God Is Good

In my last post I mentioned about starting a strict regimen in food intake and exercise for my health sake. Praise God I am still on it. In fact I have gone to the gym. My wife paid for my gym exercise last September but I never step foot into the gym until two weeks ago. It’s really a miracle. But after two weeks and a few rounds of exercises I felt good. It is not as difficult as I thought it would be. I am glad I have lost 2 kgs so far. I need to shed at least 18 more kgs. Oh….God help!!

I am learning to relax and de-stressed myself. I am learning to sleep early. Tonight I have broken that. I should be asleep by 12 the latest. It’s 12.50 am now. After this entry i will go to sleep. Promise. There are many things that i deliberate do that I normally drag doing; (1) I sleep early, (2) I ate 1/3 my normal intake, (3) I go to the gym, (4) I attend prayer meetings, (5) I work less unless it’s necessary, (6) I spent more time with my children, and (7) I enjoy serving God – no more complaint!

Well…that’s all for now. Bye

Something Hit Me Real Hard

I have been avoiding talks on dieting, losing weight, and what not. I often try to justify by giving my two-cents worth about the fact that stress is the culprit and I am not one who is easily stressed out. I have been living in denial for quite sometime now until last week. I work up with a terrible pain in my heels. Guess what? It’s gout! I went to see the doctor for some painkiller. Besides that he took my blood pressure and found that I had a rather high bp. I have been saying to myself that I have no high bp to be humbled  that I indeed do have. I was overweight and I have not been exercising at all.

Well to cut the long story short, the doctor said that I need to have a drastic lifestyle change. For the last 5 days I finally started exercise, cut my food intake to 1/3 of my normal daily intake, drink a lot of water and sleep early – like 11 pm – 12 am instead of the regular 3 am. The physical is just one aspect but the Lord has been really on me lately too. I was struggling. I was challenged in many things. I had to fight through stress in my ministry, in the home (more like responsibility), and in my personal discipline. Please pray for me.  It had never been so tough for me. I had taken life quite easily until now.

What is God saying in all of this? I found myself praying more and taking a step back to reflect on my life and ministry. I found that I have come to a place that I don’t want to serve just because I have the time or I make time to serve. I want to take a serious step back – pray more and seek His face. Of course, my colleagues will think otherwise. They think I am one person who does like to pray. How wrong can they be? I just don’t like too much of corporate prayer unless there is a specific purpose. But generally I do pray. For now it has increased even more. I am not just a brain person – most of time being accused of it – but I am sentimental, romantic, and passionate in my relationship with God. Well, some people will not understand that for sure.

Please pray that I will continue in my strict regimen to cut down my weight, bring down my blood pressure and pray even more. I need God’s intervention.

Store Up the Word of God

The scripture is very explicit when it records that the way to prevent ourselves from sinning against God is to store up the Word of God in our hearts. Storing up the Word of God in our hearts would also stop us from wandering away from the commandments of the Lord. Now that is simple enough to understand its implication. It is simple enough for us to take note of. But the problem so often is not in knowing the need to store up the Word of God in our hearts. It is rather what do we mean by storing up the Word of God? How do we store the Word of God in our hearts?

The Sunday School song “read your bible, pray everyday and you’ll grow, grow, grow” is too simplistic. I believe it takes time, effort, and certainly discipline to store up the Word of God in our hearts. Let us just consider the words of Paul to Timothy about “instruction in righteousness.” What do we understand by the word “instruction,” “education,” and “training” in righteousness? Let me make a suggestion here: there can be no instruction, education, and training that bypass the faculty of the mind. So storing up the Word of God in our hearts comes through being instructed in God’s Word. This instruction is gaining knowledge in our mental faculty thus becoming the resource where the Holy Spirit can translate it into our everyday reality!

“Instructing” and “educating” requires learning and studying over time with effort and discipline. We need to study the Word of God. We need to spend time gaining knowledge of God that will bring understanding. I believe that when we do all the studying and learning it is a process of storing up the Word of God in our hearts. It is understanding that will help us to remember – to keep the Word stored up in us.

Consider with me: How could we pray and intercede intelligently and according to the will of God unless we have the Word of God stored up within us? How could we share the gospel with others if there is no understanding of the message of the gospel? How could we give the answer of the hope that is in us if there is nothing within us to give? Let us not despise the careful study of the Word of God. There are a few things to consider very carefully when we study God’s Word.

First, it is more than reading the bible through the year although that is important.

Second, it is more than a devotional approach to God’s Word – a word a day keeps the devil away – although that is important.

Third, it is more than memorizing all the promises of God so that we can draw it out of the chest-box whenever we need though scripture memorization is critically important.

I believe we need to DIG deeply into the Word of God so that we can be theologically sound with a biblical worldview and a truly Christian mind.

Consider Jesus and His temptation in the wilderness. On three occasions the devil tempted Him by telling Him half-truths and part-truths. Jesus was able to detect the sinister motivation of the devil and His response on all occasions was “it is written.” I believe Jesus did not mechanically quote the scriptures. He did not quote the Scriptures just because it is there in God’s Word. I believe He quoted the appropriate text because He understood the meaning, the implication, and the meaning of the text. The Word of God was the sword of the Spirit in the hands of Jesus wielding at the lies of the devil at an appropriate time.