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Today’s Scripture Reading [September 26, 2010]
The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts. [Psalm 10:4. KJV]
Several years ago, I was working as a volunteer in one of the social agencies. This agency provided services to general public like teaching people how to manage work and life stress, and also provide counseling services to family members whose relatives were suffering from mental illness. Many of these volunteers were medical professionals specializing in psychiatric medicine as well as social works in counseling and care. Though my work there was primarily assisting in the administration, nonetheless I enjoyed working with these professionals because they could share with us the first-hand knowledge of what actually happening in our society where people are facing so much uncertainties and life challenges. On one occasion, I asked one of the volunteer psychiatrists what was the state of mental health in Singapore. What he told me was quite a shock. He said that the government could increase any number of beds in mental hospitals and he could fill them up all in days. What he meant was that there were so many people seem to have mental problems and were walking like living zombies. At anytime, they could explode into violence or turn suicidal! That was almost 15 years ago and I believe the situation is not getting better today. If anything can go by, I think the society we live in is even in greater dire state as far as good mental health is concerned. For example, teen suicides which were unheard of previously are now they are quite common, and just in almost all suicides, they were due to mental problems that can be caused by relationship breakdown, financial and in the case of teens, school work and examination, and last but not least, lack of life purpose. People find that it is not worth living anymore.
Are we really all so sick? The answer is quite obvious. Looking at the number of new hospitals and the recent complaints of patients that they had to wait for a long queue in the hospitals for their turns to be treated, or admitted to the ward, it is very foolish for us to deny that we are not sick but well – physically, mentally and spiritually. How could you not get sick when you enjoy your lives like there is no tomorrow, when you reject God’s law and live in wickedness, when you have so strong hatred against your Creator, when your thoughts are filled with jealousy, envies, covetousness, revenge and hatred! God does not make people sick and so don’t blame Him for your sickness. He doesn’t want people to suffer, let alone want to see them sick! We can see this by looking at the life of Jesus. He healed the sick. He cured people. All our sicknesses are boiled down to just this three-letter word: SIN. Yes, we are simply living in this sin-sick world! In Romans 3:23 we are told that for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). And it is sin that separates us from God; it is sin that causes us sickness, it is sin that ultimately brings death, not just to our physical body but our soul.
What then is sin? Depending on who you ask and the religious belief of each individual, everyone seems to define sin differently. Some may define it more leniently than others. For example, some may view sins as merely some wrong-doings while others blatantly compromised their own actions and thoughts and say to themselves: “As long as I don’t do harm to other people, it should be alright. What I do is none of other’s business.” Others may confine their definition of sin to someone who does heinous crimes like murder or rape. There is no one standard definition because what is sin to one may not be sin to another.
However, the scriptural definition of sin that God has prescribed to us is very clear. Sin is putting our will ahead of God’s will; it simply means missing God’s mark and the following quotes taken from a theological book gives a good biblical perspective of what sin is:
“Scripture diagnoses sin as a universal deformity of human nature, found at every point in every person. Both the Old and the New Testaments in the Bible have names for it that display its ethical character as rebellion against God’s rule, missing the mark God set us to aim at, transgressing God’s law, disobeying God’s directives, offending God’s purity by defiling oneself, and incurring guilt before God the Judge. This moral deformity is dynamic: sin stands revealed as an energy of irrational, negative, and rebellious reaction to God’s call and command, a spirit of fighting God in order to play God. The root of sin is pride and enmity against God, the spirit seen in Adam’s first transgression; and sinful acts always have behind them thoughts, motives, and desires that one way or another express the willful opposition of the fallen heart to God’s claims on our lives.”
From the above quote and as true believers of Jesus, we can conclude that we are all but sinner and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The next important question that we need to ask ourselves is: How then do we need to move forward from here so that we can become sinless? Humanly-speaking, it is an impossible task because no matter how hard we tried to be good, we are just beyond repair as our thoughts and our motives are diagonally opposing God’s laws. But by the grace of God, He has done it all, all for our sake. This is how God accomplished it: He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus to be the sacrificial Lamb by dying on the cross and by the blood of Jesus, we all can now say: “I am sinless now because the blood of Jesus has washed away all of my sins.” Hence, if we accept Jesus and ask Him to come to our hearts, His gifts of forgiveness, grace and mercy will set free from our sins and we are able to re-establish our relationship and our communion with our Mighty God. We must, however, recognize that when it comes to relationship, our relationship with God is no difference from that of our spouses, our children, our relatives or even with our friends. Relationship, whether it is with God or with others, is always moving either forward or backward. We must therefore take a conscious effort to determine which direction we want the relationship to end up. It is the direction in which we chose to travel that will make all the difference because how we set the direction will inevitable determine whether we will make or will break the relationship. If you are right here in Singapore and you want to go to Sydney, Australia and start to travel north, you will never reach Sydney. It is the direction that determines our destination not just the path that you select. Even though we may choose a right path we may not end up in the destination that we want to reach. A right direction will get you to the right destination, and a wrong direction will bring you to the wrong destination. Just like a compass which is an indispensible tool to explorers, we must remind ourselves that our heaven-bound journey too requires an indispensible tool, the Word of God, to guide our direction which God has intended for us.
In Proverbs 3:5-6, it says: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.” This is a wonderful advice for all of us. We must begin our path with godly direction and we must always travel with God’s component and not based on our own desires. This requires total surrender of our lives to God, and He has promised us that if we were to obey Him and keep His covenant, we will be blessed us (Deuteronomy 7:12-13). God wants us to pay attention to Him and to turn our eyes away from worthless things of the world (Psalm 119:37).
We are now in a chaotic age where we can hardly find men truly touched by God and willing to stand up for His Kingdom. Instead, we see there are more grafts and corruptions in high places than ever before. People who are elected to supposedly serve the people are abusing their offices to bully people. In some countries, police and criminals are simply indistinguishable. There were reports of police who gave protection to mafia who in turn shared their ill-gotten wealth with the police! Thankfully, God is expert in creating purpose and direction out of chaos, beauty out of ashes. Although we cannot determine the directions of others but we can definitely set our own directions. We can consciously let our God-given conscience to direct our actions, our thoughts. This calls for evaluation of our relationship with God and we must continuously be reminded of:
• the consequences and tragedies that sins can bring, not just to us, but also to people around us;
• the sovereignty and greatness of God and His demands of us which is very simple – to walk and be directed by Him and no one else;
• the selfishness and sinfulness are still very much of our carnal nature but by the grace of God, we are made righteous because of the sacrificial blood of the Lamb of God;
• the heaven proves His glory and we are to glorify our God in our holy living and in our daily worship of Him;
• the Calvary Cross proves the everlasting love of God and we too need to carry the cross of Jesus daily to reciprocate our love and trust of Him;
• the blood of Jesus proves He has forgiven all our sins and that His blood can cover all multitude of our sins - past, present and future;
• the empty tomb proves His victory and that we too can live a victorious life regardless of our situation.
Let us therefore then rest in the Lord. Just sit back with perfect confidence by putting our situation before Him and ask from Him for direction because His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:9). As we enter into a new age of victorious living, all we have to do is to trust the Lord and do good (Psalm 37:3) for He is our strength and our shield (Psalm 28:7) and we will fear no evil (Psalm 23:4) because if God is with us, who can be against us (Romans 8:31).
God is God and nothing can change this. Whether you believe there is God, it makes no difference to Him. But remember that we are but dust. So each time you do some spring cleaning in your house and when you look at those dust that you have swept, remember yourself that spiritually we are just like those dirt. But the blood of Jesus is powerful. It cleanses away all our dirt, our sins! Nothing but the Blood of Jesus!
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