Luke

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.

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!

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!

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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.