It's 2017. But Is IIt "New"?

Last night, New Year's Eve, as I was driving home from hotpot party with most of the members of my Wedding Party, the first news I heard on the radio was the Terrorists' attack in Turkey.Just this week, I have come across this video that I posted on my Facebook page. The speaker talks about "failed parenting". As much as the terrorists are anti-West, or whatever they are "for", they are just much victims of the same "failed parenting" as the culture in the "West" that is represented by the "millenials".The terrorists are mostly by-products of the Cold War. They were rooted in the role they were forced to play during the chess moves by the brilliant minds of the USA and USSR. Their civilizations were destroyed so that there was not an all-out nuclear war between the two superpower.When the Cold War ended, while the two superpowers did not fire one shot against each other, at least not openly nor directly, the shots were fired mainly in the middleeast. They have now been trained by the best military minds of the superpowers and the weapons left behind which is constantly resupplied by the surplus that both sides were stockpiling preparing for a war that never happened.When your home is completely destroyed, you have nothing to look forward to. Or that's what you think is happening to you. When you are told that you can, not only get what your hearts desire, be a hero, why would you not jump at the chance? You are told that, by being a "radical" thinking person, you actually have a more clear mindset, a untainted message from God, and a "true" believer. Why would you not forsake your life to do what you need to do.That's "bad parenting"."Bad Parenting" teaches people "trust your heart". That's trusting the least trustworthy part of you.At Service today, the pastor preached on Acts 17:1-9, and some of the Jewish leaders trusted their heart so much so that they cannot accept the possibility that Paul and Silas were sent by God that they enlisted gangsters to create a riot, forsake their own faith (admit, in a way, to the Roman office that there is only one god, which is the Emperor) just to get rid of the two because they are more successful in reaching people.There is nothing new under the sun.Humans' sinful nature always had this desire to belittle the role of God. They don't belittle God himself,but what having God mean.It happened when Adam and Eve considered the Fruit; when Moses killed the Egyptian; when David murdered Uriah; when Rehoboam ignore advices from the advisors in favour of his peers; when the Spiritual Leaders rather kill the Message rather than admit the error in tradition and change the ways of a misled nation; when Saul saw it was his calling to kill as many Christians as he could; when groups call themselves Christians and killed each other for them believing in the wrong thing; when the White West considered the Africans not worthy of anything including the Gospel because they believe the Africans are devils based on their skin colour; when terrorists filtered and changed the Qu'ran to justify them killing anyone they do not like; when kids justify their bullying; and, when "activists" believe they can do no wrong just because they are representing the truth, whatever that means.What do they have in common? It is as if they know better than God, and all will fall apart if they don't handle things for God.It is 2017. A new year has begun. But, is there a chance that the same old pattern be broken?

Come, Holy Spirit, Come

Thursday, May 5, 2016 was Ascension Day, and I was given the opportunity to preach at my church's first Ascension Day Worship Service. Here is the recording of the service.Come, Holy Spirit, Come

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.