A post about God's Tests amidst our academic tests and assignments. YAY!

Dear all :)

Before I begin with the message, I would like to congratulate those who have been through most of their papers by trying their best given the circumstances. I also encourage the rest to press forward! :) Remember, He would never give us a burden too heavy for you to bear, and that His grace is sufficient for thee. His strength is made perfect in your weakness. (2Cor12:9) WOAH. Which is more important? (God’s strength/Glory!)

 Don’t beat yourself up badly (figuratively, or maybe for some, literally!) if you feel overly lousy and inadequate. More importantly, don’t dwell on it for too long, that your mind becomes clouded from God’s purpose for you at the present moment. Move on, seek God in prayer and be resolved to improve.

That is the basis for this sharing, actually ;), concerning God’s purpose.

Disclaimer: Remember the memory verse about how unsearchable His ways are? Well, I am not contradicting that verse nor the bible, No WAY. We may not be able to gain full knowledge and be anywhere near are wise as Him, but we can be thankful for the wisdom and thoughts, for even the ability to read His word, that enables us to pick up truths and know more or less what we ought to do and ought NOT to do.

I’m only day7 of this book that my neighbor passed to me upon entering a residence in NUS. However, I cannot wait to share some insights with you!

I’ve shared with two of you recently about the 3 T’s that the author mentioned, and how they can help to guide our time here in this temporary “home” (although we should be cautious not to think of this world as a “home” where you belong, where you return to, per se). So what are the 3 T’s?  I’ll cover the first here, with some personal thoughts.

#1) Life is a Test.

Yes life is a test, but don’t be quick to groan at this! It’s written all over the bible and I’m sure you have come across words like trials, temptations, testing and refining. Even from Genesis, we see the test of Adam and Eve’s faithfulness and obedience towards God! So right from the beginning, we are told, and instructed about such tests that will come our way. Not randomly like cannonballs, but as in Romans 8:28, they are given to us by God. 

Certified, confirm PLUS chop PLUS stamp.

As I mentioned earlier:  “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” (1Cor 10:13)

So…What kind of tests are these? They are tests of love, faith, hope etcetera, mentioned briefly in the book. They are tests/Opportunities given to you to demonstrate your love to God and others (Two great commandments!), and your DEPENDENCE on God. Note: not all tests are obvious to you, and some may be too easy to pass, or to Fail. I hope that all of us would pray first, for AWARENESS of His presence and His tests, of which we often take for granted.

These are my thoughts:
By bearing this in mind, we know that things and people may be instruments of God, who help sharpen and refine us, and what would a test be without a “marker” or an invigilator? Yes. He is watching over you, every step of the way, even on simple things like picking up something that lies in your path, how you respond to your friend’s swearing and using God’s name in vain etc.

Do you contemplate picking up the litter? Do you continue to smile politely at someone who says “OMG!!”? (I framed this question hoping that the user of such terms is not any of you, I pray to God for that.)? If you are unsure and would argue that “the bible did not say we cannot smile when people take the glory away from God”, maybe you can try thinking, would Paul be smiling? Would God be smiling when you smile politely? I guess not :X

The idea of tests may be scary, and that people tend to tremble before receiving their results as we often heard our primary schoolmates going “I feel like peeing in my pants :S” *look of restraint and effortful control”.

However, many of you have noticed how people LEAP for joy J Don’t we wish we were one of them when we receive our results? And if we have been there before, does it not feel great? But as Christians, we want to leap for joy because we’ve put in effort to please God, not the education system. And if the education system don’t reward you with a “temporary crown” or as well as you expected (peppered with the amount of pride in you), are you ready to humble yourself and seek His kingdom further? Even if it is an innocent wish, I hope and pray that such a wish approximates being like those children of God who have been tried and tested for His Glory, and may have even passed on without getting any earthly rewards, but benefitted those who would follow (Hebrews 11). Their life wasn’t in vain, nor were their tests unreasonable. I learnt and was encouraged by them, and this lesson in itself is precious. Christ’s crucifixion was also a test which worked together for (our/His/God's eternal) good, now would you groan or complain? Accept and relish each test for what it is, seeking the power of the Holy Spirit, trusting God, and looking unto Jesus.

Stay Tuned for the remaining two T’s! PRESS ON!!

A Prayer for Examination (special thanks to Jo for it!)

Lord grant me the right attitude towards my examination,

That even when I study, I want to glorify your name.

Give me the strength that I may press on,

Perseverance that I can endure,

Good health that I may study effectively.

Help me to be single-minded when I study,

Remove all other thoughts, distractions and anxieties,

Give me the power to concentrate,

The ability to understand and to remember.

Show me the way to study intelligently,

To know what is important and what is not.

Provide me Lord with quality time in my studies,

Remove all tensions and fears within me.

Fill me with Thy confidence,

Teach me to draw strength from you each day.

Let me learn to trust you in such times.

In the examination hall, be with me Lord.

Grant me the clarity and shaprness of thoughts.

Let me not get distracted by things around me.

Give me concentration and calmness Lord.

Help me to gather my thoughts of what I've learnt.

Grant me the discipline to space out time equally on all questions.

Most of all, help me to complete the question on time.

Despite examination Lord, continue to grant me

Quality time with you, let me not neglect You.

Give me a balanced diet between my studies and my service for you.

I just want to commit the whole examination into your hands,

Knowing that you are a God who cares and answers prayers.

THANK YOU!

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and Saviour, AMEN.

Are we the Masters of our Fate?

^"13Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
 ¹⁴Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
 ¹⁵For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that."
James 4:13-15


For the past few weeks, or months, (I cannot even recall when it started) my school has been putting the JC year twos through motivational talk after motivational talk, and all the while they trumpet these words to us: "You determine your future! You can succeed if you just believe in yourself!" I find it very easy to slip into that mentality, especially when the children of darkness are all around, and their self-sufficient attitude and pride can so subtly affect us, that we may not realise when we have become like one of them. I admit that there is value in these talks when they teach us to be disciplined and focused on our work, and the humanistic view of fate is, of course, what "works" for the children of this world. It is pleasing to their ears, and the best worldly wisdom has to offer.


Worldly wisdom, for all the benefits it may bring in this life, go only so far as this present life is concerned. In this matter of our fate, and success, it exalts man and makes man the master of his own fate. We are told to believe in our own abilities, that nothing we want will eventually elude our grasp so long as we have faith in ourselves. Very seducing. Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. James slams reality right in our faces. How much do we truly control? Do we know what the providence of God shall bring upon us next year? Next month? Tomorrow? Not even in the next hour. Read the verses I quoted at the start again. See how the people James are addressing are making plans for their future, having such certainty about them, thinking that they will most definitely travel to another city, trade and earn profits. Then read his reply. It is almost as if he is telling them "Who do you think you are?" he confronts his readers with a cold, harsh fact: our life is only a vapour, appearing for but a fleeting moment, then vanishing away. Just like that, nothing more. It reminds us of two very pertinent characteristics of our life on earth: It is short, and it is fragile.


It is evident that we are not the masters of our own fate. For all of these people who had faith in themselves and eventually succeeded, there are, I reckon, countless others who did the same, yet ended up with a very different outcome. There is a God, and it is most certainly not you or me. We are subject to Him, for He is our Father, our Master, the Potter who moulds us, the clay. He told us that apart from Him we can do nothing. (John 15:5) This is He to Whom we must submit ourselves, and our goals. If the Lord wills, we shall be rich, and again, if the Lord wills, we shall be poor. Sometimes we go the way of Vanity Fair, and look for worldly success. But by the grace of God, He brings His sheep back. We are frail creatures, yet wilful. We crave and strive with much vanity, till He batters us with affliction, and breaks us, ever gently still, till we see that there are just too many things out of our control, and that our future is really not in our hands. 


I am not saying that we should resign all worldly aspirations. Like James said, if the Lord wills, we shall live, and do these things that we hope to. But we must check ourselves as we go along, whether we are truly aiming to do well for the right reasons; whether we are glorifying God in our deeds and achievements, or for our personal glory. Whatever the case, one thing is clear in James' exhortation: be humble before God. We cannot but be humbled when we truly contemplate on His sovereign power, His infinite grace, His mysterious providence and His perfect justice, and then look at ourselves in our helplessness and dependency on Him for all things, even our very breath.


Our Lord Jesus Christ reminds time and time again, from the words of Scripture, that there is a life to come after this present one is over, and our fate in that next life is the one we should be particularly concerned about. His asks in Matthew 16:26, "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" clearly the answer is: nothing at all. We must live this life with the next in mind. We, unlike the heathen, must consider the life to come, and make preparations for it, for regardless of our lot in this life, whether sickness or health, riches or poverty, if we are truly in Christ, we will certainly be gathered unto Him, and experience the joys of heaven forevermore. Such is the certainty that our faith looks forward to. William Guthrie was only forty-five, but his health broke, and his end was very hard. He suffered such violent pains that his friends were forced to hold him down. Between the attacks of pain he summoned the strength to say, "Though I should die mad, yet I know I shall die in the Lord." That is a bit hard to hold together. As if to say, "My pain may drive me out of my mind, but it cannot drive me out of Christ."


Amid the turbulent flood of uncertainties, our fate in this life is simply not in our control. We cannot know now how long we shall live, what we shall do, or what we shall attain to in this life. Yet this one thing is certain: For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. (2 Corinthians 5:10) We must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12) and make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10). The only certainty in this life is that death will come. (Or that Christ returns before we die. Either way, the effect is the same.) Let us then live with this in mind, and not be sucked into the attitudes of the ungodly, who strive after vainglory and treasures that do not last.

Asaph

It is of the Lord's mercies..

Though we fall, though we fail, the Lord God upholds our spirits. No matter how dim upon our faces the reflection of Christ's glory is, the Lord stays faithful to His promises. This is a word of encouragement.

Proverbs 18:14  The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?

Note (by Matthew Henry),

1. Outward grievances are tolerable as long as the mind enjoys itself and is at ease. Many infirmities, many calamities, we are liable to in this world, in body, name, and estate, which a man may bear, and bear up under, if he have but good conduct and courage, and be able to act with reason and resolution, especially if he have a good conscience, and the testimony of that be for him; and, if the spirit of a man will sustain the infirmity, much more will the spirit of a Christian, or rather the Spirit of God witnessing and working with our spirits in a day of trouble.

2. The grievances of the spirit are of all others most heavy, and hardly to be borne; these make sore the shoulders which should sustain the other infirmities. If the spirit be wounded by the disturbance of the reason, dejection under the trouble, whatever it is, and despair of relief, if the spirit be wounded by the amazing apprehensions of God's wrath for sin, and the fearful expectations of judgment and fiery indignation, who can bear this? Wounded spirits cannot help themselves, nor do others know how to help them. It is therefore wisdom to keep conscience void of offence.


Let's conclude this post with a bit of Hebrew poetry from Psalm 43 : )


Judge me, O God,
     and plead my cause against an ungodly nation:
O deliver me
     from the deceitful and unjust man.

For thou art the God of my strength:
     why dost thou cast me off?
Why go I mourning
     because of the oppression of the enemy?
 
O send out thy light and thy truth:
     let them lead me;
Let them bring me unto thy holy hill,
     and to thy tabernacles.
 
Then will I go unto the altar of God,
     unto God my exceeding joy:
Yea, upon the harp will I praise thee,
     O God my God.
 
Why art thou cast down, O my soul?
     and why art thou disquieted within me?
Hope in God: for I shall yet praise him,
     who is the health of my countenance, and my God!

The Paradox of Happiness

I believe that the desire to be happy is in all of us; after all, is there anything wrong in being happy? Well, I'm not too sure about the answer to that, but I can be sure that sometimes the ways in which we try to get happiness can indeed be wrong.


We live in a world which tells us to live for ourselves, to live for the moment. Much of what people around us are doing is for pleasure. Look at how many people fill the malls, the LAN gaming centers, arcade centers, cinemas, etc. "Deeper" people will tell you that happiness is doing what you like, so follow your heart. But the root is still the same; it springs from pride, a pride which tells us that we are worthy of all this pleasure and enjoyment. Pride caused our First Parents to fall, and continues to perpetuate itself throughout the human race. In Psalm 82:6, the psalmist writes "Ye are gods", expressing how the wicked men of his time had set themselves up. The chief rulers in Jesus' time loved the praise of men (John 12:43). Pride, I feel, is very much linked to a love for the world; "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life..." - 1 John 2:16. This world offers us so many ways to feed our pride and increase our "self-worth".

The children of this world are living consistently with their belief system. Since they do not believe that they have to stand before God in judgment once their time on earth is done, since they do not believe that there is a life to come, this life is all they have, and all that matters. So they live for this life and try to get as much happiness as they can from it. However, we know that this is utterly futile at the very end. Children of God can have happiness while in this life too. We being in the world but not of the world, should possess a different kind of happiness.


Jesus said in Matthew 5:4: "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted." The word "Blessedness" indicates happiness; and not a simple carnal pleasure, but a genuine heavenly joy. This is a wonderful paradox. They that mourn are happy? Surely there is a logical disconnect here. The word of God often contradicts what the world thinks. Here, mourning refers to mourning over sin, mourning over the miserable, wretched state we are in, mourning over the fact that without God, we can do absolutely no good. James wrote in James 4:9-10:  ^"9Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. ¹⁰Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up." This admonition goes against our natural inclinations. The world would tell us "No, stop thinking about sin, sin is depressing! Don't dwell on the negative, think positive! Tell yourself that you are a good person!". This is a monstrous lie. Scripture makes it clear that happiness never comes directly, but indirectly.


What does it mean to mourn? It means, for a start, to totally dispose of what the world calls "self-esteem". When we realise the extent of our sins, the blackness of our hearts, the stubbornness of our nature, we have no excuse to exalt ourselves. An article from the Banner of Truth website describes this mourning to be "...like an alcoholic who finally realizes that he and he alone is responsible for the heartache he has brought his loved ones, that he can no longer blame anyone else for his behaviour. This misery begins deep in the soul and begins to work its way to the surface of our lives. To mourn means to grieve over sin which eventually brings repentance. It is not merely feeling bad about getting caught. To weep over sin is a heartfelt, outward expression of sorrow due to the recognition of a great loss. We see this with Peter when he looks into the eyes of Jesus after denying him three times (Luke 22:60-62). Luke tells us that Peter wept bitterly. To turn laughter to sorrow and joy to gloom is like a gregarious father who has been neglecting his ten year old son due to his work schedule, who begins to notice rebellion and other ungodly attitudes in his son, who then realizes that his neglect is a major contributor. This is like David after Nathan says to him, 'Thou art the man!' and David repents with weeping, acknowledging that it is against God alone that he has sinned (Psa. 51:3). And to humble one’s self before God is to bow down low before him, confessing that he is God and we are not, that we have drifted from him, that we have rebelled against him."  This description is as far from happiness as it can possibly get.

Like mentioned before, happiness never comes directly. We therefore do not seek it directly. The beautiful paradox presented in Scripture shows us what true happiness is, and how God would grant it to us. We must weep over sin, and mourn in our hearts. But we do not look inward all the time, or we fall into despair. Look upward to Christ, and recognize that He is the one True Savior, Who alone is able and willing to help us. To look anywhere else brings no hope. He is the one who promised us, "²⁸Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28) Our souls, weary with the burdens of guilt from our sins, and laden with the misery of our iniquities, can find rest in Him. Look to His finished work on the cross, and flee to Him, for He will certainly not cast us out. (John 6:37) Then we shall know happiness, a happiness this world cannot offer, but yet again this true happiness is not what we directly seek, but what we receive when we turn to Christ in true faith and repentance.

"Nothing in my hand I bring,

Simply to Thy cross I cling.

Naked, come to Thee for dress,

Helpless, look to Thee for grace.

Foul, I to the fountain fly,

Wash me, Savior, or I die."