Good day, Mdm..
Happy New Year to all! Often than not, whenever it comes to a New Year, we will start to think about our New Year resolutions... However, if you notice, most of the time, it always seem to start well, but only to end up not fulfilled. Why? The answer is self-effort. That is also the gist of the spiritual warfare. The satan want you to focus on yourself. As long as you are focus on yourself, Jesus cannot reign in your life.
That's why we need God. We need our Lord, Jesus. Whatever we intend to do, Jesus has to be in the midst. He loves to be in our midst. The bible says when two or three are gathered in His name, Jesus is in our midst. Even in His time of suffering at the cross, He is the midst of two other criminals and He offered one of them who believe, paradise! Amazing! This is our God! For He has come to give us life and more abundantly! Amen!
If Jesus has come to give us life, it means that we will take from Him. For in life, if you notice, we are always drawn/pressed (taken) by problems, worries, work, meeting targets, dealing with difficult people, everything that requires us to solve... If we do not draw strength from our Lord, we will be drained and run empty eventually... Just like a car ran out of petrol, it stop and break down. Running empty will trigger our negative emotion easily and that's what the satan love to see. It make very much sense now why satan want you to focus on yourself and not Jesus, isn't it?
So how do we draw strength from the our Lord? In short, when we are in a bad mood or feeling lousy, we are not in best state to read the Word and focus on Jesus. The best remedy for situation like this is to speak in tongue. Speaking in tongue is one of the greatest gift our God has given us. Think for a moment why would God give us something that is not useful? It is like having a sophiscated phone, yet if we do not know the functionality of this phone (maybe the phone can do video recording, can organise/remind yr daily schedules, can do facial/voice recognition), it is merely a phone. We will be ineffective not because the phone is ineffective, but we are ignorance. Likewise, until we know what God has provided for us, what Jesus has done for us on cross means, we cannot be an effective Christian, Amen! I will share on the topic of speaking in tongue next week, in continuation of the topic on healing.
Let's recap for this week on what we have discussed so far...
We are in the topic of healing... the objective of this discussion is for the preparation of the mission this coming Oct 14. We will be heading to Maluku islands. In the mission, we will be expected to minister to the village people, inclusive of laying of hands on the sick and casting out of demons. The team going for this mission consists of my ex-colleague and his friends. They have been in mission for many years, very experience, veterans as well. It is their delight to be able to pass on their knowledge and skills to the younger generation. This trip will be an eye-opening for those who are new to mission.
In preparation for this trip, I will try to share as much as I can in the area of healing & deliverance. So far, we have been discussing on personal healing. We talked about holy communion, meditating on God's Word and I will touch on praying in tongues in the time to come.
Please don't get me wrong that in order to lay hands on others, the person laying his/her hand has to be healthy. Miracles can flow through us as much as we are willing. God can only use us when we are willing to be used by Him and not on whether we are sick or not. You see, I maybe frustrated and yet I can still lay hands to pray for the sick if I am willing. But the problem is, at that kind of emotional state, usually I am already focusing on myself and not God. In situation like this, I would rather (not necessary though) speak in tongue first to stir up myself and re-focus on Jesus before I lay hand on the sick.
We have been discussing on personal healing for a period of time. I do hope that by doing so you could experience the goodness of God for yourselves first. Only when you see His power manifested in your life that you can have confident to be a testimony for Him. It is like buying a new skin care product. You would want to try on them first, before you introduce that to your friends. You do so by then because you have the confidence that this skin care product works. And the louder you share about this product goes to show how confident you are with this product. Likewise, once you can see God working in your life, when you lay hands on the sick, you no longer doubt even though the person may not be healed immediately.
By now, we should be clear that it is the interest of our Lord, Jesus to heal. He had spent most of His time on earth to heal the sick. And when He left this earth, He left us with holy communion, holy spirit through speaking in tongue and He revealed Himself in the scriptures concerning Himself in the Old Testament. It is all about Him, Amen! And we have covered the holy communion & meditating His word. For the next few weeks, we will talk a bit on speaking in tongue.
With this, I leave you with this bible verse to meditate:
Deuteronomy 30:19-20
19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live
20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Shalom
Bro
Dated: 8 Jan 2014
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