INSPIRATION FOR THE WEEK: "...cling to Me"

"For as the sash clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me,’ says the LORD, ‘that they may become My people, for renown, for praise, and for glory; but they would not hear.’ (Jeremiah 13:11).

I can't help but feel God's disappointment with His own people whenever I read the book of Jeremiah. The people that God chose as His own special treasure had decided to drift away from Him. They had decided not to obey His commands. They had decided to deny Him as their God, who has on many occasions helped them through difficult times. They had made a choice to deviate from the divine plan that God had for them. The disobeyed His call for repentance as proclaimed by the prophets.

My dear friend, we are the spiritual Israel. We are God's chosen generation and we are so special to Him. Let us not disappoint Him. He has chosen us for a specific reason. Through us His name should be known everywhere we go (renown). Through us God must be praised. Through us God must be glorified. We are His people and He is our God. 

The people of Israel did not listen to God's voice. God wanted them to cling to Him but they would not hear. They were caught up in their worldly desires. Even though we are the chosen ones today, we should not forget that we are still living in the world. If we fail to cling to God we are making ourselves susceptible to worldly forces that will drive us farther away from our dear God. 

Before Joshua died, He warned the people of Israel to cling to God and not associate themselves with the lifestyles of the nations they found in the Promised Land because "...they shall be snares and traps to you, and scourges on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land which the LORD your God has given you," (Joshua 23:13). 

Let us not lose what we have by failing to cling to God. The word cling is defined as to hold fast to something; to adhere as if glued firmly; to hold on tightly or tenaciously. That is what God is expecting from us. God made Jeremiah to wear the linen sash around his waist before telling him go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole in the rock. Later he told Him to go and fetch the sash. Jeremiah says, "Then I went to the Euphrates and dug, and I took the sash from the place where I had hidden it; and there was the sash, ruined. It was profitable for nothing," (Jeremiah 13:7).

God wants you to be profitable for His kingdom. You are an ambassador for Christ. You are an ambassador for the kingdom of God. Therefore God wants to profit from you. He wants to be known through you. He wants to be praised because of the way you conduct yourself. You are the light of the world and God's glory must shine through you. 

All you have to do is to cling to Him like the linen sash on a man's waist. Biblically, linen is a symbol of righteousness and purity. Even though we are in this crooked world, we have to exhibit the righteousness and holiness of God and He shall be glorified. If we cling to God, He will make sure that He takes care of us because whatever happens to us, His name is on the line, and He shall not allow his name to be ridiculed. 

My dear friend, God wants you to stay with Him and He will stay with you. He has promised that He will never leave us nor forsake us. Let us rejoice "For God is with the generation of the righteous," (Psalm 14:5). 

Whatever happens, God is saying, "Cling to me!"

Working Your Faith In Times of Trouble

When you are in trouble the only thing you need is someone to come to your rescue. As children of God we are blessed because we have our Father who is always watching us and saying, "Look to Me, and be saved, All you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other,” (Isaiah 45:22). The confidence that we have is that God will always be there for us.

I am thinking of the Apostle Paul. He was jailed and the Philippians paid him a visit. It is amazing that Paul was the one who was jailed and probably needed to be encouraged to stand strong. However, he turned things around and exhorted the people who had paid him a visit.

Despite being in chains, Paul never lost faith and instead his faith soared. To him all the difficulties he was facing were good for the furtherance of the gospel. To him the fact that he was chained because of Christ was making him happy because that was spreading the gospel without fear and much better than words.

As Paul continued to encourage the Philippians he said, "Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ..." (Philippians 1:27 NIV). I think that is where most of us as Christians fail. When we are faced with challenges, our actions tend to be more driven by emotions. We tend to act in anger, pain, sorrow etc. We end up saying things we were not supposed to say, do things we were not supposed to do because of the trouble being too much to bear. Whatever happens, we should remain godly.

When we come to God for rescue, we should come to Him with a clean heart. The Apostle Paul says God has not called us to uncleanliness but to holiness. Another Apostle, one of my favourite characters in the Bible, Peter testifies to this when he writes, "But just as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct;" (1 Peter 1:15).

Holiness the only way we can see God and we can be called God’s people. "Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: “The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” (2 Timothy 2:19). God only listens to the righteous.

With that foundation, whatever happens we surely shall establish our faith in God no matter how big are our troubles. Although I am not a fan of ’how tos' because they tend to grow into 'laws', allow me to forget about that for a while and consider how to work your faith when troubles surround you. I will draw lessons from Psalm 3, which David wrote when he was running away from his own son Absalom who was turning against him.

1. When you are faced with troubles, this is what you need to know and believe:

• The Lord is your shield - Whatever happens, know that God will always protect you 
• The Lord is your glory - You are worthy before God and the troubles that you are facing do not mean that you are a worthless person as you or some may think. You are honourable.
• The Lord is your lifter - God is the One who can make you rise above every situation. Even when you are down, He will lift you up and keep your head up.

2. With that knowledge, this is what you need to do:

• Cry out to the Lord - This means that you need to call out the name of the Lord and He surely shall hear you. Although He sees what is happening, He needs you to call upon Him to your attention.
• Lie down and sleep - What this means is that you need to take a rest (relax). In other words, do not press those panic buttons. Sometimes you need to act as if nothing is happening and when you 'wake up' to your troubles you will realize that the Lord is sustaining you.
• Do not be afraid - The enemy delights at inducing fear on us when we are in trouble. Even when tons of troubles are all around you, do not be frightened. In the absence of fear, there is faith and vice versa.
• Ask God to save you - When you say "Arise, O LORD; Save me, O my God!" He surely shall answer your prayer. You need to call upon Him in faith to come to your rescue.
• Praise the Lord - The risk is that once He sets us free from our troubles we forget to give Him the credit. Give Him all the praise because salvation belongs to Him and He is the one who gives blessings to His people. When I read the history books in the Bible I realize that in most cases people would rejoice before the victory comes. That is a good lesson to learn and adopt.

Have faith in God. He loves us and does not want us to perish. All that He needs is for us to look at Him and be saved. "A righteous man may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all," (Psalm 4:19 NIV).

*All Scripture quoted from New King James Version unless stated otherwise.

Why God Keeps On Doing Great Things?

Recently I was invited to a church member's thanksgiving service. Sometime ago he was bedridden and his illness was not promising to a point that he eventually lost his job. However, God's grace was upon him and he was healed, got another job and continued with his life. He has a home (which he continued to establish in spite of his illness), a family and a job. He wanted to give thanks to God for answering his prayers and hence the service last Sunday.

When he personally invited me two months ago, I immediately knew I was not going to miss this occasion. As I thought and prayed about this function, I could tell that my faith was soaring. I recalled all the times this man pushed himself to church and how he would cry out to the Lord in prayer and how he would sing and dance for the Lord, forgetting about his health condition - fast forward to today, he preaches the Word of God with a meaning.

I asked myself why God continues to do wonders for us. Why God performs miracles? I realized that He does not do it just for fun. He does not do it just to please the person receiving the miracle. He does it for a specific reason. That is the message God imparted in my heart. Somehow I knew God wanted me to relay this message. That is why I was least shocked when I learnt on the day I am one of the selected individuals included in the programme to give a testimony. After all we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

So, why God keeps on doing great things? This is what Joshua told the Israelites, "For the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed over, that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty, that you may fear the LORD your God forever," (Joshua 4:23-24).

God does not want us to be just a reservoir of His blessings. He wants us to be a flowing river of His blessings so that all the people who get to know of our blessings may turn to Him. The hand of God is powerful and all people should know that so they may glorify Him.

What does fearing the Lord mean? David said, Come, you children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the LORD. Who is the man who desires life, and loves many days, that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it." (Psalm 34: 11-14).

In other words, the fear of the Lord means living a righteous life. God is always ready to listen and answer the prayers of the righteous. The Apostle James says the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. The Apostle Paul says the kingdom of God is righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

God has promised that he will dwell in us and walk among us. He has promised that we will be His people and He will be our God. He has promised that if we do not touch anything unclean and separate ourselves from the evil, He will receive us. He has promised that He will be our Father and we will be his sons and daughters.

"Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God," (2 Corinthians 7:1). My lovely friends let us seek His kingdom and his righteousness first. It calls us to be pure in heart. We have to ask God to cleanse us from anything that separates us from His face and that is sin. We often say nobody is perfect but God has told us to be perfect because He is perfect. Let us strive for the perfection of His holiness in fearing him. We can never see God without holiness. Jesus said blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

We all desire to enter his kingdom, which is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It is amazing how much peace you have when you know your heart is clean. In the book of the prophet Isaiah 32:17 the Word says the work (or fruit) of righteousness will be peace and the effect of righteousness will be quietness and assurance forever.

My friend let us make it a point that we align ourselves with the Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ and keep endeavoring to be righteous. My prayer these days to the Lord is that "Create in me a clean heart oh God". Let us seek Him with a clean heart. Let us seek Him in truth. He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. Let us acknowledge Him for every blessing he pours unto us and that way the gospel of Christ will spread and many people will begin to fear Him. Bless His holy name!

Supplementing Faith with Virtue (goodness/righteousness)

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things shall be given to you as well,” (Matthew 6:33).

In this message Jesus was teaching about not worrying about the future but instead putting your faith in God. Jesus was teaching that our priority should be seeking God’s kingdom and his righteousness. Because we have faith in God through Jesus Christ, Jesus was teaching us to supplement our faith with his righteousness (virtue).

In other words, we should live a righteous life so that we receive the kingdom of God. These are the fruits therefore: “All these things shall be given to you as well”. The things that we spend time and energy worrying about shall not be fulfilled unless we rest our faith in God and then strive to live a righteous life. God already knows what we need and he shall provide as long as we focus on entering his kingdom (through living a righteous life).

We are longing for good fruits through our knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we need to be good ourselves just as he was and is a good teacher and Lord. If we do not add goodness/righteousness into our faith, how do we expect to bear fruits?

Jesus told the Pharisees who thought he was driving away demons from a man by Be-elzebul’s power, “The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good and an evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil,” (Matthew 18:35).

Prior to that Jesus figuratively said that you make a tree good and its fruits will be good. In order to bear good fruits of knowing Christ we need to add goodness to our faith and our prayers will be effective and productive.

Living a good life simply means doing the will of God. The kingdom of God is for the righteous and that is why Jesus was teaching us to first seek that. Jesus also said, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of Heaven but only he who does that will of my Father who is in Heaven,” (Matthew 7: 21).

In other words Jesus was saying that many people may have faith in him but that alone is not enough to enter the kingdom unless you live a righteous life to supplement your faith.