Dear...
'Trust in the Lord, and do good, dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.'
Psalm 37:3
I decided to take the verse in the Daily Bread(Sunday May 8th) reading as the opening verse for these heartfelt thoughts that the Spirit of God is leading me to pen.
God spoke to me this morning as I did my quiet time and the verse in the Daily Bread(Sat May 7th) reading was on peace and reconciliation.
'Then Peter came to Him and said, 'Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy seven times.'
Matthew 18:21-22
It is indeed almost impossible by our own strength and understanding to fully forgive someone who has sinned against us. For even if we are willing, what is to stop us having deep regrets should the forgiven persist in their sinful ways and stay non repentant. What about those who are weaker? Do we take the risk of having the same unrepentant soul continue to subject them to more abuses?
This morning, after my quiet time at 8am, I was at the polling station at 9.15am to exercise my right to vote. I would have been at least half an hour earlier, if not for the lack of a car par space and in fact, after waiting for an available space to no avail, my wife and I had wanted to defer our visit to the polling station and return in the afternoon. Man plans, God directs, and lo and behold, I did find an excellent vacant car park lot in one corner of the estate that I never even realized existed.
God is always prescient and the delay ensured that as we stepped into the polling station, right smack into my path was one of the main election candidate in my district. He was in the queue right next to me with his lovely family to cast his vote.
"Should I tell him that God wanted me to both remind him that he is forgiven yet there is a need for a response from him, as a Christian to live out his faith boldly in following the commands of our Lord, to look after the widows and orphans. For like Queen Esther, God places us all in positions of influence to do His will and not for our own self preservation.
I did not speak to him other then the polite greetings, for to do otherwise might be construed as his influencing the voters and lead to his disqualification, then it will be his turn to forgive me instead.
'...that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.'
Ephesians 5:17-21
This morning, I text to some of you my little testimony of how God indeed truly led me in my decision as to how to vote. It was not meant to influence anyone of you as to how you should vote, for God will speak to each one of us individually and we both could vote in opposing ways, yet still be in obedience to the will of God.
Why is that possible? As finite man, we look at issues from our own flawed perspective and yet only God is in control of the 'big picture.' Throughout the past two weeks, some of you out of goodness of heart have spoken to me with diverse messages as to how one should vote.
1. the need to be grateful for the work done by the ruling party all these ways and the fact that we can never please everyone and stability will bring more good than harm to our nation. OR
2. the great disconnect of our present ruling party with the real needs of the masses who are groaning under the burdens of their policies and an opposition will be useful to help bring the ship to a more even keel.
Satan was a devil honored by God, for Lucifer led worship at the footstool of the throne of God. Yet pride got the better of him and he was cast into eternal damnation.
Pride and lack of compassion are clearly creeping into our society. And like many, I believe we need a change in attitude in not just our government but society in general and rapping a few knuckles by voting out some of the ruling party candidates might just do the trick.
What if most follow their own wisdom and vote accordingly and the specter of a not fully equipped opposition party truly ending up with a slim majority in Parliament? Will this scenario that the ruling party oft remind us to scare us, at least in the view of its detractors, on the need to vote wisely turn out to be reality tomorrow morning when the votes are counted? Can many of us who are so fervent about our sense of righteousness be truly able to live with that reality that the much maligned stability of our blessed lives is gone and the morning after polling day seems less palatable?
The ideal result will be one of the ruling party still in charge, but with a few more vocal opposition in Parliament. But how can anyone of us be sure this "right' configuration will turn out the way we hope? Only God knows the right mix and it is to Him we must follow.
All views will have its detractors. It matters not what I think but rather, as for me and my household, we must follow the leading of the Spirit of God. I vote today with the knowledge that truly God led me and I obeyed accordingly.
And I do care about the needs of those who have less and are in a more difficult position be it materially or emotionally than me. But as mentioned to a friend, much as it seems that a vote for a change of leadership will make right all ills, how one should vote must be led more by God than our own understanding. But there is something that God has already blessed us with the means to do. Which is, like the early Christians, to learn to be generous with our time, love and blessings with whoever God places in our life.
Our words must be matched by works. Voting is easy, but giving from our monies, time and resources that God has so blessed us with, is in reality quite difficult for many. But even of greater importance, we must pray, for the prayers of the faithful avails much and yet, not many Christians truly believe in the power of prayer. But Christ has shown us all that prayers must under gird our every moment.
And what if I am wrong. The party I voted for continue in their errant ways?
Let me close by bringing you back to the same verse Matthew 18 which I shared on in the topic of forgiveness. Reading further down to Matthew 18:32-34
'Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you also not have had compassion on you fellow servant,just as I had pity on you?' And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.'
Matthew 18:32-34
An unbeliever might not agree with this for they know not God. And the same disbelief will apply to a Christian who believes with his mouth but not his heart. But as a follower of our Lord Jesus Christ, I and I know all who like me seek Him with our all that God will punish those who continue in their errant ways. But the correcting is left to Him, not us unless He tells us otherwise. And for many of you who I have been blessed to walk together in the presence of our Lord, I pray that I have been bold on many occasions to correct with love but only when our Lord so commands.
For to do otherwise is to disobey the Lord our God, much as our intentions might be good. For Christ rebuke Peter when the latter wanted to discourage him from going for his cruxification.
And much as the morning after has not occurred, for it is still within voting hours when you receive this email from me, I believe most of you by the time you read this would have already voted. It is not my intention nor within my capacity to sway you in your voting choice, for only the Spirit of God can speak to you and on that, you still have a choice to disobey God.
But do join me in praying for healing to start in our nation, and that indeed, all, and not just our leaders, will learn from the error of our ways so that our beloved nation will come out of this not just stronger, but a place where truly God's love is shown and shared with all with a heart of compassion for our neighbors.
And I believe that in obeying, God will give our nation an election result His way and it will be good. And that is the promise that the opening verse that I used in this sharing affirms.
'Trust in the Lord, and do good, dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.'
Psalm 37:3
And on affirmation, as I was about to proceed upstairs to my study to pen this, I happened to catch snippets of the 'Asian move awards" on television, and guess what was the song the performer was belting out in Mandarin " forgiveness.'
How great is our God.
God Blesses
Eng Hieang
(2.12pm Sat May 7th, 2011)
Apologies
For all my overseas friends on this mail and the previous two, thank you for your forbearance in reading through what seems to be a very localized matter. Yet do keep us in Singapore in your prayers and more importantly, the Lord will use the lessons gleaned to apply to wherever you are.
God blesses
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