peace . love . joy

Yesterday marked the end of my formal academic undergraduate life. There's still the actual convocation that's coming up in July, but technically-speaking, I'm done. I had to sit for five exam papers this semester, a first for my in my four years in university. And yesterday was the day I took the last of my five papers, the last I'll ever have as an undergraduate.

It's a weird feeling. I don't know how many people feel this way, but it wasn't a feeling of elation. Maybe I'm too used to having my road planned out for me, afterall, my 16 years of education from primary school all the way up to the university have been pretty much dictated by the consensual norms of society and the desires of my parents. Or maybe I've come to realise that just because the hurdles of academic life have passed, doesn't mean that the chains have broken off, my slave-driver has fled and I'm free; it just means I've been processed, prepared and packaged for the next stage of working life.

Anyhow, I was talking with God as I left the examination hall yesterday and He asked me two questions:

What have I learnt from all my 16 years of formal academic education?
Because what I have learnt, that is how I will begin to and probably will live for the rest of my adult life.

What kind of person will I be?

"According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw-"
~ 1 Corinthians 3:10-12

Trudging along the path of mortality towards immortality, what have I picked up along the way and chucked into my haversack?

Did I stock up on things of a perishable nature? Things temporal and of no spiritual consequence nor benefit?

I remember Francis Schaeffer calls such Christians "Ash-heap Christians". These are they who, though saved by the Savior's blood, end up standing before the Lord at the end of their journey with nothing to show, nothing brought that will bring glory to His Name. All they have are moth-eaten clothes and grey ashes in their pouches, because what they have collected have been consumed by fire.

Or have I collected items of value, the gold, silver and precious stones that Paul is talking about? Things that last for all eternity, things that bring much joy to the Lord, a smile to His lips?

"each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done."
~ 1 Corinthians 3:13

Strange, that Paul should contrast these things. In one camp, there is a pile of wood, hay and straw. Strong, comfortable, homey. Smells good too. In the other, an array of gold, silver and precious stones. Luxurious, expensive and enviable. But it is the things in the former that perish in fire, but the latter do not just survive the fire; they are refined by the flame!

What we each have in our knapsacks are evidence for what matters most to each of us, what our heart individual hearts beat for.

Über was schlägst du dein Herz?

Do our hearts resonate with the beating of the heart of Jesus?
He, who is our greatest Teacher, who is the Son, who is one with the Father, identified His treasure: people.

And it's not about the number of friends you have, or how quickly you come rushing to a depressed friend's aid, or how many people come to your party or are your friends on Facebook. It's not about the kind of friends or acquaintences you have.

No, it's about touching lives for Jesus Christ. Intentionally, truthfully, prayerfully, kindly, gently, urgently reaching out to love as He taught us to love, as He first loved us.
It doesn't matter who they are: lovers, family, close friends, enemies, people who have hurt us, foolish people, the simple-minded, annoying ones, losers, the proud and the haughty...
It doesn't matter because He came to save us all, and He did. No discrimination; no condemnation.

We have the capacity, the tools to love as Jesus loves.
We have our talents, our giftings, our own paths to walk, our own situations to face... From the most important and crucial decisions to the smallest, most invisible and menial tasks, all are opportunities for us to heap gold, silver and precious stones into our bags, things that do not perish in the fire, but last forever.

The question is

Will you?

What have you in your rucksack?
Wood, Hay & Straw -or- Gold, Silver & Precious Stones?

Are you an Ash-heap Christian -or- a Collector of Valuables?

Standing at the cross-roads of your life,
Re-dedicate yourselves to God.
Re-commit yourselves to what He is passionate over.

"If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire."

Why, if God is so all-knowing, would He let temptations dance scintillatingly up to us and risk our falling away?

Why, if God is so all-loving, would He let us even be tempted?

Why, if God is so all-powerful, would He not change events in our favour?

He made us, fashioned us out of the dust from the ground, breathed life into us, carved us out in His likeness. He saw man fall. He sees the past, the present and the future; He is time. Watching us, hurting because of us, crying over us, even sending His Son down to die for us... Surely Jesus, of the Godhead three, would know how difficult it is to tear our captivated attention from temptation.

Why, then, would He still let it at us?

There is one particular sin with which I have struggled, and still struggle with. It's like one of them battles from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Pick one. The Battle for Minas Tirith, the Battle in Pelennor Fields, the Battle at Helm's Deep, the Battle of Isengard, fleeing the Mines of Moria... It's like that for me, except it's repeated over and over and over, sometimes daily, sometimes more than once a day, sometimes after a substantial period of peace.

After two years worth of battle with that sin, I thought victory over it was won. I thought I have been freed from its vice-like clutches, its stench of moral decay, the depressing cumulonimbus clouds have lifted. I was right.

But I was wrong. I was wrong to let my defenses down, I was wrong to think it slain forever, to think it lacking the ability to ressurrect, to think it would stay dead.

Confronting my sinful nature is an everyday affair, an everyday necessity if I choose to raise God's banner over His temple, me. It sucks to realise that I am sinful. It sucks even more to realise that that is what I am, what I was born into, what I would grow up into.

But that's the thing, you see?
With a promise of Life eternal, the demise of Death, cheating Hades of my soul,
with a promise of faithfulness, forgiveness, grace, mercy and love like I have never known and will ever know,
I get to choose.

When temptation presents her scantily clad self, undulating her hips this way and that, licking her lips and seductively touching her body,
I get to choose.
When failure rears its head and brandishes its powerful hooves,
I get to choose.
When depression and guilt stare with empty eyes, anxiously snatching with their bony and emaciated hands,
I get to choose.

I get to choose just as Jesus got to choose.
He chose humility, knowledge & wisdom, forgiveness, mercy & grace, gentleness, patience, kindness, and love. He chose faithfulness to the Father above. He chose immortality by the Almighty's side.

The Teacher showed us that we get to choose.
In the face of pride, we get to choose humility (Matthew 20:28; Philippians 2:1-11)
In the face of ignorance & folly, we get to choose knowledge & wisdom (Matthew 7:24-29)
In the face of bitterness, we get to choose forgiveness (Luke 23:33-43)
In the face of revenge, we get to choose mercy & grace (John 1:14)
In the face of cruelty, we get to choose gentleness (John 8:3-11)
In the face of impatience, we get to choose patience (Matthew 16:8-11)
In the face of hate, we get to choose kindness (Luke 6:33-36)
In the face of scorn, contempt & animosity, we get to choose love (Romans 5:8)

That's why God allows temptations and trials to come our way.
They are our second, third, fourth, tenth, thirty-seventh, ninety-fifth, two hundred and twelfth chance to choose to do right by Him.
They are our faith practiced, because each time we choose goodness over evil, we remember our race, we utter His Words, we build ourselves up in Him.
They are our faith alive.
They are our worship to our Creator King, because each time we choose to exemplify Him over our sinful natures, we show Him we love Him.

Sin is not an ailment, a cannot-be-helped plague that has befallen poor mankind that we are to be pitied and accomodated. It is a baggage that we carry, our own tree that we crucify ourselves with. It can be cast down and renounced.

"Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses (who have borne testimony to the Truth), let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us"

~ Hebrews 12:1

That's wWhy, if God is so all-knowing, would He lets temptations dance scintillatingly up to us and risk our falling away?.
That's wWhy, if God is so all-loving, would He lets us even be tempted?.
That's wWhy, if God is so all-powerful, would He does not change events in our favour?.

He loves us too much to watch us wallow ignorantly & foolishly in sin.

Keep struggling, dear one! Wage your Battles for Middle Earth tirelessly and with great conviction. You will claim victory for your King is victory incarnate.

Release your vices, your bitterness, your guilt, your failures, and lay them at the feet of the Living Crucifed Savior.
Seek His wisdom and Truth.
Let Him be your navigator, your little red bell, your disciplinarian, your comforter, your strength.

Remember the Bates Motel from Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, Psycho (1960)? I didn't like it at all. I remember the opening sequence in which the Bates Motel was introduced: it was raining, and the viewer sees the first façades of the Motel through the rain-pelted, windscreen-wipin' Marion's windshield. It was dark and wet and cold. The long row of rooms was overshadowed by Norman Bates' house perched on the tippy-top of a nearby overlooking hill. Freaky. The office was laden with stuffed creatures, Marion's room was furnished with only the bare essentials... Not to mention, the basement in Norman's house on the hill was occupied by "Mother".

When I visited Berlin last year, I could not help but compare the Bates Motel and the Hotel Adlon Kempinski: what a contrast! I wouldn't dare to step into the compounds of the Bates Motel simply because it gives me the heebie jeebies, and I didn't dare to step even onto Adlon's welcoming rug because I was afraid I'd dirty it! Adlon is that grand! The plush interior, luxurious furniture... From the clean and crisp white linen that covers each comfortable and inviting bed, to the heavy, dark brown lacquered writing desks, Adlon is the embodiment of perfection, comfort and luxury.

And then I thought of us, and how our bodies are God's sacred and holy temple, set apart for Him and for Him only. If our bodies are God's temple (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), if our bodies are the homes within which dwells God's Spirit, shouldn't we then take care of it?

Some people think that those verses in 1 Corinthians 6 apply only to our outer shells, our physical members. And so their theology on this point extends only so far as to advise others to take good care of their bodies physically (ie. don't smoke, don't drink, no tattoos, no adulterous behaviour, etc.).

How strange it is, then, to note that the Greek word for "body" used is σῶμα (sōma), meaning the body as a sound whole, both literally and figuratively!
How strange it is, then, to note that the surrounding verses within which these are located beseech believers to flee from sins that not only suffer the body, but also the intangible but powerful will, control, feeling, spirit. Sins, especially those that stem from sexual immorality and impurity, that destroy and mar the external temple, desecrate the inner holy of holies, and snatch the house deed from God's hands.

That is why Peter wrote for us, "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." (1 Peter 1:14-16).

Just as the Old Testament saints before us cleansed and purified, making themselves holy, blameless and acceptable in God's holy eyes, we are to do likewise, walking every moment in the light, fellowshipping habitually with one another, kneeling every evening in humble and contrite confession of sin (1 John 1:7-9).

Therefore, flee from sexual immorality, flee from impurity, flee from unholiness, for our bodies, physical and tangible, spiritual and eternal, are the temple of God, the dwelling place of His Spirit.

As they say, God is in the building!
Are you, o housekeeper, diligent and urgent, striving to keep everything clean and in order? Will your abode pass the white glove test?
Is there a hidden basement in your establishment that you keep under lock and key, refusing God entry?

"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you."

~ James 4:7-10

Invite the Spirit to walk with you on your rounds through your temple.
And allow Him to turn your eyes towards neglected areas now covered with a layer of dust, allow Him to point frankly at secret and closed doors.

So, what does your temple look like:

the Bates Motel or Hotel Adlon Kempinski?