Encounter

Hi children

Last week, I had just finished writing about Rejection on Sat & then Ps Khong spoke about rejection on Sun, a part of it when he was expounding on Colossians 3:1-14.


Last Sat, I met a visitor who came to my cell.  Her countenance didnt seem quite right & later I discovered it was a deep sense of rejection that had caused a disorder in her life.  Well, I managed to persuade her to go for Encounter (EW) which our church organises almost every month.  She's really looking forward to it because she wants to be set free & see her marriage turn around.


An EW is an experience of coming face to face with God & His Word.  It also confronts you & your past & uproots the negative influences totally from your life. It's good the EW is done homogeneously.  For those who had gone for the EW, their story is nothing short of a miracle. 95% of the time, we had to deal with the rejection in their lives.


Did you know that your Dad suffered from rejection?  He was already rejected in Mama's womb because it was an untimely birth for her.  Although Mama dotes on him, somehow he could not feel accepted.  He struggled through school with low self esteem & life was full of frustrations & tests but God always provided a way for him when there was no way.


At the session on 'Faith to Heal', he broke down.. terribly.  At that moment, God took away his rejection at birth & gave him acceptance supernaturally.  I could sense he was a 'new' man when he came back from the EW.  Although he is a good husband & father, he was sensitive & often felt accused if I was too forthright. We had a tough time in our marriage in the initial years & it's made worse coz both of us have a 'D' personality.  The saving grace is of course, we are both willing to confront our problems after our anger had subsided.  


I too went through a powerful EW in 2002 one which completely took me by surprise. Ok, I wanted to mention this experience in Deliverance, but I'll share here since I'm talking about EW.  At the session of Baptism of the Holy Spirit, someone prayed for me & within 1 second of her laying hands on me, I fell backward.  Supernaturally, as I lay on the floor, I was brought back all the way to the day when my father's coffin was about to be lowered in the ground.  I saw myself - a 6-year old girl beside my mum who was crying uncontrollably.  I never ever saw her in that state.  She was a strong woman.  

The scene was so real!  Until now, I still wonder if I had actually been there.. a 2nd time. Anyway, I was very afraid that my mum would jump into the hole & be buried with the coffin.  Fear gripped me & then anger came - "Why did a good man like him have to die early in his forties?"  At that moment, demonic influence of fear & anger had a connection to my soul.  

Over the years, I questioned God on why my dad had to die without salvation. I was angry & I promised myself that I would not need help from anyone even though I was fatherless. I would be able to survive on my own & protect myself.  I became fiercely independent & that wasnt good for my marriage coz a couple has to be interdependent on each other. 

At the EW, when I responded to God, He took away my wound of anger, self righteousness, independent spirit & pride.  Ohh.. that pride is a real killer!  I cried uncontrollably; I tried to stop it coz I had never cried in public before & I was not about to lose my dignity.  It was no use.  The Holy Spirit was too powerful for me. Haha.  I felt such a strong presence of love in that room as though God was embracing me, comforting me & soothing me.  I dont know how long I was 'pinned' to the floor, but I didnt care what people think anymore! 

You cannot imagine how relieved I was in not trying to be strong on my own.  From then on, I stopped asking God about my father... automatically.  My yoke was taken off my shoulder & I was able to learn how to depend on God & the Holy Spirit.  


From that day onwards, I was able to cry which goes to show that my heart was not hardened anymore.  I was able to feel what others feel.. meaning when I sit near someone who has an emotional problem, most of the time, I could feel the ache, the pain or anger etc.  


Subsequently I went for 2nd EW which dealt with other less significant issues & I was completely delivered.  God can heal a person COMPLETELY in 1 EW but because sometimes, our pain is so deep, we cannot handle it all at once.  We need 2 to 4 EWs before we can be totally delivered.  It's good to go for a refresher sometime & I've gone for more than 17 EWs since 2002 till now.  After the 2nd EW, I went to minister not to be ministered anymore.


So Calvin, you should go for the adults EW - the next one is on 19-21 Nov at Bukit Merah. I dont think the youth & children EWs did much for you.. you were so playful.  If you cant, then wait for Jan 2011; I doubt there is EW in Dec.  

I've no doubt you had hurts, may not be so severe as others since we are a complete family with Christian values & love & acceptance showered on you.  But Im sure we may have inflicted some wounds on you as a child when we demanded that you do some things in a certain way.  It's soul cleansing & you should let God do a deep cleansing in your heart.


Even though I had gone for EW, I make an effort to keep my deliverance by sticking close to the Word in order to keep the door of my past closed TIGHTLY.  Sometimes I may slip but I always go back to God for repentance.  


Someone is flying down today from Indonesia to meet up with your dad.  Something happened back home & we know everything that had happened in his life stamped from his rejection.  His violence, dissatisfaction with life & finally, he's facing them. That's good coz that would be the 1st step for him to live out his destiny, the way God wants.  


Your dad & I have stepped into the last phase of our destiny, your dad 1st, about 2 yrs ago, then it would be me starting from next year.  You know, God takes many years to prepare us, the experiences we went through, the building up of our character takes a long time but it is worth it!  I believe our marketplace ministry will be connected to North Asia & so will the 2 of you & your future spouses.  That I think we are 95% sure.


I believe that working in pairs is powerful unless you are called to a life of celibacy.  Often, people would say to us, " When I see the both of you together, I see unity."  Yes, God says that husband & wife will be 1 flesh & that's the reason why we have to draw close together, build our intimacy & protect each other, especially the man (head of the household) needs to protect the woman he loves, never subjecting her to ridicule & attacks by others.  

If you want to be liberated, go for EW & be scrubbed CLEAN from top to bottom with dettol...hee ....

Daniel 11:32 says " ... the people who do know their God shall be strong & do exploits."

Bless both of you to be just that.


Love, Mum

Applying God's Remedy

Psalm 5 : 1-3  "Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my sighing.

Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God.  In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you & wait in expectation."

God is available to do this for you right now.  Making you whole & righteous by releasing the stronghold of rejection in your life.  However, there are 4 main things that you need to do.

(1)  Forgive every person who has rejected you, hurt you or harm you in any way.  Mark 11:25 "And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."

This applies especially in our attitude towards our parents & most commonly it is our parents who had caused our rejection.  We may put a roof over our parents' heads & take care of their physical needs but if we judge our parents with impure hearts - blame, condemnation & anger, then we'll bring God's wrath upon ourselves.  

Proverbs 23:22 "Listen to your father who gives you life & do not despise your mother when she is old."

Proverbs 20:20  "If a man curses his father or mother, his lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness."

That is the 1st essential step.  


(2)  Lay down all your bitterness, resentment, hatred & rebellion.  
You cant afford them.  Dont nourish them in your heart.  It is poison & it will destroy you & those you love.  Say "I lay down all my bitterness, resentment, hatred & rebellion against so & so at the cross in Jesus name."


(3)  You have to accept that you are accepted in Christ.  If you have read my previous blog, you will realise how much God loves us enough to send his son Jesus to die on our behalf.  No longer will we have to sacrifice animals to atone for our sins.  That was an imperfect sacrifice coz it had to be done yearly.  Accepting Jesus is done once only by FAITH.  Of course, I did it twice coz the 1st time, I wasnt very sure of my salvation.  Now, I'm as sure as day & no one can take away that assurance from me.


(4)  You have to accept yourself.  This is by far the most difficult.  You look back at your past, you see the failures - wrong decisions, false starts, failing others, bad marriage, relationships that went sour & children who went wrong.  


But God labels you  "MY SON".  Ephesians 2:10 tells us that 'we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared IN ADVANCE for us to do."  We are God's masterpiece.  It was not as if you were born, & God looked at you & said "Ok, you are my masterpiece coz you look good."  No! If God considers us his works of art from the start, we dare not treat ourselves or others with disrespect or as inferior work. 


Our parents may not have loved us perfectly but they love us the best they knew because that was how they were brought up by their own parents.  They work hard to put a roof over our heads to protect us, gave us an education & they felt that, that was the best they could do.  We need to set them free from our unforgiveness.  In doing that, we set ourselves free.  Then we are free to love, unconditionally, the people who mean a lot in our lives.  


I also like to state that applying the blood of Jesus over our wounds is crucial plus doing all of the above.  Of course, getting a spiritual leader or pastor to pray over us & deliver you is best coz they would know what to do especially if they themselves had gone through rejection or know much about this topic.


Finally, this antidote is only applicable to those who are Christians because they have accepted Jesus as their personal Lord & Saviour.  That's where the power & authority come.  We have that power to overcome every wounds that had inflicted us and we Christians can drive them out.


Lastly, I like to say that life is short.  We have to make the best use of our time while we have breath.  We exist only by what He gives & only for as long as He allows. (That's my QT today). So let go of your past & walk in freedom & love.


Harriet

God's Antidote

Hi Lamb & Champ

The good news is.. the antidote that God has for everyone who needs healing from inner wounds imbedded in their soul.  Rejection is one of the greatest hindrances to divine love.  As I've learnt from ministering to others, a crushed spirit is not able to receive love & make sound choices that are good for them.  

The nurture ingredients are often missing from childhood - encouragement, affirmation, protection, cherishing, value & worth, discipline & safety.  So they grow up in one or more of the different defence mechanisms - aggressiveness, sarcasm, rebellion, reject others & easily offended - all these keep people away so that their pain will not surface; it is to protect their pain.


Their souls are unfulfilled.  As a result, some of them try to fulfill their souls in some illicit way - sexually or materially; it just doesnt work!  

God has provided an antidote for our rejection & it comes to us through Jesus and the cross.  On the cross, there was a divine exchange.  Some aspects of this exchange are : 

-  He took the evil so that we might receive the good
-  He was punished for our sins that we might be forgiven
-  He was wounded for our sickness that we might be healed
-  He was made sin that we might be made righteous.
-  He was made a curse that we might receive blessings


Isaiah 53:3 "He was despised & rejected by men, a man of sorrows, & familiar with suffering.  Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised & we esteemed him not."  
 
Jesus was familiar with our rejection coz he was rejected by his fellowman but the worse was yet to come. Finally, he was rejected by God his Father.  In Matthew 27:46, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? " For the 1st time, His Father did not answer Him.  God turned his eyes & ears away from his son.  Why?  At that moment, Jesus was identified with our sins.  He became the sin offering for us. He lost his status as a son so that we can become the sons/daughters of God.  

Picture the absolute darkness, the loneliness & rejection, & abandonment by God. You and I may have gone through a measure of rejection but never in that measure as Jesus went through.  His heart was broken & He gave up his spirit vs 50 "And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, he gave up his spirit."


vs 51 "At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in 2 from top to bottom.  What does this mean?  It means that from then on, the barrier between God & man was removed.  Now we can come to God without shame, without guilt without fear.  He has provided a way through his son Jesus so that we can have eternal fellowship with God.


Ephesians 1:3-6 "Praise be to the God & Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy & blameless in his sight.  In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure & will - to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves."


The word 'freely given' show us as the object of God's special favour.  Jesus bore your rejection that you might have His acceptance.  That's the solution to rejection.


There is one last part to this final topic & I shall highlight the 4 things that need to be done.  Have to end here, I have to go teach a DISC workshop in a company.  Will write either tonight or tmr morning.


Bye... Love Mum

The Results of Rejection

In the previous blog, I wrote about the causes of rejection.  Today, I shall write about how we can recognise the problem of rejection in ourselves & in others.

The PRIMARY RESULT  -  the inability to receive or communicate love.  Have you been in relationships, & in circles of trusted friends,whereby by all a/cs the people do love you & yet in your soul you dont have the satisfying sense of receiving their love?  This could be a sign of a crushed spirit.


Also, a person who has never experienced being loved cannot transmit love.  Scripture expresses the truth in ... 1John 4:19  "We love because He (God) first loved us.

Hence, if a person does not know the love of God or parents, an inability to love can be passed down from one generation to the next.  For eg if a little girl does not receive the love of her mother esp from daddy, she receives a wound of rejection.  As a result, she cannot communicate love.  She grows up, marries, becomes a mother, & has a daughter.  Because she cannot communicate love to her daughter, her daughter has the same problem.  This terrible bondage of rejection is perpetuated from generation to generation. Somewhere in the future, this needs to be cut off.
 
The SECONDARY RESULT

This produces 3 kinds of people:

(1) The 1st type of person is one who gives in  :  He says, "I just cant take this anymore.  I'm giving up, it's no use."   In many experiences, this group of people goes through a series of negative emotions or attitudes in this order :  rejection - loneliness - misery - self-pity - depression - hopelessness - death or suicide.  

Whether it takes the form of death or suicide depends on the emotional makeup of each person.  A passive person will ultimately succumb to death - rejection in fact is a contributing factor in many deaths that are attributed merely to natural causes.   Often the more aggressive person sees suicide as a way to hurt those who have caused his pain. The inner thought pattern goes like this  -  "I'll get even with them. Now they'll suffer for what they did to me." Fortunately in all the cases that I've come across where the women tried to kill themselves usually with an overdose of sleeping pills, they were saved in the nick of time.  All of them suffered huge rejection from their spouses & their mothers-in-law.

(2) The 2nd type of person is one who holds out : He apparently doesnt give in. He builds some kind of defence, a facade, to cover his inner agony & struggle.  He has an attitude of indifference & aloofness.  Someone who is building up a defence for himself usually develops a kind of superficial happiness.  The person appears to be outgoing, & quite talkative & acts as though nothing is wrong inside.  This type of reaction is often the response to betrayal.

(3) The 3rd type of person is one who fights back :  He fights everything.  His reactions to rejection develop into first, resentment, second, hatred & finally, rebellion which will lead to occult involvment.  The resentment of not being loved results in hatred and his hatred justifies his rebellion. 

Everyone of these 3 reactions has 1 thing in common.  Essentially, it is defensiveness.  It is a way to cover up his/her hurt.

I heard a pastor say that deep rejection occurred in many great men of God especially in the lives of those whom God has called to serve Him.  It was God's great plan right from the start.   As I reflected on that, I thought, how true as I saw how these great leaders, when they came out of their past, impacted the lives of thousands around the world with their testimonies. The enemy senses that great calling too, that great destiny & so he engineers wounding to start early in life to try to thwart that calling.


In today's society, there are many people who are living in a kind of casual relationships be it friendships or boy/girl relationships & often, they are incapable of going into deep relationships.  Their loneliness is unmistakable & intense.  


If you were to look around you, I believe you will see countless of young people in their twenties who are hungry for real relationships, something deep & meaningful & human.  God wants to heal & set them free. But first of all, God wants them to identify & acknowledge their rejection & then call on His healing power & receive His love.

My next blog will show how to apply His healing power to get out of this terrible bondage.  This is good news.


Harriet


 

The Enemy of Your Soul

Hi children

A few days ago, I came across a good friend's notes stuffed in between the pages of an old diary.  We had some really good times but it ended when she allowed the rejection in her life to destroy our friendship.

Rejection is the most common in many people's lives and often, the deepest wounds that man has to endure.  I pen this down so that you will understand what the causes are, and there are solutions to this problem.  Everyone suffers from rejection at one time or another.  I don't have a deep problem of rejection but my stronghold is sth else which I shall mention it when I write about Deliverance.

Rejection is a crushed or wounded spirit.  In Prov 18:14, it says that "A man's spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?"

Proverbs 15:13 "A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit."

Wounds in the spirit are difficult to diagnose.  They go to a level deeper than the human mind.  Many people carry wounds in them that they are not conscious of.  Their minds wont face them and their memory doesnt recall them.  But it is there!  It is in the innermost part of the soul, often it goes back into many years - their childhood.

I attended a Healing, Wholeness & Deliverance seminar many years ago by Ellel Ministries.  The lessons helped me to differentiate the wounded heart from the sinful heart and godly heart.  But today, I want to concentrate on the wounded or crushed spirit. 

There are 10 root causes but I'll mention the common ones that I have time & again come across in counselling & interacting with people :

1)  A mother carries a child in her womb.  The mother is pregnant but she doesnt really want the child for various reasons : financial hardship, bad relationship with hubby, busy climbing the corporate ladder or she is not married.  She may not say she resents the baby but the attitude is in her heart.  The foetus is a person who is v sensitive to attitudes.  Such a child when born, will have a sense of rejection.

2)  A parent may favour one child above the rest.  The child who is not particularly favoured will suffer from rejection.

3)  A child's parents do not physically demonstrate their love for their child.  A child who receives little physical affection or touch tends to become a rejected child.  The parents provide everything for their child - from clothes to holiday and a good education & a comfortable home but they fail to give the one thing that is important to that child - themselves.

4)  Divorced parents do affect the child badly.  Usually, it is the mother who takes care of the children by herself.  The child of such a divorce may have had a warm loving relationship with the father, but suddenly the father is no longer there.  His leaving creates an aching void in the child's heart which causes the child to feel rejected.

5)  Infidelity.  If the father has gone off with another woman or has a relationship outside, the child's reaction is this : bitterness toward the father & hatred toward the other woman.  What the child has now is a deep wound of rejection, and in his heart, he says, "The person I loved & trusted the most has abandoned me.  From now on, I can never trust anyone."  The feeling of rejection becomes worse if the mother cannot bring herself to forgive her husband and begins to 'neglect' the child because she is burying herself in her own sorrows.  So now, there is rejection coming from both parents.

6)  When either spouse rejects the other.  Often the feeling of betrayal accompanies the feeling of rejection.  When a person is betrayed, she may say, "No one will ever get another chance to hurt me like that."  This is a natural reaction but it is also dangerous coz it will open you up to a 2nd problem - defensiveness - which is the reaction of someone who has been hurt once too often.  Defensiveness says, "Ok, I'll go through life, but I will never let anyone come near enough to hurt me like that again. I'll always keep a wall between me & other people."

God has created every human being an insatiable desire to be loved & to feel love.  Every child longs for the father's love & the love of the father gives security.  When that is absent, the child grows up with insecurity, anger & resentment in him and often, he/she fears the opinions of men.

Let me give you a real scenario  -  A woman was given away to a family when young.  The spirit of rejection has long set in because she was born out of wedlock.  In her new home, she didnt receive love. When she becomes an adult, she marries & has children.  But because of her rejection spirit, she is not able to have an intimate relationship with her husband one that speaks of unity & love.  Although she loves her children, she disciplines them harshly & seems to have difficulty in loving them unconditionally.  Her marriage takes a long time to heal even though she is a christian.  She could not bring herself to face her childhood rejection because it was too painful for her.

The more aggressive mother finds herself hating one of her children (often the more disobedient one).  Her hatred is unreasonable & she cannot control it.

I am not pinpointing any particular person, but the above is more or less a common scenario in the many counselling sessions I had over the years.

Once the wounds of rejection sinks into a person's soul, it changes the person's behaviour.  A person with a healthy image of himself/herself (a spirit of acceptance - the opposite of rejection) will be better able to handle the ups & downs of any relationship .. not perfectly coz we are always learning to be better.  In my next blog, I shall write about the results of rejection. 

With much Love, ♥ Mum

Cultivating the Right Friendships

Dearest Champ

This is the last bit about Christian marriage.

As you know, marriage develops from friendship.  If you have the wrong friends, it is probable that you will end up marrying the wrong person much to your sorrow.  If you are truly a committed Christian, you are not free to contemplate a marriage with a non believer.  But if you always cultivate the right friendship, right people with the same faith (not carnal ones), then it will be much easier for God to provide you with a mate of His choice.


Derek Prince talked about a prudent wife in Proverbs 19:14 "Houses & wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the Lord."  He said that a prudent wife is a woman of intelligence & possesses practical wisdom, a woman to whom things can be committed & do things with responsibility.  It is a blessing to live with a prudent woman acc to him.  A man who has a prudent wife is very foolish if he doesnt consult her.  The man should share all major decisions with his wife, but as head, the man should hold the ultimate responsibility for the major decisions affecting the family.  You heard that... that comes from Derek Prince. 


After marrying your dad, I realised that he is someone who protects me against his mother, & sacrifices his overseas business opportunities to be with his family. I thought "wow, was I fortunate to have married him."  But you see at that time, I unconsciously relied on God to choose my partner for me, unless of course, God tells you that a certain someone is going to be your future wife. It is possible as in Ed Silvoso & Castellanos.  An eg of a noble wife is found in Prov 31:10 onwards. You'll be surprised that the ideal woman is not the retiring, servile & domesticated person. It is a picture of a woman with strong character, many skills, great wisdom & compassion.


I once counselled a lady to leave her lover & go back to her husband.  Although she looks pleasant & quite soft-spoken, her character does not match her outward appearance.  She was determined to keep her lover & live with her husband & young child if he doesnt mind!!  We also counselled a couple who was only married for a month. The wife insisted that she wanted to go for 1/2yr training overseas right after marriage despite our concerns.  Half a year later, she came back with a boyfriend.  

The bible talks about the adulteress:
Proverbs 2:16-19 "Wisdom will save you also from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words, who has left the partner of her youth & ignored the covenant she made b4 God.  For her house leads down to death & her paths to the spirits of the dead.  None who go to her return or attain the paths of life."

For more reading, go to Proverbs 7. 

Jesus said that a tree is known by its fruit.  Look at the person's life and see what kind of fruit comes out of it.  If the girl is an apple tree, she should not produce durians, you know what I mean? Many people like to persuade themselves that the person they are marrying is a believer even though the fruit is not there. However, for new believers, time must be given for the fruit to be proven. Time will let you see the reality of that conversion.

We should always depend on God for his guidance. Derek Prince was married twice & if he had chosen a wife for himself, she would probably not have been the best as he was quite a trusting & honest person. God gave him a 2nd wife after his 1st wife died because God knows his need for companionship.

There is something I like to talk about & that is maintaining moral purity & developing godly character for your marriage partner.  Many years ago during my QT, I read about Joshua assigning the territories to the Israelite tribes according to God's direction.  There is often an interesting connection between the land a tribe received & the character of the tribe's founder.  For eg, because of Joseph's godly character (Gen 49), the tribes descended from him - his sons, Ephraim & Manasseh, were given the richest most fertile land in all of Canaan.  Judah who offered himself in exchange for his brother's safety received the largest portion of land. Reuben being the oldest was supposed to receive a double inheritance but because he slept with his father's wives (gen 49:4) was given desert land.  


Sanctify yourself with the blood of the Lamb through prayer.  When you are sanctified, satan cannot touch you.  


Love, Mum

He Lays the Groundwork for the Marriage Covenant

Dearest Champ

U r a pig, the champs of all pigs!  Sleeping is your favourite pastime isn't it?  Did you read my last blog?

Anyway, to continue from where I left off, I like to add that the one who follows God's way will have a successful marriage.

Look at Ephesians 5:25-28  "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church & gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the Word, & to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy & blameless.  In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself."

This is the pattern/standard set by God.  God refused to accept any lower standard.   Last week at cell, all the ladies agreed with me that our husbands are more selfless when they are really close to God.  The Word protects them & when they are distracted, that's when the trouble begins.

The other standard is found in Hebrews 13:4-5 " Marriage should be honoured by all, & the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer & all the sexually immoral.

God wants marriage to be held in the highest esteem & He protects the sacredness of marriage with his own declaration of his judgement against those who impair it & make light of it.  Fornication is an unmarried person having a sexual relationship & adultery is a person who is married but have a sexual relationship outside of marriage.  But now, I'm speaking to you (as a believer) as an unmarried person.  God's declaration is extremely strong & if we marry just for lust reasons & we divorce so quickly, we will be judged severely.  That really ought to put the fear of God in our hearts!

God wants to guard the marriage institution & He wants to restore it, make it powerful, & make it a place of pleasure & joy to His glory.  God is determined that his institution be protected.  

So how do you ensure that right living will enable you to find God's plan & bring God's favour for your life?  You've got to have faith that God has a purpose for you!

Psalm 37:5  "Commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him & He will do it."

Our responsibility is to commit our way; it is like depositing your money into the bank and you leave it there because you know it will generate interest for you.  Commitment is an act. 'Trust also in Him' is an attitude of trusting.  "He will do it" - only then will God come in on the scene after you have committed & trusted in Him.  

The bible also talks alot about death & resurrection.  This means your life has got to be released from your own control.  You've got to let it go, let it drop.. you often have to witness the death of your most cherished hope & prospects.  You may have made a commitment to God & expect God to answer you in a certain way, some wonderful way, & the next instant, everything goes wrong.  You may have a certain person, or a certain view of how your wife is like.  

And you say.. "It all went wrong!"  No, it did not, it all went right.  God is teaching you something.  If you want his highest will, there has to be a death followed by a resurrection.  You have to allow Him to mould u.  You have to give God the liberty to have your plans, thoughts & emotions.  Let them die, & fall apart.  God substitutes something on a much higher plane.  He restores (resurrection) whatever you thought you had lost.  

Then He will bless it & multiplies it many times over.  WIll you trust Him in the darkness?

With much Love, Mum

WHo Is Your Matchmaker?

Dear Champ

It's really difficult to catch you to continue our conversation, so just read this to see how God ordains marriage.  This is rather a long topic so I'm going to divide this into sections.

The overview of human history begins & ends with marriage.  God's emphasis on the importance of marriage is widely recorded in the bible.  God was the 1st matchmaker.  When He introduced Adam into creation, everything was already perfect in the Garden of Eden.  Adam's needs were all met.   There was 1 thing lacking.  There was no suitable helper for him.  Then God Himself provided him with a helpmate.  God deliberately allowed Adam to feel the lack in order that he will appreciate what God intends to bless him. 

Genesis 2:18-23  "The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him." Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field & all the birds of the air.  He brought them to the man to see what he would name them... But for Adam no suitable helper was found.  So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, & while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs & closed up the place with flesh.  Then the Lord GOd made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, & he brought her to the man. The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man."

From this scripture, we can see the following:

1)  marriage was God's decision & initiative
2)  God brought Eve to Adam.  Adam did not wander around looking for a mate.
3)  God establishes the terms of the relationship & the purpose of this relationship is unity.

There are 2 forms of guidance in finding a mate.  The 1st one is general guidance & it comes from the scripture.  Psalm 119:105 "Your Word is a lamp to my feet & a light for my path."  All other guidance must be tested against the Word of God if you want to see where you are stepping.  Since we are talking about marriage, the general guidance comes from :

2Corinthians 6:14-16 "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.  For what do righteousness & wickedness have in common?  Or what fellowship can light have with darkness... what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?..."

Of course these verses apply only to believers.  In our marriage counselling, people who marry unbelievers often ended up broken, unhappy & disillusioned because the value systems are so different.  The non believer cannot understand God's way because she is not spiritually 'alive' so to speak.  If you disobey the general guidance & go with an unequally-yoked person, then you will have no right to ask for individual guidance.  This is the 2nd form of guidance.  You can qualify for spiritual guidance if you are walking in obedience to God's general guidance. 

Finally, human marriage is a mystery because it is a picture of the relationship of Christ with his church, the bride.  We believers are the 'bride' and Christ the 'bridegroom'.  The initiative, the process of preparation are all with God to ultimately prepare us to meet Christ our bridegroom. 

Revelation 19:7 "Let us rejoice & be glad and give him glory!  For the wedding of the Lamb has come, & his bride (us) has made herself ready.  Fine linen, bright & clean, was given her to wear." Fine linen stands for the believers' righteous acts.

Who then is your matchmaker?  Your friends or God?  In all the romantic stories in the bible, in nearly all situations, God brought the woman to the man : egs -Rebecca to Isaac & Ruth to Boaz.  If you want the best for yourself, you will not settle for anything less. 

Love Mum
 

Keeping In Step With Him

Hi children

I'm back at blogging after such a long time.

Ps Patrick was right when he said that the decisions we make in life will determine our destiny.  Often it has a lot to do with our impatience and unwillingness to wait on God.  I'm so familiar with this trait, it has often marked my life, and then when I missed the mark, I live in regret.

Walking with God demands keeping in step with Him.  It means that there is a right time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven according to Eccl 3:1.  Waiting for God would require perseverance - it means holding out even when you have nothing to do - this is challenging.  I went through times where I felt that God was silent and I didnt get anything from him.  It was good for me coz I needed to learn how to wait; waiting produces stability & serenity in my character and it takes away fretfulness, anger & wrath.  When I have achieved these, then there will be supernatural transformation.  He will exchange my human strength for his supernatural strength.  Those times when I felt all of life crushing me & I could not go another step, I call upon God to renew my strength.

I like to talk about Abraham coz we can really learn from him, his mistakes and his life of faith.  The fulfilment of Abraham's life centred around the birth of his promised heir.  He was told that he was going to have an heir & through this heir, God would bring forth a nation through which all nations would be blessed & his descendants will multiply like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. For this to happen, Abraham had to wait.  However, he didnt want to wait anymore and through the helpful suggestion of his wife,he had a child by his maidservant.  Even before he was born, the bible said that he would be a wild donkey of a man.  

Genesis 16:11-12 says ".. you shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your

misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone & everyone's hand against him, & he will live in hostility against his brothers."

It is important to see what the product of our own impatience & carnal impulses bring and doing what seemed right at that time.  The result of his decision is a wild donkey which is an expression of impatience & self will.  Abraham did not solve his problems, in fact, he multiplied them.  Ishmael became the greatest problem to the descendants whom God has made the promise.  4000 years later, we see the confrontation between the descendants of Ishmael and the descendants of Isaac & Jacob in the middle east.


13 years after Ishmael was born, Isaac, the promised seed was born.   Abraham had learnt his lesson and he was faithful to wait on God for Isaac.  Then the supernatural transformation came - Sarah although she was way above 80 yrs old, she gave birth to Isaac.  Abraham was about a 100 years old.  

Often, I feel we try to do the right thing but at the wrong time.  We are mostly concerned about the right thing but we are not concerned about the timing.  So even if we do the right thing at the wrong time, we are still doing the wrong thing.


But God is never merciless.  We must realise that when God unfolds a purpose or gives us a promise, it require a time lapse.   I've learnt so much from Abraham's eg. Life has taught me to wait & be still before Him, I have not perfected it, but I'm happy to say it gets better each time  :)

Isaiah 40:29-31  "He gives strength to the weary & increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired & weary, and young men stumble & fall; but those who hope in the Word will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk & not be faint." 

Love,  Mum