Be a role model

Titus 2:7-8

In all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say to you.

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Indeed, we should practice to have a role model in our daily lives. As christian in marketplace and school, it is our mandate to be the salt and the light of the world. To be the salt of the world, we should influence others in a godly way, restore things back to the original purpose according to God's principle. Being a salt, Jesus had specially said the risk or the consequence of not being a good salt in the world, we would be threw down and trampled by others. As a result, to be a starting point to influence others, it is important to live our lives as a role model.

Here are some ways we can do so (Titus 2:7-8):
1) Showing integrity
In our works, we should show integrity. Honesty is not the best policy, it is THE policy. In Matthew 5:37, "But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one." No matter if you are an engineer or other professions, or just being a normal worker, integrity is of utmost paramount.

2) Showing reverence
In greek, the word 'reverence' is σεμνότης(Semnotes) which means seriousness. Take everything serious and be as detail as possible. Do not lightly see a problem or an issue because that might influence someone's life or it might make large contributions on your works. In all projects and assignments in schools, work hard with all you can and in group projects, be a good member or a good group leader, make healthy contributions to the group. Be aware to the fine details.

3) Showing incorruptible and sound speech
In other words, speak wisely, when you speak, speak with edification. Speak in a way that build up other's lives. The life and death is in the power of tongues, you can change someone's life by saying things to them.


By doing this, bible says, our opponents, will be ashamed. I believe this is the time where your influence come in, their heart will open up to you and you can work as the salt and the light of the world.

Be a role model!

Fight a Good Fight!

1 Timothy 6:11-12

But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

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Faith is a fight! It is not thing which you will get directly from God or straight away after you have believed. In fact the journey of faith begins since the point of our salvation, it is just a beginning.

Over here Paul actually taught Timothy to fight the good fight of faith, means we should fight for it, we may have struggles, we may have moments of faithlessness, we have moments of difficulties and disbeliefs. Despite all these things, we must fight the good fight of faith, so that our enemies (Satan) will not have victory over us because God is already in victory!

There are a few aspects that you need to fight for (verse 11):
1) Righteousness
2) Godliness
3) Faith
4) Love
5) Patience
6) Gentleness
7) Self-control, etc

It is an irony but a truth that your faith can only be seen when you go through faithless moments. Your strength can only be seen when you are weak. Same applies for those things which we should fight for.

You can only be more righteous after you went through moments when you can choose not to be righteous;
You can only be more godly after you went through moments when you can choose not to be godly;
You can only be more faithful after you went through moments when you can choose not to be faithful;
You can only be more loving after you went through moments when you can choose not to be love;
You can only be more patient after you went through moments when you can choose to be impatient;
You can only be more gentle after you went through moments when you can choose to be not gentle;

Let's fight for them, and after those crisis and critical moments, I believe we will all get stronger and stronger and continue to serve in the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!

Prioritize your Life

1 Timothy 3:5

For if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?

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There are many talks, seminars, etc which talks about how to manage your time and how to make a good priority. There are many ways or so-called models to prioritize your personal life.
For a worker, the first priority might be his work, so he might spend relatively more time in the workplace than in the family;
For a student, the first priority normally would be his study, so he might spend relatively more time in the library or in study room to study rather than going out to play or spending time with family too.
Of course, it can be easily known that this is not a good way to prioritize one's life.

I have known many Christians who suffers from the struggle between their works, ministries, studies over the relationship with God. Many of them say they have 'no time' for God, I am too tired after work, I am too busy and it is just not possible to read the bible or more importantly, to pray.

God has actually provided us a clear priority for our live, let us look to nowhere else but to the bible.

1) In the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:2, God said,"You shall have no other gods before Me." Here, God does not only refer to physical idols, but also other things which occupy your life so much at which it has become your 'god'. We shall NOT put them in front of God!

2) Paul said, in 1 Timothy 3:5, that a man should not put the church of God (Ministry) or work in front of family. Ministry of God is NOT the same with God, in ministry, you are serving God and people with your works, you cannot build personal relationship with him this way. Same with our works, studies, we cannot build relationship with our families even if we say, "I am working because I want to serve my family, I want to provide money to them" or "I am studying now so that I could get a good job and help my family in finances in the future". You should put your family the 2nd after God.

To further emphasize on family in eyes of God. In Ten Commandments, the first 4 are about God, the 5th one is about honoring your father and mother. Hence, we should put our family after God before our minitries, works come in!


In summary, the priority God wants us to have is:
1) God
2) Family
3) Ministry
4) Work
5) etc..

With this, I am sure God will bless and empower us in every ways of our lives. I am a good testimony in study and in family relationship and I followed this priority in my life.

For if you seek the kingdom of God first, all things will be added unto us.
For if you honor your father and mother, you will live long and prosperous on earth.

Let's prioritize ourselves again!

How to deal with disagreement?

2 Thess 3:13-15

But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good. And if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

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There are many times, no matter where we are - company, project groups, church. There will always be some disagreement among the people. An existence of disagreement will produce not good result but opposite to the group, affecting the performance and make the group weak.

How do we deal with this?
3 ways to resolve disagreement:
1) Do not be weary (v13)
You might face brothers or sisters who might not share the same opinion, same faith or same idea with you. God teaches us not to be weary because God is with us, when we do things we are not doing out of our own ability but according to His Spirit. He will bring us through this, try to let the person understand what you are doing and the purpose so that agreement might come.

2) Do not Company with Him (v14)
If things don't work out, it is good to leave the brother or sister alone, by not keeping him/her in the company so that he/she may feel ashamed. Normally when a person is left alone, he will start to evaluate himself on whether he is right or wrong.

3) Do not add an enemy, add a friend (v15)
Despite leaving him alone, yet do not count him as enemy. Not companying with him doesn't mean boycotting him, it is just simply leaving the person for a while to let him think about it, then come and admonish him as a brother. This is what we call brotherly love.

I believe if you follow the guideline, you will not add yourself enemy, you might find yourself a good lifelong friend. As this is what friends are for.

Remember, the place of agreement is the place of power.

Sons of Light and Sons of Day

1 Thessalonians 5:5
You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness.

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We have always known that we are the children of light when we believe in God. Today when I did my devotion and with help of Holy Spirit and sermon by David Oh from CHC KL on 'What On Earth is God Doing'. I was touched by this particular verse.

Many of us when we read about 1 Thessalonians 5, we will always see a familiar passage about the coming back of Chirst like a thief, which I always thought so too, until I know that we are the children of light.

Jesus said "I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." (John 12:46)

So as long as we believe in God, we are the children of light and we will not stay in the darkness. Right, with this, let us look at the following familiar verse.

1 Thess 5:2-11
2 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. 3 For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. 4 But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. 5 You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. 6 Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. 8 But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. 9 For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.
11 Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.

From here, we could see that, the Lord come as a thief for those who are in the darkness! But for us, who are in light, we will be aware and we will be prepared for his coming. Let us all stay awake and do the works of God in the end-time era. If God put us in this generation, there must be a purpose for that.

Let us do the will of God and be the salt and the light of the world!

Redeeming the Time

Colossians 4:5

Walk in wisdom towards those who are outside, redeeming the time.

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I have encountered similar verse 2 books before in the book of Ephesians. Paul said the similar advise to two different places.

Ephesians 5:16

Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

What did Paul really mean by redeeming the time? So I checked back to the lexicon of these two verse and I found something interesting.

In Hebrew, there are two types of 'time':
1) Kronos - which became 'chrono-' in English, means the normal time, of uncertain derivation; a space of time
2) Kairos - a special appointed moment, an opportunity

In both of these verses, the time here refer to "Kairos" time, which means, redeeming the opportunity.
Paul here told us the reason and the way to seize an opportunity:

1) The days are evil (Eph 5:16)
The devil will always seek to destroy believer from redeeming those kairos moments to hinder the work of God. As a result, we must know how to identify the kairos moment and do not afford to miss it.

2) Walk in wisdom towards those who are outside (Col 4:5)
God doesn't only give the problem and reason, He also provide us a solution. Thank God! To redeem the kairos moment, we have to walk in wisdom towards others. The word we say should be seasoned with salt, should speak with grace and not hurting others. Reply others just like how Jesus did and live your life as testimony and with wisdom.

How do we gain the heart of wisdom?

Psalms 90:12

So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Dwell in the Word

Colossians 3:16

Let the word of Christ (logos) dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

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Word of God is very important in our lives, it is the only weapon that God gave us with attacking power while all the others are of defensive power (Eph 6:14-17, Sword of Spirit, which is the Word of God). Hence, if we dwell in the Word, we could equip ourselves with full armor of God, with both defensive and offensive power to fight against the devil.

Using all wisdom, not only let the world dwelling in us, but RICHLY. Here Paul told the Colossians some methods to let Word of God dwell richly in us:

1) Psalms and Hymns
When you praise and worship God, it will open up your heart to accept the presence of God. You will be open to the communication with God and starts to learn His Word, not only the logos, but the rhema word. Very often I always encounter people saying that God has healed them when praise song was sung, worship song was played. Truly the power and the word of God do play a part.

2) Spiritual Songs
When you open up and sing spiritual songs, speaking in tongues. The word of God will come upon your heart and true enough that I have also heard people said they saw vision of God and heard the Word of God during Spiritual worship.

3) Grace (Thanksgiving)
Only with heart of thanksgiving the power of God can open up without hindrance. It is beginning of the imparting of the Word of God.

4) Teaching and Admonishing one another
When you teach other, you will be taught back and this process happens to and fro. By this you could learn more about the Word of God.

Just as Paul said, by all wisdom, keep the word of God richly in our heart.