Modus operandi for change!

What I am searching for these days is whether I have Jesus as the very core of my life. It is one thing to try to be a good person and to do essentially what is sacrificial in nature so that we can hope to bring glory to God. But ultimately, the question is do I work towards become more sacrificial or do I reveal something in me that I do not possess naturally but which has to be essentially Christ in me. I believe that the heart of Christianity is not trying to achieve goodness but reveal the Christ in me who is the source of all goodness. Now if that is the case, then I have to change my modus operandi. I have to focus towards bringing forth the Christ in me rather than just doing good and hoping that I would be able to do greater good if I work harder with my life. I need to echo the words of Paul when he says that I want to lay aside every hint of self righteousness for the sake of knowing Christ and being found in Him. Its all about Him and I am so thankful for that! Its not me, it's Him, all glory be to Jesus! 

Teach, observe, command

We have been given the mandate to make disciples and the church throughout the ages have been trying to fulfil this commission of Jesus with varying degrees of success. On studying the mandate closely, we realize that the mandate is to make disciples of Jesus and so our focus should be to draw people after Him. Three words stand out in this commission of Jesus - teach, observe, command. We are called to teach and not to command. There is a role for us to show people what is the way of the Lord, so that one can find himself walking in obedience. Others are called to observe, meaning that there is something more than just following a set of instructions. To observe and to keep means that there is a longer process involved than just one act of obedience. The goal is the same for both the discipler and the disciple. It is the clear commands of Jesus. The point is that I cannot teach someone to observe something that I have not observed myself. The learning process has to be worked out in my life first. Unless I am learning something, I cannot teach. May our learning be lifelong so that we can continue to disciple others in the will of God. 

What if Jesus had slept...!?

In the garden of Gethsemane, why did Jesus pray like that? Why did He want to decline from the journey ahead? Surely it was not a prayer that came out of weakness. The rebuke to His disciples gives us the clue. It was a sign of His humanity. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.  We have to conclude that more than not wanting to do the will of God, it is also possible to want to do it and still not be able to do it. Here is a perfect human without a sin nature and he had to pray earnestly so that He would not falter or give up. What happened to the disciples because they did not pray? Why was Jesus sweating drops of blood? Because the tension was unbearable. The temptation was severe. Most of us do not face severe temptations. We give up very easily. But He did not. He was not praying for us there. He was fighting for Himself so that He would be able to fulfill the will of God. To put it in other words, He prayed so that He would not try to save Himself because that was His biggest temptation. What if Jesus had slept along with His disciples? God forbid such a thought! 

The providence of God!

One of the things that so captures my heart these days is the fact that God is neither distant or indifferent to His creation especially man who was created in His image. It is a source of great joy to know that God is always at work and deeply involved in the affairs of men especially the saints. It is therefore an affront to God to claim that He is not interested in the details of our lives. In fact, every small or big thing in our lives is either ordained by Him or it goes through His watchful gaze, so that He can turn all things together for good to those who are called. The love of God obliges Him to faithfully care for us regardless of how faithful or faithless we are. The truth of the matter, however remains that God longs for us to open up our lives before Him so that He can counsel us and guide us in a manner that can bring glory to Him. His interference in our lives in always for good, and therefore it is so much more better if we gladly welcome His activity into our lives. 

A free gift, by all means!

Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. It is interesting that Paul talks about the wages of sin, meaning that death is the due penalty for the horror of sin. Death is the apt reply to sin and the one who sins deserves  to die. However eternal life is an altogether different matter. No one can ever deserve eternal life and no matter how hard you work for it, it is still a free gift because it is far too big for it to be anything other than a gift.  Please note that we are not called to see eternal life as just a free handout to the casual passer by. There is an yielding to God and a presenting ourselves to Him as a total act of sacrifice. However, no matter whatever we do from our side, eternal life is still a free gift since our puny efforts are nothing when compared to the glory of this very life of God. All that we do is just make an undeserving move and what we get is the incomparable riches of eternal life.

Praying with all prayers!

Paul mentions in 1st Timothy chapter 2 regarding the different kinds of prayers to be offered on behalf of all men. However we need to note this is not an exhaustive list of the types of prayers we are to do. Some of us are taught to pray against the forces of darkness and speak to the spirits that hold people or things in bondage. Well we need to but I would suggest that we do not see much of that in the Scriptures especially in the New Testament e.g. Acts 4 verse 24 onwards. The most powerful kind of praying is when we are able to declare the glory of the Lord and proclaim His greatness. We are to magnify His works and shout out His victories. This is what the apostles did and they saw God working. I would say that this kind of prayers of declaration and faith are what can rout the enemy more than anything else. Let's focus on HIM and His greatness, even in our times of intense warfare. Please don't get me wrong but I truly sense that we are giving more of our time and energies to speaking to the enemy than what Scripture warrants. 

Not minor tweaking but major shifting

As I was reflecting on my spiritual life, one phrase - 'major shifts' became incessantly louder in my ears and I felt I heard the Lord talk about the fact that I needed some major shifting to take place in my life. I was more agreeable to minor ones but I knew that I had to pay heed to what was spoken. My life did not need some minor tweaking. It needed major shifting. I could soon discern few areas of major change and I truly have to call on the name of the Lord because only He can do such kind of foundational activity. I saw a lot of self -centeredness that had to go. I saw that there had to be a major change in the way I intercede for others. I needed a major breakthrough with regards to developing a vision. I was and still am overwhelmed but I am trusting in the Lord for change- major change! It is so easy to try to make small adjustments here and there but when God points His finger and touches deeper, it is truly His mercy. He is the One who alone who can turn us upside down and downside up. He has the right to do so and He has the power to bring the change. O, if only He could continue what He has begun in me and bring some major fruit bearing to happen. 

Why fight when he is defeated?

Well yes,  the devil is defeated but in a very interesting way which God has ordained, the proof that he is defeated can be seen only when we, the church take our stand and fight against his lies. Isn't that exciting and challenging at the same time? It is his lies that we have to expose because he still claims that he is in charge and we have to enforce the truth which is why we still say we are in a fight. Many of us are still confused as to why we still have to fight. It is called a fight of faith. We are not attacking him directly because he is already defeated.  We are attacking his lies and most of us are very poor at it because we are not convinced of the truth!
It is a great consolation for us to know that he cannot do anything against us physically even if he wants to. God has to allow it just like He allowed in the case of Job. The only way the devil can defeat us is by making us trip over ourselves. That is why Paul takes pains to exhort us to stand in Ephesians 6. Our stand is our victory. 

The humility of Jesus!

Many of us harbor secret suspicions in our mind regarding the humility of Jesus. When we think of Him with His disciples, we find it a bit difficult to picture a humble Jesus because we think of Him as rebuking His disciples quite often. We usually think of the disciples as a miserable lot who rode into one mishap after another. The picture of Jesus washing the disciples feet seem strangely unreal and artificial to us. It is very difficult to think of a leader and a servant at the same time. What we fail to realise is that Jesus was Son of God in human form. Every time He related to them, it was actually humility because He had to bring Himself down to their level every time. And what is even more amazing is that He went below their level and His thoughts were on serving rather than ruling. There was no spirit of condescension or disdain in His dealings with them at any time. Washing the disciples feet was a natural outcome of His attitude inside. A striking verse is found in Mathew 11:29 where He addresses Himself as gentle and humble of heart. He will not push it down on us. There is no spirit of subjugation here. He promises rest for our souls.

I worship you - is that phrase necessary?

One of the things that I have noticed in our worship times is that we actually use words which doesn't make much sense if we think about it. For instance, it makes no sense to say, Lord I sing to you. We don't have to use those words in our singing because we are actually supposed to sing something. The thing that really rankles me nowadays is that we so commonly use the sentence -' I worship you' - in all our songs. To my amazement, I found out that the Psalmist does not use that phrase in any of the Psalms. Instead we are exhorted to worship and to bow down etc., but nowhere is that exact phrase used, In other words, when we say we worship Him, we are doing something like presenting ourselves, bowing down, acknowledging His mercies, etc, etc. To simply use the phrase does not mean much, either to God or to us. 

The obedience of faith!

We need to clearly see that every act of obedience on our part, with regards to New Testament living, has to done with some activity of faith inside it and not just a legal kind of obedience. It is called the 'obedience of faith'. The benefit of our obedience comes out of believing the truth behind that kind of obedience. For instance, take the two sacraments. In baptism, we are not called to merely obey by dipping ourselves in the water and thinking that in itself, is what God expects. We are called to believe that through the waters of baptism, our old self has being brought low and we are rising up to newness of life. Only that kind of obedience is pleasing to God.
In the Lord's table, we are called to believe that we are partaking of Jesus and eating the bread is a sign of believing His Word and willing to act on it. Let us learn that God is building us up by causing us to believe in Jesus and enter into His life rather than by trying to live out a life that tries to achieve something by mere legal obedience.

His grace is not sufficient if we are obstinate...!

When God assured Paul , "My grace is sufficient for you", we need to clearly define the terms of God's promise. For example, it cannot mean that a believer will always remain in God's perfect will so as to receive that kind of assurance, no matter what he does. Let's remember that the promise was given for a very specific request from Paul and God saw it fit not to answer Paul in the way he wanted. God was declaring that the answer lies in accepting your condition and learning to live with it since I initiated it, in the first place. Surely that phrase cannot be taken to mean you will never end up in distress because God's grace will always keep you from harm or difficulty. My grace is sufficient for you is a promise that God gives us at times when He is working out something very specific in our lives. This is not a general promise for all time and for any season. There are many occasions in our lives that because of our foolhardiness, we end up not receiving the grace of God. Instead mercy pulls us out and we also have a scar to show our wounds. My grace is sufficient for you has to be qualified with a unspoken condition - 'if you are already abiding in me and have yielded yourself fully to me.'
 Another promise about temptation has to be seen in similar light...

It is the other way around!

In Eph 5 verse 18, we have this portion where we are exhorted to be filled with the Spirit and then Paul writes about what it implies. We are to sing and make melody and be thankful. Now this singing etc, is the evidence not only of being filled with the Spirit but also being rich in His Word as mentioned in Col 3:16.

First of all, I want you to observe that the 'filling' mentioned here is not the same Greek word for 'being filled with the Holy Spirit' and empowered as mentioned in the book of Acts repeatedly. So this filling is more of a rich experience in the Spirit rather than being empowered to heal or deliver or any such. It is more of being full in proportion rather than filled to perform.

Secondly, the usual flow of thought when we read that portion in Eph is that the singing happens because we are filled from above. My contention is that since it is mentioned in Col too, the singing is not the evidence of being filled. We have to see it the other way round. When we sing and rejoice and have a thankful heart, we are actually moving towards a fuller experience in the Spirit. We are allowing Him to fill our lives. And so it is with the Word of God as well. When we use the psalms etc, and begin to admonish one another, we are allowing the Word to richly dwell within us. This is not a intellectual knowledge of the Word of God but rather, a rich active movement of the Word of God in us. 

The channel called faith!

We need to see that our salvation from beginning to end is by grace and through faith. The energy is grace. The channel is faith. Some of us do not realize how important faith is, to that entire process. We walked away from Him in rebellion. It was our own choice. We now return to Him because we have believed. Our faith in Jesus or in other words, our deciding for Christ is the key to kickstarting this whole process. However our deciding for Christ does not stop there. In fact, our sanctification process is only as fast as our willingness to respond in faith. In every area. growth is only as we believe and reach out to what Jesus has offered to us in that area. We yield to the word of God and find out that we are able to manifest change. We need to allow the Lordship of Jesus to continue as in the beginning. (Col 2:6). We believed and were saved. Now we believe and we are being saved.We need not complicate things further by trying to find out where that faith came from. What is important is that we need to believe. Believe with all our heart. Cling to the truth. Rely on it. We need to put our trust in what He has said. Our entire growth depends on that activity within us. 

The furnace of affliction!

The apostles had a clear picture of the fact that we had to undergo various trials and tribulations during our spiritual journey here on earth. Peter declares that we ought not to be surprised at the fiery ordeals that we may have to undergo. Paul goes so far as to claim that we are undergoing the sufferings of Christ Himself. In all these, we find that God does not want us to be taken aback when difficulties come our way. We have been given the false notion that walking with God involves as little trouble as possible and that every difficulty should vanish when we declare victory over it. The Bible gives us a different story. 
May we see that the furnace of affliction is necessary to purify us like gold. May we learn to share in the sufferings of Christ, fully aware that it is a vital part of our sanctification process. God is not unmindful of the storm that comes our way. In fact, He is sometimes the One who sends the storm. The lessons of perseverance are one of the most vital ones. Let's have a healthy view of our distresses. We need them as much as we need God. since God is the One walking with us through it. 

Speaking gibberish is the test!

Oftentimes, I wonder regarding the way God has ordained for believers to move deeper into the realm of the Spirit. What I mean by that, is regarding the whole realm of the supernatural, where God the Spirit works through us in amazing and powerful ways. There are many good saints who are either scared to move into those dimensions or because they want to appear 'dignified' all the time. Their inner queries are - Why on earth would God use such a thing as speaking in tongues to denote the realm of the Spirit? Can't there be a more sombre way of doing this? - they ask. Many are tense about demons and devils and don't even want to know more of this sphere of Holy Spirit activity. 
I would say that God in His wisdom, is willing to open up this realm only to those who are willing to swallow their pride and drink a big dose of humility. It is given only to those who are willing to become like little children. What I mean is that we have to let down our mental defences and be willing to appear inane. 'Tongues' seem quite a foolish thing, but it is a doorway into the deeper things of the Spirit. Speaking what sounds gibberish is God's way of saying - 'Let me take control of you in a way that you are totally helpless but willing to give up even your capacity to understand before you do something'. The spiritual realm is open only to those who are willing to appear 'foolish' not only to the world but to themselves as well. Sounds strange but 'tis true.