Galatians 3:5
Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
I'm not sure about you, but somehow the past weeks when I go to church, even with the 40-day fast period and many participating in this season of fast and prayer (I hope!), the atmosphere and spiritual mood seems very mundane and lull. It simply feels like a muggy, non progressive stage likened to that of stagnation - albeit of people's spiritual life or the overall condition of the church.
I'm not saying that I'm not immune to this spiritual muggy feeling now, especially since I'm so bogged down by tedious amounts of work that is resulting in me leaving office only after 8pm. Somehow it is a very irksome feeling to have especially when I'm trying to break out of it and how that the Saturday service would provide the lively break-through. Nothing really happens to the service though and I'm left to wonder where has the fire gone to?
Until I read a sentence made in the prayer of an anglican pastor which prayed for us to show forth Faith with fire. Apart from this nice quotable quote, it actually made a lot of sense of why many are just suffering from stagnation.
Romans 1:17 records that "THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH." Are you living by faith today? Importantly, are you placed in a situation where your faith would not rest on the wisdom and strength of yours, but on the power of God? That's when we allow the fire of God to move us to do what we should do, and not continue to live bogged down by our circumstances and emotions. Put simply, spiritually we need to start moving ahead and not staying static where our soul want to be.
You may be participating in the 40-days fast like me, but that doesn't mean that it is to spiritually charge you up. In fact, you may be just partaking in your own religious rituals without a real connection with God because you could be living a double-standard life. On one hand, you are walking through life, on the other you are trying to juggle christian "duties" like prayer and fasting because it's the season to do it. Ultimately, fellowship with God never seems to be the key thing you are doing and we loose track of the reason why the nation is partaking in this 40-Day fast, it's to refocus back our time and energies back to God.
One classic example to quantify what I'm saying: "There's heaps of never ending dreadful studying/work to be done and all I want to do is chill out or go shopping. Meanwhile, life just goes on and I'm moving unmotivatedly. Meanwhile, better read my 40 Day fast booklet to reflect and make my prayer/fasting moment. After reading, I do hope the days would just past quickly and I look forward to the weekend to escape from it all. I do hope this coming week's church service would be wonderful".
In all of these, where is God in our lives? Relegated to a nice encounter on the weekend worship that is to make us feel good again? Isn't God suppose to take centre-stage and consume our thoughts and waking moments for the entire time and more so as we partake of the prayer and fasting. Never mind the fact that you are partaking to a religious ritual, is this not showing a non-progressive life and sullen earthly mindset? How do we go about to break this because we need to see faith arise with fire.
The bible records that those who are called fathers of faith showed themselves as an example to others around in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity. By faith, Abraham when he was tested, willingly offered up his only son, Isaac to God. By faith, Noah built the Ark for 120 years when instructed by God, inspite of 120 years of opposition and ridicule.
If today, you are yearing for something more that this state of mediocrity, you need to break off the shackles of current mindset of looking at your life through your own eyes. Instead, you need to cry out "Holy Spirit, I need new vision of how I was made for a greater purpose to advance the gospel of Christ! Break me from the bad habits and sullen world attitudes that have compromised my life that has been redeemed by the blood of Christ."
May we be people of faith, living lives that demonstrate the fire of God's Holiness in the everyday walk of life.
Blessings,
M.
Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you-unless indeed you fail the test? (2 Corinthians 13:5)
26 July 2007
Faith without Fire
Galatians 3:5
Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
I'm not sure about you, but somehow the past weeks when I go to church, even with the 40-day fast period and many participating in this season of fast and prayer (I hope!), the atmosphere and spiritual mood seems very mundane and lull. It simply feels like a muggy, non progressive stage likened to that of stagnation - albeit of people's spiritual life or the overall condition of the church.
I'm not saying that I'm not immune to this spiritual muggy feeling now, especially since I'm so bogged down by tedious amounts of work that is resulting in me leaving office only after 8pm. Somehow it is a very irksome feeling to have especially when I'm trying to break out of it and how that the Saturday service would provide the lively break-through. Nothing really happens to the service though and I'm left to wonder where has the fire gone to?
Until I read a sentence made in the prayer of an anglican pastor which prayed for us to show forth Faith with fire. Apart from this nice quotable quote, it actually made a lot of sense of why many are just suffering from stagnation.
Romans 1:17 records that "THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH." Are you living by faith today? Importantly, are you placed in a situation where your faith would not rest on the wisdom and strength of yours, but on the power of God? That's when we allow the fire of God to move us to do what we should do, and not continue to live bogged down by our circumstances and emotions. Put simply, spiritually we need to start moving ahead and not staying static where our soul want to be.
You may be participating in the 40-days fast like me, but that doesn't mean that it is to spiritually charge you up. In fact, you may be just partaking in your own religious rituals without a real connection with God because you could be living a double-standard life. On one hand, you are walking through life, on the other you are trying to juggle christian "duties" like prayer and fasting because it's the season to do it. Ultimately, fellowship with God never seems to be the key thing you are doing and we loose track of the reason why the nation is partaking in this 40-Day fast, it's to refocus back our time and energies back to God.
One classic example to quantify what I'm saying: "There's heaps of never ending dreadful studying/work to be done and all I want to do is chill out or go shopping. Meanwhile, life just goes on and I'm moving unmotivatedly. Meanwhile, better read my 40 Day fast booklet to reflect and make my prayer/fasting moment. After reading, I do hope the days would just past quickly and I look forward to the weekend to escape from it all. I do hope this coming week's church service would be wonderful".
In all of these, where is God in our lives? Relegated to a nice encounter on the weekend worship that is to make us feel good again? Isn't God suppose to take centre-stage and consume our thoughts and waking moments for the entire time and more so as we partake of the prayer and fasting. Never mind the fact that you are partaking to a religious ritual, is this not showing a non-progressive life and sullen earthly mindset? How do we go about to break this because we need to see faith arise with fire.
The bible records that those who are called fathers of faith showed themselves as an example to others around in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity. By faith, Abraham when he was tested, willingly offered up his only son, Isaac to God. By faith, Noah built the Ark for 120 years when instructed by God, inspite of 120 years of opposition and ridicule.
If today, you are yearing for something more that this state of mediocrity, you need to break off the shackles of current mindset of looking at your life through your own eyes. Instead, you need to cry out "Holy Spirit, I need new vision of how I was made for a greater purpose to advance the gospel of Christ! Break me from the bad habits and sullen world attitudes that have compromised my life that has been redeemed by the blood of Christ."
May we be people of faith, living lives that demonstrate the fire of God's Holiness in the everyday walk of life.
Blessings,
M.
Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you-unless indeed you fail the test? (2 Corinthians 13:5)
Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
I'm not sure about you, but somehow the past weeks when I go to church, even with the 40-day fast period and many participating in this season of fast and prayer (I hope!), the atmosphere and spiritual mood seems very mundane and lull. It simply feels like a muggy, non progressive stage likened to that of stagnation - albeit of people's spiritual life or the overall condition of the church.
I'm not saying that I'm not immune to this spiritual muggy feeling now, especially since I'm so bogged down by tedious amounts of work that is resulting in me leaving office only after 8pm. Somehow it is a very irksome feeling to have especially when I'm trying to break out of it and how that the Saturday service would provide the lively break-through. Nothing really happens to the service though and I'm left to wonder where has the fire gone to?
Until I read a sentence made in the prayer of an anglican pastor which prayed for us to show forth Faith with fire. Apart from this nice quotable quote, it actually made a lot of sense of why many are just suffering from stagnation.
Romans 1:17 records that "THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH." Are you living by faith today? Importantly, are you placed in a situation where your faith would not rest on the wisdom and strength of yours, but on the power of God? That's when we allow the fire of God to move us to do what we should do, and not continue to live bogged down by our circumstances and emotions. Put simply, spiritually we need to start moving ahead and not staying static where our soul want to be.
You may be participating in the 40-days fast like me, but that doesn't mean that it is to spiritually charge you up. In fact, you may be just partaking in your own religious rituals without a real connection with God because you could be living a double-standard life. On one hand, you are walking through life, on the other you are trying to juggle christian "duties" like prayer and fasting because it's the season to do it. Ultimately, fellowship with God never seems to be the key thing you are doing and we loose track of the reason why the nation is partaking in this 40-Day fast, it's to refocus back our time and energies back to God.
One classic example to quantify what I'm saying: "There's heaps of never ending dreadful studying/work to be done and all I want to do is chill out or go shopping. Meanwhile, life just goes on and I'm moving unmotivatedly. Meanwhile, better read my 40 Day fast booklet to reflect and make my prayer/fasting moment. After reading, I do hope the days would just past quickly and I look forward to the weekend to escape from it all. I do hope this coming week's church service would be wonderful".
In all of these, where is God in our lives? Relegated to a nice encounter on the weekend worship that is to make us feel good again? Isn't God suppose to take centre-stage and consume our thoughts and waking moments for the entire time and more so as we partake of the prayer and fasting. Never mind the fact that you are partaking to a religious ritual, is this not showing a non-progressive life and sullen earthly mindset? How do we go about to break this because we need to see faith arise with fire.
The bible records that those who are called fathers of faith showed themselves as an example to others around in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity. By faith, Abraham when he was tested, willingly offered up his only son, Isaac to God. By faith, Noah built the Ark for 120 years when instructed by God, inspite of 120 years of opposition and ridicule.
If today, you are yearing for something more that this state of mediocrity, you need to break off the shackles of current mindset of looking at your life through your own eyes. Instead, you need to cry out "Holy Spirit, I need new vision of how I was made for a greater purpose to advance the gospel of Christ! Break me from the bad habits and sullen world attitudes that have compromised my life that has been redeemed by the blood of Christ."
May we be people of faith, living lives that demonstrate the fire of God's Holiness in the everyday walk of life.
Blessings,
M.
Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you-unless indeed you fail the test? (2 Corinthians 13:5)
