Early Morning Pt. II

Like I said in my earlier post on the topic, you don't reason about waking up at 4:30am to pray when you have a full day of work ahead of you. Logically one needs the rest to function properly for the rest of the day but I have felt that by doing early morning prayer (EMP) I've been able to go the extra mile despite wanting to doze off during the day from time to time. I have been very happy.

I think of myself as a bottle, filled with good stuff like energy, love, and joy. (No I'm not into new age nonsense) And this good stuff gets spent as I spend time at work, you see I work in the eye care industry and I dispense optical products. I deal with all sorts of people and to borrow the words of our youth pastor there are two types of encounters we can have with another person. The first type of encounter is the type which saps your energy like that annoying/needy classmate or colleague and then there's a second type of encounter which gives you strength even if you've had a crazy day, like meeting your beloved wife/husband or better, God himself.

Working in retail saps a lot of that energy, especially when you have to smile and keep up good service standards. Then you go to church or go home and you are bound to have interactions with people that demand your love and attention. But you see, in and of ourselves we cannot manufacture this good stuff because we are finite humans and inherently have nothing good.

Our only source of strength, love and joy comes from God who is stronger, full of love and very joyful! That is why we go for EMP as was preached again by our youth pastor from Psalm 143:8 which reads:

Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.

Unless we set our waking hours to seek his face for his love which strengthens and delight us, how would we have the energy or motivation to face the day? The second benefit of seeking him early in the morning is guidance. We get guidance when we commit the rest of our coming day, and our very souls to him.

Do you tithe? Don't just tithe your money, give your time and pray. Do you fast? You can also fast by cutting your sleep time and going to God in prayer!

The more I blog about this the more I have to say, it's so exciting! So till the next time, God bless you and have a wonderful day!

The man who wanted nothing to do with Jesus Pt. III

Okay! Hello everyone, I trust you have been keeping well! In today's post I will finish the mini-series which I have been wanting to complete. We have seen that the subject of this story, the man who was possessed by a legion of demons, being tormented in all aspects of his life and how in his suffering he had no way out of it (1). That was, until Jesus rocked up into his town and turned his broken life around!

Messed Up? No Problem
In this passage of scripture, Mark 5:1-20, I saw a picture of how God saves his people and the things that should follow suit after being saved by Him. I have said it before that when I read this passage I could relate it to myself and people before they have been saved. I may not have displayed such extreme behaviours, but I for sure was shackled by the devil (2) and figuratively running around in tombs, which I see as a picture of me running around a world of decay and death. The scriptures also said that after he had been delivered from this possession he was "clothed and in his right mind". I probably then can assume that he was naked and crazy before Jesus came to meet him. That sure sounds like me before I met Jesus, running around naked yet not knowing my shame because I was insane.

Sovereign Grace
The next point might be contentious for some and I'll try my best to explain it. You see, I believe that God is sovereign in all salvation, the act of saving his people and while this text is probably not the best example used to push the point I still see a hint of it. That for me is better because it shows God's sovereign grace in so-called non-classical, in other words I love to see the Lord's sovereignty in all scripture!

The man who was possessed saw Jesus from a distance away and ran to him, despite being naked and possessed. He may have been driven there by the demons because they knew who Jesus was and had to bow before him or the way I see it is that the man saw this man called Jesus and ran to him, because Jesus had a draw about him. In either case, I see the act of running towards Jesus as the act of coming to Him, the move to ask for forgiveness and profess our faith for God.

However, all this would not have been possible if Jesus hadn't decided to stop at Gerasenes. Look at this map and consider the distance between Nazareth and Gadara:

Source: Keyway Canada

Gadara is supposedly the city which Jesus came as some other texts same Gadarenes and the other cities marked in red is the Decapolis ten cities that were mainly Gentile cities.

Jesus was preaching at the sea of Galilee and from there he went to Gadara. Looks like a short distance isn't it? Yes if you had a car, Jesus had to walk! Now, what I am trying to say is that God goes out of the way to save his people. There is no place too far for him to go to even if it is to save one person. We see later however that it is not just for one person when he saves.

The man would not have been able to meet Jesus if Jesus did not come out of his way to meet this man. In this move, I see Jesus initiating the chain of events leading to the salvation of this man. The Lord is after all the author of our salvation!

Follow & Serve
After a dramatic exorcism sesh and 2000 pigs throwing themselves into the sea, the man was now clothed and in a right state of mind! And what does he do as Jesus and his disciples are preparing to get on the boat and leave the region? He says to Jesus, "Let me follow you." Jesus though, had other plans for this man and he sent the ex-madman to tell his friends and family about what Jesus had done.

The text records that this man could not stop at just his family and started proclaiming Jesus in the Decapolis and it is recorded that the people marvelled! He might have been the first missionary to the Gentiles (3)! If you are saved from clutches of the devil and hell you should start dancing and tell other people!

What should I say? To conclude? In finishing? Sounds like I'm preaching a sermon. Let's go with, in wrapping up we saw that the man was absolutely messed up! But God uses mess ups like him and me to show his mercy. The deeper the brokenness, the greater the healing and that means a more powerful testimony for sharing his mercy and glory!

I have said before and I'll say it again, don't fret or wallow when you're in a rut. Cry out! He hears your cries and he is merciful, watch with expectant hearts as Jesus comes and delivers you with his mighty hand!

I hope you have enjoyed reading the series as much as I have enjoyed it! This last post took close to two hours to write! :) God bless you! :)


Footnotes:
(1) Yes, yes I know that Jesus is the main character of this story and the Bible, please pick some other bone.
(2) See Ephesians 2:1-3
(3) Just a brief note about the possible ethnicity of the man who was possessed, there is a higher possibility that he was a Gentile and a possibility that he was Jewish. However it is not as important as the fact that he was sent out to be a proclaimer of the Gospel to the Gentiles! I see Jesus' missional heart for us Gentile people and it makes me smile! :)

Ten Years Later

Ten years on and I am back here at Blogger, to where it all started. I began blogging when I found a few interesting bloggers through IRC and link hopping through Blogosphere. The first one I found was by Audrey, a dear friend now, and she introduced me to Blogger, I think.

I've since been through different blogs, different names and blogging platforms. (Why is blog, blogging and bloggers still considered spelling errors?! The red curly lines are driving me mad!) The names I have used have been childish, some mildly cool and mostly bordering on silly. After so many years though, I think that nothing sticks as well as my name! Because it is my name and it's quite uncommon... Especially in Australia!

So I hope that my friends will keep on checking back and if you happened to stumble onto the blog, welcome! Stay a while, poke around, I hope you enjoy yourself!

God bless you,

Liang Zhi 良植 양식 Jeremiah
(So many names!)

Psalm 23

A little inspired from yesterday's sermon..

Early Morning Prayer Pt. I

My journey with early morning prayer up till now has been a struggle and a point of contention with the Holy Spirit, myself and my wife. You see I never saw the benefits, ok I'm sure I knew it was beneficial to me but I did not see the need for it, my reasoning being that, "I can pray at anytime, and God can work in me and meet with me at anytime that he needs to!" Right? Yes he can, he does and he surely has.

I have been worshipping in a Korean church for slightly over 2 years now and there is a spiritual discipline that most Korean churches keep, and that is the practice of early morning prayer. By that, they mean 5:00am. My reaction when I heard that for the first time was, "Really?!" Apparently it is for real. You see, Christianity has little over 200 years of history in Korea and by 2005, close to 30% of the population considered themselves Christians! Many attribute this to the power of prayer, specifically the power of early morning prayer, hereby to be referred to as EMP. (Stats from Wikipedia)

Sadly, Christianity is currently declining in Korea as the people become busier and wealthier materially. Consequently, there are churches that are abandoning the practice of EMP. To some Korean Christians that actually signals a decline of a local church.

Since I have started attending Korean church I learnt about EMP and our church encourages everyone to come, especially at the first day of each month to come together to commit the coming month to God in prayer.

Even when I went for those I had to reason with myself over and over and there were times we were told that we had to go 'cos we had to do a song presentation, at 5:00am! And the thought that came to my mind then was, "Really?!"

But you see, it's not about reasoning, not fully anyway. There's no way you can reason with me and talk me into waking up at 4:30am Tuesday to Friday just so I can go to church to doze off there. You see, the times that I did go I found it extremely hard to even keep myself awake. I would doze off during sermon time and during the proper prayer time I would try and finish it quickly so I could go home and sleep.

My heart wasn't right to begin with, I did not want to go because I did not see the reason. And that probably led to me reaping no benefits of forcing myself to do EMP. It felt like a ritual, like I was doing it for the sake of doing it and I really disliked it!

So I didn't go for a long time, I even missed the last few months' first EMPs until recently, the past week to be exact. It's been a good few mornings and as my pastor says praying the first thing in the morning allows us to set the tone for the rest of the day and it has proven true. I will blog about how I come about to that change in heart in my next post on EMP, stay tuned! :)

The man who wanted nothing to do with Jesus Pt. II

Now to continue the post that I started last night, you see I had to sleep early if not I won't be able to wake up and I'd lose my early morning streak and miss the next achievement. Anyway enough of my random nonsense!

Before I move into the good part of the story I want to dwell a little further on the darker side of this story as I feel I haven't fully blogged all my thoughts.

The text doesn't say it but I do not think that he was born possessed with demons, at least I have never heard of that happen to anyone. He was probably a normal person and but he tripped up somewhere, and went deeper and deeper into being lied to by the devil.

We see pigs in the story later, and that to me implies that this wasn't a wholly Jewish region, meaning possibly that this man lived in an idol worshipping city, and was an idol worshipper himself. That is a sure way to let the devil have a foothold in your life.

(Note to self: Share about Transformers conference definitions of Idol Worship.)

This man also reminds me of someone else, someone quite famous. He reminds me of Gollum aka Smeagol! Strange isn't it? Smeagol was a normal dude, until he struck gold and found the one ring. The one ring became his pride and joy, and it had magical powers and seemed to speak to him even!

The ring to me is the embodiment of temptation and greed, and we see the hold it has on Gollum in the movie and how it corrupts his being, inside and out. Remember the scenes of Gollum talking to his own reflection? Where he had a monologue with himself and it looked like a cartoon with the devil and an angel quarrelling on each side of Mickey's head.

Now come back to the story in Mark. I imagine the demon possessed man would have had moments where he was 'sober' and that might have been when he felt the worst because he would have been all alone and living amongst the tombs. Imagine the loneliness, the physical pain and hunger, the elements (the heat or the cold - he's probably not clothed), the mental torment and his emotional brokenness.

Yet it is in these moments that as he felt this pain he would remember better days. He would think of how and where he went wrong and ended up in this place. He would have wept, and it is recorded that he was always crying out, and God the Father heard this man's cries and Jesus, the son who knows the Father's heart went out to him, in compassion.

Are you physically ill or depressed? Maybe your mind is in a mess or you just feel spiritually dry. This man had it the worst, and I don't think anyone is in a situation worse than he was. You see, he was possessed by a demon called Legion, because they were many. A typical Roman Legion had 4,200 legionnaires! What a terrible thing it is to be possessed by so many demons at a go! Yet his cries did not go unheard and he was not too insane or demon-possessed for Jesus.

Do you need a touch or a helping hand? Cry out to Jesus, I believe he answers when we are desperate, as I have experienced His compassion for me when I've cried out to Him.

In the third part I will most likely end this miniseries with meditations on the good stuff and the hopeful end of this man. You see, I think he became the first missionary which Jesus sent out to preach the Gospel!

The man who wanted nothing to do with Jesus Pt. I

I think I am getting new eyes to read scripture with the renewed heart that God has given to me. Just as I was reading Mark 5, the man who was demon possessed and had to be bound by chains and shackled for the first time in many readings came to life in my mind's eyes.

Tears welled in my eyes as I considered this man's plight. He must have been behaving destructively and/or violently for the people around him to have been chained and shackled. The devil had such a hold over this man that he displayed demonic strength with which he broke the chains.

How ironic, (iron heh..) a man whose soul was held in bondage by Satan yet physically he was free of the chains. Back to that in a second.

This man was obviously tormented, he lived among the tombs and he was cutting himself with stones. (v5) My heart went out to this man when I read this passage and strangely I could relate with him, although my behaviour wasn't as extreme as his was.

Here was a man who was in so much pain and he had no way out of it. He suffered in every way possible, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. And like I said before he had absolutely no way out of the situation that he was in.

Yet when Jesus arrived at where this man was, he saw the Saviour from afar and ran towards Him. Yet  the first words this man said to the Lord was, "What have you to do with me...?" It's a very interesting scene because here I see two wills at play here, the man's will and the demon's will. And of course there's Jesus, who I believe was at that place for a reason, to set the man free.

In this story I see me, and I see us humans. All of us suffer from some bondage, and torment from the devil, you may not feel it or you may not recognise it but we suffer in our body, mind, heart and spirit. Everyone of us does.

We think that because we are doing all right in our physical being (note the parallel with the demon-possessed man's freedom from physical chains), that we are fine just as we are. When in fact our inner-being is chained and shackled by Satan, our sinful heart/condition and the world.

To be continued...