June 26 - For The Love Of God - Vol II

Just to share from the daily mailer from Christwaymedia.

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Isaiah 58

HOW SELF-DECEIVED WE HUMANS ARE when it comes to matters religious. So many things that start off as incentives to repentance and godliness develop into vicious idols. What starts as an aid to holiness ends up as the triple trap of legalism, self-righteousness, and superstition. So it was with the bronze snake in the wilderness. Although it was ordered and used by God (Num. 21:4-9), it became such a religious nonsense in later times that Hezekiah destroyed it (2 Kings 18:4).

So it sometimes is with other forms of religious observance or spiritual discipline. One may with fine purpose and good reason start “journaling” as a discipline that breeds honesty and self-examination, but it can easily slide into the triple trap: in your mind you so establish journaling as the clearest evidence of personal growth and loyalty to Christ that you look down your nose at those who do not commit themselves to the same discipline, and pat yourself on the back every day that you maintain the practice (legalism); you begin to think that only the most mature saints keep spiritual journals, so you qualify — and you know quite a few who do not (self-righteousness); (c) you begin to think that there is something in the act itself, or in the paper, or in the writing, that is a necessary means of grace, a special channel of divine pleasure or truth (superstition). That is the time to throw away your journal.

Clearly, fasting can become a similar sort of trap. The first five verses of Isaiah 58 expose and condemn the wrong kind of fast, while verses 6-12 describe the kind of fast that pleases God. The first is bound up with hypocrisy. People maintain their fasts, but quarrel in the family (58:4). Their fasts do not stop them from exploiting their workers (58:3b). These religious people are getting restless: “We tried fasting,” they say, “and it didn’t work” (58:3). At a superficial level they seem to have a hunger for God and his way (58:2). The truth is that they are beginning to treat the fast as if it were a bit of magic: because I’ve kept the fast, God has to bless me. Such thinking is both terribly sad and terribly evil.

By contrast, the fast that pleases God is marked by genuine repentance (58:6-12). Not only does it turn away from self-indulgence but it actively shares with the poor (58:7), and intentionally strives “to loose the chains of injustice,” “ to set the oppressed free and break every yoke” (58:7), to abjure “malicious talk” (58:9). This is the fast that brings God’s blessing (58:8-12).


Copyright 2008 D.A. Carson

Mom fell pretty sick today, quite worried for a while when she was finally forced to see doc, but was too weak to go alone (in case anything happened along the way).

To cut a long story short, it turned out to be a bout of flu that got her, so with the right medicine and rest she should be fine...

Though things (relationally) haven't been mended much since months ago when things just went (really) crazy, it's generally always easier to take care of someone when he/she's down, this incident included. But the tough part will be to honour your parents out of reverence for Christ when things are "normal" again, where she recovers from her sickness and things go back into the aftermath kind of situation.

Not to say that I'm perfectly able to do the "tough" things here: in fact, I'm going to need all the help (divine, or indirect) I can get to do this rightly and properly.

Salt and Light (of the World)

Salt is meant to give taste to the food it's added to.
Light is not meant to be invisible.

Where there are areas to be greatly improved upon, stop being a chameleon, Ray. Living morally right lives and good deeds which gives praise to the Father is the way to go about it, even if people around will not like you for that.

No one in the church is perfect on this side of Christ's return...

(If anyone says that this is true, let me tell you a secret..... He/she's lying)

...But it does consist of family members accepted and adopted by God because of what Jesus Christ did some time ago.

It is of great concern and worry to see what has been happening, especially if I myself could have contributed in doing something wrong.. but I really hope that things will be thrashed out and reconciled within the affected group of people soon..

It would be really sad to see people falling away because of unreconciled problems, either from misunderstandings &/or wrongdoings. We're all of the status work in progress aren't we?

Failures: Communication

I've failed again. Not in an exam, but in acting in a way that's right. I know that if I don't write this, I will have a hard time remembering. And I want to remember.

Have not been communicating well with her again, though we see one another almost every night and spend time together, we don't (or at least I haven't been trying to) talk about the things that need to be talked about, be it sharing what happened in the day, or what our frustrations and stresses are.

The root reason is because we function differently when it comes to talking. She talks and shares a lot faster and freely. I need to warm up before I'm able to start, and even then I need to have an "attentive" (not changing the topic or focus to the listener's point of view or events) listener at the other end. So with this combination, I end up clamming up, she ends up doing most of the talking.

God has made me come to realize finally, that I've been totally self-centered in my thinking, and not seeking to be others-centered. Why is it that she has to conform to my standards and perceptions of a ready audience before I talk and communicate? True, it helps, but I'm talking about the situation where I totally shut up all the time. Remembering Paul in his letters, his life (emulating Christ's) shows real others-centeredness, summed up nicely in the phrase "...to the Jews, a Jew. To the Gentiles, a Gentile". Go to where they are! Not get others to conform to what you're like. Be in the world, though on of the world. Go out to them! If for things as ultimately important as spreading the goods news for people to be saved, we can be others-centered and consider others first, why can't we do the same thing for other things that are smaller, even trivial? Why shouldn't I?

In the process of learning to love her as Christ loved the church (both now before the wedding and also after the wedding), I do fail, and will still along the way. But God forbid that I stop thinking with the right mindset, and working to change, to love her more and more...

Today, more brothers and sisters came to know of the problem we face, whilst sharing and all.

While it's really heartening that people show genuine love in their concern, I'm also apprehensive at sharing that easily.

One reason is that it's really embarrassing for me to talk about it. The next is that keeping emotions in check whilst talking about it is still a pretty great feat for me. Also, it somehow isn't very nice to wantonly the whole wide world know about it.

Am grateful for all the family that God has brought in and around. I hope this will resolve as soon as possible, God willing...

Opposites

The world's mindset gets stressed when the parents of the girlfriend is around. The christian mindset gets stressed when the parents of the girlfriend is away.

Hahahahaha..! Crap, I need to get married soon man.

Words reveal the heart

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Note: This is taken from its larger context in Matthew. While possible to understand this in itself, it'd be far better to see what the author had in mind when he wrote this chunk ;) One way is to listen to the sermon explaining that ;)

In the long run, what you say shows what is truly important in your heart. Two implications follow:

1. How near (or far) are the issues of real importance from the tips of our tongues in our daily conversations? What do our words/speech/manners show about what we truly believe in?
   
2. How near (or far) are the wrong things/ideas/attitudes from the tip of our tongues? What do they show about what we're like inside?

Inner renewal takes time, but let this be an indicator of where our allegience lies, whether with Christ, or with anything else.

Suffering

On today's bible study on Matthew:

It doesn't cease to amaze, and challenge me, how blatantly the bible puts suffering together with following Christ: as disciples/followers, we will not be spared from what Jesus himself went through. Simply because this was what he went through, and the world at large today still hates God/Christ/Christians.

I'm thankful though, that where I live we have the great luxury of (relatively more) security and stability. And as such, much of the persecution from others isn't physical, as compared to those living in muslim countries for example.

Will write (and quote) more on this again.