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.

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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.