Posts Tagged ‘kingdom of God’

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. )

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Hunger and thirst for righteousness / seen and unseen / the kingdom of heaven

October 9, 2013

  • Jesus came to preach about the kingdom of heaven.
  • Heaven is unseen and unreachable to the living human, whether Christian or not.
  • It’s interesting that Jesus makes numerals parallels of the earth-heaven relationship.
    • binding and loosing
    • the beatitudes
    • seen and unseen
    • fallen/sickness and complete/wholeness
  • The other day my 2 yr old son who is just learning to speak short sentences expressed his hunger in a very impulsive way and something suddenly dawned.
  • Hunger and thirst are also unseen.
  • I would not know my child is hungry, unless they express it in some way, speaking, crying, looking weak.
  • These are ways of expressing hunger, but the hunger itself cannot be seen. Only expressed, or felt.
  • It’s the same with God’s unseen realm, heaven.
  • That’s why Jesus had to be the Word, the mouthpiece to express to us what heaven is like.
  • Not only is the expression from Jesus but he performed various acts so that the effects of heaven can be FELT. Just like how my child throws tantrums when hungry, then I feel the effects and know he his hungry.
  • In the same way, Jesus performed healing, deliverance, humility, kindness and compassion so that we would feel the effects of heaven, and ultimately get a glimpse or have a sense of knowing what heaven is like.
  • I really find it interesting that Jesus used the terms hunger and thirst for righteousness knowing it would draw this parallel for us.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled”. (Matthew 5:6 NIV)


Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »