Mei You Hong Bao?
Gei Ni Black Eye!
(Happy New Year!
Give me my Ang Bao [Red Envelope]
No Ang Bao?
I'll give you a black eye!)
Ah, that time of the year again! The streets are red, my name is placed upside-down on every doorway, and everyone is distributing money in ang paos! But now that church would be held at the Singapore Expo today, a real hard place to reach from here, and since me and my Mom's Worship Sunday has been used up this fortnight, I guess there's no Church for me today. But since I did dedicate this blog to the Lord, and since I promised Him that I'd use every Sundays' posts to preech about Him, I shall attempt to make a sermon of my own. So before I leave for my Uncle's house to celebrate tonight, I shall do a little message about Christ. Here goes:
Does Christ Make Sense?
By Pastor RaeMichael Plum Prosvictor
(That's my name if it's translated fully into English...)
Today, I'd like to share about how 'impossible' Christianity and explain the difficulties faced by fellow Christians around the world.
Now, borothers and sisters of Christ, we all know the tough difficulties in life, and sometimes these difficulties feel so disasterous that we wonder if God is actually up there watching us, ever bothering to come down and relieve us from the burdens. In fact, with everyday happenings and new discoveries madein the fields of science and technology, miracles of Christ start appearing to loose their value. We sometimes ask ourselves, "What if this isn't real? What if I'm just part of a ultra-large fan club of a 2000 year old book? What if all the miracles in my life wern't by God at all? What if they were just by chance?"
"What if Christ doesn't exsist at all?"
Well, I shall now try my best to explain your doubts. In the doubt of how God seems so impossible in comparrison to the ways of the world, here's what I've got to say. Christ IS suppose to be 'Impossible'. It's just so 'ridiculous', so 'weird', so 'foolish', that it's just too crazy to be true. I mean, God made man out of dirt, flooded the globe, splitted the Red Sea, raised dry bones to life, defeated Judah and Israel at alteernate times and brought his Son back to heaven full and alive with holes in His hands and feet, and yet He can't do such miracles now? What happened? The evidences of man keep piling up against God.
I'd say we're just not believing enough. I know many people who believe God lives but can't seem to trust that God has it all under control in their lives. Read 1 Corinthians 1:21-25. It says there;
21For God in his wisdom made it impossible for people to know Him by means of their own wisdom. Instead, by means of the so-called "foolish" message we preach, God decided to save those who believe. 22Jews want miracles for proof, and Greeks look for wisdom. 23As for us, we proclaim the crucified Christ, a message that is offencive to the Jews and nonsense to the Gentiles; 24but for those whom God has called, both Jews and Gentiles, this message is Christ, who is the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For what seems to be God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and what seems to be God's weakness is stronger that human strength.
God made sure that He exsisted as an 'impossibe being' so as to test your faith in Him. He wants to know that His creations trust in Him and that they know He's in control. Let's take a look in Job.
Now, Job was a very God-fearing man; a very good example for fellow Christians to follow. He was a sucessfully rich man, 'the richest man in the East', with a big family, large amounts of properties and a splendid lifestyle! Even his sons took their turnHe praised the Lord in whatever he did, gained or celebrated, and God was so ever as proud of him. Then one day in heaven, when the heavenly beings were doing a council meeting with God, Satan decided to drop by. God then saw him and ask what he's been up to lately.
"Oh, nothing much," said the devil. "Just roaming about the world walking here and there."
"Have you checked out My servant Job?" asked God. "There is no one on earth as faithful and good as he is. He worships Me and is careful not to do evil."
"Oh, really?" questioned the devil. "I think that's just because You're blessing him too much. I bet if you took away all that he's got, he'll curse You to Your face!"
"Suit yourself," the Lord replied. "Everything he has is in your power: destroy his life anyway you wish. But you shall not lay even a finger on Job himself. I shall prove to you once and for all that he loves me that much."
"Yes, yes, yes. I get it," assured the devil, as he went off to do all he could to forfill his side of the bet. He want to destroy hs life stocks and kill his children, and Job was definitely grieving. But he still never blamed God for anything, praising Him while lieing down with his face on the floor instead.
At another council meeting in heaven, Satan dropped by again and God boasted to him about how Job still continued to worship Him. But then Satan said, "Yah, sure. But That's just because I could only take away his belongings. I bet if I could hurt his body, He'll swearat Your face like never before!"
"Fine," said the Lord. "His flesh is in your power. But you are not to kill him."
"Yah, yah," said the devil, as he made his way to start the torture. He made sores break out all over Job's body, which were so bad, Jod had to go get a piece of broken pottery just to scratch them. By now, his wife was very dubtful of the happenings and even advised Jod to just curse God and die. But Job, still as faithful as ever, told her that she was foolish to think of such intentions.
"When God sends us something good," explained Job, "we welcome it. How can we complain when he sends us trouble?"
Even Jobs friends visited him when they found out how much he's been suffering and so wanted to comfort him. This continued for many days until finally, Job broke the silence and complained to God for almost 34 chapters. But when God see him so angry and deprived, He counter-argued with Job for the next 4 chapters, making His point to Job that He knew what He was doing, since after all, everything in the world is His doing. Then Job prayed for forgiveness, and God answered his prayer, blessing him later with twice as much as he had before his suffering (Double properties, double finance, double family, ect.). He also a life long enough for him to even see his great-grandchildren.
So what I think the moral of this senario is: When life seems very difficult, dont blame God. He's probrably boasting to Satan on how proud He is over you, so just praise the Lord, give it your best shot and prove Satan wrong!
And don't worry if you thik the situation is to tough for you to face. God ensures that you'll always pull through, just as long as you know Who's in charge. In Isaiah 43:1-5, it says;
1Israel, the Lord who created you says,
"Do not be afraid - I will save you.
I have called you by name - you are mine.
2When you pass through deep waters, I will be with you;
your troubles will not overwhelm you.
When you pass through fire, you will not be burnt;
the hard trials that come will not hurt you.
3For I am the Lord your God,
the holy God of Israel, who saves you.
I will give up Egypt to set you free;
I will give up Ethiopia and Seba.
4I will give up whole nations to save your life,
because you are precious to me and because I love you and give you honour.
5Do not be afraid - I am with you!
So God really loves you, and He'd do anything to keep you safe. So just have faith in Him and trust that He'll bring everything together. And if you feel so insignifcant and failure-prone due to the things that life toss onto you, just remember 1 Corinthians 27:
27God purposely chose what the world concidered nonsense to shame the wise, and He chose what the world concidered weak in order to shame the powerful.
And that makes feeling worthless worth it, 'cause if you trust God, you'd know that one day God will use you as a testimony to His glory. And the best thing is, He never discards his works of art! You will enjoy His blessings for as long as you live, and all you have to do is just believe!
My final attempt to help illustrate God's reasons for allowing misfortunes in life is this;
Imagine a whiteboard, with a very long mathermatical equation written across it. Now, let's say the whiteboard is covered with a curtain, and the curtain is slowly being pulled to the side to reveil what's written. When you watch what appears so far, you may end up seeing something like: [7 x 12] + 2, with the rest of the equation still covered. It makes sense at first, until more is reveiled. You can now see: [7 x 12] + 2 = 6. This equation appears to be incorrect and, being the maths fan you are, can get rather offended by the mistake. You then give up waiting for the resat of the equation and stomp out of the lecture, only to miss out that once the curtain was fully pulled, it'll show: [7 x 12] + 2 = 6 - [15 x 6]. You've justmissed out on the correct equation, thinking it was an unfair one.
Now int he same way with life, God reveils your life to you as time goes by. But when the things in life somehow look wrong, you think it'll stay that way and don't trust that the 'equation is correct'. But if you still believe in the Lord, and push true along with Him, God will soon show you the later half of the equation, showing to you that the whole things was actually balanced.
That's all I can say for now. Will be leaving for dinner at my Uncle's this evening, so wish me good luck! Happy Chinese New Year to one and all, and may the God of Heaven and Earth be with you through your times of suffering and pleasure!
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