He who has eyes to see…

And it’s so difficult to look and see the things beyond. My students have this daily lesson plan for me, to teach me not to look on the outside, but to look at the heart. And to see the heart is a daily battle. The temptation is to look at the actions, the surface, and assume the worst. Yet, love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And it sees beyond, to what they’ll be in 2 years time, 10 years, 50 years. And most importantly of all, ten thousand years from now - will they be bright shining as the sun? Then will the impact be lasting, and I would have had the privilege of touching eternity.

And yet, the temptation of the flesh is ever to look on the outside.

And what else too does the evil of this world teach us? For on one hand we sing songs in church that proclaim the beauty of God, as an attribute of Jesus. Yet what the world most understands by beauty is often licentiousness, immodesty and superficiality. Certainly God’s standard of beauty was never meant to be that. So what do you think it means, really, when we proclaim God as beautiful?
What we ascribe to God with our lips, we attribute to the idolatries of our lusts. And the flesh is often weak - and acknowledging again that it is never by my strength, I come to You - fill me with Your Spirit.

Everyone’s hoping for a little serendipity.

Money matters

Had a meet up with a group of old warwick friends last night, and was just hearing about some of their huge pays yet with such early knock-off times… And I must admit, I thought, what am I doing teaching, working long hours that could be spent elsewhere, with family, friends or church ministries; or when I could be earning such amounts of money to give to God’s work and to give to the poor? Nor do I think its a bad desire to have, to earn all I can in order to give all I can. But I think God stopped me there, and I’m in that process of increasingly realising the peace of being in the centre of God’s will. The satisfaction and joy of knowing that where I am, is where God wants me to be - the lives I touch will be the lives that God wants me to. May I have the faith to believe this.

The call to justice

Good conference today on social justice and a call to the poor. It’s so easy in Singapore to lose sight of the “invisible people”. Just because the poor in singapore aren’t as obviously around on the streets during the day doesn’t mean we don’t have them. In an earlier post I wrote about my early morning walks where I crossed paths with some of those. But for others, it is as if in singapore they have been hidden away out of public view - people who have barely afforded their public housing, but cannot scrounge up enough for water bills and electricity.

And then I look at our churches. And I struggle, I really do. And I’m sure we give plenty to the community… Is it just a matter of the heart and not about the amount? If that’s the case, then are the poor our priority? They were Jesus’ priority. Perhaps we have too little faith - for all too often the wisdom of men is in stark contrast to the foolishness of God.

Do we, as the Macedonian church, give even beyond our ability and see God’s hand provide?

If the poor were God’s priority, then they need to be mine. And before God and men this day, I ask His help to this commitment - to give in faith beyond what I think I can, and to count the cost of following Him.

Psalm 91

In Psalm 91, a Psalm of incredible promise of protection, there is a verse that goes:
He shall give His angels charge over you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.

In Matt 4:6, Satan quotes this very same verse from Psalm 91 to tempt Jesus to throw Himself off the temple. Ever the accuser, Satan employs several tricks in this one temptation: He seeks to force Jesus to question His own identity, and looking for any insecurity by which he can establish a foothold, and make Jesus “prove” Himself as the Son of God. If He had given in to this temptation, Jesus would have been trying to force God’s hand to satisfy His own flesh, thereby ‘tempting’ God.

We who quote Psalm 91 as a promise of protection should never recklessly place ourselves or allow ourselves to be placed in any danger for our own selfish glory or to satisfy our insecurities. Nor should we think that God is at our beck and call to protect us in what is our own way. But if in the line of doing God’s will, we are placed in such danger, Psalm 91 is a promise that God is sovereign to guard us.

Strangely speaking, in all of the promises quoted by New Testament figures - Jesus, Paul and others, no one appears to have quoted Scripture in claiming any earthly benefit, although the Old Testament is replete with them. What then, is the example that we are to follow in clinging to such promises in our prayers - in what way do such promises still apply to our circumstances as the Word of God?

Dare to dream

Basest desires ever vile,
Primal hungers fleshly and foul,
Resigned when love so purely gave
His Spirit’s mind to lead ours in grace.

Come Lord Jesus, come Lord Jesus,
Come Lord Jesus, we yearn for You.

Indeed who once was satan’s child,
Now by blood that deed annulled,
Adopted as Christ’s brethren
To await complete redemption.

Come Lord Jesus, come Lord Jesus,
Come Lord Jesus, we yearn for You.

And now the hope of glory lives
In us to long so eagerly
By faith with creation for the day
Of glorious sight of liberty

Come Lord Jesus, come Lord Jesus,
Come Lord Jesus, we yearn for You.

For who indeed shall separate
Our souls from Jesus’ love?
No trial or power of any sort
Can steal us from the love of God!

Come Lord Jesus, come Lord Jesus,
Come Lord Jesus, we yearn for You.

Romans 8

And so when I got idle, I wasted away, and wrote emo things. So I stopped posting for a bit. And now I’m busy, and things crowd in and crowd around, and threatens to steal my thoughts from the goal, from what I’ve always longed for. Don’t ever let them steal my dreams, don’t ever let you down. Don’t ever release them to the wind, which carelessly fruitlessly blows. Chase them as the greyhound would, pursue them with one mind, only let that mind be filled, by courage to dream divine.

freewheeling back online….