Dear…
‘Then the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations..’
Jeremiah 1:5
Is God the proverbial absentee Father? It seems to be for most of us from the way we conduct our daily living. Fact is God is omnipresent, but sadly for many of us, believers or not, He is as good as persona non grata. For if we truly believe that He is in our midst, should we not live our lives reverently, and also be very conscious of our disposition?
‘That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with the might by His Spirit in the inner man. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye being rooted and grounded in love.
May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.’
Ephesians 3:16-19
God is omnipresent, it is just that our visualization of God is coming from our finite and carnal perspective.
The flawed man in all of us cannot comprehend God in a form that is not digestible by the operating system in our mind – our finite understanding. In the culture of our fallen world, God must be represented by physical symbols and if that is not possible, then by implicit symbols of what the sinful world subscribe to, be it power, status, pride and self righteousness.
‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance against such there is no law…’
Galatians 5:22-23
The “Christian” God is a God of love, a God Who in the human form of His beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ leads by example the fruits of the Spirit. To know God, we must seek to live out His countenance of love as commanded in Galatians 5:22-23, and in doing that, you will ‘see’ God at work in your life.
‘If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.’
Galatians 5:25
'And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him, ye know him, for he abideth with you, and shall be in you...'
John 1416-17
Looking at the mirror of where we are today, the need for a total transformation from the heart, and not just a superficial makeover is clearly on the cards for all. Difference is, those who profess to seek the Lord will start first, for refinement will begin with the faithful, and as for those who are non believing or unwilling, the barnacles in your life will still be given an opportunity to be removed, but the longer it is allowed to deepen its grip upon your heart, the more painful it will be when the Spirit of God comes a calling.
‘Now unto Him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us…’
Ephesians 3:20
First mover I am not, for many more faithful men and women have preceded me since God first made Adam. But moving in my relationship I am, and not sure if this is an understatement of my past decade of actively seeking and following Christ – “the most wonderful decade of my once miserable finite life.”
Does that conjure immediately this sense of material abundance, excellent health, adoring family and friends, power, prestige and everything that the devil tempted Christ with in exchange for His submission?
For me, and I believe for many who seek to be like Christ, the fallen world is not going to get any better, in fact, the harsh reality of a sinful world is felt more evidently, for we no longer are under any delusion, and the devil will use the stick since his carrot is not working. And God can and will allow us to be subjected, within our limits, to the devil’s harshness, for only then will we truly be refined and that once limpid spirit in us be transformed into an indomitable spirit that has learned to rest upon the Spirit of God residing in our hearts.
‘Man’s goings are of the Lord, how can a man then understand his own way?’
Proverbs 20:24
This recognition that being a Christian is the willingness to undergo a “cleansing” process, to allow God to transform us from the carnal to the spiritual in His likeness will help us to learn to let go more quickly of our understanding and sense of self dependency and submit to Him to let Him work His will upon our very being.
Understand first, then follow our logic cum instinct, that is the way of the world. With Christ, we do things in reverse. Be cognizance of God’s will(and this sensitivity can only come from a determination to be in His presence, in His Words, in His Works), follow and we will see His ways affirmed and clarified after we learn to walk in faith. The world looks for conclusions, the faithful follower looks to Christ our Savior.
‘Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord.’
Psalm 130:1
Each of us today could be going through a seemingly difficult phase of our life. And it often seems so unbearable that we just wish that an easier option will appear and if it does, God will understand why we choose not to endure His way. And we can also rationalize our disobedience by the fact that He seems not to be present anyway, for if He is, we should not have to undergo such trials!!
‘Thou art my portion, O Lord: I have said that I would keep Thy words.’
Psalm 119:57
God is present. He will allow us to struggle, till we are willing to submit to Him for He looks for a humble and contrite heart. Most of us will feel a certain anger with this suggestion. Like our children, they will resist and desist, much as our intent is good for them. But unlike us imperfect and finite human parents, God is Sovereign and Perfect. We are far from His equal and the sooner we recognize that reality and the quicker we do not repeat the mistake of the prideful Satan who seek his own ways, the quicker we will be able to have that God given inner peace that will keep us steadfast through the storms or in the midst of temptations, the unqualified joy of thankfulness that will help us hold our gaze towards Christ always, and the resolute strength and resilient faith, that comes from knowing God that will allow us to go through it all, till God’s plans for us are fulfilled.
God Blesses
Eng Hieang
(28th Jan 2011)
Is present day Mubarak’s Egypt similar to the 1970s Iran of the Shah’s days?? A sense of déjà vu
Both nations are key players in not just Biblical times, but our present times. Many have long forgotten that Egypt was always at the bulwark of the Arab charge, be it in war or peace with their erstwhile relations, the Israelites. It has been some time since the last major Arab Israeli war in the early 1970s(Yom Kippur War) but would the present civil unrest lead to the unseating of a corrupt but stabilizing lynch pin in the Middle East. Will a demise of Egypt, the defender of the Sunni Muslims lead to an open field for their arch rivals, the very potent Shiite grouping led by Iran, and soon to include Iraq. Not too sure if the oil rich Arab Sheikhs in the Gulf States, the ruling elite, who are primarily Sunnis will be quivering beneath their robes, what with a restless predominantly Shiite population waiting to be stirred by the Iranians, who hark for the days of old Persia.
Have we not been through this before? Yes, a past era of high oil and gold prices, with double digit interest rates and stagflation of the late 1970s/early 1980s. And while not the the only cause, the Iranian revolution led by the Mullahs, led to the unseating of the Shah of Iran and transformed the political landscape of the Middle East, with Iran, once firm friends of the Americans turned into arch enemies and with it, hyper oil prices that killed a nascent Western economic recovery.
If this scenario plays out again, with Mubarak's Egypt reprising the role of the Shah's Iran, the present inverted asset world we find ourselves in, where many are over-leveraged on overpriced assets, resting on the small pivot of very low and unreal interest rates will quickly find themselves cleaned out through and through, when one’s ability to service huge debts is overwhelmed, as oil prices hyperventilate, leading to bond vigilantes demanding even higher interest rates as they pounced on the reality that heavily indebted Western nations delusory hope of new revenue from economic recovery are put to rest in the oil slick of rising prices.
Doomsday it might seem. But what matters is not this, but rather, what is needed to shake one out of one’s dangerous complacency, for we are all individually accountable to the Lord our God when He returns to judge the world. Till Christ returns, the world will continue to move in cycles. For without the amplitude of cycles, the world will either totally forget about God when things are seemingly great and man feels almost godlike, or when things are so depressed like that of the subprime crisis just not too long ago, that men will sink into oblivion and have not the time to grasp the love of God if they were allowed to fall over the abyss.
'Say not ye, There are yet four months and then cometh the harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white already unto harvest...'
John 4:35
The time is now. Would you need to go through it all again, before you are willing to acknowledge the Sovereignty of God our Father?
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