God

Easter 2014 Series: Why did Jesus have to die? (God is Fair)

/ Henry Jiang / Leave a comment

My brothers and sisters, since we have discussed the Old Testament prophesying about Jesus’ death and also God’s everlasting love, let’s talk about why God the Father had to do this to Jesus rather than just forgiving each other’s sins.

Our God is a fair God (Psalm 7:11, 2 Thessalonians 1:6) who cannot tolerate any type of sin. The diction Holy may be interpreted as set apart, meaning that our Holy God is set apart from all sinners. However, since we are sinners who inherited sin from Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge (Genesis 3:6), we are subject to eternal damnation and separation from God due to us not following the Torah (the Law). However, God loved us so much that He wanted to save us from this eternal damnation.

Today, Pastor Werner Peters from my church preached a sermon on Easter. He gave the parable that if we go bankrupt, someone still has to pay for the debts we owe, and that is the creditors from whom we borrowed money from. For us, we don’t have anything to begin with but our sin is making us build a huge deficit in front of our Holy God and it is only through Jesus’ death where the price of our sin is paid in full. Now if we believe in Jesus being our personal Saviour, God will see our sins as being paid by Jesus and we shall become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Now that we have answered the question of why Jesus had to die on the cross for us in three different perspectives, I challenge you my brothers and sisters to reflect on this and if you haven’t, consider accepting Jesus as your personal saviour. If you have already, reflect on how fresh this is implanted into your mind and see if you need a reminder every now and then if you are experiencing spiritual dryness.

God Bless You All!! Happy Easter!!!

Easter 2014 Series: Why did Jesus have to die? (Old Testament Scriptures)

/ Henry Jiang / Leave a comment

My fellow brothers and sisters, one of the most important days of our Lord is coming up, Good Friday and Easter. To those who are mature in their faith, we understand that these are the days that God reveals and exhibits his eternal love and compassion for those who dwell on the Earth. For those who are new in faith, some may question why Jesus had to die at all and why we have to celebrate this time in the year.

Since we are approaching the time of Easter, perhaps the mature and the new believer needs a refreshing and a reminder of why our King we serve, the one that deserves all the Glory took up the cross upon Himself. Since we are approaching Good Friday, this post will be discussing about Jesus’ death rather than the resurrection that will be discussed at a later date.

Let us directly dive into the question. Why did Jesus have to die?

1.   Old Testament Scripture Prophecizes it

The Old Testament is a common Scripture shared between Christians, Muslims and Jews. However, there are parts of the Old Testament that prophesy or reveal God’s Will of sending His Son to die for our sins.

Jesus’ death was at the exact time the Jewish feast of the Passover, where lambs would be sacrificed to God (Exodus 12:3). However, during the time of this Passover feast, other than the lambs being slaughtered, the Lamb of God, known as our Lord God Jesus (John 1:29) was sacrificed for our sins. Though Jesus lived a sinless life (2 Corinthians 5:21), he died on the cross for our sins (Romans 4:25). Deuteronomy 21:22-23 states that anyone being hung on a tree is under God’s curse, as we can see God is so fair and just that He has to satisfy his wrath. Moreover, the God loves us so much that if we believe in Him, we would not need to go to hell as the price for our sins is paid.

As we follow the Scriptures commanding the Jews about the Passover, it is clearly stated that none of the lamb’s bones were to be broken during that sacrifice (Exodus 12:46, Numbers 9:12, Psalm 34:20). This was fulfilled in the New Testament (John 19:36).

Now, let’s look back at the Bible verses that are mentioned here (there are many more) that prophesy Jesus’ death. It is clear that Exodus and Numbers is included in the Jewish Torah. This is clear evidence that Torah Scriptures support the existence of Jesus Christ and His death.

For all those who have doubts about the consistency of the Bible between the Old and New Testaments, I challenge you to look into the above Bible verses and see for yourself how our God poured out His everlasting love!

Praying for Your Community

/ Henry Jiang / Leave a comment

The beauty of prayer! As we focused on bringing everything to God in prayer, we haven’t touched on praying for our community, which essentially can mean praying for our family and friends but can extend to acquaintances and other people we know. Quite often, we come across the question of why we need to pray for others? Will God listen to our prayers for others? Why would God sometimes answer prayers from us even though the person receiving the changes is not praying?

Firstly, prayer is aligning our will with God’s will. All circumstances are defined as the will of God (1 Thessalonians 5:18). It also includes aligning other’s wills in God’s will and as we observe prayers being answered, we see God’s work.

Secondly, sometimes during prayer, we find out how insignificant our needs are and sometimes realize the wrongness of our motives and desires. We realize how our suffering compares to those who are having even more struggles, and allows us to stand even more to our faith.

Finally, praying for someone else displays your inheritance of God’s perfect love. As stated, the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbours (Matthew 22:39). We show this love by helping them physically and also spiritually through prayer as prayer for others is the most powerful source of love.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, have you prayed for your neighbours recently? If you haven’t go ahead and pray for them!

Putting God First in Exams

/ Henry Jiang / 4 Comments

Too often I feel like I am digging into the content that will be (or hopefully) tested in exams. The allnighters we pull, the stress we are being put through, sometimes I question myself, if I were concentrating and looking into God, will I be wasting some precious last minute studying time?

Quantum physics is definitely not my favourite, especially when the class has come to a consensus that the professor has done a horrible job teaching and also a horrible job administering the course. These horrible instructions has taken me to a point where I am honestly worrying about failing this course. As a Christian, what do I do?

Every time I took a break from studying, I took time to pray to God for His assistance. A song that comes to my mind when I am in trouble is R. Kelly’s “I look to you” sung by Whitney Houston.

I look to you.
I look to you.
After all my strength is gone,
In you I can be strong

Who else do I look to during these really harsh situations. The Bible tells us:

Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. — Isaiah 40:30-31 (NIV 1984)

I kept on praying and praising God, rejoicing at His challenge He provided me, though honestly I was completely exhausted and felt physically down, I kept in mind this is a great trial for my faith, and to testify that I put my faith in Him. Then the exam came. I opened the exam booklet. Cr**… SOOO hard…

I did the questions I knew off my mind and I kept on praying. Amazingly, I was able to derive two questions I was not expecting I could do perfectly, because I know what goal I have to reach at the end of the question. I put my faith in Him until the very end of the exam when the papers were collected. Something as simple as that, God will answer. Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, are you turning to Christ even in the process of a huge burden or trial? If you do, you may witness Him working in you and working with you on your struggles!

God Bless!

Noah

/ Henry Jiang / Leave a comment

My lovely brothers and sisters, I have heard many thoughts of how the current Noah movie is ridiculing Noah. I have yet to see the movie but I would like to talk about what I believe the significance of Noah is in our Bible and what we all should keep in mind when talking about Noah.

At the time of Noah, the world’s moral state was coming down to its knees. Scripture tells us that the Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth has become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time (Genesis 6:5). Man, that is something really bad. Imagine that every single inclination of your thoughts are evil all the time, this must be a very messed up world. This was way before Jesus and in the fair and just God’s eyes, He decided to wipe mankind from the face of the earth, along with the man and animals, birds, creatures as God was grieving (Genesis 6:7). Imagine the wrath of God at that time, but Noah found favour in God’s eyes (Genesis 6:8).

If you were a Noah of that society, imagine what would be happening to you. Everyone is corrupt and, you’d probably feel like you are left out or even ridiculed and punished for being right in this society of destitute. Yet, Noah stands up to righteousness and God finds favour in him. Moreover, he was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and walked with God (Genesis 6:9). Here, we must notice that he was found blameless among the people, don’t have the misconception that he is God because God is blameless among all, but Noah was blameless relative to those in his surroundings. Through the rest of Genesis 6, God gives commands to Noah on how to build an ark and plan for the loading of the ark, in which Noah, who is walking with God obeys obediently.

Later in Scripture, we are told the common story of Noah’s ark where 2 of each specie (female and male), along with Noah’s family are all brought on the boat and the earth is flooded for 44 days and 44 nights after 7 days of being on the ark. With Noah’s obedience, God guides his ark to safe waters after the dove gives signs and Noah receives the call from God to disembark. Right after they disembark, Noah pleases God by burning offerings to HIm, in which God declares:

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” Genesis 8:22 (NIV 1984)

Then God blesses Noah’s family and commands Noah and his sons to “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.” (Genesis 9:1). He then presents Noah with the Noahic Covenant. Now, as Christians, we all respect Noah because as long as the Bible is concerned, we are all descendants of Noah. The Tower of Babel that scattered people around the world was after Noah, and as we could tell, everything on this earth was gone except Noah. What a righteous man and a servant of God he is!

This is a summary of the story of Noah for those who haven’t read it in the Bible yet, and I strongly encourage you to read it if you haven’t. Other than serving as history that we should know about mankind, I believe we should read the story of Noah to understand how God favours righteous men and follow his example in this upside-down valued world.

God Bless You All! 😀

God has a Plan

/ Henry Jiang / 1 Comment

Let’s discuss a bit more about Matthew 7:7-8 as it is an important and quite often, misinterpreted passage commonly used in false doctrines. I have had to clear this confusion with a few family members China over a multiple phone calls since they have heard this verse and misinterpreted it. Misunderstanding this passage can lead to being deceived and also decrease of faith due to “not seeing God do what we prayed for”. Let us look at this passage again:

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. — Matthew 7:7-8 (NIV 1984)

Honestly, do you think that this will work for everything? Well, it can potentially work for everything as God is omnipotent; he has the power to do anything but this will not happen unless it is in God’s Will. For beginners, if God does not answer your prayer, it might not be a direct no, but rather God might be asking you to wait for His perfect timing. Moreover, why would God not answer some of our prayers? This is because we are asking God for the wrong motives (James 4:3). If our ultimate goal is to bring Glory to God and presenting ourselves as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2), our prayers will be answered as we will be working hard to align our will with God’s will. This is the ultimate goal of prayer.

When you are praying to God, are you praying to God with confidence? The Holy Bible commands us to pray with confidence (Hebrews 4:16). How can we pray in confidence? We cannot do so unless we are aligning our will with God’s will and praying for God’s will to be done on us (Matthew 6:10).

Now, here are two misconception my family members had that I would like to share with you, my beloved brothers and sisters so that you may understand how prayer should be, and that God will bless you by answering your prayers.

Misinterpretation #1: We should have a goal, and pray for it.

Explanation: I agree that we should have a goal, and that goal is to glorify His name. One thing that I totally disagree about is that for decision making, we should make up our minds first and then ask God for it. What makes you think you have more wisdom than God? If it’s a decision such as a career after a university degree or something, you can never be absolutely sure that God’s will is for you to do that. You might even fail miserably! (I’m not saying you will or not.) Really, what does God want? You should ask God first to reveal His will to you (again Matthew 6:10) and you should always ask for wisdom as wisdom is promised to you (James 1:5). Always ask God first through prayer before coming to a decision, especially if it is some big life-changing decision. If you are trying to make a huge decision, and you’re just a child (we are children in God’s eyes), wouldn’t you ask your Father or at least consult Him before making a move?

Misinterpretation #2: If we ask like crazy, God can give us anything.

Explanation: This interpretation commonly comes from “The Parable of the Persistent Widow” (Luke 18:1-8) or The Parable of Friend who asks for Bread at Midnight (Luke 11:5-8). Let’s dig in on what is being misinterpreted in these two passages.

yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’” —Luke 18:5 (NIV 1984)

Some claim that this means if we keep on bothering God, God will answer our prayers. They extend it to the point where they believe this can even cover our prayer requests. However, if we look deeply in Scripture, this is talking about justice. Asking for help when we are sure that we have been wronged. This passage only applies to asking for justice, and not for our own prayer requests that we ask God to fulfill. Moreover, the parable is about an unjust judge, our God is not an unjust judge so therefore, this passage is even more irrelevant to this issue.

Let’s now look at the Parable for Bread at Midnight:

I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need. —Luke 11:8 (NIV 1984)

Just taking this passage out of concept will yield the same results as the above parable. However, God is contrasting Himself from this friend. We need to read this passage in context, as God wants to say to us that he is not that kind of God, but a God that will answer when you ask, seek, and knock (Luke 11:9-10). Now why does God ask us to keep on praying for things? This is to overcome spiritual resistance. Pastor Keith Smith from Agincourt Pentecostal Church gave a parable in his sermon, stating that if he was trying to launch a canoe into a lake and he starts pulling on the canoe, which pull is the most important? The answer is all of them are important. Praying is just like pulling a canoe into water, sometimes you need to keep on pulling to overcome spiritual resistance so you become completely confident when you receive the answer.

God Bless you All!

Your Will Be Done

/ Henry Jiang / Leave a comment

My lovely brothers and sisters, after meditating on The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) from yesterday, have you learned anything new? Today, I would like to touch on a specific verse in the lord’s prayer, and talk about some misconceptions even some mature Christians have which lead to deception of Scripture. This is a very slippery slope as many have fallen into this trap, and this has generated false doctrines, such as the prosperity gospel. It is very upsetting that these brothers and sisters who begin with the will to follow Jesus but end up following worldly values, such as wealth or honour.

One of the most debated verses in the Bible is Matthew 7:7:

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

Christians have used this verse to argue against each other, some state that it should not be taken word for word as just stating this verse is taking it out of context as the audience of this passage has to be considered. This should not create any disunity in a church as it does not violate any primary doctrines. However, secondary doctrines may have different takes at this verse, in which I (I admit I am biased) believe that Scripture should be taken as is, and this verse is directed towards all of us. The condition that this verse must meet is that we are following how Jesus commanded us to pray in Matthew 6:9-13, especially Matthew 6:10

Your will be done

It is vital (and I cannot stress this any more further) that we are living to fulfill God’s will, and NOT our will. Any form of living for ourselves is self-idolatry and not bringing Glory to God, thus not living life to its sole purpose. Romans 4:7-8 states that

For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, be careful when you are praying for things. Always ask yourself if what you are praying lines up with Scripture, and if you are not sure, pray for wisdom as wisdom is promised to us through Scripture:

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. James 1:5 (NIV 1984)

Only when we are praying for the right things (i.e. God’s Will), it will be given to you. This goes the same for passages such as Matthew 18:19. What we need to keep in mind is that God is always good (Psalm 136:1) and we must put our faith in Him as He knows the plans He has for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). So my brothers and sisters, ask yourself what you are praying for, are you praying the right way? If not, do you know what you should pray for? If not, ask God for wisdom as it is promised to you through the Lord.

God Bless You All! Amen!

P.S. Don’t get me started on the discussion of Jeremiah 29:11 taken out of context. I understand I am biased but again, I hold the point of view that Scripture is written for everyone and honestly, if someone was to use that portion of Scripture for means of prosperity gospel (stating that God has plans for us to prosper in this world), they honestly lack foresight. I am not saying that this will not happen, but it is not guaranteed. However, God will keep His promise and we are guaranteed to prosper in Heaven if we follow Him.

How do we pray?

/ Henry Jiang / Leave a comment

A common question I get asked from brothers and sisters who are new to their faith is: how do you pray? Some believe prayer is an every meal thing and people say prayers right before meals. Some people may believe prayer is a way to ask for things and receive blessings from God. Most of the answers actually lie right in the Bible, within a few verses.

“This, then, is how you should pray:  ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ — Matthew 6:9-11 (NIV 1984)

Now let us look closely at this passage. Should we read out this passage and only pray this passage word by word in our prayer? No! We need to be able to bring to God all things in our minds through prayer. However, we should keep in mind this passage during our prayers, and it doesn’t hurt to bring this passage out every now and then. However, if we are just uttering these blind words without knowing what they mean, that is a sin because we are lying to God.

My brothers and sisters, I challenge you to meditate on God’s way of prayer and see if you understand anything. Shoot me any questions again with the contact form below. I will attempt to explain this passage line by line as it is one of the most important passages in Scripture. See if this changes your perspective on prayer.

Stay Blessed!

Go back

Your message has been sent

Testimony of Joseph M. Scriven

/ Henry Jiang / Leave a comment

My dear brothers and sisters, since this is the fourth post on the hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”, let’s take a look behind this powerful testimony of a person who lived out his life as a Christian.

A picture is worth a thousand words, how about a video? Look at this simple, yet touching testimony. Are you turning to God for all of your struggles? Even though these two tragedies happened, Scriven still turned to God. Looking back at the Bible, read just the first chapter of Job. What did Job do when all those tragedies happened to him?

During the tragedies, Scriven turned to God in prayer. Job actually worshipped God and did not charge God with wrongdoing (Job 1:22). However, did these individuals have times where they thought that God has forsaken them? Though it is not recorded in Scripture nor in any accounts of Scriven, I would deduce yes, since God knows that we will feel that way. That is why the majority of the Psalms exhibit lament, in which Ephesians 1:19 commands us to speak to each other in Psalms. Even Jesus Christ spoke in Psalms, with “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1, Matthew 27:46). If you are feeling the same at the moment, I suggest you to meditate on Psalm 22 and maybe even other Psalms as God expects us to feel those emotions. However, the conclusion is that God does not forsake us, and we have to turn to God in prayer as Matthew 11:29-30 states that God will take our yoke for us, if we come to Him.

So as a food for thought, reflect on yourself if there are any struggles that you have not taken to the God in prayer, and pray about them. He will not forsake you, as He is a faithful, loving and amazing God, King and friend.

Most-Faithful Friend

/ Henry Jiang / Leave a comment

Are you struggling with something? Do you ever feel discouraged by the events that happen in your life? Do you feel like you need someone to talk to about your struggles? Well, look no more! As a continuation of the hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”, let’s dig deep into the second verse of this wonderful hymn.

Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged—
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful,
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness;
Take it to the Lord in prayer.

As written in the Bible, trials and temptations are used to develop our perseverance so that perseverance can complete its job to make us mature, complete and not lacking anything (James 1:2-4). But sometimes during our trials and temptations, we feel like it is too hard for us to continue on with the challenges ahead of us, and we are stressed out. From a Homeostatic/Medical approach, Walter Cannon was the to describe that stress is an “emergency response” as an animal’s response to a threat. Our body will naturally transform from a neutral posture to an offensive posture when stress is induced (ORGB Canadian Edition, Nelson Quick Armstrong Condie, 2012). Once our body takes this offensive posture, we naturally deceive our foresight of the Kingdom to come.

The best way to deal with any trouble is through prayer. We should never be discouraged or stressed out as God will not tempt us beyond what we can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13). Some may argue against using this Bible verse as it is taken out of context but if we consider how faithful our Lord God Jesus is, He will not forsake us and we can overcome anything in our earthly lives, just as Jesus has overcome the cross. The only thing is that we must do so through prayer. We should fear God but also treat God as a friend as he knows us the most (Psalm 139:1) and he is always faithful (Deuteronomy 7:9). That is the perfect quality as a friend so my brothers and sisters, have you been consulting your most-faithful friend during times of trouble and temptation? Have you ever been discouraged about earthly struggles? Maybe it is time to share it with your most-faithful friend by taking it to the Lord in prayer!

God Bless you all!