Monthly Archives: November 2009
salt and light revisited.
It has been a hectic day but I am determined to continue my good habit (so far) of writing daily. I’ve always considered sharing my sermon transcript here too. Hence, to kill two birds with one stone, I will post an excerpt from the last sermon I preached, titled “For God’s sake, be good!” The following is my understanding and interpretation of Matthew 5:13-16, with references from the Lexicon alone.
“You and only you are and can be the salt, better known as the protector and preserver, of your given territory, but if you have lost your strength, flavour and purpose for existence in being a protector and preserver, how shall you ever reclaim it if you are the same as everyone and everything else? You are no longer powerful or strong enough for anything and anyone, so the only way to treat you is not just to discard you but to let everyone ridicule and insult you because you are now useless.
Again, you and only you are and can be light, or better known as a beacon of truth to this whole mass of men alienated from God. There is no way for a city, and its inhabitants that is deliberately set on a predestined position on a mountaintop, to escape others from noticing it because it’s impossible.
No logical person will stupidly light a lamp only to hide it under a 9-litre box, because it’s a pure waste of time and energy, but on a 9-inch candlestick in the centre of a room where it illuminates the room and its light blesses everyone in the room.
Our light, that is from God and reflected of God, is to shine through good works that is born from being Christlike, for the sole purpose of getting everyone to see it, so that they will realise that it is not our own light that is shining but a greater light and they cannot help to be awed by it and will naturally and consequently give glory to God in heaven and acknowledge Him as the source of all lights because He is the brightest light that the world knows.”
I stand corrected so please read it with a pinch of salt. It’s meant only to help you gain a better understanding of the text and not meant to rewrite the Scriptures!
when the numbers add up.
There is no denying that I am really aging. I no longer can sleep at 4am and wake up at 7am feeling fresh. It takes a toll on my body and its consequences are usually perpetuated acne on my cheeks and bags under my eyes. Ulcers are less frequent now, so I am thankful for that. It’s interesting how I hardly get sleepy or lethargic in the afternoon though.
My body is no longer working as hard as it ought to. A slower metabolic rate means that I can no longer have supper like a king (sigh!) and not feel its repercussions gathering around my torso afterwards (double sigh!). My fitness levels have also declined. While I am not unfit, it’s obvious that I am past my physical peak of fitness; I don’t know think I will ever run 2.4km in 9:21, finish SOC in 7:53 or score 21 for pull-ups ever again. There are some once-in-a-lifetime trophies.
However, while my physical prowesses decline (I sound like I’m 40!), I notice an increase in my intellectual, emotional and spiritual awareness, especially in my awareness of my strengths and weaknesses. I’ve always believe that confidence is an acute awareness of what you’re good at and what you need to work on. I’m still much more Sanguine than the average Sanguine, but I’ve mellowed significantly; I remember LY exclaiming, “Joey, can you stop mellowing!?” Age brings about a certain calmness, levelheadedness and deliberate delays in responding to situations, events and people. Maybe wisdom is applied knowledge.
This gets me thinking about maturity and how from year to year I evaluate my growth. Hindsight is powerful – it would be a gift if we had present-sight. I don’t know about you but when in retrospect I find that I’ve matured relatively exponentially from period to period. It’s like I’ve either really grown a lot or that I was really immature last time!
During my short coffee-break with LL just now, I told him that I was thankful for a colleague like him who’s my age. I told him that since we are not married and have no children yet, we should aspire to give to and serve the Lord with high levels of zeal and zest that reflect our age, while we are still young and energetic and able to contribute like that. Taking our lead from what God puts in our hearts, this is the best time for us to make investments in time and energy before the marriage and family elements kick in.
the value of money.
One dollar to a poor man is as valuable as one dollar to a rich man. Having lots of one dollars does not change the value of one dollar. Both men are limited to the same available activities and purchasing power that one dollar innately offers. However a dollar spent in Shanghai will yield different things as opposed to a dollar spent in Seoul or Singapore. There are a lot of thoughts on this that I could elucidate, but I will not.
It gets me thinking about the way we ought to spend our money. In recent years I’ve progressed from being a frivolous spender to a prudent one. (And how I thank God for that!) I’ve always remembered the wise words of CS that, “It’s not how much you earn, but how much you save”, that really matters.
HY and I are obviously presented with a more challenging financial situation now. However, what I am spending now is not far from what I was spending when I received a lot more. Simply put, our quality of life has not worsened. The only difference is a reduction in how much I get to save and invest. I also genuinely believe that I’d have lived the same quality of life with the same spending philosophies (being frugal) even if I wasn’t working in church. In a nutshell, it doesn’t mean that just because I have more, means I have to spend more.
I do not think that anyone around us can honestly say that his or her needs are not met. It’s always about the wants that we struggle with. Hence, I concur that expenses should be borne out of necessity and perhaps, very occasionally, some frivolity (just to pamper ourselves). But should we get that order confused and start living in indulgence, we will never be satisfied because we will always want something more.
One key then, is contentment. All I know is that naked I came and naked I will go. The last thing I’d want is to live a life that cannot let go of itself. Let’s not get carelessly caught up in meaningless pursuits – we can’t keep anything we own anyway.
Another key, which tends to be overlooked in the light of contentment, is stewardship. We must be careful in being good stewards of our resources (of time, energy and money) because at the end of the day our stewardship will be audited by God. We must understand that nothing we own belongs to us in the first place; we’re just being put in charge of it for the appointed time. We must effort to hold fast to what we believe in and not compare it with how others are spending their resources – they will be held accountable for their decisions.
The last and most important key, is trusting in God. It is this key that allows me to look forward in hope, knowing that God will go before me and will equip, empower, enrich and enable me to do His purpose, for His glory.
I know I have veered off a little from the intended subject of this post, but I hope that all of us will examine the way we approach the value of money and to spend it wisely, appropriately and with purpose, and not for the sake of spending it.
knowledge should lead to action.
The older I get, the more I see value in books as gifts. I’m not an avid reader – still am not – but I have made deliberate efforts to enhance my mind. It is in recent years that I delight most in receiving books as well as to spend time in a book store reading or just choosing a book. On a less serious note, this whole idea of buying a book is similar to buying a DVD in Shanghai; it’s therapeutic because you enjoy the idea of watching/reading it, but you may not actually get down to doing it.
Many people boast of an impressive arsenal of books, magazines and films but their purchases are still sitting on the shelves waiting to be devoured. We enjoy shopping for books and films because it makes us think that we actually have the time to pursue it. It’s like the photography outings I’ve convinced myself of embarking on but my archives reflect otherwise. It’s like the massively-innovative home improvement ideas that I’ve yet to implement for my room. My thoughts are incoherent but these things come to my mind when I purchased Leonard Ravenhill’s Why Revival Tarries at SKS today, together with RY and BB.
Without a shadow of a doubt I will complete reading this classic. Actually I’ve read quite a lot this year, well, at least relatively, and I am pleased with my knowledge-acquiring efforts. But I sense it’s just not enough. The plethora of books at SKS remind me that there is no end to acquiring knowledge. Knowledge could either be the most powerful tool or the whitest elephant. Read books represent knowledge. Books were written to be read. No one writes a book for the purpose of not wanting anyone to read it. Okay, I don’t know why this entry has skewed itself into a read-more-books-to-save-your-mind plea.
I reckon that something scarier than untapped potential (in unread books) is unused knowledge (in read books). I pray that I will never get so puffed up in knowledge and argument that it remains only in my head, untransferred to the way I live. Imagine if we actually lived out the instructions of just one book; it may actually change our lives. Imagine the impact of reading one book a month and taking the actions prescribed in it. We would be supremely successful, effective and influential.
But the even scarier thing is how we approach the Word and how we approach sermons thinking that it’s all “old” and “familiar” stuff respectively. We should always be filled with wonder and freshness as we get to know God more, in this instance, through the knowledge available in books. This should enable and empower us to read books, regardless of whether they are Christian, secular, fiction or non-fiction, for the glory of God. May I learn to approach acquiring knowledge with the attitude of knowing God more. After all, there is nothing new (to God) under the sun.
grace amplifies the truth.
Many who know me would also know my mantra for life – read above. I would be yellow Chinese trash if not for the grace of God. My life is one that is redeemed by the grace of God and it seemed a natural progression for me to be doing what I am doing right now.
A lot of Christians, myself included of course, have abused the grace of God in our lives. We revisit a sin because we know we’ll be forgiven. We entertain evil because we know God will still love us regardless. And we try to live a life by our standards thinking that it’ll get by God’s. Did we realise that by doing that we have unknowingly flouted one of the Ten Commandments is?
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”
We somehow have a tendency to imagine God as a loving and doting father only. While that is true, it is inadequate. It would be dangerous to forget that God the Father is also God the Judge and the Righteous One who has no dealings with sin and evil. We often exploit the His loving kindness with our unrepentance. Be wary of this – do not fall into the trap of violating that commandment.
The last thing we want to do is to make for ourselves an image of God that is not truly Him. We take what we want from the Bible – usually people only want to hear the good stuff – and we snuff out the rest which doesn’t appeal to us. Are you sure that the God you are worshipping is the God that is written about in the bible? Or is it a figment of your imagination (or more like your fantasyutopialand)? Let’s spend a little time to, by the grace of God, make sure that the God that we are worshipping is really THE God!
RY preached a great sermon today on how much God loves us. He loves us even when we fail to love Him and delights some more in loving us in spite of that! That’s just mind-blowing. It brings agape to another level. For that, I cannot comprehend and I am guilty of how we have hurt God time and again by our actions and inactions. God’s love demonstrated through His grace alone should move us into desiring to hurt Him lesser with our sinful thoughts and deeds.
The grace of God empowers us to do what is righteous; it should not cause us to sin some more, but to sin no more.
the jigsaw must fit.
I’m delighted to have BB over the weekend. He’s a fantastic kid with a huge heart for young people and a teachability that easily endears himself to people. BB is someone whom I’ve had the privilege of mentoring in Shanghai. And while our tenure together is short, it was intensified and affirmed through Korea. Let’s just put it this way, if I was Jesus then BB is John, if you know what I mean.
I look forward to the next few days with BB as it would give us time to bond and reconnect. Like a good number of my mentees, he’s a listener, so by just being who he is, he has blessed me.
I believe that opposites attract – that’s the reason why I’m attracted to HY and why she’s attracted to me. And this tension of opposites have allowed us to grow as individuals and also to grow closer as a couple. I believe that there’s a special bond between Sanguines and Phlegmatics and/or Melancholics.
The dynamics of a personality-complementing relationship are mutually-beneficial. A good number of my mentees are introverts and I honestly think they are attracted to an extrovert like me because of my animated (and often dramatic) nature. To an extent, I have a tendency to verbalise what’s in their minds and my outspokenness validates what’s in their hearts – this often creates a healthy tension, I think.
I’ve always believed that you must be true to who you are and not try to be someone else. If you try to be someone else, who’s going to be you? That’s the beauty of the jigsaw of life. Like our fingerprints, we fit into God’s millimetre-perfect masterpiece. Let’s play our part in retaining the integrity of the fit by being who God has designed us to be.
I really look forward to a day of discovering God and BB through exploration of nature and mutual ministry. It’s gonna be a lovely weekend. Also can’t wait to hear BB share his testimony at R-AGE service.
the nothingness of prayer.
I believe with all my heart that should revival come to R-AGE, it would arrive by the prayer of its people, not by the pursuit of its programmes. We’ll pray and seek the face of God and (it is a relief that) that’s all we need to do. I aspire to depend on prayer alone to bring revival to this generation that I serve. Only then will God get all the glory because no one will be able to claim the credit for the work done in the hearts of the young people that He will redeem.
When we are truly engaged with God, we will naturally do the things of God – which includes preaching the Gospel, bringing friends to church, discipling younger believers, praising and worshipping with abandon, helping those in need, encouraging our friends, giving generously to the poor, getting involved with missions and praying some more.
There is nothing more powerful and satisfying than being in the presence of God. While I can only vaguely comprehend why the Psalmist proclaimed, “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere”, I do opine that it’s only when we pray without agenda and come to God without a prayer list, that we truly can liberate ourselves to discover what and how He wants us to pray. Perhaps that’s what it means to pray in His will.
Prayer lists and set agendas in prayer meetings have its purposes of course, but there’s something very anointed and supernatural when we are truly in tune with the Spirit of God. I know I am repeating myself but I cannot help but stress this in reiteration. Again and again.
WY blessed me with a George Mueller book, my first classic, that really addresses and reverberates the journey of prayer that I am taking and will continue to take in greater intensity. In the opening line of Answers to Prayer, 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.”
What a gripping statement of truth! May I eventually learn to pray like that. Hence, I am inclined to think that this is the dichotomy of the situation – we either trust God completely or we don’t; any in-betweens compromise the spiritual reality of praying in the will of God.
Can’t wait to get through the gems contained in the book. Can’t wait to engage God with fresh perspectives.
joey asher | misunderstoodsunshinekid 