Chinese New Year :(

My favourite time of the year is back. This is only time in the year where I get two consecutive back-to-back holidays, or should I say two and the half days of holiday, as Chinese New Year’s Eve is a half day.

I used to really look forward to this time of the year very much during my schooling days because it means no school for almost half-a-week or more. And when it falls on Thursday and Friday, like this year, it means a very very long weekend. It means a very very long break from school.

The other thing I used to enjoy is the time of getting together with my extended family during the New year’s eve Reunion Dinner at my Granny’s place. There was always much joy and happiness during this time of the year. Everyone would be in the festive mood of giving (and collecting) Hongbaos, feasting on the good food and sharing laughs and jokes watching a nice New Year Eve movie together. Everything was so good and perfect.

However, in the past two years or so, things really change a lot. I’m not exactly sure whether I was the one who changed or it was just things that changed.

I no longer feel the joy of Chinese New Year.

It has became a dread for me to go to Reunion Dinner and to meet my relatives, who are very distant people to me. I suddenly did realise that the previous time I met my cousins was last year during Reunion Dinner. The people I see this year just felt like strangers to me, like I am not related to them in anyway. I had to drag myself to Reunion Dinner this year. Truly, I didn’t feel like going at all. I am just ’showing my face’, to applease my parents and my Granny. I didn’t feel the slightest bit of the Chinese New Year mood.

What’s wrong with me? Or what’s wrong with things?

I have yet to answer this question.

But it suddenly dawned on me that my family have been too engrossed with our personal stuff, our daily lives that we have forgotten that we have relatives in the first place. Life just went on and on day by day since last year and one year just passed like that. I grew older by one year without even feeling it at all.

I think I have became too selfish. All I care about is myself, what I am, what I am doing and what I’m going to become. It seems that the entire world revolves around me. I have forgotten that there are others living in this world too that I need to be concerned about, not just my family, but also my relatives who are so distant to me now, my friends and my brethren.

It’s time to step out of my comfort zone!

A life needs a vision, a purpose and a goal. And it doesn’t just involve ourselves, but others and God.

I’m suddenly reminded of this verse again.

Romans 11:36a - For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.

This verse reminds me that I’m not the centre but GOD is the centre of all things. All things are from him, all things go through him and all things go to him.

Romans 11:36b - To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

No Divorce: God’s perspective and God’s way

I was listening to a sermon on Divorce by the late Dr S Lewis Johnson. Just as he was referring to a passage from Malachi 2:16, a fairly familiar passage concerning divorce, I realised something that gave me a lot of encouragement. I thought it would just be appropriate to share.

Malachi 2:16a - ‘For I hate Divorce’, says the Lord, the God of Israel.

Prior to this verse, I was referred to Matthew 19, in which some Pharisees were disputing to our Lord Jesus concerning the issue of divorce. Jesus answered them, saying in

Matthew 19:4-6 - “Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave this father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh’? Consequently they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

This actually explains why marriage is such a sacred thing. Well, I’m not married yet, so I’m in no position to give marital advice, but this is what the bible says. It is because the two shall become one flesh that husband and wife are joined together in union, joined together as one.

But marriage aside, I suddenly realised that ‘one’ is a very common and significant word in the bible.

Even in 1 Corinthians 6:17, it says ‘But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him’ .

Not only husbands and wives are one. The church is also one in Christ Jesus, joined to him in the same spirit, just as husbands and wives are joined together in marriage. In Ephesians, marriage is likened very much to the union of Christ and us, the church.

And that really drew be a lot of comfort, especially when it says that What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

It is true that God joined the man and the woman in marriage, but hey, that is also true for God joining us together in Christ.

For many years, I’ve been struggling with questions like “Can a true christian lose his salvation?” and “Can a true christian be a non-christian again?” There were many fears and doubts in me that I could fall away from the faith. Moreover, at that point of time, I was sinning and sinning and sinning non-stop that I knew God was so displeased with my life. I did question my salvation a couple of times.

But what a great comfort this is to know that God hates divorce. I’m sure that just as he hates the divorce of a husband and wife, he would hate equally or maybe even much more the divorce between God and us.

I do believe that God does hide his perspectives and ways of spiritual things cleverly in the laws of the physical realm. I do believe that just as he doesn’t delight in couples divorcing, he does want to teach us from this physical law that he doesn’t delight that we are separated from him.

He had made us one with Christ. Would he then again destroy this union between Christ and the church?

Definitely not! And in this I rejoice even further, that in Philippians 1:6, it says:

‘For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.’

and in Hebrews 13:5b, it says:

“Be content with what you have; for He Himself has said, ‘I will never desert you, nor will i ever forsake you’ “

What a great solace it truly is that once God has chosen us to be his people, he will always be with us in this wonderful relationship!

Oh how much comfort this would bring me that I needn’t worry about falling away because he is always faithful! He desires in union, not divorce or separation. I would never fall away because he has begun the good work in me by joining me with Christ and he will surely complete the good work that he has done.