The search for our identity is a perpetual quest that never seems to end. Every now and then, when we feel as if we have found who we are, something comes along and shakes us. Once again we are left floundering in the sea of questions. Perhaps God allows us to go through this from time to time to test what is in our hearts, what we base our sense of self-worth and identity on.
Some of you who know me may know that I have just moved jobs. God opened the door. Better pay, and hopefully better prospects. But what I under-estimated was the effect that moving jobs had on my sense of identity. Who was I? One day I was doing my old job and the next, a new job. Excited as I was about starting my new job, I could not ignore the fact that things had changed. I was still the same. But everything around me had changed.
It is in such times of displacement that I become more prayerful and reflective. As I began to ponder the reason for my current sense of emotional displacement, it became clear that as much as I had always tried to avoid it, I did derive some definition of my identity from what i did, from the roles I played. And over the past month, the roles I have played in both my church ministry and my secular career have changed drastically. With my daughter turning one year old, my role as father has also changed. New challenges, new expectations, new positions, new responsibilities, new roles. With so many changes within a short period of time, it was not surprising that I struggled to re-refine myself.
But perhaps what this sense of displacement and struggle for re-definition has revealed to me is the transience and impermanence of a role-defined sense of identity. It is surely this role-defined sense of identity that drive many successful men into despair after they retire or are retrenched. It is this same role-defined sense of identity that causes us to have to seek new definitions of our identity each time the winds of change blow through our lives.
Then I remember the words of Jeremiah 1:4,5:
"Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying:
'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you were born I sanctified you;
I ordained you a prophet to the nations.'"
These verses tell me a few precious things. Firstly, that it is God who has formed us. We find our source in His loving hands. Secondly, it is God who has set us apart, who makes us special. For to be "sanctified" is to be set apart for Him. For Jeremiah, it was to be a prophet. For us, it is a high calling that envelopes every disparate aspect of our lives, and consumes our very being. But most importantly, it is a call to exist unto Him. We live for His glory, His purpose. Our worship of Him is the coalescence of all our different roles in life, for they all exist to fulfill the one higher purpose - to live unto Him. He has called us out of His world to embrace His heart. He has called us to Himself.
Thirdly, this sanctified calling is permanent and does not change. Though our roles in life may change, our sanctified calling to live unto Him is eternal. We have been sanctified from before the womb and our purpose and identity remains intrinsically linked to Him for all of eternity. Such a thought brings to me a powerful sense of peace and security. That He lives in me, and I live in Him and for him. Praise be to God.
How the Lord builds our desire for Him
How do we come to desire Him more? How do we bring our church to a point where we are so hungry for the Lord? While we should preach, and exhort, and warn and encourage all around us to seek God and desire Him, at the end of the day, it is between them and God. To say that is not to abdicate our responsibility, but ultimately we can only stand still and let God take over. This is where it gets very very serious. For this is where God gets serious.
The Lord showed something tonight. I do not know if it is a message for me personally or for our ministry as a whole. The issue of His people turning away from Him is not anything new. The nation of Israel turned from the Lord many times. No nation had been privileged to see the greatness and the wonders of God like the nation of Israel. Yet time and time again, they backslidded. Very soon after seeing the fire and the glory of God on Mount Sinai, they turn to their golden calfs of idolatry. We, our churches, are just like that today. We are apathetic second-generation Christians who have tasted the goodness of God, and yet our hearts remain cold and our desire for Him non-existent. The question is how does God deal with that? The answer, the fire of His chastisement. This is where is gets frightening.
In Hosea chapter 2, God speaks about how He will bring an adulterous people back to Him. We His people are adulterous because we have forsaken our first love and pursued other loves. And such grieves the Lord. It is like a knife into His heart. In Hosea 2, the Lord does several things. In verse 3, He warns that He will expose His people, make them like a wilderness, set them in dry land and slay her with thirst (vs 3). The first thing God does is to remove every source of satisfaction from His people. Everything that gives us pleasure and satisfaction and meaning apart from Him, He will strip away. Till our souls are parched, our mouths excruciating in thirst. Then He will set our way with thorns (vs 6)The next He does is to bring us to a point of despair. Every way we move is met with thorns till we have no where else to go but back to the Lord. Then, He will withdraw His blessings from our lives. He will return and take away His grain and new wine (vs 9) He will destroy our vines and our fig trees (vs 12). This is a progressive chastisement and breaking of everything we hold in our hands. For then, when we are brought to a place of abject despair, our every earthly reliance taken away, when we are starving and thirsty and naked and in tears, the Lord will come to allure us once again (vs 14). He will speak comfort to us (vs 15) and once again, we will acknowledge and love Him. Once again, the church will return like a bride to her Husband.
You see my friends, we cannot cause others to desire God. Only God can. If we do not heed His warning, He will remove everything we love such that we have only Him to love. He will break our every boasting, and remove every idol. For it is when we are truly in need that we will turn back to the Lord, and desire Him, and appreciate Him, and love Him. My friends, if we truly desire the Lord to bring us to a place of desiring Him above all else, then we must be prepared for what we pray. And we must be prepared that He starts with us. I sense the purging fire of the Lord has been lighted in our midst. The fire has been set in Zion. And it will burn and burn until every knee is bowed before Him.
The Lord showed something tonight. I do not know if it is a message for me personally or for our ministry as a whole. The issue of His people turning away from Him is not anything new. The nation of Israel turned from the Lord many times. No nation had been privileged to see the greatness and the wonders of God like the nation of Israel. Yet time and time again, they backslidded. Very soon after seeing the fire and the glory of God on Mount Sinai, they turn to their golden calfs of idolatry. We, our churches, are just like that today. We are apathetic second-generation Christians who have tasted the goodness of God, and yet our hearts remain cold and our desire for Him non-existent. The question is how does God deal with that? The answer, the fire of His chastisement. This is where is gets frightening.
In Hosea chapter 2, God speaks about how He will bring an adulterous people back to Him. We His people are adulterous because we have forsaken our first love and pursued other loves. And such grieves the Lord. It is like a knife into His heart. In Hosea 2, the Lord does several things. In verse 3, He warns that He will expose His people, make them like a wilderness, set them in dry land and slay her with thirst (vs 3). The first thing God does is to remove every source of satisfaction from His people. Everything that gives us pleasure and satisfaction and meaning apart from Him, He will strip away. Till our souls are parched, our mouths excruciating in thirst. Then He will set our way with thorns (vs 6)The next He does is to bring us to a point of despair. Every way we move is met with thorns till we have no where else to go but back to the Lord. Then, He will withdraw His blessings from our lives. He will return and take away His grain and new wine (vs 9) He will destroy our vines and our fig trees (vs 12). This is a progressive chastisement and breaking of everything we hold in our hands. For then, when we are brought to a place of abject despair, our every earthly reliance taken away, when we are starving and thirsty and naked and in tears, the Lord will come to allure us once again (vs 14). He will speak comfort to us (vs 15) and once again, we will acknowledge and love Him. Once again, the church will return like a bride to her Husband.
You see my friends, we cannot cause others to desire God. Only God can. If we do not heed His warning, He will remove everything we love such that we have only Him to love. He will break our every boasting, and remove every idol. For it is when we are truly in need that we will turn back to the Lord, and desire Him, and appreciate Him, and love Him. My friends, if we truly desire the Lord to bring us to a place of desiring Him above all else, then we must be prepared for what we pray. And we must be prepared that He starts with us. I sense the purging fire of the Lord has been lighted in our midst. The fire has been set in Zion. And it will burn and burn until every knee is bowed before Him.
Do we desire Him enough?
I was standing at the back of the hall last sunday during the worship. The worship going great and the youths was responsive. However something seemed missing. As I began to prayer for the youths, I sensed a grieving sadness from the Lord. The Lord was grieving over his people. I sought the Lord as to this cause and this is what He said to me, "My people do not desire me enough." Suddenly I realised what He meant. We acknowledge Him with our lips but our hearts are far from Him. The Lord began to show me that the reason why we have not experienced the fullness of His glory and His presence in our congregation was simply because we, as a people, did not desire Him enough. There was no hunger, there was no thirst, there was no earnest longing and urgent supplication. We do not receive because we do not ask.
I then sought the Lord as to how we could bring our youths to desire Him more. And He gave me the impression of a flame, a flickering flame. And the Lord said, "Tell them to remember the time in the past when they had felt to close to me, times when my presence and power was so real. Remember these times, and long for it again." To many of us, we were holding on to these past memories that had become like a flickering flame, on a verge of being snuffed out in the winds of passing time. But the Lord wants us to desire the fire of His presence, how it was once like. The Lord wants to rekindle this fire of His glory in our lives. He longs for the time when His people desire Him and cry out to Him in tears and supplication for His presence. He wants us to want Him, to want to so much that we will pay whatever cost to get Him. He wants us to fall on our faces and desire Him so much that we will give our lives for Him. For then, He will pour out His Spirit without measure. We will see His glory descend into our church and the fire of His presence envelope us. On that day, His glory will abide in the midst of our congregation that the unbelievers will see and be drawn in.
The cry of His heart is for us to desire Him. Do we desire Him enough?
I then sought the Lord as to how we could bring our youths to desire Him more. And He gave me the impression of a flame, a flickering flame. And the Lord said, "Tell them to remember the time in the past when they had felt to close to me, times when my presence and power was so real. Remember these times, and long for it again." To many of us, we were holding on to these past memories that had become like a flickering flame, on a verge of being snuffed out in the winds of passing time. But the Lord wants us to desire the fire of His presence, how it was once like. The Lord wants to rekindle this fire of His glory in our lives. He longs for the time when His people desire Him and cry out to Him in tears and supplication for His presence. He wants us to want Him, to want to so much that we will pay whatever cost to get Him. He wants us to fall on our faces and desire Him so much that we will give our lives for Him. For then, He will pour out His Spirit without measure. We will see His glory descend into our church and the fire of His presence envelope us. On that day, His glory will abide in the midst of our congregation that the unbelievers will see and be drawn in.
The cry of His heart is for us to desire Him. Do we desire Him enough?
The joy of absolute surrender
The pathway to His presence and His power is the path of absolute surrender. Surrender is so difficult but O the joy of His presence once we surrender, O the exhilaration of His embrace. For truly the Spirit fills one who is broken and of a contrite spirit. To the surrendered heart, God attends at every worship, to flood the soul and mind with the awesomeness of divine presence. To the surrendered heart, God reveals His secrets, whispers the mysteries of His heart. To the surrendered heart, the heavens opens, and pours out such blessing that we fragile souls can scarce contain it. There is joy despite of circumstances, power despite of persecution, welling up into a fountain of faith. In surrender, we touch the fullness of grace; in surrender, we see the face of God.
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