Be Prepared

There is this infamous saying, “God helps those who help themselves.”

First of all, I need to say that the above statement is entirely unblibical. Nowhere in the Bible will you ever find these words or even the idea of it. I mean, if we can help ourselves, we certainly do not need God, and it has long been proven that Man can not really help ourselves. Just look at the financial and enviromental problems we have, not to mention the issues of war, terrorism, AIDS etc etc etc.. (you get the idea)

As my pastor put it, the correct statement should be, “God helps those who CANNOT help themselves.”

If you have any doubts, just read the book of Exodus in the Bible. Pay attention to all the problems that the Israelites encountered in the wilderness. If they NEEDED to help themselves before God intervened, then well… we would not even be reading this thing called Bible.

But on the other extreme, there are people who think that relying on God means doing NOTHING. It is almost as if we can just lie down there and have everything stuffed down our throats by God. I mean, even as God provided manna and quail to the Israelites, they still need to go out and collect them.

As obvious as it may be, some airy-fairy, uber-spritual folks never get seem to get it. They think they can achieve excellence without working hard to prepare. It is as if they think God would take the exams or do their sales presentation for them!!

Yes, God is definitely WITH us, but God certainly do not do it for us. Even Isaac need to put in the seed before he got his 100 fold returns. Even for blessings, we need to be prepared to receive them.

Planting… before the harvest.

The Seed of Abraham

The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,”meaning one person, who is Christ. (NIV Gal 3:16)

If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (NIV Gal 3:19)

There are times when I doubt  that I really do qualified for the all the blessings and promises of God.

After all, most of the promises were made to the people of Israel and their ancestors, not the Gentiles. I thought maybe, just maybe, that I, being a Gentile, is not chosen to partake in those blessings the they enjoyed.

…until I remember the above 2 verses. And I remember I actually have a much better covenant than the one they had. Amen.

Self-explanatory…

 

 

Give Us a Tiger…!

I really think it is a huge loss for sport fans all over the world that Tiger Woods is ”taking a indefinite break” from golf.

Personally, I have never really fancy the game. I find it slow, boring and a huge waste of space where huge stretches of  grassland are used  just to make 18 small holes on the ground (at least we covered the whole pitch in football).  And if not for Woods,  I wouldn’t even care to read about it in the sport pages. 

Not that there are no other newsworthy golfers around, but Woods is not just any golfer. He is a story of a man who has dedicated his life to emulate the achievements of his childhood idol, Jack Nicklaus, in becoming the greatest golfer of all time ( he is only 4 titles away from doing that).

With his immense talent and relative young age, there is no doubt that he would be able to do that and much more… but as it is now, it seems we might never see him fulfilling this lifelong aspiration of his.

While I do understand how his wife must have felt about the whole affair (or affairs), getting her guy off the golf circuit is just not going to solve a thing. It is not the problem with golf ,  it is the problem with the man. Even if you put him to sell insurance or even as a security guard in church, that would never take the problem out of him. He needed a bigger help than that…

And this is the kind of thing best left for Jesus, not Man.

Will we ever get to see this again? I certainly hope so…

 

Tricks of the Mind

Throughout the history of mankind, we humans have always been trying to overcome nature.

By the efforts of many great men, we did manage to do that… to a certain extent. Just look at the cars on the road, the planes in the air, the cellphones we are carrying and of course, the computer which you are using to read these words.

Of course, we celebrated all these technological advancements with pride, and rightfully so, but in the midst of the celebration,  we start to have delusions that we are like demi-gods, with the power to dominate the forces of nature. We fail to see the limitations of science, mathematics, philosophies, psychology or any branch of human studies that promise us “control” of the world around us.

Can we prevent a tsunami? Can we stop a volcanic eruption? Can we stop rain from pouring? Can we reverse the order of the seasons? Are we even able to tell what is going to happen to the world the next day, the next hour or next minute?….  I mean we are even fooled constantly by our very own instincts and emotions every single day, yet we dare say we have all the answers of the world. We are just not humble enough to admit  our fallibility.

No wonder the Bible tell us the foolishness of God is still wiser than the man’s wisdom. The human mind is just grossly overrated.  

“Use your blain… use your blain…” as PCK might put it.

I Believe….

I think it is true… while most of us do believe IN God, not everyone of us BELIEVEs God. The difference is more than just semantics.

Believing in God would mean knowing for sure of the existence of a Divine Being but that doesn’t tell us much. I mean, we have all heard of gods that are full of rules, gods that play pranks on human, gods that are promiscuous, gods that are evil or gods that don’t really care… so which god are we believing?

But when we believe God, (I am referring to the Judeo-Christian God of course), we take Him at His words and that means believing in what is recorded in the Bible.

So if it is written that we are blessed with the blessings of the seed of Abraham, we are…. if it is written that we shall be the head and not the tail, then we are… if it is written that by His stripes we are healed, then we are…. I believe them!!

It is just as what Joel Osteen always said at the beginning of his sermon, “This is my Bible. I am whatever it says I am, I have whatever it says I have…” Amen!! 

PS: The above is inspired by Pastor Col Stringer who preached a sermon at my church last month.

The words says it all.

A Story on Fortune…

Was approached by a fortune-teller in town yesterday, offering me a chance to have a glimpse into my own future for a princely sum of $10.

Unfortunately for him, that amount represented all that I had in my wallet at the time ( ATM machine was a distance away) and I certainly didn’t want to risk any form of gastronomical discomfort by sacrificing my lunch money on services of such speculative nature.

I tried to convey to him, politely (with no mention of my concern for lunch), that I was in no immediate need for his expertise and his time would be better spent on a more receptive audience,  but it apparently did not quite deterred him as he proceeded, without my consent, to give me a “free” reading as a proof of his ability.

In summary, these was what he told me.. about me:

1.  I am born to be a leader. (yeah… I always know I am supposed to be THE boss)

2. I have the potential to achieve great things, but I’m not realising that potential fully yet. (of course, my bank balance is still some zeroes away from Bill Gates)

3. I am a very smart guy (my, was it THAT obvious..?), but I usually do not show that off  for fear of offending people with my intelligence.

After hearing all these ego-boosting compliments about myself (which I have no doubt of their truth anyway..), it was natural and human to want to reciprocate by hearing out his $10 forecast, but  I knew what was to come next…

As expected, after the openers, he dropped the one big, nasty word that all people who have the misfortune of  having their fortune told loathe to hear: 

1. You are a born leader, BUT…..

2. You are full of potential, BUT…

3. You are smart, BUT…. (ouch, shut up!!) 

I am convinced that if there is ever a vote on the most terrible word in the history of mankind, “BUT” would come up on top. Whatever good future you might be enjoying are negated with just this one word after it and all the reasons of WHY you are not enjoying it now, would come after, which usually would be things that are beyond your control…. eg: the alignment of the stars on your birthday, the mood of the deities for that year, or how your nose happen to be at the spot that it is situated et cetra.   

Of course, whenever they presented you with a problem, they would have the solution ready too. The fortune-teller reminded me, in no uncertain terms,  of the many ill effects that the ”BUTs” would have on my destiny, but (the word again) fortunately for me, he was the expert in dealing with them. And since, according to him, our meeting was by some divine intervention (“yuan”) from the above, he would do whatever he could to salvage the rest of my life. 

Just as he was about to launch into his ”solution presentation”, my client came by and we had to move on for our lunch, leaving the disappointed fortune-teller quite possibly without the $10 he needed for his own lunch…

Ain’t much of an expert when it comes their own fortune. 

Evolution

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

(2 Cor 5:17)

Amen!! I am sick and tired of the old me… put a new spirit in me Daddy!!

Yes, Daddy God, give me a new lease of life!!

 

 

 

Weight Lifter

In one of his psalms, David wrote:

Cast your cares on the LORD
       and He will sustain you;
(Psalm 55:22 NKJ)

Pile your troubles on God’s shoulders— 
      He’ll carry your load, He’ll help you out. (Same verse, The Massage)

Apostle Peter had a similar verse in his epistle, but see the difference in the words:

casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
(1 Peter 5:7)

Live carefree before God; He is most careful with you. (The Message)

There are lots of cares in this world. Everyday we are burdened by them. But thank God, there is Somebody bigger than ourselves Who is able to take them all for us.

As He promised, He WILL sustain us by helping us out, by carrying our load because He cares for us!!

I would receive that in Jesus’ name, and declare His grace and mercy for the day!! Amen!! 

God is stronger and tougher than any muscleman.

 

I See Grace

I was brought to attention to a particular Bible translation called The Message. So I decided to reproduce one of my favourite bible story in this version: 

Then a famine came to the land. Abram went down to Egypt to live;… As he drew near to Egypt, he said to his wife, Sarai, “Look. We both know that you’re a beautiful woman. When the Egyptians see you they’re going to say, ‘Aha! That’s his wife!’ and kill me. But they’ll let you live. Do me a favor: tell them you’re my sister. Because of you, they’ll welcome me and let me live.”

When Abram arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians took one look and saw that his wife was stunningly beautiful. Pharaoh’s princes raved over her to Pharaoh. She was taken to live with Pharaoh.

Because of her, Abram got along very well: he accumulated sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, men and women servants, and camels. But God hit Pharaoh hard because of Abram’s wife Sarai; everybody in the palace got seriously sick. (Gen 12: 10-20)

I love the story NOT because Abraham (Abram) got away with his cowardice, and even prospering from it, but because it tells us we God would still save us even when the situation is due our own mistakes.

God does prosper our mistakes!! That is pure Grace in action!!

 Hallelujah and Amen!!

Abraham and Sarah.

PS: And if we do read a bit more carefully, we would realize that Sarah (Sarai) was kept “stunningly beautiful” even at a ripe old age. But that would be another entry altogether.

Brave Heart

Let’s talk about a virtue I always admire…

“Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.”
– Winston Churchill

“Conscience is the root of all true courage; if a man would be brave let him obey his conscience.” 
– James Freeman Clarke

Courage is defined, in one of the online dictionary, as: “the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear.”

And it can be divided into 2 forms: moral and physical.

Moral Courage is defined as ”the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, or discouragement.”

Oh Lord, be my COURAGE!!

Courageous men are usually referred to as lion-hearted and Jesus, as the Lion of Judah must be the bravest of them all.