Weeks 37 & 38 (09) - Blessings of Divine Guidance

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the spirit of man, the spirit of Satan and the Spirit of God and how man’s spirit can be influenced by the other two. The truth is that our maturity in Christ is a direct product of that influence.

There is a huge battle going on in the Heavenly, with God trying to protect and guide His people and Satan trying to destroy and misguide God’s people. The weapons are respectively Faith and Fear.

The Spirit of God is humility, submissiveness and interdependence. The spirit of Satan is pride, rebellion and independence. They are the exact opposite of one another. And the spirit of man is being pulled in both directions, depending on the will of man and the man’s daily walk.

I shared about the 3 priorities in the world today (God’s, Satan’s and ours) in a recent leadership teaching and I passionately believe that they are the keys to our victory in Christ in an increasingly secular world.

Dan Brown (author of Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons) made the headline again with his latest book “A Lost Symbol”. The prologue to the book was an initiation ceremony of Freemasonry – a man willingly welcomed a death curse upon his own life! The book sold over 300,000 copies in the first 36 hours of release in the UK.

We are what we eat, naturally and spiritually. For our well-being, we need to differentiate between what is good and what is junk. Sadly, junk food, whether natural or spiritual, seems always more appealing and "tasty"!

The Word of God is good food for our soul. It is a light to our path, a lamp to our feet. Different books in the Bible are there for special purposes, offering us various aspects of God’s instructions to us.

The Book of Psalms shows us man’s relationship with God. Through the psalmists, we see God’s hand and God’s heart. God spoke through the psalmist who and what He is. “Praise the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendour and majesty. How many are your works, O LORD! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number — living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there. These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth. I will sing to the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. May my meditation be pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the LORD [Ps 104:1,24-30,33-34 NIV]. They teach us how great our God is and why God deserves our praises and our worship.

Many Christians find some part of the Old Testament uninteresting, not unlike food for patients, esp. chronic ones, often bland & boring. The Book of Chronicles 1 & 2 are such examples. “The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath and Merari. The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel. The children of Amram: Aaron, Moses and Miriam. The sons of Aaron: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar…… Azariah the father of Seraiah, and Seraiah the father of Jehozadak. Jehozadak was deported when the LORD sent Judah and Jerusalem into exile by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar……These are the men David put in charge of the music in the house of the LORD after the ark came to rest there. They ministered with music before the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, until Solomon built the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem. They performed their duties according to the regulations laid down for them [1 Chron 6:1-3,14-15,31-32 NIV]. Such information, I dare say, is good bedtime reading, esp. for insomnia sufferers.:o) But without them, I would not know the names of the great grandfather, grandfather and father of Aaron, Moses and Miriam! They are a special group of people whom God has chosen to minister before Himself.

The New Testament not only consists of the 4 Gospels that tell the story of Jesus, it also contains a lot of the instructions for believers. Through Apostle Paul, God spoke about the sinfulness of man. “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin [Rom 7:14-25 NIV]. He openly confessed that it is a struggle for man to live for Christ, which further demonstrates how amazing God’s grace and forgiveness is.

The Book of Proverbs is a treasure house of God’s wisdom. Through the writing of the wisest king of all time Solomon, God shares with us His wisdom, as opposed to the wisdom and wickedness of man. “My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity. Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favour and a good name in the sight of God and man. Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. Honour the LORD with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine. My son, do not despise the LORD's discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in. Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honour. Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed. By wisdom the LORD laid the earth's foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place; by his knowledge the deeps were divided, and the clouds let drop the dew. [Prov 3:1-20 NIV]

May the Word of God continue to help us to know God and build us up in Him. Amen!

Weeks 35 & 36 (09) - Blessings of Divine Guidance

I am reading a book on Listening to God. I have read quite a number of books on prayer by big names like Cindy Jacob, Peter Wagner and Yonggi Cho, but I find this one very special. Even the listed price is a humble £3.99.

Deeply influenced by her Dad’s prayer life since young, the writer has grown up communicating with God as a life style. But in the past 9 years before writing this book, she learned to prayerfully listen to God. The book reflects her rich experience of discovering that God is far from silent.

Here is a wonderful testimony of listening to God:

“The Lord….puts His ideas into my mind, and especially His perspectives. He widens my vision, helps me to see what is really important in life, and to distinguish the really important from the unimportant…….He comes to me, in the listening, receptive moments of prayer, and He transfuses His power into me.”

On the chapter “A Taste of Silence”, she stresses the importance of a time of silence before God:

“If we are to witness to Christ in today’s market places, where there are constant demands on our whole person, we need silence. If we are to be always available, not only physically, but by empathy, sympathy, friendship, understanding, boundless caritas, we need silence. To be able to give joyous, unflagging hospitality, not only of house and food, but of mind, heart, body and soul, we need silence.”

I believe many people got burned out serving because they did not have times of silence before God, allowing oneself to be refreshed and rejuvenated. So don’t get offended if a Christian leader prefers to be alone once in a while. :o)

Listening prayer is also a time of openness before God:

“ …to pray is to change….Prayer if it is real is an acknowledgement of ……our openness to be changed…..We face God as we are: sinful, spiritually handicapped and disabled in many ways, chronic patients. And we accept these handicaps and disabilities because He accepts us as we are and because He loves us as we are.”

God indeed speaks to His people. People of God in the Old Testament testified to it. “…….Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel was among those who called on his name; they called on the LORD and he answered them. He spoke to them from the pillar of cloud; they kept his statutes and the decrees he gave them……O LORD our God, you answered them……..” [Ps 99:1-9 NIV] The key is that these people obeyed God. When we have true relationship with God, in submission & obedience, God will answer us when we called on Him.

Jabez was another great example of a man of God who had a good relationship with God. He was honourable in God’s eyes and God granted his bold request. “Jabez was more honourable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, "I gave birth to him in pain." Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request.” [1 Chron 4:9-10 NIV]. I believe that when our walk with God is right, we can make big petitions to God and He will grant us those requests as long as they are in line with God’s plan.

Prayer is an integral part of our walk with God. Not only are we justified by faith, we also have access to God. “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us….” [Rom 5:1-11 NIV]. Through this personal relationship with God, we share in the hope of the glory of God. We also rejoice in our sufferings of being a Christian in a secular world. It is God’s way of refining us in perseverance and character. The end result will be awesome, if we pass the test.

God has not been silent. He has been trying to get our attention. “Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, in the gateways of the city she makes her speech: ‘How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you. But since you rejected me when I called and no-one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you — when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you. ‘Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me. Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD, since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.’” [Prov 1:20-33 NIV]. When disaster strikes, stubborn people will have themselves to blame.

Amen!