Never Diversify with God

As the European financial crisis unfolds, it reminds the prudent investor to diversify his assets and risks across various classes.

We should however NEVER diversify away our faith and allegiance to our God and Lord. Never think that Christ is just one of the many deities to diversify away risk of failure or going to hell.

We shall have no other gods other than our Lord.

What does it mean to glorify God and enjoy Him?

What does it mean to glorify God and enjoy Him?

We have to answer this question as the Westminster catechism claims this as the chief end of man. The purpose of man’s life. We have already answered the question of where we have come from. That is, the origins of man. Now the next question, what is our purpose in life?

I have come across many abstract answers, but i realized that the answer from the bible is clear and simple. In fact, it fills the entire bible. It would help if we first we answer the question. What’s our relationship with Him?

Romans 8:14-15 “All those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, Abba, Father!”

Galatians 4:6-7 “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father! So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”

Our relationship with Him is not just God and follower. It is much more intimate. We, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, can address God as Abba, Father! Abba denotes a very intimate term, similar to Daddy. The way Jesus recognize His Father, this recognition is placed in our hearts for us to similarly address God as Father. In short, He is our heavenly Father.

Having established that relationship, I think its easy to know how to glorify Him and enjoy Him.
Put in a simpler manner, how do you glorify your earthly father (dad) and enjoy him?

Glorifying God

We glorify our fathers by obeying them. By loving them. By looking up to them. By honoring them, exalting them, being thankful to them for their upbringing, not bringing shame to their name with our own foolish actions, and basically everything we do, we do it in consideration for them.

The same goes for our Heavenly Father to glorify Him. How you glorify your earthly father, you glorify your Heavenly Father. Of course our earthly father might fall short in certain areas. But do we ourselves who have become fathers fall short? Yet we still try to glorify them. What more a perfect, holy, righteous, all loving, all merciful Heavenly Father?

Enjoying God

Next, how do we enjoy God? The same way we enjoy our earthly fathers, only that this joy we enjoy in our Heavenly Fathers far surpasses the joy we have in our earthly fathers in time, space and nature. I love my earthly father. In fact, Ephesians 6:1-3 teaches us to both obey and honor our parents. But above that, we are to love our Heavenly Father more than our earthly father.

We enjoy our earthly father’s presence with us even without materials. He protects us, we know we are safe with him, we have peace. He loves us, provides for us, sacrifices for us.

What more we can enjoy our Heavenly Father’s presence with us, His peace with us through the abolishing of His wrath upon us by the blood of Christ, again His love for us by sending Christ to die for us, His providence for us always giving us our daily bread, His protection for us through His Word, His church, leading us away from evil, from temptation, and His future reward for us.

I hope that the above has helped you in understanding what it means to glorify and enjoy God as the utmost purpose of our lives.

Psalm 86:12-13 “I will praise you with all my heart, Lord my God, and will honor your name forever. For your faithful love for me is great, and you deliver my life from the depths of Sheol.”

Gong gong's 1st Anniversary

It has been one year since Gong gong was called home to the Lord. I am thankful to God that He has released him from physical pain on the earth and on to a glorious body in heaven.

As i recalled one year ago, the struggles he faced, it brings back tears to my heart. But through it, he got to know and trust more upon God, that though nearing the face of death, he was not in fear or despair, but in peace with God, for Christ has shed His blood for Him.

Yes I miss him. But one day, we will see each other again in heaven. With this joy and hope, i remind myself that i have to use my life to serve and glorify our great God.

Joy in Serving God

A Summary of Lessons from Ephesians

As we draw to a close the epistle of Ephesians, let’s reflect on some major lessons learnt in the epistle.

1.       Remembering our RICH blessings in Christ

His Grace

1:7-8 “We have redemption in Him through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace that He lavished on us through all wisdom and understanding.”

His Peace

1:2 “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Our Sonship

1:5 “He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ for Himself, according to His favor and will,”

We have the privilege to fulfill His pleasure and purpose

1:9 “He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure that He planned in Him”

We have the privilege to glorify Him

1:12 “so that we who had already put our hope in the Messiah might bring praise to His glory”.

His calling of us and us gaining His inheritance

1:18 “you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the glorious riches of His inheritance among the saints,”

His Power and Strength to us

1:19 “what is the immeasurable greatness of His power to us who believe, according to the working of His vast strength.”

His Love for us

2:4 “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us,”

We are His workmanship

2:10 “For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared of time so that we should walk in them.”

His Spirit Strengthening Us Spiritually

3:16 “I pray that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power in the inner man through His Spirit,”

His Offering and Sacrifice for Us

5:2 “And walk in love, as the Messiah also loved us and gave Himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.”

His Armor for Us

6:13 “This is why you must take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.”

With so much richness in Christ, what is our response?  Not interested, not concerned? Is this whole thing just fictional, some cleverly invented tale? Or yes, I want the riches but with regards to the costs, I am not willing to pay the price yet as I am still young? For now, I just want temporal earthly riches which will vanish like a vapor instead of storing treasures in heaven for eternity that will not root or decay?

Let us seek Christ’s richness. It infinitely surpasses earthly riches. Even the financial rules of present/future value will prove this. Temporal present value vs Eternal present value. Do the math.

Still finding it hard to seek Christ’s richness?

Let me tell you three verses from Matthew.

13:44 “The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure, buried in a field, that a man found and reburied. Then in his joy, he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field.”

13:45-46 “Again, the kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When he found one priceless pearls, he went and sold everything he had, and bought it.”

Are you feeling weary, depressed, empty? There is joy like no other in the richness of Christ. For it brings eternal REWARDS. How do we have joy in service? Aim for the heavenly rewards which result from the richness of Christ. This is the TRUE PROSPERITY GOSPEL. The Heavenly Prosperity gospel. It far exceeds the material prosperity gospel which spurs the lust and greed of the human heart for material wealth distancing oneself from God.

Matt 5:12 “Be glad and rejoice, BECAUSE your reward is great in heaven.”

It is perfectly ok to have joy because of striving for that reward in heaven.

Matt 10:37-39 “The person who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, the person who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever doesn’t take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Anyone finding his life will lose it and anyone losing his life because of Me will find it.”

It is not self defeating or simply being a passive, negative, sorrow filled believer that we take up our cross to follow Jesus. It is for the sake of truly finding LIFE. Finding the riches of Christ. Finding the rewards of Christ. Striving for it.

Heb 11:26 “For he considered the reproach because of the Messiah to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, since his attention was on the reward.”

1 Cor 9:24 “Don’t you know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way to win the prize.”

Php 3:14 “I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.”

Pursue the Riches and Rewards of Christ. It brings about true, heavenly, fulfilling joy.

More summary lessons in future posts…

Eph 6:10-20 Putting on the Whole Armour of God

Eph 6:10-20 Putting on the Whole Armour of God

Paul commands us to be strong in the Lord by putting on His armour (v10).  This is for the purpose of standing firm against the schemes of the devils (v11-12). To stand firm means to resist when evil and temptation surrounds us (v13). The analogy that Paul uses is that of a warrior preparing himself for battle. We are spiritual warriors preparing ourselves a battle against the forces of wickedness.

Too often we are comfortable Christians, refusing to stand up for biblical truths in daily living. We refuse to stand up to errors. We refuse to confront wickedness.  We refuse to put on the armor and go to the front lines. We stay at the back, turn our backs on the battle, and refuse to pay a price that involves going to battle. We just want to lead a comfortable Christian life. If you refuse to preach the gospel, you may lead a comfortable live for no one will criticize you, for thinking that you are weird, for thinking you are too arrogant, claiming that Christ is the only way. If you refuse to stand up for Christian principles, you will not invite controversy, for things like homosexuality, gambling, pre-marital sex are just relative choices. You may have a few good years of sleep. But only temporarily, before you have to stand before God and give an account of your actions, or inactions.

We are commanded to put on the armor of God to go to war. This is not a vain war where the struggle is just against nations, but rather, this war is purposeful. It is intended by God, for His glory, to battle against the forces of wickedness. It is a war worth fighting. We are to battle against falseness, against sin, against unrighteousness, and to bring the gospel truth forth. Putting on the armour conveys permanence, indicating a lifelong putting on of the armor. Armor is continually wore on in battle.

When waves of confusion hit us, we are to remain standing firm. When waves of and ridicule and persecution hit us, we are to remain standing firm. When waves of discouragement hit us, we are to remain standing firm.

We stand firm

• ·         by girding our loins with truth
• ·         putting on the breastplates of righteousness
• ·         shodding our feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
• ·         Taking up the shield of faith against flaming arrows of the devil
• ·         Taking the helmet of salvation
• ·         Having the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.
• ·         By praying at all times in the Spirit, being alert with all perseverance and petitioning for all the saints to preach the gospel with boldness

To summarize, we remain standing firm by embracing the Word of God hence being alert to falseness, by preaching the truth gospel, by having faith that God will prevail, by prayer for saints to preach boldly.

How should we response? Obedience to put on the armor. Continually put on the armor. Familiarity in the armor. Alertness in the armor. If we fall asleep while in battle, quickly resume your positions.

Put on the armor today. Now let’s identify what are the schemes of the devil that we face today? 

Ephesians 6:1-3 Obey our Parents

Ephesians 6:1-3 Obey our Parents

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” - which is the first commandment with a promise, - “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

We have come to the final chapter of Ephesians, in which Paul is coming to the end of teaching the Ephesian churches valuable practical lessons. We come now to an important lesson that we ought to remind ourselves, obeying our parents.

This is so basic and simple, but yet it risks our over-familiarity with it that we just brush it off without examining our own lives to see how we fall short of this.

Obey Your Parents as You Would the Lord

In the NIV, the verse writes, “Obey your parents, in the Lord.” In the HCSB version, it writes, “Obey your parents, as you would the Lord,” Naturally, Paul is saying, how you have obeyed the Lord, you ought to likewise obey your parents in a similar fashion. Paul assumes here that the reader is in obedience to the Lord. This will also lead the inference that, if we don’t obey the Lord in the first place, chances are, we are not going to obey our parents. If your spiritual life is bad, your relationship with your parents will be bad. 

When you do not have a sense of your heavenly father, you will not have a sense of your earthly father.

In a sense, our testimony in church mirrors our lives outside the church. Members of the church who do not seem serious about serving, not interested in pursing ways to submit to the Lord, often, they have a strained relationship with their parents. They are haphazard about service in church, and they are haphazard about serving their own duty in the household. They only want to indulge in their interests but are not concerned about the needs of the family.

We are constantly fighting to establish ourselves as authority that we need to be reminded about submission to God ordained authority through Him and through our parents.

Obey our Parents because they are God’s Ordained Authority in our Lives.

The child in the home is to be willingly under the authority of parents with obedient submission to them. Our parents are the agents of authority our Lord has placed over us. We have to obey our parents as though obeying our Lord. Obeying our Lord will bring forth true obedience to our parents. How we submit to the Lord, we should submit to our parents too. They are God’s ordained authority in our lives. This is the way God has designed and required it.

Col 3:20 “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.”

If you claim God as Lord, you will obey your parents. Else, you might just be a seemingly fervent religious fanatic but yet is a hypocrite. You serve fervently in church, but yet at home, you put on a different face. May we examine ourselves in this.

Obey Our Parents not just Physically but in Inward Attitudes, Honor them as well

Verse 1 speaks of action. We are to obey our parents. Verse 2 tells us of our attitude. We ought to honor them. This is the motive behind the physical actions of obedience. We should treat them in high respect, esteem. There is a chinese saying that when a young bird starts to have its wings hardened, it will fly away. 

We naturally treat our parents in awe during our young age. But when we grow up, and grow decreasingly reliant on them and increasing independent, we tend to decrease our respect and esteem of them.

Our respect and esteem for them should be the same. You may realize some short comings of your parents, but don’t you have them too? Your abilities may exceed theirs, but don’t your abilities come from God and are for His glory, not for your pride?

This is a stern reminder to adults especially, when they are at their peak performance age and everything seems under control. They start to view their older parents as a liability, as a time waster, as a money waster. Treat them as dementia incapacitated. Put them in old folks home. This is a great sin. We have to HONOR our parents no matter what condition they are in.

Obey our Parents because they are Wiser than Us.

 As the chinese saying goes, they cross more bridges than we cross roads, they eat more salt then we do rice. Youths often become impatient and quickly brush off advices/recommendations from parents, most of the time, to the detriment of themselves. Reflect how in the past when you have not listened to your parents, you ended up in trouble?

Read for yourselves what the wisdom in proverbs say.

Proverbs 1:8-9 “Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and don’t reject your mother’s teaching, for they will be a garland of grace on your head and a gold chain around your neck.”

4:1-2 “Listen, my sons, to a father’s discipline, and pay attention so that you may gain understanding, for I am giving you good instruction. Don’t abandon my teaching”

4:10 “Listen, my son. Accept my words, and you will live many years. I am teaching you the way of wisdom; I am guiding you on straight paths.”

Obey our Parents because it is a Source of Blessing. Disobedience brings about Judgement.

“so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

Although submission to our parents should first of all be for the Lord’s sake, He has graciously added the promise of special blessing for those who obey this command. When we obey our parents, God’s promises are that first, it will go well for us, and second, we will enjoy long life on earth. Consider the case if we do not obey.

30:17 “As for the eye that ridicule a father and despises obedience to a mother, may ravens of the valley pluck it out and young vultures eat it.”

But what about when our parents have not done their duty as parents?

The bible recognizes that parents themselves have shortcomings. Hence in Eph 6:4 it Paul exhorts to fathers, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

To put it simply, no matter what, we are to honor our parents. When we honor our parents in obedience to the Lord, we manifest the testimony of Christ which WILL bring about a God-transforming change to the entire family.

But what about when we are told to obey something contrary to the bible?

In the NIV, the verse writes, “Obey your parents, in the Lord.” It simply means that we are to obey our parents as long as it is in accordance to biblical principles. We should study hard, not be a slacker, not come home too late/stayover at night, not watch too much tv/internet at the expense of not doing housework, homework, use vulgar language, have modest dressing, watch the pool of friends we are mixing around with.

But what about not being allowed to come to church, to serve, to be baptized, other spiritual matters etc.? 

These exist because there is first a gap between our parents and God. We have to pray that this gap be bridged through faith in Jesus Christ just as it has bridged our gap between us and God. As long as this gap exists, there will be conflicts when we seek to obey our Lord and at the same time, try to obey our parents.

In Summary

There are times when you just feel inpatient, feel having little time for yourself, feel that you have enough worries as it is already and often, we vent it out on the people we love most. Our parents. We treat outside people so warmly yet do not give the same kind of treatment to our parents. It is a God given gift to have parents. They love us, brought us into this world, brought us up. We have to obey them. Honor them. Love them. 

Ephesians 4:17-19 Be sensitive to the sin of sexual immorality

Eph 4:18-19 "They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, …"

Paul uses the imaginary of hearts being harden, and losing all senses. When your skin is hardened, you cannot feel softness, hot, cold. You cannot feel pain. You cannot detect something that is hurting you. In the hardened heart, it cannot detect something that is injuring it. It has lost its senses. And because of this, it is not aware that 

it is hurting itself but continues to indulge in things that are harmful to it.

The world does not realize that the sexual images shown everywhere, from tvs, billboards, advertisements, magazines, are hurting itself. Yet, the world craves for it. The magnitude of fornication increases as the world gets deeper and deeper into it. The world does not realize that the number of molest cases, the number of paedophiles, the number of women raped, increase in correlation to the number of sexual images shown in public and in the media. 


Man does not realize this as they have hardened their hearts, they have lost all sensitivity, because they want to indulge in it. It is poison to oneself and others. It hurts oneself because you cannot see man/woman respectfully but instead see them as objects of sex. It hurts others because they are the victims of sexual predation.

Be sensitive to sexual immorality. Flee from it. Do not be curious after it. Do not google it. Be a Joseph, not a David. Flee, run. Engage in things profitable to you that you are not left with idle time for the tempter.

Ephesians 4:1-6 Walking in Unity

Ephesians 4:1-6 Walking in Unity

Eph 4:1-6 Paraphrased. “Therefore, Paul, the prisoner of the Lord implores us to walk in a manner worthy of the calling which we have been called by God. To walk with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and on Spirit, just as we also were called in one hope of our calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.”

Doctrine to Duty. Principle to Practise. Position to Behavior.

We enter in a transition here from the first three doctrinal chapters of Ephesians and enter the latter three practical chapters of Ephesians. From doctrine, to duty. From principle, to practice. From position, to behavior.

The Cost of a Christian Walk

Paul by mentioning his imprisonment again just as he did in 3:1 gently reminds us that the faithful Christian walk can be costly and that Paul had paid a considerable personal price because of his obedience to the Lord.

Knowing Our Salvation. Matching up to it. Live a life worthy of our calling

Through earlier chapters, we know that God has sovereignly chosen us to be saved. This is entirely out of grace and not of our own works that we should boast. We have also highlighted that being saved involves the following of good works. That is, Paul repeats it here that our lives should match up to our identity that we are called to! We should live an obedient, God honoring Christian life that matches worthy to our call to salvation from God.

Too often, we mis-represent this doctrine of election by self-assuring that we are saved, yet our lives remain unchanged. We still follow the ways of the world. Pursue the standards of the world. We worry about tomorrow. We neglect study of God’s Word. We indulge ourselves in careless words. We do not see the necessity of proclaiming God’s truth and salvation to people around us. We do not think it necessary to content for God’s truth when there is mis-representing of God’s word. We have strifes and quarrels with one another in the church, hating instead of loving one another. Destroying instead of building up one another.

Our position in Christ is an esteemed one. Let us be everything the Lord desires and empowers us to be living a life worthy of our calling today.

Living a Life Worthy of our Calling – Humility, Gentleness, Patience, Tolerance in Love

We will see the humility, gentleness, patience and tolerance in love expounded by Paul in the next article.

Ephesians 4:7-16 God's Grace. Be Humble. Serve. Build. Unite. Mature.

Ephesians 4:7, 11-13 

⁷ But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. ¹¹ So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, ¹² to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up ¹³ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Humility through Understanding God's Grace

Paul continues encouraging the believers to be united. This time round, expounding on the HUMILITY of the believer. How can we be humble? To know that the intellect, skills, abilities, wealth we have, is by the grace of God and has been given by God in proportion. He gave some more, some less. Hence, we should remind ourselves not to be boastful about ourselves, but be reminded that they are given by Him.

Purpose of God's Grace - To Serve. To Build the Church.

It is important to know the purpose of these graces given to us. It is to equip us for works of service, to build up the church. It is not to used just in the world to live for ourselves and neglect the church. It is to build up the church through serving, till all reach unity through maturity in the faith. Maturity in the faith is attained when we understand the fullness of Christ.

How do we build up the church that we reach unity in the faith? Pursue understanding of His Word.

Ephesians 4:14-16

 ¹⁴ Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. ¹⁵ Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. ¹⁶From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Pursue Understanding of His Word

When we understand His Word, we will not be deceived by this false teacher, or that false teacher who preaches because of his own deceptive objectives. Not for the sake of preaching solely God's word.

Speak the Truth in Love - Gentleness, Patience

Other than understanding, we should not be prideful of having understood and start condemning others but to speak the truth in love. This ties back to the quality of gentleness. This ties back to the quality of patience. Being gentle, not judgmental, being patient, not quick to give up, on a brother, that he will grow to be mature and be part of the church.