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