Forgiveness

Everyone’s definition of Forgiveness is different. Forgiveness, what does it truly mean? Let me share my definition of Forgiveness,

“ Letting go the hurt yet not ignoring, but being prepared for the hurt that can potentially happen again; Not letting it change your attitude towards the person who hurt you. “

This is my definition, yes, it’s a whole bunch of words, needs serious cramming. Anyway, moving on, what then is the opposite of Forgiveness? The common word that comes to your minds immediately would be, if I’m not wrong, grudges.

What stops us from forgiving others?

In the disciple group teaching with Brother Joey, he drew a connection between the Love of God and Forgiveness. Imagine the power of God’s love in that one moment during the altar, and multiply it to the omni-presence of God. With God’s Love flowing in our spiritual bodies, through and to our spiritual heart, we will find it easy to love others too. However, when we hold a grudge towards those who hurt us, it creates a blockage in the ‘veins’ in which God’s love flows through.

We came to a conclusion that if we can’t Forgive, we Lack God’s love.

Why is this so?
Forgiveness is about letting go and giving at the same time.

Take a look at Matthew 18:21-35
- this is about the parable of the unforgiving slave.

The 27^th verse of the chapter says that “The Master was moved with compassion and forgave the servant”. Note here that the servant owes too much that the Master had to write off his debt. Draw a parallel here to God as the Master, and Us as the Servant. We are sinners so much so that we can NEVER save ourselves. Yet God loved us so much, that he sent his son, Jesus Christ to come and save us, to WRITE OFF our debts.

At the start of the chapter, Peter asked Jesus, how many times should he forgive his brother, 7 times? But Jesus answer was 77 times. In the Old Testament, when we sin, we will face judgement. It says in the bible that GOD hates sin, and those who does sin. This can be shown in the example of Cain who bears the mark that if anyone harms him, that person will be given back 7 times what he inflicted on Cain. Later on in verses 23 and 24 of Genesis 4, Lamech confessed his sin(murder) and cried out that if Cain is avenged 7 times, may he be avenged 77 times.

So you can see that before Christ died for us, our only ‘fate’ was judgement; or vengeance. Yet after Christ came down, in the New Testament, we are not supposed to inflict judgement but instead, forgiveness. The Lord’s prayer is another source we look from and in it says “we can only hope God forgives us with how much we have forgiven others.”

In verse 35 of Matthew 18, “….forgive your brother from your heart”. This simply means that True forgiveness, is Forgiveness from the heart. It is your heart that determines your actions and decisions, whether or not to forgive and a whole lot more list of things.

What I have taken away from this discussion fellowship is that Forgiveness is practical. To forgive for the first few times, it’s definitely not easy, however, to practice forgiving others repeatedly will bring you to a whole new level whereby your hurts will not hurt anymore because the Love of God is flowing so strongly in your life that it becomes a joy. God’s love will overwrite the hurt inflicted.

So will you start forgiving today? I will, not matter how hard it is.

God bless you.

It’s TRUE!!

What’s true? Remember Brother Joey’s sermon on Spiritual Disciplines. Before he preached that sermon, my personal devotions and QT with the Lord hasn’t been going well. I would say it was stagnant. It’s bad definitely and even as I was playing during the altar call, in my heart, a huge wave of guilt came upon me. I felt, I don’t deserved to be playing and so as much as I want to respond to the altar call, I quietly committed to the practicing Spiritual Disciplines.

Brother Joey made a promise, he said: “if you don’t believe me try it, and I PROMISE you, you will hear from God, see visions and you will be in the path of Jesus.”

Well, I did my first devotion today, since 2 weeks back. It really was a deliberate effort I must say. I didn’t know which book to start and so I started off with a prayer. A simple one, asking God reveal to me what he wants to say to me and also that the Holy Spirit will help me to understand it in context. The cheesy part is, I felt a prompting to read the book of Joshua today. So my devotions is on Joshua chapter 1.

True enough, God spoke to me through this chapter. Here, I shall post what I have learned and what the Lord has challenged me to do.
To start off the chapter, Joshua, son of Nun was chosen to lead the people, to take over Moses’s lead. Why of so many Israelites, Joshua?

This is the first time I learn about my name, and it terrifies me, I’m serious. The name Joshua consists of two parts. 1) it is the Hebrew form of ‘Jesus’, (yhwh). It scares me because, my name carries ‘Jesus’ in meaning and being a sinner, I feel I don’t deserve it. 2) the other part is that it also means ‘Salvation’. Hence putting the name together would mean: The Lord is Salvation/The Lord Saves. This made me realize the importance that I mean to God. Such a powerful name, if not for the name ‘Joshua’ none of us would have any hope. For once, I am truly Thankful for the existence of this name.

Carrying on, the movement onward into Canaan. From my understanding, it represents the crossover from death to life. In John 14:6 – ” I am the way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. “ See this, after the ‘representative of ‘Jesus’, Joshua took over, The Israelites are able to cross over from Death to Life. Isn’t it Salvation? Whereby when we confess and accept the Lord, we cross over from Death, we no longer die to our original fate and instead live in hope of a new life! However, this is not the end. God still has a set of instructions.

In Joshua 1:3-5, God promised Joshua, success; expanding Israel’s land. However there is another ‘Success’ that God promised. I will tell you about this part later. So to gain this Promised Success, Joshua has to do 4 things and I believe this is what also wants to tell me as I embark on the Journey of  Spiritual Disciplines.

1) Be Strong and Courageous. (Joshua 1:6)
- Do not fear. Instead have faith, be strong and courageous. What you have promised to God, like this week’s altar call, to practice Spiritual Disciplines, have Faith, be strong and Courageous, don’t think of how you will be in a year’s time, think instead of what will you gain from what you’ve read today! If you have worry even for tomorrow, how then will you live our the present?

2) Obey ALL the Law. (Joshua 1:7a)
- I’ve already highlighted the Keyword, ALL. Yes, Obeying is important but in this Context, I feel that ‘ALL’ has an even greater priority here. Many times, I will find myself obeying some Laws. SOME instructions. But that it not what God wants, what he really wants it TOTAL obedience to his Word and Instructions.

3) Make God’s Word your authoritative GUIDE. (Joshua 1:7b)
- Do not TURN from it to the right or to the left. that you may be Successful wherever you go. The ‘Guide’ determines that this is a Journey/Path that we have set foot on. This guide will be our lamp in the darkness and our direction in the light. NEVER turn from it to the Left or to the Right! This is the Path to Success, that God has promised, like what Brother Joey said in his sermon: “ there is sadly no SHORTCUT. “

4) Meditate on it DAY and NIGHT. (Joshua 1:8)
- Why so many times? Let me give you an analogy, when you travel to somewhere new, you will need a map to guide you. Do you look at the map only once and then throw it into the dustbin? Or will you hold on to it till you reach your Destination? I believe all of you will hold on to the map till you reach your goal. It is the same on the Path of Spiritual Disciplines, the Word of God is YOUR guide to the Final Destination of Holiness/Godliness and Christ-likeness.

My Devotions today, I feel God has spoken to me and is assuring me, hence the title of this post. To summarize these 4 points would simply be: As you embark on this journey, Be strong and courageous(v6) for I the Lord will never leave you nor forsake you(v5). I have also provided you with a guide(v7) and all you need to do is simply follow(Obey) ALL the instructions(v7). To do this, you WILL have to refer to it by Day and by Night(v8) so that you will not take the wrong step but instead reach the end of the path, to Success.

I guess by now the other Success that God promised is Holiness or Freedom like in Brother Joey’s sermon.

My takeaway from today’s devotions is in Joshua 1:16-18,

” Then they answered Joshua, “Whatever you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. Just as we fully obeyed Moses, so we will obey you. Only may the LORD your God be with you as he was with Moses. Whoever rebels against your word and does not obey it, whatever you may command them, will be put to death. Only be strong and courageous! “

This is the challenge God posted to me. Am I willing to do whatever God has commanded me to do and go wherever he has sent me to? It is really a big challenge but I am taking on this challenge to Obey God because it must be intentional; as you travel on the road of Spiritual Disciplines. God’s instructions and commands may not be easy to follow but to obey it, it must come with an intentional obedience to obey God.

Lastly, this chapter ends with a word of encouragement, ‘ Only be Strong and Courageous ‘ that is the attitude we have to take to stretch our faith and walk into the unknown trail of Spiritual Disciplines.

How will you act on the promise you have made to God at the altar? May my devotions encourage you as much as it has encouraged and affirmed me.:) God bless.

The Heart

The Heart is very important.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” – Proverbs 4:23

Can we describe our hearts, or define it? Take a minute and try writing it down on a piece of paper.
This might seem like a fairly easy task to do, however, when we really try to find words or phrases to describing our heart, we just can’t. (I don’t know about you, but i can’t) I, furiously flipped through the instrument that record, analyze, summarize, organize, debate and explain information; that are illustrated, non-illustrated; hard bound, paper-backed, jacketed, non-jacketed with foreword, introduction, table-of-contents, index that are intended for the enlightenment, understanding, enrichment, enhancement and education intended for the human brain through the sensory route of vision, sometimes touch (book of vocabulary) in my mind and found to my very amazement, rather than disappointment that I can’t do it.

To place this post in it’s context, this was a discipleship session with Joey on a Sunday afternoon.

So Joey followed up by asking where does our hearts lie?
It lies between our soul and spirit.
The soul is where all our emotions and feelings flow out from, you can say it’s the well of emotions/feelings in our lives. Whereas the Spirit, is our conscience, allowing us to communicate with God.

A word study on the word Heart led us to learning it is it’s Greek and Hebrew meanings.
In Hebrew, the heart means an Inner Man.
In Greek, the heart means Center of all spiritual physical life.

Do you know that your heart, plays a far more important role than just pumping blood to the rest of your body? In fact, this heart I’m talking about is our spiritual heart.
Yes, we all have 2 “hearts”, our physical heart and our spiritual heart. An example would be, when you see a poor, thin boy in rags scouring for food, you pity him. You want to do something for him, you feel like buying him proper clothes and probably a meal, am I right? Do you think your physical heart, caused all those emotions to stir up, or was it your spiritual heart? Get what I mean now?:) Yeah.

Which heart is more important? As much as the physical heart is important, the spiritual heart is in fact, equally if not more important that the physical heart. The condition of the spiritual heart, believe it or not, actually affects the condition of the physical heart. A healthy spiritual heart results in a healthy physical heart. If you are always angry on the inside, always cursing others and swearing at them, you’ll get angry and it makes your physical blood pump harder, resulting in high blood pressure.( That is if you are always losing your temper at others. )

Drawing the link between Christianity and the Heart.
Our God is Love. His essence is purely Love. How can Love be felt, via the Heart.

In the past, because the people of God felt God’s love for them, and hence, they begin studying the scriptures. However, it has become that many people study, read and even teach the word of God but feel nothing for God. Why? Because Teaching targets the mind, not the heart. People want to know more about God rather than knowing God himself. It’s a pity that we can’t change our own hearts; nobody can change it, except God.

If our hearts don’t change, nothing can.
If the heart is unmoved, nothing will be moved. If a Christian can’t feel God’s love, it is pointless just knowing it, because there is no real drive for him/her to change his/her lifestyle. I have seen Christians who cried after they say the sinners’ prayer because of the power of God’s love; and their lifestyles were changed.

Another word for Changed would be transformed.
Only the love of God can transform us. Transformation is the outcome of Love; the positive way. It is a transformation that is eternal, not temporal because God’s Love is eternal and not temporal. This new state that our hearts are transformed into will then determine how we live our new life.

This is why I chose Christianity to be my religion, with no offense to other religions, because Christianity is the only religion whereby I feel undeserved Love from a Loving God, who allows me to have a personal relationship with him.

My Reflections

Indeed, the heart is very important. It is the source that allows us to feel how God feels, to communicate with God and to sense his presence and anointing.

3 takeaways from this Session is:

1) After the transformation of the heart, comes the Conditioning of the heart.

Condition it to what? Many times we attend camps, conferences and have amazing encounters with God but how much impact does it have in making it last? It doesn’t last for more than a month if not a little bit more. Hence, comes the conditioning of our hearts. How do you condition the heart? Doing quiet time? Devotions? Yes, it does help, but not completely. To condition your heart, we must fine-tune it to the same frequency as Jesus Christ. Which means, feeling his heartbeat and doing what he would do. By praying and living in the spirit daily, allowing the spirit to control your speech, actions, thoughts, intentions and decisions. To condition your heart to beat the heart beat of Christ. It is a very near-impossible state to reach but you never know until you try. You will never reach it till you take the first step towards it.

2) How the heart is on the inside, determines how the outside will show.

If we have a selfish heart that cares only for ourselves, our actions will prove selfish. When our hearts yearn to be like Jesus Christ, our actions will show. If we make a mistake, then the spirit comes and convict us of every wrong move, word, thought and decision is being made. If our hearts are filled with Love for others, loving others become a natural part of us.

3) It is because of our heart, that we can experience a much more complete picture of God.

If God had just gave Adam and Eve a bible instead of a heart, we would all only be able to know that God love us, but not be able to feel that God loves us. It will be such a pity because no matter how much God does, we will only know that he love us, but not be able to feel the extent of his great love. Songs will be composed and sung from the mind and not genuinely from the heart.

God gave each one of us a heart, because without it, we would all end up in hell knowing that God loved us but not being able to do anything about it.

Application!

I was impressed upon my heart to actually blog this out. This post or rather the title of this post is actually a reminder to myself, from the Holy Spirit.

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” – James 1:22

Yes, this was one of the REAL program verses that we were asked to memorize. Thank God I did because awhile ago, the spirit actually gave me this word.

During retreat, Pastor Sam said that the congregation only changes 10% of their lifestyle through sermons! It’s because, people just listen, they don’t do what it says. Especially when the sermons are being backed by the Word of God. Kunjie showed us a movie called “The 3 idiots” and the brightest guy among the 3 friends, ‘Rancho’ actually applied what he learnt, where as the others simply ‘crammed’ all the knowledge in their heads.

Why am I saying all these because I am victim to this. I know verses against temptation and verses for strength but did i apply, nope. Maybe today you too are encountering this problem. Many times, we just listen to sermons, we read the word but one important step is to apply. What is the use of education and knowledge if we don’t apply whatever we have learnt.

This post isn’t meant to ‘shoot’ or target anyone, but just a reminder to myself that i thought would be helpful to others and that is to apply what you guys have learnt and dug up from the deep knowledge of God’s Word.

Application, Application, Application!

Materialism

I’m not sure what you guys think regarding this topic. I post this because I realize the materialism of teenagers these days are getting out of control. Yes, certainly one cannot say that we do not need clothes neither does anyone be satisfied with wearing random pieces of cloth to cover them.

However, my stand is that “You WANT it, not NEED it”. Come on, think about it. Teens still schooling, wearing Fred Perry and contributing generously to the income of brands like Havaianas and Converse. Yes, maybe if you tell me that you do not have much clothes and want to wear what majority of the teens are wearing, fine. But if you have a whole wardrobe full of branded goods and still intend to splurge mindlessly, then you are wrong.

As I pondered over this topic, I came to a conclusion that the main problem really lies deep down. Ask yourself, you buy branded goods because it makes you feel good wearing them. They are expensive no doubt, hence, they are hard to get for teens at this age, who obviously haven’t tasted how hard it is earning money, or to strengthen this point, run a family. Many times, the main motive of buying goods goes beyond “beautifying” oneself. Showing off, feeling good, aren’t these what makes you buy unnecessary items?

In 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 it says:

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward.  If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

See, if you build on the foundation that is Jesus Christ, which has already been laid for you, if you build your security on it, it will show! If you build your self-esteem on the solid foundation of Christ, it will show! Why build on worldly materials that do not last? You see a nice pair of converse, and you buy it because everyone else wears it and it makes you feel that you fit in, then you are placing your self-esteem and confidence on that pair of shoes! Will it last on it, No! because along the way, you see a pair of Vans. Yes, you feel you NEED to get it because everyone wears vans now and so converse, yes it still looks nice, but your circle of friends is wearing vans now so you NEED to get it. Does this glorify God? Are you a good steward of your own money? Are your priorities right? These are what I would ask before buying anything. What is your self-esteem and confidence based on today?

Next, yes you might tell me it’s your money and you earned it through part-timing and all. However, this ‘object’ might be your incentive to work but have you considered the fact that as you grow older, it isn’t about yourself anymore? You work to earn money because of the NEEDS of others, your family. How would you feel if your children’s NEEDS aren’t really NEEDS. There is a big difference. Try paying your home’s utilities bill for this months, along with your whole family’s mobile bills and food costs, then try getting that ‘object’ you want. Tell me it’s easy. You see where I’m coming from? Yes, it’s your money now, however, how long do you plan to spend thinking about your own desires?

Lastly, I don’t disagree that everyone wants to look good. However, simplicity is beautiful in the midst of complexity. If you walk pass a group of guys, all of them are dress with Fred Perry’s, Converse/Vans/TOMs, Levi’s/Deinizen/Zara jeans, carrying crumplers and other atas brand bags, except one dude, in simple jeans, shoes and a polo-T. Which one will catch your attention amidst all the attention grabbing goods? Think about it, simplicity is a form of beauty too. But more importantly, where you build your self-esteem is much more important. Nothing can shake the foundation that is in Jesus Christ our Lord.