Showing the World What The Devil Does Not Have
Today is a really bad day. My parents had the worst quarrel ever and now they are going to be divorced. My mom is sleeping over at my aunt’s house after a heated exchange that included smashing stuff. I am pretty sure the divorce will come true this time. I think every body is sick of carrying the heavy burden.
I would not point fingers and blame either parent based on who’s right and who’s wrong. Both parties are right and wrong in certain issues and actions. In marriage, it is not about who is right or wrong. It’s about bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do(Colossians 3:12). All our troubles started because my mom only became a Christian after being married to my Buddhist dad.
Never marry a non-Christian, because they will never understand you or be understood by you. You will only end up hurting yourself and the other party. You cannot expect a non-Christian spouse to obey your Christian beliefs. It’s unfair for them because they simply cannot understand why you cannot obey theirs, in things like paying respects to your ancestors. You’re not doing them a favour but a big disfavour.
Furthermore, God’s name will be blasphemed because of our ‘foolish’ faith. The Bible itself proclaims that the Gospel of God dying on the Cross is foolish. But this world is so blinded it cannot see the wisdom of the foolishness of God, which is wiser than the wisdom of the world.
For a long time now, my dad would insult God and Christianity whenever he had a quarrel with my mom. I would always be filled with indignation for God because He is not like that at all. But sometimes, we bring Him shame though our own actions.
My dad says stuff like, “If Jesus is real, let Him take my life tonight. Otherwise He is not real. God cannot save you. Only money and you can save yourself. I curse Jesus to His face. *%#@!”
Jesus never cursed my dad to prove Himself real but He showed him grace so that he might come to repentance one day.
2 Peter 3:9 says,
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
When I was very immature in my faith, I used to react to my dad’s words and got angry. I challenged him, broke his idols once when he was extremely unreasonable to my mom and fought him once when he got violent.
My friends, do not commit the same mistakes I did. Never stoop down to the world’s way of handling issues.
My heart is crying out for a faith in my life and actions that convinces people of Christ better than words. St. Francis of Assisi onced quipped, “Preach the Gospel. If necessary, use words.” I was initially admiring St. Francis until Jie Hau told me that such a man is so arrogant he thinks that he can spread the Gospel with his life alone.
I was astounded by Jie Hau’s reply which I found to be true of the Church today. If you ask me, Christians, me included especially, have not reflected even half of what Christ has commanded us to do. I did not have the privilege of knowing the life and character of St. Francis so I am not judging him. But the person I want to be judging the most is myself.
This is one of my strongest driving forces in my faith - to be that extraordinary Christian, not even conforming to the bad patterns of the Church. I am not elitist but I want to find the true and perfect way so that I can teach others and be a good testimony myself.
I want to tell you that the Church is not always right. God is always right and perfect but we are not. This is why God says He is the Author and Perfector of our faith. Every Church is built up of imperfect people; it’s ridiculous and naïve to expect the Church to be always exemplary in behaviour.
During Ghandi’s time, the British Christians were the colour-blinded racists who were bigoted with the idea that people with skin of any other color except for white were inferior. They forgot that the Bible mentioned that every tongue, tribe and nation will be in Heaven praising God. They even hindered Ghandi from becoming a Christian. He was so close to converting but they stopped him because of the Church’s dress code.
Today, Christians download music, movies and software despite the intellectual property laws the government is trying to establish. I was one of them too, so I am taking the blame as well. You may think it is a minor matter but we should obey the government in all things except those concerning our faith and salvation.
Mark 12:13-17 instructs us,
Then they sent to Him some of the Pharisees and the Herodians, to catch Him in His words.
When they had come, they said to Him, “Teacher, we know that You are true, and care about no one; for You do not regard the person of men, but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?
Shall we pay, or shall we not pay?”
But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, “Why do you test Me? Bring Me a denarius that I may see it.”
So they brought it.
And He said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They said to Him, “Caesar’s.”
And Jesus answered and said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
And they marveled at Him.
The world will marvel when they see our reverent submission to what is right at a standard that far surpasses theirs. This brings Romans 12:3's call to not conform to the patterns of the world a higher notch, does it not?
I am not attacking the faith or the Church. I just do not want you to get too comfortable in your faith, being satisfied even when you outdone the faith of many others by becoming a prominent pastor with praises from men. We have not understood the fullness of the faith nor are we all that we should be yet. We should be straining to reach the end of the race to hear God say, “Good and faithful servant.”
Our lives must shine with the light of Christ because He will not come until His appointed time. We are His only ambassadors and nobody else is going to defend Him. He is not going to repeat Elijah’s miracle of fire falling down from Heaven because that fire represented His Old-Testament wrath that was poured out on the prophets of Baal. God instructed Elijah to slay all the prophets of Baal. God is not going to physically strike Buddhists, Taoists or any other religious group down in the distant or near future. He wants to save them from the burning pits of sulphur in Hell!
People have no idea what is the truth because all religions seem to be replicas in other forms. Ask for miracles and the Buddhists will show you their “Tiao Tang” people who can cut themselves and get healed instantly supernaturally. What about the Hindu yogi masters who can pierce themselves with long, thick needles and walk on broken glass and coals without the slightest hint of pain.
Mention a Holy Spirit experience and people will say you are inexperienced. That is what my dad said. Ouija boards and the occult give you an experience that is thrilling, surreal and out of this world too.
Talk about fun-filled, hyped up and concert-like worship services in City Harvest Church and people will rather go to pubs, Geylang and nightspots.
What I am saying is not to discourage you from spreading the gospel, inviting people to services and telling them about your experiences. We must do that; it is our Commission to teach and make disciples. But our faith must be more than just words and empty doctrine. This applies to me, first of all.
What is the light of Christ then? Love and righteousness. Why? Because those are the only two characteristics the Devil does not have.
No one is going to believe in a religion that people preach but do not practice. If we are ever to impact or influence the world, we have to start practising these two things.
Jesus said that we must be sly as a snake and meek as a dove in this world packed with wolves who devour sheep like us. A Bible verse says that Christians are not as shrewd as the world. I have found that to be very true as I deal with my dad, who is a smart man who pulls my Christianity down by using what I do with my life as a weapon.
And it is true; he asked me why I go to mission trips and do not even take good care of my grandmother. He asked me why do charitable work overseas when you do not even do household chores. Let me say this one thing, people can smell fake Christianity from far away.
We have to learn what righteousness by God’s standard means. Sometimes we put on self-righteousness and deal with things in a “I’m right, you’re wrong. Say sorry, repent or I will get you.” attitude. True righteousness is paying back good for good and evil.
What will you do to that gangster who hits you in the face for no reason? Will you hit him back? That, my friends, is not what Christ wants. He says, turn the other cheek but who ever obeyed Him? If we only had that faith and desire to do everything in the Bible and stop giving excuses, people might see a difference.
Ghandi took the Bible verse about turning the other cheek seriously, even though he was never a Christian, and helped gained India’s independence. He did not believe that by not striking people who hit him will stop such incidents from happening again in the future.
He believed Jesus’s word was true regardless of how badly men treated him. If we would only have faith in God not by sight, our works will be greater than Ghandi’s. Especially in Singapore, any result that is not uncomfortable or painful is deemed as God’s reward for doing something right.
We must welcome pain and understand suffering before we can emphatize and symphatize with people. Jesus, our High Priest who symphatizes with us, had to go through 40 days of suffering and temptation in the desert. You cannot even begin to love until you have shared the pain and suffering that people everywhere, especially spiritually blind non-Christians, are experiencing on a daily basis.
After all, Jesus said we were sheep for the slaughter. We are supposed to die for our faith one day when persecution arises. If our faith is not something we will die for, there is nothing so important and real to our faith. If we cannot even resist hitting back a gangster when he well-deserves it, we will not be able to be martyrs who shine His light.
Dealing unrighteously with the unrighteous is self-righteousness. James 1:20 says,
For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
We must learn to love people sincerely, starting from our families. That is the part most Singaporeans neglect. We will convince people of Jesus’s love by our love. That is why Jesus said we shall be known as His disciples by our love.
If we do not even wash our families’ dirty laundry with love, how can we wash drug addicts’s gaping wounds with sincerity? If we do not even love those who love us, how will we love the unlovable?
I was hyper spiritual before; my mouth full of Christ, trying to prove Jesus to other people. But then God slowly broke me down so that I could be naturally supernatural.
If you are doing good deeds not from the heart but with other motives under a false pretense, your reward will not be found in Heaven.
We have to start caring sincerely for people who do not even want to hear about Christ. We need to see people and be moved with compassion like Jesus. Four and five thousand came to Him separately on two occasions to hear His preaching and receive His healing. He was like a superstar and yet He was not distracted from sensing the crowd’s sorrows, burdens, physical hunger and fatigue.
Love is about expressing patience, humility and forgiveness to a blind world whose only truth-bearers are us. Love is about giving your all in evangelism and being a good testimony, being unsure of any reward or seed being planted in their hearts. Love must be freely given to all persons of any religion, race and other subgroups.
I will leave this entry at this. I have been writing for three hours. It will take ages to read to this part. Please pray for my family. I want us to stay together.
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