Tuesday, September 08, 2009
'The heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond all cure. Who can know it?'
It will do all of us good to examine the motives behind the things we do, the activities we engage in.
I find that many things I do smart of self-love, self-pride, self-pity. I detest this self-centredness, this self-loving. God help me root it out, cast it out of me. Root out every seed of pride and hypocrisy in me. Let me be completely broken, completely bare, completely surrendered before Your presence.
Lord Jesus Christ, come and take your rightful place at the throne of my heart. That my mind, heart, hands, feet, lips, soul and spirit, my entire being might be stirred to LIFE, to move in Your heartbeat. That You would be my Great Vision day and night. That I may be held captive forever in the light of Your Glory. That I might be found every minute of every day in the fullness of Your Spirit, Your grace, Your strength, Your power and Your love.
Let me think, write and live in all honesty. Move me to love. Let me proclaim your Truth, your Life with the days you give me here on this earth.
You are the Author and Finisher of this journey of faith, this call to greater intimacy with You. Put in me a hunger and thirst for You, my living God, that will not be satisfied until I see You face to face. Amen.
planted @
4:23 PM
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Reading A.W. Tozer's 'Jesus, Author of our faith', I'm reminded of the verse in 1st John that says, 'we love because He first loved us'.
A friend of mine recently wrote a long note on facebook about the role of religious ritiual in allowing Christians of all backgrounds to come into complete, perfect communion with one another in Christ. He argued that ritual (the Holy Communion) mystically joins all believers together in Christ's body and blood, more powerfully than any form of 'christian socialization' can, and therefore is an incredible vehicle of God's grace to the church that should be wholly embraced and regularly practiced.
I was challenged by his post to think and trouble a little over what sharing in Christ's 'bond of love' really means for believers. I think my friend wrote out of a certain sense of disillusionment with the exclusivity and lack of love in some Christian cliques - especially towards those in the larger church deemed 'weird' and 'awkward' (i.e. the social misfits).
The inability of Christians to love one another is, I believe, a real and serious problem that is endemic across the denominations. I have friends who have been hurt by the very people they fellowship with every Sunday in church. There is gossip, alienation, exclusion and a withdrawal of fellowship from those deemed to have 'fallen out' with the popular majority for various reasons.
In view of the cross of Jesus Christ, and the Father's love for us poured out so freely in infinite measure, surely such lack of love in the church (His very own family) must signal that something's terribly wrong.
Tozer maintains that, 'it is possible to love people in the Lord even though we may not like them'. I agree wholeheartedly with him. It is possible to love them, because we WILL love them for Jesus' sake. Christ's love made alive in us by His Spirit demands no less.
And if we find that we cannot love, it is high time we did some serious and honest soul-searching in the presence of our God. How else could we face Him for who He is? Radiant in Glory, Mighty in Power, as fearfully Holy as He is Gracious.
planted @
10:18 PM
Friday, September 04, 2009
It seems a little surreal -
That all the plans, schedules, spreadsheets and organisational documents,
Essays, critiques, reflections, budgets,
Strategy, vision, mission,
Lectures, recordings, notes,
Presentations, reports -
The sum total of my productive output as a student
Over the last four years in NUS
Can be neatly stored away into a little folder labelled 'undergraduate documents'
In my shiny new external hard disk.
It seems like an awful lot of material to put away,
Albeit electronic.
I can't believe all that took up less than 10 GB.
...
If time can be considered a type of storage medium,
What is the value of human output
Measured with regards to the finitude of our time here on earth?
Can we measure the value of one's work
By the durability of its impact?
What meaning would there be for one to 'do one's best' and 'strive one's hardest' in the face of eventual death?
Do we work for the 'sake of future generations'?
They too shall pass.
And if one allows for the possibility of an eternity of generational succession,
What value could one's work possibly have
In the light of eternity,
If every 'addition to knowlege' can just as easily be swept in another direction,
In a tide of eternal, ceaseless, relative movement?
If there is no Meta Narrative,
No Big Picture,
No overarching meaning to all life and activity in the universe,
I fail to see how one can find 'meaning' in daily work.
Any such 'meaning' would be a mere farce,
A temporary opiate, but utterly lacking in its ability to satisfy
A deeper thirst for True and Real meaning.
We work our butts off because we believe that there is meaning in working hard.
We believe our work is of value.
If however we profess not to believe in God, and in eternal life,
We deceive ourselves in thinking that our work in the world has value.
Our work is meaningless and valueless,
If Man is the first and last
Measure of all things.
For afterall,
What is the race of Man
In the span of Time
Here today and gone the next.
...
Perhaps the more important question:
Why does Man seek meaning?
Why do we hunger for it so badly that we would rather cease to live than be robbed of it while living?
planted @
3:47 PM
