Friday's Recap (210809)

Dear Cell, yesterday’s discussion was about false beliefs about our faith. We have selected a few of them for discussion and these false and toxic beliefs were taken from the book, Toxic Faith, by prolific author and founder of the New Life Ministries, Stephen Arterburn, and ordained minister, Jack Felton.

Here are just a few that we had discussed in the presence of Pastor Sam yesterday.

1) God uses only spiritual giants. We know this is far from the truth. Many great evangelists and Christian revivalists were largely unknown during their days before they attained “celebrity status” for doing great things for God. In the Bible, Joseph and Moses were nobody before they became somebody: one became the second in command in Pharaoh’s empire and the other became the revered leader of the Jewish nation. Boyish David was tending to sheep before he became royalty and Joshua was a humble assistant before he led the people of God into the Promised Land.

So, if we take spiritual giants to mean people like Martin Luther King, John Wesley and Billy Graham as we know them today, then this is clearly not God’s modus operandi. But if spiritual giants refer to a surrendered heart or a heart that pants after God’s, then the equation changes quite a fair bit. Unlike us, God sees the heart. He deals with the issue that matters. It is the heart that springs forth the tissues and issues of life. The path to greatness starts with the heart.

In God’s vernacular, spiritual giants are not defined by how well they are known (fame) or how big their fan-base is (popularity). Neither are they defined by their possession (wealth) nor their circle of influence (power). These are merely the effects or results of a man or woman who surrenders to God wholeheartedly. They don’t define him or her. Peter was a common fisherman when Jesus chose him. He was clearly a nobody and later even demonstrated cowardice by thrice denying Christ. In fact, the famous writer, Umberto Eco once wrote, “The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.”

One comedian, Jason Alexander, of the Seinfeld fame was asked to give a commencement address at Boston University’s School of Arts and this was what he had to say – and it is rather insightful and illuminating:-

“I am famous. That is a large part of why I was asked to speak here today…It is a large part of the reason I received an honorary doctorate today when in fact I don’t even have a bachelor’s degree – because I’m famous. I would like to think that it’s also because I’m pretty good guy, and I’m passionate about my craft and my business, but it’s not. It’s because I’m famous, and the funny thing is that my fame is a complete accident…Fame, this thing that I have, is very rare, very strange, and very meaningless. It’s a poor measure of success…Look beyond the veneer of what you consider success, I would like you to try to focus now and for the rest of your lives not on glory, but on greatness.”

There you have it, words to live by, “focus now and for the rest of your lives not on glory (fame), but on greatness.” In this post-modern world (a world where truth is no truer than what the next celebrity says it is), greatness is defined as being as popular as possible. Your greatness barometer is determined by your popularity. But in God’s world, greatness is class of a different measure. No doubt, greatness is invariably to be known by others. But this recognition comes first from one and not thousands or millions like the insufferable fame of the late Michael Jackson. This recognition invariably comes from God.

To be known by Him and to know Him is the power of greatness personified. Beloved, in your life, seek after that which cannot disappoint and when you find it, you will have come face to face with greatness embodied in our Creator; such greatness is beyond corruption and disillusionment. Let these words from Job 29:2-3 minister to your heart, “Oh, that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me; when his lamp shone upon my head, and by his light I walked through darkness.”

2) Having true faith means waiting for God to help me and doing nothing until he does. This is clearly a false belief in our faith. I know the Bible tells us to wait upon the Lord and He shall renew our strength. But this waiting is active waiting. It is not passive. We are called to put our faith into action and doing nothing is a direct affront to this calling. On this, Stephen Arterburn wrote, “Sometimes we wait for God to do what God is waiting for us to do.” We know that faith without deed is dead. Faith does not sit on its hands and wait for manna to fall from the sky. Faith is in fact reason gone courageous. It pushes us to act on what we profess and believe in and only by doing so can we live out an overcomer’s life.

Eugene Peterson puts it this way in his book, Traveling Light, “The word Christian means different things to different people. To one person it means a stiff, upright, inflexible way of life, colorless and unbending. To another, it means a risky, surprise-filled venture, lived tiptoe at the edge of expectation…If we get our information from biblical material, there is no doubt that the Christian life is a dancing, leaping, daring life.”

Are we missing anything here? Is our Christian walk a geriatric one, arthritic and annoyingly painful? Are our Christian walk just that…a slow, grinding walk, burdensome and weary-filled? Or is it a dance of joy, leaping from one adventure to another, climbing cliffs and surmounting obstacles life or nature throws at us? Beloved, the Christian apologist and writer, Lee Strobel, once wrote, “Simply put, our role is this: to be ready and willing – because God is always able.” Are we ready and willing? Because if the equation is merely for us to be ready and willing to take the plunge with God in faith, God will fulfill His side of the bargain and enable us to work through our problems and personal crisis and come out of them renewed and victorious.

But here’s the catch.

Don’t expect the road to be easy, smooth and straight. Like what Mark said in our cell, trials should, in the eyes of faith, be seen as our ally, not our foe. This is of course easier said than done. But truth is often taken like bitter medicine; it’s hard to swallow at first but its beneficial effects come later. Going through trials, or bad times, sometimes with no end in sight, is indeed both nerve- and faith-wrecking. When we are in the dark tunnel of life, the claustrophobic fear and dread of failure, disappointment and disillusionment always conspire to sink us deeper into depression and hopelessness.

At our lowest point, Jesus weeps with us just like he wept with Mary and Martha for Lazarus. Jesus of course knew that the end would be one celebrative and joyous reunion when he would eventually raise Lazarus from his grave. But, despite this future warranty, Jesus still wept with Mary and Martha. Beloved,

I think Jesus has an important message here.

I think Jesus is telling us that trials and sorrow are inevitable. Pain and disappointments are unavoidable. And they cannot be truncated or cut short. But where there are trials and sorrow, pain and disappointment, there is also a comfort that is readily available from a God that is readily reachable. I think Jesus is trying to tell us that grief has a trusted companion and that companion is God. And because God is our comfort and shelter in times of personal crisis, we can rest assured that, like Lazarus, we will see our deliverance in due course.

Beloved, through all our personal anguish and crisis, our greatest enemy is not the cause of our affliction, be it ourselves or the devil. It is, in fact, time. If we hold on to our faith and hope, and brave through each moment of pain, resting in the comfort of God’s compassion and strength, we will inevitable come out of it stronger with a renewed perspective of life. Jesus is telling us to work through our grief and instead of being changed by it for the worse, we become better as a result.

Beloved, God sees what we do not yet see. In the dark tunnel of life, God sees the end of it when the end is hidden from us. God also sees something we sometimes refuse to see. God sees our potential to overcome it. Believe it or not, in times of grief, we often underestimate our potential. Because of doubts and disillusionment, we only see the hopelessness in the situation and our disability in relation to it. We are blindsided by pain and anger to see trials as opportunity for growth.

Let me ask you: Can you count the number of seeds in a fruit? I am sure you can. But, can you count the number of fruits in a seed? Well, that is a feat in the realm of pure speculation. We cannot count the number of fruits in a seed. But God can. And if we plunge our roots deep in God’s fertile soil of faith, we can blossom in a personal crisis and not be defeated by it. I believe that there is an immeasurable, mysterious power of faith in a hope that endures with time and this hope is in a God that fails us not. And our focus should always be on this hope because this hope will ultimately carry us through life’s most trying times. Beloved, in our personal crisis, we only need to ask ourselves this question; “Is our God big enough?” If He is, then please step aside and let Him do His job.

3) Lastly, God will find me a perfect mate. This false belief carries a cryptic message regarding our marital relationships. In order to decipher it, we must first accept that God is not a divine matchmaker. God’s role in your search for a life partner is not to deliver to your door step a catalogue of potentially flawless candidates with outstanding virtues or qualities for your cherry picking. The truth is, we will never find a perfect mate; because the one and only good catch had risen two thousand years ago! What is therefore left on earth are “works in progress”.

I believe that the secret to a good and lasting marriage, at least one of them, is to focus not on perfection but on the relationship. The key thus is for us to work on our relationship and not on expecting the sky from our spouse. Don’t be surprise to find that each of us brings into our marriage more flaws than “perfection” or idealism. I am sure that by now this fact is patently clear to most of you guys.

Most of us do not marry into perfection. We don’t even settle for second best. We marry into imperfection and it is multiplied manifold when two imperfect lives are joined as one. We therefore have to work on our relationship and we do so by managing our expectations.

I have learned this the hard way. I have written about our marital relationship to you guys on numerous occasions. I have even told you some of our misadventures together as a couple of nearly ten years. These are of course private revelations entrusted to you guys as a lesson in managing expectations in a sometimes rocky relationship. I have my flaws, sometimes too many to enumerate. Anna has hers. But all these years, our differences (or imperfections) have not kept us apart. It has in fact, and quite magically, kept us even closer.

This brings me to what I had read this week about the marital struggles and victories of this lovely and wonderful couple whose first name would sound off alarm bells in the religious circle. They are Charles Darwin and Emma Wedgewood. I know Charles Darwin is a controversial figure. But if we divorce him from his theory of evolution and just focus on his love life with his wife, Emma, we will be able to see a life not at all different from ours and sometimes even more encouraging and inspiring than we can imagine.

The book is entitled Charles and Emma – the Darwins’ Leap of Faith, by Deborah Heiligman. This is a very personal book with a heartwarming narration of how Charles and Emma overcame personal differences and imperfections to build a love affair that lasted until their deaths.

Their marriage endured many deaths and heartaches. They married on 29 January 1839 and their marriage lasted for more than forty years when Charles passed away in 1882 and Emma in 1896. By any conventional standards, this is a very long marriage and a very loving one. What so admirable about their marriage is that they were far from being “peas in the same pod”.

You see, Emma, was a staunch believer, a Christian. She attended Church regularly and made sure her children attended with her. Her favorite passage in the Bible is in John thirteen when Jesus bade farewell to his disciples by washing their feet. It was an act of great love, devotion and humility that touched Emma deeply.

However, thanks to his groundbreaking book, The Origin of Species, Charles was the direct opposite. Of course, Charles did not start out as an agnostic (someone who held no belief in God’s existence because his existence cannot be proved). He had in fact attended Cambridge to study theology. But along the way, in his famous Beagle voyages, he turned away from the faith.

You would expect such fundamental differences to have wrecked a perfectly sound marital partnership. But on the contrary, their love grew by leaps and bounds despite of it. Reading about their lives together, you sense the mental and emotional tension between them due to their different beliefs with Emma praying for her husband to experience a change of mind and Charles trying hard to avoid the subject as a result of his undying devotion to his beloved wife.

If anything, despite her beliefs in God and heaven, all of Charles’ books, including the Origin of Species, were edited by Emma. She commented, critiqued and amended them. She corrected his grammar and spellings, which was to her atrocious. She rewrote awkward sentences and talked it through with him so that he could write them in a more lucid manner.

Imagine this paradoxical irony in the eyes of a Christian fundamentalist: a firm believer in the Bible helping Charles Darwin to write a book that directly attacks it. But however wide their differences in this area, their love for each other were never threatened.

In fact, it thrived because of it. It even thrived notwithstanding the death of three of their ten children. Two of them died just after birth and the most heartbreaking of them all was the passing away of their third and beloved child, Annie. She died at ten. Her death took a lot away from the Darwins and they missed her dearly. Charles and Emma never really fully recovered from Annie’s painful death. But they sought solace in the arms of each other and their love became the unshakeable refuge during such times of personal grief.

One of their secrets is that they communicated with each other regularly. They shared everything with each other, holding nothing back. They shared their joy, their pain and their hopes. Everything was written like love letters and the touching and beautiful words in these letters kept their love alive, fresh and real. In fact, Charles once wrote to Emma, “I wish you knew how I value you; and what an inexpressible blessing it is to have one whom one can always trust, one always the same, always ready to give comfort, sympathy and the best advice. God bless you, my dear, you are too good for me.”

In his autobiography, Charles told his children that their mother was his greatest blessing and continued, “I marvel at my good fortune, that she, so infinitely my superior in every single moral quality consented to be my wife…She has been my wise adviser and cheerful comforter…She has earned my love and admiration of every soul near her.”

What wondrous love can one find, a love that devotes unconditionally, a love that gives and not take, a love that flourishes in divisive differences, a love that defies all to stay together even unto death…

Beloved, we have a lot to learn about loving, especially loving our spouse, as it is said by one, “The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one.” Indeed, the hardest part of a relationship is to love just one and to love her (or him) so deeply, consistently and completely that you lose yourself in her and your life cannot be complete without her. This kind of love takes a lifetime and it usually lasts a lifetime.

Have a good week ahead; be a student to your spouse and discover love all over again.

Genesis vs Science

Dearest Mark, you have raised a good question (which was only brought to my attention last night). I have been contending with this question for years. And I have come to no satisfactory conclusion; or at least the conclusion I deemed as intellectually persuasive and verifiable. Just like the discussion on heaven and our possible occupation in that celestial abode, no one knows for sure nor can anyone describe it with the persuasiveness of authentic, live photographs.

The genesis account of creation was the standard, accepted authority on how the earth and all earth life came about until the 17th century when religious scientists like Copernicus and later Galileo published works that contradicted the Catholic Church’s interpretation of the Bible. It used to be that the earth was at the center of the solar system (and the Ptolemy universe). Then, science reverently disproved it. And we know that science is correct. Before that, the Catholic Church applied Genesis literally and came up with the view that the earth was flat. But now, we will be laughed at if we teach our children that the earth is flat.

Then, an agnostic named Charles Darwin, once a devout believer, joined the fray and proposed in general that our common ancestor was an ape and the latter's common ancestor was a fish and the latter's common ancestor was a multi-celled organism and the latter's common ancestor was a single-celled organism and the latter's ancestor was a pool of goo and possibly, with a little stretch of the imagination, the formless slim (goo) came from another planet far, far away as alien's accidental droppings (or, possibly transported by a passing meteoroid). This was a direct attack on the Genesis account of the instantaneous creation of Adam and Eve.

Now, the debate is about how old the earth is. The young creationist says it is only 6000 years old (some say about 10,000 years old). However, the history books tell us that Sumerians were just learning how to make pottery about 6000 years ago! How do you reconcile that with Genesis?

Further, to be precise, science has established that the earth is 14.7 billion years old. This clearly and disturbingly clashes with the literal 6-day creation. At most, the earth, according to the literal interpretation of the Bible in Genesis, is 6000 years plus 6 day old. So, who is right and who is wrong - Science or the Bible?

Going back to evolution, some Christian scientists crowned it as “God's elegant plan for creating humankind". Others, especially Evangelical Christians who are equally intellectual, denounced evolution as devil's theory, a creation of evil and Charles Darwin was the devil! (so much for freedom of speech and competing ideas).

The truth is, our children in the future will be taught the theory of evolution in colleges or universities as an explanation for the origin of life without any reference to the 1st chapter of Genesis. Imagine respectable institutions of higher learning teaching a theory young creationists see as from the bowels of hell to your precious child and you can do nothing about it! Should we panic?

Alternatively, we can take the middle road, and generally agree with what a highly respected late scientist once said, "Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs and equally compatible with atheism." (Stephen Jay Gould). Can the theory of evolution be religion-friendly?

After all said and done, what is my position?

I have written that evolution has significant gaps but it is nevertheless really elegant, scientifically verifiable to a large extent and intellectually persuasive (that is, if you take the time to study it and not just parroting what others had to say about it). In the end, like faith, it requires some faith to accept evolution. But it is not all irreconcilable with Genesis if we open our mind up to the fact that we serve a God who is far more creative than we can ever imagine and it is within God's abilities to do as he very well pleases: be it an instantaneous creation or a gradual still-equally miraculous evolutionary creation.

As far as I am concerned, the creation of humankind originated from a thought or an idea and not from some blind random mutation in response to some blind random environmental whims. The complexity of our DNA surely points to a designer just like a watch or a well-carved out sandcastle found on the beach points to a maker.

So, Mark, I admit I am digressing. Part of the reason is that I am trying to avoid answering your question and Zenn's because what is the right answer anyway? The sun and moon were clearly created on the fourth day (verse 16 to 19). So, the light on the first day which separated the Night from the Day, and where evening and morning were cosmically apportioned, befuddles or confuses the sincere reader seeking for a coherent and consistent explanation. Surely, this first light (before the created sun and moon) has to be God's light and the darkness should logically refer to the formless, void depth - possibly existing before space and time were created. Note that space can be bent by gravity and time can be warped by speed and gravity, thanks to Einstein. Thus, space and time are not absolutes.

So, before the beginning, space and time did not exist; only the light of God.

Mark, I invite you to imagine an eternity-universe before space and time came about and this eternity-universe may be different in scope and content from this present universe. This eternity-universe may very well be the home of disembodied beings like angels and demons. So, the darkness may be outside of the created heavens and earth. Or, it may be somewhere inside this created heavens and earth but in another dimension and in another form (note that scientists have recently discovered theoretically that there may be many dimensions not visible to the human senses - thanks to something call the string theory).

Mark, you may ask now: Michael, you are not helping. Well, I don't even know whether I am helping myself to understand what I am trying to help you to understand…?

So, how about the evening and morning before the fourth day when God created sun and moon? Maybe this refers to the division between the darkness of hell as a result of Lucifer’s rebellion and the light of God; both held in constant balance, tension and conflict.

Note that hell is enshroulded in perennial darkness because, even though God is light and his presence is everywhere, it is possible that His presence is felt in hell but not manifested or expressed. So, there is no light in hell. Understood? Prove-able? Go ahead, be my guest.

Or maybe, this "evening and morning" should not be taken literally. One author's view is that the evening and morning refers not to the demarcation of night and day but describes God creating in a cycle with a beginning and an ending. The morning refers to the start of creation activity and the evening, the end or resting of creation activity. So, one should not interpret it literally. Some even suggested that the Genesis account should be read poetically. Mark, whatever floats your boat, poetry or literalism.

Lastly, Zenn wrote about not taking the first few days of creation (before humans came into existence) as literal 24-hour day. This is partly the gap theory to accommodate and reconcile science with the Bible. If science says that the earth, through fossil records and half-life of radioactivity isotopes, is 14.7 billion years, then maybe each day of the first five days represents an era or an epoch of much longer time period than the chronological 24-hour day. Maybe one day is millions and millions of years.

You see, before we came into being, time is irrelevant or a-relevant.

For example, let me ask you this question: if a log dropped in the middle of a dense, deep forest, and no one was there to hear it, does it make a sound?

If no human being heard it, the sound it makes, if we can call it a “sound”, is irrelevant. It is as good as saying there is no sound. Mark, you must be all geared up to throw in your view on this. But what I am trying to say is that all that the dropped log had created was mere soundless vibration. Right? And this vibration has to reach our eardrum for processing. And if it does, then our eardrum will resonate accordingly and feed it into our nervous system. From there, it goes to our brain for interpretation, that is, our brain will tell us the loudness of the sound, our memory system will tell us where we had heard the sound before, and our frontal cortex will make sense of the sound, that is, is it a warning of foreboding danger or a friendly sound?

You see, this is a complex system of processing only us human beings and animals can perform. Without us, living beings, can we call this “unprocessed, un-interpreted sound” a sound? It is basically just vibration, molecules bouncing off other molecules.

So, by extension, if we did not exist at all, what is time then? No one can read or tell time. Even if it existed, and we can call it “time” for lack of a better word, is it relevant?

Mark, my main point is that the whole universe, that is, the rotation of the earth, moon and planets, the division of night and day, the changes in the climate, the physics of gravitational pull, and the chemistry of life, makes sense because of us. We are the missing link to making sense of everything that is around us. Without us, nothing makes sense. Before we came on board, time could be a 24-hour day cycle, or a two-hundred-million day cycle. Time held no relevance, whatsoever.

In any event, if no one was there to tell time, time has lost it’s function permanently. Some even say that it was as if the whole universe was waiting for us to finally come along to make sense of it all. Mark, you dig?

So, my conclusion is that life is a mystery. Even scientists have to admit that they are knowing more and more of less and less. One author, professor emeritus James P. Carse, wrote that there are three kinds of ignorance. Ordinary ignorance is what you do not know because you have not asked or read to find out about it. It is not knowing because you were just not informed of it. All of us are ignorant of something. None of us are know-it-all.

Mark you may not know about divorce laws. And I may not know about the intricacies of the stock market. It is normal. We can dispel this ignorance by learning about them. By learning, our ignorance is converted to knowledge.

The second kind of ignorance is willful ignorance. This is the ignorance that comes with arrogance and dogmatism. It is a condition whereby “we are aware there is something we do not know, but choose not to know it.” These are the people you need to avoid or at least avoid engaging them in a debate because they are never wrong even when they are clearly wrong. These are the people who can turn black to white, argue until the cows are even afraid to come home, and make nonsense out of nonsense. They are the typical stick-in-the-mud (or cement) characters. When they have ossified or entrenched themselves in their own belief system, they will defend it with their life even when proven wrong by acceptable standard of measure. This kind of ignorance will harm you mentally and emotionally because you will never learn the truth even when it kicks you in the face a hundred times over.

Then, the last kind of ignorance is referred to as a higher ignorance. This ignorance is described as one that is “a result of long reflection, combining a deep reading of the thinkers who have gone before us with a continuing process of self-examination.” Mark, you fall under this category. You reflect about things. You query, you argue, you expose inconsistencies. The Bible is there for you to dissect, strip apart and debate. But at the same time, you admit your limitations. You know your search, like all scientific searches, however earnest and diligent, will bring you to a point where you can go no further. Unless you are God, you will have to admit your dependence on Him by trust and faith.

There is definitely a gap in our knowledge about Genesis. There even appears to be some inconsistencies that cannot be reconciled by human effort. So, what shall we do? Professor Carse suggests this, “To know God (or the mind of God), they typically said, is to be God; therefore, not being God, all things divine remain forever hidden from us.” The Bible in Deut 29:29 echoes the same sentiment, “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but the things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all of the words of this law.”

So, God has secrets and it is locked up somewhere in this vast universe and He has kept it from us for reasons only our faith can console. This is where we will have to draw the line and accept that we have reached a knowledge traffic junction with red lights against us, telling us to stop and reflect. I sincerely believe that science and God work together hand in glove, and when science reveals some of the mysteries of God in the future, the red lights will turn green to beckon us to proceed forward. But then, we will reach another knowledge traffic junction and we will have to stop again for the next turn of the lights.

Mark, I therefore invite you to accept and embrace uncertainty in life and belief. And when in doubt, or plagued by doubts, let faith stand in the gap of your visceral need for certainty. We all should learn to find restful patience and calming peace in the face of uncertainty because the assurance is this: nothing stays uncertain for long. One day, all will be revealed - that is one certainty you can count on.

Have a victorious National Day!

Friday;s Recap (310709)

Dear Cell, last Friday, we shared about how to build up faith. This appears to be a straightforward subject. We all know that faith comes by hearing God’s words, internalizing and applying it. The Bible says faith without works is dead. Of course a lot of other virtues without works are equally dead. Try professing that you love someone without acting on those saccharine-coated words. Try confessing that you trust someone without entrusting him something that is precious to you like your money or your child. Well, all good promises without works are as good as empty, vacuous promises. So, faith without works displeases God just like love without action displeases your spouse. A workless faith dissipates off just like an action-less love dies off. An effective Christian knows that words alone cannot stand. In the end, we are all counted and recognized by our deeds and not by what we say we will do and not do.

Mark further added that faith increases through trial. James 1:2-4 is a good scripture in support. Trials are strange challengers to our faith like exercising. I realized that contrary to common conception, exercises do not increase or strengthen your muscles. Without proper rest and relaxation, exercises will hurt your muscles. We all know that it is painful to exercise when we huff and puff for that extra breath or when we feel the physical strain in our lungs and the tightening stretch in our limbs. But the reward of growth in our muscles only come when we rest and relax. This is the only time when our tore muscles and sinews get to repair itself. This repairing process is how your muscles get build up. So, without resting, you will literally exercise yourself to death. I know this is common sense but sometimes we need to remind ourselves that what is common can often be commonly overlooked. So it is with trials to our faith. None of us, as sincere Christians, can ever go on and on mired in our own trials. We cannot have a trial-fire mentality, always expecting or relishing any circumstances that challenge or stretch our faith muscles. This head-on clash with dire situation is a surefire way of extinguishing the flickering flame of our faith. We will never grow in faith if we do not stop and meditate on the meaning each of the trial in our life brings. Each trial either brings us closer to God or further away from Him.

Two kinds of faith determine whether we will grow in God or wither away. There is the memorizing faith and the internalizing faith. One is clearly a head assimilation of the word of God and the other is a heart-transformation. The mistake most Christians make about Bible reading and studying is that they treat it as a form of rote learning. We memorize scores of scriptures as if we were going to take an examination at the end of each semester. Of course, we cannot learn without doing some memorizing. But earnest Bible studying is more than just regurgitating scriptures like an assembly line churning out shoes. Bible study goes beyond educating ourselves in God’s words.

Eugene Peterson once wrote that we should eat the Bible. By this, he elaborated as such, “Christians feed on Scripture. Holy Scripture nurtures the holy community as food nurtures the human body. Christians don’t simply learn or study or use Scriptures; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus’ name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son.” Result-producing faith or fruits-bearing faith are visible actions that impact the world around us, influence the people we live with and change lives one soul at a time for His glory. This is where internalizing faith comes in. We need to be transformed completely in our minds and hearts by the word of God; or else, Bible reading will be no different from a public reading of the Harry Potter series. Do not come to the Bible demanding or expecting something from it. Although God’s words can meet our needs, and we can grow from it, there is in fact a greater need to be satisfied when we read the Bible. Let me explain.

We can approach the Bible as an encyclopedia or an information book. Basically we study the Bible to compress as much information or data as possible into our brain to broaden our intellectual base. This satisfies our intellectual urges. It does not however fulfill the fundamental need of nurturing our spiritual being. Another way we can approach the Bible is to study it to seek out truths to meet our most pressing need of the moment. We all have different needs. Some are looking for a perfect mate. Some are praying for their prodigal husband to return. Some wants to be blessed in their career. Some are hoping to end the pain that cancer inflicts on their loved one. These are legitimate needs and there are truths embedded in the Bible that can help us in meeting those needs. Or at least, impart strength and hope in our lives to brave through those trying times.

In some ways, meeting those urgent needs cause us to grow spiritually in the Lord. But there is a higher calling for us Christians when it comes to seeking the word of God. It starts with our motive and it goes beyond memorizing the scriptures to become more intellectual or seeking out truths to meet our needs. You will note that these are all about how we can profit from the Bible. Or how we can control the Bible and take charge of what we read.

To really get the most of the Bible is to come to it expecting nothing in return. It is to relinquish all control, all expectation and all desires of self-profit. Remember the Bible is not just a life map to get you from point A to point B; it is also a manual for transforming your life. Instead of taking charge of what we read, coming to the Bible with preconceived need to be satisfied, we surrender to the Scriptures and allow it to minister to us. We read the Bible asking ourselves, “What can God teach me today?” We make it an interactive, two-way dialogue; instead of a unilateral monologue – listing our needs, desires and wishes and expecting instant or eventual gratification. We must stop taking charge and start opening our hearts to the mentoring process of God’s spirit. Our attitude counts for everything. We must read with the earnest desire to change our life for God, to be more like Christ. I believe that God has many things to say to us. His teachings or instructions for change can come from a decisive scripture, from an affirming voice in our spirit or from an incisive parable we read. 2 Timothy 3:14-17 counsels, “Continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have know the sacred writing that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good works.”

Richard Foster, in his book Life with God, instructs us to experience the scriptures by first listening, then reflecting, and praying and lastly obeying. Listening is the first step. Our reading can only take us so far. Our spirit is only truly ministered when we read a scripture and then keep quiet, remaining still, to listen to the whisper of the Holy Spirit. We need to clear the mind of distracting thoughts. We need to refuse the need to rush. We need to spare the time and effort to wait upon the Lord. Only when this is done can we advance to reflecting. This is the same as meditating. This is where we get personal and internalize the scriptures. We make it our own and we apply it to our life uniquely and peculiarly. Richard Foster encourages us to let the word of God sink into our spirit by asking - How are you revealing yourself to me, Lord? What am I to see and understand in this border territory where my life merges with yours? This is what it means to say, “the deep calls out to the deep.” (Ps 42:7) The more we reflect and think of God this way, the more we become like Him. Proverbs 23:7 says, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” So, when we reflect and mediate on God’s word, with determination, focus and purpose, we cannot help it but experience an inner change that will soon manifest in our words and actions. For it is said, What you think, is a product of what you are. And what you are, is a product of what you think. Here are some benefits of meditation as spelt out by Elmer L. Towns in his book Biblical Mediation for Spiritual Breakthrough. Please take your time to digest them with scriptures reference for your soul benefit:-

1) You gain insight and instructions of truth (Ps 119.99)

2) You get a positive outlook on life (Ps 104:34)

3) You deepen your love for the Scriptures and God (Ps 119:97)

4) You become prosperous as you apply the insights gained (Josh 1:8)

5) You grow and become stable in the Christian life (Ps 1:2-3; John 15:4)

6) You develop a strong prayer life (John 15:7)

7) You are motivated to ministry (1 Sam 12:24; 1 Tim 4:15)

8) You are motivated to repent and live better (Ps 39:3; Rev 2:5)

9) You find the peace of God (Phil 4:8-9)

10)You get a clear focus to guide you in making decisions (Matt 6:33; Col 3:2)

11) You focus your life on Christ (Heb 12:3; 1 John 3:1)

12) You worship God in His majestic glory (Deut 4:39)

Next comes prayer. We listen and reflect and then pray about what we have heard and reflected. Praying is a call for help or assistance. This is where we come to the scriptures with humility and a constant attitude of repentance. We pray that the Holy Spirit will help us to change to be more like Christ. We pray for a heart transformation that results in an external manifestation in our words and actions. We pray for strength and faith so that we can overcome any trial that come our way. Praying is all about seeking God’s co-partnership in our spiritual journey. Praying seals the deal by readying us to accept God’s instructions, admonishments and corrections. Praying also signifies our commitment to change for God.

Finally we come to obeying God. After the groundwork has been done, after we listen, reflect and pray about what we have learned from God’s spirit, we are ready to put our calling, our profession and our confession to action. This final stage is called application. But applying is not just about a “to-do” list. We do not go down the list and tick off those things we have done mechanically. It is not a race to the finishing line. It is not about setting a deadline to finish all the tasks set before us. In fact, applying and obedience are all about responding and surrendering. The risk is that in our busyness to apply and obey, we shut our spirit out from God’s immediate and relevant directions for our life along the way. In other words, we lose our sensitivity to God’s inner prompting. We lose sight of His guiding hand and go on our own strength to accomplish the task. Worst, we stop responding and surrendering to God and make all the required change to our spirit and attitude for our self-gain.

It is always possible to repent or change for the wrong reasons. We become more like Christ so as to impress others. We demonstrate false humility. We crave personal recognition by exercising restrain and not true patience, by tolerating one another instead of loving and sacrificing for others, and by paying lip service to charity instead of living in grace and compassion. So, always remember to rely and act on God’s strength, and not on your own. Always allow God to take the lead in your words and actions. Always seek His counsel and respond accordingly. Be humble and wait upon the Lord.

Remember a deeper life in God is worth seeking for. Let your faith grow as you delve deeper into His word. Let your faith be your shelter in times of storm. Let your faith overcome life’s trial that you may grow stronger for it. Pastor David D Ireland, who wrote why drown when you can walk on water? – Applying Faith in Real Life, reminds us that when we are facing times of despair, we must learn to say:-

1) I am here by God’s appointment - so don’t lose sight of God’s divine plan for you. You are hand-marked by God and whether you live or die, you belong to Him. Let Romans 8:28 comfort you to press on.

2) I am here in God’s keeping – so don’t forget who is in control when you face hard times because the spirit in you is greater than the one in this world. With God, there is always a good ending.

3) I am here under God’s training – so don’t despair when you are being disciplined. Remember, it is a blessing to be subjected to His discipline because God wounds, but he also binds up; He injures, but His hands also heal. (Job 5:17-18)

4) I am here in God’s timing – so don’t give up because your trial has an expiry date. Just as it has to come, it also has to go. Your trial is for a period and for a purpose. Once you’ve learned from it, you will grow stronger because of it. So, take heart and stand firm, God is faithful to see you through.

Ps: Last Friday we also talked about a Martha’s overload. We all know that Mary sat by the feet of Jesus to listen and receive; while Martha was busy in the kitchen whipping up a storm. Soon enough, her busyness caught up with her and she broke down. Bitten by the bug of jealousy, she then confronted Jesus about Mary apparent idleness and received a rebuke from Jesus instead of a compliment. Jesus’ rebuke is equally applicable to us in the busyness of our daily toil and grind and it’s recorded in Luke, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (10:38-42).

We always thought that doing more pleases God. But in the end, what pleases God is not more but less. We do not serve a fastidious and complicated God. In fact, there is only one thing that Jesus wanted and it is as clear as blue sky. Jesus wanted us to enjoy His presence, that’s all. He is not expecting a grand reception. He is not looking to be entertained. He is not interested in our décor or drapes. He is not a food taster. Neither is he a hygiene inspector. The intimacy Jesus is looking for cost nothing from us. He wants to be invited not just into our house but into our hearts. Martha opened her house to Jesus but Mary opened her heart. The difference is crucial because it distinguish a true follower of God and one who follows religion. One will never go faint or weary while the other gives up when hard times come knocking. In the book, Caring without Wearing, the author Carol Travilla lists five unrealistic expectations that can contribute to servant burnout. See how much you can identify with these false beliefs:-

1) There should not be any limits to what I can do.

2) I have the capacity to help everyone.

3) I am the only person available to help.

4) I must never make a mistake.

5) I have the ability to change another person.