love

Easter 2014 Series: Why did Jesus have to die? (God’s Unconditional Love)

/ Henry Jiang / Leave a comment

What is God’s love? One of my sisters in Christ (in my Yumcha Fellowship) who recently decided to follow Him, solid in her faith, was trying to preach the good news to her parents when she was mocked and ridiculed. Her roommate who is a close friend of mine decided to tell me about it and see what I could say to her. Her parents mocked her, she was humiliated and her parents made false statements about Christ. She felt very discouraged and according to my friend, was crying throughout the night.

These cases are common in a Christian’s life, and this is the suffering that we Christians always talk about during our Christian lives. She later told me that she feels blessed with these friends who help her through her walk with Christ but she doesn’t feel God’s love at all. She doesn’t understand what this unconditional love is, that God has provided us with. As a brother in Christ, I stated the following:

First, this was exactly what happened to Jesus. It is very ironic in a sense that this whole chain of events happened just before Good Friday, which means that it is a really good reminder of what happened to Jesus as He was hung on that tree. The soldiers mocked and beat Jesus (Luke 22:63), which is really similar to her parents mocking her about her beliefs. Jesus’ ultimate humiliation was on the cross as it was only used on people who are guilty of a capital offence (Deuteronomy 21:22). Jesus was blameless yet people nailed Him to the cross, again inline with her parents making false statements about Christ. Yet Jesus asked God the Father to forgive these people when they were doing this to Him (Luke 23:34). That itself is unconditional love.

Next, I told her to meditate on Psalm 22, especially the first lines “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” She is probably feeling the same when she was trying to preach the good news to her parents, and we have to understand that our Lord God Jesus Himself said the same phrase in Matthew 27:46. This is the prime example of taking the cross and suffering for His name, and the Psalm itself is a wonderful prayer to meditate in terms of challenges as such.

I asked my sister in Christ in the meantime for advice and she mentioned that the Bible commands us to leave our families and follow Him (Luke 14:25-27). I was actually really confused about this passage until she explained it to me (and I will quote her word for word)

… just know that it may not be an easy path and it’s especially difficult coming from your loved ones but God calls us to follow Him and drop everything including family not that we forget or reject them but that we know that God is in control of the situation and that He will always be there with us and our family on our journey

Wow, never interpreted it this way but it is so true! Even when we haven’t turned to God, God already loves us and He will always be there.

Finally, I told her to open her eyes to God’s love around her, but I really apologize to her (as I only thought of it later) that I missed out on a really important point. Firstly, God is showing His love through support. Her roommate telling me, me telling another sister, we all come up with suggestions to help her out and pray for her. This means that we all love her, and where does this love come from? Our Creator God has created us and obviously created the perfect unconditional love for us. The most important point that I missed out was her zeal to step up to her non-believing parents and preach the good news to them! That is amazing unconditional love that God sends the Holy Spirit to inspire you to go ahead and preach the good news. You yourself inherited God’s love.

I am proud of you sister. And I am so thankful for God to love me so much and provide me with these wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ that I walk with. God Bless you all and have a beloved Easter weekend.

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!

Needless Pain We Bear

/ Henry Jiang / Leave a comment

My beloved brothers and sisters, have you taken a look at yesterday’s post? The post about meditating on the lyrics of the well known hymn: “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”. Honestly, though we are told to fear God, we should also treat Jesus as our best friend. However, although we understand that Jesus is our best friend, many times, we forget about this because we don’t physically see Jesus. Moreover, it is important to believe when we haven’t seen Jesus physically (John 20:29). In my personal life, I can witness the Holy Spirit existing at every corner of the world. But due to the human instinct of requiring to see something in order to be reminded, we often forget about asking Jesus in times of high stress and struggles, and this again comes back to the sin of self-reliance. However, Joseph Scriven has left behind a poem (later transforming into a hymn) which we should meditate on especially at times of trouble.

Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!

Honestly, if we are not praying to God about all our struggles and burdens, we are forfeiting our peace and feeling needless pain. This is the truth. 1 Corinthians 16:11 is one of the Bible verses that back up this claim but it is actually so simple. Also, in Scriven’s poem, the first verse uses the diction “privilege to carry”, and this is very true. We do not even deserve to talk to God face to face because we are such sinners, and that is why the temple veil was torn when Jesus was crucified: Jesus took away our sins so that we are washed to be sinless and made worthy to even talk to God, only when we repent and confess our sins and believe in Jesus Christ.

Therefore my brothers and sisters, have you been forfeiting this privilege? Are there any problems causing you pain and burden that you haven’t taken to Jesus in prayer? Have you ever thought of Jesus as your friend? I challenge you to ponder about these questions and reflect on how you are using these words of wisdom in your daily lives.

 

Lost

/ Henry Jiang / Leave a comment

When things turn for the worse, we often find ourselves lost physically and spiritually. Our self-dependent vision of the world deceives our foresight and forces us to take it upon ourselves. When we find ourselves in situations like this, we need to remember that we need to be committed to the Lord, as it is written:

For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.  2 Chronicles 16:9

In times of destitute, many of us reach a point where it feels like we don’t time for anything. We want alone time for ourselves. Even knowing James 1:2-4, we often try to solve the problem by ourselves, and as a result, it may turn into so-called stress-relieving methods such as eating, drinking, gaming, taking drugs. Doing anything that is not sinful to a proper extent is alright but overdoing things such as over-eating, drinking alcohol until you are completely insane, gaming like crazy is a form of idolatry as you are allowing it to take over your life. After doing things that are not giving glory to God’s name, you would feel a sense of emptiness. Why? This is because the sole purpose of the creation of human beings is to bring Glory to God (Isaiah 43:7). Moreover, the Bible commands us to do everything for God’s glory (1 Corinthians 10:31). Failing to live for your purpose of life will thus bring you the feeling of emptiness when doing things that are useless.

Reading the Book of Ecclesiastes can be very depressing as it talks about how worthless our temporary life on the earth is, but we are reminded constantly in the New Testament of the everlasting eternal life we are to spend with God in heaven. Christ has commanded us to carry the cross with him (Luke 14:27, Matthew 16:24-26). Imagine what Jesus went through, how He was wrongly crucified though He lived a sinless life, the pain and suffering He went through to carry the cross. In addition, think of Jesus’ disciples and other Christians that were tortured and martyred for their faith. Now look back at yourselves. I challenge you, my lovely brothers and sisters, to compare the largest challenges you are currently experiencing with the experiences listed above.

Things that are neither Bright nor Beautiful

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Reflecting from yesterday’s hymn “All Things Bright and Beautiful”, it reminds me of the time I have stumbled upon the thought: What about things that I feel are not bright and beautiful? Are these not creations of God? Is this hymn just blaspheming about things that are Bright and Beautiful and completely ignoring the things that are not?

When we think of this, we have to keep in mind that God is good and fair. Scriptures such as  Matthew 7:11, Matthew 19:17, Romans 5:8, John 3:16 and John 15:12 describe the goodness of God and how He loves us. But why do we have people ranting on about how miserable their lives are? Why does God put these people in those situations.

Last Sunday, I was having lunch at Village by the Grange. There was this elderly black lady sitting in front of me, constantly talking. For a moment, I thought that she was calling someone on her phone but later, I realized she was ranting about living on community housing and how the world is messed up. I was eating my beef Pho when I felt a type of spiritual unrest for her. I felt like she needed God and peace, and I felt the urge to give her one of those ESV Economy Bibles I carry around. I finished my bowl of noodles and confronted her with the Bible, she thanked me and told me she already has one and asked me to give it to someone else on her behalf. Then I asked her if I could pray for her and she agreed.

These days, I often invite the Holy Spirit to lead me in prayer so that I pray for things that the Holy Spirit wants and not what I want in my life. During the prayer, I prayed for this lady to receive more foresight by looking into God to strengthen her soul. I thanked God for giving her these challenges as we understand that we should rejoice at times of trial as the testing of your faith produces perseverance and that perseverance must finish its work so that we may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (James 1:2-4). God wants the best of us and providing us with these challenges or things that are not bright and beautiful, He is setting us up to receive His everlasting fruits He will bless us after this short-termed life in this world (And it was actually from the prayer where I came up with the name of this site). After the prayer, the lady stopped ranting and was smiling until she left the area. Praise the Lord!

Now my lovely brothers and sisters, ask yourselves, “What is your attitude when you are faced with trials and temptations? Are you allowing God to make you perfect by developing your perseverance? Is your foresight perhaps blinded by the current situations that arise and in your mind act as a barrier between God and you?”

Eye-opener

/ Henry Jiang / Leave a comment
My Personal Niagara Falls for 20 Minutes

My Personal Niagara Falls for 20 Minutes

Have you ever had the experience when certain things in this world bring you awe? As a continuation of yesterday’s thought of opening your eyes to see more of what’s around you, these eye-opening views are just too obvious to miss. The photo shown above used to be my Facebook cover photo, during my one-day trip to the United States on reading week in 2013. I arrived at Niagara Falls at around 6:30 pm when all the souvenir shops are shut down and there was noone at the falls on the U.S. side, except me. Although it was way below freezing there, having the Niagara Falls to myself for 20 minutes is an experience that I will never forget. However, although my eyes were wide open at that time, I was blind.

Many have wondered how long I have been living this spiritual life and what has changed me to commit to God to this extent. Here is my recent testimony (I will share my life-death testimony some other day). Although I was already a born-again baptized Christian, I was spiritually drained out due to the stress the University of Toronto Engineering Science program as put me under. Being exposed to mediocre grades as compared to 95+ averages in high school, it was depressing and demotivating. Last year from September to December, I was really down spiritually and I kept that to myself. It got to a point when sermons at our church started to not make any sense. The only thing I kept on doing that made me feel like a Christian was praying, and although I would forget to pray sometimes up to 3 days, I would pray for God to pull me closer to Him.

It was not until I suddenly messaged a sister one day for matters that are unimportant and she invited me to go to a winter retreat for the fellowship at her church. This church was the church I “grew up” in when I was a primary school student. I used to only go to church for children’s choir and nothing else. Although I was returning the night before the retreat from Atlanta, Georgia, I felt a push to go. In the beginning of the retreat, things were still not making sense. The Pastor was talking about how God will be present at our retreat and we would observe miracles happening, in my mind, I was thinking to myself, “There’s noone with cancer or some kind of deadly disease or disability, how can we see miracles?” This proved how drained out my spiritual mindset was. The second day of the retreat, it was -30°C so the nature prayer walk was cancelled but for some reason, I insisted on going out. During that walk, the surroundings were completely static due to the lack of animals (all were hibernating) and I walked up to this frozen lake. We had a small pamphlet that told us to pray and listen to God. I was silent and listened to God.

Then all of a sudden, I realized all of these jaw-dropping, eye-opening views are views of God’s creation, especially the view I saw can be under Genesis 9. This was the start of a complete change in perspective of life. The Book of Genesis is not just a story where we learn the basics of Christianity, it should be applicable to our daily lives just as any other Scripture. As 2 Timothy 3:16-17 states that Scripture is breathed out by God, living by Scripture is recognizing God and if you take it to the next level, loving God (Matthew 22:37). Therefore, I challenge you my lovely brothers and sisters to question the perspective you perceive this world. If you have not read the Book of Genesis, start from the first chapter, it is at the very beginning of your Bible! Are you recognizing God’s presence in any scene in this world?