OF THE SPIRIT

How do I experience God?

2005-09-08T18:00:00.000+08:00

Why is it I read the bible and pray every day and do not experience God in my life? Why do I go to church every week and God is not real to me? This are some of the most common questions I get from Christians. The real question is really “how do I experience God?” Sometime back, I wrote a book entitled The Salvation Equation specifically to deal with the issue. Perhaps it is worth revisiting at this point. The experience of God, His blessings, His freedom, His forgiveness, His love, His power and His healing are essentially what is encompassed by the GRACE of God. Christ died on the cross specifically so that we can experience these things. Salvation is not just about going to heaven after we die but to experience in this life the blessings of God. As stated in the Salvation Equation, Grace is something God does, it is something He gives to us. It is the part of the equation He alone is responsible for. But to come to experience Grace, there is something we must do. And that part is FAITH. Faith is our part of the equation, something we are required to do before we can experience Grace.

What then does it mean to exercise and grow in Faith? As discussed in the Salvation Equation, there are 4 aspects of Faith:

(1) Faith Appropriation – This is when we begin to claim the promises of the bible that God has given to us the full measure of His Grace when Christ died for us. His blessings, His intimacy, His freedom, His power, His love, His healing. All these things were given to us on the Cross. To appropriate them is to confess verbally that we have them, and to believe the same in our hearts. Our responsibility is not just to read the Word but to claim it for ourselves.

(2) Faith Surrender – To experience God’s grace, the next component of Faith is surrender. It is only when we empty ourselves of our flesh that the Spirit can fill us and bring us into the fullness of God. Like a cup, we must be empty before God can fill us. We must therefore die daily to our human judgments, our rights, our reputation and our ambitions and surrender ourselves fully to God. Our responsibility is therefore to daily allow the Holy Spirit and the Word to convict us of sin, and to repent when such conviction comes.

(3) Faith Intimacy – The next component of Faith is intimacy. Intimacy involves pursuing a close relationship and walk with God. Like Enoch, we “walk with God” everyday of our lives. In practical terms, this involves prayer, worship, resting and waiting on God and living consciously in His presence continually. It is in such intimacy that we grow in our faith in God and come to experience His Grace.

(4) Faith Community – The last component of Faith is the Faith Community. To grow in faith, we require the help of fellow believers in the church. We ere never meant to walk the Christian life alone. Each member of the church has been given complementary gifts to serve and edify the body so that we can all reach “unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph 4:13b). Faith Community therefore requires that we spend time in fellowship and service with other believers in the church, helping them build their faith and letting them help us build ours.

Placed in these terms, if we are not experiencing God, His blessings, freedom or power in our lives, then we simply have to check how we rate or are doing on each of the above four aspects of Faith. Perhaps the answer to our question is really not so difficult to find.

We want more

2005-08-04T14:02:00.000+08:00

There must be something greater. There must be something more. This simply cannot be it. Birthing within the hearts of our young people is a cry for something greater than the lifeless and pretentious routine called church. There is a longing for a true spiritual experience of God, a longing for God Himself. Enough with the empty talk. We want the real thing.

Perhaps such a concept is not as unbiblical and new age as some would have us believe. After all the bible with replete with such examples. One of the most noteworthy is the manifestation of God in the temple after Solomon has dedicated it. God had given Solomon the blueprint for the building of the temple. The temple has just been built, the sacrifices made and Solomon dedicated the temple. Then look what happened:

“When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. And the priests could not enter the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD had filled the LORD’s house. When all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the LORD on the temple, they bowed their faces to the ground on the pavement, and worshiped and praised the LORD, saying: “For He is good, For His mercy endures forever.” (2 Chron 7:1-4)

This is what many have called the manifest presence of God. It is when the presence of God is so real that we can feel Him, almost touch Him. This is what happens that God shows up in the church. You walk into the service and know that God is here. Our prayers take on a different dimension, our worship is lifted to a different plane. The presence of God will bring men to their knees in tears and conviction of sin. The Holy Spirit manifests in signs and wonders. Tongues, prophesy and miracles abound. I don’t know what is your vision of revival. This is mine.

How to we get there? How do we move from where we are to where God wants us to be? This glorious state where church becomes transformed into the spiritual temple of God where His manifest presence dwells? The bible itself gives us the answer. God Himself answers the question to those who have ears to hear.

“When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place.” (2 Chron 7:13,14)

When there is spiritual dryness, when true spirituality seems absent, when it seems as if God has not showed up in our congregation for a long time, God himself steps in to tell us what to do. The first – hunger – “If my people will…humble themselves and pray and seek my face”. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled. I feel that as a church, we are simply not hungry enough. We have long deceived ourselves into spiritual complacency that we simply do not see our need for God, and hence there is no hunger. We must come to a state where we realize the immensity of our spiritual poverty, how sinful and fallen we are, how far from God we have come and how much we need Him. God waits for us to want Him so badly, to want Him more than anything else that we are willing to give anything to get Him.

The next condition is “turning away” – “…and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.” It is not enough just to acknowledge intellectually that we are sinful. True repentance involves turning away from everything that is not of God, and turning back to our one true love, the God who loves us. We cannot love God and anything else at the same time. To turn away involves an active involvement of the mind, the emotion and the will. Our entire being inclines towards God, the compass of our souls. Grace may be free but it will cost us our every love and our very lives.

Are you content to play church Sunday after Sunday? The eyes and ears of God are open and attentive to the prayers of His beloved. God is waiting, waiting to pour out His Spirit in immeasurable abundance, waiting to manifest His presence in His holy congregation. The question is are we hungry enough to ask?

So tired...

2005-07-29T14:34:00.000+08:00

Don’t know if you’ve experienced such tiredness that if you were to close your eyes, you would probably fall asleep immediately. Sometimes in this fast paced society, we simply don’t rest enough. The multitude of expectations and responsibilities at work or school, in ministry, for family just seem never-ending. Some like me, thrive on such activity – because it persuades us that we must be productive if we are doing so much. We move from activity to activity with clockwork precision – switching from one intense mode to another. Going from office to church to the gym to dinner with my family. We feel useful, accomplished, as if we are somehow justifying our existence. But we simply cannot go on like this forever, our human bodies will grow tired and weary. Today was one of those days…a day where to simply drag myself out of bed was a momentous struggle of will verses flesh.

It is at times like these were I force myself to pull back and reflect. Am I too busy? Why am I driving myself like this? Some responsibilities I cannot extricate myself from. Others I do simply because I am unwilling to say no. After all, this is such a competitive society, and there is so much depending on me. How can I let up? As I ponder these swirling passions within me, I pause for a moment and consider what heaven was thinking about all this. As God looked down at my life, I wonder what he must be thinking. Was he thinking, “he is so busy…good for him.” Somehow I get a sense that he was sad…sad that I was driving myself so hard, striving so hard to get ahead. And in all that running, I had somehow left Him behind.

Father I want to come back to you. In returning and rest we are saved. I realign myself now to you, my Lord and my God, to come back to the safe place of your presence. I quieten my passions, I still my soul, for you are God. For even young men grow tired and weary and youth stumble and fall, but those who wait on the Lord, He will renew their strength. They will rise on wings like eagles, run and not grow weary, walk and not be faint.

Can you lose your salvation?

2005-07-17T00:10:00.000+08:00

Can you lose your salvation? This has been an issue of great debate among Christians. Let me organise my answer into a couple of points.

(1) The bible speaks of the eternal security we have when we become Christians. eg. Jesus says "no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hands." John 10:29. Paul writes, "whom he predestined, he called, whom he called, these he justified; and whom he justified, these he glorified." Rom 8:30.

(2) The bible also speaks of Christians falling away. Heb 6:6 talks about the falling away (apostasy) of those who were partakers of the Holy Spirit. Paul also writes, "Now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times, some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons." 1 Tim 4:1

How do we reconcilse these?

(1) It is not possible to lose your salvation through normal sinning, ie. lack of good works. If you could lose your salvation through sinning then it is another way os saying that salvation is by works. Salvation is by faith and not by works so no man may boast. (Eph2:8) When a Christian persist in sinning and grieving the Spirit of God after he becomes a Christian, he does not lose his salvation. However three things happen:

(a) He loses the joy and experience of his salvation (Psalms 51:12) This means he loses his assurance of salvation. Sin acts as a wedge in our relationship with God and silences the voice of God in our lives. Our prayers become futile and the presence of God is withdrawn from our lives.

(b) He comes under the corrective discipline of God. Heb 12:6 says, "For whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he recieves." God cannot be mocked. Time and time again we see God send the nation of Israel into captivity, oppression and drought to cause them to repent and turn back to Him. He never stopped loving them, never forsook them. If we have accepted HIm as Lord, and continue to sin, God will not let us go or leave us alone. Many Christians continue to suffer in this life not knowing that they have brought themselves under the discipline of God.

(c) He will be judged by Christ at the second coming. At the second coming, Christians will be judged according to how we have lived our lives(2 Cor 5:10). This is a separate judgment from non-Christians. The judgment here is not unto eternal life, but as to rewards or lost of them. 1 Cor 3:13-15 says on that day, "each one's work will become clear, for the Day will reveal it, because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is. If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire." To those who have lived in sin after conversion, there will only be regret and shame as we enter heaven and are disqualified from any rewards.

(2) The Christian may lose his salvation only if he abandons the faith (apostasy). Faith in, faith out. The bible calls this sin blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Matt 12:31) Paul illustrates this in Heb 6:4-6,where he says "it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew themselves again to repentence." This condition is one where after having experienced the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, in conviction and regeneration, to walk away from God. It requires a heart so hardened, so cold towards God that there is no more a possibility of guilt or remorse, to make repentence impossible. The examples of these prophesied in the bible are of deception by demons and false prophets in false religons .

(3) Conclusion. God will not let us go once we have accepted Him. Neither Satan not others can snatch us away from his hand, for we are being kept by the power of God through faith for salvation (1 Peter 1:5). But if we choose to deliberately abandon the faith and say to God, "I dont need you or your salvation or want you to be my God anymore", I suspect God will in His respect of our human free will, let us go. This is not something we may want to test Him on.

The struggle to obey

2005-07-15T14:42:00.000+08:00

The struggle for obedience is one that every Christian can identify with. We, who have experienced the birth of a new spirit by the indwelling Spirit find our sin nature constantly contesting with our better conscience. I want to obey yet there is a war within myself. Each time I find myself fighting a strong desire to move in a contrary direction. This is exactly the struggle of Paul in Romans 7. The good that I want to do, I do not do. The evil that I do not want to do, this I find myself doing. I can surely identify with the cry of Paul at the end of Romans 7, “who can save me from the body of death?”

The answer is found in Romans 8:1 – there is now no more condemnation to those who are in Christ, for the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death. The law of sin and death is like the law of gravity. It pulls you in a direction you may or may not want to go. When confronted with a moral law, the sin nature within us naturally inclines to contravene it. The only way to overcome the law of gravity is to have another law that is more powerful than it. Like the law of physics involved in the force and momentum of a rocket ship propelling itself upwards against the law of gravity. Likewise, the only law that is powerful to overcome the law of sin and death is the law of the Spirit of life. Christ’s death on the cross broke the power of the law of sin and death over us and the indwelling Spirit helps us appropriate that freedom daily.

Enough of theology. So how does this work in practical reality. The issue is the mind. To overcome the law of sin and death, we must set our minds according to the things of the Spirit. You see, there is a sequence. How we think determines what we feel and what we feel determines how we ultimately act. If we think that the law of God is restrictive and burdensome, then we will not feel like wanting to obey it. However if we think that the law of God is beautiful and brings true freedom and blessing, then we will instinctively feel like we want to obey it.

The key therefore is the mind. Trash in, trash out. You are what you think. If we fill our minds with the ideas of the world, the sensual and sexual and covetous images from the media and the internet, then this will progressively change our minds. And the way we feel. And the way we act. It cannot be understated that media is the tool of the devil too brainwash us that the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life are indeed desirable and beneficial to us. I have learnt that when I fill my mind with the things of God, read His Word, listen to MP3 sermons, read Christian books, talk to God and live with the consciousness of His presence all the time, incline myself to the prompting and leading of the Spirit, these things change the way I think. That is why Paul says in Rom 12:2 to be transformed by the renewal of our “minds”. That is also why Jesus says that “the eye is the lamp of the body”. Our eyes are the channels to what we put into our minds. If we gaze on images of sensuality and sexuality and covetousness and lust, we will be changed into what we see. Because it will changes our minds, and then our desires and ultimately our actions.

The battle for obedience therefore lies not in the will or even our feelings, but much further upstream in the arena of the mind. Let God change your mind and you will win the battle for obedience.

Facing challenges sitting down

2005-07-06T23:34:00.000+08:00

God gave me a tremendous revelation driving to work today and I would like to share it. How do we face the challenges and spiritual opposition that life throws at us? The answer we would most often give is to stand up and fight. While this may be true in some sense, I would like to share a completely different way of looking at our battles. The Christian who is truly mature faces opposition sitting down! Let me explain...

Where is Christ now? He is seated at the right hand of the Father in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given (Eph 1:20,21). From His seated position on the throne, all things are placed under His feet (vs 23) The same image is found in Revelations 4:2. The Apostle John saw a vision of the glorious Christ, sitting on the throne.

Let me suggest two things this posture of sitting conveys. Firstly, it is a posture of rest from a finished work . It is a posture of victory. When Christ gave up His last breath on the Cross, he said "it is finished". And upon the completion of His work, the victorious Christ sat down at the right hand of the Father. Every sin, every disease, every sickness, every curse, He took upon Himself on the Cross. With His death, His work of salvation is now complete. There was nothing left for one who believed in Him to do, except to receive the gift of grace by faith. It was finished. By His stripes we are healed. By His death, we are free.

Secondly, the posture of sitting is a posture of authority. When we approach a king on the throne, we are always standing and the king is seated. When we approach the court, the judge is always seated and we stand. The one who sits is the one in authority. The one who stands is subject to the one who sits. By Christ's perfect life and perfect faith, all power and authority was given to Him over the dominion of darkness. In one act, He disarmed the principalities and powers and removed the bondage Satan had over mankind. When Satan approaches Christ, it is Christ who is seated on the throne.

When spiritual opposition come against us, we must learn to remain seated. For when we believed, God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms (Eph 2:6). Around Him who sits on the throne are twenty four thrones, with twenty four elders seated on them (Rev 4:4), a representation of the victorious and reigning saints - a picture of our position in Him. To remain seated is to stay in the finished work of Christ, to claim the authority that has been given Him. On the throne of God, there is no more strife, there is nothing left to fight, because the victory has been won. To remain seated is to remain in the perfect rest of faith. We enter into His perfect rest. Even in the midst of trouble, we remain in this perfect rest. It is when we rise from our position in Christ and try to fight our own battles that we are defeated by the devil and overwhelmed by our troubles. For when we remain seated, we identify with Christ and His victory, His finished work. And to this, the devil has no answer. So the next time the devil comes knocking, or life throws challenges at us, we face them sitting down. For we are now on the throne of grace, the throne of His finished work, the throne of His victory.

Man's search for identity

2005-06-30T18:35:00.000+08:00

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

2005-06-25T23:55:00.000+08:00

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.

Do we desire Him enough?

2005-06-22T20:54:00.000+08:00

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?

The joy of absolute surrender

2005-06-13T00:54:00.000+08:00

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.

You can't bring others higher than where you have gone yourself

2005-05-28T23:50:00.000+08:00

I have been in the ministry of spiritual growth for more than a decade now. I have taught in Sunday School, led small groups, worked in committees, occasionally been invited to preach and have even written a book on how to grow up spiritually. The entire focus of this calling on my life is to use the abilities which God has entrusted to me to help others growth up spiritually. For that is why I have been place here on this earth.

The process of spiritual growth is something both pastors and layman grapple with on a regular basis. We constantly look at the people under our care and try to crack our brains to figure out how we can help them grow up spiritually. We know there is so much more God wants them to experience, more of His power, more of His love, more of His freedom, more of His blessings, more of Himself. Yet as our Lord cried over Jerusalem, how God longs to bring those we lead into a higher level of spirituality but many are simply not ready, not willing, not concerned.

So what is the formula? There is none. What is the key? The answer - the leader. Who we are as leaders will determine those whom we lead. Spirit-filled leaders birth spirit-filled followers. Leaders who live in the flesh will simply achieve no spiritual growth in those they lead. For it is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing. If there is to be revival in the lives of those we lead, then the revival must start with us leaders. For only when we live and preach and serve under the anointing can we help those we lead come into the anointing themselves. You can't bring those you lead higher than where you have gone yourself.

The implication of this on ministry is startling. If our focus on our ministry is head-knowledge of scripture, then we will produce followers with head-knowledge but little spiritual experience. If our focus is fellowship, then we will produce followers close to each other but no closer to God. But if our focus is to serve and lead them under the anointing of the Spirit, only then will we bring them into the experience of God who is Spirit, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.

So before we run off to try to plan more programmes, start more committees, or attend more training, let us stop and come back to our God. For God is turning His spotlight on those who profess to be leaders in His church. Soon He will purge His church of flesh, or carnality, of the pride of human wisdom and ability. One by one, He will break His leaders, to refine us in the fire of trial till we come forth as pure gold, in the power of the Anointing. Just as Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness being tempted in every way by the devil, so God will brings His anointed ones through our own wilderness, the dark night of the soul that will burn away all pride in the flesh, all dependence on ourselves, to break us to a point of absolute surrender. And then, when there is no more pride, no more ambition, no more rights, no more reputation, He will start to pour Himself into us, to saturate us with His presence, His power, His Spirit. And only then, will we be leaders of the Spirit who can bring others into the things of the Spirit.

What is the cost of being a bible teacher? Consistent study. What is the cost of being a leader? Consistent death. The daily dying to ourselves. Are we prepared to pay the price? If we do not, the cost to those we lead will be unthinkable.

May the Force be with you

2005-05-24T14:09:00.000+08:00

The Star Wars saga has just concluded. The final jigsaw in the puzzle of how young Skywaker is seduced by the Dark Side and degenerates into Darth Vadar, Lord of the Sith. The entire Star Wars saga presents a fascinating world in which high tech weaponry confluences with mystic religion. In fact, many of us get so enthralled with spaceships and lightsabers that we may not realize the powerful New Age worldview it presents. At the centre of this religious worldview is what is now commonly known as the Force.

The Force is essentially presented as a kind of metaphysical life-force that encompasses all of reality. Certain special individuals like Jedi and Sith are able to ‘tap’ into the Force and manipulate it to achieve special powers and abilities. Upon death, like Obi-Wan in Episode 4, the original first movie, the Jedi merges with the force and becomes at one with the universe. Within the force, there is the polarity of the Dark Side and the Light Side, ultimate representations of Good and Evil.

The concept of the Force is not new. Such religious ideas find its roots in the ancient eastern religions of Hinduism and Taoism. Like Hinduism and Taoism, the religion of the Force is essentially grounded in a Pantheistic world view. This is a world view in which all of reality is viewed as ONE. In essence, we are all connected to the universe and the universe to us. God, ie. the idea of the divine, is the universe and the universe is God. In Hinduism, the aim is to attain to Brahman Atman, the point of Enlightenment where one merges with the divine oneness of the Universe. The soul comes to the realization that it is actually one with the universe, and in doing so, becomes the universe. In Taoism, a similar worldview is presented. The Tao is essentially the force that binds the entire universe together. The Taoist seeks to be aligned with the Tao, for alignment with the Tao brings prosperity and longevity. From this stems the concept of Feng Shui. Just as the Jedi aligns himself with the force to attain to his supernatural powers, in a similar way the Taoist seeks to align himself with the Tao to bring prosperity and health. In the West, that very same Pantheistic world view has found popular reemergence in the guise of New Age mysticism. Old ideas in a new package.

The implication of a generation of Christians growing up on a diet of New Age mysticism presented throughout the Star Wars saga must be addressed. Already we are beginning to see the infiltration of New Age thinking into main stream Christianity. We see this especially in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit or “pneumatology” as it is called by the church. Developing correct pneumatology is especially important given the obvious metaphysical aspects of the Holy Spirit and His operation in the life of a believer. The same way a Jedi is led by the Force and this leads to the manifestation special abilities and powers, so when a believer is filled with or baptized by the Holy Sprit, the Holy Spirit manifests numerous supernatural powers through the believer like healing, miracles and prophesy (1 Cor 12). The biblical presentation of the Holy Spirit in analogies like “wind”, “rain”, “water”, “fire” lends even greater temptation to associate the Holy Spirit with a Star Wars like Force essence.

To develop biblically accurate pneumatology, we must therefore be mindful of the fundamental difference between the Holy Spirit and the Force. The first and most fundamentally is the fact that while the Force is grounded in pantheism, ie. all of existence is one, the Holy Spirit, is essentially God. And God and His creation are separate and distinct. While a Jedi can unite himself with the Force, we and God remain separate and distinct entities, each with separate and distinct personhoods. We will never become God or fuse with the Divineness of God. The separation between divinity and humanity, with the exception of the Incarnation, is a line that can never be crossed from our end. To seek to be God is the path that led to the downfall of Lucifer.

The next fundamental difference is that of Personhood. Within the Holy Trinity, there is Personhood. The Godhead acts, thinks, feels and wills. The Force as presented in Star wars, is by contrast impersonal. The Force does not feel, does not think, does not act. Such impersonality is also consistent with the Pantheistic world view. Because if all of reality of one, there can be no distinct personalities who relate to each other. God, in the Christian worldview is presented as Father, a divine being who loves us, adopts us, and calls us into intimacy of relationship with Him.

Perhaps a third and most fundamental difference is how a Jedi or Sith relates to the Force and how a Christian relates to the Holy Spirit. As with every New Age religion, the lure of the Force is the lure of power and supernatural abilities. A proponent trains himself to “tap” into the Force, thus availing himself to many wondrous supernatural powers, which he then manipulates for his own purposes. While the Jedi uses the Forces for the good of others and the Sith use the Force to further his own personal gain, it is the proponent of the Force who sets the agenda. He “uses” the Force. Those who enter into Christianity seeking such power will often find themselves easy prey to the demonic ways of the devil. A lust for power and abilities a complete antithesis to the way of Christ. The way of the Christian is one of dying to ourselves, of humility and surrender to the Lordship of Christ, the way of the suffering of the Cross. We do not seek to be something but, like Christ, make ourselves nothing. In the issue of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we do not set the agenda, the Holy Spirit does. We do not use or control Him, He uses and controls us. During the baptism of the Spirit, the Spirit saturates the believer with His presence and power, and manifests power as He chooses. We are not in control, the Spirit is.

May the Lord be with you.

How do I know it is God?

2005-05-06T10:38:00.000+08:00

How do I know it is God? How do I know it is God speaking to me, speaking through you? The ability to hear and discern the voice of God and his leading in our lives and ministry is crucial if we are to fulfill his will. The famous apologist Ravi Zacharias said that there are no mass movements in church history. It only seems that way. At the centre of every movement is a man or woman who knows his or her God and where God is going. I fully agree. The great revival movements are simply occasioned when God works his purposes through a surrendered servant who is able to discern his voice and leading. As Henry Blackby wrote, we experience God when we work where he is working. We don't determine the agenda, he does.

How then do we hear the voice of God? Consider the words of Jesus in John 10:1-5:

"I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice."

"The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep." The first thing these verses tell us is that God does not play hide and seek with us. He does not come by the back door or is surreptitious in his communication. When he approaches us, it is direct and honest. Often, we are unable to hear his voice not because he does not speak clearly. But it is our human passions and selfish will that screams to drown out his voice. If we were simply to quieten our hearts before Him with the willingness to obey his voice at whatever cost, we will know the witnesses of the Spirit in our hearts.

This brings me to the second point. "...the sheep listen to his voice". The willingness to obey is a crucial criteria to hearing his voice. If we have already decided in our hearts a course of action, let us not deceive ourselves into trying to ask of his will. Strong preference in the area of decision making makes us resistant to hearing his voice simply because we are already closed to any other alternative. We must therefore be willing to listen, to obey, even if obedience brings us into a course that is difficult, or unpopular or painful. For that is the essense of faith, the faith surrender.

"He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out." The third point is that the voice of God to us is always deeply personal. God speaks to us in a way that we are able to hear. He knows what we require for faith and his communication is designed for us and us alone. For this matter, God may speak to one in one way and another in another. But more crucially, his voice is always a loving communication in the context of an intimate and close relationship with him. He does not play games and require us to figure him out. He is intensely personal, his presence very close by, as he leads us into his path of righteousness.

"His sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice." This brings me to my final point on this matter. It is out of close personal relationship with our Lord that we are able to recognise his voice. The more time we spend in his presence in prayer and worship, the more we will learn to know him. Discernment can only be built out of familiarity. Thus when someone speaks a word that purports to be of God, the child who knows his father will be able to discern whether it is truly from God. For the inner witness of the Spirit will rage within us to cause discomfort and unease when false prophesy is proffered.

We are at a transation point in church history. As the one who holds the seven stars in his hand speaks to his end-time church, he who has ears to hear let him hear what the Spirit is saying to his church. Lead us O lord, for we your sheep are listening.

Why should I believe you?

2005-05-03T10:58:00.000+08:00

The cry of the post-modern generation is always, "Why should I believe you?" As the church strives to reach out to the world, it is important that we understand the mindset of the generation today. Failure to do so will be catastrophic as the church will lose both its relevance and impact on our society. Changing mindsets calls for changing approaches. We face a generation that no longer accepts truth propositions because it is presented as such by someone in authority. The approach to both witnessing and bible study in respect of this new generation is therefore very different.

For the older generation when confronted with a truth statement such as "God is love", the older generation will tend to accept it as true even though he may not feel such. This lack of experiential verification or feeling is often dealt with by accepting that perhaps the person does not have enough faith to believe. The approach then is to build ones faith by the exercise of the will, the will to believe. The thought process is essentially "If I believe enough that God loves me, then I will feel his love." But essentially, feeling is subordinate to the assent to the truth, ie. it is true whether I feel it or not.

For the new and younger generation that is emerging, the fact that the truth proposition stems from someone in authority or seniority does not count for much. This is the generation of cynicism and the questioning of authority. What then does it take to convince a post-modern youth? The answer is - experiential verification. This is the thought process involved: "I accept truth based on something I can experience. If I cannot experience it, then it does not work and I will reject it as truth, no matter who tells me it is true."

To dismiss these traits as rebellious and un-Christian does not solve the problem. It only compounds it. To be relevant and to reach out to this generation, we must understand the prevailing mindset and deal with it. How then should we respond?

We must present a Christianity that works. We must present a God not just in words (concepts) but in power (reality). If we preach a God who loves us and to whom we can pray to, then we must ourselves be in an experiential loving and intercessory relationship with God. We must walk the talk. We cannot sell what we don’t have. If not, the youths of today will be quick to call our bluff. If we talk about victory over sin, we must be prepared to lead them into such an experience; and how can we do so if we have not gone there ourselves? Our worship must move from mere singing to touching the very presence of God. Our teaching must move from mere words to communicating the convicting voice of the Spirit. Our prayer meetings must move from mere petitions to prayers led by the Holy Spirit Himself who intercedes with moans and groans that words cannot express.

One of the crucial mistakes of conservative Christianity is the unhealthy suspicion and dismissal of spiritual experiences. The fear of abuse and suspicion of the unknown has resulted in all spiritual experiences being discredited as unsafe. The true Christian is lauded as one who believes even in the absence of any corresponding spiritual experience. This is not the Christianity of the bible. The presence and power of God was very real to the forefathers of Israel, prophets, the apostles and the early church. Yet in our anti-spiritual mindset, Christianity is often reduce to a concept, a creed, a moral philosophy will little spiritual reality. Such a Christianity is powerless and irrelevant in the face of the post-modern mindset.

If we as a church do not change to address the prevailing post-modern mindset, our churches will very soon go the way of the churches in Western Europe, where only the old attend to pass their days until they die.

Our lives are such contradictions

2005-04-28T11:57:00.000+08:00

Our lives are such contradictions. All of us who have tried so hard to make sense of it, to make sense of who we are, will find that we are often a mess of contradictions. Paul's ministry was a sea of contradictions too. In 2 Cor 6:8-10, he says about his ministry, "...by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." If he tried to define himself by the external markers of his ministry, he would have found it almost impossible.

But we all still try. We try to fit our lives into nice little controllable moulds. We seek stability, security, predictability. In our lives and ministry, we try to reach a state of comfort, and put into plan theories that assure success. But we kid ourselves if we think we can find predictability in our lives sufficient to define ourselves by it.

And Paul knew that. Which is why is verse 2 of 2 Cor 6, he quotes Isaiah 49:8, "In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you". Isaiah 49 speaks of the ministry of Christ, a ministry to which He had been "called from the womb."(vs1) To Paul, his ministry too was divinely appointed, and this was the "acceptable time" of the Lord. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." (2 Cor 6:2b)

As I began to meditate upon this, the Spirit began to reaffirm to me that despite the contradictions in my life, the sense of divine calling and appointment on my life remained constant and unchanged. I was here at this point of my life because this was the "acceptable time" of God. Despite the external and experiential contradictions and uncertainties, His appointment for my life was certain. I was His, called from the womb to His divine purpose. Certainty was only found in Him. Praise be to God.

Three barriers to our goal

2005-04-24T00:09:00.002+08:00

I have spent some time meditating on Phil 3:12 to 14. "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

As I pondered these verses, the Lord began to reveal to me three barriers to achieving the goals that He had set for my life. I have a sense that I am now at the threshold of the next stage of my life and ministry. Inwardly I know that God has a mission for my life which he wills for me to fulfill and that the only person that can stop me from fulfilling this call is myself.

Some of you reading this may also be on the verge of something new. Perhaps God is calling you to a higher level of ministry, calling you to step out in faith in a new area which you have no experience or competence in. He has set a goal in front of you and you are uncertain if you can discharge His call.

Three barriers lie in our path. The first is the barrier of pride. "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect". The greatest stumbling block in ministry is our pride. When we feel we have made it, or can do it, or that we are the best person for the job because of our abilities, then we lose the anointing. This is because pride causes the ascendancy of the flesh and quenches the Spirit. It is only when we humbly admit that we cannot, that the Spirit empowers and enables us.

The second barrier to our goal is our past. "But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead". We all have things in our lives that continue to hold us back. Past failures, past humiliations, past pain, past sins. The past continues to grip us with fear such that each time we try to go forward, the past pulls us back. But we must realise that God is not limited by our past. He can and will restore the years the locust have eaten. As we step in faith into a new tomorrow, God will lift us far above our past, into His glorious purposes. On our part, we must let go.

The third barrier to reaching our goal is our lack of perseverance. "I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." When ever God calls us to a higher level of faith and ministry, the devil will quickly move to oppose us. The need is for us to "press on". "All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution" (2 Tim 3:12). When Jesus was anointed by the Spirit at His baptism, immediately He was tested by the devil in the wilderness. Perhaps the testing of our faith at the outset of our first step into a greater promise is to test that which is in our hearts, to break our reliance on ourselves, and to burn away our false and selfish motives. We press on. We must expect opposition so that when it does come, we will not become discouraged and fall away from our goal. May God be glorified in our lives.

Are you a false Christian?

2005-04-20T14:39:00.000+08:00

What does a false Christian look like? He probably attends church or youth ministry regularly. He may come from a Christian family and have been attending Sunday school from young. He may even be serving in some leadership position in the church, perhaps even as a small group leader or a worship leader. He says grace before each meal and knows all the right answers to the bible study questions. He has a socially acceptable morality - he does not smoke, or gamble. He believes in abstinence before marriage and frowns at cohabitation. But if we probe beneath the shell, we find nothing there. There is little prayer in his life. There is no change in character and he lives in constant defeat to sin. There is little conviction in his witness. At the core, the reality and power and salvation of God is glaringly absent in his life.

Such a person is a false Christian because he only has the form of religion but not its spiritual reality. As Paul calls it, "a form of godliness but denying its power" (2 Tim 3:5). Paul knew what it was like to be a false Christian. For many years before his personal encounter with our Lord, Paul was a false Christian. He was a Hebrew of Hebrew, and a Pharisee of Pharisees. All the form, all the external facade, but nothing at its core. Such a person was a false Christian because his entire confidence of his religion was in the flesh (Phil 3:4). In short, a false Christian is one who places his confidence in the form of his religion.

Such falsehood and confidence in the flesh is "rubbish" according to Paul (Phil 3:8). Three times in Phl 3:7,8 Paul uses the word "loss". Relying on the form of religion but having no true spiritual reality is in fact detrimental and harmful to us. Because it lulls us into a false sense of pride and security, thinking we are ok when in fact we deceive only ourselves. It blinds us from our true empty, naked and spiritually impoverished state.

What then is true spirituality? What makes a true Christian? Paul then goes on to tell us in Phil 3:9-11. A true Christian is one who has righteousness that is by faith in Jesus. He is one who knows Jesus, knows the power of His resurrection and has the fellowship of His suffering. Here then lies the key. The suffering of the Lord was embodied in the Cross. Jesus said that if any man come after Him, let him take up his cross and follow Him. And at the core of the Cross was death. There was no resurrection power until there was death. Without death, there is no life. This is a powerful lesson for us. It tells us that without the dying to ourselves, we will never come to know Jesus and His resurrection life. There must come a point of every Christian's life where we die to ourselves. We must follow the Spirit into a point of total and utter surrender, of our judgments, our rights, our reputation and our ambitions. Like a living sacrifice, we lay our lives at the foot of the Cross. For then, we will enter into true spiritual life, into the resurrection power of Jesus, and into sweet union and communion with Him to loves us and pursues us. For we carry in our lives the dying of the Lord Jesus, it is then that the life of the Lord Jesus is manifested in us (2 Cor 4:7-11). "For I am crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave His life for me." (Gal 2:20) That my friends, is the only way to enter into true Christianity. It is the door that the false Christian has never entered. Are you tired of the falsehood? The key to true spirituality is the Cross. There is no other way.

How bad are you?

2005-04-10T23:21:00.000+08:00

How bad are you? What have you done in your life that is so bad that God will not forgive you? Could it be the seriousness of a particular sin, or the fact that you have confessed the same sin so many times that you lose count, and lose hope that one day God's patience will run out and His forgiveness will stop. Have you committed the unpardonable sin, whatever you think it may be? You feel you are a Christian for the most part but there is this nagging doubt about your salvation cos you aren't really sure if God has really forgiven you...after all the sin was pretty bad.

In 2 Samuel 11, we see a shocking display of sin by a man who was said to have a heart after God. One day from his palace, David saw a beautiful girl bathing. He lusted after her and had her brought to the palace. He then slept with her and got her pregnant, all the while knowing that she was married. If this was not bad enough, he then orders the commander of the woman's husband to put him in the front of the fiercest battle and then to withdraw from him to let him be killed. The commander does as the King orders. The man is brutally killed. To satisfy his lust, David had committed adultery and murder, two of the most severe moral sins before God. Can you top that? How bad is your sin compared with that? I don't think many of us can lay claim to have done something that is worse than that.

What was surprising was really God's willingness to forgive once David repented. The prophet Nathan confronted David about this sin. There was no hesitation, no protest, no attempt to hide the sin. David's response was swift and to the point. "I have sinned against the Lord" (2 Sam 12:13). His repentance was immediate. The response from God through the prophet was equally swift. "The Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die". Immediate repentance was met with immediate forgiveness.

Psalms 51 gives us an insight into what was going through David's mind at that time. The Psalm was written when Nathan had confronted him about his terrible sin. David knew that until he acknowledge the sin, it would always be before him and before God. He also knew that it was against God and God alone that he had sinned. And God desired truth in the inward parts. David knew that he could not simply just cannot hide his sin from God and pretend that it will go away. For God saw everything, knew everything and felt everything. And God was waiting for him to come clean.

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.

Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Psalms 51:1-12

How bad are you?

What makes a leader?

2005-04-04T11:06:00.000+08:00

What makes a leader, specifically a Christian leader? His charisma? His ability to preach and inspire? His organizational ability? While these gifts can be a blessing to the church, they are not enough. On the contrary, Christian leaders who are 'gifted' with leadership abilities in the worldly sense have a much greater temptation to lead out of human strength than of the Spirit. Human wisdom, human planning and human perspectives can oftentimes be the greatest impediment to the work of the Spirit. This is because the foundation of our reliance is on flesh and not of the Spirit.

"Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD .
He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives."
(Jer 17:5,6)

As I prayerfully sought the Lord on what He required in His leaders, two things came to mind. The first is sensitivity to the Spirit. A leader must be a person of prayer, and sensitive to the Spirit. True leadership is leadership on its knees. Many of us including myself often just pay lip service to prayer, teach and talk alot about it, but simply do not walk the talk. The alarming thing is that a leader who does not pray, and who cannot hear God, is like a captain of a ship who does not know where he is going. Forgive our sins Lord, hear our prayer and let us hear Your voice clearly. Let us hear what you, Holy Spirit, are saying to Your church.

"But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD ,
whose confidence is in him.
He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit."
(Jer 17:7,8)

The second essential quality of a Christian leader is servant leadership. As the world mourns the lost of Pope John Paul, what struck me most in an article about the life of this great man was his commitment to servant leadership. Too many of us exalt ourselves in our God-given positions, claiming glory and infallibility that is God’s alone. In our good intentions, we think we know what is best, guard our turfs and become resistant to views adverse to our own. Like the Sons of Zebedee, we crave the glory of sitting on the right and left of His throne in heaven. Yet the Lord saw things differently.

“Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave– just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
(Matt 20:25-28)

Perhaps now is the time for each of us to examine our lives to see if we are leading on our knees or from our exalted pedestals. Let us get off our pedestals and fall on our knees in prayer and servanthood. For only then, will we be fit to lead his church.

Who am I?

2005-03-31T14:21:00.000+08:00

Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a squire from his country-house.
Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equally, smilingly, proudly,
Like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
Tossing in expectation of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1946)

The struggle for a sense of self-identity is universal to all man. Most of us spend our entire lives trying to define who we are. We peg the definition of who we are to external markers, like what others think of us (our reputation), what we have achieved (our position and accomplishments), what we can do (our abilities and talents) or what we have (our possessions and wealth). We all want to be successes in life, to come to the end of our lives and know that we have lived a life worthy of admiration and recognition. Those of us who are more shrewd will plan and scheme to be judged as successes by these external markers. Yet the definition of who we are continues to elude us. Deep inside we know that pegging ourselves to external markers just doesn't cut it in the end. In certain times, the external markers grade us as successes. This is when we do something that receives recognition, receive a promotion, or acquire the latest possession. In other times, that same external markers will grade us as failures, e.g. when we experience failure or do not get something we covet or are victims of misfortune beyond our control. We then lapse into confusion and a sense of worthlessness. At different times, we swing from the extremes of thinking ourselves superior to others to the thinking ourselves as the worst of man.

The reason for this is simple - if our definition of who we are is based on certain markers and those markers are either inconsistent or unreliable, then our definitions of who we are will likewise always lack permanence. To put it another way, if who we are depends on how we see ourselves and how others see us, because these markers change constantly, then who we are will also constantly change. I may I think I am rich because I earn more than the average person. But when I look at the billionaires of the world, I may feel very poor indeed. Intrinsically I have not changed but because of the changing markers, my definition of who I am changes. Depending on what standard I use, I can either be a success or failure. But how can this be? How then can I find my true self?

"Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!" Reading the words of the famous martyred German theologian Bonhoeffer, I come to realise a simple but powerful truth. The quest for self-definition can only end when we come to God. Our illusive and turbulent quest to pin down who we are can only find rest when we begin to define ourselves the way God sees us. When we look through the eyes of God to see ourselves as He sees us, for the first time we will see ourselves for who we truly are. Freed of external markers; freed of the blindings of prejudice or bias or pride or self-depreciation. We begin to see our intrinsic worth as children of the Almighty God, our relationship with the Divine, our destiny with the Supreme Creator, our appointment with eternity. Through the eyes of God there is no place of self-pity, no failures, no rejection. Through the eyes of God there is only love divine, and the promise of glory.

Serenity in the midst of confusion

2005-03-15T10:50:00.000+08:00

There is so much in life that we cannot control, that we cannot understand. Those of us who are working will testify that there are so many things that can go wrong, so many things that threaten to drown us if we are not careful. People, projects, positions, promotions and politics. Those of us who raise a family will also concede how little we can really determine how our children grow up. We can do our best but much is out of our control. Those of us who are studying will also be familiar with the anxieties and stresses of assignments and grades. We can put in the effort but don’t always get the grade we deserve. All of us try so hard to gain mastery over our situation and circumstances. We plan and scheme and train. We use techniques and theories. We evaluate and improve. All with the sole aim of finding the formula that will enable us to reach the goals we want to reach. But ever so often, something may happen to knock our perfect plan out of course. It may be a disappointment, a failure or an unforeseen unfavourable event. This is just the trigger that opens a floodgate of anxiety and a sense of loss of control.

How then do we deal with this rollercoaster circumstances of life? How do we transcend the earthly storms and maintain serenity in the midst of confusion? The answer is deceptively simply but profoundly powerful. It is called ABSOLUTE SURRENDER. Absolute surrender is not a cowardly resignation to the winds of fate. It is a courageous move of faith to place our lives and those whom we love into the one who rules heaven and earth. It is the honest recognition of our true place and position as human beings. We exist for Him and through Him only. For He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. All things have their origins with Him, all things will end with Him. Only that which He says matters matters. Nothing else does. Absolute surrender is the posture of true worship, the coming home of the soul to its Maker. In absolute surrender, we stand in the position we have been created to occupy, and in the eyes of Him who matters, we stand in our destiny. In that moment, we are right with our Creator, we are right with our fellow man and we are right with the world. We fix our eyes on the throne room of heaven and the Lamb of God who sits upon the throne. Then slowly we begin to transcend the earthly storms that rage beneath. Like Peter, we walk over the raging waves to the one who beckons us with outstretch arms. We are enraptured in His loving embrace, His confident and omnipotent power, His enabling presence. In absolute surrender, we touch the face of God.

How real can we expect God to be?

2005-03-14T10:25:00.000+08:00

How real can we expect God to be? Most Christians will say that God is real to them indirectly, eg. through an answered prayer or unexpected blessing, or through circumstances that seem to be too co-incidental otherwise. That is what conservative Christianity deems as "safe". Then there are other Christians who talk about the more metaphysical aspects of God, eg. God speaking to them. Here we enter the realm of the subjective, we talk of "sensing", "prompting", "intuition", "peace or unease". We talk of "sensing the presence of God", "sensing his love". Some Christians are very weary of this because it seems to border of psychology and unreliable emotions.

But if we were to search scripture, we will find that such interactions between God and man is not uncommon. The bible speaks of the Spirit "testifying" with our spirit, causing the "love of God to be shed abroad in our hearts". The bible also speaks of the "peace of God that surpasses all understanding" guarding our hears and minds. The Old testament speaks of a still small voice, a voice behind our ears etc.

If we cut ourselves off from these subjective interactions with God, we cut ourselves from perhaps the main way in which God speaks to us apart from through Scripture. God is Spirit and any communication must necessarily be a spirit-to-spirit communication. Given the tripartite (ie. body-soul-spirit) nature of man, this will no doubt impact on our psychology, ie. our mind and our emotions. While some of these senses may well be self-generated, ie. purely psychological, we must learn to discern that which stems from ourselves and that which stems from God.

The key to this discernment is honesty and obedience. First we must be completely honest with ourselves and our intentions. Wrong intentions can cause us to think that God is affirming something we ourselves want to do. Honesty will enable us to discern the presence or absence of a deep and abiding sense of peace which will be absent if we are deceiving ourselves. Through constant suppressing of this "voice of conscience" we can grieve the Spirit into silence. But if we can embrace honesty and a willingness to obey, we will find the prompting and the communication becoming stronger and more sure over time.

How do I know Christianity is real?

2005-03-07T21:26:00.000+08:00

How do I know Christianity is real? This is the favourite question of every honest Christian but the least favourite question of any Christian leader faced with the task of answering it.

My question in response to the question is this - how do you know anything is real? This is what philosophers call an ontological (ie. truth) question - ie. how do you determine truth. Everyday in my job, I have to listen to different people tell completely different versions of the same event and then make up my mind on who is telling the truth. The ascertainment of truth in the court of law relies on testimonial evidence and where available, physical evidence. This itself is fraught with its problems. How then do we determine truth?

May I suggest that to determine truth is a two-stage process.
(1) Stage One - Test the Source. All truth comes from a source, ie. the testimony of a witness, or the observation and interpretation of physical evidence. To determine the veracity of this truth, we must therefore first test the veracity of the source. The assumption is that if the source is valid, then the statement of truth that comes from that source must be valid. ie. if a witness is truthful and trustworthy, then what he says must be true.

In the ascertainment of truth about life and God, there are three primary sources: (1) Science, (2) Reason and (3) Revelation. The ascertainment of truth by way of science has long been lauded as the unshakeable source. One may say the evidence does not lie. While that is true, the interpretation of the evidence is something that is far from certain. To speak as if all of science speaks in unison is to deceive oneself. Scientists differ on the state of the universe, the origins of the universe, the immutability of scientific laws, and the causes of disease. While the physical universe is there for all to see, our inadequate human faculties and our limited experiential paradigms make our interpretation of from scientific data as to what is ultimate truth far from reliable. In short, we cannot extract truth from science without the operation of human reason. Yet because of the failings of human reason and our limited experiences, any attempt to extract truth from science is fraught with uncertainty. What is more, in the area of the metaphysical (or spiritual), in the issues of life beyond death, scientific data come to an almost embarrassing standstill. Science has simply no answers.

Where science fails because of the frailty of reason, divine revelation takes over. While science requires finite man to make conclusions about life and death and existence and God, revelation stems from the divine Himself. Immediately, the superiority of the primary source becomes clear. To put it another way, who would you trust to tell you about life after death - a monkey, an evolved form of a monkey (no offence) or the divine himself?

(2) Stage Two - Test the Messenger. Even if the source is valid, the transmission of that statement of truth to the end point may be corrupted by inadequacies in the communication process. For example, even if the speaker is saying something true, if there is so much noise that I cannot hear what he is saying, then the communication of that truth to me is lost.

Assuming that we accept the superiority of revelation over science, we now move to the second test. Here we move from testing the source to testing the transmission process stemming from that source. Every religion with exception of Christianity relies on the transmission of the divine message through a human conduit, ie. a prophet, a messenger or a holy man. To test the divergent truth statements made by all these human conduits, we must look at the quality of messenger himself. This is where Christianity distinguishes itself. In all the major world religions, no other messenger of the truth statement has claimed to be divine himself. All else has claimed to simply be a messenger for the divine. In Christianity, the transmission of the truth statement stems from the lips of the divine Himself, incarnated as man. In all other major world religions, the message is "Let me point you to the truth". In Christianity, the message is "I am the truth."

In conclusion, Christianity provides both the superior source and the superior transmission of the message from that source. If I had to chose to place my faith in a religion, the choice, as you can see, is not so difficult to make.

What On Earth am I Here For?

2005-03-03T22:35:00.000+08:00

It has been a month since my last post. The festivities of Chinese New Year are now over. I never did like Chinese New Year much, with its overly sweet tidbits and overly annoying relatives. Growing up, I used to hate being dragged around by my parents in the sweltering afternoon sun to see old people whom I really could not care less about just so that they could compensate me for my hardship with a few red notes. This year, for the first time, it was my turn to dragged my poor 8 month old daughter to see old people whom she really could not care less about. Except at that age, she could just scream into their faces when they displeased her. Ironic really, but such is the cycle of life.

Solomon once said, "what is new under the sun?" Everything that we do, our efforts, our strivings, our boastings, will soon pass away like sandcastles in the incoming tide. We too will soon pass away. And the next generation will come after us. Our children, our next generation of church leaders, our successors in our ministries and our jobs. What can we do that is really worthwhile? Some build corporations and mansions. Others crave political position and the esteem of man. We change cars, change handphones, change houses, change our looks, change our jobs...all in search of that illusive goal that says that we have 'arrived'.

Then we think of eternity. Imagine if you will a piece of string that is stretched in front of us, from east to west, across the horizon, a string that extends and extends round the earth until it meets at the opposite end. That string is eternity, relentless, unending. Then imagine a little 1 cm red splotch of paint on that string. That is the 70, 80, 90 years of our lives. And then we are told that the decisions and choices we make on that little splotch of red will matter for all eternity. Suddenly all our vain strivings and ambitions on this little splotch of red begin to look rather silly, all our anxieties and our quarrels begin to look rather petty.

You see God has put eternity into our hearts such that our hearts will never be at rest in the temporal, in this little red splotch of time we have made our home. We have been created for things far more divine, far more glorious than to live and eat and die on this moving rock. You see, each of us has a destiny that is tied up with God Himself, a purpose that stems from the very heart of the Creator. It is only when we align ourselves with the Divine Will, that we transcend this temporal cage and touch the face of eternty.

But the decision to either align ourselves with the Divine Will or walk our own path to futility and destruction is one each of us must make. It is the choice between surrender or autonomy, obedience or license, the Spirit or the flesh, faith or unbelief. "Father let not my will be done but yours." "Into Your hands I commit my spirit". These are the words of one who has aligned himself with destiny. For only he who dares to step out beyond our sight and live by faith, is he who will step into the hands of He who holds eternity.

Ramblings on dissatisfaction

2005-02-02T17:46:00.000+08:00

We are always inclined to be dissatisfied with what we have. We are 'trained' to complain and to see the worse in our situation. We focus on what we don't have, moan about how we are not being treated fairly and smugly sip on the bitter nectar of our self-pity. Our dissatisfaction is often linked to one feeling, the feeling of being wronged, of being treated unfairly. This can be in respect of our job, ie. we feel unappreciated by our bosses and our efforts unrewarded, or it can be in respect of our studies, ie. we feel we are simply not getting the results our efforts deserve, or it can be in our situation in life, perhaps we feel we should be richer or better looking or smarter or happier.

Some 60 years to this day, Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated. By that time, more than an estimated 3 million people, Jews and Soviets etc, had been exterminated at Auschwitz by the Nazis. Rudolf Hoss, the Commandant of Auschwitz related the following in his sworn testimony at the Post-War Nuremburg trials: "I commanded Auschwitz until 12/1/1943 and estimate that at least 2.5 million victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning, and at least another half million succumbed to starvation and disease making a total dead of about 3 million." The story of unspeakable human cruelty still rings loud today to those who would dare to hear. Bales of human hair bear testimony to the hundreds of thousands gassed to death. Evidence has emerged of thousands of women and children who died after being subject to vile medical experimentation. All part of the Final Solution Hitler had put in place to exterminate all Jews in Europe. I've been reading some information on Auschwitz and felt sick in the stomach.

Who determines our position and place in life? Who determines if I am to be born in a certain place and time, with certain characteristics and abilities? Do we look at those less fortunate then us so that we can feel better about ourselves? Do we avoid focusing on what we don’t have so that we can be satisfied with our lot in life? Why does life treat some people better and others with the raw deal? Some might say God, others might say the devil, still others might say that is the result of sin in a fallen world. Or as Shakespeare writes in King Lear, "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, they kill us for their sport". Looking at the apparent arbitrariness of life, and the senselessness of it all, we struggle to find any sort of meaningful answer. Is there any sense to it all? Is there any fairness to it all? There is a sadness in me now as I look at the world around me. So many struggling just to survive, so many grappling to play with the difficult odds life has dealt them. Injustice, cruelty, suffering. What can one person do? How can I find answers to these questions that rage within my disquiet soul?

Between eternity past and eternity future is a small blip of existence called time. This is the short space which began at creation and will end at the recreation of the new heaven and the new earth at the end of time. Perhaps we will never know why, at least not in this lifetime. Perhaps our questions will never be answered. But within this short 60 to 100 years of our life, we are all called to make choices, choices that will determine the end-product of our life, choices that will determine our eternity. We cannot abdicate from this choices by claiming that we have been treated unfairly by life or that our questions have been unanswered. We cannot retreat into a world of self-pity and pretend that these choices will go away. At the end, we will all have to account for every choice made, every word spoken. What is the legacy we want to leave this world with? A legacy of a person who has never accomplished anything because he succumbed to self-pity and was paralised to act by the quicksand pit of complaining he had sunk into. Or the legacy of a person who has loved and served and impacted others because of the choices he made. People who leave behind a successful life do not do so by complaining. They do so by daring. History does not remember the complainers. History remembers the brave.

Two realities

2005-01-22T11:58:00.000+08:00

How are we seriously ever able to take up the cross? Jesus calls us to do so in Luke 9:23. We are told that taking up the cross means giving up everything to follow Christ, being willing to sacrifice and suffer for His sake. Is this a mandate too high for anyone to reach? I believe God everytime God gives us a command, he also gives us the power and ability to accomplish this command. Many of us read the verse in Luke 9:23 and kind of sigh resignly to the seeming impossibility of the command. Yet if we were to simply read on to the verses that follow, we will discover an incredible truth about how we can obtain this ability to fulfill the command.

Following the command, Jesus takes about two different realities. The first, the reality the physical world of earth. Jesus says of this world that whoever tries to find his life in this world will lose it (vs 24). And even if a man can gain the whole world, there is no eternal profit if he were to lose his soul (vs 25). Jesus here speaks against two of the most important goals every human being aspires to. The goals of actualisation - ie finding your true self and reaching your human potential, and acquisition - ie. obtaining material abundance. If we are seeking these two things in the physical world, this is foolishness and will come to naught at the end.

In contrast to the first reality of the physical world is the second reality the world of the Kingdom of God, of God and His Angels, of the spiritual dimension, of heaven and hell, and of eternity. Though unseen for the most part to the average human, to Christ, this was the greater reality. For Hebrews 11:3 tells us that the spiritual world preceded the physical world. In this reality, the rules are different. It is not so much how much material acquisitions or worldly status you acquire that matters, it is whether you have loved God. known God and fulfilled His calling on your life that matters. To those who are ashamed of Christ, Christ will be ashamed of him when he comes in glory and with His angels (Luke 9:26). This is the reality of the Kingdom of God (Luke 9:27). And this is the reality that matters for eternity.

The Apostle Luke then goes on to give the account of the transfiguration of Christ. Eight days later, Jesus goes up to the mountain to pray and is transfigured. His face and his clothes shown with glorious light. And Moses and Elijah appeared with Him and discussed His upcoming death. As I pondered upon why the Spirit had chosen it fit to tell us of the transfiguration immediately after the preceding verses, it soon dawned on me. The transfiguration is a graphic representation of the second and greater reality. The story of the transfiguration tells us that this greater reality in fact co-exists and lies beneath our present physical reality, from time to time breaking through the veneer of covering into the physical reality. It is a reality that though we cannot see through our earthly eyes, we can see through the eyes of faith and by revelation of the Spirit.

The appreciation of this greater spiritual reality of the Kingdom of God is crucial if we are to be able to carry our cross. For we can only give up this present physical reality if we see through the eyes of faith the greater and eternal reality of God and His kingdom. That is why we are told to set our minds not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Cor 4:18). Our liberation from earth only begins when we can see heaven. Let us pray therefore that the Spirit will give us eyes that we may see this greater reality. For it is only when we are rooted in the greater reality of God that we are able to transcend this present reality, to take up the cross and follow Him. For he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose (Jim Elliot).

The Overcommitted Christian

2005-01-15T18:11:00.000+08:00

Responsibilities, expectations, deadlines. Trying to balance a full day in the court of law, returning home to be husband to my dearest wife and father to my 7 month old baby girl, add the multitudes of issues and human complexities in my church ministry, and throw in the discipline of an exacting fitness regime, you will see that my life is no easy task. There is almost not enough time every day. Recently my wife brought home a pamphlet from church entitled "Busy Husbands, Lonely Wives". Not sure if she was trying to tell me something.

As I pondered the issue of time and work, I begin to realise that the danger is not that we are unable to do enough for God, the danger is that we are doing too much. Somehow, I feel the Christian life was never meant to be this tiring. It was at this point that I turned to the familiar words of Christ in Matthew 11:28,29 - "Come to me all you who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls." The question I found myself asking was, how really do we enter the rest of God?

As I read around the verses preceding and after this famous verse, and prayerfully asked the Spirit for His counsel, the truth soon dawned on me. In the preceding verses, Jesus had lamented that the Jews had condemned both John the Baptist and himself (11:18,19). He then chided the cities in which his mighty works had been done because they had failed to recognise the works of God (11:20-24). Jesus then went on to say that these things were hidden from the wise but revealed to the babes and that the Father would only be revealed to those whom the Son reveals Him to. Then he spoke the words of rest in Matt 11:28,29. As I meditated on these verses, the Spirit revealed to me a simple truth - There is a pressing need for us to recognise the true works of God. The Jews in their pride were not able to. Only the humble at heart are. The reason for our never ending strife and our tiredness is that in the quest to fulfill our proud ambitions, we are unable to distinguish what is God's work and what is not God's work, but our work. We often claim to be building God's kingdom but are in reality striving to build our own treasures and kingdoms on this earth. The result - we take on much more than God ever intended, at work, in ministry and in our extra-curricular pursuits. It is only to the humble at heart that Jesus will reveal the Father. And it is only those who have seen the Father who are able to discern the works that are from God. The works that come from God, these we should pursue. The works that are not from God but from our flesh, these, we should be wise not to unnecessarily burden ourselves with.

As I moved on to read the verses after Matt 11:28,29, Matthew writes of an episode of the disciples plucking grains in a grainfield on the Sabbath to eat because they were hungry. They were chided by the Pharisees. Jesus then gave the example of David entering into the temple on the Sabbath and eating the showbread. He then makes a startling remark to the Pharisees, "But if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy not sacrifice,' you would not condemn the guiltless." Herein lies the next truth in respect of rest. Only when we are able to recognise the work of God are we able to enter the rest of God. The Pharisees in their own human pride had burden themselves with the works of man, and therefore even on the Sabbath, could never find rest but continued to lay more burdens upon themselves and others. Yet if we were able to see the true heart of God, we would know and recognise His true work. For the work of God was always concerned about genuine need, the needs of His beloved children. The Father's heart was always one of mercy and love. And there was always enough time for each child. Those who engaged in the Father's work, no more and no less, would likewise enter the rest of God, for God himself was able to work for six days and to rest on the seventh.

Only one thing is needful for an overcommitted and tired-out Christian. That is to learn to recognise the works of God. We put aside the strife of our flesh, and embrace only those works which flow from the Father's heart. In doing so, our souls will also experience the rest of God. For His yoke is easy and his burden is light (11:30).

Making sense in calamity and suffering - Part 2

2005-01-10T17:36:00.000+08:00

How could a loving God allow thousands of innocent infants to die in the tsunami? Doesn't he care? Doesn't he see? This is no doubt a very difficult question to answer. Perhaps we can try to understand somewhat why God works in the way he does when we understand the sacredness of free choice. When God created man, he created man to be free. For only a free human being can voluntarily choose to love and worship him. Man without choice is essentially a soulless robot. However with this free choice came the possibility that man may not choose God, that man may sin. As God foreknew, man did sin, in the Garden of Eden.

Here is the crux of the matter. With free choice comes moral responsibility. The wages of sin is always death. You could say God created man knowing that some would not choose him and go to hell. Why would a loving God live with that possibility? Because the sanctity and sacredness of free choice demanded that. Free choice that was necessary for us to exist as true, morally independent and free human beings. And we might make conjecture that creation of man was a superior option than no creation at all even though some might go to hell in the process. We might then ask why doesn't God tamper the consequences of the wrong choices we make? Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t. If he did so every time, nobody would go to hell even if they rejected him. You see, free choice necessitates consequences of that choice without which the free choice would be meaningless and the choice itself illusory. If we were to be protected from the consequences of our choice, then there would be no avenue for moral responsibility. God in his wisdom has therefore seen it fit that as morally free beings, we face the consequences of our moral decisions.

How does this apply to the situation like a major calamity? The fact of a decaying creation is the consequences of sin. Creation is in bondage to decay because of Eden. The natural order of things are progressively falling apart. This is the consequence of the morally free choice of our forefathers, the indirect consequence of sin, both in our lives and the lives of our forefathers. God does not always mitigate the evil or tragic consequences that ensue because to do so would remove any avenue for moral responsibility and render the freedom of choice itself illusory. If God were to do so, taken to its extreme, nobody on earth would die, nobody on earth would suffer and nobody on earth would go to hell. Then our decisions simply would not matter. Our freedom of choice rendered farcical.

As to why God saved one child from the waves but allowed another to drown, we will never know. What loving father would allow his son to die? The God we know would. He did, some 2000 years ago on the Cross. To all who were looking on that Calvary morning, the cross was foolishness. Unexplainable foolishness. A man in his prime, full of potential, full of the anointing, yet a life wasted after 2.5 short years of ministry. To the Jews, the cross was an offense and it still is to them today. To the Greeks, the cross was foolishness. Yet the cross is to us the wisdom of God and the power of God. Some things we can only know with the benefit of hindsight. Every dying child, every drown child, every fibre of our being screams and demands to know why? For it violates everything we see as fair and just and kind. But then we survey the wondrous Cross, on which the King of Glory died. How could it be? As I ponder the Cross, and all its seeming insanity and contradictions and illogicality, disbelief gives way to faith, and confusion to hope. For I can never understand enough of God to "darken His counsel with words without knowledge". I can never understand. I can only trust.

Making sense in calamity and suffering

2005-01-03T15:36:00.000+08:00

How can we make sense of what has happened recently? More than 125,000 dead and the death toll is climbing. Where is God in the midst of such suffering? Here are some thoughts on the issue:

1. The biblical perspective commonly taught on the subject of suffering is that it can be used by God either as a form of chastisement or temporary judgment (as opposed to final judgement in hell) for sin. It can also be used by God to build character, build faith and perseverance and to reveal what is in the heart of man. Suffering teaches us not to rely on ourselves but on God which is ultimately crucial if we are to learn to appropriate grace. But one may ask how does such a theory sit with the thousands who have died? Especially the young children and infants. Here we turn to our next possible answer.

2. The second biblical answer we can give is that suffering is caused as a result of the sin of man. When Adam sinned, the natural world fell into bondage to decay and nature began to progressively breakdown. Natural calamity like earthquakes, etc. result simply because of the breakdown of natural order. God does not cause the suffering but allows it because his salvation of the world is being systematically unfolded in his perfect time. God's approach in dealing with the issue of sin was first to address the evil in the heart of man by Christ's death on the cross. By the cross, the penalty and power of sin was broken in the life of the believer. The next stage of salvation is the second coming when God will transform the physical bodies of all believers and restore the natural order disrupted because of sin. God is not sitting by idle in the midst of sin and suffering. He is intimately concerned about it but we must trust that the unfolding of his perfect salvation can only take place in his perfect timing.

3. The philosophical perspective on the quest for meaning in suffering is a more complex one. When someone asks for meaning in suffering, there is a presumption of order and logic, ie. a rationale answer, that things must ultimately make sense. This presumption can only stand if one believes in creation and the fact that the universe is ordered by an Almighty Being who works all things for a purpose. Without the acknowledgment of the existence of God, we are only left with evolution, which is ultimately the theory of randomness and chance. In such a theory, there is no place for the question "why". Things just happen because it does. Natural forces of physics, chemistry and biology interplay. DNA, molecules and forces determine our future. There is no higher purpose, no transcendent rationality. Like the role of the dice, things just happen. As a philosopher once said, "DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is and we dance to its music." Without God, when we look out at the stars and shout for an answer, there is only the defending silence of an disinterested universe. The atheist who tries to disprove the existence of God by pointing to the lack of meaning in the present suffering finds that his denial of God invalidates his very question. Without the presumption of God's existence, he cannot justify his need for a reasonable answer to his search for meaning.

Why is there a need for Christmas?

2004-12-24T10:44:00.000+08:00

Why is there a need for Christmas? We know the need for the Cross but why Christmas? Why is there a need for the Christ to be born in a lowly manger, to grow up through infancy, adolescence, teenage and adulthood to reach 30 before He could finally go to the Cross? Why go through all the trouble? Why not just incarnate the Christ at age 30, so that He can start his ministry and then go to the Cross immediately? Why wait 30 years?

I suspect that the very answer to this question is also the answer to why God doesn't just take us up to heaven when we accept Him but allows us to continue here on earth, as difficult as it may be. It seems as if God takes a long time to get anything done. I mean, haven't they been talking about the 2nd coming for the last 2000 years? Sometimes the things we pray for today do not bear fruit until years later. At other times, God persists in allowing us to struggle with a thorn, despite repeated prayers for deliverance. Why?

The answer, I think, is the word called "process". "Process" is defined as "a series of actions, changes, or functions bringing about a result." I hazard a guess that there must be some purpose to the wait, that that purpose is to allow for some form of process so that ultimately, a desired result will emerge. Ultimately, some things just takes time. And when it comes to soul-making, you just cant run away from the process time.

What then is the process? Life has been defined by the Romantic British poet John Keats as the 'vale' (ie. valley) of soul making'. From a Christian standpoint, the soul is the essence of the person, comprising our mind (the way we think), our emotions (the way we feel) and our free will (the ability to be autonomous). The soul is who we are, our personality, our being. In every life, when the Spirit of God breathes the breath of life into our mortal frame, there lights the flame of life which is the soul. From the time of first light, at birth, the soul continues beyond death into eternity. Life then, is the process by which the soul grows and develops and is sanctified. In this process, we move from intellectual immaturity, emotional immaturity, and moral immaturity to intellectual maturity, emotional maturity and moral maturity. The developed and mature soul bears likeness to the character of God Himself. Such a person thinks the way God does, feels the way God does and decides the way God does.

This then begs the next question, why doesn't God just zap us to become matured persons and not have to go through the painful process of growth in this life? The answer, because the growth process can only be done by a series of small free-will choices made by us throughout the process. We have to participate in the growth process. At each step of the process, we are faced with choices and decisions, each choice and decision bearing moral consequences. If we make the correct moral and wise choice, we move to the next level. If we don’t, we stagnate or retrogress. I have always said that who we will be in 20 years times depends on the series of small choices we make each day. We just don’t wake up one morning and find ourselves in a certain state. We are a product of our choices, and especially more so, when it comes to the business of soul making.

It was the same for the Christ. Hebrews tells us that the Christ had to learn obedience by His suffering, so that He could become the perfect author of our salvation. The perfect sacrifice could only come from a life lived perfectly in obedience to God.

So why is there a need for Christmas? Because without Christmas, there can be no Cross. Without the process, there can be no end result. So you are reading this and are currently struggling with your thorn, wondering why God is slow to hear and to act, remember Christmas - because from Christmas to the Cross, there was the process. God is building something in us that we cannot see now. For Paul writes in 2 Corinthians that our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. God bless and Merry Christmas.

Excuse me, are you running a ministry or a company?

2004-12-20T09:43:00.000+08:00

Throughout my years in ministry, I have served on quite a few committees. In church, in Youth Ministry, in university etc. Oftentimes, running a church or a ministry involves planning meetings and nitty-gritty administration. We review our progress, discuss upcoming matters and issue directions. If there is a need to, we take a vote. We set strategies and implement programmes. Over a period of time, we become effective and our organization starts to thrive. Then we hit a plateau. Despite all our planning and efficient organization, we seem to be unable to move to a higher level. How do we plan and organise for revival? The answer: We can't. Only God can.

In the growth of any ministry, we must come to the stage of realization that if we are to go any further, we cannot do it on our plans, our efforts and organization. In fact, many a times, our efforts and plans are the very things that keep us from going further. In the best-selling book Experiencing God, the authors had a simple premise: To experience God, we have to get involved in the things HE is doing. The operative key is "HE", not us. To explain, in any ministry or church or small group, the focus must be not on what our own human plans and devises are, motivated by good intentions they may be. The focus must be on what HE is doing. Seven times to the seven churches in the Book of Revelations, Jesus said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches". The responsibility of any leader in any church or ministry or small group must therefore be to seek what God IS DOING and WANTS TO DO in our ministry.

How then does this impact on our ministry leadership? The answer is not more planning, but more prayer. A leader who is unable to hear from God is like a Platoon Commander who is unable to receive orders from the Commanding Officer. That platoon simply will not be able to fight the war effectively. Now is the time for leaders to come together in prayer. To facilitate this, two things are needful. First, purity. Second, unity. Lack of purity in the life of the leader silences the voice of God. Unconfessed and secret sins form a wedge between us and our Commanding Officer, often grieving the Spirit into silence. But blessed are the pure at heart for they shall see God. Lack of unity within the leadership also grieves the Spirit and makes us easy prey for the devil. From my experience, lack of unity often comes from a reliance on human wisdom and the exaltation of human ability within the leadership. We disagree with others because we think we know best and can do it better. That is pride. The call to unity is therefore a call to humility, to recognise that we are unable to do anything of ourselves. All power, all wisdom, all ability comes from above and there is only one Commanding Officer in this ministry, and His name is Jesus Christ.

The ball is now in our court. If we are to take our small group, our ministry and our church to a higher level of revival and spiritual reality, we have to prayer. We have to bow our knees and hear what the Spirit is saying to us. Let no flesh glory in His presence for He alone is God and this is His church. I am not saying we don't plan, we don't administer. But before any of that can take place, we must pray. For if we make decisions without having heard from the Spirit, then our decisions will ultimately be fraught with the fallibility and foolishness of human wisdom.

As Joshua stood with the army of Israel on the eve of the battle for Jericho, he saw the Lord standing before him with a drawn sword (Joshua 5:13). Not knowing that He was the Lord, Joshua went up to the Lord and asked him, "are you for us or are you for our enemies?" But the Lord replied, "Neither, but as the Commander of the Army of the Lord I now come." And Joshua fell on his face and worshipped and said "What does the Lord say to His servant?" This is not our battle, we are not in charge. There is only one Commander and His name is Jesus. Speak Lord for your servants are listening.

Keeping the fire of revival burning

2004-12-15T11:04:00.000+08:00

Another fantastic YM camp has just concluded. Last year we thought we had set a record with a 3.5 hour worship. This year, God had greater things in stored for us. For the first time, more than 100 youths gathered on the last night to pray and intercede for more than 3 hours into the early hours of the morning. There was a very strong move by the Spirit for repentance and re-dedication. Many were on their knees in repentance. Leaders gathered to repent of the disunity and pride within the leadership. The call was made for leaders and youths alike to clean up the idols in our lives and give to God a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to Him. Hours earlier, during the speaker sessions, hundreds of youths rose to their feet to gave their lives in re-dedication to God. Hearts were broken before Him. Lips confessed His Lordship over our lives.

Herein lies the sparks of true revival. For true revival lies not in how spectacular the manifestations are, how much crying or falling over there is, or even how intense the worship is. True revival lies in the depths of a repentant heart. In 2 Chron 7:14 God promises that if we as a church were to humble ourselves and pray and seek His face and turn from our wicked ways, then He WILL hear from heaven and forgive our sins and heal our land. Repentance and surrender are the only marks of true revival. For without them, revival is but spiritless emotionalism.

Yet after the music stops, after the euphoria of the camp ends and we go back to the routine of our daily lives, how much will really change? For many, the loneliness and struggles will return in greater force than before. For the higher you have been, the harder you fall when reality hits you. Where is the power and the wonder and the Spirit? Was it just a dream to which we have woken up from? We find ourselves longing to re-create what has passed, barely holding on till the next "spiritual high". How do we keep the fire of revival burning?

The answer is painfully simple. The true marks of revival are repentance and surrender. The reason for the power and the experience during events like a camp is simply due to the presence of repentance and surrender. For it is only when we are empty that the Spirit can fill us with Himself. When we return to our normal lives, the temptation is for this repentance and surrender to stop. There is no longer the external motivations of our camp mates and camp speakers pushing us to repent and surrender. And when the repentance and surrender stops, we fill ourselves once again with pride and sin, and push the Spirit out of our lives. The result - the intimacy with God is lost and the experience of His power and His presence fades. The solution is therefore to continue to discipline ourselves to walk in daily repentance and surrender. We hold each other accountable and continue to encourage each other. If only we were to then walk daily in repentance and surrender, we will experience the fullness of the Spirit every day of our lives, every time we open the bible, every time we pray, every time we worship. For God is the same yesterday, today and forever. It is we who change and are wavering in our surrender to Him. Don't wait for the next camp. Let's keep the fire of revival burning today.

Why do we always hurt those closest to us?

2004-12-03T13:03:00.000+08:00

Why do we always hurt those closest to us? It could be a parent, or a spouse, or a girlfriend/boyfriend. These are the people that mean the most to us yet so often we find ourselves losing our temper more quickly with them, or say things we know are hurtful. On the flip side, we tend to almost be more cordial and tolerant with those who are not so close to us. We tend to try harder to please those that are not so close, and therefore are more polite and grateful to them.

Some people say that the answer to the question of why we tend to hurt those closer to us is because ironically our loved ones know the 'buttons' to push in us. They know what triggers us and when they do it, they hurt us more deeply and we retaliate and hurt them back. This is true when there is a very low level of trust in the relationship. We may have been hurt so many times by those close to us that our response to a slight provocation is based not only on the provocation at hand but also all the past hurts we have endured from that person. This results in a disproportionately more severe retaliation to hurt the person. This theory in some way explains the severity of conflict in relationships where the trust level is low. But is does not explain why even in relationships where the trust level is high, and the relationship can be considered 'good', we still end up getting angry more easily with our loved ones and hurting them in return. Let me venture 2 theories:

Firslty, we are more likely to get angry at someone close to us because we have higher expectations of them. We expect them to know us and understand us better, to be able to predict our needs and take heed to our feelings better. We expect them to be more sensitive, more reliable, more trustworthy and more loving. We expect more time, more effort and more commitment to us. These higher expectations also means that it is easier for our loved ones to fall short of them. Failure to meet and expectation hurts us more deeply when it is by a loved one. How do we get around this? Firstly, I have to say that it is not wrong to have higher expectations of those closer to us. After all, surely the commitment involved in a marriage is higher than the commitment involved in a cordial friendship. The problem is that much of these expectations we have of our loved ones are never communicated to them. We simply assume they know of it and expect them to keep it. Often, we have never openly talked about our expectations as that is seen as too confrontational and awkward for many. On the receiving end, it is terribly unfair for the person who has never been told of the expectation and yet when he runs foul of it, is taken to task. The solution must therefore be for couples, parents and children etc, to sit down and calmly talk about their expectations of the other. Where the expectations are either unrealistic or oppressive, we negotiate to a more practical and workable level. In such a negotiation, both parties must focus on reaching a final level that addresses the concerns of both parties. For example, if a girlfriend raises the expectation that her boyfriend has to call her every night, it could be because she has a great need for validation and approval and finds a source of security in the relationship. From the boyfriend's point of view, calling every night may simply be impractical given work or study requirements. Both parties therefore need to negotiate and give and take. A final solution could be for Saturdays to be dedicated relationship time with conversations on weekdays reduced to at least calling to say goodnight every night if one does not have the time to talk. In this way, both concerns are met at a level of expectation that both parties can keep.

The next reason why we are more likely to get angry to someone close to us is because we have come to take them for granted. For new acquaintances or those not so close to us, we try to impress and gain their friendship by being nicer and more polite. However when it comes to our loved ones, we feel that we no longer have to work for their affection. We expect that they will still love us no matter how awful we are. This is why couples suddenly seem to quarrel more after they get married than when they are in the courtship phase. This is also why children are more likely to get angry with their parents than with their friends. How do we address this? This straight answer is to stop taking our loved ones for granted. May I suggest a rather 'morbid' approach here. Think of the possibility that you could lose this person at any time, that a calamity or accident could suddenly take this person away from you. For couples, think of the possibility of your loved one leaving you for someone else. Focus on how you would feel then. The sense of loss. The sense of regret that you had taken the person for granted and not told the person how much he or she means to you. How it would be too late by then. I know some of you may think this is rather morbid but I can guarantee that you will stop taking those around you for granted if you always keep in mind the possibility you could lose this person.

In conclusion, talk about your expectations and always learn to cherish those close to you before it is too late. This way, we will empower ourselves to build more meaningful and loving relationships.

Pride in leadership

2004-12-01T18:19:00.000+08:00

One of the most insidious and destructive things that can plague Christian leadership is pride. We see evidence of pride in secular leadership and most of us don’t really think this is a problem because self-confidence is exalted as a virtue in secular leadership. However when pride begins to plague Christian leadership, its effects can be devastating to the ministry. The real problem with pride in Christian leadership is that it often masks itself as other things, making the leader oblivious to its insidious emergence.

The birth of pride in a Christian leader often starts with the conferment of position and the experience of success in ministry. When a person is placed in a position of power or prominence in ministry, the temptation is to begin to associate ourselves with the position. This happens when our sense of identity is subsumed by the position. We are treated as important and respected by others by virtue of our position. Overtime we begin to think that we are in fact more important and better than others. This specifically plagues the more prominent leadership positions, whether it is a pastor, a small group leader, a worship leader, a chairman of a ministry or a Sunday school teacher. We begin to exalt ourselves in our own minds, forgetting that we still human, sinful human saved by grace. The fact that it is Christian ministry makes it worse because we then deceive ourselves that our elevation and authority is from God.

How does pride manifest in Christian leadership? Let me suggest a two basic symptoms. The first symptom is dogmatism. The leader becomes un-teachable and very set on a certain way of doing things and seeing things. The leader adopts a “don’t tell me how to do things, I have been doing it with great success in the past” kind of mindset. Such a leader monopolises decision making, forces his or her ideas on others, are close to dissenting points of view, and prides himself on always being right. We surround ourselves with people who agree with us and remove those who differ. This slowly stifles the ministry because the leader becomes unable to change and adapt to the changing needs of the ministry.

The second symptom is self-righteousness. The leader sits in criticism of everyone else and yet is blind to his own faults. “I can do things better than you” is the mantra. We begin to point out everyone else’s faults, why this person is not good enough, why that person is not doing it right or not fit for the position. We sit in judge over everyone. On the flip side, the combination of lack of teachability and self-righteousness makes the leader blind to his own moral inadequacies. Such a leader is not accountable to anyone because everyone else is ‘beneath’ him. This is dangerous because it allows sin to enter the personal life of the leader and remain unchecked. We then wonder why there is no revival in the flock when the shepherds themselves continue in sin.

The consequences of such Christian leadership is severe. Leadership that is plague with pride is leadership that is no longer humble and submitted to God. Any work of such a leader will be work done in the flesh, lacking the blessing and anointing of God. Without the anointing, the ministry soon looses its spiritual vitality and power and the flock under the leader suffers. On an organisation level, such pride breeds disunity and discouragement. Those who are side-lined by the ‘powerful’ becomes discouraged and fall out. Others who feel that their views and their contribution is not recognised may fight back, thus creating dissension and politicking within the ministry. Such dissension fractures the unity of the body and grieves the Holy Spirit.

The only solution that remains is repentance. As leaders, we must humbly come before God and seek his forgiveness for the pride that has plagued us. We must search our hearts under the spotlight of the Holy Spirit, identifying and repenting of our dogmatism and self-righteousness. We must become real once again about our sin and deal with them at the foot of the cross. For it is only when leaders get their own lives right with God and unite as one that revival will happen in our ministry. For revival begins with the leadership.

Are you faking your worship?

2004-11-22T17:57:00.000+08:00

We have all experienced it before. We have all had Sundays when we come into a worship service and just don’t feel like worshipping. If we are honest, we would rather be somewhere else, perhaps sleeping at home or just chilling. Yet we are made to stand and sing song after song, sometime repeating stanza after stanza, pushing us to the limits of our physical tolerance. So we fake it. We raise our hands like everyone. We put on the intense pained expression that creates the illusion that we are deep in worship. We seem so spiritual. During the slow songs, we close our eyes and bow our heads…waking up only when we are asked to stand again. Why does worship seem so life-transforming for some and such a chore for others? Why do some have such intense experiences and others only dryness? This is an important question that can perhaps be answered if we understand our true motivations to worship. Some people say we must worship God whether we feel like it or not because we are commanded to do so. While I see some merit in the discipline of worship, such emotionless stoic worship simply cannot be sustained. We need to come back to the heart of worship. Here are two thoughts in respect of worship:

The Start of Worship – The Heart of God
Foster once said that worship is our hearts response to the overtures of love that flow from the heart of God. This is and must be the starting premise of our worship. Worship is the act of “loving God back”. And we can only truly love him back if our hearts have come to experience his love. Many a times, we come into worship feeling so far from God either because of sin or pure neglect in our intimacy with him. The problem with sin is that it casts over us a spirit of condemnation such that when we try to enter into worship, we simply do not feel that God accepts us. This sense of rejection makes it very hard for us to believe that he loves us, much less feel his love, and still less, want to worship him. The approach must then be to deal with sin before we attempt to come into worship. We search our hearts and humble ourselves before him. For it is only with repentance and submission that we experience the liberation of forgiveness. In these times of absolute surrender, his love and embracing presence once again becomes most palpable. Wave after wave of love from the Father’s heart is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, the comforter testifying to our inner man of his everlasting approval and unending salvation. In such a state, the heart cannot but worship him who first loved us. We fall to our knees in tears as the magnitude of his unending love overwhelms us. In that instance, we become a mirror of love, receiving his love and mirroring that love back to him. For that moment, we touch the heart of heaven.

The End of Worship – Our heart’s true home
The incredible thing about worship is that in worship, our heart finds its true home. Let me try to explain. Many of us struggle with the many and various aspects and facets of our lives. We play many roles, pursue many different things in each of these roles. Some of us are students, small group leaders, sons or daughters at the same time. Others are secular professionals, church leaders, fathers and mentors at the same time. Oftentimes we feel torn apart by these many roles that we play, trying to pursue different and sometimes contradictory objectives, trying to meet different and sometimes competing expectations. In short, we are “all over the place”, unsure of who we really are or what is really important. We are confused and disjointed. The incredible thing is that in worship, every disparate aspect of our lives comes together and coalesces into the singularity of purpose – the created in submission before his creator. All the different strands of our lives align like a compass towards the throne of God. For then, we realise that this was why we were created. We are not God. He is. Our entire being falls prostrate before His throne in recognition of His supremacy. In such worship, our heart finds it true rest and our soul its true home. There is no more inner conflict, no more confusion, no more strife. There is only God and we simply live for him. To enter the reality of worship is to enter into the heart of God and find our heart’s true home.

What's your plant?

2004-11-15T17:19:00.000+08:00

"God I am so angry I want to die!" Jonah told God (Jonah 4:3) God had done it again. Exactly what Jonah thought God would do. Jonah had preached to Nineveh and the city and repented and God had forgiven them! And Jonah was pissed. The Ninevites were bitter enemies of Israel, and Jonah was the last person who wanted to be used by God for their salvation. As if that was not enough to piss Jonah off, Jonah's precious plant that gave him shade in the desert was eaten by a worm and died (Jonah 4:7). And now Jonah was getting scotched in the hot desert sun. Now he was so pissed he really wanted to die (Jonah 4:8).

Have you ever been so angry or upset at something that you wanted to die? Something happened or someone did something inconsiderate or selfish that really pissed you off. Everytime you think about the incident, your blood boils and your stomach churns. Your mind wonders to ways you can take revenge and contemplates the delight you will enjoy inflicting that revenge on the person. Sometimes our anger is even directed at God. He is suppose to be trustworthy and loving but you really feel let down this time.

"Is it right for you to be angry?" God asked Jonah (Jonah 4:4 and 4:9) What God was saying was really "Is your anger legitimate?" Should you really be getting angry about this? Let's get some perspective here Jonah...You have preached to 120,000 people and the entire city repented. This is one of the greatest revivals in biblical history. 120,000 souls saved. Any mordern day evangelist would be proud of that, and fall down on his knees in thanksgiving. Yet you are pissed off about it! Let's get some perspective here. Now you are also getting pissed over the stupid plant which died. You care more for the plant than the souls of man! You need to wake up your ideas and get your priorities right, Jonah! And the book of Jonah ended right there.

The painful lesson we need to consider is sometimes, like Jonah, we get angry over all the wrong things. The things we get angry about reveal alot about our priorities. And often times, the small, petty insignificant things we get angry about just reveal how selfish we are about things. If you are like me, I don't really get angry about the injustice suffered by millions in the world. I don't really get angry about the millions of aborted babies, or abused children, or victims of crime. I don't really get angry about the fact that selfish industrialist are killing our planet or world powers are using their military and economic might to justify attacking smaller nations. I may disapprove of these things but they hardly extract much emotion from me. What I do get angry about is someone cutting me in on the road, driving at 80 kmh on the extreme right lane of the expressway, bad service in a restaurant, a guy at the front of the queue taking his own sweet time.

I've been thinking alot about this lately. Alot of the things we get angry about are simply not worth getting angry about. They only reveal our wrong priorities and perspective about life and things. Maybe it is time we get in with God's priorities and perspective. To God, nothing else is as important as people. Their rights, their freedom, their dignity, their welfare and the salvation of their souls. Every person is created by God, nurtured from young by Him and percious to Him. This means that in every situation when we are angry over our own violated rights, we all have a choice, you and I. We can either get pissed off and take it out on the world to vindicate our own selfishness. Or we can take the opportunity to affirm the dignity of a fellow human being, to show respect and love to a fellow human being, to respond in a way that will make our society a more gracious place, and to make someone else's day. How we respond will reveal where our priorities lie, what is important to us. Like Jonah, we all have our plants...something small and petty and selfish that we are so pissed off about we want to die. And then the Lord knocks on our door, "Is it right for you to be angry..."

Why can't I have sex with my girlfriend?

2004-11-09T22:30:00.000+08:00

Pre-marital sex. 'Get with the times. Everyone does it. Only those prudish Christians don't.' This is one area Christians get some of the most flak from non-Christians. Worst still, many unmarried Christian couples struggle with this issue, uncertain if pre-marital sex is really wrong or why it is wrong. Ask your average Christian if pre-marital sex is wrong and he or she will probably say ‘yes’. Then ask why it is wrong and you will probably get the lame "err...cos the bible says so I suppose..." To be fair, the bible has never explicitly said so but we can infer from parts of scripture that it is probably wrong. But that just isn't enough for most of us post-modern-question-authority-I-want-to-know-why-generation-x type of people. Here's my take on this controversial and thorny topic...

Where the bible is either not explicit or grey about a certain area, we return to the ultimate law to determine if something is morally right or wrong. This is the law of love. Romans 13:8-10 tells us that all the commandments of God can be summed up in the mandate to love one another. So what is love? To love someone is to affirm the highest intrinsic worth and value of another person. To act in love is to act in a way where the highest worth and value of another person is affirmed. Superimpose this into the question of pre-marital sex and the question becomes, "does pre-marital sex affirm the highest intrinsic worth and value of your partner?"

To answer this question, we must realise that in any relationship, there is a balance between intimacy and commitment. Think of a pyramid with intimacy on one side and commitment on the other. Where there is more intimacy than there is commitment, the relationship becomes imbalanced and doomed to fail. We see this all to often in relationships where one party acts selfishly and does not want to commit. The absence of commitment in any relationship robs the relationship of the security and reliability necessary for the relationship to flourish.

Move up the intimacy side of the pyramid and we find that sex is the pinnacle of intimacy. In sexual intercourse, we take from our partner what is the most intimate and most private of privileges. It is also an act of the highest consequence as from it springs forth children. Because the sexual act is of the highest intimacy and consequence, only the highest of commitment can legitimize it. For to take the highest intimacy from another without the corresponding willingness to give the highest commitment is tantamount to rape - because we take more than we are willing to give. And the highest pinnacle of commitment is marriage. In marriage, we pledge our highest commitment ‘to have and to hold, for richer or for poorer, in sickness or in health, for as long as we both shall live.” In marriage, we make this pledge before God, thus conferring on it sacredness; we make this pledge before the church, thus conferring on it accountability; and we make this pledge before the law, thus conferring on it the force of legal protection. It is my humble submission therefore that if there is sex in the absence of marriage, such an act does not affirm the highest intrinsic worth and value of our partner because we are essentially taking more than we are willing to give. Such an act is inherently selfish and therefore runs foul of the law of love. Perhaps now we know why it has been wisely said, “if you truly love someone, you will not have sex with her before you are married.”

The Christian's quest for wealth

2004-11-06T09:00:00.000+08:00

A couple of days ago, I attended a financial investment seminar for the first time. It was touted as a seminar that would teach you how to get really rich really fast. According to the speaker, an author of best-selling books on topic, you could go from $10000 to a $1 million in 5 years. You would be amazed how many, I would guess about 4000, people turned up eagerly to lap up what he had to say. I must admit I did feel like a fish out of water initially. Everyone of the thousands had "ambition" written all over their foreheads. You could sense the competitiveness in the air, from the way they competed for parking space before the event to the way they rushed to get the best seats, to the way they strutted around the auditorium networking during the breaks. From the type of cars most of these people drove, I gathered most were the ambitious middle class trying to break into the fortified world of the rich and famous where, according to the speaker, the 'fast-track' to cash existed. "Why buy a Volvo when you can buy a Porsche?" said the speaker. "I don’t look good in cheap cars!". Everyone in the audience laughed supportingly. The speaker, in his expensive tailored suit, looked every bit the multi-millionaire he was trying to convince us we could all become. But here's the catch, you had to buy his expensive products that would tell you how to get rich. I went home feeling somewhat cheated. I had paid money to get advertised to. What a genius. Maybe that's why he drives a Porsche and I drive a Honda.

You may be asking why I went to the seminar in the first place. Isn't wealth and Christianity somehow incompatible? After all, Jesus taught that we should build up treasures in heaven and not on earth. Looking at how fast my little baby girl was growing up, the need to provide for her future has become increasingly real recently. The need to provide for retirement has also become increasingly real. After all, isn't the government constantly saying that many Singaporeans aren't planning for their retirement and won't have enough to survive after they stop working. Despite the fact that I'm only 30 and already earn enough to qualify for a platinum card, the future does seem worrying. Everything is money, money, money. Car, maid, housing, kid's education, medical costs. Everything costs money. Then we superimpose the Christian ideology of not chasing money and struggle to fit the two together.

I have searched my heart and realised that at the core lies the fundamental issue of trust. Do we trust that God provides, both financially and materially? If we somehow feel that we can't trust Him to provide or that we want much more than we think He will ever provide, then we take it upon ourselves to strive, to build our kingdoms of wealth in this world. After all, the end of wealth is security. But even if I accept that I do trust God to provide, and am secure in my faith in Him, everything isnt so simple. I am still expected to be wise and prudent about money, the way I spend it, the way I save it and the way I invest it. Many forget that the wise servants in the parable of the talents (in Matt 25:14-30) actually went out and traded the money they were entrusted and got 100% returns on their investment. And they were commended for that. The context of this parable is being prepared for the Second Coming of Christ. We are told to be watchful for we do not know the hour of His coming (Mat 24:42). We are told to be a faithful servant during this time (Mat 24:45-51), and to be wise and prepare ourselves (Mat 25:1-13). The crux of the message, in our preparation for the return of our Lord, we are to be good stewards of the money and abilities and time He has given us. Having considered all the issues, I think this is where the balance of attitudes lie.

We recognise that all the things of this world are transient (temporary) and that shortly Christ will return in final glory. Only that which He considers important is truly important.
Secondly, we trust that God provides for His children more than we can ever ask for imagine. And our exercise of faith in this respect causes His grace and provision to flow into our lives. This frees us from alot of strive and anxiety and foolish decisions we make in our pursuit of money.
Thirdly, we recognise that although wealth is transient and that God provides, He still expects us to be good stewards of the money He has given us. Like every part of the equation of the Christian life, we co-operate with God, responding in faith and obedience to His grace. It is here that investment and sound financial planning finds its place in the Christian life. Money is not a god we worship, but it is something entrusted to us as stewards and we will have to account to God as to how we manage it and use it to provide for the people and the ministries God has entrusted under our care.

Will I attend another financial seminar or investment talk? I probably will, but with a clearer perspective the next time...

Love without conditions

2004-11-01T15:20:00.000+08:00

From young we are told that the love of God is "unconditional". We are taught that God loves us despite what we do and regardless of how sinful we are. Unconditional means "without conditions", ie. God does not place any conditions or criteria on us before He loves us. But examine this concept with me for a while. Do we really accept that God loves us unconditionally? After all, shouldn't we expect God to get angry at us when we sin and to punish and vindicate his wrath upon us? If I sin repeatedly and wilfully defy God time and time again, isnt there a limit to His tolerance? Can I really expect Him to bless me given my shameful deeds? These are thoughts we all commonly think about God. And it is not surprising that we go through such a thought process when we think about God because this is what we have experience from those in authority in our lives, whether our parents, our teachers, our bosses or even our church leaders.

Human love is, for the most part, conditional. It is conditional in that we subconsciously impose certain conditions on another before we will love and accept that person. Even in the most giving of relationships, ie. parent to a child, spouse to spouse and between best friends, even with the best intentions, we still struggle to love someone unconditionally. Even the people who love us the most get angry at us sometimes. In a society like Singapore, the problem is compounded because of the strong emphasis on meritocracy and performance. Only the worthy are rewarded. Only the meritorious promoted. If you dont make the grade at each stage of the education system, you are classified, labelled and rejected. To be accepted, we have to perform. As such, when we think about God, we superimpose this view of love on Him. This makes it very difficult to believe that He loves us unconditionally because such an idea goes against our experiences in every one of our human relationships.

The truth that must be asserted here is that a conditional view of God's love runs contrary to the very heart of God. Here we must make a distinction between anger, discipline and love. In our human experiences, when someone is angry at us or disciplining us, there is very little or no love involved. Discipline motivated by anger is vindictive and often abusive. As such, we have come to treat anger and discipline as mutually exclusive with love. Love cannot co-exist with anger and discipline. We have all had authority figures who say they are discipling us because they love us but often such discipline is often motivate by the expression of vengeful anger rather than genuine unconditional love. This scars our belief that any discipline can ever be loving. Yet only in the heart of God is love pure enough to co-exist with anger and discipline. God may be angry at our sin and may even be moved to discipline us at times, but the hard to believe truth is that every action, every move of discipline is movitated by pure and genuine love. There is a total absence of vindictiveness or vengefulness in the anger or discipline of God. Every action is motivated solely to achieving what is the best, and most beneficial and the highest good for us. For the thoughts of God towards us are selfless and compassionate. His love is at once inexhaustable, extravagant and indulgent. For what God would give His life for a world who persist in hating and rejecting Him? We can sin, but we can never sin ourselves out of His love and acceptance. It does not mean He will not discipline us, but His extravagant embrace will never loosen and the passion of His heart will never wane. Listen to the pain in His heart of love...

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
But the more I called Israel,
the further they went from me.
They sacrificed to the Baals
and they burned incense to images.
It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
taking them by the arms;
but they did not realize
it was I who healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
with ties of love;
I lifted the yoke from their neck
and bent down to feed them.

"Will they not return to Egypt
and will not Assyria rule over them
because they refuse to repent?
Swords will flash in their cities,
will destroy the bars of their gates
and put an end to their plans.
My people are determined to turn from me.
Even if they call to the Most High,
he will by no means exalt them.

"How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I treat you like Admah?
How can I make you like Zeboiim?
My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.
I will not carry out my fierce anger,
nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.
For I am God, and not man-
the Holy One among you.
I will not come in wrath.

Hosea 11:1-9

Finding God's will for my life in 5 easy steps

2004-10-28T16:05:00.000+08:00

This is what everyone tells you to do but no one really tells you how. Most will just give you the rather unhelpful "why don't you go home and pray about it?" Finally, how to find God's will for your life in 5 'easy' steps. (well not that easy...)

The following steps apply whether you are trying to decide if you should change jobs, what JC or uni you should go to, whether you should go out and marry this girl or guy, whether you should buy the next ipod when you already have one, or whether you should obey your parents who tell you to stop going to church...essentially, it applies to all moral decisions. The following steps do not apply however to what you should eat for dinner or whether you should wear the red or blue T-shirt.

STEP ONE - DECIDE THAT YOU WILL OBEY GOD

George Mueller writes, "I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter". It is important to decide in our hearts at the very beginning that we will obey God on this issue. If we have already set our minds on a certain option, we should be aware that there is a tremendous capacity for self-deception in us, to try to "force" God's will to somehow support our own decision. Our bias will prevent us from truly hearing from God and we will hear only what we want to hear. Only the obedient heart will hear from God.

STEP TWO - CHECK YOUR MOTIVES

99.9% of all the major decision we make in our lives are moral decision. Even the issue of choosing a partner, or a JC or a new job. These decisions are moral decision because we have hidden motives behind each choice we make. And these motives can either be right (pure) or wrong (sinful) motives. For example, we may want to date a certain girl because it improves our popularity 'profile' among our peers rather than because we really care for this person, or we dont want to break off a bad relationship because we find our security and worth in being in the relationship rather than turning to God for our security and worth. Where the motives behind particular choice are wrong (sinful), the choice is definitely not the will of God. Where the motives behind the particular choice are mostly pure, the choice has a higher chance of being the will of God. Most decisions will have resolved itself by this stage or at least narrowed our options, provided we are honest with ourselves. A helpful tip at this stage is to look for a sense of peace. Where a decision is motivate by sinful motives, there will often be a sense of deep unease and lack of peace in the decision. Do also realise however that this unease is the voice of conscience which can be dulled by frequent wilful suppression and disobedience to it.

STEP THREE - LISTEN FOR THE RHEMA (VOICE OF GOD)

When faced with two or more choices, all of which are motivated by mostly pure motives, the next step is to wait on God for His prompting. Here we move into the subjective experience of the spiritual interaction between God and us. The 'rhema' is the voice of God that speaks directly to our hearts and we learn to recognise it by the sudden increase of faith and conviction in that area. Here, we plough through the Word of God, immerse ourselves in it and meditate on it. We attend prayer meetings and ask other to pray for us, all the time, we place ourselves in a still but expectant posture of the mind that God will speak to us and wait for His voice. How God will speak to you individually depends on Him, but it is a common Christian experience for Him to speak though impression, promptings, words or phrases that drop into our minds or jump out from a verse, and a deep sense of abiding peace. The good news is that overtime, practice in this area will increase our sensitivity to the voice of God.

STEP FOUR - GET THE ADVICE AND COUNSEL OF OTHER MATURE CHRISTIANS

Sometime, after God's speaks to us (in STEP THREE) we are quite sure. Othertimes, we may feel God may be prompting us in a certain direction but we are still not sure. Here we seek the advice and counsel of other mature Christians. Advice can come in the form of good practical wisdom about why one university is better than another or which JC is more suitable for you. Counsel can come in the form of prophesy or getting someone who can hear from God to pray for you and to sense what God is telling him about your situation. To be balanced and to minimise error, we need both advice and counsel. To reject either is foolishness.

STEP FIVE - JUST CHOOSE

You have come this far. You have checked your motives and have a sense of peace about two decisions. You have sought and waited on God and you feel He does not seem to disapprove of either decision. You have sought the advice and counsel of mature Christians and both options still seem equally valid. In such a situation, God may be giving you a choice. The will of God may not be a one option or die thing. God actually does give us choices. When God created Adam, He allowed him to choose the name for each animal. In such a situation, both choices are within His will. So relax, just make your choice and commit it to God.

Ending Note: The above steps greatly reduce the error of our decision making and promotes godly and wise decision making. However the frailty of the human heart still means that despite good intentions, sometimes we will get it wrong. But take heed that the grace of God is large enough to accomodate our mistakes. At the end of the day, God works for the good of those who love him and will make all things beautiful in His time.

Do my choices really affect God's will for my life?

2004-10-25T13:31:00.000+08:00

At every step of life, we are asked to make choices. Do we go abroad to study or stay in Singapore? What course do we take in the university or poly? What JC do we go to? Do we stay in the same job or move? Do we date or marry this person or not? For the most part, most of us Christians feel that it is important that we are somehow aligned with God's will in our choices.

On this point, two very different theologies are taught in our churches. Some Christians teach that no matter what choice you make, God's will will definitely be fulfilled in your life. Meaning, if I choose to marry this person or if I choose to quit my job or if I choose to go abroad to study, I will always be in the will of God. For God is sovereign and His perfect will will always prevail. Those who teach such a theology often stem from the Presbyterian or Bible Presbyterian denominations with strong roots in Calvinism. Essentially, the theology stems from the Calvinist teachings that God's will is sovereign and will prevail regardless of man's choice. Our choices do not impact God because He is supreme. This, the Calvinist will extend into issues of predestination by the choice of God, ie. you are saved because God has chosen you; the immutability of God in the face of prayer, ie. prayer does not change God, it changes us; and in the issue at hand, do my choices really affect God's will for my life.

On this issue, others like me take a different theological position, that is, that my choices do really affect God's will for my life. This is in fact the theological position of the Armenians, who emphasise the reality of free choice and corresponding moral responsibility. Let us reason together. If we say our choices do not affect whether God's will is fulfilled or not in our lives, then our choices only have moral consequences, and not destiny consequences. Let me explain. If I say my choice does not affect God's will, that means if I make a choice to date and marry a non-Christian girl, I may be disobeying God if but ultimately His will for my life will be fulfilled. To assert this is true, I feel, is a bit of an absurdity and is inconsistent with scripture. It is absurd because we can never sin and still be within the will of God. Sin cannot be within the will of God.

I would like to discuss three possible scenarios where our choices DO affect the outplay of God's will:

(1) It is God's will for us to be saved. If we reject God and are disqualified from salvation, God's will for our lives is unfulfilled. This is because it is His desire for all man to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.(1 Tim 2:3,4) In every life who rejects God, the will of God for salvation is not fulfilled in that person's life.

(2) It is God's will for us to serve in a particular ministry. If we are disobedient to our calling, ie. we refuse to serve in a particular ministry for which God has intended for us to serve, God's will for the ministry will remain unaffected because He will simply raise up someone else to do the job. This principle is illustrated in the story of Esther. In Esther 4:14, Mordecai tells Esther, "For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish". Essentially, God's unfolding plan of salvation in the world today will not be thwarted by our disobedience however we in our own lives forfeit the blessings of God by our disobedience. Which brings us to our third scenario.

(3) It is God's will to bless us. However if we are morally disobedient, ie. we persist in unrepentant sin or rebellion against God and His will, we may enter into the discipline of God and suffer the consequences of our sin, thus stifling the blessing of God in our lives for the period of our active rebellion. However if we turn back to God in repentance, we enter into His blessing and thus fulfill His original intent to bless us. In this situation, there are two routes to the final place of blessing - the first is the route of obedience leading to blessing. The second route is the more painful route of disobedience leading to discipline leading to repentance leading to blessing. The final end point is the same in both cases but the alternative routes taken are very different. This principle is illustrated in the story of Jonah. Jonah could have been obedient the first time and gone to Nineveh. However he chose the path of rebellion and fled to Tarshish from the presense of the Lord. Though ultimately he repented and God's will for Him to preach to the people of Nineveh was fulfilled, the route to which Jonah had to take to reach there was one of calamity and distress and discomfort. The same situation is seen in the people of Israel entering the promise land. The 40 years in the wilderness could have been avoided had they obeyed first time round. Two paths to the same end, one straight path of obedience, or the difficult path of disobedience.

In conclusion, we see that our choices do affect the outplay of God's will in our lives. In certain situations, we put ourselves through unecessary pain to get to the same end point. In other situations, where we never repent, we miss the will of God for our lives and God raises up someone else in our place to fulfill His will. Your choice?

Where is the lighthouse?

2004-10-21T14:33:00.000+08:00

The sea was charged with anger. The storm raged like a lion out of a cage, smashing its watery fists against the pitiful vessel, tossing and throwing it around the heaving waves. A black fog covered the tempestuous sea like a suffocating blanket, its darkness tempered only by the blinding swords of light that slashed from heaven to earth. At the stern of the vessel, the captain clawed in vain to regain control over his battered vessel. He was well aware that scattered beneath the darkness was a minefield of rocks. Even the slightest of contact with any of them could prove deadly in this madness. O where is the lighthouse? For without it, how can we see in this present darkness?

In an age where the storms of conflicting morality rage, where is the lighthouse? For without it, how can we see in this present darkness? If we were to trace the development of western society through last few centuries, we will see a progressive secularization of society. By secularization, I mean the deliberate removal of religion and God from public life and government. Religion and God is now something relegated to the private sphere. Man is free to believe whatever he chooses in private but woe is the man who tries in public to impose it on his fellow citizens. Don’t talk to me about your Jesus Christ. That is a only matter between you and Him. In this reign of secularism, God is removed from the vocabulary of public life. In the once Christian America, prayer has been banned from schools; Christianity and Jesus Christ cast out from public life. Yet, rather than reduce division, secularism has created even more confusion. For we cannot run away from the issues of right and wrong. What should our stand be on abortion, on capital punishment, on freedom of speech, on the legalizing of casinos, on the recognition of gay rights, etc? How can a society decide on issues of the conscience, on issues of right and wrong? What basis do we have to determine these issues that mean so much to us?

With the dethroning of God from the vocabulary of public life, we have lost our moral point of reference. Every opinion of morality made by anyone is just that, an opinion. We have no basis, no reference point for judging that opinion. Morality is reduced to mere opinion and the conscience to the arbitrariness of feeling. The reason - having relegated religion to the private sphere, to each man his own, no one can now lay claim to a higher moral reference point to which he can judge conflicting moral view points. For a society devoid of a moral reference point, anything can be justified through sufficient persuasion and politics. History has seen the mayhem wrecked by a madman who tore the shackles of conscience from a society in the quest for the super-race. We are still bleeding from the senseless murders of Sep 11 done in the name of religion.

It is a dangerous thing when issues of right and wrong have no other legitimacy than the fact that our leaders say it is or that the majority of man say it is. It is a sad day when a society has to vote on its values. For if there is only you and me in the boat, how do we know who is right? In an age where the storms of conflicting morality rage, where is the lighthouse? For without it, how can we see in this present darkness?

Breaking Satanic Strongholds

2004-10-18T18:17:00.000+08:00

God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus (Eph 1:3). The Cross has bought freedom, blessing, healing and grace. Yet we see so little of it in our families, our schools, our churches and our lives. Spiritual blindness prevails in our society and our schools. Many Christians suffer under demonic oppression and addiction to sin and negative emotions. Families and lives are progressively destroyed. Dissatisfied with our current state of existence, we long to enter into the 'fullness' of God and experience revival. I have begun to realise that the main obstacles that prevents the rain of blessings and grace from reaching our lives are satanic strongholds and bondages. For the blessing and grace of God to reach our lives, these strongholds and bondages must be broken. There is no other way. To understand and deal with satanic strongholds and bondages, it is important to first understand how Satan works.

There are three primary sources of satanic strongholds and bondages. These are (1) Unrepentant Sin, (2) Generational Curses, and (3) Lack of Knowledge of the Truth.

Unrepentant sin forms the single most prevalent causes of satanic bondage. An unrepentant sin is a cherished sin that we know is wrong but persist stubbornly to hold on to it. We refuse to repent and renounce the sin because we enjoy the pleasure it brings. But what we are not aware of is that very soon, that sin becomes a bondage, trapping and enslaving us. We loose control over this area of our lives, unable to resist temptation when it comes, descending into addiction and bondage. Sometimes, unrepentant sin is fueled by false justifications. We convince ourselves of the lack of seriousness of the sin, justifying our actions behind some perverted rationalising until we are able to sin without feeling any guilt. At other times, we fall into a helpless cycle sin, confess, sin, confess yet never feeling that God has really forgiven us. Each time, we grow more convinced that if we do it one more time, we will cross the line into eternal damnation and apostasy. Soon the Accuser hits us with his wrecking ball of condemnation, destroying our hope that God will ever forgive us again. Our faith is then shipwrecked on the rocks of condemnation.

The second cause of satanic strongholds is generational curses. Exodus 20:4 tells us that idolatry of the father brings a curse to the third and fourth generations. When our ancestors engage in idol worship, ancestor worship or engage in temple medium activities, or any manner of false religion, this causes the generations that follow to be brought under a curse. These curses may manifest themselves in hereditary disease, illness or deformity, in crushing and continuing poverty, in early and sudden deaths among family members, or acute spiritual blindness and non-receptivity to the gospel.

The third cause of satanic strongholds is the lack of knowledge of the truth. God pronounces in Hosea 4:6 that "my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." The cross brings a message of salvation, blessing and freedom. But our entire society and system is engineered by the devil to hide this truth from man. For if man were to know the truth, the truth will set him free (John 8:32). Our generation is one that is pervaded by sensationalism and sensualism. The mass media of television, movies, advertisement, computer and video games bombards us with sensations and sound and pictures and information, yet cleverly drowning out truth in the process. Our academia has cast out God from intellectual thought, replacing Him with the empty foolishness of rationalism and existentialism. "God is dead... we have killed him" (The Parable of the Madman, Nietzsche, 1882). We must open our eyes to see that there is a satanic 'mind' behind the systems of this world, that we live in a world controlled by the 'prince of this world'. There is nothing is neutral about contemporary society. Contemporary society is engineered to the hiding of the truth about God, to the closing of the minds of our youths and to the ultimate destruction of our souls.

The path to the destruction of satanic bondages and strongholds is threefold. (1) Warfare prayer, (2) Repentance, and (3) Truth Affirmation.

In warfare prayer, we take the authority of the Name of Jesus and pray against strongholds and bondages. For unto us has been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven that whatever we bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever we let loose on earth shall be let loose in heaven (Matt 16:19). Unto us has been committed the authority to trample on scorpions and serpents and to overcome all the power of the enemy and they will by no means harm us (Luke 10:19). In warfare prayer, we put on the full armour of God so that in the day of battle, we will be able to stand (Eph 6:13-17). In warfare prayer, we do not speak to God, but to the demonic and satanic principalities of this world, casting them down in the Name of Jesus.

The next path to the destruction of satanic strongholds is repentance. As unrepentent sin and idolatry form the main roots of the strongholds, repentance cancels of the power and curse of sin and uproots the stronghold. To repent, there is need to first identify the root sin underlying the stronghold. I believe that the root sin behind our Nation is the sin of insignificance. We are a small island trying to survive in a large world, and the spirit of anxiety and fear of loss pervades ever level of our society, enslaving us in crushing strife. To those in my church, I believe the root sin that is preventing revival from coming to our church is the sin of judgementalism. We judge and criticize and ostracize. We form cliques and exclude others, emasculating agape love with our middle and upper class pride. There is a need for us to repent as a church, to repent as a nation for these enslaving sins. There is a need for true Christians to stand in the gap on behalf of our nation, our schools, our churches and our families and repent before the throne of God for the sins of our nation, our schools, our churches and our families. Let us fall to our knees and pray to the Holy Spirit to reveal the sins of our generation. He who has ears to hear, let him then hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

Lastly, we must affirm the truth to set us free. The battle for our generation is for the minds of our youths. We must therefore preach the word in season and out of season. We cast down every argument and high thing that sets itself up against the knowledge of God (2 Cor 10:4,5) We must be ever ready to give a reason for our faith, to defend our faith in our schools, our colleges, our universities and in our workplaces. We must train our minds and saturate our churches with the power of the Word, transforming our minds to the minds of Christ. For only then will we know the truth and the truth will set us free.

There is a spiritual war that is taking place in the spiritual realm for dominion over heaven and earth and over the souls of man. We have to duty to reclaim our lives, our families, our schools, our workplace, our churches and our society back to God. For Christ has already won the victory.

Battleground Earth

2004-10-11T11:12:00.000+08:00

There is an unseen war raging in the spiritual dimension, a war more deadly than you and I can ever imagine. Underneath the surface of world politics, cross-cultural missions and church ministries, the struggle for dominion rages on. Yet many of us go on living our mundane lives, oblivious to the deadly struggle beneath. The stakes of this battle: dominion for heaven and earth and the souls of man. The forces: the Kingdom of God vs the kingdom of darkness. Here is how the story unfolds...

From eternity past, since the creation of heaven, the sovereignty of the Almighty was unchallenged. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit was all in all. The reign of the Holy Trinity supreme over the vast creation. Then there was Lucifer, the archangel of worship, the anointed cherub whose glorious wing covered the throne of God (Eze 28:11-15). He was perfect in all his ways, the most powerful and most glorious of the angels. Till the day pride was found in him. His heart was lifted up because of his beauty. His glory corrupted him. And Lucifer proclaimed "I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will be like God." With him, a third of heaven rebelled. A war waged in the heavens. Michael, the archangel of war fought against the Lucifer and his fallen angels and quashed the rebellion (Rev 12:7-9). Lucifer, the once great archangel, was cast to the dark and formless earth to await final judgment.

In the midst of the deformed earth, God created man, the pinnacle of creation. And God recreated the earth (Gen 1:2,3). To man was given dominion over all of creation (Gen 1:26, Psalms 8:4-6). To man, the only created being who reflected the very likeness and glory of God, nobility was conferred. But that dominion was shortlived. Like Lucifer, man chose the path of self-glorification and independence. "You will be like God" (Gen 3:5) said the tempter, and man ate of the fruit. The fall of man brought sin and death into the beautiful earth, condemning it to decay. Now in bondage to sin and death, man forfeited the dominion of the earth to the tempter. Seizing dominion, Lucifer, now called Satan, installed himself as the prince of this world, the "kosmokrator" (Greek: ruler of the world), a title even the Christ Himself acknowledged (see John 12:31). The whole world was now under the dominion of the prince of darkness (1 John 5:19)

Yet the fall of man had long been prophesied and the Christ ordained before the creation of the world to execute the most mind-boggling plan of salvation and conquest creation had ever seen. Into the dominion of Satan, the Messiah was born. For the first time, was born a man Satan had no control over (John 14:30). As that God-man grew, the prince of darkness sensed his impending downfall. Satan tried unsuccessfully to derail the plan of salvation by offering the Messiah the path to self-glory, but faithfulness triumphed that day in the desert. As Christ entered his ministry, demons were cast out, the sick healed, and the truth of salvation preached. With each exorcised demon, with each converted believer, soul by soul was freed from the dominion of darkness and the dominion of God re-established in that life. The kingdom of God had come upon the kingdom of darkness. The messianic invasion had begun. Yet Satan plotted and schemed, gaining control of the hearts of one of the Messiah's 12 disciples, Judas, moving him to betray his Lord to death. Yet the cross proved to be a catastrophic miscalculation on the part of the unholy one. As the nails were driven into the hands of the Messiah on that bloodstained cross, those nails proved to be the final nail in Satan's coffin. As the Messiah uttered his last breath and cried "it is finished", Satan was finished. What Satan thought was to be his greatest triumph by killing the Messiah, turned out to be his greatest undoing. With the shedding of sinless blood and the sacrifice of the perfect life, sin was wiped away forever. The curse of sin and death was broken over the souls of man and the dominion of Satan over the souls of man disarmed (Col 2:15). Satan was made a public spectacle.

"All authority on heaven and earth has been given to me" the resurrected and victorious Christ proclaimed (Mat 28:18) The dominion of heaven and earth and over the souls of man now lay in the hands of the Messiah. At His name, every knee would bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue would confess that Jesus is Lord (Phil 2:9-11). Yet in these end times, the battle rages on for dominion for Satan refuses to acknowledge the dominion of Christ. Very soon, the anti-Christ will rise and for 3 and a half years persecute the saints and all who do not bow their knee to him. He is the Beast, a representation of violence and cruelty, and his number is the number of man: His number is 666. Satan will make one final stand against the God of heaven and His chosen people. At the end of the great tribulation, the anti-Christ will gather all the armies of the world under his Satanic control to lay siege against the chosen of God, the greatest demonstration of military might the world had ever seen, in a place called Armageddon. And scripture reveals that in that hour, the heavens will open and Christ will return with the armies of heaven. On him will bear the glorious name, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords (Rev 19:11-21). His feet will touch the mount of olives (Zech 12:4). And he will overcome the beast and his armies by His very Word (2 Thess 2:8). As the King speaks, a plague will fall upon the armies of the beast and their very flesh will dissolve from their bones (Zech 14:12). There will be wholesale carnage of the armies of the beast and anyone who dares challenge the authority of God and of His Christ. On that day, the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ and He shall reign forever and ever (Rev 11:15). And the end will come, and the victorious Christ will enter the throne room of heaven and deliver the kingdom to God the Father, that God may once again be all in all (1 Cor 15:24-28).

Until the time of the end, the battle for dominion rages in heaven and on earth and over the souls of man. Though Jesus has won it by right, Satan continues to hold families and churches and nations in bondage. To us has been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven (Matt 16:19), the mark of the supreme authority of Christ. Our task, to enforce the dominion and authority of Christ against Satan and forces of darkness. For in this last days, Christ will build His church and the gates of Hell will not overcome it (Matt 16:18). The time has come for the people of God to arise and to claim back the ground seized illegally by the devil. In the Name of Jesus, we break the dominion of Satan over our families, our schools, our churches, our nations and our lives and bring them into the glorious freedom of Christ. We submit ourselves to the Lord and resist the devil, and he will flee from us (James 4:7).

You see my friends, there is a battle raging over heaven and earth and for the souls of man. And there are only two sides. Jesus says if we are not for him, we are against him. There is no place for indifference. Which side are you fighting for?

The slavery of freedom

2004-10-09T01:01:00.000+08:00

That is a pretty ironic statement, "the slavery of freedom". Many of us seek freedom. The freedom to enforce our individual rights, the freedom to exercise our preference and choice, the freedom to express our thoughts without fear of reprisal, the freedom to enjoy life the way we want to. Freedom is equated with happiness. The greater the freedom, the greater the happiness. Every teenager growing up in every home across the world sits his bedroom looking out of the window at the world and dreams of freedom. Sons and daughters fight and rebel against their parents to win their freedom. The right to go where we want. The right to do what we want. The right to mix with whoever we chose. After all, freedom equals happiness. All across the world, men fight for freedom, the freedom of self-governance, the freedom of civil liberties, the freedom of democracy. After all, freedom equals happiness. Yet what are we really fighting for, this illusive freedom? When we finally seize that freedom, are we rewarded with happiness? Is life and society all that better once freedom is wrenched from the jaws of restraint?

Absolute freedom, my friend, does not equal happiness. The reason - for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Deep within the heart of man lies a terrible curse, the curse of sin. Like a cancerous disease, sin controls, consumes and slowly destroys. Its devastating effects are only slowed by the moral restraints of religion and the legal restraints of civil society. When man is left to his own devices, when there absolute freedom, like a car parked on a slope with the handbrake suddenly lifted, man inevitably slides to anarchy and society into destruction. The selfishness of the human heart will only use freedom to disregard another. The lustfulness of the human heart will only use freedom to violate another. The pride of the human heart will only use freedom to destroy another.

Freedom is not the right to do what you want. True freedom is the right to do what you ought. True freedom is moral freedom - the ability to do what is morally right. In God's moral universe, anything else is slavery. I have seen family after family in court destroyed because of the selfishness of the human heart. I have seen youths in bondage to gangs, immorality, self-mutilation, violence and substance abuse. To say that it is freedom to express themselves in this way is to mock the very meaning of freedom. The path of happiness lies to the one who does the will of God. For that is the entire duty of man (Ecc 12:13).

So the next time we decide to fight our parents, our bosses, our leaders and our government for freedom, let's ask ourselves what we are actually fighting for.

God is interested in the secular

2004-10-05T17:43:00.000+08:00

It's been almost 5 years now since I left law school to work. The calling to become a full time pastor has always been a consideration at the back of my mind, although at this point of my life, I dont feel called to do so. Well not yet anyway. So I entered the secular world, pursued a secular career and relegated my ministry to the weekends. Was I somehow less of a Christian for becoming a lawyer rather than a pastor? Many of us struggle to make our Christianity compatible with our secular endevours, whether studies or work. Somehow we feel that God would be more pleased if we spent all our time in church, or ministry or evangelising or preaching etc. Time spent in school or in the office is time spent away from God. Interestingly, in the book the Contemporary Christian, the great Christian writer John Stott writes, "the God many of us worship is altogether too religious." This is true of many of us. We feel that God is only interested in church services and evangelism and other religious stuff. Exams and work are 'secular' things which God has no concern of. And if it is not his concern, there is no reason why should he help us in our studies or in our work. In fact, we almost expect him to be displease if we serve less in church because of our studies or work. Then I came across Col 3:23,24 -

"And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ."

These verses clearly tell us that God is as interested in our secular pursuits as he is in our church service. Paul was talking about servants obeying their masters, clearly a very 'secular' thing. And what is even more surprising is that he says we will be rewarded for this 'secular' efforts! John Stott goes on to write "The whole of our life belongs to God and is part of his calling, both before conversion and outside religion. We must not imagine that God first became interested in us only when we were converted, or that now he is interested only in the religious bits of our lives." Many Christians feel that if there is a toss-up between serving in YM or church, and their studies or work, ministry should take priority. We must realise however that there are seasons in our lives. If you are a student, then you been called to be a student at this point of your life. Your calling is then to honour God in your studies. If you are a lawyer or a doctor, then it is your calling to be a lawyer or a doctor at this point of your life. And we are to honour God by using the abilities and position that we have to serve him.

When we begin to shine the light of eternity on our secular pursuits, we will begin to see them as God sees them. We study and work hard, but we do so with the perspective that we are working for something greater than that A grade or the next promotion. We do so because we are stewards of the opportunities, abilities and talents God has given us, and are therefore responsible to develop and use them for His glory and for the futherance of His kingdom. We are able to put work and studies in their proper place, not to use them for self-glorification but in surrender to His eternal purpose and perfect plan. It is amazing then cos in the grand scheme of eternity, there is eternal reward for every secular thing we do on this earth. That includes passing your Chinese exam...

The well is deep.

2004-10-01T13:27:00.000+08:00

There is an aching emptiness in each of us. Scars and wounds in our hearts caused by hurt and rejection. Many of us have been hurt by the people closest to us, people we look to to protect us only to be betrayed and disappointed by their hurtful words and selfish actions. Sometimes, these scars and wounds are so deep that we do not even realise they are there. We do not realise that our entire psychological set-up has developed in response to those emotional scars and wounds. To fear being hurt again, some of us build huge defensive barriers, not allowing ourselves to ever to vulnerable again. Others strive for power and achievement to compensate for the shame within. Still others turn to ddictive and destructive behaviour to sooth our wounds and escape from facing the intolerable pain within. Often the most driven people are the most insecure. The most powerful and accomplished are the most fearful of insufficiency. The most charismatic and charming are the most fearful of rejection. When we open the window to our souls, we realise that the mechanisms and wires that run beneath the surface are far from God-pleasing. There is a cry within each of us for love and acceptance and protection. Yet all our attempts at false comforts to provide for ourselves these things only leave us more insecure, more fearful and more helpless.

"The well is deep", said the Samaritan woman to Jesus. How will you ever be able to fill it? How will you ever be able to fill chasms and voids of my emptiness within? Who can ever heal these deeply buried hurts and pain? Yet the love of God is like a fountain of living water, not only enough to fill the deep wells of hurt, but to cause it to overflow in love. When we encounter the person of Jesus, bit by bit, little by little, those wells are filled. The embrace of His love, the security of His presence, the joy of His approval. He will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

Is Christianity the only true way?

2004-09-28T18:11:00.000+08:00

How can we be so presumptuous to say that we are right and all else is wrong? Are we actually saying that all those sincere well-meaning people of other faiths have no hope? Is God fair? After all, we all know a good and sincere person who is not a Christian? Can we really accept that he or she will go to hell? That seems so offensive. Many struggle with questions of faith such as these, offended at the exclusivity of the Christian claims. How can such exclusive claims sit compatibly with a loving God?

The starting premise in dealing with a thorny issue like this must be an objective and impartial search for the truth. We must recognise that truth may at times be hard to accept and even offensive. Telling someone he is dying is may be difficult but if it is the truth, to say anything else would be lie. To water down truth so that it becomes easier to swallow is to contaminate and pervert our search for truth. Consensus or social acceptability can never be a requirement for truth. We cannot reject truth simply because it does not sit with our preferences. That will only put us on the slippery slope to self-deception.

Secondly, any search for truth must be premised on the fact that truth is objective, that there is only one truth and that truth is similarly applicable to everyone. Two contradictory state of affairs cannot both be true at the same time. Something cannot be true for me but not necessarily true for you. For example, a pen in my hand exists for me. It cannot exist for me and not exist for you at the same time. We must recognise that there is only ONE TRUTH and anything that contradicts that one truth is untruth. If the pen exists, it exists for everyone. Looking at all the religions in the world, we observe that they each make different and contradictory statements about God and existence and salvation. Christianity speaks of salvation by grace because salvation by a moral does not work. Islam and Buddhism and other religions speak of salvation by obedience to a moral code. Either Christianity is right and Islam and Buddhism is wrong on this point, or Islam and Buddhism is right and Christianity is wrong. Christianity and Islam speak of one supreme God. Buddhism speaks of no God, but that reality is an illusion. Either Christianity and Islam are right or Buddhism is right. Both cannot be right. Christianity says that God created the world but is not part of it. Hinduism says that God is part of this world for all is God and God is all. Either Christianity is right or Hinduism is right. Both cannott be right. From the examples I have shown above, it is clear that only the ignorant would dare to assert that all religions are the same. Their inherent differences make them inherently contradictory. We are forced therefore to decide which is the truth to the necessary exclusion of the others. We cannot have our cake and eat it as well.

The question then becomes not whether the truth of the Christian assertions of exclusivity are socially acceptable or easy to swallow. The question becomes IS IT TRUE? That is something each of us must make a decision and choice on. We cannot abdicate or run away from choice. Each of us is forced either to accept or reject this choice. To not accept Christianity is to reject it. And either way, if this is the truth, then accepting or rejecting it brings with it consequences. If this is the truth, then our choice will determine our issue of heaven or hell. When we stand before God on the day of judgment, the fact that the truth was difficult to swallow and therefore we rejected it is not a defence that we can raise.

Of truth and lies

2004-09-25T09:48:00.000+08:00

In every case I see in court, we have two completely different versions of the same event. This means that somebody, having sworn on the bible or given oath, is lying through his teeth. Makes me wonder how a person can get to that stage where he can lie with a straight face without any feeling of guilt or conscience. Is it the progressive suppression of conscience overtime? Is it the rationalising away of the guilt by convincing oneself that there is a good justification to lie? Or is it selective memory that causes us to want to believe something so badly that we rehearse ourselves into thinking it is the truth? Truth is such a precious thing yet such a scarce commodity in our world today. We have so much information, yet so little truth. The media and the press twist and turn truth to sell a story or promote a product. Politicans spin truth through manipulation of statistics and calculated press statements to win votes. Family members lie to each other to avoid conflict. Witnesses lie in court even in matters of life and death. Even in church, preachers twist the scriptures to their own end. At the end of the day, how can we discern what is really true? Who do can really believe? Given the potential for self-deception within ourselves, can we even trust ourselves?

(added at 6.39pm...)
I am only now beginning to appreciate the magnitude of what Christ meant when he said he is "the way, the truth and the life". In a world where the multitude of religions and philosophies compete for truth in the raging sea of ideas, my soul finds an anchor in Christ alone. His words, his way, his worldview, his salvation. In the midst of confusion and deception and chaos, I know His words will never pass away. For even if I cant trust myself, I can trust him.

Lord it's OK if you dont want to...

2004-09-23T21:35:00.000+08:00

(Theology of powerlessness Part 3)

"Lord I pray for my friend to be healed from his cancer. But it is OK if you dont want to heal cos it is not your will. I can understand if you want my friend and his entire family to go through a period of testing so that their character can be built through their perseverance and brokenness. "

"Lord I pray that you will send revival to our church. But it is OK if you dont want to. I understand if you want to test and purify the church to build believers who will trust in you even though you are silent and don't answer prayers and even though we labour for years without fruit."

Sounds familiar? Some of us have even convinced ourselves that these are mature prayers of faith. Can we really kid ourselves that God is pleased with such prayers? We are so afraid to prayer for anything, giving God so many ways out for him not to answer so that we won't be disappointed if he doesn't. We weigh our prayers with so many qualifiers that our prayers hardly get off the ground on our tattered wings of faith before it crashes into the ditch of unbelief. Imagine the leper in Matthew chapter 8 saying to Jesus, "Lord if you are willing, You can make me clean...But it's OK if you dont want to. It's OK if you think I am scum and decide not to give me the time of day so that I can be forced to glorify you despite my pathetic existence." Do you think Jesus would have honoured such prayers? There is a reason why James wrote "But let him ask in faith, with no doubting for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord (1:6,7). There is a reason why Jesus said "assuredly I say to you if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain 'Move from here to there,' and it will move (Mat 17:20). When we pray prayers giving God a way out not to answer, these prayers do not glorify God. Here is where the lie is finally exposed... Many of us use theology as a cover up for our lack of faith. We have convinced ourselves that it is the will of God for us to suffer, to experience hardship and poverty and sickness and persecution and even bondage...simply because we are afraid that if we lack the faith to prayer for deliverance and fear that if we are disappointed, our faith will crumble. The irony is, there is nothing to crumble cos there is no faith to begin with! When faced with the option of healing and sickness, we are automatically trained to think God will chose sickness for us. When faced with the options of prosperity or poverty, we automatically think God will choose poverty for us. We lambast churches for having a 'prosperity' gospel but do not realise that we preach a 'poverty gospel'.

God loves us and wants to bless us and wants to give us freedom from the curse of sin, disease and poverty. Christ died to become a curse for us so that the blessings of Abraham may come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:13,14) We make a mockery of his death by presuming that he still wants us to live under curses. It is true sometimes he does allow us to suffer for a time to build character but this is the exception rather than the norm. To assume we have to suffer all the time belies lack of faith and lack of understanding of grace. Enough is enough. It is time for the people of God to rise up and claim our inheritance in Christ. It is time for us to stop allowing the devil to rob us of our blessings by false theologies. For I am in Christ. Everything that is His he has given to me. And I am not going to let anyone take it away from me...

Where have all the miracles gone?

2004-09-21T20:52:00.000+08:00

I once heard the story of a pastor who took a cab and when the cabbie found out that he was a pastor, said smugly, "my god can make me win 4D numbers, what can your God do?" Wherein the pastor inspiredly replied, "my God can take an evil person and make him into a good person." Reluctantly, the cabbie conceded, "that's quite impressive..." Do we really believe God can do that, ie. can change an evil person into a good person, can set a person free from bondage to addiction, whether drugs, lust, pornography, violence, alcohol? Why do we treat Christianity as just another moral code, leaving man to change himself with the bible as but a guide? Where have all the miracles gone? Has the power really dried up? Have all the wondrous supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit like healing and miracles ceased? This is the theology of powerlessness PART 2...

I have come increasingly to realise that the church is trying to minister to a lost and hurting world with a watering can, sputtering and dripping in its effectiveness. Our fruit is so meagre, our efforts so unfruitful. I think it saddens God's heart when he sees us struggle like that. Defeated Christians trying to preach a defeated message to an even more defeated world. Instead of the pathetic watering can, we need to open our eyes to the His 'fire hose' of power. We need a God who is much bigger than the absent and powerless God of our theology of powerlessness. The problem with many churches is that we have come to believe that any talk of miracles, any talk of supernatural healing is of a bygone era. Some have erroneously taught that once the revelation of scripture was complete, the miracles and healings dried up. Such teachings borders on blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Lets get our theology straight. Jesus himself promised that we will do greater things than he did. Reason number one for my extravagant belief - the same Holy Spirit in Jesus' day is the same Holy Spirit today. And He hasn't stopped working. Reason number two for my extravagant belief - the power of the Cross. You see, when Christ died, we died. When he rose, we rose to become a new creation. With every flesh tearing whip, with every excruciating nail, with every drop of blood shed, God took our shame, our addictions, our bondages, our cancer, our heart disease, our depression, our suicidal thoughts and KILLED it on the Cross. All our unworthiness, all our unloveliness, all our ugliness, He bore it as the wrath of the Father was poured out on him. That we might be the accepted and beloved of God. Dont you dare diminish his work, dont you dare downplay the effectiveness of what he has done. You see it has been done. We are free. To those who will only believe, who the humble in heart who will accept by simple faith, they will find the true salvation power of God. Please don't preach a Christianity that is nothing more than moral way of life. Cos that isn't Christianity. The Christianity I know is a Christianity of power, of a real and present salvation, of a God who HAS saved us from our sins and all its effects. Can your God really miraculously change an evil person to a good person? If he can't, then maybe you need another religion.

Theology of powerlessness

2004-09-20T13:46:00.000+08:00

It really pains me to hear some of the theology that is being preached in some churches today. Looking back at my life, I have come to realise that some of these destructive theologies have insidiously found their way into my life, robbing me of much of the joy and power and reality of Christianity. These are theological ideas that I would label 'theology of powerlessness.' Three of the three most damaging ideas are as follows, (1) mature Christians should not seek for spiritual experiences but rely only on the word of God for our faith; (2) mature Christians should not seek the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit as, like spiritual experiences, they are signs and we should not rely on signs for our faith; (3) mature Christians should come to accept suffering and poverty as an essential part of the Christian life and blessings and joy are for the immature. Surprised? Well chances are you've been had too. And the only person that isnt surprise is the devil cos these thoughts are exactly what he will have you believe. Those of you who have heard me teach will remember me constantly saying that the devil cannot take away what God has given you, he can only make you believe you dont have it. That is his aim, by introducing into our churches theologies of powerlessness. The problem with these theologies of powerlessness is that, like most lies, they sound right and holy. Let's call their bluff...

"Mature Christians should not seek for spiritual experiences but rely only on the word of God for our faith". Those who preach this often have a strong aversion and suspicion about the spiritual or the supernatural. They think that this is Christian but do not realise that such actually finds its roots in the anti-God, ultra-rationalistic society that we live in, one which exalts only what we can see and trashes anything supernatural as superstition. Yet the bible strongly affirms the existence of the supernatural dimension. God is spirit and those who worship him do so in spirit and in truth (Jn 4:24). The Holy Spirit testifies with our spirits that we are children of God (Rom 8:16). God reveals himself to us through his Spirit and not to our eyes or our minds (1 Cor 2:9,10). Here's the deal. Essentially any communication or interaction between our 'spirit man' and God who is Spirit takes place in the spiritual or supernatural dimension. To deny the existence or legitimacy of spiritual experiences is akin to denying the existence or legitimacy of sight. Without this medium of communication, we simply cannot 'see' God. Throughout the process of my own Christian growth, I have come to realise that there is a need for both the Word and the experience in the Christian life. Without the Word, we easily fall into error and folly. But without the spiritual experience, there is no reality or relationship in our Christianity. After all how do you relate with a God if he is only an idea and does not speak to us? I have had to battle my own super-rationalism demons, to realise that I had to stop trying to box and control God by getting him to conform to the boundaries of my mind and my sight. Until I came to the point of humble realisation that there are many things about God that are simply above me, only then was I in a position to enter His world and experience His reality. You see my friend, Christianity without spiritual reality is dead Christianity, of those having a 'form of godliness but denying its power' (2 Tim 3:5) Then we wonder why so many young people in our churches who have grown up in Christianity eventually conclude that Christianity and God isnt real and fall away from church. I have come to experience the kingdom of God that is not just in word but in power (1 Cor 4:20). Maybe it is time we all find that out for ourselves.

More on the other two theologies tomorrow...

What do we get from going to church?

2004-09-19T09:00:00.000+08:00

What do we get from going to church? This seems an almost sacrilegious question to ask. After all don't we go to church to worship God? Somehow I feel that is only partly true for many of us. Most of us start with this question - what is in it for me? Is there something I will get back or something I will benefit from from going to church? The truth is many view church like a kind of 'service provider'. (After all the call it a church 'service' dont they?) We decide on whether to go because of the quality of the service the church provides to us, whether the worship is of the style we like, whether the sermons are to our taste, whether the people make us feel at home etc. Our offering is the 'service charge' we pay. So when we feel one church provides us better service than another, we up and go. After all why stay in a church where the 'service' is bad?

This is a complex question that needs to be broken down so that a satisfactory answer can be provided to those to venture to ask. What is the purpose of church? Ephesians tells us that the purpose of the church is to so that believers can help each other attain (1) unity in the faith and (2) the knowledge of God (Eph 4:12,13). The 'service' of the church is therefore to help the believers grow in faith and knowledge of God. It must therefore permissible for us to ask the difficult question - is my church helping me grow in faith and knowledge of God? Do I feel my faith increasing everytime I go to church? Do I enter into a deeper revelation and relationship with God after each service? This I feel is the 'gold' standard to which all of us who venture to run a church or youth ministry or small group must answer. If the answer is 'No', can we blame our congregation or youths from going elsewhere?

But there is a further complexity to the question and the answer of the business of church. Earlier in verses 11 & 12, Paul writes that different roles have been given to each member of the church to minister to others so that the church can grow. The cutting reality is that all of us, not just those running the church, are responsible for contributing to making the church or youth ministry or small group a place where we can grow in faith and the knowledge of God. It just isn't the responsibility of the pastor, the youth small group leader or the sunday school teacher. It is our responsibility. So where does that leave us? It is right for us to judge our church and ask the question, is it helping me grow in the faith and in relationship with God? If the answer to that is 'No', the solution is not to up and go to another church. The next step is to ask ourselves, are we contributing our gifts and fulfilling our role to help each other grow in faith and relationship with God? You see, there is no perfect church. As someone once said, if you find a perfect church, don't go to it cos you will spoil it. Church isn't perfect. It is run is imperfect people who will stumble and fall and sometimes will let us down. But if we have to faith to give our five small loaves and two fishes, then maybe we will see some miracles happen...

Managing anger

2004-09-17T09:25:00.000+08:00

Listening to the news on the way to work today, I was was inundated by reports of violence in the world. What particularly struck me was a report of a woman in Kenya who knocked her husband's teeth out and then bit his *** off (ouch!) cos she suspected him of having an affair. (that image will haunt me for the rest of the day). This made me think about why we get angry so easily. Sometimes a seemingly small thing like someone cutting into our lane on the road triggers such uncontrollable rage that we fantasize of driving our fist through the person's idoitic face. We see such cases in court all the time. Looking around, I have come to notice that there are alot of bitter people in the world. People who feel as if the world has been unjust to them and will take the first opportunity to be mean to others. The worst is if they are our superiors or BMT instructors. (I suspect many a taxi driver also fall into this category given the way they drive... ) Closer to home, we often find ourselves getting angry at the people closest to us. A simple word can set us fuming. For some, the cycle of anger and hurt does not ever seem to end.

I am beginning to see that there is a direct link between the intensity and ease of our anger, and the level of our perceived injustice. The most injustice we feel, the more easily and more intensely we are likely to get angry. This feeling of injustice builds like stream in a pressure cooker and overtime, triggers rage at the slightest of provocations. Teenagers who feel that they have constantly misunderstood by their parents are prone to react in anger and rebellion. Spouses who feel unfairly treated by their partners easily become offensive and defensive when faced with any sort of accusation. Some of us are just generally angry at God, at the world, at life as a whole because we perceive life has dealt us a raw deal. These people walk around pissed off all the time.

I think the first step to managing anger is to identify the perceived injustice. What is that wrong we have suffered? Who do we perceive has caused it? Where the injustice is related to some person or persons, then step two is that we must then humanise them. You see, often we grow in bitterness and anger against someone who has wronged us because we progressively demonise the person. The more we think of the person, the more our minds build a worst and more evil picture of the person until we place him or her on par with the devil. We need to humanise them again, to see that they are just humans trying to survive. They are not perfect, but neither are we. Step three - we need to then release them in forgiveness. Unforgiveness is an extremely destructive bondage. In a perverse way, we enjoy relishing in it. But overtime, the bitterness just grows and grows, and correspondingly anger titters on the brink of overflow. Sometimes our anger is directed at God. After all He is responsible for everything isnt He? This is even more serious cos we then need to rethink our perception of God, His love and His justice. This is a really tough one. We need to realise that we have become victims of the devil's lies that have encrusted like a cancerous stronghold in our spirits. In such cases, repentance is the only path to deliverance.

Is God really happy when we are happy?

2004-09-16T09:25:00.000+08:00

Sometimes we have difficulty believing that God is really happy when we are happy. We somehow believe that God is only happy when we are undergoing some painful character building process in our lives, struggling to keep our faith above water, barely making it through the day. If we are honest with ourselves, we believe that His primary approach towards us is to make our lives difficult so that we will be forced to trust in Him. After all, it is for "our own good" isn't it. Talk of happiness, blessing and prosperity have become "bad words" in the Christian vocabulary. We believe only weak and immature Christians would seek after them. For the 'true' Christian, there is only the stoic, teeth-gritting peserverence through the 'expected' pain and injustice of life. That is what we have come to expect of life, and expect of God. That is so sad.

My little daughter is 3 months old now. Every morning when I wake, I go over to her room to check if she is awake. Having that cute little face coo and smile back at me is one of the most precious of life's moments. As her father, I love her to bits. Seeing her happy brings a kind of happiness little else can compare with. Seeing her smile warms my heart with joy. Then I think about God. If I who am human can take so much delight in the happiness of my daughter, have I somehow wronged God to believe that His love is so much less that He doesnt do the same. It soon began to dawn on me the realization that when we smile, God smiles too. He loves seeing us happy. That is His heart, the perfect Father heart of love. When we cry, He cries with us. He may discipline us for a moment, but because He loves us so much, it delights His heart to see us happy. What is your view of God today? When you close your eyes, do you see a vengeful, unreasonable God, or a God who is smiling at you? Maybe we need to rethink our view of God.

Finding your ideal partner

2004-09-15T09:19:00.000+08:00

It has been on my mind lately as to how we know that someone is right for us, that this person is the one God intends that we spend the rest of our lives with. Dealing with divorce cases yesterday again triggered further thoughts on the issue. Couples who must have at one time been so happy together now were arguing about how to separate their property. Could this have been avoided? Did they chose the wrong person? Is someone to blame?

Looking at the whole concept of dating and marriage, I began to see that there several issues that needed to be thought through and settled to set the foundation for an enriching and blessed relationship. Here several checks ensue:
(1) Is there a sense of rightness and peace about my decision to commit myself to this person? It is here that the inner witness of the Spirit becomes key. (Those of you know now me by now know that I am quite hot about this inner prompting subjective experience thing.) This I have found to be a practical way to gauge if we are within the will of God.
(2) Is there a mutual commitment on the part of both:
(i) to communicate, ie. open up and share oneself and be vulnerable to the other;
(ii) to love, ie. to place the other person above ourselves; and
(iii) to work out problems, ie. to talk about and work through inevitable problems that will come your way?

The commitment to communicate, to love and to work through problems seems so basic but is sadly missing in many relationships. Relationships dont just break down over night. How our relationship will be in 10 years is a cummulation of the daily choices we make. Everyday we can choose to communicate or to close up. We can choose to put our partner's interest over our own or we can choose to act selfishly. We can choose to work through problems or become defensive and fight for our rights. The choices we make daily will determine whether we grow to love our partner more and more or end up in court disputing over custody and property.

How in the world do I build faith?

2004-09-14T11:15:00.000+08:00

Many of us struggle with faith. We want to have more faith but simply cannot. We try to love God more but we have problems trusting him. We want to surrender but we somehow fear we will get hurt. We struggle to overcome sin, negative emotions etc. only to fail time and again, and with each failure, our faith diminishes even more. We look around us at the evil and pain around us, the injustice and the suffering and we wonder even more how we can trust God.

I have begun to realise that trying to build faith by willing ourselves or by looking for supporting reasons in the world around to build our faith on simply DOES NOT WORK. Faith is most effectively built internally through a relational experience with God and his word. Rom 10:17 says "Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word (Greek: "rhema") of God." It is the Holy Spirit that builds our faith through the operation of the Word. How then is this done? Many presume that this process of faith bulding is intellectual, that the more we read the bible and convince our minds of what it says, the more faith will grow. This is only half true. I am becoming more covinced that true faith can only come from the supernatural conviction of the Holy Spirit when we hear or read the Word of God. This the 'rhema', the voice of God that speaks directly to our inner man for "God reveals himself to us through His Spirit." It is here that we enter into the realm of the subjective. The inner conviction, the still small voice, the sense of prompting, the unexplainable word of knowledge or word of wisdom that drops into our hearts, all bringing with it a heightened sense of faith. It is in this way that our faith in Him is built. We must therefore learn to discern the voice of God during our meditation of scripture. Overtime, we will become more familiar with his voice, experience him more and grow deeper in a faith relationship with him.

My thoughts about God's existence

2004-09-11T18:32:00.000+08:00

I think the main problem causing us doubts about the existence of God is the fact that for the most part, we cant see him, hear him or touch him. We cant verify his existence the way we can verify the existence of most other things. It is like standing in a dark room...we cant see if there is someone there or not.

Yet there are many things we take by faith though we cant really confirm with our senses. Like how do we know what we are experiencing in our wake time is real and what we experienced in our dreams is not? How do we know that everything we see and hear and touch isnt a dream? Like in the Matrix. How do we know the neurons or whatever that connect our eyes to our brain accurately transmits the correct info such that what we think we see is actually there? Frankly we dont. We just have to take it by faith in reality itself. So faith isn't such a bad word after all cos most of life is lived this way.

Is it really real?

2004-09-11T02:28:00.000+08:00

The questions facing many who have grown up in church since young is whether the whole God thing is really real or whether it is simply self-generated mass psychosis and immagination forged over time. Can we really believe that God is real and that He offers any form of real power and relationship? I close my eyes in prayer. Is there anyone out there? I try to have faith in something I cannot see. Is it really real or but the substance of my immagination? Is faith anything more than positive thinking, making myself see something when there really isn't anything? If there is really power, why dont I feel it or experience it? Somehow, my deepest fear is that I am just faking it, yet I am to scared to face that possibility, lest my hope and faith crumble into dust.