Pardon My Indulgence- Psalm 84

Was reflecting upon this thought the other day, about how blessed I am to know each one of you, and to share in your lives. And this passage of Scripture came to mind. Psalm 84:

5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.

6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools. [b]

7 They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.

It's truly been a joy walking with each one of you, and watching your lives, and having you watch mine too as we grew in the Lord. Some of you, I've known for as long as 6 years, and some, 2 or so years. But each one has had his struggle, and I'm blessed to be able to call you brothers in Christ.

Some of us served passionately in our youth, prepared to lay down our lives for Christ, and were prepared to stand in the road if need be, if just to advance the kingdom. Some started off as nominal Christians uncertain about their faith, and merely as pew-warmers on a Sunday morning, head drooped in slumber as the pastor droned on. Some had vigorous faith, with deeply emotional encounters, weeping when the Spirit of the Lord came to minister and convict of sin. Some struggled through with demons of lust, distractions, vanity, rebellion, you name it. Some tore through the Scriptures page by page searching for answers to the deep philospohical questions of life and faith. Some sit in quietness and enjoy the presence of the Lord jsut as He "walked in the cool of the day" in the Garden of Eden. Some battled relationship problems, others, loneliness.

But each has a story to tell, and I'm blessed to know parts of your stories.

I think of Kenneth and the year of blessed ministry in Sec 4- the few of us giving him a guitar so that he could lead worship! Quentin- leading the school in amazing time of worship with just him alone and a guitar! Ian, ever being an inspiration in being inquisitive in the logical defense of the faith, prompting others to think apologetically and being in many senses, a true Leader! Nair- who struggled through his doubts and difficulties, arising as a Spirit-led man of God who was used to start the Saturday meeting in the first place! Amadeo- for ever being resilient and dependable as a true friend, listener, as well as being a model Christian student to our good example; and showing us that God is a god of all peoples! and Howard- growing from being bound by personal hardship to a brilliant bible student and apologist out of one shared phrase, "living with a heart for others"...

I'm sorry to flood you all with my mush. But I feel very blessed to have your friendship, and through Jesus Christ!

And I'm proud to say that as we consider ourselves a community of believers, "blessed are those whose strength is in the Lord"! And as a witness to your lives, I can say with conviction and great hope for us together, that we will "go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion"!

Amen?

"COME," JESUS SAID, "AND I WILL MAKE YOU FISHERS OF MEN," ~MATTHEW 4:19

URLS FOR ONLINE SERMONS

hey guys! thanks kenneth for that honest post..=)
if u have time, check out these websites...
maybe can d/l and put them in ur ipods, creative thingies whatever i dunno what's floating around these days in techno-savvy singapore =)

this is a sermon audio with over whopping 70,000 sermons!!!! how's that for a resource!!! this URL is by topic:
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermonstopic.asp

this URL has it chapter by chapter in the bible!!!
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermonsbible.asp

and this is the URL for sermons by my church, tenth presbyterian (http://www.tenth.org)

http://www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?SourceOnly=true&currSection=sermonssource&keyword=tenth&keywordDesc=Tenth+Presbyterian+Church+%28PCA%29

the particular sermon series that i was raving about? the prodigal son one? it's here too! recommended..listen to it?
titled the lost son, the lost brother and the prodigal father by rev philip ryken

i dunno, but maybe here's another one of my hare-brained schemes..we could listen to them and then discuss the topics or passages online? any thoughts?

Thursday, October 20, 2005

"ONLY A SITH DEALS IN ABSOLUTES": OBI WAN KENOBI

well. in response to nair's comments:

nair (or at least i think it was nair) raised an interesting point. the need for justification comes when we fixate on a viewpoint. however, correspondingly, if only we redefined our positions on things, we don't even need to ask for forgiveness and seek the Lord. in other words, there's no absolute standard for what is right and wrong.

if we identified a sin that we wanted to discuss, all we had to do was find the roots and the reasons, examine the validity of those justifications and explanations for our actions, which seemingly violate the Law taht GOd left us, and voila! guilt-free! in a postmodern generation, nothing is certain. ravi zacharias uses the illlustration of a car in motion, and the driver jamming the breaks. if he didn't see the thhings around him stop moving, he would have no means with which to be certain he stopped. his motion and stationary position are little more than relative to something he would have used as a point of reference.

friends, if we fail to recognise, at least with childlike faith, that there are absolutes in this world, our lives would be just like that- out of control, unable ot stop or move in a coherent direction. as much as i hate to admit it, obiwan was wrong. Jesus deals in absolutes. "I am the way the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through Me." John 14:6

the world is really good at blurring the lines and making things seem foggy. remember the devil's temptation to Jesus? he didn't use some visual or base temptation. no, he used scripture, the foundation for truth. (see matthew 4) in other words, the devil's really good at weaving together facets of Truth together with falsities to construe a half-Truth- his second greatest weapon right next to apathy. there's a need for brave men to stand forward with teh Gospel of Truth in their hearts and say that the Word of God is the Absolute for Life and Faith.

john 14:21 "whoever hears My word and obeys it, he is the one who loves Me. he who loves ME will be loved by My Father, and I too will love him and show Myself to him". jesus says, do as i teach, as a show of your love and devotion for me- obedience. to martha: do the one thing needful. a elderly christian gentleman once looked into my life with wisdom and said to me, "don't confuse yourself too much with equivocation. cut aside the fluff that world puts around your decisions, and you'll see that in EVERY life circumstance there's two roads to walk- God's way and teh world's way. choose wisely."

as i get older, i see this same truth at work. there's two choices for us to deal with. God's way and teh world's. ask God to give you the eyes of faith to see through the fluff that the devil shoves in your face and make the choice that gives Him glory.

furthermore, when the decision isn't clear between God's and the world's? seemingly, could they be both God-pleasing alternatives? i mean, it's not an issue of sin or anything. then it's easier to choose, kind of- isn't it? paul talks about the liberty we have in Jesus, that there's no condemnation for those who are in Jesus (Romans 8:1) then bear in mind this maxim: all things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial. all things are permissible but not all things are constructive. (1 Corinthians 10:23) so! it's an issue of what is good versus what is better isn't it? and besides, as Romans 8:1 says, Jesus alone is our judge. so if we can stand before Him and say, "Lord the choices i made were for Your glory and your pleasure, in accordance to your commandments and your will. Lord i lay these at your feet," Who can fault you?

praise God for the clarity of His word! taht He has not "left himself without witness"! probe and scrutinize the Word!
Joshua 1:8 "do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth, medititate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. then you will be prosperous and successful".

Thursday, October 06, 2005

JUSTIFICATION

i'm actually reading through a devotional entitled "diary of a desperate man", who suggests that all man is desperate in his need for salvation, for a saviour, to be precise. and today's thoughts were on Luke 10:29, which reads of a rabbinical scholar, "But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, 'And who is my neighbour' ?" the verse sets the scene for the telling of the samaritan story, and is preceded by the sending out of the seventy-two

the word justify comes from the Middle English, along the lines of describing the act of administering justice to. the word traces its origins through Old French "justifier" to Christian Latin "justificare" 'do justice to' from Latin 'justus'. Was the rabbinical scholar trying to justifiy himself before Christ? to administer justice to HIMSELF in the presence of He who will come to justify us all and bring justice to those who deserve punishment?

in the early months of second year at ACJC, we went for a radio show about the position and influence of the media. it was a 93.8 broadcast, and attending it, amongst others, was the Editor-in-Chief for FHM. i remember Lifeng getting up, wresting the microphone with a glint in her eyes and amidst applause from the audience (and a member of the panel,) pinning the Editor against the wall for justifying the aims and intentions of the magazine. she roared over the applause, "it sounds like the language of equivocation to me" on live national radio, re-telecasted the evening after.

how often do we do the same things before God? how often do we justify our sins and employ human rhetoric and smarts to sneak past the judgement seat? how often do we, more likely actually, equivocate our positions and actions before those closest to us? our family, parents, friends, loved ones and basically, those we hurt? human pride and the desire to evade the wrath of justice compel us, time and time again to resist god's forgiveness and grace, especially in thte context of a fellow human accuser.

when we justify ourselves, we shove God off his judgement throne, and reject His righteous authority over our lives. let us be humble to apologise and seek forgiveness. justification breeds pride, and pride denies us forgiveness, denying redemption, and redemption denies grace. it's a clear cut practical application, and yet, difficult to comprehend.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Suffering

I write this with inspiration from our dear Ravi Zach...

A darkness that seems to choke and strangle. A torrent of emotion that seems to be breaking through the protective dams that you have constructed. I think we all have gone through times like this. times when God just seems so far away. times when the goodness of God though so real and awesome in the shadow of the past, at present seems nothing more than the rantings and nonsensical proclaimations of a few mad men who wrote a little book 2000 yrs ago. innately, i think many of us feel that by the natural order of things, only the evil should be made to suffer while the righteous should be spared the agony and pain. sure we all know (since churches has drill us with such doctrines since our childhood) that suffering will come even though we have accepted Christ, and that he will be our strength through it all, but somewhere inside, especially when we have suffered for a protracted period of time, when we come so close to that line between sanity and absolute madness, the shield of theology starts to crack and there we start to doubt his sovereignty...

Besides the suffering of christ, another character is often mentioned when this topic is preached or discussed in church, Job, the righteous man whom God allowed immense tragedy to befall on.
what just struck me is that Job was a righteous man, yet he suffered! that would mean that the whole arguement for Cause and Effect is completely thrown out the window! He suffers not the consequences of some dodgy sin that he committed in the past, and obviously the whole idea of carry forward Karma is inapplicable in our context, there is no apparent past reason for his current suffering! so why then is Almighty God causing such great pains on this man, this man whom even God himself declares righteous?

Ravi's Answers...

We can seek solace in that God was the ultimate Designer! that he could create the heavens and the earth out of nothing, that with the Chaos before creation he could create that which was good and pleasing to him! in an infinitely larger scale he could make good come out of Chaos, how much more will he be able to make good come out of our suffering!

our suffering is given meaning by who he is! for we know that our God is loving and that he is good, therefore all suffering somehow ends up for the betterment of ourselves. By clinging on to the fact that he is our father and we are his children, again we can find strength in that though this life may be destined with insurmountable pain, his pain at it's end is rewarded by such great reward and riches as promises in ephesians 1, that our suffering is honestly so so small and minute! when we remember and adopt the right posture in life about God and who God is, the pain of suffering and the agony it festers may or may not lessen, but there is always light at the end of the tunnel!

another, a story he shared, that during our suffering we are forced to bare ourselves, to truly just renounce all defenses and self reliance and open ourselves to the full fury of our situation! and there, at that point of breaking and imminent destruction, we will create the most beautiful of poetry, sing the most meaningful of hymns, just as the older christians have done, and Lo! we benefit from the suffering that they have underwent. take for example the writer of the hymn, "It is well with my soul". i cant remember his name but i remember that he lost not only his beloved wife, but also the consumation of his marriage that was found in his two children. Tis when we have gone through the furnace of suffering, when we are burnt beyond recognition, then can we write and narrate to others the pain and agony of our suffering and the healing balm and wonderful reimbursement of our Lord Jesus! all this for the benefit of others! the sad thing is, one would often rather learn from the suffering of others than to be subjected to the suffering itself... alas, this privilege is subject to his sovereignty and his will is perfect. sigh.

alas the yoke of suffering is hard to bear, but to those who have been given this cup, we shall drink it and we shall rejoice! but the cups that we drink from are meant for our good, even though at times the good seems O so impossible...


-Ian Kwan