Blessed is the Soul of the Diligent

“Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it and will follow it. Labor is life; from the inmost heart of the worker rises his God-given force, the sacred, celestial life-essence breathed into him by almighty God” (Thomas Carlyle).

Thomas Edison sent the following recommendations to a youth assembly that requested a message from him:

1)    Always be interested in whatever you undertake.

2)    Don’t mind the clock, but keeps at it, and let nature indicate the necessity of rest.

3)    Failures, so called, are the fingerposts pointing out the right direction to those who are willing to learn.

4)    Hard work and genuine interest in everything that makes for human progress will make men and women more valuable and acceptable to themselves and to the world.

“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing,

while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied” (Proverbs 13:4, ESV).

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Walk with God in the Dark

“For we live by believing and not by seeing” (2 Corinthians 5:7, NLT).

“When we cannot trace God’s hand we can trust His heart”

(Charles H. Spurgeon)

A father, seeing three small children playing atop a high fence, feared that they would fall, and so he cried,

“Come, jump into my arms!”

Two of them promptly did so. The other hesitated. Why did the third child reach more slowly? The father explained,

“The first two obeyed immediately because they were my own children. They knew me and therefore trusted me.”

So, too, those who truly know and love the Lord never resist His good leading.

So I go on not knowing,

I would not if I might;

I’d rather walk with God in the dark

Than to walk alone in the light;

I had rather walk with Him by faith

Than to walk alone by sight.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Learn Spiritual-Reality from the Ant and the Grasshopper Story (Retold)

Remembering, retelling and contextualized an old story by Aesop, a Greek story teller, with new insights in my mind: It was hot weather in Malaysia. A grasshopper was hoping around, enjoying the heat and singing with joy. The grasshopper didn’t feel he had a care in the world, and he was enjoying the moment.

An ant passed by the grasshopper carrying a large piece of nut he was attempting to take back to his storeroom. The ant was wondering if he could seek help from his friend the grasshopper. Before the ant could ask for help, the grasshopper suggested,

“Why don’t you come and play with me?

You are working way too hard for this fine day.”

The ant replied, “I’m gathering food for the rainy reason. It would be best if you started to think about what you are going to do for nourishment during the rainy days.”

“Oh, that’s unnecessary. Raining won’t be that long. It will be fine soon,” the grasshopper responded, “and there is always time for things like that. Besides, look around, there’s plenty of food to go around.”

The ant left, disappointed in his friend, but continued to work. When the rainy season happened, the grasshopper realized that the place where he stayed was about to be flooded – no more food and he had nothing stored for himself. “I should have listened to my friend, the ant,” he thought, “Now I will go hungry.”

……………………..

There are many lessons we can learn from this story. Here I have two important lessons that I want to share with you:

First, we must learned what God have revealed (and continue to reveals) about Himself and about how to live our lives as His followers from His written Word – the Bible. The grasshopper didn’t listen and didn’t store food for unexpected long rainy season. When we need to know something – what’s right and wrong; true and false; truth and lie – it is often too late to learn. The right concepts of who God is – His characters and attributes – and our believing faith and abiding trust in Him should be learned from His Word continuously by head and heart before the ‘rainy season’ that may come in the form of troubles, sufferings, persecutions, trials, doubts and discouragements comes into our lives. Well-build faith can stand any weather of life.

Second, we ought not to just learn and apply God’s Word in our own lives but we must urgently win souls for Christ. The ant do told the grasshopper about the coming rainy reason, but he wasn’t trying hard enough. Surely he was well fed from the corn, grain and nuts he had stored during the fine weather, but he was unable to convince his friend to gather food to survive the long rain, even though it was for the grasshopper’s own good. As Christ followers, we must be on mission to tell others about Christ urgently. Missionary, not maintainer, is our way of life. Yes, we need to be saved ourselves, but after we are saved then we need to tell others about the Good News we have in Christ. Convince the lost souls of their sins against God and their needs for the Saviour. Pray that they may repent. Influence them with love displayed by your sincere words and living example under the Lordship of Christ. If we love God, we love people too.

The loving Father, the most awesome Saviour

And the gentle Spirit be with you. Amen.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

I Post this for My Prettiest Friend

Prettiest Friend

By Jason Mraz

This is what I look like today
And I'm trying not to pull out my hair
I'm trying not to show it 'cause I'm far too shy to grow it back there
That's probably why I like wearing hats
There's no denying I'm deferring the facts
Avoiding confrontation
Lacks tact in a situation
Behind every line is a lesson yet to learn

But if you ask me
The feeling that I'm feeling is overwhelming
And oh, it goes to show
I've so much to know

I wrote this for my prettiest friend
Who while trying not to prove that I care
Trying not to make all my moves in one motion and scare her away
Well she can't see she's making me crazy now
I don't believe she knows she's amazing how
She has me holding my breathe
So I'd never guess that I'm a none such unsuitable, suited for her

But if you ask me
The feeling that I'm feeling is complimentary
And oh, it goes to show
The moral of the story is boy loves girl
And so on the way that it unfolds is yet to be told

I know that I should be brave
Even pretty can be seen by the blind
I know that I cannot wait
Until the day we finally learn how to find each other
Redefining open minds

And if you ask me
The feeling that I'm feeling is overjoyed
And it's golden, it goes to show then
The ending of this song should be left alone
And so on 'cause the way it unfolds is yet to be told

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

C.H. Spurgeon on Burden for the Lost

“For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost”

(Luke 19:10, NLT).

Spurgeon Gold compiled by Ray Comfort is one of treasure books for me. It is a book that contains hundreds of Charles H. Spurgeon Prince of Preachers’s finest quotes from his sermons that can (or for the purpose of) advanced the evangelistic endeavor. He (1384-1950) was a great soul winner of his time. He has a tremendous burden for the lost as his Master does. He preached,

“If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.

Do we really believe that sinners will be damned forever? Do we think about their fate very often, if ever? Or do we busy ourselves in the work of the Lord, and never bother to implore them to come to the Savior? In general, the modern pulpit is deathly silent when it comes to the horrors of Hell. When do we hear preaching about the reality of the Lake of Fire or of the terrible wrath of God? Such themes aren’t popular with modern preachers. They never have been. They are not popular with me. Other topics are more attractive, but preachers must not ignore of the fate of the lost, because if we do, we run the risk of it also being ignored in the pews.

How we fall short of having the passion we should. How would we react if we saw a huge line of blind men walking towards a thousand foot cliff, and one by one falling headlong onto jagged rocks below? Wouldn’t we put our arms around them to hold them back? Wouldn’t we implore them and scream at them to turn around? Yet we don’t warn or plead with those whose fate is infinitely worse than that of those who would fall onto jagged rocks.

Our passive preaching and careful-not-to-offend vocabulary betray our apathy and our unbelief. If we don’t implore the world to turn from sin it’s because we don’t truly believe God’s Word. We mustn’t. We cannot be so deathly cold, so evil-hearted as to not care. We haven’t let the reality of Hell sink into our minds and soften our hard hearts. The fact of its existence should horrify us beyond words, and then it should be reflected in our prayers and in our preaching.”

Do you have burden for the lost? Master Jesus has. You too must have…

“For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost”

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Eugene H. Peterson on Eating the Book!

“I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll; and he said to me, ‘Take it, and eat; it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey to your mouth.’ And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter.” (Revelation 10:9-10)

 

Apostle John who wrote the inspired Book of Revelation in the Bible was an early-church apostle and pastor and writer is stood before the angel and eats the scroll. Hey, he eats the scroll! This is the most striking biblical metaphor for reading the Scripture. “He ate the book”, observed Eugene H. Peterson, “Not just reads it – he got it into his nerve endings, his reflexes, his imagination. The book he ate was Holy Scripture.” Can you imagine if God ask you to eat the Holy Scripture? Can you swallow it? Wait, it is just a metaphor. But have you ever wondered what does it mean to “take it, and eat”? How does it apply to us now?

In his introduction for Eat this Book: The Art of Spiritual Reading, Eugene H. Peterson (author of The Message) wrote about what does it really mean to read the Bible and how we should read it:

“I have been at this business of reading the Bible ever since I was not much older than Hans (his seven-year-old grandson). Twenty years after I first started reading it I became a pastor and a professor; for over fifty years now I have been vocationally involved in getting the Christian Scriptures into the minds and hearts, arms and legs, ears and mouths of men and women. And I haven’t found it easy. Why isn’t it easy?

Simply this. The challenge – never negligible – regarding the Christian Scriptures is getting them read, but read on their own terms, as God’s revelation. It seems as if it would be the easiest thing in the world. After five or six years of schooling, schooling that the whole community pitches in to pay for, most of us can read most of what is written in the Bible. If you don’t own one and can’t afford to buy one, you can steal a Bible from nearly any hotel or motel in the country (except in Malaysia of course). And without fear of arrest – who has ever been arrested on a misdemeanor charge for stealing a Bible in this fair land?

But as it turns out, in this business of living the Christian life, ranking high among the most neglected aspects is one having to do with reading of the Christian Scriptures. Not that Christians don’t own and read their Bibles. And not that Christians don’t believe that their Bibles are the word of God. What is neglected is reading the Scriptures formatively, reading in order to live.

…’reading’ but not reading, reverent and devout but uncomprehending, honoring in a most precious way this book but without awareness that it has anything to do with [everyday life]… the Scripture depersonalized into an object to be honored; the Scriptures detached from precedence and consequence… it is the devil’s own work to take what is presently endearing and innocent… and perpetuate it into a lifetime of reading marked by devout indifference.

What I want to say, countering the devil, is that in order to read the Scriptures adequately and accurately, it is necessary at the same time to live them. Not to live them as a prerequisite to reading them, and not to live them in consequence of reading them, but to live them as we read them, the living and reading reciprocal, body language and spoken words, the back-and-forthness assimilating the reading to the living, the living to the reading. Reading the Scriptures is not an activity discrete from living the gospel but one integral to it. It means letting Another have a say in everything we are saying and doing. It is as easy as that. And as hard.”

“Take it, and eat” mean to live the Bible as we read it;

To read in order to live it;

To let God of the Scriptures have a say in everything we are saying and doing.

Are you really reading the Bible?

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP. EAT THIS BOOK!

Cabaran untuk Misi: Kita Mesti Pergi!

“Melalui engkau, Aku akan memberkati semua bangsa di bumi"

(Kejadian 12:3, BM)

“Pergilah kepada semua bangsa di seluruh dunia

dan jadikanlah mereka pengikut-Ku”

(Matius 28:19, BM)

Alkitab mengatakan bahawa semua orang yang percaya harus pergi ke seluruh dunia dan mengkhabarkan Berita Baik daripada Allah kepada seluruh umat manusia. Ini tidak bermaksud bahawa hanya sesetengah orang yang ‘terpilih’ sahaja yang harus pergi atau semua orang Kristian harus pergi ke negera lain – tidak. Maksud Firman ini ialah semua orang yang percaya harus mentaati perintah dan mengikuti kehendak Allah.

Tidak kira samada kita pergi ke seluruh Malaysia, atau Indonesia, Brunei, Timor Leste, atau Jepun. Ianya bergantung kepada dimana Tuhan mengutus kita (tempat kerja, sekolah, kampus, pelayanan misi). Jika kita pergi ke tempat dimana Dia tidak mengutus kita – kita tidak akan menjadi efektif. Dengan ini, kita perlu mengikuti Yesus dan mendengar suara-Nya. Yesaya 30:21 mengatakan, “Jika kamu menyimpang ke kanan atau ke kiri, kamu akan mendengar suara-Nya di belakang kamu berfirman, ‘Inilah jalannya, ikutlah jalan ini!’” (BM). Ianya tentang mengikuti Tuhan Yesus dengan segenap hati kita dan melakukan perkara yang difirmankan-Nya.

Setiap orang Kristian harus pergi ke tempat di mana Tuhan memanggil mereka. Cuba kamu baca pelayanan rasul Paulus di dalam Kisah Rasul-Rasul. Dia tidak membuat jadual dia sendiri, Roh Kudus yang memimpin dan menggerakkan dia. Namun begitu, ia tidak bermaksud kita hanya duduk di rumah dan menunggu wahyu dari syurga datang. Ada orang yang saya kenal berkata bahawa dia ingin sangat untuk menjadi pelayan misi selepas membaca cabaran untuk misi di dalam artikel blog saya. Suatu hari dia berdoa di dalam gelap, katanya, ‘Tuhan Yesus, jika Engkau memanggil saya untuk menjadi pelayan misi di gereja saya, pasangkan lampu dan saya tahu bahawa itu ialah jawapan dari-Mu.’ Tidak ada apa-apa yang berlaku dan dia tidak lagi mencari kehendak-Nya! (Kalaulah dia hanya membaca Alkitab dan berdoa).

Adakah nyawa ini milik kita atau milik Tuhan? Adakah Dia Tuhan atau kita ialah Tuhan? Sedih sekali, ramai di antara orang Kristian sebenarnya beranggapan bahawa kehidupan ini ialah milik mereka yang mutlak. Mereka ada keinginan, pelan dan perancangan untuk mengumpul harta dunia – dan Tuhan berada di tempat kedua di hati mereka. Kita tentu pernah mendengar atau membaca doa seperti ini, ‘Ini ialah perancangan saya [.......], berkatilah ia Tuhan’ dan bukannya, ‘Tunjukkan saya kehendak-Mu Tuhan dan saya sanggup pergi ke mana sahaja dan melakukan apa sahaja yang Engkau kehendaki.’ Jika kita berdoa seperti yang terakhir tadi, maka, Tuhan pasti akan menjawab doa kita.

Jika kita benar-benar berdoa untuk mencari kehendak Allah di dalam hidup kita, percayalah bahawa Dia akan membuka jalan bagi kita untuk pergi ke tempat yang Dia ingini – dan perkara yang luar biasa pasti akan berlaku! Pergi dan Tuhan akan menunjukkan kepada kita ke mana kita harus pergi dan apa yang perlu dilakukan. Panggilan untuk “pergi” adalah perintah yang sangat penting sekali. Ianya bukanlah suatu jemputan atau idea semata-mata – ia ialah perintah daripada Tuhan sendiri. Jadi setiap orang, juga termasuk kamu yang membaca artikel ini, akan dihakimi samada kita mengikuti perintah-Nya atau tidak.

Biarlah kehendak kita sama dengan kehendak-Nya iaitu supaya “semua bangsa di seluruh dunia” mendengar Berita Baik tentang Yesus Kristus dan menjadikan mereka pengikut-Nya. Kita mesti pergi!

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.