"In everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus"

1 Thess 5:18

Found this poem online, which I thought really gets to the heart of this verse:

I woke up this morning and knew that today,
The sun would not be shining and the clouds would be gray.
As I stepped outside, rain fell upon my head.
My car wouldn’t start so I walked to school instead.

I forgot all of my assignments I failed all of my tests.
I dropped my head in disgust and asked the Lord for one request.
“Lord, why is it that things won’t go my way?”
He gently replied, “Dear child it is because you didn’t thank Me yesterday.

“I woke you up and enabled you to see the sun again.
I gave you shelter, protected your family, and even let you make a new friend.
I blessed you far greater than I ever had before.
But you were too busy to thank Me once more.

“You didn’t feel sick because I maintained your health.
You had money in your pocket because I maintained your wealth.
You had shoes on your feet and clothes to wear, too.
You had plenty of food to eat, and what did you do?

“You ignored Me and went about your tasks.
But when you wanted something you never hesitated to ask.
I was there when you needed Me and that wasn’t too long ago.
But when things started going your way, it was Me you did not know.

“As if that weren’t enough, I provided your favorite luxuries.
This was something I didn’t have to do – they weren’t even necessities.
And when it was time to get on your knees and show your gratitude,
You decided that after such a fulfilling day, you weren’t in the mood.

“So I decided to give you just a little test.
To show you how it would feel to stop being blessed.”

I began to realize what the Lord was saying.
And when I got home, I fell to my knees and started praying.

He said, “My child, you have learned and you know I do forgive.
But remember this day as long as you shall live.
I love filling your life with joy, and your pain I’ll alleviate it.
“But just a simple ‘thank you’ would show how much you appreciate it.”



It's easy enough to do this when things are going great and I see God answering prayers, but sometimes in the mundane of my life, I forget that God is still moving, still shifting things, still granting me favours, still watching over me behind the scenes. And even in the midst of trial and suffering, we are called to give thanks to God. It's like, what? All this suffering, all this pain, is still the will of God for my life? Doesn't He want me to be happy and fulfilled? Doesn't He want me to soar?

It's those times of trial and testing that we see God come through for us. Without those tests, we'd never grow or strengthen our faith. And it's reassuring to know, that no matter what the circumstances, no matter how bad things may seem, we'll never be able to run away from His sovereign will and plans.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness"

2 Co 12:9

It has really hit home in this past year, that in my own strength I am weak. I’ve slowly come to realise, that beneath the indifference, outward calmness and self-confidence, I am totally, completely, utterly afraid of failure. Before I came to know God, I was confident in my own abilities. I wanted to top my primary school, and so I did. I wanted a 99.5 ENTER score and get into med, and so I did. I wanted to break the magic 5 minute barrier for 1500m, and so I worked my butt off and did. And so in my life, I’d never experienced nor understood what it was like to fail, ever. It wasn’t even a distant thought or possibility.

Then I became Christian, and Phil 4:13 became one of my favourite verses and life went on smoothly. Until this year. I left studying in June way too late until I had basically a week to prepare for two exams. The morning of my first exam, I was definitely gonna fail if God didn’t come through for me. Needless to say, God spoke, came through for me, and the examiner told me I got full marks for one station which was worth 25% of the exam.

This semester, I told myself that it wasn’t gonna happen again, and so I started mugging 5 weeks before my exams, 3 hours a day. I was so well prepared that if it was a written paper I was confident I would get a H1. Over the course of two days, the stations (which weren’t written of course) were so amazingly easy that a 4th year medical student would’ve passed. Yet, I was so nervous, so afraid, that I messed up, shook like a leaf, didn’t read the questions properly, dropped equipment on the floor multiple times, completely blanked out, and made a complete hash of it.

After lining all my ducks in a row, I guess I basically fell apart. Once again, I had to cry out to God and say, “God if You don’t come through for me, I’ll never make it in my own strength”. I’m slowly learning now that in my weakness, His power, grace, and favour will come through. And He’s reminded me gently, that it’s His grace, not my own brains, that has gotten me through medical school and my life thus far.

God I thank You for Your grace. I thank You, that Your grace covers me in everything I do, every sin I commit, every difficulty I face. Help me realise, that it’s only when I am weak, that Your strength is made perfect. Help me learn, that it’s only in my weakness, that I’ll be able to see the blessings and miracles You want to pour out in my life. Help me remember that no matter what circumstances I face, You are before all things, and in You all things hold together. (Col 1:17)

Amen.

A friend asked me on Sunday how my prayer life was. Not in church, but in the quietness of my room, where there was no music, and no one watching, how would I approach the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords? I felt compelled to re-read a passage I’ve memorised ever since I was 5 years old, simply because if Jesus taught His disciples to pray that way, it must definitely be a good prayer! ^^

Matt 6:9-13

⁹After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

¹⁰Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

¹¹Give us this day our daily bread.

¹²And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

¹³And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

v9: “Our Father, which art in heaven”

The first step to an awesome prayer life is to acknowledge God as your Heavenly daddy. When I was a kid, dad was a superman who could do anything for me. He would carry me on his shoulders when I was too tired to walk, he would surprise and bless me with toys and things I wanted, he would give great hugs, and in my mind, daddy could do anything and fix anything that was broken. I loved running around and often got lost (especially on overseas trips :/), but each time, superman dad found me without fail. Likewise, God wants us to have childlike faith in Him, know that He loves us and hears our every cry, and that no matter where we turn or how far we run from Him, He’ll always be able to find us.

v9-10: “Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”

Praise Him for everything He’s done. Thank him even if you never get anything else from him, because He’s already blessed you so much. Realise that everything is under God’s control. You can’t have a great prayer life if you don’t believe that the one you’re praying to is able to intervene on the behalf on your circumstance.

v11: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Pray for provision. Asking God to “give us” implies our weakness, impotence and inability to do life on our own. It says that “God I don’t have what it takes, but I know that Your strength is made perfect in my weakness.” A request is a form of praise; you wouldn’t ask if you didn’t believe God has what you need. Do you believe that God has what you need for where you are right now? Do you believe that the God who saved you back then is relevant for the struggles you’re facing right now?

When the Israelites were in the desert for forty years, God provided them with manna every day. (except the Sabbath) Elijah was fed by the raven that brought him food each day. God didn’t allow them to stockpile food, and fed them one day at a time, because it kept them reliant on Him for provision, and required them to have faith that God was gonna continue remaining faithful in His provision each day. When some of the Israelites disobeyed God and kept manna for the next day, it went mouldy. Likewise, we need God’s Word and provision in our lives daily. You can’t fight today’s battles on yesterday’s bread. God has given you a new testimony, stop trying to rely on past revelations to get through today’s struggles. Don’t always expect God to meet your current needs the same way that He did before.

God I thank You for who You are and all that You’ve done. I thank You that I’m Your child, and that I am loved. Help me to keep trusting You each day, and to constantly seek You in all that I do. Thank You, for always being faithful and always coming through for me, even in the times when I’ve been weak or run away. Love ya Daddy. (: Amen.

My soul thirsts for you;
my whole body longs for you
in this parched and weary land
where there is no water.
I have seen you in your sanctuary
and gazed upon your power and glory.

Ps63:1-2

One week on, and still my prayer is the same, to be captivated by God’s glory. Psalm 63 explains why David, no matter what his physical condition was, sought God with a fiercely devout passion – he caught the revelation of God’s power and glory, and found that secret place of God’s presence. In order to give God due reverence, I hence feel the need to pursue the knowledge of the greatness of His glory.

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse”

Rom 1:20-21

All creation in the known and unknown universe declares God’s glory.

I remember going to the lego exhibits at the old world trade centre in Singapore, and being blown away by the attention to detail and size of the scale models such as the Titanic. I was impressed at how several thousand pieces of lego were painstakingly put together to form all the exhibits. Hence, when I consider and compare the work of God’s hands, I am completely, utterly, blown away. While I was impressed as a kid when a bunch of humans used a few thousand blocks of lego to build scale models, God has used cells as the building blocks of our human bodies and other living things. Each of us consists of a hundred trillion cells, and He designated them to perform specific tasks. And even then, cells consist of numerous tinier structures, and these tinier structures are made up of molecules, which are made up of compounds, which are in turn made up of atoms. Atoms are so small that the full stop at the end of this sentence contains more than a million of them.

This is the God I serve – a God who measured the universe by the span of His hand, yet is so detailed in His design of the earth and all living things, that modern science is still left baffled after years of study and billions of dollars. It lends a whole new meaning when I recall that “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”. (lalala too lazy to find out which psalm tt is frm ^^)

God, I thank You for this time in Your presence, where I can be still and dwell on the work of Your hands. I thank You for giving me a glimpse of Your glory tonight. As I extend my comprehension of Your greatness, may I increase my capacity to fear and revere You for who You are. May I always recall Your glory, and out of that, let faith rise above all circumstances, because I serve a great God who has made this same power available to me through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

I asked God for a glimpse of His glory, that I would be overwhelmed and praise Him for His greatness, and this is what spoke:

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge."
Ps 19:1-2

As you stop and think about the boundless expanse of the universe, you are able to catch a glimpse of just how big, how majestic, how powerful God is. His creation encompasses the rest of the universe that you cannot see. He created the stars and placed them in the sky with His fingers. You reflect on the figures you read a long time ago on the vastness of the universe, and you are amazed. Light from the sun takes 8 minutes 20 seconds to reach the earth. If we were to fly there on a plane it would take over 20 years to cover that distance. The nearest star is over 4 light years away, which would take 51 billion years to reach by airplane. The closest galaxy to the Milky Way is over 2 million light years away. We are unable to glimpse the end of the galaxy clusters, let alone the end of the universe, and yet God counts the number of the stars, counts them all by name, and is able to measure the length of the universe with the palm of His hand!

"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?"
Ps 8:3-4

Ps 8 records the response of one of the angels who surrounded the throne of God at Creation: this awesome, mighty God, who made the entire universe with His hands, decided to come down to Earth, one little planet in a little solar system within an average galaxy amongst a cluster of millions of other galaxy, so that He could make an insignificant speck of dust into the body of man, and breathe His spirit into it. What amazed the angel was God's focus of attention, that it would be fixed entirely on man, on us.


God, help me to be still in Your presence, and consider the work of Your hands. You are awesome, magnificient, powerful, the king of kings, Creator, all encompassing, the alpha and the omega. I praise You for everything that You've done. All creation declares Your glory. In light of Your glory and magnificience, who are we, that You are so interested in and fondly affectionate toward? Who are we, that we might constantly be on Your mind - the total focus of Your plans?

Help me gain a greater revelation of just how great Your love is for me God. Allow me to be so overwhelmed by Your grace and love, that I might be transformed and live a life that is pleasing to You. In light of who You are, and what You've done for me, help me to stop being an ungrateful brat. Fill me with a holy fear of You, and teach me to just pause and ask You what I can do to please You today. Amen.

Gen 3:22-24: Adam and Eve banished from the garden

"And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” ²³ So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. ²⁴ After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life."

3 chapters was all it took for man to forfeit the opportunity to have eternal bliss in relationship with God to spend a few moments in depravity with something in the flesh. 3 chapters was all it took for man to destroy the spiritual, blissful idea that God had of living throughout eternity with the object of His affection. God's voice must have shook with emotion as He asked, "what is this you have done?". And so God, filled with hurt, drove out the man and " placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life."

Have you ever had a good relationship go bad? Have you ever invested your time, your energy, your emotion, your passion, in someone who failed to reciprocate it? Have you ever loved someone with all your heart who turned you away for another? Do you feel the grief that emerges when love is not reciprocated and the mourning it produces? The sense of rejection is so painful, bleeding, glaring and degrading that it often feels as though there will never be any light at the end of the tunnel. Have you ever then asked God why? Or even blamed Him? God understands.

This is a God who had painstakingly and lovingly put together a home called earth, and a retreat called the garden of Eden, where he could set a man and woman in a controlled environment in which he might express His love. And He was rejected. The rejected God looked at Adam and Eve, and out of the depths of anger and overwhelming pain that is only known by a rejected lover, God said, "Get out!" You only ever get that angry and hurt when you have loved that much.

And all that remains are memories of a lost opportunity.
- the fellowship
- the intimacy
- the Garden of Eden and the provision
- the delight and intimacy of love
- the praises and worship that should have erupted from the human heart

So no matter how much hurt, how much pain, how much rejection you've gone through, it's ok. Because God's been there for us, because of us, before. And in spite of everything, He's managed to turn around what seemed like a hopeless downward spiral, arrested it, and given us a clean slate to move forward, free from the chains of the past, free from regrets and missed opportunities. He's set us free.

Happy Easter!

Romans 2: The Jews, just like the Gentiles, are shown to be under sin

• v1-3: The Jews were in general proud that they were God's chosen people, and hence looked with contempt upon the Gentiles, even though they were just as sacrilegious. Hence if the Gentiles, who only had God's creation and their own consciences to guide them, were inexcusable (Rom 1:20), how much less excuse would the Jews have, who had the law and the revealed will of God?
• v2: God's justice is based on truth, according to the heart and not the outward appearance.
  
• v4: "Do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?" - God's grace was free, but it wasn't free. It was the most expensive thing in the world. Am I gonna be someone who will treasure the riches of God's grace and receive it with thanksgiving, or am I gonna be someone who will treat His gift with contempt? Am I going to come back to God with something in return for His kindness, or am I gonna go on living life my own way, on my own terms and continue to break His heart? How much does God's kindness mean to me, and when I live out my life, do I show its importance to me? In every wilful sin, I am treating God's goodness with contempt. I need to realise, that God's kindness doesn't just lead to repentance, but leads ME to repentance. I need to thank God, that I'm not dragged or driven like a beast to repentance, but I am led, like a sheep led by a good shepherd.
• v5-6: this is the warning - that a hard and unpenitent heart is storing up for itself the wrath of God, for God is also a God of justice. God is angry with sinners each and every day (Ps 7:11), but He will not judge before the time (Ps 50:6), when the revelation of the righteous judgement of God will prevail (Rev 6:17)
• v7: It is ok to seek honour, glory and eternal life. We weren't meant to just live average lives. We were created to live lives of significance, of honour, of glory. But what concerns God is the methods we use to seek those things. By persistence in doing good, we seek honour and glory in His name and for His sake, because we are aligning ourselves for the right purposes: seeking glory and honour that is immortal.
• v8-9: the Spirit of God strives with sinners (Gen 6:3)
• v11: Jews and Gentiles stand on the same level before God. (Acts 10:34).
• v12-16: God will eventually come to judge, and the common denominator is man's obedience to one of three laws that God has revealed:
  1) the light of nature: God is a just and fair God; hence He will not judge the Gentiles for the transgression of the law they never had. Rather, those who sinned apart from the law will perish apart from the law. The Gentiles had their conscience, no law of Moses nor any supernatural revelation.
  2) the light of the law: this is what the Jews would be judged by. The Jews prided themselves in having the law, but Paul reminds us in v13, that having and hearing the Word does not justify, but only a do-er of the Word will be justified. (James 1:22)
  3) the light of the gospel (v16)
• v17-19: The Jews were a special people, separated and distinguished from all others by their having the written law and the special presence of God among them; as a result, many of them were arrogant and proud. Yet, as Rev 2:9 puts it, many of the synagogue of Satan will say that they are Jews, as they boast of their heritage and privileges as though these are sufficient in themselves to attain the kingdom of God.
• v20: Christians are a guide for the blind, light for those in the dark, instructor of the foolish, teacher of infants, and blessed with knowledge and truth. Paul is speaking against those well versed in religion and theology, yet a stranger to godliness and purity i.e. hypocrisy. The Jews 'approved' and were convinced that the Gentiles had to go to them for instruction and guidance, but it was this pride and self deference in heaping up titles of honour upon themselves that was unacceptable to God.
• v21-22: The Jews sinned against their knowledge and against what they preached. It was the hypocrisy of the Pharisees that they did not do as they taught (Matt 23:3). They pulled down with their lives (i.e. by their example) what they attempted to build up with their preaching (i.e. their words). Stealing, adultery and robbing God (?in tithes and offerings cf Mal 3)
• v23-24: breaking the law = dishonouring God. The Jews treated God and His law as an honour/title to them which they boasted of, but they were a dishonour to God in their daily lives.
• v25: cf Gal 5:1-2 - "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. ² Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all." Circumcision is of value if one observed the law i.e. obedient Jews would not lose the reward of their obedience. God did not give the law nor appoint circumcision in vain, before the ceremonial law was abolished and fulfilled in Christ. Circumcision however, would be made uncircumcision (i.e. be no more justified than the unjustified Gentiles), if they broke the law. Being uncircumcised = being unclean (Isa 52:1) and out of the covenant (Eph 2:11-12)
• v26-27: The uncircumcised Gentiles stand upon the same level with the Jews if they "keep the law's requirements" and "obeys the law". For example, Cornelius was a Gentile, yet being a devout man and one that feared God with all his house (Acts 10) he was accepted. Circumcision was commanded to the Jews, but it was never a necessary condition of justification and salvation.
• v27-28: True circumcision is not outward in the flesh, but also of the heart. We are not to place our trust in the observance of rituals and traditions as though they are sufficient to bring us to heaven. It is the heart that God looks at - "The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live" (Deu 30:6)