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.

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.

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.

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.

The Miraculous Rending Of The Veil

Not written by me. Excerpted from J. Oswald Sanders’, The Incomparable Christ. From Chapter 31. Beautiful beautiful book. Everyone should read it.

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The rending of the veil signified the end of the old order and the ushering in of the new. J. Gregory Mantle sees in it a four-fold significance.

It was the end of symbolism. The old economy had fulfilled its purpose and yielded place to the new. Christ, the great High Priest, was the perfect fulfillment of the shadows and ritual of the law.

It envisaged the end of sin. The veil was rent at the very moment Jesus, who was “made… to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21), “put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26).

It was the end of sacerdotalism. No longer was there any need for a priesthood and sacrificial system. The ministration of the priesthood that had held a central place in Jewish national life had come to an end.

It betokened, the end of separation. The veil that had for a millenium and a half been a barrier to God’s presence now became a gateway. Every penitent soul is now invited to enter the Holiest of All by virtue of the blood of Jesus (Hebrews 10:19).

Strong Desire

No one blogs anymore do they? 
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Sin Sin Sin Covet Sin

In relation to yesterday’s post, as God was teaching me about lust on Friday, I get a free lesson about it again yesterday. Paul says coveting is idolatry.

Colossians 3:5 (NKJV)  Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
This teaches another aspect of lust: When we covet, it’s a strong desire for something. If we desire it more than what our discipline or conscience says, then it’s a lust. In fact, we may even take it a step further and take action to fulfill the desire. For example, watching porn, binge shopping, stealing. If we knowingly do something that we know we shouldn’t, that’s basically trusting and worshipping another ‘god’. For example, Sex or Materialism. 
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 

Ask yourselves if you love God enough to keep his commandments. 

The Key of Forgiveness

Have you ever wondered why forgiveness is hard?

Some people claim they can forgive easily. But will still be willing to remind everyone what a person did wrong in the past. I don’t think that’s forgiveness.

Before I tell you what I think real forgiveness means, allow me to explain how I got this topic into the thought-train of my mind.

My church did a Passover Feast meeting yesterday. We’re not Jewish, but we were remembering and experiencing how Jesus did it and learning the significance of what they did in their culture. And as we were taking communion, I was being thankful of how Jesus suffered and bore my sins, when I thought, ‘Hey, it wasn’t fair for Jesus at all.’ I knew things weren’t fair in life, but Jesus had to suffer most unfairly. If we died, even if we were seen as a ‘holy’ man, we’d still have come from a sinful background, and dying earlier than expected just means we died earlier than expected. We’ve all sinned. We would all have to suffer death anyway. We deserved it, maybe not tragic horrible sudden death, but we deserve death at the end. But Jesus, no. He’s perfect, He has overcame sin, and did outstanding work for the Father on His short time on earth. So it was the MOST unfair for Him to die in MY place. To suffer tragically for my sins, my wrongs, my mistakes.

But God sent Jesus as an action of His forgiveness to us. He GAVE us Jesus. It is unfair because He gave without needing or forcing us to give back. There was no exchange. Our Father HOPES that we give our lives back to Him, but He doesn’t FORCE us. He loves us that much.

So what is the key word in forgiveness? GIVE. For He GAVE. God FORGAVE. When we ask anyone for forgiveness, we are asking them to Give off themselves for us. There are a lot of things we may be giving of ourselves when we forgive. Think about it. We could be writing off a debt: We’re basically giving our money away. We could be forgiving a mean word: We’re basically giving him good report for the bad report he deserves. It could be a sacrifice of our pride, position, time, thoughts, joy, sometimes even what we believe in, and you may even hate someone but choose to change your mindset and decide to love him instead. That sounds quite preposterous. But IT IS. Sacrificing for an undeserved. That’s why forgiving is hard. In this world where fairness is fought for, we forgiveness can be quite hard to understand or accept. Giving without receiving. Forgiveness has to be FREELY Given to count.

He gave us life, breath, abilities, people, safety, took care of the details of our life. WE owe God. But we offended Him. We foolishly, knowingly, willingly, continuously sin against Him. YET God Forgave us. A clean slate. A passage to heaven. A direct audience with the Holy King at any time. These are all ours without demanding anything in return. These are all ours IF we choose to accept it. He GAVE us these when we deserved nothing.

Ephesians 4:32

And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

 

Can we find it in our being to forgive people around us?

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And I’m good, good, good to go
I got to get away
Get away from all of my mistakes

So here I sit looking at the traffic lights
The red extinguishes the hope that the green ignites
I want to run away I want to ditch my life
Cause all of my mistakes keep me awake at night

And after all of my alibis desert me
I just want to get by
I don’t want nothing to hurt me
I had no idea where my head was at
But if my heart says I’m sorry can we leave it at that
Because I just want for all of this to end

And I so hate consequences
And running from you is what my best defense is
Consequences
Oh God, don’t make me face up to this
And I so hate consequences
And running from you is what my best defense is
Cause I know that I let you down
And I don’t want to deal with that

It just now hit me this is more than just a set back
And when you spelled it out, well, I guess I didn’t get that
And every trace of momentum is gone
And this isn’t turning out the way I want

And after all of my alibis desert me
I just want to get by
I don’t want nothing to hurt me
I had no idea where my head was at
But if my heart says I’m sorry can we leave it at that
Because I just want for all of this to end

And I spent all last night
Tearing down
Every stoplight
And stop sign in this town
Now I think there might
Be no way to stop me now
I’ll get away despite
The fact I’m so weighed down

All of my escapes have been exhausted
I thought I had a way but then I lost it
And my resistance was once much stronger
And I know I can’t go on like this much longer

When I got tired of running from you
I stopped right there to catch my breath
There your words they caught my ears
You said, “I miss you son. Come home”
And my sins, they watched me leave
And in my heart I so believed
The love you felt for me was more than
The love I’d wished for all this time
And when the doors were closed
I heard no I told so’s
I said the words I knew you knew
Oh God, Oh God I needed you
God all this time I needed you, I needed you

And I so hate consequences
And running from you is what my best defense is
I hate these consequences
Because I know that I let you down
Now I don’t wanna deal with that

How To Be Forgiven 101

Psalms 32:5 (NKJV) I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” And You forgave the iniquity of my sin.

Mazmur 32:5 (AVB) Lalu aku mengakui dosaku kepada-Mu dan tidak menyembunyikan kejahatan dosaku. Kataku, “Aku akan mengakui keingkaranku kepada TUHAN” – maka Engkau mengampunkan dosaku.

The ONE thing we need to do is usually the HARDEST to do. It’s basically against our nature to humble ourselves and admit our faults. To be totally naked and vulnerable. Not only to face our weakness, but to reveal it to someone else. And to accept the punishments or consequences.
Do you prefer to fix things yourself before you ask for help? Me too.

But God gave us one simple way to gain forgiveness.
Confess.
Try it today.

Up, Down, Up, Down, Up, Up, Down, Down

Sometimes I think I got my spiritual day figured out. I praise God for the day, then I tell myself that I won’t sin or fall into temptation. I plan my routes around temptation, and have all my escapes figured out in case I get in it. I’ve prayed and done my bible reading. But then, it can turn out to be the worse most undisciplined day of my life.

I sin, I cheat, I lie. I look at things I shouldn’t. I tempt others. I say regretful things. I let my emotions overwhelm me. I let my selfishness control my actions. What is up with me?

How can things make such a different turn in only a few hours? How is my Master going to say ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant’? I’m such a horrible steward of my body, emotions, mind, spirit, career, ministry, influences, and even the material things I have. Is ‘Perfect’ achievable?

I need to forget myself. Less of me and more of Him. More of the Holy Spirit’s power. Less of my strengths and strives.

I’m encouraged that even Paul says he’s not perfect. But instead he changes his attitude. He wants to look forward. To press on. I’ll have to keep praising God. And keep trying.

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Philippians 3:7-14

I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.  Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith.  I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!

 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.  No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,  I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.