Sarah Laughed Twice

Genesis 18

9 “Where is Sarah, your wife?” the visitors asked.

“She’s inside the tent,” Abraham replied.

10 Then one of them said, “I will return to you about this time next year, and your wife, Sarah, will have a son!”

Sarah was listening to this conversation from the tent. 11 Abraham and Sarah were both very old by this time, and Sarah was long past the age of having children. 12 So she laughed silently to herself and said, “How could a worn-out woman like me enjoy such pleasure, especially when my master—my husband—is also so old?”

13 Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh? Why did she say, ‘Can an old woman like me have a baby?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return about this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

15 Sarah was afraid, so she denied it, saying, “I didn’t laugh.”

But the Lord said, “No, you did laugh.”

–

Abraham’s age is 99 and Sarah’s age is 89 years old. God and two angels went to visit Abraham and they prophesied that Sarah and Abraham will have a child in a years time.

Sarah did the unthinkable. She scoffed at God.

SARAH LAUGHED ridiculing the impossible word of God. For that, she was Shamed (v15).

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One year later

Genesis 21

1 The Lord kept his word and did for Sarah exactly what he had promised. 2 She became pregnant, and she gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age. This happened at just the time God had said it would. 3 And Abraham named their son Isaac. 4 Eight days after Isaac was born, Abraham circumcised him as God had commanded. 5 Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born.

6 And Sarah declared, “God has brought me laughter. All who hear about this will laugh with me. 7 Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse a baby? Yet I have given Abraham a son in his old age!”

Sarah’s attitude changed so much in one year. Doubt blinded her. But now she is full of faith, being a witness of God’s miracle. She will not be ridiculed as barren anymore! Not only that, God blessed her with a boy! Sarah was overjoyed.

This time, at the other end of the spectrum, comes a new Sarah:

SARAH LAUGHED in awe at the impossible works of God. For that, she Celebrated Publicly (v6).

Praising God is a Weapon of Warfare

Psalm 149

¹ Praise the Lord!

Sing to the Lord a new song.
    Sing his praises in the assembly of the faithful.

² O Israel, rejoice in your Maker.
    O people of Jerusalem, exult in your King.
³ Praise his name with dancing,
    accompanied by tambourine and harp.
⁴ For the Lord delights in his people;
    he crowns the humble with victory.
⁵ Let the faithful rejoice that he honors them.
    Let them sing for joy as they lie on their beds.

⁶ Let the praises of God be in their mouths,
    and a sharp sword in their hands—
⁷ to execute vengeance on the nations
    and punishment on the peoples,
⁸ to bind their kings with shackles
    and their leaders with iron chains,
⁹ to execute the judgment written against them.
    This is the glorious privilege of his faithful ones.

Praise the Lord!

God’s Hand In Repentance

I always thought we had to look at allllllll our sins and repent for each and everyone of them BEFORE God could change our hearts and put His Spirit within us and give us the strength to obey Him. Like we gotta clear our house before allowing Jesus in. I read Ezekiel today and v31 really blew my mind.

Ezekiel 36:25-32

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. ²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.²⁸ Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. ²⁹ I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you. ³⁰ And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields, so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations. ³¹ Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities and your abominations. ³² Not for your sake do I do this,” says the Lord God, “let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel!”

Here Ezekiel is splitting up the relationship between God’s action and our action very clearly. v25-30, He will cleanse, He will change our hearts, He will help us walk in obedience, He will give us the inheritance and prosperity, He will make us successful in what we do, He will make us forget our shame. THEN and only then, will WE, v31, will realise our sins and hate our past sinful self.

It actually does kinda make sense.

Firstly, we are sinful and sin filled creatures. We only want the best for ourselves and to satisfy ourselves. We will never willingly repent until the Holy Spirit does some kind of work on our hearts and some kind of rewiring in our minds. The first step of repentance and humility requires a soft heart. v26 says God will put a spirit in us which would soften the heart of stone into the heart of flesh. God was labouring in us even before we said yes to Him.

Secondly, we can’t possibly know ALL God’s laws and repent of all the sins. I don’t think we could even know our heart attitudes or problems that well until after we’re dead. If we had to be super holy before Jesus could come into our hearts, no one would ever be Christian. God’s work in perfecting our lives is a step by step process. We realise and overcome one sin, then another. We learn one Godly attitude, then another. And this whole process can only be done with God’s strength and grace.

We need Him for us to be rid of sin. We even Him even for us to just repent for the first time.

Dare You Question The Almighty God?

Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead with You;
Yet let me talk with You about Your judgments.
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?

Jeremiah 12:1

Did the prophet Jeremiah actually say “let me talk with You about Your judgments”? He’s basically saying ‘God I need to talk to you about how You’re running things around here”. We all know that Christians “aren’t supposed” to “blame” God for any evil that happens. I don’t think Jeremiah was blaming God at all. He’s questioning God, sure. But not blaming.

Here’s something I truly believe though. If you have a burning question in your heart. If something is bothering you and it makes you angry or super sad or fired up. Don’t be afraid to take it out on God. He is like the Father who wants to listen to our rants, our rambles, our outbursts. Even if our language sounds like it’s directed at Him, no problem, He can handle it. He doesn’t have insecurity or self-esteem issues that would make Him vulnerable by what we said. He won’t get offended and lash out on us for saying the wrong things. He knows what we’re gonna say before we say it anyway, which means He knows if we’re gonna use the right words to express ourselves. He knows what we truly meant by it. How can we surprise Him? He knows our heart!

He wants to hear us out because it is part of communication, which is vital to build relationship. He wants to hear our complaints. He wants to know we’re confused. He wants to know when we feel something is unfair. He wants to know how our misunderstanding or lack of understanding about Him or the world or ourselves. But He wants to know it from us firsthand. We are His children, He has already reached out to us and created that family relationship bond. We just have to respond and trust in this relationship. It’s like when a couple adopts a foster child. Every legal document settled, every payment taken care of, all the new parents want is to show love and prove to the child that he or she can trust them.

Relationship is the key word here. We can communicate. Just like Jeremiah did. Don’t be afraid of expressing yourself to God. It’s much better than asking Google, asking friends, or ranting on Facebook. God knows what we mean. God knows what we need.

Abusing God’s Blessings

1 … in the third year of Hoshea the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. 2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem… 3 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done.

4 He removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it Nehushtan.

2 Kings 18:1-4

Interesting story this one. Moses set up a pole with a snake design on top for the Israelites to get healed of a certain snake infestation attack. That whoever looked at the pole will get healed. Did Moses do the wrong thing? No. Because God asked Moses to make the snake pillar. And it was NOT meant for worship. It was for God to show His supernatural healing. Did it work? Since it came from God, yes, definitely.

But after that, the Israelites were found worshiping this bronze snake pole thing. God made a good thing. But Israelites turned a Godly good thing into a sin.

I find that this is human nature. We will worship the thing that bring us joy. And who brings us the most joy? The “obvious” answer is God! Yet, we worship church, we worship our leadership position, we worship the money God blessed us with, we worship our relationships, we worship the entertainment and hobbies God allowed us to have, we worship ourselves for being smart, pretty, funny, have good skills, have good opportunities, or for doing good things for people. We’re not that good. God is. It wasn’t us. It was all God.

Think about it for a while. What are you worshiping that was actually from God? What have you put more hope and more faith on than God? Was it/he/she from God? Probably, yeah. It was a great blessing from God Himself! An answered prayer! A miracle! Yet over time, we ended up worshiping it and remembering it more than God.

What can we do about it? Learning from King Hezekiah of Judah, he broke down that Godly Good thing, the bronze serpent pole that Moses had made. No matter how good something is, if it tempts you to sin, get rid of it. Do we have any entertainment, hobbies, material things that we need to break? Do we have any relationships we need to redefine? Do we need to have a vain-ness / self-love reality check?

I’m not sure about you, but I do.

New Highlight Colour Category!

As of today I have about three categories of highlights for my bible reading.

First category is things I want to remember. Colours are pink, yellow, and cyan (esp if things get ‘interesting’).

Second category are the very important things I want to remember. Colours are light pink and light yellow. As you can probably imagine, these work well alongside my first category highlights, especially in a long passage with multiple verses. I will usually highlight the passage that I want to remember in pink, and then within the passage there would usually be one or two verses that are the key points or super important, I would highlight those light pink. So that there would be contrast.

Third category will be in grey for warnings I want to remember. Especially if they are directed at me.

So today I have created a new fourth category based on what I learned last week in online bible school. It’s a light green highlight for verses that are God’s ‘intended purpose for men’. We call it the Sabbath Rest… I think… I’m still learning haha. The Garden of Eden will be my imagery for this highlight category. God’s plan was no death, no sickness, and we live in true abundance, and connection to God. The three main points for the Sabbath Rest is peace with one another, peace with the earth, and peace with God. I’m thinking to keep it less for who God wants me to be today/tomorrow, and more for God’s ultimate goal for us in eternity. A very after-death (Real Life) kind of highlight. The purpose is to train myself to have a heavenly perspective.

Paul Expands Jesus’ Ministry and Teaching to 13 Books. John Summarizes Jesus’ Ministry and Teachings in 11 Verses.

John the Baptist Prepares the Way

3 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, ² while Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. ³ And he went into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, ⁴ as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, saying:

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make His paths straight.
⁵ Every valley shall be filled
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough ways smooth;
⁶ And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”

John Preaches to the People

⁷ Then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. ⁹ And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

¹⁰ So the people asked him, saying, “What shall we do then?”

¹¹ He answered and said to them, “He who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.”

¹² Then tax collectors also came to be baptized, and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?”

¹³ And he said to them, “Collect no more than what is appointed for you.”

¹⁴ Likewise the soldiers asked him, saying, “And what shall we do?”

So he said to them, “Do not ^[c]intimidate anyone or accuse falsely, and be content with your wages.”

Mind Blown By C. S. Lewis AGAIN

An Excerpt From Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis You may remember I said that the first step towards humility was to realise that one is proud. I want to add now that the next step is to make some serious attempt to practise the Christian virtues. A week is not enough. Things often go swimmingly for the first week. Try six weeks. By that time, having, as far as one can see, fallen back completely or even fallen lower than the point one began from, one will have discovered some truths about oneself. No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist.

The Knowledge of Christ

The words of Paul in Philippians 3 says

Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.

I find myself asking what is this knowledge that Paul is talking about? This knowledge that can cause us to be found in His Presence and also in His Righteousness (v9).

What if Knowledge is an important key? Without knowledge, we would be believing in all sorts of made up imaginations. Let’s call this False Knowledge. With True Knowledge we would really know for sure.

Now WHY do we need to know for sure? I think it’s because knowledge brings forth faith. No matter if it’s false knowledge or true knowledge, it will bring forth faith. We practice faith everyday. Even in the simple things. We have faith that the chair we sit in will support our weight. We believe that the amount of salt we add into our soup adds the right amount of saltiness we want. But we also make mistakes of having faith on a pen that is out of ink, so we only brought one pen to class. Or leaving the powerbank at home because we remember (falsely) that we charged our phone at home.

Why do we need true knowledge? Because it affects our faith which affects our actions. The value of knowing Christ Jesus that surpasses every other knowledge. I have yet to achieve this level of value and regard to the knowledge of Christ Jesus. But I believe I will. Let’s press on into God’s will and words. Keep studying His word, keep looking to Him for perspective and leadership, and keep doing everything you can for His glory. And may He Grace you with revelation upon revelation.

Destroy!

‘You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire; you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place. You shall not worship the Lord your God with such things. “But you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses, out of all your tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place; and there you shall go. ‘ Deuteronomy 12:2-5

It’s quite unnatural for us who grew up in church to talk about destroying things. What more destroying EVERYTHING. The Israelites we commanded to destroy everything in the land they are about to conquer, because God knew that the Israelites were weak and easily tempted to serve other gods. And serving other gods is a direct sin!

Today as Christians, we don’t take temptation and sin very seriously. We think it’s just something we need to AVOID. But no, we need to find a deep hatred towards sin. Because sin is DEFYING God ON PURPOSE. In a culture full of sin, we are also tempted to see sin as not very serious. ‘If it doesn’t hurt anyone, how is it a sin?’ right? WRONG. That’s not how God sees it at all.

God wants us to face our sins and overcome it. Overcome sin the way you overcome an enemy in a war. You must show no mercy. And even though temptation itself is not a sin, we should not allow temptation to stick around as well. The bible says that if your eye causes you to sin, you should gauge it out. Wow imagery.

This sermon by Moses in Deuteronomy 12:2-5 reminds me of a powerful sermon by John Piper. Hope it motivates you to war against sin and your carnal self.