S2E02: The Health Check, Pt 1 - The Hunger Test

Well, here am I sitting in Starbucks, MV, waiting for my dinner appointment. Another musing came along, as I am considering my life experience, more in the walk of faith, you know, what makes me the Christian I am today.

Don't get me wrong. I''m not a great Christian. I'm not even a good one. Just an average one, a struggling one, trying to figure out God's purpose for me in this life (well, He did keep me out of so many close-encounter-with-death encounters)...

I came to realization, that in this 30 years of life (I might as well at half-time if I'm lucky), if there is one thing that is important, it is the HEALTH CHECK.

What??

Nope, I'm not talking about a blood test. I'm talking about a SPIRITUAL HEALTH CHECK. We are supposed to do a physical health check from time to time (which I tend to avoid), just to see where we are. If we have high cholesterol, we should cut back on ju-yao-cha or siu-yok. If we have high sugar level, we should start drink Kopi-O or Milo-O.

Just like that health check, we should take time, to consider just where are we in our walk of faith.

Taking this from Matthew 4, where the devil throws the 3 BIGGEST TEMPTATION (supposedly) there is to Jesus. Remember, we're talking about THE Son of God here, so those temptations gotta be super duper, well, tempting! And to each, Jesus RESISTED, and not only that, RESPONDED with the WORD of GOD!

So look at your life now. Think for a moment and consider if the following temptations are trapping you:

#1: Are you satisfying your hunger apart from God's Word?

If we look at it from a different angle, Jesus was hungry. Turning stone to bread was to satisfy His hunger. We can be hungry for different things, not just things to fill our stomachs. How are we filling that hunger?

Jesus didn't ask us not to eat bread, it is that we DON'T JUST EAT BREAD ALONE. We can fill those hungers of ours with ONE clause - take GOD's WORD first!

Let's take a MacD meal as a metaphor. God's Word is the MAIN meal - the Big Mac, the McChicken, the Fillet-O-Fish! The bread (things that satisfy your hunger), is the coke and fries, the SIDE dish.

Imagine if you eat the fries and drink the coke first. And then you are full. What happens? You miss the main dish. Are you filled? Yeah, you can be. But are you fulfilled? Well, I think no, because you missed the best part of that meal!

Let's look at the four examples of hunger that can be real in our daily lives:

• MONEY - are you chasing after money till you don't have time for God?
• PLEASURE - are satisfying your sexual desires outside of marriage (pornography, pre-marital sex, adultery)?
• ACCEPTANCE - are you so eager to be accepted by your peers that you willing to bend or even break the rules?
• COMPANIONSHIP - are you so desperate for a partner, that you simply go into a relationship so that you won't feel lonely?

All these are real hunger. And those ways of satisfying them without the MAIN dish! You know how the actual meal would be?

• MONEY - go ahead and make money, but God takes priority! Make sure that it does not come from something that compromises your faith!
• PLEASURE - abstain from sexual immorality. Keep yourself pure for your future husband/wive. It's worth the effort!
• ACCEPTANCE - you are accepted by God. Never forget that! If it requires you to break God's Word to be accepted by your friends, then it's time to get new ones!
• COMPANIONSHIP - pray for your partner! If you are single, pray for someone that will love God! Not only that, buck up yourself so that you can "match" the one that God is going provide you!

Well, these are just examples, but I guess you would get the gist of it. Remember, GOD'S WORD is the MAIN MEAL, hunger for that FIRST. If you do that, He will filled the other hungers in your life.

Get FULFILLED, not just FILLED.

[to be continued]

MATTHEW 4:1-11

¹Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. ²After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. ³The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."

⁴Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' "

⁵Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. ⁶"If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:
" 'He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' "

⁷Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' "

⁸Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ⁹"All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."

¹⁰Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'"

¹¹Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

S2E01: Childish or Childlike Faith

You know, starting to going for prayer meeting is a new experience, and for today, thanks to Foong Hee, some kind of "inspiration" to write came over me... Haha.. So here's my musings at 1AM in the morning...

Consider these two passages which talk about being a "child":

• 1 Cor 13:11 - When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
• Luke 18:17 - I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.

I never really studied child psychology, but to me, a child has the following traits (generally) - INNOCENT & SIMPLE. At the same time, these two traits can be also translated to more negative words - IMMATURE & INEXPERIENCED.

It seems that the Bible tells us to be a child when it come to our FAITH, but not so in our WAYS! Arghhh! It's so complicated!!! Is it a contradiction??

Not really... Let's look at life experience first, shall we?

Just as we get older, we supposedly get more experience in life, right? And this means, we grow more mature in different areas of our lives. But along with that knowledge & experience, we began to give a lot of thoughts to our actions, our understanding & decision grows more complicated.

Why?

Because we want to avoid mistakes from the past! So, as we gain more, we learn not simply accept something unless:

1. We understanding everything...
2. Cover all the bases and...
3. Take what we call "decisions based on calculated risks"!

Simply taking the LEAP OF FAITH is not something easily acceptable, especially when in the ADULT world! Try buying a house based on believe that it all would work out right without checking out the location, checking your finances, knowing the appreciate value, etc....

Now, when it come to SPIRITUAL STUFF, we need to understand it, but do we need to fully understand how it really works to believe it? Notice the subtle difference?

For example, we know about SALVATION right? Here's the summary:

1. Man sinned
2. We all fall from grace
3. God loves us
4. Sends Jesus who died on the cross
5. If we believe then our sins are forgiven
6. We are reconciled with God

The above would need hours to really explain all of it, but do we need to FULLY UNDERSTAND how it really works, as in this salvation thing?

Yeah, we need to learn about why man sinned, why is sin inherent in us, why the world is corrupted as it is today, how does it affect us, and this list goes on and on - and we're just talking about No.1!

But in the end, Jesus has said that we need to just believe - like a CHILD. That's the only way to receive the kingdom of God!

In summary, we are called to grow in our knowledge of God and His Word, so that we would not be CHILDISH in our spiritual thinking, but to achieve that, we need to be CHILDLIKE in our faith and belief.