Dear…
'Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled, and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.'
Acts 4:13
Not too sure if all share the same feeling as me, but since I was blessed to receive the God inspired desire to seek Him, I have like you, done small but wonderful things for His kingdom, that I would never fathom myself ever doing, either because it was not financially rewarding, or maybe in a broader sense, runs against my own interests and understanding or simply, I either will feel foolish doing it, or be considered foolish to do it.
Looney toons was and is still my favorite cartoon on television, but now was, simply because television today no longer show the simpler cartoons like Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig or Sylvester the Cat. Guess the Japanese Anime cartoons with all its gadgets and violence are more appealing to the heightened carnal senses of our internet savvy kids.
So are diligent followers of our Lord Jesus Christ(rather than fervent for fervent seems associated with fanatical, which trust me, true followers of Christ are not, for God is love) loose nuts or loonies to be looked upon with disdain or at best left in isolation from the real world?
'And many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come.'
Matthew 24:12-14
Coming back to the "real" or more like sinful world, one would realize that there are already plenty of loonies running loose, and we are not talking about Christians.
The "looney" is the Canadian $1 coin, with one side showing the loon, a popular Canadian bird, but has since come to symbolize the Canadian currency in general, just like the term "greenback" for the US currency. And much as Canada has been living in the shadows of its bigger Southern neighbour, the still great USA( at least militarily), Canada as an economy has a much vaunted banking system that seems to have escaped relatively unscathed from the excessive greed led, immoral credit binge that has floored its bigger developed Western peers.
Ludicrous might be an apt description of the excessive ill discipline or desperation amongst many nations to print their way out of this economic pithole they find themselves in, but madness does have its logic, when one is unwilling to take the morally correct but painful course of abstinence from past excessive binge funded by the rest of the world.
Are all the hints of "green shoots" of economic recovery and "the worst is over" and "good days are here again" the pronouncements of mad politicians and economists or the work of deviant minds selling delusions that the world wants to hear? Maybe, we are mistaking the superfluous overflow of greenbacks for greenshoots?
'Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? And whereunto shall I resemble it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden, and it grew, and waxed a great tree, and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it…'
Luke 13:18-19
Man without God is driven by his carnal passion. A man who seeks God is driven by compassion. The difference is that the "com" is the believers' acknowledgement and trust in "Christ our master", that God is Sovereign in all our endeavours.
Self belief can bring man to achievements that they thought not possible. Belief in Christ will bring us to realms that we can never fathom by our own finite understanding.. God will use all of us, who are desirous, upon which His grace and glory will shine forth and there is no madness of illogic in our relationship with God, but there must be meekness or rather, humility in the presence of our awesome God.
''How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?'
Genesis 39:9
If you are in an asylum, or in today's politically correct world, at least in Singapore, we call it an Institute of Mental Health(in other countries, they might call it emotional spas or health farms or whatever seems nice) instead of the more memorable Woodbridge Asylum. You are taken out of the normal society and placed in the asylum, because you are considered mentally unstable because your behaviour is not in line with the bigger universe of normal people. Yet, it is all relative, for in the asylum, the looneys are the majority and hence can be considered "normal" and anyone who has a lucid mind, would be considered off centre.
Christians are in this world, but not of this world. Will we who is prepared to stay steadfast in the Lord, be eventually lumped as "loonies' in a world that is increasingly moving away from God to self?
The world we have entered has truly evolved. Recent studies have confirmed what we intuitively already know. Global warming is already here with us and not our inheritance for our next generation. Politicians fairly or unfairly always have bad press as regards their morality. For a politician is defined as one who is involved in influencing public decision and in our present context where mob and deviant behaviour has increasingly entered mainstream, at least from my biased view, in the West, it would be politically suicidal and pure lunacy to speak the truth and inflict pain upon a generation that has been corrupted by its material blessings.
The recent European Parliament elections could be a harbinger of things to come, with the far right and right winning more seats than before. Is xenophobia back in fashion, when there is less to go around?
'….lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.'
Matthew 28:20
As a believer who knows God and continue to seek to walk even more closely with our Lord, the need to stand firm and steadfast is even more compelling, much as the world swirls even more in all dimensions and much as the world demands that we be like them, be inclusive, a compromiser at the lowest reaches of human morality, away from the Lord's commands.
It is not for us to judge our brethren. Yet, it is even more that we must live a life that will allow the light of God's truth to shine forth brightly in the intensifying darkness. The world might think that faithful Christians are mad not to think of self, but to not obey our God is worse than madness, it will mean the reality of eternal damnation in hell and rest assured, it is not a figment of one's imagination.
'I have stuck unto Thy testimonies: O Lord, put me not to shame.'
Psalms 119:31
Self denial or self delusion, God will allow us to be shaken out of it and much as the world has been shaken, it has been as quick in forgetting, and while none of us can predict the next shaking, the Lord our God is very clear that He will want to bring us back, for our soul is at stake, and would you be like the many, who is rationally delusive in choosing to ignore the warnings of the Lord our God to their own peril?
'..for the day of the Lord is at hand..'
Zephaniah 1:7
Rgds and God Blesses
Eng Hieang
(20th June 09)
An afterthought
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For those of us in Singapore, the heat has been quite unbearable. The heat might have affected my imagination, but lately I have been spending an undue amount of time ridding the house of ants, which were quite relentless in their desire to seek shelter in the cooler part of the house, be it the airconditioning or where there is water. Not a new phenomenon, but quite different in their continued stubborness in the face of certain death, no different from the British soldiers who charged at the machine gun enplacements of the Afrikaans during the Boer War.
It is well documented that animals display strange behaviour before a natural disaster eg Tsunami or Earthquakes. No one ever included the ants, but is this a harbinger of some near term upheavals about to dawn upon the world? The devil is in the details, but the devil or rather his fellow demons were in the herd of swine when they left the body of the poor soul that our Lord Jesus Christ saved. Will it be swine flu turn virile, or Eastern Europe taking over the mantle of crisis continent from Asia of 10 years back, or the present Iran crisis triggering a 2nd and more severe economic downturn, like what Iran did almost 30 years back?
No one knows, but it matters not, for it is more important to know the Lord our God, for only can then one stand steadfast in this swirling and sinful world.
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