Be Graceful, Like God is to Me
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Ephesians 4:2
During my last seminary course, the Professor asked us to pick an image out of a collection of photos to represent us. I picked one that has a girl looking into a room through a tiny window of a closed door.
When I shared, I talked about how my experience of being excluded in the pass just because I'm not in line with them. I hate it when the same mentality keep people outside of the Church because there is a standard that was not met and that standard felt so human.
I think this is why I passionately detest the Fundamentalists. I have no patient with them when they take Scriptures out of context because that would fit their theology instead of the other way around. I get upset when they go around telling people “unless you interpret the Bible my way you do not know the Bible.” Then to Pastors and Preachers, “if you don't preach the Bible like our great leaders, you don't preach the ‘full Gospel’ and you are leading people in worshipping a false god.”
Yesterday, I was writing something up and while I was telling myself, don't get upset, I did. By the Grace of God He made me lost what I wrote.
I know I could tell myself, Jesus seemed to have no patient with Pharisees, why should I? But this morning, He is telling me, “I did.”
He didn't randomly get upset at every Pharisees. Yes, Jesus did get upset with them, but in most interaction His first approach was always a teaching one, even when they used their Talmud to let the male adulterer go and tried to get Jesus to give the go-ahead to kill the female.
God has been gracious to me too many times in so many ways. Even when these Fundamentalists are doing the exact opposite of what God wants His people to do, and acting EXACTLY like the Pharisees, I need to be patient with them in correcting their ways, and if they insist of being stubborn and think their way is better, they don't determine things for God and what they say will never represent God. Meaning, just because they say I follow a false god and how I am not reading the Bible “correctly”, I only have to treat them as they treat prophetess of God.
And the end of the day, it is their loss and the only feeling I should have is sadness. The same sadness Jesus felt when that rich young ruler walked away.
May the Good Lord have mercy on me too give me the strength.
A Divided Kingdom
Today, I was reading Mark Chapter 3. Verses 1-6 is about Jesus healing on Sabbath; verses 7-12 is about Jesus healing a growing crowd; verses 13-21 is about choosing the 12 Disciples among the growing followers and the growing needs for Jesus; verses 22-30 is the parables about blasphemes against the Holy Spirit; and, verses 31-35 is about Jesus' mother and brothers wanting to see him.Today, I received an email from one of the candidates for the Federal Conservatives leadership race. He's not the first one, and, while the other candidates wrote long emails explaining their position and vision for their version of the next Conservatives, this one is something else. He started his email with attacking the Ontario Provincial Conservatives leader for "Patrick Brown is no Stephen Harper". This candidate spent almost the entire email attacking a fellow politician who is not running in the same race, tried to throw dirt on the Provincial Party leader on, basically, how Brown is not a "true Conservatives" and, unlike him, is not as close to the last leader as he is (what does that have to do with anything?). He kept attacking how Brown is blocking Conservatives who are "true Conservatives" from representation of various ridings and forcing only fake Conservatives into those key positions.I have absolutely no idea where this candidate stand on any policies.He thinks it is more important for Conservatives to know how he "knows" Stephen Harper and the "fact" that he's a "real Conservatives" than for people to know where he stands in what Conservatives should stand for in the next election.He's nothing more a gossiper than a real leader material if this is the best he can do. His strategy for leadership is not to distinguish himself with a great vision of how he's going to lead the Conservatives and win over Canadians. His strategy is to attack a popular provincial leader to establish how only he is the "true Conservatives", how well he knows the last leader, and those are the only facts that matter.I'm from Hong Kong, and since 2014, it has become full-fledge chaotic. It all began with three fully grown adults who wanted to apply the "occupation" strategy to force the government into submission to their "democratic reform" demands. We were not dealing with "hey, let's talk how" but "this is what we believe democracy should be, so it exactly like we tell you or we will be trouble for you".What ended up happening is a bunch of hot headed student took over their idea and labelled themselves as "hero of democracy". What they mean is,"even we know nothing about anything, you must yield to our demands (which was never formed after 78 days of occupation).They equate themselves with the plots or characters of movies like V for Vendetta (which the real story was about the struggle between the Catholic Church and the Protestants), The Hunger Game (totally lacking in understanding of the original story vs. History of Hong Kong) and the Les Miserable (which they thought the French Revolution was an one-time event, but the correct question should be "which French Revolution" if they know History at all).
A divided Kingdom have no foot to stand on (Mark 3:25).
Okay, maybe you thought, "that's politics, the Church is not like that. Really? Think again.In Hong Kong, there are pastors and theologians who accuse anyone who is not against the government to be not Christian, as God will not allow an unjust and evil government to exist. They believe anyone who does not join this movement to be against God. I guess there must be another Gospels I didn't read where Jesus was telling His believers to rise up against the evil and unjust Roman Empire....oh wait....that Gospels doesn't exist. Yesterday, a friend of mine posted a very nice Hillsong song on his Facebook, and one of his friends immediately posted links to articles that accuse the entire Hillsong ministries as....just short of calling them the Antichrist....Hillsong is not the only target out there. There are many groups and preachers out there who love God and has been doing great works (another touchy subject) for God, and there are people who have made it their mission to "take them down" in what they believe to be "leaders who mislead God's people", but in reality to be nothing more than "theological differences".Often times these "crusaders" will take a few passages, take them out of context, turn them into theological measuring stick, and judge people based on that.Just like in Mark 3, they don't believe God will perform miracles on Sabbath because even God MUST take a vacation day. In their mind, it means anything extraordinary happens on Sabbath, it CANNOT be from God.In the early church time, unless a person become a Jews (circumcised for men), they cannot be a Christian. In the Post-anabaptist world, unless you are baptized by immersion as an adult, you are not a Christian (some even go as far as added meaning to the word baptizo to justify the immersion requirement). In certain circles today, unless you are a confessing Calvinist (whatever that mean), you are not a Christian.So, are we, with good intention, going to divide God's Kingdom just to satisfy our....psychologically based theological-correctness need?
Ask and You Shall Receive?
This is the [remarkable degree of] confidence which we [as believers are entitled to] have before Him: that if we ask anything according to His will, [that is, consistent with His plan and purpose] He hears us. And if we know [for a fact, as indeed we do] that He hears and listens to us in whatever we ask, we [also] know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that we have [granted to us] the requests which we have asked from Him.1 John 5:14-15AMP
This is probably the most misquoted, if not one of the top 10, New Testament passage.Prayer has become a Christmas wishlist for some Christians....or pretenders....for many. Some of these prayers have selfish motives. They may think, "if only God gives me this, then I am set"; or, "if so-and-so can have it, why wouldn't God give me?"; or, "doesn't God love me, why would He not want me to have this?"; or, "God, don't you love him/her and let her life a little longer" et cetera, et cetera....We want the miracles of answered prayers but did not want to read the "fine print" or choose to ignore it. Here is the fine print: "according to His will, [that is, consistent with His plan and purpose] He hears us." To be honest, I can't really say it is a "fine print" because it is part of the text, not some footnote somewhere.The only requests which He will grant are the ones that are inline with His Will, His plan, and His purpose. He is no genie that grants our wishes. If we consider Him to be our Sovereign Lord, then He is the Master, and we are the subjects. That is the fact. We are in His created world, not the other way around.Whatever we do not have and wish for are just that, something we do not have. If whatever we ask for and He has to give us or it means He does not love us or care about us only mean the following: (1) we are narcissistically spoiled; (2) we have been, is, and will continue to be ungrateful; and, (3) God is not the Lord of the universe, we are, because we can boss the God of the Universe around like He is our subject.If we know God enough, have a good enough relationship with Him, we know if whatever we ask for is according to His Will, we would not worry about if the prayer will be answered. If we know Him well enough, we should know how we ask for things and we will not sound like a needy child in the first place.That means, what we should first ask for, before asking Him for anything, is to ask God for a proper relationship with Him. A heart of knowing better to put Him first. How can we know that? Is there a "trick" to it? Not really.To pray to know His Will is easier than you think. We must acknowledge His sovereignty in our lives, want to see His kingdom to be a reality all around us. We must believe that whatever we have are gifts from Him and never take them for granted. We must also repent for what we have done wrong, and do so for those who have wronged us. Never to forget to confess that we are not righteous as we are fallible.Is that a lot to put into a prayer? Shouldn't be. Try it and pray with me.
Our Father in heaven,may your name be kept holy.May your Kingdom come soon.May your will be done on earth,as it is in heaven.Give us today the food we need,and forgive us our sins,as we have forgiven those who sin against us.And don’t let us yield to temptation,but rescue us from the evil one.Matthew 6:9-13New Living Translation (NLT)
The Lord's Prayer is a little more than a chant. there is a very good reason Jesus taught us that prayer: we must be in the right place with God. If we can genuinely pray that prayer, then we have a glimpse of what the Will, Plan, and Purpose of God are. It is then, that we can expect that whatever we ask of God we will receive.
To Be Humble
Have this same attitude in yourselves which was in Christ Jesus [look to Him as your example in selfless humility], who, although He existed in the form and unchanging essence of God [as One with Him, possessing the fullness of all the divine attributes—the entire nature of deity], did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped or asserted [as if He did not already possess it, or was afraid of losing it]; but emptied Himself [without renouncing or diminishing His deity, but only temporarily giving up the outward expression of divine equality and His rightful dignity] by assuming the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men [He became completely human but was without sin, being fully God and fully man]. After He was found in [terms of His] outward appearance as a man [for a divinely-appointed time], He humbled Himself [still further] by becoming obedient [to the Father] to the point of death, even death on a cross.(Philippians 2:5-8 AMP)It was obvious that those who were always against Jesus, and, ultimately, those who got Jesus murdered, were wrong. They were wrong to ignore Jesus' teaching. They were wrong to assume they own God's Truth. They were wrong to "revenge" for God by killing a man. They were simply wrong, but rather than dealing with their wrongs, they rather get rid of the one whom they are reminded of their guilts.These same people often will come up to Jesus either to test Jesus, which is more like trying to trick Him, with really stupid misuse of God's Word. I can't imagine what I would have done. Actually, I cannot say that. I have come across similar situations. I wish I could report that I reacted just like Jesus. I reacted like a storm and let those "accusers" have it. The funny thing is, it was not even about me. It was about others.Reading through the Gospels, I often have this fire of anger toward the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes when they were recorded behaving badly. Then, there was Jesus. He was God. The very Word from Him were being misquoted to be used against Him, the issuer of the same Word. He could have said, "hey listen, you can try all you want, you are not going to beat the master." He could have whistle and the angels can come down to beat the daylight out of these idiots. But, He didn't. He didn't even use smart comments to rebuke them.In His gentle rebukes He was still trying to show His accuser the truth. If I were Him, there would be so much I would have done to those ungrateful people. Am I glad I was not Jesus, and so should everyone else....especially those Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes.Yet, that is not good enough excuse to excuse my blown fuses in those situations. Even though the "truth" was "on my side" is still not an excuse. It does not mean it would be easy, from now on, for me to hold my peace when I come across similar situation again, but it means I have something to aim for. Be like Jesus, be kind to your enemy. What a tough lesson to learn. Lord have mercy.
Lost and Found
8 Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “See, Lord, I am [now] giving half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone out of anything, I will give back four times as much.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this household, because he, too, is a [spiritual] son of Abraham; 10 for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:8-10, Amplified Bible - AMP)Zaccheus was already a Jew, an Israelite, therefore, by default, he should be a son of Abraham, so how come Jesus called him "a spiritual son of Abraham"? Because he was working for the Romans against the Israelites, he was considered dead to his own people. He was no longer considered a son of Abraham.When Zaccheus saw that his way was wrong, he rectified it. It is not that he never knew he was sinning or that he was "lost". In order for him to function, he probably deny whatever he was doing was wrong, just "doing his job". Reading the story, all Jesus did was telling him, "hey body, I'm going to go to your house and will be staying with you." Jesus didn't preach to him, or even had a "heart-to-heart" with him when Zaccheus made the promise. Zaccheus just volunteer the change.To the Jews, Zaccheus lost his salvation when he lived a life of a "notorious sinner" because he was "doing his job". A simple declaration by Jesus to stay at his house was enough for him to change his way. By doing so, Jesus declared Zaccheus "regained" his salvation because Jesus came for people just like him.The fact that we have and will sin is not the end of the world, because just because we have decided to follow Jesus does not make us any less of a sinner, just a saved lost soul. What matters is for us to be determined to change our ways. That is the way Jesus has provided for us.