Dear…
‘For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.’
Proverbs 4:17
“Curry” is a hot topic in Singapore lately, and it does help spice up the ongoing presidential elections. Think about it, with all four candidates with the common surname “Tan,” might be easier for food loving Singaporeans to tick the right ballot box correctly if they each ascribe a curry dish to their surname. Be it fish head curry, chicken curry, Thai green curry or good old Assam fish head(not really curry, but matters not) or even SanTan("coconut milk).
For my friends from HK and overseas, just in case you are wondering what is the fuss over “curry,” it is the latest symbol of local Singaporean’s resistance to this “foreign invasion” into our little red dot. Come to think about it, my grandparents including my mum were also once foreigners, except they ate Hokkien mee and char siew bao rather than Xiao Long Bao.
(see this link a dear friend sent me on Mr Brown, our resident comic commentator’s tale on the curry war
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhLozqBqPMk)
‘…How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.’
Matthew 23:37
The Kingdom of God is a sharp contrast to our present world. It is the only ‘place’ where all are welcome with no pre-qualifications including culinary preferences. God wants you in His presence, if you are willing to come unto His presence.
Singapore is a blessed land. We are at developed status and inevitably, we will be a magnet to new immigrants looking for a better life. Our forefathers did the same and should we now deprive this new generation of hopefuls? On a secular argument, it is always a moot point for all of us regardless of the spectrum of thoughts will start flawed and have traces of bigotry in us, Christian or not, for we all descend from Adam, the first disobedient man.
‘Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.’
Matthew 5:14
Indeed Singapore was founded on a hill, Fort Canning, where the Prince of Palembang, Sang Ni La Utama had his residence when he stumbled into our blessed land, long before Sir Stamford Raffles. But are we like the salt of the earth that have lost its savor, because we have become too enamored with God’s provisions and plain forgotten about our Provider?
It will be good to take time and hear the Lord’s perspective and respond to His will accordingly?
Singapore is the “Antioch of the East,” and small as we are, the Christian population in Singapore has been active in mission or in funding missionaries globally. But are we truly living to the full potential that God has blessed us with? And is God now bringing the harvest to us with this great surge of foreigners(easily a quarter to a third of our permanent population)? It can be disconcerting as has been for all of us, yet, will it not be good to remember the command of God, which is not just to seek Him with our all, but to love our neighbors as ourselves(Luke 10:27-29)
Mulligatawny, is a curry-flavored soup of Anglo-Indian origin made with meat stock that the old British colonials use to favor as a soup. Not just quite unpronounceable but at least for me not the most palatable. The aroma of curry does pleases me, but to have that lingering smell hovering around one's abode perpetually is understandably not the most pleasing.
But it would be pleasing to our Lord if we could by the way we live and speak, exude the fragrance of God’s love wherever He places us. An aroma that is so pleasing that many will want to know the reason for your faith, and take that first step into the presence of our Lord.
‘…Because God chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.’
2 Thessalonians 2:13
It is God Who will bring about the increase, that belief in your heart when His Spirit resides in the believer, but it is us He will use to encourage non believers to come unto His presence to receive the sanctifying presence of His Spirit.
‘I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world but ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what that is good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.’
Romans 12:2
It is God Who will now bring about not just a belief in one’s heart, but a renewal of the mind that will be transformed from the sinful Adamic understanding, to a mind that is in line with the will of God, a mind that fully knows the experiential truth of God’s will and is willing to believe and follow the Holy Spirit’s leading.
It is again us the believers whom God will use to journey with others as they move from heart belief to a total experiential transformation of the once carnal mind.
These last two paragraphs is an explanation I just shared with a friend on what “Spirit and Truth” meant for me.
It is not a theological discovery but rather a personal understanding that prayerfully will guide you even as the Spirit of God teaches you on the truths that God wants us to know and respond to.
And on truths, God will shake the world as man continues to sin even more. This morning’s earthquake near Washington and its tremors right down the US East Coast including New York is new yet not unexpected. There is no place for men to hide except in the shelter of our loving Father. The recent legalizing of same sex marriage in New York and the continued web of lies emanating from Washington as they flood the world with even more paper dollars are just part of the continued move of disobedience that man have chosen to perpetuate.
Will the curry pot boil(“our world”) over as the heat of carnality in man intensifies, as more sins are thrown into this beleaguered world of ours? Only the Lord knows. It is good to ponder upon the implications should a major earthquake ever destroy both the seats of power(Washington) of the remaining Empire in our present world as well as the monies(New York) that fund this empire. Will that be the impetus for the ugly head of stagflation to fully rear itself, or will it need the accompaniment of an oil crisis in the Middle East to help this hydra monster roll itself out of its slumber?
It is imperative for us all to reexamine our lives till now, has it mirrored the will of God?
‘Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life.’
Luke 12:22
But rather, if Christ is not the center of your life, where will you be in eternity?
God Blesses
Eng Hieang
(24th Aug 2011)
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