Posts from — June 2010

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”-Matthew 5:13 (NIV)

I am a huge military buff. When I was in high school, I briefly entertained the thought of joining the Canadian Armed Forces. To this end, I decided to enroll myself in Royal Canadian Air Cadets; a youth program administered by the Canadian military. Although members are not obliged to join the military, I had gotten a taste of what life would be like if I did. Everything, from drill movements to weapons training, had to be done precisely and in accordance with regulations. The continual repetition of these procedures may seem tedious, but they are there to build discipline. It is a proven fact that any army which fails to keep itself disciplined, organized, and ready for combat, will falter at the first sight of the enemy.

As children of God we have been called to battle. This battle is not against flesh and blood however, but against the forces of evil which continue to poison the world. This struggle is not for the faint of heart. Know that if we ever deviate from the path of Christ even for a moment, wickedness will slowly infiltrate our hearts and sin will walk all over us. If we truly want to succeed in this battle, we have to make it a practice to spend time with God and meditate on His Word. When we do this with an open heart, God will strengthen us for the challenges we face. He will help us maintain our “saltiness” so that we will be able to act as a force by which God can preserve and redeem the world from evil. Salt fights against bacteria which causes meat to rot. May we ask God to preserve our saltiness so that the world will not fall into decay.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

“It is to a man’s honour to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel.” -Proverbs 20:3 (NIV)

Most of us have either been involved in or picked a quarrel with another person at some point in our lives. Often times, our quarrels are not even about serious things. Even the most trivial of matters are enough to start an argument that could easily spin out of control. Imagine how our relationships would be if we didn’t bicker over minuscule things. It would certainly be more peaceful that’s for sure. Yet our pride demands that we should always prove ourselves to be right, regardless of the situation. We do not want to admit when we are wrong because that makes us look deficient and weak. In our stubbornness, we sow the seeds of discord when we squabble. This can cause serious emotional and physical damage not only to ourselves, but to the people around us.

Ironically, our pursuit to vindicate ourselves in our quarrels ends up making ourselves look like utter fools. When others see our arrogance in our disagreements with people over insignificant matters, they shake their heads in dismay. Irritability and short-temperedness stem from pride, and pride should have no place in the hearts of those who claim to follow Christ. When He invades our lives, we stay close to Him and we gain the wisdom to know what battles to fight. Our anger should be saved for the things that anger Him; things such as the presence of injustice and sin in the world. There are times when the stance we take as followers of Him will invite strife, and in these moments we must remember to be firm but not hot-headed. Subsequently, we ourselves must not actively look to pick fights. Strife should come to us because of the nature of Christ’s message to the world, not because we have provoked conflict through our own behaviour. May we continually submit ourselves to Him and may His serenity and peace manifest itself in us so that we may be able to present Christ as the perfect refuge of those trying to escape turmoil.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

“Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. Finally these men said, ‘We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God.’” -Daniel 6:3-5 (NIV)

Jealousy and rancour are some of man’s greatest faults. Sometimes, instead of genuinely feeling pleased for someone else’s success and wanting to offer our congratulations, we are often overcome with envy. Our pride feels that it should be us up there in the spotlight winning the admiration by everyone around us. This desire to fuel our egos drives us to resort to underhanded and destructive means to see our needs for fame and prestige met. We have also been on the receiving end of such schemes. Just the effort that they make to ruin all our accomplishments and hopes hurts doesn’t it? What have we done to offend our assailants? Like a python that coils around its prey, we feel as if we are being suffocated by all the attempts to tear us down.

The best and surest defence against such opposition is to walk evermore closely with God. He has promised in His word to preserve those that follow after Him. Only by actively seeking to conform to Christ’s likeness and being in complete dependence on Him in this pursuit, will we see His righteousness and purity shining through us. When people see Christ reflected in us, they may not necessarily like what they see and will try their hardest to find something in us that they can exploit for their own benefit. But if our hearts and our subsequent actions are radiating the likeness of Christ, our adversaries’ attempts to derail us will be thwarted because they cannot fight against a God who is the embodiment of truth and virtue working in our lives. Like Daniel’s detractors, they will be left to conclude that it will be impossible to find fault in us without looking corrupt and deceitful. When we feel attacked from all sides, take courage, for God protects those who acknowledge Him and His Son. We will be able to walk confidently knowing that though our critics may bear their fangs and hiss, they will never be able to bite if we walk alongside our Lord.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

“After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. ‘Follow me,’ Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.” -Luke 5:27-28 (NIV)

For a man of his time, Levi had found himself in a relatively good position. As a tax collector for the Roman Empire, he found himself far better off than his fellow countrymen in impoverished Judea. Not only was he employed by arguably the most powerful empire of the day, but he had the power to deceitfully demand “additional taxes” from the people as long as he had given the amount that was due to Rome. Naturally, the Jews would have viewed Levi as a crook and a traitor exploiting his own people. But this wouldn’t have bothered him too much. After all, he had money.

So why did he suddenly abandon everything when Jesus told Levi to follow Him? There is something about Christ that pierces the depth of our hearts. When we see who He is through His example and the reading of His Word, we become aware of our own fallibility. All the false promises and comforts of sin are cast aside until all that we see of ourselves is our own depravity. We can either continue to live our lives in denial of this reality or we can accept that this is something which needs a remedy far greater than man himself. When we have opened our hearts to the redemptive work of Christ, we will want to whole-heartedly follow Him because He has made us see the folly of our prior lifestyles and saved us from destroying ourselves. Of course, the remnants of our old sinful nature will try to bring us back into wickedness. But if we constantly surrender every area of our lives to Christ and actively seek to conform ourselves to Him, He promises victory over those desires which threaten to harm us. What are we holding back that prevents us from following Christ to the fullest? May we continue to submit everything we have to Him knowing that He will take us on a beautiful journey that, although not without sorrow, will be filled with an unshakable sense of joy, hope and fulfillment.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

“Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” -Matthew 19:26 (NIV)

When I was a child, my grandmother used to tell me stories of the famous French general Napoleon. For me it sparked not only a lifelong interest in the history of modern Europe, but also a broader interest in the histories of the world. His personal life and the crimes that he committed in his conquest of Europe aside, Napoleon’s ambition never ceases to impress me. My grandmother always used to repeat one of his most well-known quotations to me; “‘Can’t’ is in the dictionary of fools”. This quote of his has always inspired me to take courage when I encounter struggles and always see them as something that can be overcome.

Often when we face trials and obstacles that come along our path, it seems that despite all our efforts to rise above them, our circumstances continue to knock us down. We descend into hopelessness; thinking that these struggles will never leave us and any attempt to challenge them will prove to be futile. But how can we say that when we worship and have placed our hope in a God who is all powerful and all knowing? It would seem foolish to deem our situations as impossible to overcome given what we know of Him and His power. Yet despite this, God understands that we are but dust and that our finite minds can only grasp our present realities. In His love He promises to encourage us and strengthen us in our trials if we allow Him to do so. When we lean on Christ, we will see our circumstances in a different light. We will see them as times that can not only be triumphed over when we have relied on God’s strength and wisdom, but also times of growth where our hearts will be further moulded to conform to Him and who He has called us to be as His children. May we acknowledge God’s supremacy over our situations and allow Him to carry us to victory!

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

“Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.” –Deuteronomy 11:18 (NIV)

What does it mean to tie the word of God on our hands and on our foreheads? In some traditional Jewish circles, this command is taken quite literally. Called tefillin, tiny leather boxes containing portions of Scripture are strapped to the head and arms of those who want a physical reminder to keep the Word of God always at the forefront of their minds. But as we have seen with many of God’s commandments to His people, physically tying His Word to our bodies is not necessarily what He is getting at. He is a God concerned more about the hearts of His children than by displays of piety. Outward manifestations of obedience cannot change the heart. True transformation must come from the inside out.

When we have accepted Christ’s redemptive sacrifice on the cross and allowed Him to conduct His transformative work in our hearts, automatically we will have a thirst to know the things of God. We want to know what the Word of God says and because we often forget, we make it a habit to dwell upon God’s Word frequently through actively reading and meditating on it; asking God to help us grasp what He wants us to hear. Thus, God’s Word is always on our minds and we will be prepared to respond in every-day situations according to His teachings and expectations for His children. Our hands, through God’s guidance and His enabling in our lives, will fulfill what He has laid out in His Word through the actions that we perform in service to others. Tying the words of God to our heads and hands means to dwell continuously on the Word of God and live out our faith in accordance with what Christ has prescribed. May we do so drawing upon our Saviour for strength and wisdom.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? … I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” -Romans 8:35, 38-39 (NIV)

Love is a beautiful thing. It comforts us in our darkest hour, invigorates us to do our best, and gives us a sense that life, despite its challenges and sorrows, is a wonderful adventure. When we know that we are loved by someone for who we are, it can completely transform our outlook on life. The problem is that because of our fallen world, love has been corrupted. As humans we are accustomed to conditional love; a love which is based on a certain criterion that we have to meet. Should we fail to meet the standard in order to be worthy of conditional love, then we are discarded and shunned. If humans can only experience such love, we are also only capable of providing such love. Human pride may claim that we can love without any strings attached, but the truth is that we all have a breaking point to our love. Even the slightest hint of resentment in our hearts will make us refrain from showing our affection towards the one who has offended us.

Who then is capable of unconditional love? To answer this question we must go to the source of all love. It says in the Bible that God is love. His love is perfect in that He is the only one capable of loving us as we are. In our wicked and sinful state, though sin separated us from God, He still loved us. So much so that He laid down His life for us so that we may be free from our depraved nature and be reconciled to Him. When we have accepted this love, absolutely nothing will be able to tear us away from God. Our sins cannot separate us from Christ’s love anymore because the blood of Christ has cleansed us of our transgressions. It is hard for us humans, who have been conditioned to experience a love that has limits, to understand the kind of limitless love that only Christ can give. But Christ’s love is true and we can always find solace in this fact when we feel that we are unlovable because of something we have done or because of who we inherently are. As children of God, we love others because Christ first loved us. Only by having a heart that has been transformed by Him can we truly practice unconditional love.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.