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!