is dead. To have a living faith, we need to apply scriptural truths in our lives. Towards this end Edward De Bono’s To/LoPoSo/Go, a 5 stage thinking structure, and the 6 thinking hats can be used to provide a framework for meditation on the bible. I have called this the “CROSS” lens.

The “CROSS” lens is an acronym for 5 stages in biblical meditation. The first stage, “C”, is to be connected with the Holy Spirit through a time of silent prayer or to use the breath prayer (see reflection on Spiritual Ventilation on 13th July 2013). This is wearing the “blue” hat to draw out attention to the sky and our need to come before the throne of God’s grace. It is the “To Where…are you going” stage in Edward De Bono To/LoPoSo/Go 5 stage thinking structure. It is important to spend time to wait on the Lord and seek His aims, goals and objectives for our lives.

The second stage, “R”, is the reading of the biblical text. We take note of what the text is saying to us and our thoughts about the biblical passage.  It is the “Lo and Behold” stage as we read God’s Word for information. We wear the “white” hat – a time of digesting the information that we have read.

The third stage, “O”, is to open our minds to the Holy Spirit to hear what God is saying to us. This is the “Po – possibilities” stage as we meditate on the thoughts arising from what we have read. To listen to God’s voice more clearly, we need to recognise the time of life we are in.

We may be in the “sunrise” of our lives when we are feeling good, doing good and everything in life is good. At such times, we need to put on the “red” hat – to submit our hearts to the purifying fire of the Holy Spirit. We need to burn away our pride, greed and lust. The lesson from King David is a warning of how pride, greed and lust can lead us to commit sins that we never imagine we will commit, in the good times of our lives. We can use the red hat to see God’s commandments and warnings to lead us out of temptation and deliver us from evil. In our good times, we can look for biblical verses to help us give thanks and to bear the fruit of love, joy and peace in our lives.

We may be in the “noonday” of our lives when we are feeling stressed by the “heat” of the pressures of life. We may be discouraged, angry, envious, jealous or bored. In such times we can put on the “yellow” hat to exchange our problems for Christ’s burden which is easy. We can take off the yoke of the world and put on the yoke of Christ which is light. With the yellow hat, we can look for any encouragement or new insights in scripture passage that we have read. It may be a time for us to bear the fruit of patience, kindness and goodness. We can look for biblical verses to remind us of God's Providence so that we can pray, “Give us today our daily bread.”

We may be in the dark nights of our souls, when we need to put on the “black” hat to draw close to the Light of Christ. God may feel far away and we may feel forsaken by our loved ones. At such times we need to pray for wisdom to see God’s promises in His Word which are beacons of light to lead us out of darkness. It is a time when we need to remember that God may be pruning us to bear the fruit of faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. It is a time to seek God’s word to help us experience His forgiveness and to forgive others. We can meditate on the biblical passage to find the power to pray, “Forgive us our sins so that we may forgive those who sin against us.”

The fourth stage, “S” is the surrender of our heart as we seek to obey and put into practice what God has shown us in our devotional reading. This is the “So What” stage. It is changing our red, yellow or black hats into the “green” hat as our commitment to put into practice the truths that God has shown us in our meditation on His Word.

The fifth stage, the second “S,” is seeking to walk by the Spirit. We end our reflection with a prayer that God’s Word will bear fruit in our lives. This is the “Go…….Let’s go into action” stage as we commit our plans to God and thank Him for His amazing grace to help us fulfil our heart’s desire so that we will grow in love and in the joy of living in God's Kingdom in the here and now.

A Life of Glory

“Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High. Then call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory.” Psalms 50:14-15

Ireneus described the glory of God as the human being fully alive and that the life of the human consists in beholding God. Many things in the world blind us to the glory of our loving Creator God. Senseless murders, horrific rapes, disasters and epidemics, church conflicts, personal suffering of pain draws us away from the gospel that God is always good and we are always loved. A friend in the midst of his suffering lamented how he longs for Christ to come again and deliver us from suffering and pain.

But Jesus came, lived, died and rose from the dead to show us our wonderful and amazing calling to be children of God, to be the salt and light in His beautiful world that has been darkened by evil and sin. The world is waiting for us as Christians to follow the way of our Lord – to become more fully devoted to Christ, to be willing to be nothing that Christ may be all. It has been noted that “there is no limit to what God can do with a man, providing he will not touch the glory.”

Martin Luther shares the very important insight that “God created the world out of nothing, and as long as we are nothing, He can make something out of us.” Indeed, it has been said that there is nothing in Christ but God. George Muller testified in an address to ministers and workers after his ninetieth birthday that it was four years after his conversion that he fully surrendered his life. It was then that he found that “the love of money was gone, the love of place was gone, the love of position was gone, the love of worldly pleasures and engagements was gone. “ He found happiness when God alone became his portion and he found his all in Him and wanted nothing else.

We are to live out the good news that we are the dwelling place of God and His glory. We are created for God's glory and "we are to live in and live out the splendor God has uniquely given us. We own the glory of our lives. We live out the extraordinary-ness in the ordinary things of life.” We have the choice to live out God's best for our lives or we can bankrupt our legacy of faith when we seek to live our lives on our own terms.

Gary Barkalow drew attention to the truth that we are not just the object of God's forgiveness and tolerance but that there is a brilliance, a magnificence to our lives that we are to take responsibility for - the splendor of our lives - not what has been taken away but what has been given to us. He lamented the fact that “the church culture has gone from the mysterious but true glory of a person's life to lifeless duty and function. It has gone from owning the splendor of one's life and the world's need of it to merely finding a task that needs to be done for God and making sure it is done with excellence.”

When our focus is on our tasks rather than our relationship with God, we lose sight of the glory of God. God created us to be human beings but we have turned ourselves into human doings. Let us offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving for the mystery and wonder of life. Let us light a candle instead of cursing the darkness. Let us encourage one another to live lives of glory so that we can shine as stars in our increasingly dark world.

Spiritual Ventilation

"So you should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus."  Romans 6:11

At a course on Community Ventilation on the use of mechanical ventilators at home for patients who are unable to breathe on their own, I was reminded of the aims of artificial ventilation:

• get oxygen in
• get carbon dioxide out
• minimise adverse effects
• maximize patient comfort. and practice.

This gave me a fresh insight about prayer as spiritual ventilation. Just as we need to breathe in oxygen, we need the prayer of thanksgiving to “breathe in” God's love. Likewise just as we need to breathe out carbon dioxide so we need the prayer of confession to “breathe out” the negative emotions of our souls.

When patients with a chronic lung disease fail to breathe out carbon dioxide adequately they will suffer from drowsiness, confusion and even coma. When we do not “breathe out” our negative attitudes and feelings, we too may also suffer from spiritual confusion and a “spiritual coma” with a sense of separation from God. This is why confession is so important for the health of our souls.

We are all spiritually half dead and in need of spiritual ventilation to revive our souls. The discipline of the breath prayer is to help us cultivate the habit of surrendering control of our lives to God and to live by the Spirit. Just as God breathed life into Adam after forming him from the dust of man, we need to breathe in the Holy Spirit so that our souls will be alive to God.

Prayer is the breath of our souls and without prayer we will be spiritually dead. We need prayer to die to sin and to be alive to God. With prayer, we can reduce the effect of sin and maximize God's peace in our lives. We need to learn to "breathe in" the love of God and to "breathe out" our cares and burdens that blind us to the love and grace of God.

Breath prayer is a contemplative practice that is based on the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector where we see the tax collector praying the simple breath prayer, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 10-13). This prayer is a confession of our imperfection and an expression of our need for the grace of God to change. It is a simple and honest affirmation of God's unfailing love and our need for His amazing grace.

I have found simple phrases such as “Jesus is Lord,” “The Lord Provides,” “Peace, be still,” to be helpful at various times of my life. It is recommended that the phrase we choose be authentic to our relationship with God in that very moment that we are breathing.

Breath prayers is a form of meditative prayer that requires us to focus on our breathing. By doing we so, we elicit what has been described by Herbert Benson as the relaxation response. When we attune our breathing with a simple scriptural verse, we are in fact performing a “spiritual ventilation.” For example, as we inhale, we may pray “Jesus”, and as we exhale, we pray, “is Lord.” Or we can pray “The Lord” as we breathe in, and “provides” as we breathe out.”

Such breath prayers are especially helpful in times when we are under stress. It is an exercise by which we can focus on our Lord when we are feeling anxious or fearful. Through breath prayers, we can turn our eyes upon Jesus so that the things of this world will grow strangely dim. It is also an expression of our desire to live the perfect life in Christ:

      Breathe on me Breath of God, so shall I never die;

      But live with Thee the perfect Life of Thine eternity.

Ministry of Miracle Moments

An important truth is that God is working quietly in the garden of our lives, filling our “buckets” of daily activities with gifts and skills to be His answers to the prayers of others. Each day presents us with moments and opportunities to experience as well as to share God's grace. Such moments are miracle moments - a time when God meets our needs or the needs of others in a special way or a way that is beyond our abilities.

In his book, You Were Born For This, Bruce Wilkinson makes the point that we are called to a “joint but unequal venture between weak humans and an extraordinary God to pursue His agenda in His way in His time and by His power and for His glory.”

He drew attention to the important difference between doing good works for God in our own strength and being a channel of God’s grace to others by the power of the Holy Spirit. He made the point that we will experience how intimately God knows us and loves us when God intervenes in our everyday lives to meet a need in a special way that is meaningful to us.

To be in the right place at the right time to be God’s delivery agent of a miracle for a person in need is an experience that helps us appreciate, understand and experience the amazing love and grace of God. But we must desire to seek God’s presence as well as cultivate the discipline to wait on God each day.

We tend to see miracles as supernatural events that we cannot explain. In our modern society, we tend to depend on experts, professional and spiritual leaders to help those in need with a human solution instead of seeking to be a partner of God’s Holy Spirit to be God’s solution.

But miracles are the everyday encounters when we are led by the Spirit to be a witness of God’s love, to show compassion and to be God’s instruments of His healing grace and providence to those in need. Miracles are the occasions when people experience God’s answers to their prayers.

The greatest miracle is that God sent His Son to die on the Cross so that we can be new creations in Christ and be His partners in the ministry of miracle moments. Each of us is unique and special and as we spend time waiting on Christ, we will be able to hear God’s voice and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

The biggest obstacle to the ministry of miracle moments is our pride and our desire to be in control of our lives.  When we recognize our need and dependence on God’s Holy Spirit our faith will become the “telegraphic wire which links earth to Heaven, on which God’s messages of love fly so fast that before we call, He answers, and while we are yet speaking He hears us.”

J.R. Miller noted that “many of us cannot be used to become food for the world’s hunger until we are broken in Christ’s hands. Christ’s blessing often means sorrow, but even sorrow is not too great a price to pay for the privilege of touching other lives with benediction. The sweetest things in this world have come to us through tears and pain.”

We will do well to put into practice the following advice by Elisabeth Kubler Ross:

“Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.”

As we do so, may we experience God’s answer to the prayer of Paul:

“I pray for you constantly, asking God the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope He has given to those He called – His holy people who are  His rich and glorious inheritance.” Ephesians 1:17-18

May God open our eyes to His ministry of miracle moments.

A Life of Trophies or An Abundant Life

The Good News is that Jesus came that we may have life and have it abundantly (John10:10). Jesus came to restore our relationship with God as our Abba, our Heavenly Father. Father’s Day is a day not only to show appreciation for our earthly fathers but it is also a time to reflect on the life of abundance that is rooted in our relationship with our Father Who Is In Heaven. Father's Day is a time when all of us can give thanks for the wonderful, faithful and endless Love of God, our Heavenly Father.

Father’s Day is a time to recognize that all earthly fathers have their failings for no human father can be the perfect father. Ted Cunningham, in his book, “Trophy Child” drew attention to the danger of having kids spending their childhood years fulfilling their parents’ desires and dreams. As a result many fail to discover who God has created them to be and what He has prepared them to do. Many of us are guilty of raising up “trophy children” instead of bringing up our children in a healthy fear of the Lord so that they will have a heart of wisdom. God, and not us as earthly fathers, must take the centre stage in their lives.

Time and again we forget that life is not about us. Jesus taught His disciples that He is the Vine and we are only the branches. As I reflected on John 15:1-8, it dawned on me that success in life tends to cut us off from our true life in Christ who is the Living Vine. We are deceived into seeking to win trophies for God instead of having a relationship with Him so that we can be His grapevine of love and grace in a corrupted and sinful world.

We need to recognise the danger of worldly success that fill us with pride and idolatry. This leads us to live unfruitful lives as we are drawn away from a personal relationship with God. We are infected by the Western culture that is obsessed with success. John Barry rightly lamented that society tend to place successful people on a pedestal, as if they are smarter or better than everyone else. He drew attention to the danger that the need to succeed can tilt a church out of balance when the leader or the donors with the deepest pockets become the focus, and ultimate authority, instead of Christ.

We need to examine our lives and ask ourselves - are we seeking to win trophies in this world – trying to have a trophy career, a trophy spouse, trophy children, a trophy lifestyle or even a trophy church instead of cultivating a loving relationship with God as our Heavenly Father? Is winning success more important than bearing fruit? There is nothing wrong with getting trophies and accolades but these must be the by-products and not our goals of life.

It is only when we are abiding in the Vine that we can bear the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We need to understand that one of the signs that we are bearing fruit is that we will be pruned so that we will bear more fruit. We need to live in the paradox that when we are bearing the fruit of patience, we can be sure that we will encounter more situations that will test our patience so that we will be more fruitful!

Let us praise God as our Heavenly Father on this Father’s Day. Let us thank God that He can make us fruitful even in times of affliction. For when we know God as our Heavenly Father, we will not be distressed by the problems we face in life but we will be strengthened and rise up on wings like the eagle in the storms of life.  We will grow in our faith that the “beating rain are springing up spiritual flowers of such fragrance and beauty as never before grew in that stormless, unchastened life.” To quote J.M McC in one of the devotions from Streams in the Desert:

 “You indeed see the rain. But do you see also the flowers? You are pained by testings. But God sees the sweet flower of faith which is upspringing in your life under those very trials.

You shrink from suffering. But God sees the tender compassion for other sufferers which is finding birth in your soul.

Your heart winces under the sore bereavement. But God sees the deepening and enriching which that sorrow has brought to you.

It isn’t raining afflictions for you. It is raining tenderness, love, compassion, patience, and a thousand other flowers and fruits of the blessed Spirit, which are bringing into your life such a spiritual enrichment as all the fullness of worldly prosperity and ease was never able to beget in your innermost soul.”

 

The abundant life is not a life of success  but a life that is bearing the fruit of the Spirit. We can live a fruitful life only when we are abiding in Christ.

Living by faith or living in fear

“I have discovered this principle of life – that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.”

-          Romans 8:21-23

There is a spiritual war between light and darkness waging in all our lives. There is a battle for the life or death of our souls. Our sinful nature leads us to the addiction of pleasure and to futile and desperate measures to escape pain.  We are tempted to gain more and more material possessions even at the cost of losing our very souls. When we face the storms of suffering in our lives, our restless hearts are filled with fear.

But we have a choice as to how we want to live our lives – we can live by faith or we can live in fear. We can put our faith in our wealth and health but we will then live in fear when financial crises or illnesses strike. We are constantly reminded of potential terrorist attacks and nuclear wars. We are fearful of living to a ripe old age for we are also afraid of death.

Our fears bring darkness into our lives and only the truth can bring in the light to chase away the darkness. Our fears are the weapon of deception of the evil one. It is our faith in Christ that is our shield against the flaming arrows of guilt and condemnation as we struggle with depression, anger, greed, lust, envy and pride. We are fearful when we're faithless. But God wants us to be fearless by being faithful so that we can live in the light of His agape love. God will not judge us for our faithlessness. Our fears are to draw our attention to our lack of faith so that we can pray for God to increase our faith in His faithfulness. Only then will God’s agape love cast out all fears in our lives.

To be faithful is not to be mindless but to have the mind of Christ. Faith is nonrational but not irrational. In faith we empty our hearts of our pride, guilt, anger, lust and our sinful attitudes so that we will be mindful of Christ. In faith we learn to be still in the storms of life by standing on the truth that Christ can still the storms.

Our faith is grounded in the faithfulness of God when we believe that we are more valuable to God than sparrows. It has been written that we can sing our cares away easier than we can reason them away:

“Sing in the morning. The birds are the earliest to sing, and birds are more without care than anything else that I know of.”

When our hearts are filled with the praise of God, we not be afraid of tough times. We will be better prepared to turn our difficulties and worries into opportunities to experience the resurrection power of Christ.  Like the prodigal son, we need to come to the end of ourselves and turn back to God so that He can begin His new work in us.

Rebecca Kruyswijk rightly noted that if we could handle every circumstance, we’d never reach the end of our self-reliance and realize our desperate need for God. We need to see that our trials give us hope for they purify us just as silver is purified by fire.  As we go through difficult circumstances we need to keep our eyes on the cross of Christ so that we can see God’s faithfulness and His enduring and eternal Love for us. We will then be able to pray with thanksgiving in everything and in all circumstances.

We need to follow Christ in order to understand God’s ways instead of trying to understand God’s commandments before we commit our lives to following Christ. “Follow me” is one of the most compelling sentences in the Bible according to Daniel Wolpert:

“Two words, when spoken by Jesus, create a sense of power and mystery and awe. To follow is to enter into the unknown, to give your life over to another. We rarely want to do this. Yet at the same time it is exactly what we desire: to be led into a better place, a better world, a better life.”

To follow Jesus is to follow His example of seeking to fulfill God’s will in our lives. Faith is not trying to do God's work in our own strength. Faith is the outworking of God's Holy Spirit in our lives as we put our trust in God's faithfulness by keeping our eyes on the cross of Christ. Faith comes to us when we recognize that we are lost and confess our need to let our Shepherd find us.

Our prayers will then not be focused on our needs and wants and for more blessings in our lives but on how He is using us to advance His kingdom here on earth. Our prayers will not be attempts to manipulate or persuade God to be on our side but expressions of our desire to be on His side and to glorify His name.

Let us pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to empower us to live a life of love and compassion. Let us run the race of faith in the unlimited freedom of God’s truth –that comes from being confident of God’s love and acceptance and knowing and believing that God loves us as we are.