Am I Holy Enough? Part2

Greetings again readers,

From my previous blogpost, I presented two questions, “Am I holy enough?” and ‘Am I good enough?”. I would suggest if you haven't been following my blog, do read from the beginning to get a fuller picture of what we are addressing in this blog. It is my hope that it will benefit you to have pertinacious faith in Christ Jesus as you walk this face of this earth.

In this post, I hope to tie the dots between these two questions and by the end of this post, to encourage you that there is hope in this pursuit of being holy and good enough.

Human beings have this inexplicable need to feel ‘good enough’ about themselves. We literally worry if we are not acceptably good enough in the presence of a new acquaintance. We always wonder if we have done well enough upon a completion of an exam, assignment, or a project.

I believe that a human being is made up of his spirit, soul and body. Not until and unless he can make peace with all three, he will still worry if he’s good enough. This feeling is conceived together with each one of us when we came into this world. Many people know how to handle the things which they can feel with their five senses. The ability to improve oneself in their physical bodies and in the mid-deep levels of the human psyche such as the mind, will and emotion are often grasp considerably well by most in this intellectual age. However, I believe that not unless a human being is assured deeper past the soul realms - in one’s spirit - he will not be able to be at peace to have a deep knowing that he’s good enough.

This will also lead to this era of paranoia of people trying to find their identities and self worth from the things they do hoping that it’s good enough. I call this the outside-in life. What we really want to do is to live a genuine inside-out life don’t we?

Thus, the question of whether are we good enough, leads to the more accurate question of, “Are we holy enough?”

Let me just summarize the actual reason of why we have this feeling of not being good enough. In a nutshell, God created us very good. Man felt good enough and in right standing with God. Man sinned. Man gave up his right to be in right standing with God. From then on, man is born with this feeling of not being good enough to stand before this Holy God. Paranoia sets in. Man tries countless ways to feel at peace with himself and God again.

Wow! Enlightening huh?

Not really.

What’s the outcome?

Bad news. Many have tried to make peace with God and themselves but still felt eternal gripping guilt, shame and hopelessness at their deathbeds. Every culture that ever existed in the history of mankind has historical traces and proof of trying to be good enough to reach this supreme being whom we refer to as ‘God’.

There are typically two ways to reach this God. One is to try and be good enough. The other is to be made good enough. Either way substantiates the fact that we need to know we are good enough to be at peace with this supreme God.

It’s a choice that every human being will have to make in their lifetime. However, one choice is the solution. The other choice drowns you deeper into the problem. One is the outside-in life. The other, the inside-out life. Thankfully we have a choice. Hopefully, the choice is made correctly.

In the coming post, I'll talk about how to make and live with the right choice. Always remember, no matter what, Jesus loves you. Be blessed!

Am I Holy Enough? Part1

Rich or poor, old or young, socialites or unknowns, educated or uneducated, criminal or patriot; one thing that all cannot segregate themselves is that everyone are in fact, human beings. If there’s one thing we all have in common as human beings regardless of our different standings, is that each one of us wants to be good enough.

So many people are pushing themselves to their limits of self-improvement these days. Different people do it for different reasons. Some want to prove to themselves that they are able. Some want to prove to others that they are able. Some want a better future- for themselves or for loved ones. Some does it for the competition. Some does it for the adrenaline rush. Some does it for more holistic reasons such as wanting peace and ultimate sense of serenity in life. Some don’t even know why they want to improve themselves but just do because that’s what the whole world seems to be doing.

Attaining more knowledge, skill, ability, respect, likable charismatic personality, affordability, wealth are all part and parcel of today’s modern life. All these things are good in itself but it has gone to such spiraling extremes that I would safely say it’s to the point of paranoia. It is with this urgency I would like to explore the underlying issue of this behavior.

Why are we so desperate to be more able and to improve? When will ‘good’ ever be good enough?

In my humble opinion, I think that unless and until we know why, we will soon come to the bitter truth that we are just chasing an uncatchable wind. We feel it, we run for it and try to chase and catch it, but end up catching nothing. At the end of the day, after one has strived and sweated trying to improve and improve, one can still be found wondering, ”Am I good enough?”. It eats up ones soul from the inside when deep in ones soul, he somewhat knows that he STILL isn’t good enough. Is it all really for nothing? Or is there something more to this modern notion of ‘Get all you can get’ that needs to be addressed?

As a pastor, I have many people wondering whether or not is my job vocation still relevant in this modern era. People tend to associate church, Bible, clergymen, and the likes – as traditional, conservative, old-fashioned, holy. I humbly accept these views because while not accurate, it still has some truth in them. I do not think that I’m traditional, conservative or old-fashioned. I think I’m more of a trendsetter than a traditionalist. I’m more ready to be flexible than to keep to the traditions just for the sake of traditions. I do not think that I deserve the ‘conservative’ label as well. If I may add, I’m the exact opposite. Not saying that I’m a rebel, but simply I’m liberal. Old-fashioned? *laughs out loud*. Last I checked, I wasn’t wearing pope-ish looking garments.

Holy?

Ahhh…,that I can safely say a confident “YES” on another’s account. On my own account, ‘never’.

Good enough?

Same answer as above.

In my own account by my own accord, I can never be holy and good enough. So, what now? Can we ever be good enough? When is ‘good’ ever good enough? If no, why would I even want to give my life to God for His will to be done if I already know that I’m never good enough? Believe me, as a pastor, I’ve asked this question over and over again and for some reason, there is a very good answer on why I can be fully confident that I’m able to fulfill this call that’s upon my life despite of my weaknesses and shortcomings.

You’ll find out why in my coming posts.

Give yourself some time to digest this before my next post. Be blessed!

Grounded Faith, Not Fantasy Faith

A statement of faith in itself does not have any power whatsoever. It’s just a statement. Faith needs a place to grow in; a ground of some sort (grounded? Ground floor? ground coffee??! Lol) to take root in.

There’s this saying that anything put into our hearts, grows. The ground for faith (or fear) is our hearts.

The fertile ground refers to our open hearts. When faith is planted in a fertile believing heart, it will then grow. It grows as we allow words of faith that have been planted to be nurtured. Nurtured how? Many times, words of faith are nurtured through situations where we need to act on these words of faith that are planted in us. That’s where exercise comes in. We exercise by being faithful to these words of faith in our hearts. Faithful in a little, then more will be added to you.

Many Christians are trapped in our own fantasy of one day experiencing ‘breakthrough’ in our lives or in certain areas of our lives yet excluding the Lord Jesus from our daily lives and decisions. Newsflash, the supposed ‘breakthrough’ will never come. Why, because the one who gives the breakthrough hasn’t been given room to break through anything.

If you want your breakthroughs to come, you need to begin to live your today with Christ and allow Him to lead you to and through your breakthrough points. Oh by the way, I should also throw this in – a breakthrough can only happen when you’ve been allowing Him to lead you until you reach those breakthrough points. Do not confuse this with self effort of doing and doing until hopefully you reach those breakthrough points that He finally notices you and gives you some magic dust to ‘breakthrough’. What we are talking about is pertinacious faith in surrendering your every day to Him. Surrendering to something is the evidence of having faith on something.

Faith on Him is of the now and the today. Do not delay any longer. Allow God to lead you today.

I’ll close this post by saying, “’Someday’ isn’t good enough to give everything you’ve got to Jesus. It needs to be today!”

Perception of Faith Explained

Let me start by stating my conclusive notion that living a life of pertinacious faith involves both a journey of growing in faith and experiencing moments of powerful faith explosions. To simply put it - an explosive journey of pertinacious faith.

Let us not be blinded that we need to 'balance' between the two 'types of faith' and in the process deprive ourselves of how real Christianity is meant to be. Jesus says in John10:10b,"I have come that they may have life, and life to the full".

NEITHER of these ways of having faith is the complete way to life our Christian life to the full.

It's easy to lean to one side and forgetting the other. I see many Christians faithfully going to church every week yet experiencing NO power; NO faith explosion happenings in their lives. They live their lives 'just like that'(local malaysian expression, ie - 'like that lor') without any anticipation and expectation of the realm of the supernatural to take place. In fact, it would surprise them if something bizarre happens.

This is blind faith! Don't get me wrong; Faith is stepping into the unknown, yes - but that's just half of it. I would like to further define faith. Faith isn't just stepping into the unknown. It's stepping into the unknown knowingly.

Unknown = yet to be but surely will be known.

Knowingly = knowing that God is already there.

It isn't blind faith. It is purposeful expecting faith with a 100% assurance that there’s nothing too big that He cannot bear or anything too small that He doesn’t care!

Yet there are some(or we sometimes) believers go to the other extreme where we dreamily anticipate and expect only the extravagant extraordinary to happen all the time and when it doesn't happen according to our expectations - we get anxious, we worry, we wonder if God sees our ‘extravagant faith’, we begin to doubt if God really is faithful, we may even wonder what has gone wrong. Then we open ourselves to the blame game of questioning whether there’s something wrong with me, or with others, with our spiritual leaders, or even with the church.

Another problem with this faith extremity is, when we do experience the extravagant and extraordinary, we tend to monumentalize these moments and get stuck with them failing to see that we should never stop moving forward.

Let me say this, faith isn’t wishful thinking. It isn’t crossing your fingers hoping by chance that something will happen. Faith manifests through conviction-filled actions. Faith without works is dead. There IS works involved. However, we do the works not because we are trying to qualify for a result. We do the works because we are convicted knowing that our God is faithful and has already predestined us to live a life of sufficiency in all things – be it natural resources or grace & favour for the impossible – all means absolutely all!

Action from conviction is involved. Faith needs to be exercised. Exercised for what? Exercised so that when an opportunity for a supernatural impossible faith-filled explosion appears before you, you will be ready to recognize it, and to apply that faith to see the impossible become reality.

Let us take a very elementary example of what I mean. Let’s take healing as one. If someone hasn’t learned to believe for healings through Christ for small matters such as a neck ache or a common flu, how is it possible for him to believe for a bigger healing such as from a terminal disease or a condemned organ? It is like trying to carry a 15kg dumbbell with an untrained arm.

This is the reason why Jesus said that faith is like a mustard seed. It has the potential to move mountains (Matthew 17:20) if it’s planted on fertile soil (Luke 8:4-16) and grown until its full measure.

Jesus also said when you are faithful in a little, more will be added to you. If you are not faithful in the little that you have, even what you have will be taken away (Luke 19:11-26). Perhaps, this is why there are certain real experiences you have had from the Lord that you wonder why you have not experienced more. Sometimes, it’s because we were not faithful with what has been already given to us and we remain dreamily just wishing for more wondering if God still loves us forgetting that we need to continue sowing works of faith.

Dear beloved of God, don’t be condemned by guilt if right now if you are recalling certain instances where you were not faithful with the little that you had. It’s never too late and there’s always hope everlasting. Know this, that you are greatly loved by Him and that He will never leave you nor forsake you. Come back to His embrace and be restored to your right standing in Him.

Combining these two lopsided versions on faith, we get a fuller picture of what it means to live a life of pertinacious faith – ‘adhering resolutely to God in complete trust’ and not ‘adhering occasionally to God in partial trust’.

Just exactly how are we to keep exercising our faith?

More application coming at you in the coming posts. Stay tuned.

Perception of Faith

I post this post as a mean of a reflection on the importance of how we perceive faith to be. It’s important to perceive something accurately. What you perceive becomes what you believe in. What you believe in, becomes how you live.

I believe that knowing what you belief in is fundamental in living a life of purpose. I see so many people in this modern era chasing after everything without pausing to actually contemplate on what actually ARE their beliefs. At some distance later, they become disorientated because after all the chasing, they suddenly wonder what are they running after. And worse, not knowing where to place their trust in because they don't have a clue what to they believe in in the first place.

More so for Christians. We should know what we believe in and what our faith is all about. If not, we could be allowing ourselves to reach a point of disorientation even in our faith in God.

Is faith a gradual step by step progressive process of a monotonous journey or is it a momentous manifestation of an eye popping mind boggling occasion that goes down in history books? Should we be contended with just being faithful with our Christian duties week after week even if it doesn’t have any exciting explosive faith happenings? Or should we strive ala desperado for moments of insane manifestation of faith happenings and dismiss the time gap in between as unimportantly irrelevant?

Many believers today are unknowingly confused and often living their daily lives leaning to either extreme of one of these perceptions of 'faith'.

Let us look at both premises and how sometimes we face this challenge in living our lives with faith.

Do we settle for a mundane quiet ‘just-like-that’ Christian faith life? Or do we believe for powerful out-of-this-world stuff to happen? Do we believe in both? If in both, how exactly?

Great! I think I’ve successfully spurred you to think further and deeper about this. Over the course of my next few posts, I hope to unravel some truths in regards to this that I believe will help you live a powerful victorious life of pertinacious faith.

God bless you!

Hi again!

Why am I not surprised this is my first blogpost this year? *laughing*

(clearly shakes his head knowing that he was never an avid blogger)

I was never someone who jumps on any new trend bandwagon just for the sake of. I was one of the last who jumped on to the 'MSN messanger' bandwagon. I sticked with ICQ till the day where I realized I was only chatting with the same few people every day. LOL. I'm an old faithful if I may say. I'm STILL in all the way for emails. I found it more streamlined and personally directed at specific people whom I need to specifically address a specific matter.

But then again, blogging is one of the many modern tools enabling us to widen our influence to point more people to the one and only glorious loving God. Here's me to trying to wield this 'new' tool to channel more glory to Him.

So here it goes, brace yourselves for the floodgates of some real life in-your-face talk of our pursuit of pertinacious faith!

(Ends this blogpost knowing very well that his blog experienced some sort of resurrection some time last year but was left in a zombiefied state). ‎

Blog resurrection!

Hey there people. Wow! It's about time my blog gets resurrected. It just celebrated it's one year anniversary with just 1 posting in it's 1st year!

I bet it's 2nd year will have manifold more postings! ...or not... haha...

It has been a topsy-turvy year for me (in a good way). Lots and lots of new happenings and frontiers has just been keeping me high alert on my toes like a sprinter at the line seconds before the gun goes off. SO nerve wrecking!

Not complaining here though. I wouldn't have it any other way. It's just awesome to be living life on the edge. It keeps things fresh and clear in the pursuit of life in all it's fullness. And that's how life is meant to be ain't it? Who wants a murky hazy stale life??

In the coming postings, I will be zoning in on what are some of the challenges of one who has decided to adhere resolutely to God in complete trust might face; and hope to encourage and inspire you to press on and continue living life as such.

May we all live with pertinacious faith as a lifestyle and not having a 'hot hot chicken shit'1 faith lifestyle.

So if you are reading this and want to make 'adhering resolutely to God in complete trust' a lifestyle, join me in my coming postings! Let us together explore the wonderfulness of our gloriousness living God.

*Jason grins and points to his laptop's 14.1" screen and declares*,

"BLOG RESURRECTION!!"

(1. as the Malay adage goes, 'hangat-hangat tahi ayam'. Which means getting very enthusiastic about something, however very quickly losing steam as well).