Psalm 22 Prayer for Wallace

When I read Psalm 22, I remember my dear son, Wallace, especially for verses 9-11, not so much of the rest. Because he is such a sensitive child towards things of God. Because he understands things in a different manner. He feels God is far despite God has been good for him before. He feels his imperfection drives God far away. He knows that he is the one who has fallen away and he knows coming back, making a U turn towards God is hard. He wants to try to come around his way. He wants to be a self-made man. 

I pray that one day he will be able to declare Verse 8 and 22-31, that God is indeed surpass his expectations on goodness showed in favour by God to him. No matter how far he is from God, may he knows that he just needs to turn around and finds that God has been faithfully earnestly. May he knows that as a human, it is impossible to turna around and turn to God and be good. There is no goodness other than God. All human goodness pales compared to God's compassion and goodness. There is healing in God's kingdom, prosperity and peace. All that man wants to pursue, it is in God. From God, all things came into beings; from Him all good things abound; from Him, all evil flees. This is the God we serve, mighty and compassionate is He. 

Psalm 22  

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?

2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.

3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.

4 In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them.

5 They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

6 But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people.

7 All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads:

8 "He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him."

9 Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you even at my mother's breast.

10 From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother's womb you have been my God.

11 Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no-one to help.

12 Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

13 Roaring lions tearing their prey open their mouths wide against me.

14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death.

16 Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet.

17 I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me.

18 They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.

19 But you, O LORD, be not far off; O my Strength, come quickly to help me.

20 Deliver my life from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs.

21 Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

22 I will declare your name to my brothers; in the congregation I will praise you.

23 You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honour him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!

24 For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.

25 From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you will I fulfil my vows.

26 The poor will eat and be satisfied; they who seek the LORD will praise him- may your hearts live for ever!

27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him,

28 for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations.

29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him- those who cannot keep themselves alive.

30 Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord.

31 They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn- for he has done it.

Praise and Thanksgiving

Psalm 22:3

Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.

The Almighty God delight to dwell on the Praises of His people.

1 Peter 2:4-10

9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Psalm 35:28

My tongue will speak of your righteousness and of your praises all day long.

Psalm 51:15

O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.

We are to declare the Praises of God on our lips all day long.

The more we cultivate a praising heart, the more we will feel the presence of God. 

Think to give thanks, ponder to give praise.

Praises a choice. Praise unlike thanksgiving, originates of so much in the feelings as in the will. We can choose to praise God whether we feel like it or not. Whenever we are down, sad or depressed, aknowledge your feelings and then decide by an act of your will to focus your thoughts upon the goodness of God. 

Psalm 43

1 Vindicate me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation; rescue me from deceitful and wicked men.

2 You are God my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?

3 Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.

4 Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God.

5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.

Hebrews 13:10-15

10 We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.

11 The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. 12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. 13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. 14 For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.15 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise-the fruit of lips that confess his name.

The altar.

Psalm 147:1

Praise the LORD. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him!

Physical health can be attributed to a thankful heart. 

C.S. Lewis said Praise is inner health made audible.

There is a connection because we are made in our innermost beings for praise. Westminster shorter Catechism : 'Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever.' 

When I go through my day praising God, my blood flows better in my veins. Making praise a habit.

God is the only one who can truly satisfies us. Psalm 63:3 His love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. As we dwell on His goodness, our soul will become thirstier for Him. 

Truthful living in Christ

2 Corinthians 13:1-14

 8 For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.

Examine our moral life : 

1) Have I been truthful and honest ? 

2) Have I been impure ?

3) Have I allowed bitterness to take root in my heart ? 

4) Has love been my motive in everything ? 

5) Have I sought God's glory - or my own glory ? 

Psalm 51:6

Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

Ephesians 4:17-25, 6:14

 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbour, for we are all members of one body.

Ephesians 6:13-18

 13 Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled round your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Live a truthful, pure, no bitterness, Controlled by Christ'a love and 

Examine our moral life : 

1) Have I been truthful and honest ? 

2 Corinthians 13:8

For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.

Truth is inviolable. 

2) Have I been impure ?

Philippians 4:8 - Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things. 

Purity is fundamental. Settle for scriptural standards rather than securely ones.

3) Have I allowed bitterness to take root in my heart ? 

Hebrews 12:15 

See to it that no-one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

Jesus and bitterness are incompatible.

4) Has love been my motive in everything ? 

2 Corinthians 5:14

For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

Let the love of God controls us.

When we do everything for the love of Jesus, the mundane is transformed into the meaningful, the servile into the sacred. Perhaps this more than anything else, makes us aware of God's presence in our hearts. 

5) Have I sought God's glory - or my own glory ? 

Jericho : Mission Impossible

Joshua 6:1-23

God's instructions and strategy to conquer Jericho was peculiar and unlike normal war strategy. He asked them to do silent march around the Wall of Jericho one time for school days and then seven times on the seventh day. 

King of Jericho had double security for his kingdom, the Jordan River that is high tide during spring and the Wall of Jericho. But he heard the Isrealites has crossed over the Jordan River. He became fearful and asked the fate of the Wall to be closed and no one was go out or come in. He summoned his armies to be on guard day and night.

Joshua 5:13-15

13 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, "Are you for us or for our enemies?"

14 "Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come." Then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence, and asked him, "What message does my Lord have for his servant?"

15 The commander of the LORD's army replied, "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so.

Joshua 6:2

2 Then the LORD said to Joshua, "See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.

Why dis the man with a drawn sword said, "Neither" when Joshua asked was he for the Isrealites or the people of Jericho ?

The Promise of God

The Presence of God

The Power of God

What is required on the Isrealites ?

1) Total obedience to God all the way, not half way.

2) Surrender to the ways of God - doing things in most inappropriate time in a most inappropriate place. God called for circumcision at the eleventh hour, after crossing Jordan River. 

What is the Jericho in your life? 

What areas we need to have break through in your personal life, family, career, ministry ? What are the things we fear most ? 

Are we letting God conquered Jericho for you ?

God said he has delivered Jericho into your hands. He has completed the tasks of conquering on our behalf. We need to be obedient and submissive to His call. 

Psalm 144

1 Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. 

We are a people enlisted into God's Army, going into spiritual battles against the Devils. It is not a wa

Ephesians 6:12

 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

The Presence of God

Psalm 16:11

NIV

You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

NKJV

Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

How to cultivate presence of God in our life ?

1) Religion or Relationship 

Be found by God! 

2) Turn to God early in the morning with expectancy

Turn strong to meet the day.

Faith is largely expectancy - expectancy set on fire by the Holy Spirit

Without such expectancy, we are neutralized in defeat. 

Psalm 5:3

3) Be filled with the Holy Spirit

With

In 

On

 

4) God as our Senior Partner in life

Partnership with God 

5) Praise and Thanksgiving

6) Truthful living 

Transitional Time Calls for Consecration

Transitional Time Calls for Consecration

Joshua 5:1-12

1 Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the LORD had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until we had crossed over, their hearts sank and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.

First thing first, consecration precedes conquest.

Consecration - the dedication of a person / object for a specific purpose or use. 

In life, we have many transitions in our life. All translations are important. 

1) Circumcision - A moment of trust - God's Trustworthiness 

Gen 17:11-12

Joshua 5:9

9 Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you." So the place has been called Gilgal to this day.

God asked Joshua to circumcise in the most inappropriate place, inappropriate time and inappropriate group. 

Numbers 14:4-11 

 4 And they said to each other, "We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt."

11 The LORD said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? 12 I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they."

God has delivered them from Egypt but Egypt was still inside their hearts. 

Deuteronomy 30:6 

God will Circumcise your heart so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live. 

2) Passover - A Moment of Thanksgiving

Joshua 5:10
10 On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated the Passover. 

Exodus 12:26-27

The Lord has passover-ed their homes in Egypt. 

Recall of the great works done by God for your past so that we can be of gratitude. 

Thankfulness Comes from an experience of God. 

3) Manna - A moment of truth

11 The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain. 12 The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate of the produce of Canaan.

Senior Partner

Christianity is walking and working each day with a senior partner. Missionary in China

E. Stanley Jones described the divine-human partnership : 'God comes close to His children in a way that leaves them free to think and act, yet in a way that awakens the personality to aliveness and alertness of mind and spirit. His guidance is always sufficiently obvious to be found, but not so obvious that it does away with the necessity of thought and discriminating insight.' God's secrets are always 'open secrets' - open, yet sufficiently secret to make us think. 

He does not dominates our life, not overriding partnership.  

Impurity, pride or resentment can cause blocked channels to our partnership with God. 

Hebrews 2:5-18

Jesus was tempted in every ways as a human. In the person of Jesus, we have a God who can sympathise with our weaknesses because he faced the same temptations and difficulties as we do0

When I have to cross the bridge

Recently, I had a soul searching experience. It was a deep one. Sometimes when one comes to a bridge, no matter how tangy the bridge look, with limited confidence or knowledge about its breaking point, we just have to cross it. There is a slim possibility of turning back but it's not a good choice. You may end up worse than if you do not cross the bridge. It could be a hanging bridge with thunder lighting from above, winds blowing fiercely making it swing and shaky. But it is the only path presented to you, you have to cross it. 

Among the perils of life, you come to this bridge and you just have to cross it. At least be thankful, you are presented with an option albeit it's not what you like. 

Many deep thinking in the depth of the nights, soul searching when gazing at sunrise or sunset, there is only one answer : Just cross it ! 

Pace Vs Peace

Ecclesiastes 8:11

11 I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favour to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

Psalm 147:10-11

10 His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man;

11 the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.

Pace Vs Peace

My Pace or God's Pace
World Peace or God's Peace

It is a choice.

Turn Strong to meet the day

Are we strong enough for the day ? Can we rise above the care of the day ? 

Psalm 139:13-18New International Version (NIV)

13 For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

Psalm 139:13-22The Message (MSG)

13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
    you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
    Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
    I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
    you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
    how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
    all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
    before I’d even lived one day.

17-22 Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
    God, I’ll never comprehend them!
I couldn’t even begin to count them—
    any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
    And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!
And you murderers—out of here!—
    all the men and women who belittle you, God,
    infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
See how I hate those who hate you, God,
    see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.
    Your enemies are my enemies!

When I awake, I am still with You. God is with us in our sleeping and our waking. 

Every morning lean thine arm awhile

Upon the window sill of heaven

And gaze upon thy God;

Then with the vision in thy heart

Turn strong to meet the day.

It is an unknown poet who wrote this. Very optimistic outlook. 
We could wake up gloomy and say, 'Oh Lord, another day.😫😩😞😔' or 
we say with energy and expectation, 'Oh Lord, another day! ☺️😊😇🙂'

Persistent Redemptive Search by God

Our rightful response to God's persistent redemptive search is to turn to Him with humility in contrition and repentance. There is no magic formula, no long distance journey in search of God.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, "To find God, you must have patience as a man who sits by the seaside and undertakes to empty the ocean, lifting up one drop of water with a straw." This is an impossible task and will kill my desire to be spiritual. I would say, "Why bother?" But God does the very opposite. God is like sweeping the universe with the broom of His redemptive grace until He finds the coin on which His image is stamped. 

Luke 15:1-7

 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

I love Parables of Jesus during my Sunday school days. The lost sheep is one of my favorite. As little girl, the idea of an animal lost or left behind or injured was a pitiful sight. The good Shepherd came to the rescue to leave the 99 sheeps to look for 1 is very touching to me at that time. It set my Christian understanding that it is in fact God coming to look for sinners and not sinners seeking to know God.

 

This image is 

John 3:16-18The Message (MSG)

16-18 “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.

James 4:8

 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you

I lift my eyes to the hills

Psalms 121

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills- where does my help come from?

2 My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot slip- he who watches over you will not slumber;

4 indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD watches over you- the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

6 the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will keep you from all harm- he will watch over your life;

8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and for evermore.

From the hospital window, I could see the Mountain. This morning as I read this passage, my beloved are at the foothill of the mountain. 

As the people who live a short distance from this mountain, we look up to this mountain a lot, in fact, everyday. We take prides in the glorious sunrise and sunset it gives us. The whole city background is this mountain and it never fail to mesmerize us with its magnificent views. We do not get bored with its majesty, in fact, we cannot have enough of it. 

When we face difficulty in life, we feel that the mountain is a blockage, a challenge to overcome, then we need someone bigger than The Mountain, to be our help. Our very present help, in times of trouble.

Religious or Relationship ?

John 5:31-47

 39 You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

Religious or Relationship ? 

When we do not come into a relationship with God, our religious behavior, religious knowledge is insufficient. If we do not regularly experience God's presence in our lives then we are not living in the fullness that God has designed us for. No relationship, no true knowledge of God. 

Isaiah 1:10-19

Isaiah 1:16-19 KJV

[16] Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; [17] Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. [18] Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord : though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. [19] If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

The Lord wants our heart to be clean and not just into religious acts. 

Philippians 3:3-9

 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 

We can know God through Christ.

Experiencing God

 Experiencing God

Hebrews 13:1-8

5b "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever.

God's presence is like fresh meadows every morning. It is always there, a certainty and a fact. I could ignore it all the time but He is faithful and is always there for me.

Genesis 28:10-16

 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." 17 He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven."

Deuteronomy 31:1-6

Moses told the people that he is too old to lead.

 6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."

God's promise to be with us is sure and certain but we waiver in our trust and faith in Him. We also do not spend enough time to be transformed into His likeness. In this life, there are many challenges and strifes, if we are not careful to guard our faith, we will become fearful and lack of courage.