Standing Firm in Christ Jesus!

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.” – 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 NIV

Following Jesus Christ until the end of the age can be hard, especially if we are logic-minded. Jesus Christ is the Lord and the Savour to those of us who believe in Him but He is a person, who we cannot see. In fact, He is God—the Creator who has made the Heavens and the Earth (Genesis 1:1) and the Everlasting Father who is continually loving us so much and who sacrificed Himself for our sins (Ephesians 1:3-7)—since He is the perfect image and representation of God (Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3). In addition to this, Jesus Christ came to our hearts as the Spirit of God, to those who have opened our hearts for Him (Revelations 3:20). The  main reason for this is that He is able to guide us in walk with God until the end of the age (John 14:15-27), due to the fact that we cannot do everything in our own strength (Isaiah 40:29-31). This does not mean that we suddenly become infinitely powerful, that we start to have no weakness physically and spiritually, when we are walking with the Lord spiritually.

The text of Matthew 5:3 is “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” and this verse is telling me that God comes to those who have not much wisdom to continually live our lives. I experienced this yesterday night, even though Matthew 5:3 just popped out of my head. I was having too much theology in my head, that I felt my head is going to explode. At that moment, I was not able to read and listen the Bible before I slept. Because of this, I downloaded a Pokemon game to play later on as my spirit was leading me and I simply prayed. When I did these things, the burden of my theological mind-set was completely gone. Now, I realise that I do not have to become extremely holy and pure, in order to be approved by God. I was kind of having gospel-religious mind-set. The main reason for this was that I have wanted to follow the truth (John 14:6). However, all of us do not have to be extremely wise right away for God, for we are becoming perfect in Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:14) and wisdom of God takes time (Ecclesiastes 3:11). This does not mean that we do not have to receive any knowledge of God from the Bible at all, as we have to make every effort to be fully mature in Christ by putting the word of God into practice (Luke 6:46-49). The main point is that we need the Spirit of God to do everything that God wants us to do (2 Peter 1:3-11).

Christ is the one who gives me the strength I need to do whatever I must do. (Philippians 4:13)

Because of this reason, I really need to pray before our heavenly Father that I need more wisdom to follow Him until the end of the age through the Spirit of God (James 1:5-8). He is more than willing to pour His Spirit upon us for the first time and continually as Jesus declares, “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:11-13) The main reason for this is that God wants to have intimate relationship with us (Colossians 1:21-23). One of the names of God are Provider (Romans 8:32) but He only gives us things that are based on His will (Philippians 4:19). 1 John 5:14-15 states, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.” Hence, all of us need to transform our worldly minds into the mind-set of the Spirit (Romans 12:2). The main reason for this is that the desires of the Spirit is contrary to the worldly desires (Galatians 5:17). This is probably the reason that James 4:4-5 says that we become an enemy of God, due to the fact that we are actually stopping the Spirit from working powerfully within us.

Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith. (Galatians 6:7-10)

Nevertheless, followers of Jesus Christ always have to be confident, even though our spirit is not aligned with the Spirit of God. I have trouble with this sometimes because my main focus has always been about approaching God through faith in Jesus Christ, for I want to enter the kingdom of heaven with confidence at the end of my physical life, and whenever my spirit is not aligned with the Spirit, I feel that I am really disorientated. However, we need to trust God in everything that we do (Proverbs 3:5-8) and put our hope in God until the end of our physical lives (Psalm 43:5).

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)

Furthermore, we should combine our spiritual lives with physical lives so that they can be one (Ephesians 2:14-16). I think this is ultimately important. If they are not combined, we may approach God with religious motives, that we have to do deeds in order to be approved by God. The another reason why the combination of two kinds of lives is important is because we are not in Jesus Christ and take part of His body unless we combine them together. If they are not combined, there is really no point of following Jesus through faith. This does not mean that we should care only about our spiritual lives. Self-righteousness is one of the main mistake that Christians make. For instance, I was kind of self-righteous. Luke 14:26-27 means that we have to love the will of God so much to the point that we care about nothing else. Thus, I was only focusing on writing devotionals, even when my mum told me to shower before she comes home from work many times. Nonetheless, the love of God is one of the most important commandments of God as well, even through to ones who have lower faith in Jesus Christ than us (1 John 4:7-8). 1 John 4:12 says that showing love of God is the illustration of being light of Jesus. Because of this, I was not becoming a true light of Him (Matthew 5:14-16) to my mother, as well as to my father because he told me to exercise by taking a walk few times and I obeyed him eventually but I did not always do it. I did it when I had headaches since oxygen refreshes our brains. It is hard for me to do devotionals late as I want to be obedient to God. At the same time, I want to be obedient to my parents as well, for obeying our parents is actually the first commandment of God with a promise (Ephesians 6:1-3). In addition, breaking one commandment of God is actually breaking the whole law of God (James 2:10).

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:8-10)

We need to have a strong theological mind-set that is according to the word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ by reading, listening and meditate on it repeatedly. However, at the same time, we need to have a teachable spirit as well because we may learn more how it works through our personal lives from others. I have a teachable spirit so I have learned how to connect between the Bible and the culture world. In fact, when I first started to write devotionals, I was kind of connecting the Bible and the culture world but I stopped of having a connection between these two worlds. I thought that if I only used my theological mind-set and used the Scriptures as the supporters, I thought that everyone is going to eventually understand. Nevertheless, my spiritual teacher and mentor, who helps me from time to time, kept telling me that I do not have a bridge between the Bible and the culture world, that non-believers may not understand my devotionals. Thus, she lent me a book about having a creative mind-set and I relised that I had closed my teachable spirit within me. Because of this, I opened it up again and read that book. Suddenly, I began to know how to make a bridge between these two worlds but I still want to learn more. Thus, for this reason, I think that I am going to ask specific church members, whether they could be my spiritual mentors and teachers if all of them have same and equal level of the knowledge of God and making the bridge. This is because I heard that it is good to have two or three counselors from one of the sermons. Furthermore, online devotionals are helping me to make it as well. I realised this when I did not read any online devotionals for a while because I was losing how to use the mind-set of creativity. Jesus Christ, even, used His creative mind-set in the parables to draw attention to the Kingdom Life.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

Last of all, we need to do everything in love but all for the sake of the glory of God. The main reason for this if we are not doing everything in love, then we have a legalistic point of view, such as having a religious side. For instance, I used to be one of the volunteers of setting the church up in LifeChangers,  which is now combined with Equippers Church, I believe. I loved volunteering and helping others as contributing in any way creates joy within me, but I was in the religious side. This is because I loved people as I am a people-person but I was doing everything for them and not for God, due to the fact that I closed my heart to Jesus Christ. After few years, God told me to get to know Jesus better. Because of this, I became a true Christian while I was in New York. Thus, I volunteered in my New York Church to be a greeter and an usher. When I greeted people over there, I sensed that I was doing all for the glory of God. When I took a specific place in the ushering team, I strongly felt that I was building the kingdom of God. Moreover, I volunteered in writing devotionals for others as I wanted to have a try at late 2013. This volunteering job became my ministry, due to the Spirit’s empowerment. Because of the Spirit’s empowerment, I want to become a Christian Writer other than just writing devotionals. Nevertheless, I am still writing devotionals for others and I, now, have six different social-networks. I am also using an e-mail marketing called MailChimp for sending devotionals to others. Other than doing my devotionals, reading online devotionals and the Bible, I really need to discipline myself into prayer and reading Christian books. This is because prayer is the best way to fellowship with God in Jesus Christ since prayer is the way to have communication with Him (Philippians 4:6-7). Christian books are really important for me, I believe, since I want to become a Christian Writer and I can see how to write more effectively. I also have to discipline myself in loving others more. I cannot love my family as the church members because I cannot really see the spiritual aspects in my family and the desire between me and them is different.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)