Christmas Songs (4)

The Promise

The Lord has a habit of making a promise before bringing it to pass. He could choose not to first make a promise to Zacharias and Mary, yet still bring the whole enterprise to fruition. But there is something about making a promise. If I constantly make promises yet fail to fulfil them I would be perceived as someone who cannot be trusted.  But if I always make good my promises then not only would I be recognized as trustworthy, those whom I make promises to would also draw close to me. We have somehow formed a close bond.  I believe the Lord must at least partly have this in mind when He made and fulfilled promises. Even in our lives.

Failing to conceive after trying for some time my wife and I began to get anxious. We were in our mid-thirties then. Needless to say, we prayed a lot. If there was a storehouse in heaven stocking up babies we were banging at its door every day. Many people prayed for us too. One Sunday about two years after our marriage the Lord gave my wife and I a promise through a man of God. The guest pastor from Thailand prophesied and prayed with great conviction and fervency. In a nutshell this is what I received from the Lord: you will have a baby three years after your marriage. True enough it really materialized, but I only found out my wife was pregnant four days before our fourth wedding anniversary! God is never late! Through this and many other such experiences I have learned that the Lord can be trusted and they drew me closer to Him. My friend, we should always look out for promises from God. It makes our lives exciting and our relationship with the Lord fresh and real. What’s more, He fulfilled them to our good! They need not be dramatic experiences like what I had. More often than not it’s a simple word from the Bible. Take it, man!

There are many prophecies concerning the Messiah in the Old Testament, but none I think is as stunning and outrageous as this one promise from Isaiah: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel (Isa 7:14, NKJV). The virgin birth was a spectacular feat, but the great promise is found in the later portion of the verse: and shall call His name Immanuel. Translated, the Hebrew word Immanuel literally means “God with us”. Matthew found the words so profound he quoted them, and explained the meaning of the word “Immanuel” (Matthew 1:23). God is ever with us, that is the promise, and it started with the birth of Jesus. In a sense, God was always there even before Jesus’ birth, but it was not possible for Him to be present in His people’s lives in the intimate way that’s possible now after Jesus’ coming. The birth of the Son of God in human flesh was the beginning of His work of grace which He completed thirty-three years later on the cross, making it possible for Him to be with us at all time. In fact, not only with us, but also in us.  After the cross the word Immanuel took on an even more real and tangible meaning for us. This is God’s ultimate desire. He just longs to have an intimate relationship with us. Imagine, God is with us! Can you visualize Him sitting next to you right now?

Israel was waiting for their Messiah, but when He showed up they couldn’t recognize Him. They were really only waiting for someone to deliver them from the oppression of their enemies the foreign powers. Indeed “God with us” not only points to His presence, but also to His stand together with His people against their enemies, as Isaiah gave us further meaning of “God with us” in Isaiah 8:9-10. However, Israel’s perception and expectation of their Messiah’s work was much too limited. They couldn’t see that salvation is for all the peoples including the Gentiles, and the concern of the Saviour is to save all the peoples from the enemies of their souls – sin and all the effects it brings and the devil (these are the true “you peoples” in Isa 8:9, NKJV). This is what Simeon prophesied about Jesus and the salvation He brings: For my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel (Lk 2:30-32).  It’s going to bring eternal good to all peoples of all time, not only physical Israel. In the words of a song (The Promise) by Michael Card, the Promise showed their wildest dreams had simply not been wild enough.

When it comes to His promise to you, is your dream wild enough?

Photo Credit: nuttakit on FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Scripture Reference Link: BibleGateway.com

Christmas Songs (3)

Nothing Will Be Impossible with God

In case you think I’ve forgotten that Christmas is about Mary’s baby not Zacharias’, rest assured that I have not.  But you see the question asked about Zacharias could easily be asked about Mary too, only this time she’s too young (and had not slept with a man) and not too old. Our friend Gabriel was real busy popping up everywhere. After Judea he’s now in Galilee. From what we read, clearly he found his interaction with Mary a more enjoyable experience compared with his earlier exchange with Zacharias.

Both of them basically gave the same response (“How can it be?”) when told about going to have a baby (of course it’s Zacharias’ wife Elizabeth who was going to have a baby), yet it seems Gabriel was more accommodating and favorable towards Mary. To Zacharias he answered, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings. But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in their own time.”(Lk 1:19-20, NKJV). But to Mary he explained, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.  Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.” (Lk 1:35-37, NKJV). Can you see the difference in tone? Was Gabriel sort of biased because Mary was going to be the mother of Jesus?

Let’s be careful here, you don’t want to be put into silent mode. Stretch your ears a bit and you may well hear the mighty angel reason, “Friend, the old chap had been praying for a child, and he not only doubted me when I said his wife is going to bear him a son, he had the gut to ask me for a sign. So I gave him a sign –made him mute, and it’s for his own good.  But Mary was different, of course she didn’t ask to be pregnant, and it was a supernatural feat for a virgin to conceive, so I’ve got to give her some explanation somehow. Shouldn’t I be gentle? By the way, didn’t Luke tell you that Mary willingly received the promise after my explanation (Luke 1:38)? But what I saw in the expression on her face you couldn’t read from Luke, she had joy and faith written all over her face.”

Okay Gabby, I think that is reasonable enough. Even if we couldn’t see Mary’s facial expression, we cannot fail to see her faith in the rest of the Luke account. I think she could barely understand the words of Gabriel on how she was going to get pregnant, but her response tells us that she believed that the supernatural is possible with God. She believed wholeheartedly the words of Gabriel - For with God nothing will be impossible.

We cannot afford to overlook the supernatural in the Gospel accounts because they tell us something very important about God and the way we are to relate to Him. An extra territorial being appearing out of thin air; his prophesying something happening in the future; his making the old priest dumb; an old lady conceived; a virgin conceived without a man’s help …and the list goes on. Why do you think the birth of Christ needed to be shrouded in all these supernatural events? You may say that it is to show that He is the Christ. But I think there is a reason even more basic than that. The reason: the supernatural is natural to Him. Can you see the difference? If we say these supernatural events in the Gospel are there only to show that Jesus is the Son of God, we may conclude that God is not bound to do what is out of the natural in our lives. On the other hand, if we believe that the recorded events are inevitable because for the good of humanity He allowed His nature (which is supernatural) to overshadow the natural realm to change things, then we have unlimited possibility placed before us. Think about it, how good is it if we can have His nature overshadow us and the impossibilities we are facing! 

But isn’t that His promise to us? That He shall be with us all the time. After all He’s called Immanuel (Isa 7:14).


Photo Credit: Evgeni Dinev on FreeDigitalPhotos.net 
Scripture Reference Link: BibleGateway.com

Christmas Songs (2)

Christmas in Singapore. 2009.

How Can It Be?

Sometime things are so good that we find it hard to believe. It’s like this, we may be longing for something for a long period of time, and as we do so we get accustomed to not having it, to the point that when the good thing comes about we look with suspicious eyes to see if it’s real. I don’t know if it ever happened to you, it sure did happen to this guy by the name of Zacharias.

You really can be forgiven if you act funny when an angel appears before you. But if you’ve recovered from the shock enough to carry on a conversation with the esteemed extra territorial being, I suppose you are obliged to talk sensibly. Talk Zacharias did, but whether sensibly or not, it’s really your judgement and mine. In fact, if you don’t mind my language, I find him not just a bit dense. His story went like this. Zacharias, a priest serving in the Temple, had a visitation from angel Gabriel, last seen on planet earth some 500 years ago, and was told by this messenger from God that the LORD had heard his prayer for a baby, and in answer will dispatch an excellent package to him and his wife soon enough. This is how Zacharias answered the angel: “Do you expect me to believe this? I’m an old man and my wife is an old woman.” (Luke 1:18, MSG)

How can it be? It all sounded reasonable and sensible enough, a sincere question void of malice bearing in mind the circumstances: I’m an old man and my wife is an old woman. But look here, didn’t he pray for a baby? If he did, why was he surprised when told he’s going to have a baby? Even though Johnny come lately. What’s God supposed to say to him? Maybe he was thinking something like this is more in line with reality: “Hey Zachy, sorry for you and your old goat, you two are too old to do it. It’s a pity you don’t live in the twenty-first century AD, they would have something called Viagra that might be of some help to you. Just accept things as they are now, you’ll still be blessed although you don’t have a child.” Now, old Gabby had lived long enough (I know it’s an understatement) to realize what oddity the human race is capable of, but I submit to you that even he was taken aback by Zacharias’ words, hence his swift and drastic action. He had to put Zacharias in silent mode for a while, because he didn’t want any faithless words from Zacharias’ mouth to jeopardize the conception and birth of the forerunner of Jesus Christ. Maybe because it had been such a long time that Zacharias had lost all hope, he was only going through the motion when praying, not particularly expecting an answer. To be fair, the messenger didn’t bring the answer to his prayer, but promise of an answer. Still, it’s because he had dwelt in the darkness of his circumstances so long that he couldn’t see the light in the promise.  When he kept staring at the crippling reality of the facts surrounding him, he couldn’t believe the promise to be true. How can it be? It’s too good to be true.      

Let’s not be too hard on Zacharias, although I still think he’s a bit dense. The fact is we’ve all been Zacharias. We look at the promises in the Word of God, and we look at the facts surrounding us. When they don’t agree with one another, what are we to believe? The Bible is full of promises, and I bet you can easily find half a dozen that’s incongruent with the reality surrounding you right at this moment. Are you going to say to the Lord, “Do you expect me to believe this?”   We should learn a thing or two from Zacharias’ story.  

Christmas Songs (1)

The Greatest Good News

Newscasters are also getting into the headlines nowadays. Sometime back in late November I noticed one day the headline on MSN.COM went something like this: TV presenter Paula Malai Ali (ESPN Star Sports) is 6 months pregnant. The attractive newscaster is going to have a baby boy, due on her own birthday and that of her twin sister! How cool! So apart from delivering news she is also making news, good news. Surely it brought joy to her many admirers and friends. Once some two thousand years ago a young lady in Israel was also to bring joy to many by bearing and giving birth to a son, only it’s of a very different proportion. I mean the joy, not the size of her baby. The effect was going to touch every soul who has ever lived on planet earth. But she had one problem though: she was a virgin. So before she could deliver the news of her pregnancy to those around her someone needed to break the news to her.  A great newscaster was charged with the task. His name? Angel Gabriel.

I don’t mean to say being a newscaster is his main job function, but at least two times in quick succession the angel Gabriel was asked to break the news of impending parenthood to mere mortals, once to the priest Zacharias (Luke 1:5-17) and another time to the virgin Mary (Luke 1:26-38). Zacharias was a priest, well advanced in years but his wife had not so much as given him an egg. He had all but given up hope of ever becoming a father. Mary, a lovely young lady who loved God, was a virgin, meaning she had never slept with a man before. She was engaged to a young carpenter, but he had not come to take her home yet. To these two blessed souls, Zacharias and Mary, Gabriel was sent. I have always been very curious what Gabriel thought of his exchanges with these privileged mortals. It must have been quite an interesting experience for him. One day when I see him face to face I hope to interview him about this, maybe over a glass of Bloody Mary, but for now let’s stretch our gray matter a bit.

Gabriel was only too eager to be the messenger. Imagine what an honor it is to be the one to announce to the human race the arrival of God himself on earth as a human being. That, my friend, is the full import of the project. Even the mighty angel had a hard time figuring out how it could be that God would become human flesh, and be borne by Mary as a baby. The universe is not big enough to contain Him, and now He was going to be a foetus inside the womb of a woman. The Creator of all would now become a created being. The most powerful of all would now become a helpless babe. It was going to happen once, and once only, in time or eternity. It’s the greatest news of all time.

The angel had waited a long time for this. The last time he went on a similar assignment he declared to Daniel, a prophet of Israel, that deliverance would soon come to Israel in exile. This time he was going to announce that salvation would soon come to all people, not a temporal but an eternal salvation. Ever since the fall, mankind had yearned for this day of salvation. They had tried everything but never succeeded. Now a Savior was to be borne to them who could never fail. You see, the human race was trying to reach God by their own ways but surely they couldn’t, else God won’t be God. Now God come reaching for them, sure He could. Gabriel was excited about this, very excited. But the LORD God had warned him that there would be some apprehension on the part of the human collaborators. They would take come convincing.

Well, convince them I will, Gabriel thought, I’m going to deliver to them the greatest good news.


Scripture Reference Link: BibleGateway.com

                                                                                                                   

Welcome to Much More Life

Attending a wedding party. 2010.

Welcome to the official launching of Much More Life!

It’s been some time since I first contemplated sharing my thoughts on a blog like this. Primarily it’s for the Much More Group, my brothers and sisters who have put up with much of my babbling during our meetings. Of course the same goes for those who hear me preach in church. You know, it’s easier to talk then it is to put your thoughts in writing. Sure I could have made a copy of my sermon notes available to you, but this blog business seems a more fashionable thing to do.  For those who find my messages uplifting and edifying, you get to soak yourselves in them in greater measure and for as long as you like, as you meditate along with me through these posts. For those who find what I say interesting but are far from being totally convinced I believe I will win you over as you follow this blog where I get to extract explore and expand on what I said. For those who just want to pick a fight I am facilitating you by recording my words in writing here, making myself real vulnerable.

If you have surfed your way accidentally to this blog or someone has linked you up, you may be wondering what this blog is all about. It’s about Jesus and the abundant life He comes to give us. I call it the Much More Life. The Much More Group is a group of believers who  meet regularly spurring each other on living the Much More Life. We believe God’s supernatural favor and power are available to us in this Life and we can experience them on a regular basis. Well, I hope it doesn’t sound all too serious or churchy, Jesus doesn’t like religion. When His first disciples wanted to find out what kind of person He is, He bid them “Come and see.” Not long afterward, they had the opportunity of seeing Him perform His first public miracle in the midst of a wedding party. Guess what, He turned water into wine! The bridegroom apparently had run out of the good old beverage for his guests (John 2:1-11). That’s the last thing you would expect a religious teacher do. The Much More Life is not about religion. “Come and see.” 

Christmas is round the corner and I couldn’t have chosen a better time for the birth of this blog. I’ve always loved Christmas, don’t you? It’s a most joyous occasion and you can sense it in the air. I know there is a lot of commercialism out there but hey, let’s not be too hard on the world and the un-churched. Didn’t the Bible tell us that the good news of great joy is for all the people (Lk 2:10)? I guess all the people would have to include all the people. Have you ever wondered why Christmas is celebrated all over the world by even non-believers? Why is it that no religious festival can have the same kind of appeal? The bridegroom might not have a clue as to who brought the wine but Jesus just wanted the wine to flow and the party to continue. So come on, put away the lens of religion and just enjoy yourself!

As you hustle and bustle preparing for Christmas, take time to read along and think along with me on the birth of Jesus. I always like to do this when Christmas come, it’s my way of drawing close to the Lord during this busy season. You see, the newlyweds and their party guests might enjoy the choice wine and the party, but much more than that the disciples also got to see Jesus’ heart and experience His love at close quarter. Wow! What a privilege we have. So for the next few days from tomorrow onwards we will be having the first series of articles on this blog. Ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you the Christmas Songs.

Scripture Reference Link: BibleGateway.com