Posts Tagged ‘father’

3 types of strength (Broken bone illustration)

August 18, 2014

We have 3 types of spiritual strength to indicate 3 stages of our spiritual life

Spirit life = relationship with God
1) We have no strength (broken bone)
  • It’s like a broken bone or snapped tendon
  • totally unable to control/move any body part after the break
  • no matter how hard you will or try, you just can’t
  • because it is disconnected.
  • all of us were born disconnected from God
  • no matter how hard we try to be good, we just cannot.
  • all of us when we were born with sin.
  • we will always end up doing something bad, misbehave or not following instructions.
  • thank God he can fix us:
2) We have new strength
  • Jesus is like the doctor who put the broken parts back together
  • our relationship with God is now connected, but the re-connection is weak on its own
  • need something to isolate the part so it can heal and not be put at risk of damage again, needs to be plastered.
  • Jesus puts on a cast so the broken parts can heal properly.
  • He gives us the Holy Spirit to wrap around our joint so that it will be protected during the healing
  • the cast is also a security and helps us to be confident that we won’t accidentally knock the injured part.
  • The cast like the Holy Spirit also gives us the ability to function our body part like normal, how it should be.
  • After saved, but still unable to be fully independent without the cast. This new strength from the Holy Spirit helps the injury to start repair but also gives a chance for the injured arm or leg to start being used again.
  • Can start to use fingers to hold, toes to balance.
  • When disconnected we cannot do any good on our own. Now we have help to be good.
  • Paul says when I am weak, He makes me strong.
  • Cast stays on our entire earthly life.
  • Taking the cast apart early before it’s time is like removing the Holy Spirit from our earthly life.
  • We expose ourselves to further injury.
  • The cast is meant to be on until the body part is fully healed (meaning until we leave this earthly life). – The Holy Spirit is like our helper here on Earth, but once we leave the Earth, we don’t need the Holy Spirit’s work of being a “cast” but now we are in full communion and union with Jesus the doctor. 
3) We have little strength
  • After some time, we develop our life with the cast on, we learn how to go about our daily life with it.
  • We carry it wherever we go and start to return to our usual activities.
  • We now have more strength at the injured limb.
  • But you will at some point come across circumstances that you know will be a challenge because of the injury that you now realize that you have little strength.
  • When you see a need, when you sense a call, when you carry a burden for a certain person, you realise you cannot do it all by yourself, you realise you have little strength
  • Therefore you need wisdom, you need a double portion of anointing.
  • Despite your injury and the cast you carry, you summon whatever strength you can, and the Holy Spirit’s work then takes over and does whatever it does best.

( Incidentally Ps David’s sermon talks about this the next day, Eg. Young David vs Goliath, 17 Aug 2014. Could “borrow” some points from there. )

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God Our Provider, God Our Security

February 7, 2014


I watched an interesting video about cats this week…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEepVLQjDt8

The BBC reports on how cats are emotional linked to their owners and conclude that cats do not love their owners in the same way dogs do.

In a study by Prof. Daniel Mills, he uses a past technique that was used to observe toddlers’ behaviours with and without their parents. The observation showed that babies look for their mothers when a stranger enters their presence. They automatically cling harder to the parent when a stranger offers to carry them.

Cats on the other hand don’t really care. If a stranger enters, to them it’s just another human compared with their owner. So they don’t really look to their owner as a source of security, but only as a provider.

I asked a few people who kept cats as pets if this was true and they agreed. I tend to concur too because my neighbours cat is always found wandering our compound, day or night, exploring everywhere around the other homes but will only return home for food.

The Prodigal Son

This has led me to reflect upon the story of the prodigal son, it is the perfect illustration of what it means to look to our Father God as a Provider and as our Security.

In the parable Jesus shared, the prodigal son is content with all the providence of his father and squanders all of it. The older son however has the security and the providence of the father. That’s why at the end of the story the father says to him “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours“. (Luke 15:31 NKJV)

Two things the father highlights to the son : 1) you are always with me (security) and 2) all that I have is yours (providence).

Thoughts: What does this security actually mean?

Psalms 125 talks about “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which can never be shaken, never be moved. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people, now and forever.”

What does it mean can never be shaken or moved?

What are we secure from or secured against?

Security refers to the state of your Salvation (2 Sam 23:5, referring to David)
“If my house were not right with God, surely he would not have made with me an everlasting covenant, arranged and secured in every part; surely he would not bring to fruition my salvation and grant me my every desire.”

God Our Master

I am also led to think, of God as our master, just like a pet has a master. The master owns the pet, rules over the pet, provides food and security to the pet. I know some people may not readily identify with this analogy that we are like animals to God because of its implications, but the Bible does say that God is our Master.

And if God if He is our master, it is imperative that we take note of the response that we should give to Him

Malachi 1:6 (NKJV)

“A son honors his father,
And a servant his master.
If then I am the Father,
Where is My honor?
And if I am a Master,
Where is My reverence?
Says the Lord of hosts
To you priests who despise My name.
Yet you say, ‘In what way have we despised Your name?’

If God is our Father, where is our honour due to Him? A Father who protects and secures. If God is our master, where is our reverence for Him? A Master who provides. Where is that sense of seeing God not just as your provider but as your security as well?

I think honour and reverence are quickly becoming a forgotten virtue in many communities that it soon becomes prevalent in our worship to God, in our conversations with each other about God and in our lifestyles before God.

Conclusion

As God is Father to us, let us remember to abide in Him as He says to us, “Son, you are always with me and all that I have is yours”.

As God is Master to us, let us remember to revere Him lest He asks of us, “Where is My reverence?“

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