I have not much to offer you

Not near what You deserve

But still I come because 

Your cross

Has placed in me my worth.

O Christ my King of sympathy

Whose wounds secure my peace

Your grace extends to call me friend

Your mercy sets me free.

And I know I'm weak

I know I'm unworthy

To call upon Your name

But because of grace

Because of your mercy

I stand here unashamed.

I can't explain this kind of love

I'm humbled and amazed

That You'd come down 

from heaven's heights

And greet me face to face

Here I am,

at Your feet,

In my brokenness complete.

-Unashamed by Starfield

To be Holy or to be sorry.

The pursuit of holiness is not a choice; it is a command and exhortation. "...be holy, because I am holy." (1 Peter 1:16). Tozer described holiness as something heavenly, awe-inspiring, mysterious and fear-evoking. It is also a character of kindness, mercy, purity, moral blamelessness and godliness. 

For us who are Christians and believe in the truth, we ought to strive for a life of holiness. We know what is required of us and everyday, we are forced to make decisions and choices that would reflect on how far we have travelled on this road towards holiness. No one other than ourselves and God knows better, in fact God knows far more than we do, because He searches the very depths of our hearts. 

However, God created us not because He needed us for He is self-sufficient but because He wants us. Therefore, I believe that He desired all things good for us, His intention was to behold and cultivate a close, inseparable bond with His creation. The essence of the heart of the believer who is willing to be penetrated by the Spirit of God and to be moulded into His image is wondrously holy and permeated with this magnificent quality that he/she does not need to toil for it but only yearn and desire for more of it. God will not disappoint the believer who has a heart after Him, a heart that daily seeks Him and desires for more of Him- His holiness. 

It is not grandiose and out of reach. I believe God did not intend for us to be swept into a whirlwind of complex religion only to end up being caught in the middle. That is why we all know that the experience of God is of much greater value than mere puffed up theology. Don't get me wrong, sound doctrine is important but cannot exist without being accompanied by a true experience of the living God. 

So what I need to ensure of in my life, is to have this inexhaustible desire to draw 'feelingly near' to my Creator, to put selfish ambition and limitations of the human mind aside and to long for a life of holiness. 

I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, the word 'holy' seemed definable, which when I think about it now is laughable. Because you can't exactly define holy, just as you can't really define love, because all these have to be felt and experienced. I can remember how my friend used to snicker, "Look at him, he's acting so holy! ', or " Don't try to act all holy in front of me." Definitely a gross misuse of the word 'holy'. And I don't have to go into the multitude of vulgarities coined from this word either. 

Ah, the price to pay when we go the extra mile! But, take heart, because I believe that holiness is a 'sweet and radiant fragrance' that our generation needs to be imbued with so we can impact those around us. 

Remember.

In many ways, I've been longing for today to come because the final exams were taking a toll on me. Every day I would be holed up in the room (a record breaking six days in a row of not going out of the house) and facing the piles and piles of notes to revise. I dreaded looking at the clock as each ticking second would leave me with less time to revise before the day of the exam.

The disappointment of last week's Progress Test haunted me for two days until God reminded me that I should not look back into the past but look ahead into the future. For we live not in the chains of the past. In a sense, I was afraid of history repeating itself. The enemy would try to plant lies in my mind, telling me that my next paper would be difficult, I would go through a mental block and forget all that I have studied.

But, God is so so good because I refused to let the negativity of the situation bring me down and He allowed me to rise again. The day before today's exam, I was able to sing songs of worship ( He even gave me a new song on Sunday!), laugh and be joyful just as if there wasn't an exam today. Yes, I was stressed because there was a lot to cover but I did not allow it to overwhelm me. Just yesterday I was reading Isaiah 35:4:

"Say to those who are fearful hearted, Be strong, do not fear. Behold, your God will come with a vengeance, With the recompense of God, He will come and save you."

There is a beautiful song written by Bob Fitts that I grew up listening to whose lyrics are taken from this verse, I was singing it out and trusting that my God who is mighty to save will indeed, save me.

This morning as I took the bus to the exam venue, and even before the exam started, I was in total peace. I had His peace that surpasses all understanding. (Romans 4:7). My nerves weren't frazzled and I wasn't panicky although I hadn't finish studying everything. And even as I answered the questions, He gave me the peace to slowly think and not panic when tackling certain tricky questions. Praise God!

When I think back on all these years, through all the exams I sat for, through all the dark nights and fearful moments, I can only reflect and remember the outrageous faithfulness of God. He has seen me through every single time, without fail. I am humbled by His mercy and grace.

I have many more years to go in this course and it will be an uphill climb from now on, but I know God will lead me through all the way. And at the end of this journey, the victory is mine. And God to be glorified. I am just a vessel used by Him to reflect His glory. I pray that I will be humbled every single day, living only for Him, stripping off the 'self' in me but filling it with Him alone.

God is loving and kind. He did not only stay by my side throughout this intensive revision period and ultimately the exam itself, He sent so many wonderful people into my life to encourage, pray, support and show love and concern towards me. I always believe that the love of God that shines through acts of kindness and compassion by His people is something so precious and to be treasured. And as the receiver of this gift, I am very blessed. Thank You God for Your amazing love!

* * *

Have been reading Colin Urquhart's book 'Faith For The Future', one of the few books I took from the library at King's. The last chapter had this paragraph which I find especially profound.

"To live a life that is holy is to live a life of love. Such a life cannot be the accomplishment of self-effort; it can only happen through the Holy Spirit being manifested in the weakness of our human nature. That involves not only the constant indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but also the continuing empting of self."

This will be my prayer each day. Whatever time I have on this earth is to be used to fulfil His purposes for my life and to achieve those purposes, I need the Holy Spirit to guide me and lead me. I want to carry the aroma of Christ and touch lives with the fragrance of His love. To allow Him to whisper into my ear and put things in my heart. And yes, I need to continuously die to my flesh and LIVE IN THE SPIRIT.

Also, Tozer in his book, 'The Knowledge of the Holy' said,

"There is a glorified man on the right hand of the Majesty in heaven faithfully representing us there. We are left for a season among men; let us faithfully represent Him here."

Amen.

Supernatural

Supernatural. I love this word. I also love my Lord because He is a supernatural God. He works in the supernatural. And the wonderful gift that I have is that I can live in the supernatural too. I can tap into His pool of supernatural and abundantly receive power and strength. Because the natural is our human weakness-the flesh in us that craves for luxury, for comfort and for life to enfold perfectly without a single crease. It doesn't take us too long to figure out that life in this world, at least, is nothing close to utopia. Daily struggles exist and sometimes, natural circumstances test our patience and resilience.

But, oh, what a glorious thought of Jesus, who is supernatural personified can overturn this bleak and sombre picture I just painted. Because He died on the cross and rose again, because He came to earth and denied Himself for us, we too can experience the supernatural. My heart swells with the immense desire to possess this supernatural gift and to use it to guide my daily living.

I want to live out this supernatural life. I don't want to just be someone who raves about it, speaks wonders about it but does not practise it. The ideal of being free from sin, suffering and shame is absolutely possible. Why? Because of the supernatural! By grace we forgive those who scorn over this truth. And because of this truth, I rejoice, I'm thankful and I want it, I want it and I want it!

Supernatural. An amazing word. Even more amazing, to live it out!

Seek His Face!

Listen to this.
"Thus says the LORD:
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
Let not the mighty man glory in his might,
Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
But let Him who glories glory in this,
That he understands and knows Me,
That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgement,and righteousness in the earth.
For in these I delight," says the LORD.

-Jeremiah 9:23-24

Let us be spurred to know Him intimately and to seek His face always. For He delights in us, His people, yearning for the knowledge of Him and passionate to behold His face. And we glory in this-knowing Him. We glory in the eternal pleasure of enquiring in His temple, in gazing at His beauty and just falling in love with Him.

Nothing else is worth as much as this. So, cast aside every encumbrance, strip off every distraction and SEEK HIS FACE- He who is Mighty to Save, who is our Hope and Deliverer and our Shield and Portion forevermore.

The Battle.

The Christian faith to some, may be boring, banal, irrelevant, outdated and 'churchy'. Where there lacks excitement, life becomes routine and regimented. We are in danger of staggering into a church service, slouched in the pews and listening to a sermon without half expecting our hearts and minds to be blown by it.

Have you found yourself, fixating your attention on the preacher, but having a layer of your thoughts (for we are multi-layered individuals) settling elsewhere, but all of a sudden, you bring that to a screeching halt because you hear something-something so profound and settling that it demands nothing less than all of your attention.

The story of Jacob at the brook of Jabbok is one of those stories that I've heard countless times but never really felt awestruck by. But there comes a point in one's life, where being mindblown by the most unlikeliest of things becomes inevitable.

Jacob fascinates and intrigues me because he is different, in fact I dare say, he dared to be different. He purposed in his heart from the beginning to be different. He was resolute to achieve great things. He defied morality. Many moralists scream murder when discussing Jacob because they cannot comprehend how a man who cheated and bluffed his way through life could have encountered God face to face, sought blessing and received just that. But don't we agree that the Christian life is a life of paradox? We receive blessing to bless others, suffer to gain, die to live.

Jacob found himself being attacked by a stranger in the night. Being a man of formidable strength, he found himself relentlessly fighting his attacker with all the brute and force he could muster. And, he prevailed, the Bible tells us. But watch what happened in the end. He touched the hollow of his thigh and the joint fell out of place. Jacob, left limping and injured. He was defeated wasn't he? After a battle that he thought he had deservedly won, the anticlimax was bitter to swallow. He found himself in a position where he was at the mercy of his attacker, he refused to let go and as he tugged on, his hollowed cries was ' I will not let you go unless you bless me!" -Gen 32:36.

Frederick Buechner in his sermon, "The Magnificent Defeat" tells us of how, like Jacob, we find ourselves battling God as our enemy.

'Our enemy because before giving us everything, he demands of us everything; before giving us life, he demands our lives- our selves, our wills, our treasure.'

The human soul can be as fragile as a white feather but it can also be as formidable as a battleship in war. God will shatter this soul in defeat, just as He did with Jacob. Because there is a blessing to call ours at the end. A blessing that seems worth everything we have given in for, even our very lives. We all have our own personal battles to fight- it is my prayer that we will never ever give up.

And, so back to my earlier point, it is not a mere coincidence that as I'd read Beuchner's sermon on Jacob's magnificent defeat, I also heard about him in the preaching on Sunday. There is a parallel to be drawn and I'm glad to have come to the full understanding of it.

He is there.

If I would stop searching for answers to my disappointment, my shortcomings and failures, I would then know that none of it matters because God is out there, in His invincibility, He is watching and He wants me to see through Kingdom lenses, to see beyond, to embrace Him for who He is and to seek His face, a glimpse of His glory.

If all I had was one last breath,
I'd spend it just to sing Your praise,
Just to say Your name.
If all I had was one last prayer,
I'd pray it 'cause I know You're always listening,
If I could live a thousand lives, bind the hands of time,
I would spend every moment by Your side.

'Cause I, I know You're there, I know You see me
You're the air I breathe,
You are the ground beneath me.
I know You're there, I know You hear me
I can find You anywhere.

If all I had was one more song to sing,
I would raise my voice to make the heavens ring,
If all I had was one last chance, I'd take it
I would stake it on You.
If I could raise up high and catch a glimpse of every eye,
I would make them believe,
What I feel inside.

I know You're there.

-Jeff Chandler for Casting Crowns.

This song is hauntingly beautiful, it spurs me to live my life just like that. To know that He is there, all the time, His love for each and every one of us is -worth us staking our lives, our faith and our hopes on Him. As Philip Yancey puts it:

" Someone is out there, I realized. Someone is watching life as it unfolds on this planet. More, Someone is there who loves me. It was a startling feeling of wild hope, a feeling so new and overwhelming that it seemed fully worth risking my life on".