peace . love . joy

Sometimes, when the going is good, we feel like “yea! God’s Spirit is with me! All is good =]”. But sometimes, especially when we feel like the whole world is against us, we feel like the Holy Spirit’s gone from us. I don’t know if any of you have ever felt that way before, but if you have, let me address that. And if you haven’t, it wouldn’t hurt to read on because you never know if and when your ship may just be dragged by dark and raging waters into that sharp and dangerous shallow reef. You may even encourage discouraged friends or acquaintances.

I am not one to belittle feelings and emotions. Quite the contrary, I think practically the world of them and can empathise to certain extents because I, for one, will admit that I am quite a sensitive person. I get bothered easily, take things personally quite a lot (even if they’re totally not personal attacks), get hurt really easily, etc. So I will be the first to acknowledge how powerful feelings can be and how significantly they can affect us (thoughts, actions, etc.)

Even so, there are times when we must pull ourselves above that wall of tumultuous emotions, climb up that tall ladder and see above & past the dark clouds, because authority does not come from our feelings; rather, it comes from the promises given in God’s Word, the Bible. We, Christians, live our lives not by feeling alone; but feeling kept in control, regulated by fact & faith. All this, of course, is based on how much we trust God & His Word.

I like how someone explained this:

Think of it as a train pulling cabooses (or carriages if you will).

The train very simply demonstrates the link between fact (God & the Bible), faith (our trust in God & the Bible) and feeling. Obviously, the train (ie. fact) can puff along the tracks just fine with or without the cabooses (ie. faith & feeling), but the same cannot be said of the caboose: they cannot pull the train on their own. Likewise, we must not depend on our feelings to carry our faith. Instead, we should place our faith upon fact, and feeling comes after (think of more as a response, rather than a trigger).

Above all, remember this: once God begins His work in you, giving you His Holy Spirit to guide you and intercede for you, He will bring it into completion. He will never give up on you! If you need tangible proof, look around! Every face you see is a concrete & living evidence that God never will give up on you  Whatever problems may come our way, whatever ups or downs we may face on our roller-coaster of life, trust and know that God is unchanging and is faithful.

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6)

Have confidence and be encouraged!

Does that mean everyone who says Jesus is their LORD and Saviour will automatically be sealed & marked with the Holy Spirit?

I’m sorry to say, but the answer is no.
“On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’
But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’” (Matthew 7:22-23)

I’m not saying we have the right to go around telling people “oh! You have the Holy Spirit in you.” Or “You don’t have the Holy Spirit in you!” No, that is not our place, nor do we have any right to judge this matter for ourselves and proclaim judgement over another.

What I’m saying is this: our mouths can say one thing, but our hearts can beat to another.

To be a Christian is more than words, more than actions; it is a transformation that begins from the inside out. Is your heart pure? Do you really love Jesus? Does every bone in your body, every pore of your being ache and long and desire to follow Jesus the Christ? Do your thoughts linger on God’s character, His laws & His works?

These unseen attitudes manifest themselves, evidence themselves, show themselves in your outward, visible actions and behaviour. Do curses and swear words flow like water from your lips? Do you laugh at the misfortune or at the expense of another? Do you share with people in need? Do you stop and help that blind man find his way to the MRT? Do you approach God with heavy footsteps and ask Him to forgive you when you sin against Him?

There is so much more to being a Christian than meets the eye. It definitely entails much more than just going to church week after week and saying grace before meals meal after meal.

It is okay to be confronted time and time again what a sinful people we are. It’s okay to struggle with sin and temptation and tests and trials. Every Christian comes face to face, whether he\she wants to or not, with that carnal, that sinful person he\she is. In fact, even with God’s Holy Spirit sealed securely within us, we still fall into sin.

“If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.
And we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him.” (1 John 1:8-2:5)

But then we come to God in quiet prayer, knowing full well our short-comings and where we went wrong, confessing our sins to Him. That act of confession in itself is already evidence of the Holy Spirit working within you!

But if you are a genuine, authentic Christian, cling on to the promise “in Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory.” (Ephesians 1:13-14)

Last Sunday, though it wasn't quite the main point of the lesson, one of the 12 year olds I was teaching posed a question to the group:

How do we know if we have the Holy Spirit?

I think that's a fair question to ask. Immediately what springs to mind is "have faith in what the Bible says!" and Weber's Protestant Ethics & Calvinism. But I know that such rapid and pert replies would not even be steam to the kid's fire. So I went home and thought long and hard about it, I asked other people what they would say in reply to him...

And today, we attempted, as a group (the 12 year olds and I) to answer his question. As the discussion and sharing wore on, my curiosity in the matter increased. So I came home, sorted my thoughts and wrote about it. I must admit it's been a while since I've penned anything, but God bore me through and the words came uninterrupted like honey flowing from my fingers.

Though I did not write at length on the matter, I'll present it in 3 parts.

Following from our discussion today, I realise that in order for us to answer the question “how do we know we have the Holy Spirit in us”, it would perhaps be helpful to first have a grasp of who or what the Holy Spirit is, how or what are its (or his, if you prefer) functions, etc.

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word often used to refer to the Holy Spirit is רוּח (pronounced “roo’-akh), and in the New Testament, the Greek word used is πνεῦμα (pronounced “pneuma”). In both instances, those words are very nearly the same as those which are used to mean wind, or breath. So, it is plausible that the writers of old were suggesting that God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit was like a sacred wind, or a sacred breath: like the everyday wind or breath, the Holy Spirit cannot be seen or touched or contained. “… You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it’s headed next…” (John 3:8). But just as the effects of normal wind (swaying trees, typhoons, slanted rain, etc.) and breath (condensation on cold glass, heat felt on the skin, inflated lungs, etc.) can be felt, experienced, evidenced, so too can the effects of the Holy Spirit be observed.

But where should we look? What should we look out for?

Here’re some ways in which the Holy Spirit works (I have not noted everything down and so, I hope that if this matters much to you, or if you are at all interested, you would, yourself, bother to go find out):

- It prays for us through us
“And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will” (Romans 8:26-27)

- It prompts us to obey God out of love
“So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses” (Galatians 5:16-18)

- It leads us to bear its good Fruit
“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.” (Galatians 5:22-25)

- It tugs at our hearts to love other people
“Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you” (James 1:27)

- It convicts us to avoid stuff that is not of God & does not please Him
“Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever” (1 John 2:15-17)

So, drawing the tangent, a person filled with God’s Holy Spirit would:
- Desire to please God
- Rejoice always, even in the face of trials, suffering, opposition, etc.
- Enjoy being with other brothers & sisters in Christ, encouraging one another
- Be generous
- Experience triumphs against temptations
- Exhibit the Fruit of the Spirit
- …

Are you such a person?

Good 1.57pm, world!

Sorry for the lack of updates; been quite busy with a gigantuan church event, the usual (pleasant) craziness of work, and my piano exam preparations.

I've just come home from lunch with some of my Bible study kiddies.. Wait, maybe they shouldn't be called that anymore because they've actually grown up! They're 18 this year; practically legally adults! Some of them have even decided to and have begun serving in Christian ministry: becoming teachers themselves, leading the 13 year olds in Bible study. It's wonderful to see them teach and get all excited and jittery with each Sunday, with each new lesson they're preparing to impart to the young 'uns. It's good to know they've grown and matured and are courageous enough to even take such a step, such a leap of faith! But I guess they were my kiddies and will always be my kiddies, so maybe I'll refer to them from now on as my grown-up-kiddies!

Anyways, during on of those usual short moments of silence during lunch when everyone is contentedly lost in their own thoughts and just feeding food into their thoughtfully-chewing mouths, one of the grown-up-kiddies suddenly spurted a random utterence. 'Twas random because nobody was talking about that topic or anything remotely related to it.

She asked if our now-defunct children's ministry outreach wing was doing anything recently.

To which I answered that wing is no more; we've rebranded ourselves, repurposed, remissioned, refocussed.

Then I asked what I would think is a natural progression of the conversation: why is she asking? Is she interested in rejoining us in our events?

A quick and flat "no" was the reply.

She continued to cite a certain "thing" she was made to do during one of the past events when the old version of the evangelistic wing was still in existence. She really disliked it so much that it made such a huge impression in her consciousness and there it stayed.

That "thing" happened about a year ago.

It was a story-telling tool that she participated in: freeze-frame drama. Someone narrates the story, and the others move their bodies into poses according to the narration. She was chosen to be Mother Mary in the Nativity, pregnant (with a toy doll tucked under her shirt), and giving birth (turning around so that her back faces the children, she quickly slips her hand under her shirt, pulling the doll out and cradling it, she turns back to the children and freezes in that pose). Apparently, she felt so uncomfortable and embarrassed performing that act.

And that got me thinking:

Do we gravitate towards what we feel most comfortable doing?
Or do we purposely uproot ourselves from our comfy sofas and plonk ourselves in the middle of prickly thorns?

Do we confine ourselves to what we like best, or what we do best?
Or do we, as we Singaporeans like to term it, bao ga liao (do everything)?

Which is the right answer?
Is there a right answer?

Methinks that either option is not wrong.

It is natural for us to heed our inclinations, our gut feeling, and do what we feel most comfortable in doing first. Perhaps there is some logical truth in it, afterall, we were all created with a particular and unique shape: some of us love children and enjoy working with them, others may not be able to work with kids and prefer working with teenagers or young adults or seniors; some enjoy first-hand interaction with people, while others prefer to work behind-the-scenes performing administrative and logistic duties. And there is no shame in doing what we each do best, and what we best enjoy doing.

The problem comes when we are asked to "fill the gap", to "stand in", to do something we otherwise perhaps won't voluntarily and immediately do ourselves for whatever variety of reasons. For instance, getting a "runner" to have a hand in the "preparation\planning", or asking someone who is not otherwise inclined to deal with children to help out in running an event with children for children, or like my dear grown-up-kiddy, she is more accustomed to administrative & behind-the-scenes duties, but was asked to lend a hand (due to shortage of helpers) in the story-telling drama performance.

I can understand the discomfort and awkwardness, but perhaps in the days after the not-so-welcomed situation, what kind of attitude should one adopt?

Should one be bitter and apprehensive, chosing to remember the unpleasant feelings and emotions that one felt whilst ministering?
Should one close oneself off from that particular opportunity for ministry just in case such an uncomfortable moment presents itself again?

The phrasing and placing of the question would hint at a "no", but do we actually emobody and manifest that?

Do we even remember what ministry is all about?

"...Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others..."

Why do we engage in active ministry?
What pushes us, obliges us, spurs us on to do and continue in ministry?

"...Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus..."

Ministry is all about the others. Others come first in ministry.

Whether or not our ministry, our deeds leads to the others choosing our Lord as their God, whether or not our ministry, our deeds are primary, are precedents to something mind-blowingly out-of-this-world, whether or not our ministry, our deeds are fully recognised and received by grateful hearts...

"... the issue is not in the outcomes but in the condition of our hearts... routine surrender is the distinguishing mark of His followers and that every opportunity to treat others as more important than ourselves makes us more like Christ." (Joe Stowell)

Afterall, Jesus did come and chose to stick resolutely to His mission, His ministry, all the while looking foolish in the eyes of the world just for us.

So why can't we?

On the corner of fifth street
The homeless man needs to eat
Down on the edge of town

Lost his family long ago
Nobody even knows
They all just pass him by

But love is on the move
Revealing heaven's truth
Love is on its way and it will find you

In the high-rise building
The rich man has everything
But the ladder has reached its end

Hasn't talked to his kids in weeks
He and his wife don't even speak
Nobody even knows

But love is on the move
Revealing heaven's truth
Love is on its way and it will find you

And anyone can run
Into the arms of God
Love is on its way and it will find you

And all the world cries for healing
The deepest longing for the love of God
And oh the greatest destiny
Love has come to set us free

In the little quiet town
The hope of the world was found
Under the night sky

He died and rose again
Sacrifice that conquered sin
Now we are His feet, His hands

And love is on the move
Revealing heaven's truth
Love is on its way and it will find you

And anyone can run
Into the arms of God
Love is on its way and it will find you

Oh anyone can run
Into the arms of God
Oh love is on its way and it will find you

It will find you
It will find you