Joy

Back when I was learning to drive, I “discovered” a pretty nifty extension that the instructors use to have over-riding control of the car — they had the brake pedal extended to the passenger side of the car to immediately stop the car should anything go wrong.

It was a good thing that my instructor only had to use it once when I made a rather stupid mistake while making a U-turn. With the additional brake pedal on their side, it didn’t matter how much I stepped on the accelerator pedal; the car just wouldn’t move until the instructor was entirely sure that it was safe to move on.

In many ways, God’s sovereignty in our lives is much like the instructor and his extended brake pedal. While the additional safeguard in the car made me feel at ease (mostly), God’s sovereignty in our lives should give us joy.

Read the rest of this entry »

The world tells us that contentment is an unattainable ideal, that there will always be things that we need to improve — our financial status, the positions we hold at our jobs, the houses we live in, and the list goes on. In other words, no human being can be content with what he has or what state he is in at any one time.

This is especially so in materialistic societies like ours where the constant pursuit of goods and services to “better” our status in life and standards of living is what gives many impetus to work their way up the “ladder” by any means possible.

A few days ago, the network card on my computer went on the blink and I had to make a trip to the mall to pick up a new one. Don’t laugh, but I am one who seldom visits malls nowadays, much less do any shopping so I was like the proverbial frog out of the well — I was looking at all the advertisement signs that seem to jump out at me with their screaming slogans, pictures of happy people using the products and/or services.

Read the rest of this entry »

This morning I heard an account of an evangelism encounter that reminded me of the joy in our hearts when we carry out the Great Commission given by our Lord Jesus Christ and see and experience how God works on a person’s heart, drawing him to repentance and faith.

As Tony recounted this, I was moved as well.

Read the rest of this entry »

An amazing story of a couple’s love for their son, and a testimony of their joy and hope in Christ Jesus.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

Romans 8:35

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

2 Corinthians 12:9

Oops, I know… I’d have warned you with a tissue alert, but that’d have taken away some of the impact the video was intended to have. I personally cried buckets.

It was expected that He should come in pomp. Instead of that, He grew up as a tender plant, silently and insensibly. He had no form nor comeliness, nothing extraordinary which one might have thought to meet in an incarnate Deity. The manner of His appearing in the world had nothing of outward glory.

His gospel is preached, not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but with plainness. He was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. His whole life was not only mean but miserable. Being made sin for us, He underwent the sentence sin had subjected us to. His condition was, upon many accounts, sorrowful. He was unsettled, had not where to lay His head, lived upon alms, was opposed and endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself… We never read that He laughed, but often that He wept.

…

Carnal hearts see no excellency in the Lord Jesus, nothing that should have induced them to desire an interest in Him… Men whom He came to save rejected Him, and His sufferings mean nothing to them. Christ, having undertaken to satisfy the justice of God for man’s sin, did it, not by divesting Himself of the glories due to an incarnate Deity, but by submitting to the disgrace due to worst of men and malefactors. Thus He glorified His Father… But alas, by how many is He still despised in His people, and rejected of men as to His doctrine and authority.

– Matthew Henry (October 18, 1662 – June 22, 1714)¹

¹ Extracted from: Rev (Dr) Tow, Timothy. The Gospel Prophets — An Applied Commentary On Isaiah and Micah. 120.

Amen! Amen! Hallelu et Adonai!

so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:10-11

I am also reminded of Paul’s joy when he describes how he, despite all his accomplishments, count nothing more precious than following Christ Jesus — a joy even in suffering for His sake that we too should have!

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

Philippians 3:7-8

Amen!

Soli deo Gloria!

HT: The Warfare Journal.

Over the last few days I have been led to read more of the harms of the prosperity gospel and its effects on ordinary Christians like you and me. I don’t specifically look out for these accounts, but I believe God has led me to read them and warn others.

Some are really heart-wrenching accounts where families have lost loved ones and almost everything they owned. In the end, I can only conclude that the prosperity gospel not only takes away all that one has materially and turn one’s life on its head, but, more dangerously, it can also take away lives of those who trust in the falsehoods!

In one such instance that is very well-documented, let me share with you the account from the Parker family.

Read the rest of this entry »