New Body, New Life

Matthew 9: 16 – 17

“No one sews a patch of unstrung cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wine-skins. If they do, the skin will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskin will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wine-skins, and both are preserved.”

I have always wondered what the meaning of the verses above. Until recently, a colleague reminded me to forget the unhappy past and lead a new life. It was the way she said it that reminded me about the same verses.

We all have a few choices to decide the types of life we want to live. However, we are usually captured in a time-frame because we just could not forget or let go of our past. We do not know how to move forward, because we do not want to let go our past, including painful memories.

It is true that a person could not lead a new life while he is being chained to the past. There is no way a person can come out of the past by himself. He needs help.

When Jesus sacrificed Himself for our sake, we are broken from our past. We are qualified to be called the children of God. As God’s children, we need to ask our Father’s help to move on, to build new lives.

When God forgave and cleansed us from our past sins, we are like living in a new body. We are now in a new wineskin. People just do not ruin their new wineskin with old wine! Just the same, we do not want to ruin our new body with the sinful past.

Forget the past, but remember the bitter lesson learnt!

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Remain In God

“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” John 15: 4

Children are playful and curious explorers. They just do not stay still at one place and do not have to wait to be invited into any activities. They maybe lost without their parents yet they cannot control their own curiosities.

As God's children, we all have the same trait. We tend to be curious with things and events around us. Many times, we fall and lose our ways. With God's grace, we are brought back again, unhurt. Although we are warned time and again not to leave His side, we seldom remember the warning. All we know when we are lost is to cry for help!

Like the prodigal son, we learned our lessons well. We abide by Him, because we know to do so is the only way we can multiply and be fruitful. God is the main vine and we are the branches. Without the main vine, we are deprived of all the nutrients we need for physical and spiritual growth.

It is not that we are not encouraged to grow on our own; we ought to know what is right and wrong. We need to be careful with the pitfalls in our lives. It is better and safe to remain in the vine!

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Words and Deeds Go Together

"....... The harvest is plentiful but the worker are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." - Matthew 9: 37-38

The time will come when each one of us will be a worker of the harvest. Helping out in the harvest does not mean preaching the good news using our mouths. It is not just being heard aloud in the broad daylight.

Being a harvest worker also means that we have to 'act out' what we are preaching! If we dare to preach God's words, we dare to act them out. Being God's children, we preach through our actions, which are seen by others all the time.

When God said that He loves the world, he did so by sending His only son to be with us. He acted on His words and not merely just said so. In the Bible, it is revealed many times what God did to make His own promises worked.

As God's children, we need to act on our words too. After all, words and deeds do go together!

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Build Life Seriuosly

Luke 6 : 48 - 49

v48 “He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.”

v49 “But the one who hears my word and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

Modern people like us love to have things done quickly. The shorter time it takes the better. We seldom think of the quality, it is always the quantity.

Do we have to live this way? Taking short cuts here and there just because we can make things work without investing some effort.

Perhaps life would be more interesting if we just exert a little effort. At least we are ready when we meet troubles.

If we take our lives lightly, we will be completely unprepared like the man building his house on sandy ground. We will lose all we have in a split of second!

God was serious when He first built His Kingdom. He still is serious when dealing with us, His children. He has never treated us lightly. That is why we should be as serious as Him.

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Whose Values to Follow?

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

Colossians 2: 8

Someone once shared that it is easier to continue in Christ than to make a comeback. I did not understand it till recently. Being in Christ means living according to His Words; in His discipline and allowing Christ to be the number one in our lives. Yet, when we made a comeback after leaving Him, the journey will be harder.

There are too many broken relationships to mend. What more, there are seeds of distrusts sown and need to be dug out before too late. It is not comfortable to rebuild a life as before.

We, human are consistently adding more values to our daily lives – not enough with the -isms we already have. Materialism, humanism, hedonism, legalism, secularism, naturalism, relativism and so on. As these values grow, we are drawing a line on our relationship with God. In short, we are held captive by these earthly values.

Yet, despise all our shortcomings; God wants us to return to Him. He wants us to let go the worldly values and embrace His love, values, grace and everything He has. Accept the opportunity to return to His cuddle, no matter how difficult it will be. God will not allow us to endure the hardship alone!

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Praises and Worries Do Not Go Along

Psalm 113 :1 -3

Praise, O servants of the Lord,
praise the name of the Lord,
Let the name of the Lord be praised,
both now and forevermore.
From the rising of the sun to the
place where it sets,
the name of the Lord is to be
praised

Yes, we all want to praise our Maker. He has given us so much!

However, has it ever occur to you that praise and worry do not go together?

When you praise, you have lifted your sorrows and difficulties to God. The empty space in your heart should be filled with praises for Him alone. You should be happy and singing praises. But, what has happened?

Yes, you have replaced the praises and gratitude with worries. There are too many questions ….. ‘What ifs’ in your mind even though you agreed to allow God to take over.

All you have prayed for become fruitless because you have no confidence in God. The truth is, you are unwilling to let go the sadness and failures in your life!

It is time to replace the sorrows and problems in your heart with praises. It is time to sing praises to God with the knowledge that He knows how to deal with your problems. It is not worth worry for tomorrow as you do not know what will happen. Only God knows. So, let Him deal with all the problems.

All you have to do is to keep on praising His Name! It is that easy!

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Live In Dreams or Live Out Your Dreams?

Matthew 21 : 21 – 22

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say this to the mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

The story started when Jesus saw out side the city one morning. He went nearer to pluck some fruits. However, there were only leaves. Jesus said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” The tree withered almost immediately!

Of course, in real life, things do not happen that way. What a disappointment!

Someone once told me that life has many options. We have the right to choose what we want. We have the right to choose to live in our dreams or to live out our dreams.

Jesus said, "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."

When we believe in our dreams, we can visualize them clearly. When we are visualizing them, we know what we really want!

The next step is to ask for it. Then, we release the dreams into God's hand; for Him to send the dreams to us.

This is what great life achievers have been preaching all along - Goal Settings!

Go and set, visualize and pray for your dreams now!

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Ask Him Sincerely

James 4 : 2 – 3

"You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

Ever wondered why many of your prayers are not answered at all? Those ‘big projects’ you have hoped to launch before the whole world – they would not happen at all. You also prayed for small unimportant things, and they were all answered. Why?

Many times, we are too shy to ask too much from God. We do not want to sound too selfish! Well, God knows the motives of our prayers. Remember, He knows what we want long before we ask Him! Since God knows our motives, He will choose His own time to answer us.

Maybe it is time for us to reflect on our motives before we make any request. Admitting that we need help and believe God is there to help us; our prayers need to be sincere and thoughtful.

Make praying for ourselves and others, expressing gratitude for God’s assistance throughout the day and days ahead, as well as praying for our future plans sincerely and earnestly as part of our routine from today onwards!

Let us steadfastly do so and see miracles happen when God answers our prayers!

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He is With Us

“.. Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; When you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.……….” Isaiah 43 : 1 - 2

We all have fears. These fears increase every single moment as we see the environment around us changes everyday. We all face problems everyday. These problems are partly resulted from our fears.

We have sought help everywhere. We even cried in despair, thinking we are facing the problems alone.

No, have you forgotten?

God has spoken, many years ago. He has spoken again and again since. He reminds us that His promises have not changed. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

He will be with us, His children as we each goes on our own journey in this world. He has redeemed us personally and so will not leave us to wander on our own.

He will protect us and keep us save so that we can overcome problems and fears. All we have to do is to surrender ourselves into God’s love ….. willingly.

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Think Before You Light The Light

“Who among you fear the Lord and obeys the word of his servant? Let him who walks in the dark, which has no light, Trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. But now, all of you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your torches you have set ablaze, This is what you shall receive from my hand: You will lie down in torment.” Isaiah 50:10-11

God is just. He knows when to let go. He wants his children to be independent and able to grow well spiritually. The reason He does this is because He wants all His children to continue trusting, relying and having faith in Him.

However, when we lost the guiding light, we start to light our own torches. We have forgotten to consult our Maker about this ‘light’. We have forgotten that we still have His grace which can help us to go on. We have forgotten to pray and meditate on His Words.

We have been through good times when we know the Lord is with us. We ought to live well too when God lets us be. We still have His grace. Our faith in Him should not diminish in such a short time. We must not give ourselves reasons to light our own way. The result is just too painful to bear.

Remember, God is always in control. He will not let us down. He will help us to pull through because He knows us better than we know ourselves.

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