Kingdom Living Today

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. – Matthew 6:33 -

When Jesus said “seek first” to his disciples the first impression is that what follows must take priority. It conveys not only priority but that it must also be good for us – kind of important, kind of the right thing to do as followers of Him. Therefore seeking first the kingdom of God must be important if we are to follow the words of the Great Master and Saviour. So if the Kingdom of God is important we need to ask ourselves what we are looking for in this kingdom. We also need to know what it entails, what is its implication. I can only come up with the thought that if the kingdom of God is important than for those of us who claimed to have entered this kingdom because of Jesus Christ must know that kingdom living becomes a great concern for us.

What kind of kingdom living are we called to? What are the irreducible minimum requirements expected in the life in the kingdom of God?

I would like to suggest that there are at least THREE PRE-REQUISITES to living a kingdom life:

1. We need to ADORN ourselves with the truths of God. The Christians (kingdom people) needed to be qualitatively different, or it had nothing to offer to the world (Carl Henry).

2. We need to ALIGN our will to the Father. How could we even be able to live in his kingdom without aligning our will to his?

3. We need to APPREHEND God through worship in spirit and in truth. This is our inheritance as children of God – the privilege of his presence in our lives and the fact of him being our portion!

A Little Update

I will be moving into a new house in about 6 hours time. This is going to be the start of a new chapter in our lives – new arrangement, new environment, and new place to hang out for supper. Ha-ha. Well…it took me 23 years to finally make a circle back to Tanjung Bungah. I was staying there when I first got married. Since then we have moved at least 14 times. Shifting is really a tough job and I always fall sick after that. In fact I am having hay fever right now and typing this entry is quite a task really.

I will let you all know of my new email address. I have canceled my streamyx account and reapply a new package deal.

In a couple of weeks time I will be conducting a seminar in my little outreach church in Langkawi on “Understanding Today’s Youth Culture – Part II” I did the first seminar with them last year and this is a follow-up. Since then there has been quite a lot of development in this area. There are some serious issues that needed to be addressed to help parents of teenager in coping with a rapid changing world. Information is downloading so fast into our teenage children that it would be a sad day for parents who do not take time to know what is going on. In fact the media is targeting the age between 10-12 years old pre-teens nowadays. Our children are growing up faster than before. They are actually fast losing their childhood and are forced to grow up faster than is necessary.

The major milestone in my ministry thus far is to be able to launch the spiritual formation course. It is so good to know that more than 20 people have registered for the one year course. So this coming Monday 2^nd February the 1^st semester of the spiritual formation course will be launched. I am praying that people will have the desire to want to study the word of God and grow into maturity.

I shall end now and will continue another day…..

What’s Wrong with Cognitive Learning?

I just cannot understand why is it that there are some among us who thinks that informing the mind would not help in changing them at all? I think it is really amounting to disrespect to hold the view that God cannot use propositional truths and empowered it with His Spirit to cause a renewal of the mind and a revival in the hearts of people.

If we all take note of Church history we would soon realized that much of the changes in society, in the world has come from those who are willing to educate the masses, to teach the uninformed and illiterate, and to preach powerful sermons of commitment. Those who uses the supernatural, the emotional appeal does not last that long. Look at people like Luther – his writings changes the face of church history. How about Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Wesley brothers, and many more? Printing of bibles and the churning out of massive amount of literature not only educate the people about the truth of God but does change entire nation and society. Ideas do have consequences. Teaching – informing of the mind is the first step towards a renewal and a transformation of the hearts.

If we were to argue from the fact that we need the power of the Holy Spirit to change then might as well we just hide in the mountain to do deep reflection for all of life. I think we need to draw the line. I firmly believe that the knowledge of God and the truths of God facilitate the Holy Spirit to work that truth into our being. That’s why we need to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. It is because we need the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit on a daily basis as we progress in our intimacy of God. We need to gaze upon God but we cannot possibly gaze into the unknown and hope to get revelation. God has revealed himself through His word so we use the knowledge of God as revealed in his word to come to a place of intimacy.

We cannot appreciate God’s love if we don’t first understand cognitively why he loves us. It is not impossible to know that because he has revealed his everlasting love for mankind through the Incarnational Word (Jesus) as written in the Holy Scriptures.

I get very agitated when we keep chanting that teaching is not enough. Yes it is not enough but it is the beginning of wisdom. How does wisdom come? Does it come from supernatural revelation? No. It comes from a seeking heart wanting to know the truth. A seeker for truth will go anywhere and do anything to find it out. God had put that in man and when he found the truth he will fall down on his knees and worship.

Well….go and figure it out what I am trying to say.

An Epistemological Dilemma

I was thinking about my last entry…Can Losing Weight be a part of a Christian’s spirituality? I left the post with the thought that it is a part of my own spirituality. Now the question is WHY and HOW.

The greatest struggle that I wrote about is the deep and wide chasm between knowing it and doing it – at least in my life right now!! To cross that barrier demands not just the brute will but also a yielding of my spirit to the Spirit of God and that’s really tough. Someone said that for the truth to travel from the head to the heart may only be 18 inches but it is really a long, long journey! I must admit that it is true when it comes to losing weight. I don’t believe it is because of eating too much or laziness BUT the lack of discipline to do physical exercise. It is really easy for me to sit in front of my laptop and type away sermons, teachings lessons, planning and blogging. It is also easy to surf the net, watch movie and listening to music BUT when it comes to real physical exercise – that’s another story.

So to me, it is not just knowing it but doing it. So I began to probe further why is it that I know the right thing to do and yet cannot find the strength to do it. This is a real epistemological dilemma that I am facing. So my question is that even before we go to the part of doing it, the knowing it is also problematic. Can we really know that we know? Is it possible that we think we know when we haven’t yet know know what we know is what we know? That is the epistemological dilemma that I am facing with regard to losing weight. I said: “I think I know.” Descartes said: “I think therefore I am.” He was saying that because he has the capacity to think therefore he can know that he is real and not an illusion. Using the same reasoning, I think I know that losing weight is important to my health – to my spirituality, therefore that knowledge is not merely illusional. I really know that losing weight is important to my well-being. That knowledge is firmly established in me YET why is it so difficult to do it? Some said that it is sin, the weakness of our flesh, and what not that prevents us from “DOING” it.

Perhaps it is not enough to know that you know that losing weight is important BUT rather WHO you know that you know holds the key to your health and more rightly your life. Evelyn Underhill said that “a spiritual life is simply a life in which all that we do come from the centre, where we are anchored in God: a life soaked through and through by a sense of His reality and claim, and self-given to the greater movement of His Will.” Spirituality is about being attentive to the Spirit’s voice, open to his transforming impulses, and empowered by his indwelling presence.

Coming back to the beginning before I loose you…..what I am trying to say is that knowing that I need to loose weight should not be the starting point of my knowledge but the knowledge of the Holy One is the right place to start. That to me is my Christian spirituality; it is about living all of life before God in the transforming and empowering presence of his Spirit.

I don’t know whether I am making any sense at all over here. That’s an epistemological knot as well! Ha-ha. Go figure it out!!

Can Losing Weight be a Part of a Christian’s Spirituality?

It is quite disconcerting to receive news now and then about people falling ill or people died. It is even more distressing to know that some of them are around my age. How about that for a start of a new year? I know…I know, make a new resolution to slim down, eat less, and go for the gym. I heard all that advice (I don’t think I take that lightly, honestly) but somehow it just doesn’t stick. It is like water running down the back of a duck.

Just the other day Ps Chong Leang and I were talking about mental models, mindset or personal worldview after he watched “The Truth Project” DVD teaching. It was quiet interesting to hear him mentioned it. Over the last weekend, Ps Albert also mentioned in his sermon about changing mindset; where mental models can block us from having a biblical worldview. At the bottom-line, we were lamenting about the fact that it is so difficult to change a person’s mindset once it has set like there is somewhat of a configuration that has been formed. Think about that…I know that I need to loose weight, I need to get my waistline to go down (big time man), and I need to actually go to the gym BUT the chasm between knowing it and doing it is really deep and wide. God help me!!

I am asking myself what mental model is blocking me from doing what I theoretically know is important to do. Anyone got any suggestions? Some of the people tell me that I need to think about my health, my family, and my life. I appreciate that a lot – seriously. But I think it is more than just a physical discipline, more than just a decision of the will BUT it is a spiritual discipline. I see this entire struggle to stay healthy and stay in just the right size and weight a form of my Christian spirituality. Well …go figure it out!!

Rambling

I think I have been rather serious all this while in my blog entries. I know I did write a lot about my reflection and what I have been thinking aloud. There are many things that goes on in my mind nowadays – maybe I am thinking too much and I have become rather critical in my thinking.

Let me just ramble on in this entry, yes, definitely NOT on anything serious  spiritual BUT to get something off my chest. Right downstairs and across the road we have this Thai Restaurant (food not to bad) but I called it the noisy restaurant. Most weekend there will be a music band and they are really noisy. Even as I write the music that is been played is so loud. Joyce commented that at least the man’s singing is not as bad as other nights. My apartment is smack right at the right angle of the sound bite and I get the volume like the band is playing right next to my living room. Just imagine with me the sound decibel hitting my eardrums right now.

The other thing is that Jesher is waiting for me to take him out for supper. My wife commented (probably due to the loud party going on downstairs) that her class got two hot fathers. Why? Because they call their daughter “baby.” Yeah…the sound that is being sung right now is “baby…” A while ago I overheard them shouting “hallelujah” while getting drunk on booze. What is this world coming too?

Okay…I am really rambling right now. Okay…one way ticket to the moon…Oh Carol, I’m bloody fool ….By the rivers of Babylon…. Okay….let me end now.

THE FLYING MAN

I was reading the latest issue of the Mission Frontiers magazine and I am so inspired by the article ” The Flying Man” – China rediscovers its hero. You can get to the article at the website: www.missionfrontiers.org

But let me quote a portion of the article:

In 1981, movie audiences in the USA and abroad were introduced to 1924 Olympic champion Eric Liddell through the film “Chariots of Fire,” which went on to win four Academy Awards, including the award for best picture. The focus of this film was on the events preceding and including those Olympic games in Paris….What we are not told in that movie is that the second half of Eric Liddell’s life was every bit as inspiring as the first half – although in a different way. Now that inspiring story is to be portrayed in a major motion picture to be called “The Flying Man.”

Healthy Development of the Life of the Mind

People who engage in the life of the mind are those who are prolific readers, who explore new topics, talk to others about what they are thinking, listening and engaging in discussion. They love to think and learn. There is an imperative need of the life of the mind for Christians today especially those from the Full Gospel circles.

My own experience for the last six years has been one of a journey into the life of the mind as I have ever done before. The passion for reading, thinking, and talking about ideas and issues became almost an obsession. But the fact of the matter is that in ensuing this path of the development of my mind (more so the development of a biblical worldview about truth and reality) that I finally found answers to a lot of questions of life, a lot of clarity to my faith, and an intellectual satisfaction at the end of it.

What I have discovered in this journey is that knowing God is not just some idea handed down by my parents or a faith that is mystical but the ability to experience the reality of God’s world through my mental faculty – something that I was told is more potentially bend towards evil than good. How wrong I was!! Of course I do enjoy many other things in life besides reading, thinking and talking about ideas. I do enjoy movies and music.

My guiding thought at this moment is this: What I feel in my heart must first make sense in my mind and equally true would be what I think about must first resonate with my heart. Why do I have such fervour? Why do people like to think and learn? A number of reasons lie behind the motivation to pursue the life of the mind and they go beyond the development of skills or to enhance job prospects.

Dr. Clifford Williams gave us five reasons in his book, The Life of the Mind – a Christian Perspective why it is imperative that we develop the life of the Christian mind. He said that Christians should read and explore areas and issues that are directly connected to Christian concern but should also engage with topics that are not.

Knowing the way things are

Dr. Williams suggests that people who engages in the life of the mind finds the passion for knowledge. It is not enough to eat, sleep, and work; they must also know. It is not obtaining knowledge that is related to work but more so for the simple fact of wanting to know how things are – encountering fresh insight into the workings of life and nature. Just think with me for a moment what this life long pursues of knowledge of God would result in. For some this is hard work but nevertheless it is worthwhile for us to develop this habit of the mind.

Making beliefs coherent

We do not like our beliefs to contradict each other. We feel unsettled if that happens. The discipline of the life of the mind will help us be consistent and coherent. We also want our beliefs to be unified – to be focused on a central idea. With such discipline we can discern when new ideas come our way that does not fit with our current stock of beliefs. We may not outright reject it but we would certainly reflect, think, and sort it out first.

The desire for coherent – consistency and unity – will steer us away from the possibility of collision with secular culture. When we are connected to the basic truths of Christianity which forms our worldview we avoid being schizophrenic in our thinking.

Dr. Williams explains it this way:

This drive for coherence is what motivates one to form a worldview. A worldview is a set of concepts that assembles everything else we believe into a coherent whole. This set of concepts constitutes the glasses through which we see life. All that we observe or take in comes through these glasses, unifying everything around a dominant idea. This dominant idea is, in a way, one’s primary stance of life – the rock-bottom perspective one takes towards life as a whole.

Obtaining Self-knowledge

The fundamental human impulse is to try to understand about who we are. We desire to know what kinds of emotion we have and whether they or reason rule us. We want to know how we fit together with others in social structures and how we have gotten to where we are. Christians should have such inclinations to; the desire to know about things with Christian concerns such as faith and doubt, forgiveness and guilt, grace and self-justification. We should be drawn to social and cultural self-knowledge too. We need to be people who engage our mind with issues that confronts us and to find the answers to how such things works. God has given us the capability through our mental faculty to think through these things – things that affects us, things that would challenge us as a Christians.

Sorting through public issues

Many of life’s moral norms are simple and clear-cut: Love is good; people deserve respect regardless of their looks; we should not harm others. However, Dr. Williams said that “…public life… is more complex, and it is less evident how to apply moral norms to it.”

Issue that is pertinent for us to engage in today is the whole concept of justice; freedom and choice, the public policy, and what the bible has to say about justice. Such an issue needs us to think, to investigate, and to do research. We need to talk about it, and preach about it too. Developing the life of our mind is to use our mind to work through the various implications of injustices and abuses and to be proactive in our engagement. We are not called to preach the gospel message of salvation which only has to do with the hereafter but also includes the defence of those who are helpless and deprived.

But we cannot possibly just feel for the helpless unless we also actively think and plan through to come up with some strategic action plan.

Discovering Meaning

One significant motive for education – thinking and reading – is to discover meaning. We should discover our place in the universe, in history, and in society. We should discover the “…values by which we can judge the importance of what we do…the cosmic significance of our life…” and so forth.

There are three reasons regarding the purpose of discovering meaning. They are (1) finding something worth living for; know about our life’s worth, wanting to make our lives count, the need to be different, and to feel in our hearts that what we do impact others in meaningful ways, (2) feeling keenly the magnificence and tragedy of life; recognizing that reality is brimming with beauty and goodness but also laden with tragedy and evil, and (3) sensing the divine – we are not content with only the temporal and finite but wants permanency and crave the touch of the infinite.

Our mind places a very large part in discovering God. The word of God said that the “…knowledge of the holy one brings understanding…,” brought forth a revelation of the divine. The exercise of the life of our mind, loving God with our mind will ultimately brings us to a place where we discover meaning; a life worth living, a life of sublimity yet aware of the presence of evil, and the touch of the divine.

Reflecting on Food and Health

It is so ironic that whenever we sit down to eat, especially a sumptuous meal that the topic of health would inevitably comes in.

Today is my usual lunch out with my friends. As usual we enjoyed a great lunch together but at the same time would be talking about the need to take care of our health and to eat healthily. I find it amusing that we can do that all at the same time! I mean if we are serious about health than forget about eating out – go vegetarian and organic on top of that, eat brown rich, drink only filtered water, and drink coffee without sugar. The problem is that we cannot do all that yet we keep harping about health. I get a little annoyed because I am usually the target. I know I am fat and could be in danger of heart attack. What I dislike the most is that it has to be spoken when we are eating!

Well…I know, I know…think of your poor wife and children if you “go”, kick the bucket, or expire. Today I mentioned that it is not worthwhile for those who earned and has a big fat savings due to their hard work to be hit with a paralyzing disease or sickness and within a month reduced to zero. The doctors and hospitals would be happy but your hard-earned money is gone. I know of people who pride themselves of savings enough money for rainy days like this. I wonder why some people have such ideas! I preferred that we enjoy life to its fullest not in riotous living, not in living carelessly BUT really enjoying the fruit of one’s labor.

Faith is a funny thing. Some of us said we have faith in God but unwilling to live it, unwilling to fully trust. We must not test God, some would say. But really, why do we think we will be testing God if he is the one who asked us to trust in him and have faith in him. Isn’t is true that if God asked us to fully have faith in him he will guide us, protect us, and provide for us! Yea…I know we need to do our part. Yes we should work hard. We should not go begging. We should not be lazy. Now, having done all that shouldn’t we just LET GO and LET GOD?