Tag Archives: God

January 7, 2015 · 11:59 am

MY FATHER’S GOD

While waiting for my car to get washed on a sunny day, I sat under a tropical almond tree for a shade. After sitting for a while, I decided to ease off the boredom by walking around the tree. As I was doing this, I observed that all the leaves on the tree were not looking exactly the same. Some of the leaves were complete, while some had been turned into beautiful works of art by some leaf-eating insects. The insects had created exquisite patterns on some of the leaves by eating portions of the leaves in a creative way.

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Interestingly, both sets of leaves were still green and they appeared to co-exist happily together and the tree was still producing fruits as expected. I suspect that those half eaten leaves did not know that they had some problems. In fact, they could actually remain in that form for years if the insects choose to move on to greener pastures. This reminded me of what was written about Samson on the day that he was converted from a conqueror to a blind captive: He was ‘dead’, without actually knowing it.

Then she cried out, “Samson! The Philistines have come to capture you!” When he woke up, he thought, “I will do as before and shake myself free.” But he didn’t realize the Lord had left him. (Judges 16: 20 NLT)

Moving over from the Bible times to our present day; it is possible to exist in a church, where each service is indeed a wonderful fellowship with the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and not be part of that fellowship. We may busy ourselves with countless church activities and still end up as outsiders where it really matters. That fellowship is what God really wants from us and it is also what we need to fulfil our calling as per the new covenant:

But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. (1Peter 2:9 NLT)

We can never know him personally, understand our place in Him, grasp the immensity of the glorious life he has planned for us and realize the utter extravagance of His work in us if we do not have that personal touch in our relationship with Him. The veil has been torn and we have unlimited access to the throne of our Father.

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It is becoming increasingly popular to pray to the God of our Bishop or the God of our Pastor or the God of our Father-in-the-Lord. This is not what our father desires. He wants to be my own God. He wants to be your own God. After the death and resurrection of Jesus, the term “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” was no longer commonly used. It was used just once by Peter at his fist sermon, where he had to introduce God to the Jews.The apostles all understood the kind of relationship that God wants to have with us and related with Him accordingly. He was the God of Peter, God of John, God of James, God of Timothy, God of Silas. Each person had a personal relationship with Him. This is evident in Paul’s declaration in Acts 27:23 – 25

Last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood beside me and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.’  So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. (NIV)

From the highlighted words, it is very clear that God was his God. That personal touch in the above declaration is unmistakeable. God does not just want to be my father’s God; He wants to be my God. A good starting point is a consistent personal Bible study and a good start time is now. His grace is sufficient for you and the door is open.

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March 30, 2014 · 11:32 am

LIKE YOU – LIKE ME

I heard an interesting story a while ago as I was listening to a Bethel Church podcast;

During a church meeting, there was a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit with diverse physical manifestations. However, not everyone in the church was carried along in these manifestations. In order for the rest of the people not to feel completely lost, the minister nicely asked the people that were not ‘manifesting’ to write down all the thoughts that were going through their minds at that time. At the end of the meeting, he interacted with this set of people and deciphered from their writings that they were actually having encounters with the Holy Spirit, just that these were encounters of a different kind. A different kind that was not inferior to the other – just different.

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It’s so easy to look at what is happening in other people’s lives and want what they have, forgetting that we are all on different courses on the way to our expected end. Another trap that we also fall into frequently is to think that if the manifestation is not physical, then it is inferior. This makes us to erroneously glorify those physical manifestations.

Back in my University days, I had this friend that would always cry so much while praying. I judged him to be very spiritual because he always had a ‘deep encounter’ at every prayer time.  I really tried hard to start crying at my own prayer times, but my tear glands would never cooperate. In my ignorance, I equated the cry to an encounter with God and I looked down on myself and my prayer life because I wasn’t having that ‘encounter’. I also remember not falling down under the anointing in some services while others were being slain in the anointing and thinking something was wrong with me.  Thank God for what He has taught me since those days of ignorance.

In the second part of 2Corinthians 10: 12, we are advised not to compare ourselves with ourselves because it is not a wise thing to do and it has the potential of leading us into errors:

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However, when they measure themselves with themselves and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding and behave unwisely. 2Cor 10: 12(AMP)

I believe the safest thing to do is to have that personal relationship and encounter with God, where what you do is not influenced by what another person is doing or what your pastor says. The only influence should be the Holy Spirit. You definitely can’t miss it this way. In other words, shift your standards from the ways of men to the leading of the Holy Spirit. If you try to be like someone else, you will only end up as a near perfect copy. Discover your course from God at the secret place and stay on course. His grace is sufficient for you.

 

Photo credit: lisagroup.com.au, commons.wikimedia.org

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January 5, 2014 · 12:07 pm

FEAR FACTOR

I hated reading books when I was much younger, especially when it was a fictional novel. My dad on his own part did what every good father would do: encourage my siblings and I to read as much as possible. I had no way of stopping the constant flow of books streaming down from my dad to us, but I had to develop a coping mechanism. I would just flip through most of the pages, pausing occasionally to read a few lines. Luckily, he never asked us to summarize the stories. I could not afford to pay the price of not ‘reading’ those books, so I just had to do something. Deep beneath whatever I did was the fear of my dad.

That hatred has progressively dissipated and I’ve been changed. I was reading a book recently: Prayers of a God Chaser by Tommy Tenney. I saw a paragraph that I could relate the above story to.

“It seems to me that most, if not all of the great sacrifices and ‘surrenders of the soul’ in history were founded upon and motivated by love rather than fear. Is there any doubt that Jesus’ surrender of His will in the garden was birthed in His love for the father and for us?”

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Beyond my childhood escapades that were motivated by fear, the excerpt above describes the exact opposite of what is mostly obtainable in our time. Fear of the cankerworm drives us to tithe and give. Fear of the ‘diseases of the Egyptians’ makes us get involved in serving in the household of God. Out of fear, we sacrifice our time and resources in doing ‘things’, hoping that one day; it will be enough to swing the hand of God in our favour. Fear even colours our prayers – sometimes we fear the enemies more that we fear and believe God. Fear just makes us forget who we are in God as well as the promises we have in God.

At the very root of this fear-driven motivation is the absence of personal Bible study. If I can get myself to study, I will really understand that: “… God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” and that “ No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this, Never so much as imagined anything quite like it—
What God has arranged for those who love him.” Moreover, I will constantly have it at the back of my mind that God is not moved by the things I do, because He looks beyond the actions to the motives behind those actions. If it were not so, Jesus would not have told the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. The Pharisee was a perfect ‘doer’, yet the Publican received justification at the place of prayer.

It is all about LOVE and it’s simply that simple. I guess this is a good time to do that self-check to determine what our motives are for all the things that we seem to be doing for God. It’s possible that the miracle workers that Jesus spoke about in Matt 7:22 – 23 did not do this check at the right time. Result is not a proof of God’s presence. Love and the fruits of love…

“Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” Matt 7:22-23 (NIV)

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