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

Singapore will be celebrating her 50^th birthday in 2015. The winds of change are blowing and the choices we make will determine whether Singapore becomes a cancerous red dot that is doomed for destruction or a bright shining red dot that is a beacon of light in a dark world of greed, lust and pride.

Christians in Singapore have the awesome responsibility to become citizens of prayer. 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 be individuals seeking 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.  Two years ago, 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 legacy 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 important 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. 

Dancing With God

All of us have an inner longing for guidance from God. It has been noted that guidance stands for God-U-I-Dance. A writer in an Upper Room devotional shared a valuable insight of God's guidance from ballroom dancing. The role of the man in ballroom dancing is to empower the lady “to express beauty, elegance, and grace.” She was only able to enjoy the dance with a partner who is confident in leading and guiding her steps. Her experience with dancing led to realise that leading is not dominance. God does not want to dominate us but He wants to lead us with His loving Hands so that our lives will reflect His beauty and grace to a world that is dominated by fear and chaos.

Our other misconceptions about God's will and obedience also keep us from living our Chrisitan life with joy. David Robert Ord saw God's will as an invitation rather than as an imposition. God is our Divine Lover who invites us to join Him to bring love to our loveless world. God is not a tyrant king who is bent on making us do His will. Obedience is not trying to fulfill the commands of an authoritarian ruler but the discipline of paying attention to the presence of God's Holy Spirit within us. Our Christian journey is to be one of joy and peace. Our faith in our loving Heavenly Father is, in the words of David Robert Ord, to be the “launching pad for a life empowered by both reason and passion.”

Repentance is also not feeling sorry for our wrong behaviours but recognising that we have wandered away from God's presence and seeking to turn back to Him. Likewise, confession is not a recitation of our sins but confessing our helplessness and our need for God's grace.

While holidaying on a cruise ship in September, my wife and I were watching two girls teaching Cha Cha Cha. The steps were simple:

Backwards, Forwards, To The Right

Forwards, Backwards , To The Left.

This gave me an insight about dancing the Cha Cha Cha with God:

Repentance is taking a step backwards followed by Confession which is taking a step forward. To the right reminds us that Jesus is Lord. We then take the step forwards through self examination followed by the step backwards into the world with a prayer to be the instruments of God's redeeming grace. And we take the step to the left as we praise the Lord. And so we can have a rhythm of Cha Cha Cha in our devotional life as follows:

Repentance – Confession- Jesus is Lord.

Self examination – Prayer – Praise the Lord

We are created to be the vessels of God's love and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in God. Nothing can fill our deepest desire for God. So let us pray that God will teach us to dance with Him so that our lives will be filled with passsion instead of apathy and resignation. Let us delight in the Lord so that we will pay attention to the desire to be windows of God's love and grace and not to be mirrosr of our selfish wants and needs.