#106 Snake Oil (12 Sep 06)

Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven..'
Matthew 7:21

A couple of years back, my daughter's primary school principal, whom I have never met, concluded that my daughter's rather quiet demeanour must be attributable to her dad, for my wife whom she knows well is an extrovert.
Should I take it as a compliment or a admonishment, it matters not.

'I have set before you today life and good, death and evil'
Deuteronomy 30:15

Yet, there are many non-believers who use the same line of argument to excuse themselves from believing in the existence of God and the love of Jesus Christ.
It is understandable that if man choose to look upon the Christian faith as a brand, than like all brands, "The Christian" does cover a whole spectrum of grades, from the "fearful and faithful Christian" to the "low grade, superflous type"

'Dont let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize'
Colossians 2:18


It is true that as believers, we are asked to be Christlike, to mirror to the world by our daily lives, the love and grace of God and on that count, all of us have fallen short and without the grace of God, will continue to struggle to put off our old sinful self.

'Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet. Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord;
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children. And the heart of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse'
Malachi 4:5-6

Yet, it is God whom all should look to and not men.

Would you want to be wrong and lose the chance of eternal life simply because the basis of your decision rested upon your own finite understanding and worst, on the behaviour of the ever recalcitrant, imperfect and sinful Christian or Christians you happened to use as the benchmark for your decision??

'Open thou my eyes, That I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law'
Psalm 119:18

Many of us who have had the privilege of experiencing both the awesomeness of God and His perfect love, have strived and often struggled to follow His commands. To love Him, to love you and to share His gospel of love, peace, repentance, salvation and eternal life is a command to all who desire to follow Jesus Christ.

When I first responded albeit reluctantly to God's call to place my personal journey with Him on a public platform, the term 'blog' never existed in my low technology vocabulary.
Of course, it is still never intended to be a blog, for what is the deceitful and prideful man that his or her opinion should be the final arbiter of your very soul.

Snake oil originally came from China, where it was used as a remedy for inflammation and pain in rheumatoid arthritis, bursitis, and other similar conditions.
Over the years, snake oil took on a degree of infamy and became the generic name for the many medicines that were marketed as a panacea or miraculous remedy for all ills.
For my more Western oriented friends, the equivalent of the snake oil peddlar is Doctor Elixir, the chap we see in those old Western movies, traversing the frontier towns of the then untamed Wild West in his horse carriage, hoodwinking the decent ladies, the native Indians and anyone gullible enough.

'But when they saw Him walking upon the sea, they supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out'
Mark 6:49

Belief is defined as a conviction to the truth of a proposition without its verification, therefore it is a subjective mental interpretation of the perception results, own contemplation/reasoning or communication.

Quite a mouthful here and before we all degenerate into Pharisee like behaviour and indulged in legalistic discussions, it is suffice to say that belief be it personal or group will continue to drive our very actions and emotions every moment of our lives.

Some go to spas, some to the plastic artists for botox and reconfiguration, some climb the mountains of human achievements and accolades, some seek solace in the obscurity of mountaintops, some continue to mix and match various philosophies and religions, some leave it to the guidance and machinations of self, other men and cults, some simply give up and end their tenous lives.

Is God truly the source of all comfort and grace and our salvation or are more desirous followers of Jesus Christ like some of us, mere snake oil peddlars, no different from the just described suite of perceived panaceas??

'Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me 3 times
And when he thought about it, he wept'
Mark 14:72

For many of us, we were blessed that we by the Grace of God, that the cockerel's crow was not in vain and we did wake up finally, and did not remain indifferent to the machinations of the wiles of the devilish snake.

Do be like the apostle Peter, do reflect on who should you believe in, is it God or His creations??

Like my children, every morning I rouse them from their sleep, they are awake, but they must want to will themselves to physically awaken from their semi-comotose stupor.

God gives us all a choice.

'To him who is thirsty, I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life..... and I will be his God and he will be My son.
BUT the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral....their place will be in the fiery lake of burning suffer. This is the second death'
Revelations 21:8


God Blesses

Eng Hieang