Hope for My Restless Soul

Too much anxiety that I couldn't sleep. So I come downstair and check the Word for comfort. And this is what I found...

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses' arms. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you. A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD. (Isaiah 60:1-6)

Isn't that neat?

This text was the prophecy accompanying the fact that the wise men saw the star and came and worship Jesus with gold, frankincense and myrh. But this text also brought a lot of hope for my soul.

Yes, indeed darkness is covering the earth and thick darkness is covering the people. From the physical death and proverty of the asian tsunami there to the spiritual death and proverty of the soul tsunami here. It's something God knew about, "for darkness shall cover..." But the command of God is "arise, and shine" because "your light has come" and "the glory of the LORD has risen upon you".

If Jesus, the light of the world, had shine a light into our life, then we will need to respond by arise and shine to reflect His light to the darkness around us. We are going to take a special offering for tsunami relief at the conference this weekend. That's for the physical problem there. And for the spiritual problem here, the Word of God continue to promise the eternal hope for our generation: "Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn."

Nations! That includes the Vietnamese, who grow-up and live in the US. Kings! That includes the next generations of leaders who will go forth from them.

And God reminded me, "Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses' arms." The problem is the failure to see. If I was to believe that the surrounding world was in darkness, then what's there to see? What's there to look around? But with the eyes of faith in God, that "[His] light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon [me]" then there will be a motive to look and to see.

If the faith above couples with obedience to "arise, and shine" then the result will be eminent in God's timing. Right now, all I can see is that "they all gather together, they come to [Christ]"; but in the future, there will be the whole generation of sons and daughters will arise out of the gathering. The following future-tense verses describe the glorious and joyful scene of that promised reality; that "[they] shall proclaim the praise of the LORD".

Yes Lord, fulfill your promise soon! Come quickly!

The Nightmare of Christmas

"When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men." Matthew 2:16

Bloody Christmas. When we think about Christmas, we rarely recall passages such as these. To many of us, Christmas brought back sweet childhood memories, about wishful dreams of "peace on earth among all people, and glory to God in the highest." We wear the Christmas colors of red and green, but we wouldn't make any connection between the Christmas red with the bloody red of the infants and babies were massacred at the first Christmas. In Hollywood, Tim Burton dreamed of "The Nightmare before Christmas"; but in biblical reality, there was a "Nightmare after Christmas"! How could we justify something as evil as this slaughtering of children during the wonderful time of Christmas? Innocent kids died because of the Lord of Life? Terror reigned when the King of Peace arrive? The Almighty fled and escaped with His life? Welcome to our real world, oh God Almighty. Incarnation, the Word became Flesh: this is no walk in the park. This is where evil lurked deceitfully around every corner. ("Oh yes, seek Him and report to me when you have found Him, so that I may worship Him too", Herod said). The rules of engagement don't applied here. Trust no one, we have been told. People who claim to be your friends would betray you... You know all this, and yet you still decided to come anyway? To bring Christmas into the land of ghoulies like us? Wow! That must be some love! So now, what is it that we should do? To walk in your footstep of love incarnated is too accept humiliation, to get dirty in the evil world, to look beyond the temporal setback, and to trust in God beyond any man or manmade circumstances. The “full implications of the Incarnation” is not “comprehended” until the doctrine is both affirmed and lived out, both believed and expressed, everyday in our daily life. [1] Lord Jesus, my God who enfleshed to be in this world; thank you for your love and your willingness to become one of us, so that you can show us how to be more like you, even in the midst of the evil world we are in. Help us to be willing to follow you in love, even loving through pain and suffering; help us to follow you in faith, and trust God who designed the master plan...

"Think of the Lord's birth, wherein the Word became Flesh, not as a past even which we recall, but as a present reality upon which we gaze." St. Leo, AD 440 [2]

Savior of My Sins

He will save his people from their sins.... Mat.1:21

Yesterday my pastor asked the question of "What's the purpose of Christ coming?" And he quoted Mat.1:21 as the answer: "Save his people from their sins."

In thinking about the ramification of Christmas, I realized that we often focus on Christ coming in the past, and may be Christ coming in the future, but we often don't see it as Christ coming in the presence much.

We pointed to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross as the ultimate redemption of sin, and His coming to reign over creation as the ultimate eradication of evil; but we often didn't look at the presence liberation of "his people from their sins" (the plural sin often denoted the practical wrong doing we encountered on the daily basis).

How will we be liberated over our own daily sins? The text here spoke of "his people", not just any people. Therefore reconciliation with God (in repentance as we read from John the Baptist earlier) must be a prerequisite.

The second key is the realization that "God is with us". It is one thing to believe that Jesus paid for the price of my sins, and that one day I will be with Him in sinlessness. But it's quite another thing to live my daily life and dealing with my sins in the mindset of "God is with us".

It is also interesting to note the plurality of "us" there. Sanctification (the technical term for overcome sins in daily present life) happened in community. It take a bunch of us to see God, and to see God is with us. That's why we encourage people to stay with the community of God on their road to sanctification.

So today, when I think of Christmas; I want to think about not only when Christ came in the manger, and not only when He come in the cloud. But I want to also think about the immaculate conception of Christ in my heart. Somehow, by the ex-nihilo/out-of-nothing creation of the Holy Spirit of God, Christ was formed in my heart, branded me and be with me. And so, he will save me from my daily struggle with sins.

Lord Jesus, sanctify my life as what you came to my heart to do...

When King Works as Road Paver

When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” Mat.11:2-3

Discouragement set in.

Sometimes in the course of ministry, when we found ourselves ended up in the prison of loneliness, misunderstand, hardship, and even despair; we asked ourselves, "Is this it? Is there any more than this? I thought it was supposed to be more than this."

We went out and preached about repentance, bridged the hearts of the sons toward the Father, stood up against immorality and injustice, proclaimed that the coming of God was at hand. For a season, we stirred up history and people gathered and revival seemed to be underway.

For another season, we sat in the pit of dark prison of the soul, looking back and wondered if we have done the right thing, if we have fulfilled the call, if anything matters at all.

Welcome to the John the Baptist's lair in his last day, where we see him questioning Jesus about God's plan.

Jesus simply pointed to the work His ministry among the lives of the people. He added "blessed is anyone to takes no offense at me."

John the Baptist, the greatest of all prophets, yet he took offense at Christ, and wondered, and was losing heart, etc.

Aaah, I am in the great company of many other pioneers of the faith.

We all have our limitations. Even since birth, and growing up as a Nazarite, John (and many of us) studied all about God's Word. Yet, we still have limited vision about what is God supposed to be doing. Jesus answered John with Scripture, the same Word of God he studied but may have yet comprehend, and illuminate his understanding about God's purpose and plan.

And even with our own limitation, God send us as his messengers, who prepare the way before Him. Road worker may not understand the whole intricacies of the architect's plan. But that's OK; as long as we are faithful doing what He sent us to do. We may not see the whole vision of the highway system He had in mind, but we know about the pothole right in front of us, and we know that it's not right, it's not in the plan, and it will need to be fix.

The problem is, like John, when you spent your whole life prepare for the way of the King, you work so much with potholes, preparing and repairing, and you will start losing heart. "All I see are potholes, a life time of preparing and repairing. Is there really a King will travel down this road?"

Jesus answers, "Yes. There is really a King indeed travel down that road. In fact, He's already here. But He's also preparing and repairing the potholes of people's lives too. That's why you didn't recognize Him."

Oh Lord my King, open my eyes so I can see you.