Please, you have to continue to love God

We often hear preachers telling us that God loves us. In fact, often when I ask people what is the most important thing to remember concerning God in relation to us, the answer is “God loves us.” Is that wrong? No, indeed God loves us. But do you know that you and I have to love Him back AND continue to love Him. Preachers, if they do mention it, they often only mention it as a “by the way” kind of thing. People are NOT stressing it, that we MUST love Him back AND continue to love Him.

Are you really saying it is about Him?
People say, “It is all about Him.” Do they really mean what they say? Increasingly it has become merely a lingo of theirs to mask their irresponsibility; typically this comes from such people:

“The Bible is all about God, NOT about you”. By that, they say, it is NOT about what you are required to do, or about anything you can do. It is about God, about God’s love, about God’s faithfulness, about God’s awesomeness, about actions of God. Purportedly, the saying of “You can neither earn or merit” covers it all. There is nothing for you to do, NOT to mention, to think about, for you don’t need to think for Him; it is He thinks, and you will know! You don’t have to think, you will know, and if you know NOT, then why do you do; don’t do. If you think you ought, then, that is works; that is NOT right, for it is NOT about you and your works. It is about God, and so, only His works matter. When you think and you work, you are putting yourself in, and that would NOT be pleasing to God.

No, it is NOT to be like that. If it is all about Him, it means He is the centre of everything; He is the centre of your everything. It means you are required to do everything He requires of you; and it is about you are to please Him with your thoughts and your actions. It is about Him, and so, it is about your love for Him, about your faithfulness towards Him, about your adoration of Him since He is so very awesome; it is about your actions as unto God; NOT it is nothing about you and I.

It merits us to do anything & everything after His thoughts/desires
Sure, we cannot merit His grace, and we definitely did NOT merit His giving of His Son, Jesus Christ to die for us; but all the more, it, His given grace and on-going grace, merit us to do anything and everything after His thoughts or desires or will.

When it is all about God, it does NOT mean we don’t think at all, and when we think, it is NOT necessarily that it implies that we are having the audacity to think for God. If He is the centre of your everything, it is you are to think and pay attention to that which will please Him and do them. Eph 2:10 clearly said that we are to do good works God would like us to do.

You don’t glorify God by just basking away
We are to glorify God. We don’t glorify God by thinking NOT, and doing NOT. We glorify God by thinking and acting in manners that pleases Him.

In the first place, Man was NOT created inanimate, or for inaction; no, Adam was assigned work; he worked; he looked after the Garden of Eden for God.

The opposite is putting yourself in
You are putting yourself in, when you decide you don’t do that which will please God; and that would be you saying to God, “I will go ahead and do what think I want to do; if you want me to do something else, the onus is on you, God, to tell me”.

If it is all about God, and you are putting God first, then it should be you are to be thinking and doing what pleases God; and you ask Him for “leave to go do something” you would like to do. That is what you would do to your employer - you please your employer, do the things you are supposed to do, thinking and acting for the benefit of the employer; and if you want to do something apart, you ask for leave. But you wouldn’t do that for God, when it is all about Him; you treat Him more worse than your employer? And of course, God is more than just your employer.

“It is finished”. Please explain it rightly.
Who say it is finished? You? Me? No, it was Jesus. Jesus said it was finished for Him; He finished His work; he finished the assignments Father God gave Him. No, it is NOT you and I have no more things to do; purporting that what we need to do is just enjoy ourselves and bask in grace.

No, it is time for us to work. When Jesus finished, we, the believers, take over; NOT the same work of literally be crucified on the Cross, but we, now, are to be the successors of Jesus. In Romans 8:29 we read that for those God gave re-birth (born-again), he also had in mind (wished, desired) that they be transformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ, His Son, that He, Jesus Christ, might be the firstborn among many believers. In other words, we take over as ones whom God would continue to work with.

You need only to look at the example of Jesus
Jesus did NOT just sit there and do nothing, cried, “It is all about you, God. You get your act together; I will just sit here and watch, and bask in your grace!”

No, absolutely; that was NOT what Jesus did. His attitude towards God was NOT like that; rather when it was all about God, for Jesus, Jesus put God in the centre of His life; sinned NOT, meaning he did NOT do anything to displease God; and rather, did everything God had wanted done, even when He had to be persecuted and die that cruel death on the Cross.

Jesus said at the end of His life, “It is finished”, and He went to be with God. Because He, Jesus, did the works assigned, He could say, “It is finished”. So, we who are fruits after the Firstfruit, are we also now doing the works Jesus or God assigned, so that when we are about to breathe our last, we can also say, “It is finished”? Are you doing that?

What did Jesus say He required of us?
Is it “It is finished”, and so, nothing required? No. Among the most important things that Jesus said are: Love the Lord your God with all of you (your heart, mind, soul and strength), and love your neighbours as yourself.

Obvious? Apparently NOT, for some. Does the above tell us to only love God at our entry into salvation, and that would be enough? Was it a one-time thing that we are to love God?

In Luke 10:25-28, before He gave the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus revealed to us what is needed to inherit eternal life? The question asked of Jesus (by a Sadducee) was this: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

It is reasonable to assume, by then, Jesus, knew He would NOT be living on earth for a long, long time; and it is reasonable to assume, He, with His knowledge of the OT, including understanding of the prophecies concerning the Messiah, that He would have, then, knew He would die persecuted (this points to it – Luke 4:1-21). But we did NOT note that Jesus’ reply was, all that people had to do, was to believe and accept Him (Jesus), and NOT reject Him, after His death and resurrection. At this point Jesus still pointed to the laws of God. In Matt 5, we can also read that Jesus said He did NOT come to abolish the laws but to fulfill them.

Jesus actually replied by asking the Sadducee, an expert, in the Law, how he, the Sadducee, understood from the Law; and the Sadducee replied,

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

And Jesus’ reply to that was that the Sadducee answered correctly. Jesus added, “Do this and you will live.” (v28). It is very clear that we have to love God to live. If your common sense still does NOT tell that it is NOT a one-time love of God, any slight knowledge of the OT laws would reveal to us that we cannot just love God once, and then NOT continue to love Him.

NOT “it doesn’t matter it lasts NOT”
There is a WORLDLY Chinese saying about love that translates to: “What matters, is that we once had, it does NOT matter it lasts NOT.”

No, it is NOT like that; we are to love God continually. There is such a thing as “has loved” and “continue to love”. You may have loved, but the call is to continue to love. The love of God is revealed to us, in Scripture, like that, too, apart from Luke 10:25-28, which I have expounded above. Scripture said God “has loved”, so we ought to love Him back.

God “has loved” you when He gave His Son to die for you. If you are a believer, you can be said as “having loved” Him back. You have begun your loving God when you entered into your salvation. The question is, “Is that what it is supposed to be, ‘a one night stand’ (so to speak)?” It is NOT, right? What is your expectation? Are we NOT expecting God to continue to love you? Sure, we do. The Apostle Paul said, in Romans 8:38-39, that he was convinced that God wants to continue to love us. The overall counsel of the Word reveals to us that God does want to continue to love us.

So you want God to continue to love you
So, you want a relationship with God? And you want God to continue to love you? Don’t you think you and I ought also to continue to love God? In fact, we have to grow our love for God. Surely, the “Love your God with all of you, your heart, mind, soul and strength” is referring NOT, to the one-time act of love, of saying the Sinner’s Prayer on entry into salvation. It is untenable to argue the greatest command of Jesus was a call for a one-time love by us. In this relationship with God, for it, the relationship to operate properly, it requires you and I to continue to love God, even as God continues to love us.

The key way of loving God – obey His commands
Before I give another important text to show further, the “has loved” and “continue to love”, let me give us the key way of loving God. When I ask people, “How does one love God?” Often the answer is “Love God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength”. But that really does NOT say HOW we love! You see, if you and I are saying, “It is all about God”, then we ought to be looking at how God defines “loving Him”.

Jesus defined loving God or Him (Jesus) this way: Those who love me, obeys my commands (John 14:15), and those who obey my commands are the ones who love me (John 14:21a).

So, as a believer, you “have loved” God. At your entry into salvation, God said, “Accept my Son, Jesus, who has died for you”, and you have obeyed – you have loved (you accepted, as commanded). Likewise, you continue to love God when you continue to obey His commands. When you refuse to obey His commands, what does it tell on your love for God? The answer is obvious.

Here is the text of Jesus presenting us the “has loved” and “continue to love”, with the obeying God’s commands thrown in, as the key way of loving God:

John 15:9-11 - 9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

The above clearly says that God has loved you, and to remain in His love, we need to obey His commands (as THE way of loving Him). Jesus said He was subjected to the same, and likewise it is applicable to us. Jesus said He told us this, so that when we do it, i.e. love Him by obeying His commands, His joy (Jesus’ joy) may be in us, and that our joy may be complete. In other words, Jesus was saying, our joy will be complete when His joy enters us; and His joy enters us when we love Him by obeying His commands. Here is a little secret for you – to NOT lose peace and joy, don’t disobey His commands.

Are you saying God’s love is NOT unconditional?
Brother Anthony, are you then saying that God’s love is conditional? Yes, but please let me explain.

My understanding is that the Greek word, “agape” used as the “love” word in the New Testament (NT), was NOT originally bearing the meaning of “unconditional love”; it was more pointing to true love, as opposed to sexual/sensual love (eros), brotherly love, like friendship (philia), and natural love, like mother for her child (storge); it was more of a sacrificial love, like dying for another, like what Jesus did, died for us. It has element of without undue demand, but it is NOT really completely unconditional. For example, the love shown by one on the street, seeing a beggar weak from hunger, and giving his/her own lunch pack over, can be said as agape love. This love does NOT demand anything from the beggar - NOT that the beggar must do some “trick” to amuse the person before the food is given. The person sacrifices his/her own lunch. It does appear unconditional in this case, but it does NOT mean that agape love is completely unconditional.

Sacrificial and without undue demand
The modern use of the Greek word may have forced it to mean unconditional love, through usage, but, as far as I have looked at the subject, it was NOT with that intent of being totally unconditional. God’s love or Jesus’ love is sacrificial, and may appear totally unconditional, but God’s love is NOT totally unconditional.

To fully explain this, will require another article, but it suffices to state that God’s love for men is love unto righteousness (`ahab love). And the righteousness of God is the outworking of the holiness of God and His wisdom (principally). In other words, the love of God for men is subjugated to His holiness. In practical terms, it means, ultimately God cannot love you and I, unrighteously, or in contradiction to His holiness. There is a condition to God’s love for men, and that condition, which is applicable for all things, is that it must satisfy the demand of God’s holiness. The demand of holiness is NOT undue demand.

You have to embrace His holiness, and so, you have to obey
We have to obey God’s commands, for they flow from the righteousness and justice of God which in turn, is the outworking of God’s holiness and wisdom. We have to love God for who He is, and He is goodness absolute or holiness. We cannot love God unless we embrace His holiness, and that is why THE way of loving God has to be obeying His commands.

God is ever-ready (to love) but we have to align in
Now, when Jesus said that we have to do such (obey His commands, as loving Him) to remain in His love, it is meant to say that God is ever-ready to love you and I, and He has loved with that love, only that we have to align in.

The best way I can put it, is a parable of the light. It beams forth, but we have to align into the path of the light-beam to receive it.

Assured, most assuredly, for those who love Him
I cannot stress enough that there are so many significant verses in Scripture that tells us that the goodness/blessing/favour of God is assured, most assuredly, for those who love Him.

Ps 91 which have many of the beautiful and powerful promises of God for protection and well-being, it is assured, most assuredly, for those who love God; Ps 91:14-15 tell us so:

14 “Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
15 He will call on me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.

Romans 8:28, commonly quoted to comfort believers in stressful trouble, it too, is assured, most assuredly, for those who love God; it is written right there in the verse, “…. for the good of those who love God…”

James 1:14 - Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

Now, even in the OT, we can see the same thing portrayed; we can see this in the opening line of Nehemiah’s Prayer (Neh 1:5-11) - “LORD, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments

Continue to love Him by obeying His commands
Today, realize the secret to our Christian well-being is to love God. I have already, in this article, said THE way to love God, is to obey His commands. Of course, we can break it up, and expound further, how we can love God, and perhaps, I will do that in another article, but ultimately it still comes back to obeying Him/His commands. So, now, love God by obeying His commands. You have loved God? You still have to CONTINUE to do that.


Anthony Chia, high.expressions – Loving God is the secret to our Christian well-being.

PS: Those wanting to read an exposition of Ps 91, can go here: “Secret of our well-being – Ps 91”

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Stressful troubles, how?

Preamble: Recently, my distant friend, Ps Prentis put up 2 articles, back to back, touching on Psalm 91:14-15, and 1 Pet 5:6-7, on his blog, “Created to give Glory”.  As these talked about troubles, stresses, and worrying, and about God’s presence with us, and His protection and deliverance, I want to put up the 2 comments (combined, with some rearrangements) I put up on Ps Prentis’ blog, on the subject. Ps 91 is a very significant psalm, and it has the very beautiful promises commonly on the lips of believers all over. I have previously put up an entry on the entire Ps 91; you can read it here: Ps 91 – Secret to our well-being.

Speak it, preach it
Yes, speak about this one; preach it, Ps 91 verses 14-15.

Ps 91 is a very beautiful psalm, also commonly known as the Protection Psalm. Readers should go read it; you will see the promises frequently on the lips of believers found there.

How do we get there – dwelling in the shelter of the Most High?
The Psalm opens with "Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty." After that, the beautiful promises of God are given.

But what many of us fail to tell people, or maybe we ourselves, do NOT know, is how one gets to dwell in the shelter of the Most High.

Is that a physical place? Where is the shelter of the Most High? How do we get there?

It doesn’t work?
In fact, many believers are disappointed, for often what they read in Scripture, like the beautiful promises of protection in this Psalm 91, they do NOT seem to come through for them. After a while, they give up, and conclude we cannot take the Word at its face value! Part of the blame lies with us, we don't properly tell people that many of these promises have conditions attached to them.

I am NOT saying if we do NOT fulfill the conditions attached, we will NEVER be able to receive the promises; I am NOT saying that. What I am saying is that if God puts condition(s) to His promise, it is NOT unreasonable of Him to expect you and I, to fulfill it/them.

Verses 14-15 – the key
The key to Ps 91's promises is in verses 14-15. Where is the shelter of the Most High? How do you get there? Is it a physical place? No, it is NOT a physical place. You and I get there by loving God.

When we get into trouble, it is NOT that God does NOT want to come and get us out of our trouble; He can easily do that. It is He can always do that, but the question is, do we know what is the point/lesson that can be learned from our scenario.

Getting into troubles
How do we commonly get into trouble? We disobey God or some commands of God. For example, God's Word said NOT to steal, but you did it. Or God's Word said that we are to seek first His Kingdom and righteousness, and then what we need, they would be added to us, but you don't want to follow that, instead you decided to put all your time and attention to your career, even if it would take a toll on your health or family. God can come and help you out, but will you learn the lesson therein?

Some people when they are in trouble, all they want and care about, is how are you, God, going to get me out of this? God can get them out, but they would get into trouble again and again. "But God is patient-what!" Hello, it is you have to grow; it is NOT God has to grow in patience! God's desire is for all of us to grow.

Back to square one if you don’t know how to love God
So, I have said, you got to love God; that is the key to availing yourselves to the protection promises of God, there, in Ps 91. But if you don't know how to love God, you are back to square one - where you don't know how to dwell in the shelter of the Most High?

Is it that obvious, how we are to love God? No, I don't think so. Make a guess, now. No, don't say, we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength! That still does NOT say how?

What Jesus said
Jesus did say how - Obey His commands. Short and sharp, but pastors are NOT preaching it, no wonder people are NOT knowing it. It is repeated many times in the writings of the Apostle John. Two verses that I like, on this, are John 14:15 and John 14:21a.

How can you get to dwell in the shelter of the Most High? Love Him. How to love Him? Obey His commands. How do we say, people commonly get into trouble? They did NOT obey God's commands. See, God can get you out of your trouble, but if you continue NOT to obey His commands, you are just NOT loving Him, and you continue to get into trouble.

Hello, NOT God does, and then you give Him some love!
Then, there are those who would like to have God's protection all the time. Anything wrong with that? No, I like that too. But then, how do we love God? Some people do this, "This Sunday, I will go to church, and sing a few thanksgiving songs to God, since I have had relief from my trouble. God has indeed helped me," But then, the week following that, they don't go anymore. You know, how bad this attitude is. I tell you what you are in effect, doing: You are holding out that God is the one needing teaching or growing; in fact, you are saying in His face, "God, if and when you help me, I will give you praise! God, you do first, then I give you love!” What audacity is that!

We need to love God for who He is and we are to worship Him in the like of the 3 friends of Daniel who were thrown in the furnace by the King Nebu. You can read the full story in Daniel 3. This is what the threesome said:

17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up. ” (Daniel 3:17-18)

That is loving God; NOT you (God) do, and then I reciprocate.

Two other ingredients
Ps Prentis mentioned 2 other ingredients for getting help from God in your time of trouble. They are that you are to identify with God, and you are to call out to God. They are mentioned in verses 14 & 15 of Ps 91. They can be regarded as being part and parcel of loving God, but we can take it out and explicitly point it out to people; and I will elaborate on them a little bit more.

NOT one-time, but continual acknowledgment
Actually, when you gave your life over to Jesus, when you entered into salvation, you are identified with Jesus, or to use the words in verse 14, you have acknowledged Jesus. But the problem with many of us, is that we soon “go on to do our own things”, and so, in the process we have failed to follow through with our commitment to be in continual acknowledgment of Him. Now, if you think you only need to do that, once, at the point of your entry into salvation, and can then just do what you like, without change in your life or lifestyle, you have been taught under erroneous core theology of the Christian faith (to me, that is being legalistic/legalism). Don’t let false teachers fool you, how you live shows if you are acknowledging Him; you go legalism or legalistic with God, you cannot win your case.

The correct way ….vs the wrong way
When you are already a believer, acknowledgment of Him means you live according to His prescription (how you live), and when you are off, you have to acknowledge that, you are off, and you need to turn back, and resume the way of life prescribed by God (no lie, no steal, and so on…). Yes, that means you confess you have strayed; you repent, and you turn to God for forgiveness. Yes, acknowledge Him again, with a humble and contrite heart. Don’t listen to teaching that tells you the only thing you need to do, is to tell the Devil off, by telling the Devil that you are still righteous. Who do you need to acknowledge, the Devil or God? Look, who is going to see you to Heaven, the Devil or God? What we need to address foremost, is our issue with God, NOT you don’t have to come before God, just tell the Devil off. I am NOT saying there is anything wrong with telling the Devil off, per se, but it is that we have to foremost, address our issue with God.

Taking God for granted
The common sense that we have to call out to God, to some people, it turns out to be NOT that common! Please, you cannot insist this, “He is God-what, He knows everything-what, He knows even before I ask, then I don’t need to tell Him-what!” You will be surprised that many believers do this to God. Yes, God, as well as the angels He assigned, watch over you, and without you knowing, help you a lot; but you cannot take Him for granted. Yah, you are taking Him for granted; you don’t even be bothered to talk to Him about your problem. You don’t want to dialogue with your loved ones, like your spouse, and then you expect him/her to anticipate, and act just in the nick of time to take care of things. Oh! You don’t do that to your loved ones, your spouse, but you will do that to God! Isn’t He your most loved one, ahead of your spouse!

“He doesn’t hear me!”
If you have been loving your God, and say, you strayed or did a wrong or sin, and then you acknowledged Him again, and you called out to Him, would He NOT answer you? Verse 15 said He would. Some people have this attitude: “I don’t think He hears me, please pray for me to God.” I will pray for people who need prayer. I don’t credit myself as a righteous man, that my prayer avails much, but if you trust that my prayer can help, I will help. But people do need to examine themselves. Do I ask others to pray for me? Sure I do. But I also pray myself. If I ask people to pray for me for a matter, I must have or be prepared to pray to God myself concerning the matter. You have to ask yourself, why you won’t call out to God on the matter.

He always hears, but may NOT listen to you!
God hears it when a believer prays, like He hears it, when a doorbell rings! That is the minimum; in other words, God always hears. The Hebrew word is “Shama”, which can mean “hear”, like hear a doorbell ringing, on the one end, or “listen” or listen to give efficacy, tending on the other end. Does God hear you? God hears you, alright; but He may NOT listen to you.

Stubbornly wicked believers, sorry, you cannot expect God to listen to you, as in, do as you want! Of course, NOT; in fact, in the extreme scenario, He may NOT hear you, but that, I believe, is NOT before He already warned you (exception to God always hearing you).

How you look at it, and how God looks at it
What some people want to do, is that they don’t want to re-acknowledge God, but they want God to listen. If you don’t want to re-acknowledge (from the heart, like what has been explained above), God hears, but He may NOT listen, meaning He may NOT give efficacy to your request. For God, what is more important is you get back right with Him. To us, God looks always tarrying, but to God, He is eager to pounce on the moment of change He wants to see.

Sometimes, He does NOT give you what you want, but answers you differently, for He knows best how to mould you or direct you, for our own good (old fashion, but true!).

No, it is NOT you won’t have any trouble
When you love Him, including obeying His commands, when you acknowledge Him (NOT just at the time of your salvation, but continually acknowledging Him, and if you stumble, you re-acknowledge Him), and you call on Him, in humility and with a contrite heart, He will answer you. In verse 15, it clearly said there, that IN YOUR TROUBLE, He will be with you (See, God never say, you will have NO trouble in your Christian life or when you are dwelling in the shelter of the Most High or when you are loving your God). In other words, in your journey on earth, God journeys with you. And He will rescue/deliver you, protect you and even honor you. Herein, are the keys to a good Christian life. What more do you ask – God walks with you (think Enoch), rescues/delivers you, protects you and even honors you. Yes, some trouble; what to do, you and I, are still in the world; but they ought NOT be stressFULL, when you are dwelling in the shelter of the Most High.

The 2nd text – it ought NOT be stressful
1 Pet 5:6-7 – 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Although different texts (Ps 91:14-15 and 1 Pet 5:6-7) were being referred to, all the same, the theme was that, our obedience from our love is absolutely essential.

Ok, some of us can be in trouble, but NOT stressed (or NOT much). This is because you trust that God is with you in your trouble - yes, as said in Psalm 91:14-15. For all others, trouble means stress; because you worry, and you worry because you have no confidence that God is going to help you through.

And yes, one can be stressed even before he gets into trouble. This is because he already started to worry even before trouble hits.

Either you have NOT obeyed or you lack godly wisdom
In either case, it (trouble/stress/worry) is usually, as correctly pointed out, because you have NOT obeyed God or His Word. Or at times, you just do NOT know what to do, or you lack godly wisdom to handle the situation.

Why do you NOT want to obey?
Why do you NOT want to obey God or His word, which would account for the much worrying, stresses or troubles? To me, no matter how you look at it, it always come back to, either you refuse to be holy as God is holy, or you refuse to love God (Of course, I will NOT argue with you, if you only state it as solely because you refuse to be holy as God is holy, because the two are related, too).

These links you must know and understand
The laws or commands of God, His righteousness and justice are the demands of His holiness. They are the outworking from the holiness and wisdom of God. When we refuse to obey, we are refusing to acknowledge the demands of holiness, or we can say, we are refusing to be holy as God is holy.

When we refuse to obey, we can also be said as NOT loving God, for Jesus said those who love Him, obey His commands (John 14:15) and those who obey His commands are those who love Him (John 14:21a).

What about lack of godly wisdom?
If we say, "But we do NOT know what to do, we lack wisdom-what; that is why we did this or did NOT do that", Scripture indicated to us, that is also NOT excusable! Scripture said, "He who lacks wisdom, let him ask, and God will give to all without undeserved reproach, generously." (James 1:5).

But I don’t get!
Some might protest, "But I ask-what; I don't get! James 1:5 cannot be relied upon!" No, there is the "without undeserved reproach" in James 1:5. What is that? Think, how does Scripture say, concerning how wisdom is to come.

The fear of the Lord – the special meaning
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom or godly wisdom. The "fear of the Lord" was given a special meaning in the Word. The fear of the Lord, in the Book of Proverbs, is said to be to hate what God hates, evil. What is the opposite of evil or wickedness? Holy or holiness. So what does it mean? It means if you don't embrace holiness, you don't get wisdom. If you want godly wisdom, embrace holiness wholeheartedly.

The given provisio of James 1:5
Now, we come back to the "without undeserved reproach" in the giving of wisdom by God, as said in James 1:5. The interpretation for James 1:5 becomes, "If you lack wisdom, and you ask, God will give it generously to you (all of you) provided you are embracing holiness wholeheartedly. If you are impure, you are NOT without undeserved reproach. Actually, it is very true that it is NOT that one does NOT know what to do; it is that he is of impure heart or intent, and so, he chooses NOT, according to that, which the godly wisdom of God would prescribe. (Additionally, in vv6-8 of James 1, the one who asks must believe and NOT doubt).

Humility is embracing God is holy and awesome
Concerning the humility in the text, 1 Pet 5:6-7, it is a good word to open up to such subjects as obedience, which Ps Prentis did, and such other subjects as pride of Man, and holiness and awesomeness of God. To humble ourselves before God means we are acknowledging we are low (humilis – Latin word) and God is high, meaning we are NOT better than God. When God is better, we are NOT, what does it mean? It simply calls for us to listen to the better one, God; and when you are listening to God, what are you doing, you are obeying Him. To humble before God necessarily mean you have to obey Him; Ps Prentis said it rightly.

One can look from the angle of goodness. Jesus said, when the young rich man called Him good teacher, “Why you call me good (teacher)! Only God is good. There you have it – we are low in good, God is absolute good, or holy. To be humble before God is to acknowledge that God is good, absolute good or holy, and we are NOT. That which comes from absolute good or holy can only be wisdom; and so, to humble before God necessarily mean you have to obey Him, for He has the all wisdom. When we recognize the holiness and wisdom of God, we realize the awesomeness of God (of course, the might of God comes in, too); and we should have no room for self-pride before God.

When we embrace God is holy and awesome, and thus humbled, we cannot, but love Him, and we obey Him.

Want less stress or stressful troubles?
You want to have less stress or worry NOT, catch it - catch that God is holy, that God is wisdom, that God is awesome, and God is righteous, and God loves you unto righteousness. When you are obeying Him, you are loving Him (John 14:21a), and when you humble yourself before Him, you are acknowledging Him, and when you ask, including wisdom for your scenario, Psalm 91:14-15 tell us that you will NOT be disappointed; for there, God promises rescue, deliverance, protection, presence, and even honor. Yes, honor; 1 Pet 5:6 put it as ‘He may lift you up in due time’.

God loves you
I just said Psalm 91:14-15 tell us that we will NOT be disappointed, but what is the overall picture painted by the 2 verses? God loves and cares for you. That is what 1 Pet 5:7 said, God cares for you, and so, you can cast your anxiety to Him.

You need to remain in His love, but how?
By now, you should have known that the main key to Psalm 91 is loving God. Remember now, all of these, “so good promises of God”, they are requiring you to love God - love Him back, that He has first loved you.

Jesus said, in John 15:9-10, 9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

YOU AND I NEED TO LOVE GOD BY OBEYING HIS COMMANDS, TO REMAIN IN HIS LOVE. This is NOT my words, but Jesus’.

Please REJECT the teaching that tells you, you have just to bask in grace, chuck the laws (commands), and don’t have to do anything, or can do anything with just the need to tell the devil off!

The secret to our well-being is love God; and one key way to love God is to obey His commands. Do it, and you will have lesser (NOT nil) troubles, and possibly nil stressful trouble.


Anthony Chia, high.expressions – Lord, this is a recipe for the well-being of your children. May you bless the above reading, for it is your desire that your children be well. May they receive your prescriptions for their lives. Amen.

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Run with perseverance the RACE

Preamble: This is an almost duplicate of a comment I placed on Ps Prentis' blog (Created to Give God Glory).  I have been extensively writing comments for this US pastor's blog, so much so, I have left so little time for my own blog, but all the same, such writings, are beneficial for all, and so, from time to time, I will reproduce more of my writings placed there, here.  I have followed Ps Prentis' blog for many months now, and so far, I have NOT had major core theological disagreements with his blog entries, and I am comfortable to recommend your following of his blog entries.

Picture of a RACE
Indeed the Apostle Paul was the one, in Scripture, who painted to us, our journey here, on earth, as a believer, is like that of a race. The author of the Book of Hebrews also pictured it that way to us.

Heb 12:1 - "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the RACE {capitalisation, mine} marked out for us."

Paul gave us these: Acts 20:24; 1 Cor 9:24-27; Gal 5:7; 2 Tim 4:7.


Only I may finish the RACE and complete the task
Acts 20:24 – “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the RACE and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”

The tasks are part and parcel of the race. It is simple yet, many people refuse to embrace it: you move along, you do the task before you, and you move along, and you do some more tasks, and eventually, you come to the finishing line; and so, when you complete all the tasks, you arrive at the finishing line, and you can say, “It is finished”. No, Paul did NOT paint us a race where there is nothing to do, like you just bask in the sun, and then you are being moved to the finishing line and you are moved across it!


Don't run aimlessly!
1 Cor 9:24 – 27 “24 Do you not know that in a RACE all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.

25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. 27 No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”

How do you interpret this? Only one believer gets to Heaven? Of course, NOT; Paul was saying we have to run according to the “rules of the game” so that we don’t get disqualified, so that we can cross the finishing line and win the prize God has intended for us. If I may say so, isn’t it weird that some people can think that they are citizens of the Kingdom of God, but they do NOT need to abide by the laws of the Kingdom? It is plain naïve to think of a Kingdom without a King or a kingdom with a King but without rules. Scripture is very clear that the foundation of the God’s throne or Kingdom is His righteousness and justice (Ps 89:14 & Ps 97:2). So, please live by the ways prescribed by your King.

An illustration: Those who saw the serial movie on Camelot, on the rise of King Arthur the Great, there was a part when King Arthur stopped at a village and he intervened in a case whereby one of the ways of the village was that every woman was the first-fruit for the village-head, meaning the village head got to sleep with every woman before the woman is married to a man. One among the villagers went against that law of the village and killed the village head in a fight, and the brother of the village head had wanted to hang the murderer, but King Arthur and his men arrived at the nick of time, and King Arthur convened a proceeding and found out about the reason behind the fight and murder - the village-head was about to take (to bed) the murderer’s daughter who was fathered by the village-head in the first place, when the latter slept with the wife of the murderer just before their marriage many years back! When the brother of the deceased village-head insisted that the village had its own laws, King Arthur said, “No, as from today, that no longer apply, as your king, my laws shall apply.” Now that brother of the village-head was NOT accepting the decision of the council chaired by King Arthur; the council decided that the murderer shall NOT be put to death, and was allowed to leave with her daughter. That brother still wanted to take the laws into his hand and gathered villagers to attack the man and the daughter. Again, King Arthur and his men acted, and this time that brother of the ex-village head was threatened punishment if he adhered NOT to the laws of the king, and King Arthur stuck a flag of Camelot, and declared that village was under the covering of the King. Think about it this way: if you want NOT to follow after the ways of God, what business do you have to go and live in the Heaven where the King is dwelling?

Concerning verse 27, of course, Paul did NOT mean he would beat up his body, literally; he meant that he would NOT let the carnal desires of the flesh rule his life, for he was determined to follow after the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Be careful of the cutting in
Gal 5:7 – “You were running a good RACE. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?”

Here Paul was rebuking the Galatians who wavered, and had wanted to go back to the Old Covenant, by getting circumcised, on the instigations and teachings of some Jews. (Individual laws of God, unless done away by the works of Christ, still apply, even if they are found in the OT, but all believers subsequent to the first coming of Christ should NOT view themselves as still bound under the Old Covenant. No, as far as covenant is concerned, we are under the New Covenant).

In the last days, there would be more and more false teachings coming on, said the Word.  Be careful NOT to be "dragged off" your good race.  In my opinion, currently, the more insidious false teachings are found in those of the overly-grace believers.


What is meant by "It is finished"?
2 Tim 4:7 – “I {Paul} have fought the good fight, I have finished the RACE, I have kept the faith.

Towards, the end of Paul’s life, in the 2nd epistle to his protégé, Timothy, Paul expressed the above. He was echoing after Jesus, who said, “It is finished”. Read it with Acts 20:24 (also of Paul, given above), when it was said, “It is finished”, by Jesus /Paul, it was referring to Jesus/Paul saying that the tasks assigned to him were completed; NOT anything about we have no nothing left to do, as Christians!

We have all, each to run with perseverance the race marked out for each of us, NOT somebody else’s race, but the race marked out for you; NOT we have no part to play (purportedly implying that Jesus said that, with His exclamation that “It is finished”), but that we are all having our part to play in the race marked out for each of us (Eph 2:10).

You and I are to run the RACE, NOT God!
It is so funny how some people pervert common sense – who is to run the race? You, and I; NOT the organizer or the persons who founded the race or sport. If there is NOT, a part for us to play, why should be author of Hebrews, in the verse above (Heb 12:1) told us to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles”? A race is NOT a race, if you are only required to sit there and do nothing, and it is left for God to bring you to the end of finishing line. A race is NOT a race if you do NOT need to work on anything, and there is NOT, anything to overcome or nothing hinders! If you can eat all you like, no need to care about what you take in, without affecting your run, it is NOT a race. If sins would NOT entangle you in your race, it is NOT a race; or why would the author said that we need to throw off sins? Overly grace believers who abusively used the name of the Apostle Paul and said he preached a version of the gospel called the Final Gospel which spelt as “In your Christian life, you don’t have to do anything, it is all God’s part”, they are WRONG; Paul did NOT preach any of such thing. Paul said YOU have to run a race, not God run the race for you. Paul said you have to run in such a MANNER as to win the race, not you anyhow run.

Perseverance means it is NOT easy
The author of Hebrew said in the above verse (Heb 12:1) that we have to PERSEVERE. What does that mean to you? The race must be very easy? No, it means it is NOT easy; it means there are obstacles to overcome. Paul’s own race showed that; for example, Paul was warned twice, through prophecies of others, NOT to go to Jerusalem, but he had to persevere by still going, and he did face being beaten up, and bounded, and put into jail.

Trials expected, said Apostle Peter
Now, even the Apostle Peter did say, trials could be expected; 1 Pet 1:6-7 - "6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire —may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

In fact, Peter said it would be strange if you don’t encounter them at all! 1 Pet 4:12 reads as follows:

“Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.”


Perseverance was written all over the place
Perseverance is the major aspect of a believer’s life. Don’t go after easy-believism; it runs contrary to the main-stream teachings of Scripture.

Peter added in his 2nd epistle, this (2 Pet 1:5-7): “5 ...., make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, PERSEVERANCE; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.

The Apostle James also exhorted we develop perseverance - James 1:2-4 – “2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops PERSEVERANCE. 4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

We are to note that verse 4 said that perseverance must finish its work, and when it has finished its work the end product is that we become mature and complete, lacking nothing. In the Book of Romans, by the Apostle Paul, Paul, in Romans 5:4, put the product of perseverance as (tried) character with hope; we will look at this in a little more depth in a while.

It should also be noted that James also said to us, in James 5, that to persevere we need to be patient. A character with hope is a patient character. In other words, in perseverance, we develop patience. If you have no patience, you will be restless in hoping. In James 5:10-11, James gave us the example of Job who persevered, and was patient in the face of suffering; in the end, the Lord doubled all (except children) he lost.

We have to learn patience; the parable of Prodigal Son, is NOT commonly expounded with this lesson to be learnt, but indeed this parable also showed up the impatience of the younger son, he wanted his portion of his inheritance which obviously he was NOT ready to handle. It also showed that it is possible that, at times, that you pester God so much about wanting things your way, including how you cannot wait anymore, God may let you have what you want, and in the process, use that scenario of life to mold you – you asked for it, and God relented but He is still of good intention - to mold you. So, it is NOT simply, you go pester God; yes, there is a parable that talked about “pestering God”, but you need know whether the subject of your “pestering” is in line with God’s righteousness and justice, or His ways. Of course, there are no short-cuts to this (to be in line), you have to know His written Word, and you have to learn to hark to the voice of the Holy Spirit. It is NOT the norm that God would give you the food, and eat it for you! Please you have to put the food (Word) into mouth, and chew it and swallow it, and digest it, and make it a part of you. Forget about those teachings that portray such (you eating, doing your part) as works that is opposed to the grace of God. 

If you just leave the Bible on the shelf, it will just gather dust, it is NOT going to crawl into you, and transform or change you.  If you ignore the prompting of the Spirit (who say you are to ignore the pricking of your conscience; kick his butt!), and tell NOT the voice of the carnal flesh to shut up (and that, needs effort!), you will just cruise according to the carnal desires of the flesh.  You need to persevere in doing the right things, including feeding on the written Word and harking to voice of Holy Spirit, and resisting the same of the carnal flesh.

Labor with perseverance
Too many people dismiss the need to labor with perseverance, to be apostles of Christ. Are you an apostle of Christ? Where are the signs? What are some of the signs? Signs and wonders and miracles are one sign; do you have them? You wonder why you do NOT have them! What is your attitude towards laboring with perseverance? You don’t believe in laboring? Or you don’t believe in laboring with perseverance? I give you the verse of Paul’s attitude in this regard. In an epistle to the Corinthians, this was what Paul wrote:

“Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.” 2 Cor 12:12 (KJV) or “The things that mark an apostle—signs, wonders and miracles —were done among you with great perseverance.” (NIV).

Signs, and wonders and miracles can be done by God for various reasons; yet one of the reasons for consistency of such, via a person, I believe, is that it can serve to authenticate that servant of God. Consistency signifies a stamp of approval. One of the qualities God looks at, I believe, in such a servant, is that he labors with perseverance. Labor with perseverance implies labor with sacrifice, against much odds, threats, and even persecutions. Some, by the grace of God, do NOT need to touch the far-end, persecutions, but minimally, sacrifice and battling against odds are NOT uncommon.

So that our hope becomes strong
I said earlier that I will talk a little more on Romans 5, on this issue. The relevant text is this, Romans 5:1-5:

1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Vv 1-2: We, who have been born again, have gained access into God’ grace. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, meaning we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God (future glory referred, glory after we passed on). It is not cliché, we rejoice in the hope of glory; the basis of rejoicing is that we know we are no longer destined for Hell. We actually have a hope to come into, and share in, the glory of God in Heaven, in the future.

Vv3-4:
Not only do we have peace with God (through justification), gained access into the grace of God (by faith), rejoice in the hope of sharing God’s glory in the future (because we are no longer destined for Hell), we also rejoice in our sufferings. This is because suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, (tried) character (G1382); and (tried) character, hope.

V5: This hope is the hope of going to Heaven. One may ask, “Is there not already a hope at born again?” Sure, but just as faith, perseverance, and character, this hope need to be strengthened.

Yes, this hope is dependent on God, and it is no longer a hope when it reaches its fullness of time, i.e. at the time of reckoning. But right now, we need this hope to press on in this life, and even accomplish any or much things for God in this life. What was it that kept Paul going, for the Lord? It was this hope.

It is said here, that this hope does not disappoint because God has poured out his love into our hearts, and this is represented by the Holy Spirit that God put into us to adopt our spirits as sons of God. Even so, we must remain steadfast in this hope because if we give up on this hope, we may be back on the Hell-bound track.

Through suffering, which produces perseverance, and through perseverance, (tried) character, and through (tried) character, a strong hope takes root in us, one that we will not easily give up or renounce, and this is the most important thing for a Christian, for if he gives up his hope or renounces it, he forfeits his place in Heaven.

This hope or expectation of going to Heaven, it does not disappoint, because we know God loves us.

God loving us is one thing, our choice to hold onto the hope, is another
There is no tension between verses 3-4 and verse 5, contrary to what some might think, for God loving us is one thing, our choice of wanting to hold on to the hope (expectation that we will go to Heaven) is entirely ours to made and hold onto.

God had already committed His part in His love for us, by His Son, Jesus dying for us, and the Holy Spirit being put into us, on us entering into salvation. Because we do not expire yet (die right-away), we must continuously by choice, hold onto the hope. Your hope grows stronger (meaning you will not give it up easily) after each negotiation of a trial or suffering, because the suffering works on your perseverance, and your character.

What is that which is important in defining one’s character? It is his belief system. A tried character is one with tried belief system. The more your character is tried, the more your belief system is tried, and the more your belief system is tried, the stronger they get, and they will not be changed. For a believer, in his belief system, is that hope, and that is made stronger with each suffering or trial when the trial or suffering is handled correctly.


Anthony Chia, high.expressions -Working through tough times, comes with the territory, so to speak. Lord, I pray more of your children will realize that, and embrace that, and NOT be misled by false preachers who teach cruising as the norm, for a believer’s life. Amen.

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At cross-road, then suddenly, I am encouraged

For some people, they, once in a while, have seen me, or dropped by, at my meetings, or to this blog-site; for some others, we merely see (just see) each other frequently, and then, there are those who watched me over the last couple of years, especially, from the dramatic start of my “little ministry” some 4 years ago. Many actually took notice of me, from that time on. People took notice NOT so much that, there were really earth-shaking miracles happening; and I am NOT aware of any earth-shaking miracles directly via my hands, so to speak; maybe there was one dead-came-back to life testimony from the church, but that had no direct connection to me, unless it can be argued that my obedience and perseverance helped in the fostering of the corporate atmosphere of church and the corporate eagerness of members thereof to push to limit, the grace from God, for our afflictions.

Such fostering of corporate atmosphere and attitudes are really important, though. I am quite sure I helped in that generally, but I dare NOT say I helped in any of the specific flow of grace received by people, apart from those I directly have ministered to. Even for these direct ministry cases, it is still NEVER really I, but the Lord, who had ministered; I only give of my time, energy and attention to the Lord, and acted as instruments (ok, a part, God wanted [me] played).

It was dramatic at the early days
It was dramatic for me, and for some others, of the church, looking on or watching when it all started; it was due NOT to the earth-shaking miracles, but to the fact, that the Lord would use one from the congregation quite consistently, and NOT a pastor, to spark off a move in the church. The move was indeed a supernatural move of the Spirit of God, of signs and wonders and miracles, even though they were NOT of earth-shaking proportions. To be fair to the Spirit, I should NOT belittle all that the Spirit had done in my little ministry, and for the church, in this move.

There were healings of all sorts
I mean there were healings of many sorts. Not under my hand, but one that actually happened, was a case of a visiting preacher to the church, who had a minimally working heart, and having been prayed for, in a session in the church service, received complete healing – his subsequent visit to his same doctor confirmed full recovery of his heart.

Leg growing before my very eyes
The more dramatic instant healings under my hand were the 2 cases of seeing a leg growing before my eyes to level up legs of unequal lengths. Cases of people got slain, were common enough; one saw vision of waterfall, when I prayed for her; many were ministered to, for their emotional pains from broken and strained relationships.

Hurting people ministered to
The last type (above) clearly was a deliberate putting of me, by the Spirit, to minister, despite my own dealing of my then, divorce-affliction. It was truly by the grace of God that I could minister, and you know-what, I ministered with them NOT knowing I myself, was in similar affliction as them, and I ministered unencumbered by my own affliction, but rather because I could relate to their situations, the Spirit of God moved for them, the afflicted ones (Note: this is NOT suggestion that generally, people with relationship problems are to minister to people with similar problems, without the approval and supervision of the higher authority. I ministered with approval and knowledge of Senior Pastor, and after his discernment of my fitness, including my having voluntarily gone through deliverance clearance).

Started from the painful affliction
The general congregation does NOT know of my divorce affliction; and I state here, that it was my ex., from more than 18 years of marriage, who then wanted the divorce, and the church and I tried hard, to save the marriage but was to no avail. A long-drawn legal divorce battle then started and it lasted about 4 years, and it went all the way to the High Court. One can imagine the drains on me, from the various perspectives, financial, emotional, and time, etc (Church was updated and monitored the case). This is the 2nd article with this revealed (only lately), and if you are from the church, and you do NOT know, now you know, that I entered into that move of the Spirit of God for the church specifically, and more generally, into my ministry, from my most difficult period of life, in the deep end of my most painful affliction. If you wondered why some church pastors were warmed to the prominence the Lord had given me, it was because for those who knew of my affliction, it awed them as much as it awed me that the Lord would use me from that position.

Not merely a coping mechanics!
I have believed and I still want to believe, that what I have been doing, has NOT been a mere coping mechanics for my affliction. It was no doubt I was weak then, but it was NOT apparent to those looking on, from the outside. In fact, I sometimes, marveled at the boldness that I displayed from time to time, but it was really boldness, bolstered by the Spirit of God for those situations. Scripture said when we are weak, He is strong; I have experienced that.

God’s use, helped me to focus
It is no doubt that God’s use of me, helped me to focus on the right things. I mean I can now understand what is possibly going on, in the mind of people who are depressed. When you are emotional shattered, your focus can go all over places or to no place; such directionless is the worst place to be in, for you are very vulnerable; all kind of thoughts can enter you, including suicidal thought; and you can be drained out from “nothingness”!

We can be taught from it all
Of course, all of us need to cope, and we cope with the various circumstances we find ourselves in; but at times, we are at loss as to how to cope. It is therefore, NOT strange to observe that, at times, when one loses his/her long-time mate to death, the person dies soon after, too. One reason I believe, is that the person has NOT been able to cope. I tell you I could NOT cope on my own; I survived on the Lord. I survived by hugging the Bible to sleep! I had something that many people did NOT have, I had the Lord; for, for many years, I never really took my focus off the Lord, although I, like many others, did look at multiple things all the time, and were NOT particularly focused on the Lord all the time. Still there was a focus, and so, my case was a “to focus better”; in other words, a dimming off, further, of other peripheral visions – those things you see at the side of eyes, so to speak. The already dimmed things, like chasing after money, prestige and status, and things of the world, got dimmer, and the Lord got brighter, because of concentration of focus.

We are made to be a doer
Trust me, God made us to be a doer; we are NOT made inanimate, just to sit there, for show; we are NOT created to be idle. In other words, the soul does NOT idle. Why does Scripture prescribe against idleness if the soul does NOT idle? It is God’s prescription for the soul NOT to idle. It is the soul is NOT made to idle, and when it idles, it is against the prescription of God, and it opens itself up to danger.

Fire metaphor
The soul is like a fire. And like a fire, it is meant to be burning; and so, things for burning (or fuel) needs to be given to it, or else it either (a) dies out, or (b) it will try to latch on to whatever that could burn. When a fire is out of things to burn, it is going to cease, so is the soul with nothing to work on. So, just like the dying fire will try to latch on whatever that could burn, the soul may go for anything thrown to it, like the lies of the Devil.

Is there anything wrong for God to come, lest the soul idles? Of course, NOT. God has the right to give the soul whatever He pleases, for our souls are His; my soul is His. And so, God gave my soul something to work on, instead of leaving it to the Devil to dish lies into it. The rest, like they say, is history.

What now?
The question is, “What now?” In those days, and earlier, the Lord had given me dreams (literally, dreams as in dreams in sleep), and visions and pictures (these were more after the beginning of assignment by the Lord). Pictures or visions, and dreams, especially those with recurring themes, can have meanings, and they can be from the Spiritual dimension, meaning from the Lord, or for some people, from the “dark side”. I must say that, these are a way of God (in my case), to reveal his ways for me and for the body/church and for people. Some of the revelations of the deeper understanding of the matters of the faith-life come from these communications of the Lord - dreams and visions (in my writings too, the Lord, gives revelation). If you like, go to this article, and you can catch what I mean – “The Lord as Papa Eagle - a vision of love and faithfulness".

Having believed and said, what I have been doing has been a “move” or assignment from the Spirit of God, and it was given so that my soul did NOT idle and became vulnerable to destruction from the Devil, and so that, it did NOT cease from “burning”; after more than 4 years operating on the “move” God gave, I have come to the place of “What now?” If you read the “Papa eagle” article, link given in preceding para., you will realize that the Father God or Papa eagle unstealth-modes Himself to comfort, nurse and restore us (believers) so that, we once again, can fly.

Be self-reflective
I have been highly reflective on my life these several years, journaling like this, helps me in that. There is exhortation in Scripture, by the Apostle Paul, to self-examine ourselves lest we gotten out of the boundary of our faith (2 Cor 13:5). So, please do that, for yourselves, from time to time.

I have tasted, and cannot let go
The psalmist in Scripture called us to “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is he who takes refuge in Him” (Ps 34:8). Indeed, as I tasted the goodness of the Lord, I do NOT want to let go of Him. My soul wanted and continues to want to feed on that which He had thrown to my soul to keep it burning. My soul can burn on other things, but it stills want to feed on more of the same; in other words, it does want to continue to be a doer of the works of the Lord, and NOT simply go on, to fly again, to the east or to the west, in search of familiar fuels of the world. Of course, the flesh in me still rears its head and says, “Now you are strong enough, go take the world; haven’t you held onto the motto of ‘to be above average or average as that which is good enough’, you are already below average by the standard of the world, and you are NOT going to stay there but to sink lower, if you don’t do anything about it!”.

My contemplation before the Lord
Lord, I think of flexing my wings again, yet, if my doing that, would cause me to leave the kind of co-labouring I had or still have with you, I am reluctant.


Lord, you know that I have chosen, since very early on, to stay with the assignment, asking for growth in depth, breadth and height of the assignment.

Lord, you know I do push at the boundaries, but there is only so much I can do, lest it becomes fleshy effort, and would be of no meaning to you; but you do understand how I feel in the wake of the diminished corporate atmosphere for my ministry, as well as the minimal growth of the ministry, generally. It has been 4 years now, Lord; it was fine for one to two years, even, three; but it has now gone beyond 4 years, and increasingly, the fallouts from the divorce affliction are coming to an end, at least I hope the tail-end bits (important, very important), would come to their satisfactory conclusion. But this has been accompanied with “not much of actions”, so to speak, at the ministry-front.

What do you want me to do, Lord? I am still NOT thinking the whole thing was just a mere coping mechanics you do on me, though even if it were so, I cannot complain, but would still be as thankful as before, for your grace poured out to me, in my time of affliction. Even if it was intended such, by you, as a way out for me to cope, with my pains and to recover thereof, surely Lord, now I can still choose to stay, and I have to stay-right?

What about those “fishes dreams”, aren’t you going to re-route me back to those, or is it that I have missed those? Lord, aren’t fishes metaphorical, and every time and season has such fishes, and I can still be assigned to them, in the appropriate time and season-right? In any case, Lord, you have taught me that no believer can abdicate himself from practising your righteousness and justice, for such are the foundation of your throne, and therefore, Kingdom (Ps 89:14a, Ps 97:2).

Lord, you know that I clearly recognize that it is NOT all your part, and none my part, and at the same time, it is also NOT that we are to do by the strength of our flesh; and so, I am waiting to move. I picture myself, in these later days, like the eagle ever circling the sky, watching to see if there is an “intrusion” into my space-span, in which I have to act. It has been, lately, NOT much actions called for; but you should have noted I have been faithful with little, some calls of actions, here and there - I attended to them. Lord, others have stopped circling already, but I am still at it. Now what?!

I am only human
Is it NOT true, I am only human, to want to be kind of be meaningful with how my time passes by me, especially that I am NOT that young anymore? I do have my constraints and responsibilities too; I work for a living, and I have 2 teenage children to provide and care for (a aged mother, too); I am NOT working for the church, though I serve voluntarily there, and I run a monthly Divine Healing Meeting attended by few; there is NOT career-like kind of thing with these services in church or my marketplace ministry; and for these things, my boss is unlike any other, whom I could see and have a meal with, like I have a meal with my children; He is also unlike any other, whom I could sit down and ask, “How am I doing?”, and I get back regularly, a reply, “Here, here is my tally of you.” No, NOT nearly like that, although I really, really hope my God would talk to me more, about me and my stuff. He listens alright; I believe that, maybe more than, like I listen to the afflicted ones He brought to me, over these years; but Lord, I prayed for them, even hugged them, at times. Lord, how I wish you can be physical, be physically present before me; but you are spirit, and I am still very much bodily or in the flesh. Lord, you are God, and I cannot tell you what to do, and so, I still tell myself to just trust you; that you are able to sustain me, in my earthly life, to keep my soul burning.

I need encouragement from the Lord
Call the above musing, reflection, or whatever you will, I am only human, and I also need the encouragement from the Lord. And God did NOT fail to once again, inject me with a dose of fuel that I may burn on, for what He has started.

From the above writing, you can know, of late, I was NOT able to accomplish much, for the Lord, despite my giving of my time and energy (much, I should say), to avail myself where I have been - the church, attending both Saturday and Sunday services (3 services each weekend), and I spend time at the marketplace, in the Full Gospel Weekly Meetings, and my once a month Divine Healing Meetings. On top of that, there are the attendances at various church meetings and some other brethrens fellowship meetings to support them. I do have a choice to cut, but I have more or less, continued with what I have been doing from the beginnings of some 4 years ago. And, yes, before I forget, I have slackened on my blogging on my own blog-site, meaning I have released fewer articles (perhaps, too few, now), and this was for the reason of my putting of my writings as comments for Ps Prentis’ blog (http://prentis-createdtogivegodglory.blogspot.com/). The thing is that, I don’t get much feedback, NOT even frequent enough, from the church front, through the church leadership, or directly from members; and so, I really need the Lord to press a button or two, so to speak, to let me have a feedback or two, to encourage me along.

The encouragement
These are what I consider as encouragement for me to continue on, despite setbacks (which I will NOT be specific about, here):

The last 2 weekend church services had been a surprise for me, in this respect.

Prophecies NOT falling on deaf ears
Firstly, and very generally, I like to believe that the new Pastor in Charge has heeded the call to pay attention to prophecies given for the church, some of them given through me, and has begun to facilitate what the Lord would like done. The messages I hear are encouraging.

Back-pain of many years healed
Specific to what I do, as a voluntary (and lay) Altar Minister, praying for those with needs, and giving of words of knowledge and prophecies, I received this feedback 2 Sundays’ ago: A lady came forward for prayer, and before I began, she related that several months ago, I had prayed for her concerning her back-pain.

She said that, I said, at times, back-pain could be due to unequal lengths of legs, and then she said, she wanted to tell me that she was completely healed of her back-pain that she had been having for many years.

I cannot remember every situation that I ministered to people, but then, this lady could not be mistaken, for I believe I was about the only one in the church who would have told a ministee, about the unequal leg lengths could be the cause of back-pain. As I recall, I believe she was one of the few cases, which I would sit people upright, on a chair to check for unequal leg lengths. And so, she was the one that I did, a few months ago, and found that her legs were NOT of unequal lengths, but I nevertheless, prayed for her, for her back-pain.

She now said that, at that time she felt a sensation, and she soon found that she was completely healed of the pain of many years – the pain never came back; praise the Lord.

What was so encouraging about this testimony is that, for the several months that covered the period she received the healing, corporate atmosphere for such healing was rather poor, due to church leadership change casting a shadow over the specific ministry’s time allocation, and that all other lay active members had stopped ministering. I was still there, be there for the 3 services, and worst still, unlike before, I had to stay through to the end, all services, because if I had wanted to minister, I had to do it at the end of services; no longer earlier, after the praise and worship, which of course, takes place at the beginning of services. Call me a fool or whatever; wanted or not wanted, I avail myself, and so, I still prayed for people. It is so good to hear that the Lord honored and someone was healed of pain that troubled her for years. I told the lady to send in, a written testimony to the church, but we know how this thing is, people usually do NOT want to take the trouble.

Well, I prayed for her again, this time, for a previously undisclosed problem; she has a growth of 4-5cm in diameter, in her womb, from about 8-9 years back. May the Lord heal that too; and hopefully people would come forward to encourage, by their testimonies.

Salvation for an “Ang Mo”
That same weekend, the Lord also gave me the privilege, to pray for 5 other people. I seized the opportunities the Lord presented. I believe in opportune time, and we should learn to recognize that and seize that. At the end of it, I prayed for the last of the 5, who waited for a long time. The Lord gave me the privilege to lead this huge “Ang Mo” to Christ. The anointing of the Spirit was so strong, that this huge man could NOT stand under it, and he went down to the floor and “curled up”, and he was shivering. I commanded against any (dark) principalities at work, and I asked the man if he wanted to give his life to Jesus, and 3 times, he answered, “Yes”, and I led him to Christ.

By this time all pastors had left the sanctuary of the church, except the Senior Pastor and his daughter, seated at their seats in the front row, and just as they began to leave, I called the Senior Pastor over and told him of the salvation, and asked if he could get someone to take down the particulars of the man for the church’s record and follow-up, for indeed, my sensing was the man still needed follow-up ministry which the church could provide.

Pastor, another salvation!
Now, in last Sunday service, again, the Lord gave me the privilege to lead another foreigner to Christ, in church. After the Sunday 10.30 am service, I led a Burmese lady through the Sinner’s Prayer, and again the Senior Pastor was there, and again I got him over, to congratulate the lady, and the particulars of the new convert were taken down for the church’s follow-up. Isn’t God good! He encourages, and he encouraged me when things seem to be waning. It is nothing to boast about; someone sowed, and I merely was used as the reaper, by the Lord; but nevertheless, it is a marvelous thing to lead people through the Sinner’s Prayer; and Heaven rejoices when a sinner is saved, said the Word.

Write this, too – also a salvation!
Come to think about it, although things are NOT that consistent with my monthly marketplace Divine Healing Meetings (and I have just lost my Praise and Worship Leader, anyone want to volunteer?), the Lord just brought to memory, the recent episode of me, ministering to a woman (from another church) who has an aged mother of over 80 years old and who was at times, somewhat, mentally un-coherent; I prayed for the woman present at the meeting to be given the opportunity to share the gospel with her aged mother, and to conclusively know that, the old lady gives her life to Jesus. A month later, the woman came back, sharing that her aged mother gave her life to Jesus, and had even attended 2 sessions of the baptism class that will lead her to be baptized. The old lady NOT only accepted Christ but had understood baptism, and agreed to be baptized; praise the Lord!

God is good, and He is good all the time.


Anthony Chia, high.expressions – Lord, I am shy already, that indeed I am weak that I need to get feedback to feel affirmed. Accept me, and give me time Lord, to grow to be less wanting to see, to feel assured of what I do, is NOT futile, even if it is only making myself available, be parked there, waiting for you to use. And Lord, I ask that I could develop greater spiritual discernment so that I could be ever ready to seize any opportunities you make available for me, to do exploits for you, and to be a blessing to others. Continue to honor me, Lord, even as I honor you, before men. Lord, I still have my frailty and my weaknesses. Help me to be an overcomer, for your Kingdom in Heaven is for overcomers (Rev 2 & 3). Amen.

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But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you (Matt 6:33, KJV)

THIS IS A LONG ARTICLE. Take your time to read. It is worthwhile, for there are very few good expositions on this.

First thing first, this verse is speaking to believers, and NOT, “it is NOT speaking to believers”. In other words, you, as a believer, cannot say, “Since I am a believer, on my entry into salvation, I have been made fully righteous, and so, it cannot be that I still need to seek His righteousness”; and agreeing incorrectly, with those who insist that the verse must be talking to non-believers.

Where is it stated, it was speaking to believers? The answer is in the reading of the preceding verses to verse 33. You can backtrack a few verses, to verse 30, if you like, and begin there, or you can even just backtrack one verse, to verse 32. Even from verse 32, we can tell it was addressed to the believers. Verse 32 reads as follows:

“For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.” (Matt 6:32)

First, we are to understand that this is part of the “Sermon on the Mount”, in which Jesus addressed the “crowd”. Who was the crowd? Of course, anybody could be in a crowd. But we do know from the overall counsel of the New Testament, Jesus primarily was wanting to speak to the children of God, the Jews. Would there be Gentiles or pagans in that crowd, of course there would be. Pagans were non-children of God; and non-children are equivalent to non-believers, in today’s term; and so, the “pagans” were the non-believers. For the manner it was written, “you” as in “you need them” are NOT pagans, meaning “you” are NOT non-believers; “You” are believers; how do we know? It is because “your heavenly Father” would be used only on the children of God, or in today’s equivalent, believers.

Exposition proper
Next, in turns, we will look at the followings, concerning the verse:

1. But;
2. Seek ye first;
3. Kingdom of God and His righteousness; and
4. All these things;

The “But”
When we see a “but”, it means before this, certain things were said, which now the verse, v33, is saying things, contrary to those earlier said things.

So, what were the “certain things” said in the earlier verses, relevant to verse 33. As have been said, this verse 33, was part of the Sermon on the Mount which started at Matt 5; but if we go there, that would be a long, long way back; it is NOT necessary, for much of Matt 5 and early part of Matt 6, were already self-addressed; in other words, Jesus raised “objectionable practices or observations” and he then already prescribed “the ways”. A reasonable place to start is verse 24, and so, I will give below, the text from verse 24 onwards:

24 “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[b]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matt 6:24-34)

These are the things, the “but” was addressing:

1. Jesus observed people serving Money (v24);

2. Jesus implied, and correctly implied, that people serve Money because they worry about their lives, what they would eat or drink; or about their body, what they would wear (v25a).

3. Jesus said, that was NOT wise; people were NOT focusing on the more valuable thing, life itself (v25b).

4. Jesus explained the foolishness in the worry of the people (v26-v31).

5. Jesus then explained that our Father God knows our needs (v32).

Jesus then, in anticipation of question from the people, of what then should they do (instead of serving Money, and instead of worrying), prescribed “the way” (v33);

So, the “but” were meaning to say, “instead of serving Money, and instead of worrying”, subscribe to “the way”; and that way is to “seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness”. Jesus said, when we have done that, what we need, they would be given us as well.

When “the way” is so, Jesus said that we do NOT need to worry about tomorrow. Jesus was telling us NOT to run ahead of God; we do our part each day; we just need to be seeking His kingdom and His righteousness each day, and we can expect God to see to our needs.

The “seek ye first”
I know some people noted that I am long-winded in my blog articles, and that I should have cut down on the “obvious”, but I do find, the “obvious” are often no longer obvious to many people, because they have been poisoned from erroneous teachings. And so, I will still be stating the obvious.

There are 3 parts here, as there are 3 words: seek, ye, and first.

Seek –

“Being conscious” or “I know that” often don’t cut it, as seek; let me illustrate with the Parable of the Good Samaritan. This parable can be found in Luke 10:25-37. Here, the expert of the Law asked Jesus what he must DO to inherit eternal life. Jesus answered him back with a question of what was it, the Law said. And the expert answered Jesus with the absolutely right answer – the twin pillars of love (they are NOT new, in the way many think! Their origins are in Lev 19:18 and Deu 6:5, and the expert was NOT wrong to have quoted them as from the Law). What did Jesus answer, to the correct answer? DO it and you will live.

Now, did or did NOT, the expert know what was required? Was or was NOT, he conscious of what was required, as the ways of God? The answer to both questions is affirmative; he knew that, and he was conscious. But what did Jesus tell him, the expert? DO it.

Do you think the expert had been doing it? No. How do we know that? Scripture said, the expert tried to justify himself. Justify himself of what? Of NOT doing it.

How did he justify himself? He asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Do you think that expert did NOT know who his neighbor was? He knew alright; how do we know? Jesus told him the simple story of the Good Samaritan, and posed him the question, of who the neighbor of the injured man was; and he answered correctly! What did Jesus again, say to him? Go and DO likewise.

With this Parable thrown in, I believe the Lord wants to speak to 2 categories of people:

1) the children, the believers, who are conscious and know, but do NOT DO it; and so, how must we seek? DO it; and

2) the ones like the expert, like the teachers of the Word; how do you teach or instruct? Do you exhort like Jesus did? Do you tell the children of God to DO it, or do you encourage them to be like the expert in the Parable, conscious and knowing, but NOT doing any of it? Do you explain the Word so that the children or believers understand the specifics to be done, and so, they are without excuse for NOT doing it? The Lord’s desire is that they do it and live!

Seek is NOT simply “Be conscious” or “I know that”. It is “you go and do it”. Yes, actions, man! Your actions or lack thereof, tell on your real heart-condition.

Ye –

In other words, you. Who is it, who has to seek? Is it the pastor? Is it God? No, it is you, and me; it is your life, you seek; it is my life, I have to seek.

Talking about this, I always like to borrow this saying from a teacher of the faith, “What’s wrong with you. God gave you the food, you still expect God to eat it for you!” Faith has always been taught with an element of “we have a part to play”, and we do our part, and we look to God to do His part, until “grace baskers” start telling the children of God, the means and the end of our faith is to just bask in grace. No, it was and is clear, YOU do it and YOU will live” (see Luke 10:28); NOT you just fold your arms, and just sit there in your beach chair.

First –

Seek ye first, means you are to give top priority to the seeking, NOT half-hearted seeking, or when it is convenient to seek, you seek, and NOT when you have the time, you seek, or when you think it is time to seek, you seek, meanwhile, you do what you like. Often times, believers or children of God lament how God does NOT seem to be giving any priority to their issues. To be honest, we have to ask ourselves what kind of priority we accord to our seeking of His Kingdom and His righteousness, before we “point our finger at God”.

I am NOT saying, we have to merit or earn the grace coming from God’s love and faithfulness; but God’s grace flows out to us, is NOT necessarily, from just one head; it can be from several heads, including the head of righteousness of God. The subject of heads of grace is of itself, a major one; I will NOT elaborate here; but you can look forward to it being put up in time to come.

We do need to give priority to seeking of God’s kingdom and His righteousness, and NOT be merely, conscious, and knowing, and it is we are personally responsible for this; no one can do it for you and I; it is our life, afterall. It is His kingdom, NOT yours or mine, and it is we have to align to His righteousness and justice; and talking of “pointing finger at God”, if we are out of line, can we still have the audacity to accuse the King?

It is daily, “we have to seek first, ……” It is daily, we have to get in line. Talking about needs, which we will talk more, further down the article, many of us might be sub-consciously subscribing to this:

“These things that are said to be needs, I am ok, and so, it is alright I slack; when I get myself into a desperate situation, like unable to continue to service a loan, then, for that need (and that indeed has become a need for you), I get in line.”

It is NOT for you to be doing it, that way; neither is it the correct attitude to slacken again, once your need is being met. It is NOT “we seek first, ….”, only when we have an unmet need. It is “we still seek first, ……”, when we have no needs unmet. When we have no unmet needs, all the more we should seek His kingdom and His righteousness, because when get in line, we would be a blessing to others; for when we act in accordance with His righteousness, we are doing good works, we are producing fruit; and that is what we are made for - Eph 2:10.

The “Kingdom of God and His righteousness”
I will try to keep this short, as for this heading, one can write a whole book on it!

Scripture spoke about the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. A kingdom implied there is a ruler or king; and so, the kingdom of God has God as the king on the throne; and he reigns and rules His kingdom, the kingdom of God.

Who then is the king CURRENTLY of the kingdom of the world? Scripture led us to understand that Satan is in the moment the king of the world; maybe we prefer to say, Satan is the defeated king but NOT yet defunct king, of the world.

Now, the understanding that I have, concerning where the kingdom of God is, is this: When we enter into salvation, we enter the kingdom of God. As a place, the base of the kingdom of God is Heaven; spatially, the home base is in Heaven.

If you like, you can adopt the terminology I use; the kingdom of God has invaded the kingdom of the world. When you and I enter into salvation, we join the rank of soldiers of the army of God. In the Spiritual side of things, our Commander, Jesus, has won the victory already, over Satan; and we are to enforce that victory in both the physical and spiritual realms. When we enter into salvation, we enter into the earthly phase of the kingdom of God. Jesus when He preached in His earthly ministry, He said the kingdom of God was near or was on hand or within reach. The kingdom of God is within reach of a non-believer, and he can enter into it, just as we have entered into it.

So what does it mean to seek His Kingdom? Go, get ourselves killed, in the hope that we enter into Heaven, the home base of the Kingdom? Obviously NOT!

What about this; the kingdom of God is in us? Yes, Scripture does give us, in John 14:20-21, a picture of the kingdom is in us, but does that mean, we already got it, absolutely? No, if it were so, why the call by Jesus to believers, to seek first, the kingdom? So, what did Jesus mean?

He meant we have to subscribe to, and practise the ways of the Kingdom, and have the ways of God “rule” the place (remember the terminology, the world is being invaded); and it all starts with us, individually. Jesus has always been consistent with this. We just have to look at the prayer He taught the disciples - The Lord’s Prayer.

Jesus said, “Thy will be done”; “Thy Kingdom come”; and “Thy will be done, on earth as it is done in Heaven”. We have said a kingdom has a king, and He sits on the throne; the foundation of His throne is the foundation of His reign and rule; meaning the ways of the land got to be the ways of the King, as prescribed by the King as the foundation of His throne or rule.

A kingdom is fully come, when the foundation of the throne of the king is established firmly in the land; and the will of the King is fully done when the ways of the kingdom is fully established in the land. The believers, start with the kingdom in their heart, are to invade the land, establishing the ways and the foundation of the God’s rule in the land, with themselves, firstly, practising those ways, secondly, spreading them, and thirdly, countering the enemy of God; and through it all, working with the King (God, and His Spirit).

You will realize that a kingdom is firstly NOT a place, even though eventually a place is part of the kingdom. Believers have to understand that they are already in the kingdom of God, although the place is NOT yet fully “kingdomised”. Because you and I are already part of the kingdom, we have to be subscribing and practising the ways of the kingdom, and the kingdom of God is invading earth, and we are here, in this time and season; we are to advance the kingdom in our generation, until such time that we are called home.

We are NOT home yet, we are sojourning, and this journey is NOT without things we have to put up with; but God promises in that Matt 6:33, that when we prioritize to seek His Kingdom and His righteousness - getting His Kingdom fully established here, starting with us, He will help us to deal with the things we have to put up with. What do we have to put up with? We need to eat, drink, and be clothed and have a shelter over our head.

What then is His righteousness? I flip-flopped in deciding if I should put “His righteousness” as a separate heading. The reason being that, it is so very important, and so, it may be discussed separately, yet because invariably, as the righteousness talked about, pertains to the mighty one, the king, it too, must be linked to His kingdom. There is none like Him, and He is the Almighty, His kingdom must be reflective of Him, and so, His Kingdom invariably is tied to His righteousness; and so, the statement, “His Kingdom and His righteousness”.

I am a Singaporean of a certain “righteousness”, but the “Singapore Kingdom” is so very remote from it being connected to how I view thing, because I am NOT the In-Charge, and I am just one of several millions of people, living here. But the kingdom of God is different, the kingdom reflects Him; or we can say, “The Kingdom is He, or He is the Kingdom”. In other words, when we see the kingdom, we see Him; along the same line like that which Jesus said, “You see me, you see the Father”. So, when we see the kingdom fully come, it means we see the fullness of Him, God, at work. What is that? That is His righteousness. I said it again, the fullness of Him at work, is His righteousness.

Can we come down a little bit, and speak more pragmatically, what is meant by God’s righteousness?

Firstly, explanation of righteousness for the verse, v33, in this manner does NOT help: God’s righteousness is equated as the righteousness we get, when we enter into salvation; or commonly called, the imputed righteousness of Christ. So, you have it and I have it, and the kingdom of God is in us, and because the Kingdom is reflective of Him, His righteousness is in us; to seek His righteousness is therefore, to be conscious of our righteousness in Him.

Such an explanation belongs to what, in my varsity days’ lingo, called, “smoke” – appeared to have been intelligently expounded, but actually said nothing.

What is wrong with the above manner of explaining His righteousness that we are called to seek? It is like you are conscious you have an apple seedling in your backyard; but you are told, you only need to be aware of that; in other words, tending to it, like watering it or NOT, you are NOT command to. They tell you, “you got to get an apple seeding into your yard”, and so, you went and got yourself an apple seedling, and all you have been told to do, is to keep telling yourself, you already have an apple seeding in your yard.

Is that how we tell people how to grow an apple tree? Is that how we tell people to seek God’s righteousness? You have an apple seedling; you did NOT get a fully grown apple tree! You have imputed righteousness of Christ, you did NOT get your heart and your mind removed and replaced with Christ’s heart and mind! In other words, whether it is the apple tree or the full mind of Christ, it has NOT “fully come”.

Just as you have to grow the apple tree, you have to grow the mind of Christ in you; the full mind of Christ in NOT in you; it is in the Holy Spirit! Yes, the Holy Spirit is in you, the kingdom of God is in you, but the kingdom has NOT fully come, it is you who have to align yourself to have it fully come.

When does the kingdom of God fully come, first, in you and then, in the world? When the fullness of Him is at work in you, and out, into the world. The fullness of Him at work, we have said, is His righteousness. When His righteousness is in, and flows out, of you, into the world, that is when the kingdom of God is fully come, at least for the case of you, and in the moment you are aligned to His Spirit.

Did I say anything different? Yes, you have to grow the mind of Christ or God in you. It is NOT you automatically have the full mind of Christ or God. It is NOT sufficient to be conscious of the righteous God is living in you; you need to be aligning to it, and you do that by yielding to the Spirit of God in you. What is yielding; it is NOT “I know that” or “I am conscious, merely; it is I agree and I obey, and when I obey, it means I do it.

Some people say, “I don’t know about apple tree, but I have had papaya seedling in my backyard, and guess what I did nothing whatsoever, no watering, no pruning, no adding of fertilizer, absolutely nothing, and it grew into a fine papaya tree, and what do you know, the fruit was so sweet!” I have only this thing to say: The Christian faith is NOT about experience solely, and the truths and theology of the faith is NOT formed from experience, even as the Faith is experiential, meaning it can be experienced.

The Christian faith is based 100% on the truths in the Word. Mind you, it is your life, NOT a papaya or apple that we are actually talking about (metaphors!). You know what, that you still get sweet papaya, that is grace; but please don’t be a cockroach, the gate to Heaven is already narrow, don’t try the cracks in the walls, use the narrow gate; that one cockroach gets through that way (through a crack), by grace, does NOT mean everyone will get through. When God prescribes a way, use it.

Still perhaps, some is waiting for a more practical definition of what is meant by the righteousness of God! The simple definition is this: What God wants done and at the time He wants done, that is righteousness of God. So, very simply when we say a person is righteous with God, it means he gets it right as to what God wants done and the time He wants done. Therefore, seeking His righteousness is you getting your mind grown to have the mind of Christ or God. So, your pursuit is to get more and more able to know what God’s will is, for a situation, and when you can do that, you have reached a certain level of righteousness with God. It is NOT automatic, NOT even being conscious, can one attain active or volitional righteousness with God. Verse 33 of Matt 6 is NOT referring to the imputed righteousness of God, but rather the agreement with God; although if you are NOT yet a believer, you have to become one, before we can talk about level of righteousness with God.

Yes, it may be NOT quite appropriate to say, righteousness with God, as a “degree of rightness”, as such, as one is either right or wrong. But it is NOT wrong to say, one is at a certain level of righteousness with God, going by how frequent he is in agreement with God.

The overwhelming pointing of Scripture is that, a believer needs to align himself to the righteousness of God, and the way to do that, is to obey the Word of God, and to yield to His Spirit.

In other words, the righteousness of God is given in His Word, and in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that indwelled us. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would come in place of Him, for He was going back to the Father, in Heaven; and the Holy Spirit would remind the believers of what Jesus had taught, and to teach them all truths. Together with scriptures which talked about the laws of the faith, would be inscribed on the hearts of believers; we are to understand that it is the Holy Spirit who would be bringing the laws alive to the hearts and consciences of believers. So, it is right to say NOT just that the righteousness of God is in His Word, it is also with the Holy Spirit. To be right with God (and that’s righteousness with God), is therefore, to do as the Word and Spirit dictate.

Being just conscious of the righteousness of God, is just the beginning, the infant mindset; don’t listen to people who tell you to stay there; you don’t grow up that way. Being just conscious only, won’t get your mind renewed, at least that is NOT the prescribed way, and if you do get renewed, that is grace of God, and when it is grace, and NOT the prescribed way, it can work for one, it is not necessary to work for another, for it is grace (it is entirely up to God).

The picture given by Scripture is that, you and I, got to will it, and NOT merely conscious or “I know that”; in other words, you and I, have to, volitionally want the righteousness of God, meaning, we want to get it right, meaning, you and I, want to get it right, as to what God wants done and when he wants done.

To will the will of God, to me, is work; although so many people want to put a 10 feet pole between themselves and the word, on concern that other people may accuse them of preaching works or more precisely, salvation by works! To go against the current, is work-what. To go against the ways of the world is work. Please-lah, a spade is a spade, and we should call a spade, a spade! To yield to the Holy Spirit is work, as it is going against the trend we used to go, to yield to the flesh. The Apostle Paul never minced his words, he painted to us, the picture of a “tug-of-war” going on, in the believer; if it is NOT work, what is work! You know, what is NOT work? Just stay basking yourself in the sunshine (or grace!); that is NOT work.

If it is NOT yet obvious to you, that His righteousness, meaning what He wants done and when He wants done, and His justice are the foundation of His rule, meaning you and I, cannot have it any other way, under His rule, it is stated in Scripture for us. Ps 89:14a reads as

“Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne;”

The same is also said in Ps 97:2. In other words, if you and I want to be well in His Kingdom, we have to subscribe to His righteousness and justice, there is just no other way. God is Holiness and He is Wisdom, out of the interplay of these 2 fundamental nature attributes of God, comes forth, all His ways; we have said, the fullness of Him at work is His righteousness.

What about His love and faithfulness? Yes, it is also stated in the very important key to the understanding of the Kingdom of God, Ps 89:14. The entire verse of Ps 89:14 reads:

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you.

As foundation, it is still His righteousness and justice, NOT His love and faithfulness. But as given, even as God demands His kingdom be operating according to His righteousness and justice, He administers with love and faithfulness. In Hebrew, there is a word to describe this aspect of God’s love, and it is called `ahab love – the love of God for man is love unto righteousness. In other words, God’s love for us, men, is subject to His own righteousness. It may come as a shock to some of us, God cannot anyhow love us! God does NOT love us anyhow, but only in righteousness.

Jesus died that cruel death, because God’s love must satisfy the demand of Holiness (of God Himself). The play-out of the Holiness and Wisdom of God resulted in the righteousness that must be met, that which was met, by the sacrifice of the sinless life of Jesus.

To summarise, the kingdom of God is come, but NOT fully come. The fullness of Him at work, His righteousness, is with the Holy Spirit indwelled in us (and also in His written Word), but we have NOT yet been fully transformed to be with the full mind of Christ; and it is that we have to align to have the Kingdom to fully come, in and through us, for the world; and that alignment requires a part from us, to want to yield to the Spirit of God, to allow Him to progressively transform us, so that more and more, we are able to be in agreement with God, and so, be righteous with God. Seeking that Kingdom of God and His righteousness, is NOT merely to be conscious of the will and desires of God, the substance of His righteousness, or to be “I know that” of the same, but to be doing them.

It is by the constant doing of the will and desires of God, that one can come to know what is good in God’s eyes, and what is evil (Heb 5:14); in other words, be in agreement with God, or to be having the righteousness of God. Having the righteousness of God is NOT referring to the passive, imputed righteousness of Christ; it is having the fullness of Him at work in and through us; it is God working in and through us, with us un-hindering in anyway. Having the righteousness of God is having Jesus living once again, out of us. Think about it, Jesus did NOT live a life of doing nothing (just basking); He did NOT live His life paying lip-service to the Father God; He worked, served, and He loved. To be seeking the kingdom and His righteousness is to adopt the mindset of “It is NOT only I who live, but Christ who lives in and through me. It is NOT only I who act, but God who acts through me; and it is NOT only I who love, but God who loves through me.”

The “All these things”
What are the “all these things”? When you have read from verse 24 downwards, you know that they were referring to food, shelter and clothing; in other words, our needs. We all have needs, living on earth. Verse 32 stated plainly to us, that our God knows we need them.

They are specifically referring to our needs, NOT our luxuries or frivolous desires (although, at times, it can be something outside of the strict class of base food, clothing and shelter). If you get more than your needs, thank God for them, you got them by grace. I have always said, if it is by grace, it means it is entirely up to God to give or NOT to give, to grant to one, and NOT to another, unless He has promised specifically; in which case, He cannot dishonor Himself by dishonoring His promise to you.

What exactly did God promise here? Very simply, God promises conditionally that He will let you have your needs met. What is the condition? The condition is that you and I, must seek first, His kingdom and His righteousness.

People do NOT understand that things come from God to us, in 2 ways: One, it comes to us because it is promised by God; and two, it comes to us, because God gives it out of His grace. In other words, things can come to us from God, from 2 heads, head of promise, and the head of grace.

If the promise is unconditional, you just get it. There are very few unconditional promises in the Word. Even passage of time can be a condition. But if passage of time is the only condition, then when the time comes, you get what is promised you. Now, if there are other conditions attached to a promise, it is NOT unreasonable of God to expect the fulfillment of those conditions, before He gives whatever He has promised. If you and I ignore the conditions, then we cannot blame Him for us NOT getting what is promised. If He does waive one or more condition for a chap, it is His prerogative from His sovereignty; you and I have to accept that, too.

Things we get from grace solely, it is entirely up to Him; and grace can flow out to us, from several heads of grace, and NOT one (commonly understood as from love and faithfulness of God). No, the grace of God flows out to us, from other heads, too, like from the head of righteousness and justice of God, from the head of sovereignty of God, and even from the head of glory of God. The more predictable of them all, is the grace from the head of righteousness and justice of God, the very foundation of His throne. If you ignore this head, you are depriving yourself of a lot of goodness that can come, for situations where His righteousness and justice are practised or lived out.

What about when we work and we earn our wages, and we then are able to get our needs met; is there no God element or it is also with God element, since I mentioned we are getting things from God in only 2 ways? Working and earning wages are ways within the righteousness of God. In fact, Scripture does warn against idleness.

Generally, a lot of things we received flow from the grace, flowing from the head of righteousness and justice of God, and it includes our work. When we work, we put our hands to the plough, NOT being lazy, and idle, and that is a righteous thing to do; God is for you, and grace is likely to be extended to you. How much you get, or we say “the increase”, it is up to God, according to the measure of His grace He would like to extend to you. The promise of Matt 6:33 is also working for you.

So, so long I am NOT idle, whatever I do, God’s grace is poured out to me, correct or NOT? No, it depends on what you do; you can be working on evil and get paid; what you get is NOT a blessing from God; it is NOT a grace from God, it does NOT matter if you want to say it to be, it is NOT. And Matt 6:33 you cannot claim, too.

It is important that Christians should only want their wellness to be coming from the grace and blessing of God and/or His promises, and NOT from any other. If your wellness does NOT come from the grace and blessing of God and/or His promises, that wellness may have come with a great price against you. Ultimately, one cannot go against the foundation of God’s throne, which is His righteousness and justice. Scripture said God cannot be mocked; and that means His righteousness and justice, the very foundation of His rule, cannot be mocked. At times, we might think that people get away with it, in actual fact, we can expect that they did NOT, and it is that time will tell. Then, we must also understand that God allows for repentance. If you have done wrong, or sinned, turn back; repent and ask for forgiveness, and get back on track.

“Good, since you said that, we, working for our needs, without engaging in evil, are righteous, I don’t need to be bothered with this verse, so long as I work, right?” I am saying, to work per se, is righteous; I am NOT saying anyhow you work, is also righteous. For example, if God revealed that His desire is for you to be engaging a certain work, but you don’t want to do that, instead, you want to do what you want to do; a work which is of itself NOT evil or anything like that, but is nevertheless NOT the thing God would like you to do, you are still acting UNrighteously.

Now, even if you are doing what God would like you to do, but you want to do it, your way, instead of being led by His Spirit, doing in His way, you are NOT being righteous, too. The demand here includes requiring you to be NOT working so very hard, as to be chasing after money, with no time for God, for God’s work, and for your loved ones, or even for yourself!

“Then, aren’t you talking about obedience?” I am talking about righteousness, and yes, obedience is inevitable; for it is about His righteousness, NOT yours. Well, there will NOT be obedience when and only when, His righteousness has become your righteousness, or His ways, your ways; in other words, when you come to a case of, while you are doing what He wants done, you are doing what you want done – there is no more obedience there, much like the picture the Apostle Paul painted to us, when he said, a matter was no sacrifice (to him). Paul has grown to be so aligned to God, that he could say, “to live is Christ and to die is gain”. In other words, whatever God found it desirous, he, Paul, was glad to go along. When you have your mind and your ways so aligned to that of God, like the case of Paul, you then can say like what Paul said, “I don’t even judge myself” (1 Cor 4:3), for that would be judging the Spirit! But please, don’t go round saying Paul taught that we do NOT need to “judge” (self-examine) ourselves. No, Paul taught that we are to examine ourselves (2 Cor 13:5).

I am NOT Paul yet, and so, to me, I just tell people, “I obey”, “I sacrifice”, and “I work”. I don’t pretend I am already there, and really there is NO need to pretend; God accepts, we are trying to get there, but I don’t think He is pleased with us pretending we have arrived (And, please, please, don’t mislead children of God, encouraging them to think like they have arrived). God looks at the heart and God looks at the man’s ways. It is both, although more commonly we hear people saying the former. But I tell you, watch your ways; they (the ways) tell on your heart. Tell you a “secret”, God applies “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”!

Does God ever delight in a man’s way? When is that? When your ways are His ways. So, what is the right attitude to have, concerning our needs of life? Do what is required of us in Matt 6:33, and rest in that promise contained therein, that God will meet our needs. If you need another passage, saying much the same, which you can steadfastly hold onto (but you also must note, the same righteousness condition), is this, Ps 37:23-25:

23 If the LORD delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm;
24 though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand.
25 I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.

But I really find it hard to do that!
Hard to, NOT worry; hard to, NOT work terribly hard; hard NOT to amass money, despite I have much; hard to stop for God, and for others.

That is because you have NOT known your God enough. Too many of us do NOT spend enough time and effort to know more ABOUT Him. Then, we also do NOT experience Him; and we do NOT experience Him, because we lack the “doing part”; we only stay at the “I am conscious or I know that” stage, and NOT go further to obey, by action.

Why do we need to experience Him? Many preachers tell us to just believe the Word and NOT to go by sight-what! While it is true, what we are dealing with is faith, NOT facts, faith needs to be applied, and it is in the application that we experience God. You and I need to experience Him because that is the prime way to get to KNOW Him. How do you know another person (NOT talking about, knowing ABOUT that person)? Yes, you need to interact with the person to know him. It is the same, we need to interact with God, or in my words here, experience Him.

Take step to walk with Him, today. You can only walk with Him, when you walk where He walks. He is NOT in the evil, so don’t go there. He is in His righteousness; walk there; there you will find Him; there you will experience Him; there you will get to know more about Him, testifying to what the Word said about Him, your God. It is NOT always, with “thunder and lightning”, it can be “bit by bit”, it can be trying, too; but His grace is sufficient for you, said the Word.


Anthony Chia, high.expressions – Ps 37:5-6 - Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. I say, “Why would it NOT be so, for then, your righteousness and your justice are His!” Amen.

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