Sunday, 12 January 2025
Let Everything That Has Breath Praise The Lord
Sunday, 5 January 2025
Our Hymn Of Joyful Praise
As The Waters Cover The Sea |
I had the opportunity to enjoy a morning’s freshness, staring out into the far horizon of the Adriatic Sea from the balcony of a cruise ship. The huge cruise ship seemed so puny when set in the vast expanse of water. Looking at the sun rising out of the distant horizon against the deep blue colour of the sea, I was deeply moved by the thought of the greatness of God. God made this wonderful and vast Blue Planet, Earth, on which we live.
Nothing can be further from the truth. Whilst the achievements of the human race deserve some recognition, we should be careful not to leave God out of the equation. For despite all the advancements in science and philosophy, we have not solved the inherent problems of the human nature; of pride, greed, selfishness and brutality. To some extent, man can punish faults and write new laws. Hopefully, society can hope to become more egalitarian by community effort and education. However, in the end, all these will still fail because the human heart is deceitful and inherently wicked
Our saving grace is that God is present. This is still 'our Father's world'. God made it. Another ancient voyager once wrote
So, as I contemplated the vast expanse of the Adriatic Sea and realising how small we humans are, I prayed that "the earth will be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea" The Bible tells us that this reverential fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
We need to look to God. Can our fear and knowledge of God change our hearts? Can we live as friends, brother, sister, parent, child? This should be the prayer for the new year. John Rutter put it better in his canticle 'For the Beauty of the Earth'.
Sunday, 1 December 2024
Does God Sing?
- We sing with our hearts full of the Spirit, Spirit-filled singing. Spirit led and spirit enabled music can lead us into experiencing the inspirational moment of worship.
- We sing to the Triune God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our songs and lyrics can express theology and doctrine during worship just as the Word of Christ dwell in us richly (Colossians 3:16)
- We sing from the depths of our heart. Worship is whole hearted involvement, the expression of real not theoretical Christian experience. This has to come from the heart, from the very centre of our being.
- We sing comprehensively using the whole repertoire of church music lexicon and not only from a small segment of praise songs. This expresses what is in the depths of our hearts and the wideness of our Christian experiences.
Sunday, 12 May 2024
The Grace of God's Presence
The Burning Bush Credits: Grace for the Race |
- God's Grace. This awareness, and with it the awakening in us, comes only by the God's grace and His favour. It cannot be conjured nor contrived through any technique and practice.
- Timelessness. We should become unaware of the passage of time. When we meditate, we should become oblivious to time and enter into the timelessness of God's presence. We are not trapped into a 20 or 30 minutes time bubble during meditation, waiting for it to end with the sounding of the bells. Instead we are comfortable with the sense that time is not ticking away and remain, as meditators would described it, in the present moment.
- Communion. The mind becomes silent and sinks, almost unaware and gently, into the heart. That is when we commune with God from the heart not the mind, in prayer without words. This is when our spirits are released and interfused with the Holy Spirit. St Paul described this communion, as being filled with the Holy Spirit.
I can feel His mighty power and His grace.
I can hear the brush of angel's wings
I see glory on each face;
Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.
As we kneel before You now
I believe Your promise to be faithful
I don't always understand
What Your perfect will demands
But I learned to trust You more
In Your presence, Lord
In Your presence, there is comfort
In Your presence, there is peace
When we seek to know Your heart
We will find such blessed assurance
In Your holy presence, Lord
Sunday, 25 February 2024
Take My Yoke
Take My Yoke Upon You: Missio Dei |
When you are a cancer patient such as Pat, my wife, you carry a concern, a burden, that weighs heavy on you. This burden is also carried by the whole family and close friends.
Life is especially overwhelming for Pat this past year. But I notice that throughout the year, while receiving many cycles of chemotherapy and stem cells transplants; despite being admitted to hospital for five times and attending outpatient treatments about 2-3 times a week, Pat continues to be in high spirits, confident that the Lord Jesus will take care of her.
In these trying periods, Pat learned to transfer and share her burdens with Jesus, her Lord and Saviour.
‘Give your burdens to the Lord, and He will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.’ Psalm 55:22
Pat, the family and friends have learnt to harness ourselves to the ‘yoke’ of Christ
Farmers used a wooden yoke to strap the shoulders of two
animals such as oxen or horses together so that they could combine strength to
pull a load that would have been too much for one animal to carry.
Jesus Christ assures us that His yoke is easy. We can only surmise that He is taking on the heavier lifting; He takes on the larger share of the load. That way we lift off our burdens and give it to the Lord and Christ lifts it off our shoulders.
In hitching our shoulders to the yoke of Christ we
learned:
- To move in the same direction as Christ, to be on the same path
- Not to carry the whole burden ourselves but to lean on Christ
- Being closely yoke, we become refreshed and can carry more than we ever thought we could.
That is why Saint Paul and all the early
followers of Christ can say, despite persecution and hardships, sometimes leading to martyrdom:
‘We are hard pressed on every side, but not
crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck
down but not destroyed.’ 2 Corinthians 4:8-9
And there is no storm too dark God cannot calm it
There is no sorrow too deep He cannot soothe it
If He carried the weight of the world upon His shoulders
I know my brother that He will carry you
And if He carried the weight of the world upon His shoulders
I know my sister that He will carry you
‘For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God.’ Psalm 62:5-7
Lionel