An Excellent Prayer in Trying Times

I read 2 Chronicles 20 and Matthew Henry's commentary on the chapter for my devotion this morning. I've been reading one chapter of the Bible, beginning with the 1st chapter of the 1st book in the Bible (Genesis), and Matthew Henry's corresponding commentary (from Numbers onwards) almost daily since 2008. This was a discipline and aspiration that I had set for myself ever since visiting my friend in Shanghai in Mar 2008 and being impressed by her deep knowledge and application of Scripture.

Back to 2 Chron 20. I was struck this morning by the verses which I had underlined in previous readings - v12 "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you." and v15 "For the battle is not yours, but God's." The context was King Jehoshaphat's prayer to God when faced with an invasion by a vast army of Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites.

How often have I been in trying times and do not know what to do. Even as an 18-year-old Christian (huh, 18 years old? 18 years as Christian lah!), there are times when I do not know how to pray, what to pray for; there are just no words that I could utter even in my heart or with my mind. Tears sometimes take the place of words that are not there. I take heart in the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans :

"26 ... the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will."

I've shared with my former boss about the dilemma that I sometimes have in praying - pray for this no good, pray for that also no good. Her advice to me? Pray for God's will be done.

Looking at King Jehoshaphat's prayer in 2 Chron 20, we also have a model that we can emulate. Matthew Henry calls Jehoshaphat's prayer "an excellent prayer". In this prayer, Matthew Henry sees Jehoshaphat:

1) Acknowledging the sovereign dominion of God, giving to God the glory of it and taking to himself the comfort of it.

v6 "O LORD, God of our fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. "

2) Laying hold on their covenant-relation to God and interest in him. Whom should we seek to, whom should we trust to, for relief, but to the God we have chosen and served?

v7 "O our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend?"

3) Showing the title they had to the good land they were now in possession of. We are tenants, you are our landlord - will you not hold your own? Those that use what they have for God may comfortably hope that he will secure it to them.

v7 "O our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend?"

4) Making mention of the sanctuary, the temple they had built for God's name, not as if that merited anything at God's hand, but it was such a token of God's favourable presence with them.

v8-9 "They have lived in it and have built in it a sanctuary for your Name, saying, 'If calamity comes upon us, whether the sword of judgment, or plague or famine, we will stand in your presence before this temple that bears your Name and will cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us.' "

5) Pleading the ingratitude and injustice of his enemies. We may comfortably appeal to God against those that render us evil for good. The justice of God is the refuge of those that are wronged.

v10-11 "But now here are men from Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir, whose territory you would not allow Israel to invade when they came from Egypt; so they turned away from them and did not destroy them. See how they are repaying us by coming to drive us out of the possession you gave us as an inheritance. "

6) Professing his entire dependence upon God for deliverance.

v12 "O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you. "

The battle, then, is the Lord's.

Bread Rained Down From Heaven

S and KH had promised to bake their humongus bread for us in Wuhan. Warm, crispy, freshly baked french loaf for breakfast ..... also banana-walnut bread, white milk bread, pancakes ..... spread with home-made strawberry jam and kumquat jam, air-flown yakun kaya ..... washed down with a cup of aromatic starbucks or ipoh white coffee ..... How well they feted us!

Our Wuhan experience spurred each of us (K, LL and I) to try our hands (or rather the bread-making machine in the case of LL) at bread-baking back home. LL's french loaf tasted so good with her chicken curry. K's 'no-knead' bread looks so good, but alas, can only feast with my eyes.

Still, nothing is better-tasting than the bread that is "rained down from heaven", that tastes like "wafers made with honey" - bread that is not made by hand or machine but a gift from God, the Creator of all things. The Israelites called this bread from heaven "manna". God provided manna to the Israelites every day for forty years. (Ex 16:1-35)

Based on the first census taken two years after the exodus from Eygpt, there were 603,550 male Israelites 20 years or more (excluding the Levites) who were able to serve in Israel's army (Num 1:45). From this count of military strength, estimates put the total Israelite population at 2 to 3 million (http://www.keyway.ca/htm2001/20010121.htm). It would take a miracle to feed such a huge population in the desert where food is scarce, and to feed them every day for forty years! Only the Almighty God could perform this miracle and He did!

"Manna", the bread from heaven, can satisfy the physical need of the Israelites only one day at a time; none can keep the manna till the next morning (Ex16:19-20). There is another bread from heaven - the living bread that satisfies our eternal, spiritual need. Jesus is this living bread. The Bible teaches that "man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord" (Deu 8:3, Matt 4:4). We need the spiritual nourishment that only Jesus can give.

"Then Jesus declared, 'I am the bread of life, He who comes to me will never go hungry and he who believes in me will never be thirsty .' " (John 6:35)

"48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." (John 6:48-51)

Jesus is much more than the Bread of life. He is in every facet of our life. Dr Willmington writes:

To the baker, he is the Bread of life (John 6:35)
To the artist, he is the One altogether lovely (Song of songs 5:16)
To the architect, he is the chief Cornerstone (1 Pet 2:6)
To the astronomer, he is the Sun of righteousness (Mal 4:2)
To the banker, he is the hidden treasure (Matt 13:44)
To the builder, he is the sure foundation (Isa 28:16)
To the carpenter, he is the door (John 10:7)
To the doctor, he is the great Physician (Jer 8:22)
To the educator, he is the new and living way (Heb 10:20)
To the farmer, he is the sower and the Lord of the harvest (Luke 10:2)
(Source: Willmington's Guide to the Bible)

Who is Jesus to me? He is my everything.

Bread First?

We were gathered at Expo Hall 6 waiting for the English Presbytery Easter Convention to begin. And I was urging LL to hand me her home-made pineapple-mango jam. "Shouldn't we wait till the service is over?" K mused at my side. "It's ok," I said defensively to her. "Read 1 Kings 19," I added.

Was I being irreverent to think of physical food while waiting to receive spiritual nourishment? Looking back, I should have quietened my heart to focus on the Lord Jesus, whose death and resurrection we were commemorating at the Easter Convention.

Indeed, we should quieten our hearts before any worship service. At Bethel's Mandarin service that I attend from time to time on Sunday, the choir always sings the same opening song - that in the holy temple of God, there should be quietness (在神的圣殿中, 应当肃静.)

Why, then, did I ask K to read 1 Kings 19? At the back of my mind were two incidents in which I was taught that physical food came before spiritual food - a Christian counselling course which I attended at the Singapore Bible College and the advice of my former church elder (who's a GP) concerning my mother.

During my Christian counselling course, the example of Elijah in 1 Kings 19 was cited to show that there were times when physical healing had to come before emotional, mental or spiritual healing. After his Mount Carmel victory over the false prophets, Elijah fled from Queen Jezebel who threatened to kill him. In his exhaustion, he slept and was then fed by an angel of God with bread and water. And strengthened by this food, Elijah traveled 40 days and 40 nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There, the Lord appeared to Elijah and instructed him.

What about my mother then? She became a Christian shortly after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. For a very short while, I tried my best to tell her simple stories from the Bible in my broken hokkien. When I shared with my church elder concerning my mother's lack of knowledge of the Bible and inability to go to church (she was already bedridden when she accepted Christ), he advised - take care of the physical body first, don't worry about the spiritual life.

I have come to understand that our Lord God is gracious and compassionate. He looks at our hearts, regardless of how much we know in our head or what we do in our body. At one time, my sis said to me that she needed to read and understand the Bible first before she could become a Christian. Thanks be to God that He does not require this of my sis (or any one) for her salvation. Becoming a Christian is very simple - just call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ:

"9 ... if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11 As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile--the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." " (Rom 10:9-13)

Salvation is by faith alone (sola fide), in Christ alone (solus Christus), through grace alone (sola gratia), rooted and grounded in scripture alone (sola scriptura) and for God's glory alone (soli deo gloria).

"I AM WHO I AM."

"That's irreverent," I told my friend when he proudly showed me his son's website. Most personal websites would use such caption as "About Myself" for their personal profiles. My friend's son used the caption "I Am" for his web profile. "I Am"? Didn't he know that this was the name that God called Himself in the Bible? Yes, he did know (being a Roman Catholic).

So is using the title "I Am" for oneself an issue?

In biblical terms, "I AM" speaks of the Deity. To knowingly use the title "I AM" for oneself is to seek to raise oneself to God's level, to be like God. This manifestation of pride is the cause of the downfall of both angels and Man in times past.

"13 You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. 14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High." 15 But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit. " (Isa 14:13-15)

In the Old Testament, God clearly said to Moses at the burning bush that His name was "I AM".

"13 Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" 14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' " 15 God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, 'The Lord, the God of your fathers--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob--has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation. " (Ex 3:13-15)

And when God gave the ten commandments to Moses at the "burning" mountain (Mount Sinai), the third commandment was:

"You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. " (Ex 20:7)

That "I AM" is God's name is also evident in the New Testament. Jesus calls himself "I AM" seven times in the Gospel according to the Apostle John:

I am the Bread of life (John 6:35, 41, 48, 51).

I am the Light of the world (John 8:12, 9:5).

I am the Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14).

I am the Door (John 10:7, 9).

I am the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25).

I am the true Vine (John 15:1, 5).

I am the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6).

Jesus has given us His assurance that He is with us - to feed and fill us with His truth, to protect and give us life, to shine and lead the way - not only today but in the resurrected life to come.

Emmanuel - God with us!

What's in a Name?

My newly acquainted Wuhan friend, Tony, roared with laughter when I tried to elucidate the Chinese characters of my name. "Shi 'qing qing wo wo' de 'Qing' ", I had told him in my best Mandarin. Hardly able to contain his merriment, Tony explained that "qing qing wo wo" was a term used for girl-boy affection and had sexual connotation. (Huh, really?)

Not quite understanding nor accepting his explanation, I asked some of the Wuhan ladies. Oh, they also cracked up with much laughter! " 'Xue Qing' is 'snow princess', better to explain your name this way.", they said very tactfully to me in English. Till now, I cannot understand what's wrong with 'qing qing wo wo' - it sounds very poetic to me. But what to do, the Wuhan ladies said I shouldn't say this to a guy.

I suppose 'snow princess' would tie in with my fair complexion. One of my uncles used to call me 'jit poon' (Japanese in hokkien) when I was very young and people tend to think I'm Teochew. I guess the Japanese and Teochews are known for their fair skin.

In the Old Testament, God is described by many names. His names reflect who He is and what He does. Willmington's Guide to the Bible lists God's many names:

Elohim - refers to God's power and might (eg Gen 1:1, Ps 19:1)

El Elyon - The strongest strong One (Gen 14:17-20, Isa 14:13-14)

El Roi - The strong One who sees (Gen 16:13)

El Shaddai - The breasted One (eg Gen 17:1, Ps 91:1)

El Olam - The everlasting God (Isa 40:28-31)

Adonai - Master (Mal 1:6)

Jehovah Jireh - The Lord will provide (Gen 22:13-14)

Jehovah Nissi - The Lord, my Banner (Ex 17:15)

Jehovah Shalom - The Lord is Peace (Judges 6:24)

Jehovah Sabaoth - The Lord of hosts (Isa 6:1-3)

Jehovah Maccaddeschcem - The Lord thy Sanctifier (Ex 31:13)

Jehovah Rohi (Raah) - The Lord my Shepherd (Ps 23:1)

Jehovah Tsidkenu - The Lord our Righteousness (Jer 23:6)

Jehovah Shammah - The Lord who is present (Eze 48:35)

Jehovah Rapha - The Lord our Healer (ex 15:26)

At different times and in different circumstances, God manifests Himself to us in different ways. When I'm ill, He's my Healer. When I'm afraid and insecure, He's my Shepherd. When I'm troubled, He gives me Peace. When I'm in need, He provides what I need. When I've no one to turn to, He's ever-present with me, to guide and cheer me on. When I'm wronged, He vindicates me with His Righteousness. When I am down in my sins, He calls me to be made holy for He is holy.

Blessed be the name of the Lord God Almighty, the one and only God, who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.

I Know Whom I Believe

"Faith is .... belief in the face of all contradictions." These words are part of an inspirational slideshow which a friend sent recently. I do not know who penned these words. They strike a chord with me, as I have been fretting and praying over various issues - sale of my flat in the midst of an economic downturn, delays in repayment of loans that I made some years ago to a brother-in-Christ, lack of improvement in my nephew's school results.

I tell myself, "Believe in the face of all contradictions." I feel uplifted, encouraged and comforted by these words. They signify to me to trust in the goodness and faithfulness of the Lord God, to believe He will work all things for good even when things don't look good, to wait patiently for His perfect timing.

As I look back, events had indeed turned for good in the face of contradictions. My most vivid recollection was my mom's conversion to Christianity. Back in Aug 2005, my late mom was still making offerings for the festival of hungry ghosts; I had despaired then but quickly tell myself to ignore what my mom did and to trust in the Lord God. Just a month later, in Sep 2005, my mom became a Christian and was baptised. Well, unknown to me, my mom had been quietly alerting my old aunties of her desire to be Christian; she was preparing my aunties more than a year before she took her leap of faith.

Even though I have experienced God's goodness against all odds, faith - belief in the face of contradictions - does not come easily to me, hence the continued fretting and worrying. I need to constantly look to the Lord God, to ask for His help in my lack of faith. I empathise with the man with a demon-possessed son, who sought Jesus' healing and help in overcoming his unbelief.

"21 Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?" "From childhood," he answered.
22 "It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us."
23 "'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes."
24 Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" "
(Mark 9 : 21 - 24)

So then, what happened to my flat which I was trying to sell as one bad piece of economic news came after another? By God's grace, the second valuation of the flat this year was much higher than the first valuation last year and the Lord provided a buyer at the higher, second valuation. Loan repayment? Thank God, I have received a firm commitment on the repayment. And my nephew's school results? Still putting my trust and belief in the Lord God. Amen.

And as in the hymn written by Daniel Webster Whittle (1840-1901), I know whom I believe .......

1 I KNOW not why God’s wondrous grace
to me has been made known,
nor why – unworthy as I am –
He claimed me for His own.

But ‘I know whom I have believèd, and am
persuaded that He is able to keep that which
I’ve committed unto Him against that day.’

2 I know not how this saving faith
to me He did impart,
or how believing in His Word
wrought peace within my heart.

3 I know not how the Spirit moves,
convincing men of sin,
revealing Jesus through the Word,
creating faith in Him.

4 I know not what of good or ill
may be reserved for me –
of weary ways or golden days
before His face I see.

5 I know not when my Lord may come;
I know not how, nor where;
if I shall pass the vale of death,
or meet Him in the air.

Laying Down One's Life

When Walt Kowalski (acted by Clint Eastwood in the movie Grand Torino) died under a torrent of bullets fired by Hmong gangsters, I thought, "He sacrified himself to save his Hmong neighbour Thao." Walt had gone alone, after locking the teenaged Thao in his basement, to confront the gang who assaulted Thao's sister. Rather than engage in revenge killing of the gangsters, this Korean War veteran, who did not hesitate to use his M-1 rifle to protect his property, went unarmed. Walt's death rid the neighbourhood of the gangsters who were taken into police custody.

In real life, too, we have often heard or read of heros who risk or even lose their lives for others. One who comes to my mind is the foreman who died saving his fellow workers when the MRT construction site at Nicoll Highway collapsed some years ago. Another heroic person whom I personally met was a Myanmar pastor who had dedicated himself to ex-lepers sacrificially by living in the ex-lepers' colony with them and risking contagion of the disease. I also vaguely recall reading media report about a mother who protected her baby with her body during the Szechuan earthquake.

Love - for fellow workers, for the needy outcast, for loved ones in the family - is the key motivator for one who lays down his life for others. The Lord Jesus, when He gave the command to His followers to love each other as He had loved them, said, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15 : 12 - 13)

And this Easter season, we remember Jesus's love and sacrificial death on the cross. "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us." (1 John 3 : 16) Jesus died not just for His disciples. He died for all who believe in Him and for all who have yet to believe in Him.

"11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep......
14 I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me --
15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father -- and I lay down my life for the sheep.
16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd."
(John 10 : 11, 14 - 16)

Yes, Jesus laid down His life but He has taken it up again. (John 10 : 17 - 18). And so, Christians celebrate the risen Christ. (Matthew 28 : 5 - 6). Hallelujah! He is risen!