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Today’s Scripture Reading [June 20, 2010]
But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence. [1 Corinthians 1:27-29. KJV]
In the world where ‘money talks’ and ‘power is everything,’ many of us want to associate with wealthy people or people of great esteemed and social status. This is no wonder that when a rich and famous died, we can see pages upon pages of newspaper obituaries with standard message of sympathy “Our deepest sympathy to the family of the Late ,…… “ In spite of the fact that often the family members of the deceased had appealed to decline all donations and wreaths, many people still placed prominent and sometimes over-sized obituaries in the newspaper to offer their sympathy. They want to associate with these rich and famous ‘even till death’. I don’t know how much the family members really valued these obituaries but I know that the newspaper companies must be very delighted because they could rake in a lot of money from these obituaries which, in my view, can be put to better use like donating to the poor.
Quite unwittingly, rich and famous people can become our ‘personality cult’ whom we admire them more than the true God. The names of the rich and famous tend command a premium; they are considered to be infallible and nothing can go wrong with them; their words carry weigh, rightly or wrongly and they seem to have a touch of gold – everything they touch turns to gold! Some of them are so influential and are practically worshipped upon that they could literally carry their names to the graves.
‘A good and a famous’ name commands a big premium. It is no wonder when companies are preparing for new listing in stock exchange they will invite people of high social and business standing to be members of the board of directors. These people of high social and business standing who hold or have held high positions like high court judges, government ministers, university professors, partners of big accounting or law firms, etc are in the “wanted list” in the financial and business community. Many in fact are not businessmen themselves and have not managed big companies before and yet they are highly sought for the appointment of independent directors who are supposed to play “crucial roles in the corporate governance.” We have heard of news that, sadly, some don’t live up to investors’ expectations. Many of these people just lend their names so as to increase the profile and marketability of the companies that seek initial listing on the stock exchange. Of course, we must not forget that the directors’ fee come with such appointments do not come cheap and often they are also offered special share incentive plans that could translate into million dollars of the monetary reward. To make the mockery of the independent directorate system, some could sit on board of directorship of up to 10 or 15 companies and the question usually asked is: How could they find time to attend all the meetings, let alone help manage the companies. Are they really that good and do they really understand all the businesses of those companies which they are members of the board of directors because the businesses of those companies could range from manufacturing toilet papers to gold mining?
Admittedly, most of these ‘wanted men’ have good proven track records of the professions they were previously doing, however, we have seen quite a few have not lived up to the expectations of the investors for their new role as independent directors. In fact, no one can really define clearly the roles and responsibilities of independent company directors other than they have to attend a number of Board of Directors’ Meeting. Many ignorant investors have lost their savings all because they trusted the names of some famous people and erroneously self-assured themselves that nothing could go wrong. They were highly influenced by the names of the people running the companies and the classic example is the Madoff scandal. He was former chairman of Nasdaq and people just trusted him with millions!
In Proverbs 3:7, we are told that many men are wise in their own eyes, and in 1 Corinthians 1:23 we are told that the foolishness of God is wiser then men and the weakness of God is stronger than the mightiest man, and in 1 Samuel 16:7, we are told that man looks on the outside appearance, but God looks at the heart. Unless God chooses our path, our plan will not succeed (Proverbs 16:9). Only God decides whether we will finally succeed or fail and no amount of education or qualification can guarantee our success. The financial crisis of 2008 has proved to us that no matter how wise or clever those directors or businessmen are, they are no panacea to securing our future. The latest near-apocalyptic event in which massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico has many people wondering how could the combined might of the American technology, all the wise and clever men of the BP Board of Directors and the White House fail to fix a broken pipe. After all it was man who first fitted that pipe on the ocean floor. Isn’t it just a broken pipe? And we see that more than USD 50 billion of the market value of BP wipe-out, literally overnight and the company is still counting the cost of compensation which could amount to USD 40-50 billion, or even more. Nobody really knows at this time. Besides the financial loss, the environmental and ecological damage is irreversible and is inestimable.
When Jesus was choosing His disciples, He did not go and look for government ministers, judges, professors or wise wealthy businessmen. Instead, He chose ordinary and simple people: fishermen, political activists, tax collector, common people but full of faith, goodness and sincerity. Very little was recorded in the Bible about the occupation of His disciples and it therefore points to us that they were not holding important positions nor they have excelled in any particular trade or profession. But one thing is very certain and that is the occupations of the disciples were not important to Jesus’ calling. Jesus was not looking for models to stage catwalk. Rather, He was looking for real people to roar out like lions and to fly like eagles. He chose people who could be changed by His love, and they in turn will go out to tell the world that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Light and no one can come to the Father except through Jesus Himself.
Despite the lack of credentials, the disciples became powerful witnesses to His ministry. The story of Jesus’ disciples does not end with the Gospel, it continues in the book of Acts. Together with letters and the epistles which we can read them in the Bible, they were all written by several of His hand-picked disciples who had very little or no social standing. These letters and epistles collectively known as the Word of God have transformed the lives of many people from the most incorrigible convicts to kings since they were written two thousand years’ ago.
Whether we are a minister, a judge, a criminal convict, a murderer, a slanderer or just a plain simple road-sweeper, it doesn’t matter. We can be part of His ministry and He has promised us that He will come and take us to a place that He has prepared for us but we must first truly acknowledge Him as our Saviour. What really counts is not who we are but what we have become of after we have experienced His transforming power, the Spirit of Christ. Despite the current confusion that the world is experiencing and the lack of understanding of who Jesus is, our job is to be His witnesses of His transforming power; to share His gospel of love, of sacrifice and more importantly, to let the world knows that the power to defeat Satan is in the blood of Jesus!
Great men, simple men, rich men, poor, wise men or foolish men, let us all admit honestly that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). With no exception, everyone of us will finally have the same epitaph written on our tombstones: Our date of birth and our date of death like March 1, 1929 – March 1, 2009. This plain epitaph is a clear reminder to us that our life journey on earth comprises nothing more than a little ‘dash’ but that little ‘dash’ is nevertheless very significant because how we made up of that little ‘dash’ will determine where our soul will end up: In His Kingdom or in the kingdom that God has prepared for Satan and his angels. The decision in now yours but make no mistakes about it, by the blood of Jesus we can now consider worthy to be His sons and daughters if we repent of our sins.