So what is love?

What is love? In our daily life, there are so many meanings to it. To some it could be attributes of a relationship. Oxford Dictionary & Thesaurus describes it has a “very strong affection”. For ancient Greek tragedian, Sophocles it could be the solution, "One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love." It is indeed so difficult to describe the emotion in man over centuries.

Why did Jesus left His heavenly Kingdom to be with us? (Php 2:7) Why did Jesus continue to preach God’s Will? (Mat 5-7), Why did He continue to help the spiritually “sick and weak” ? (Luke 5:31) Why did He ask for man’s forgiveness even in midst while He was brutally crucified? (Luke 23:34) Why did our Lord think, say and do those things for you and me? Or why did God send His only son Jesus Christ to die for our sins? (John 3:16).

The answer is Love - “agape” in greek, which is unconditional love in the Bible. Jesus demonstrated this affection by sacrificing Himself for us (Eph 5:2). From Eph 4:2, this agape-love is best described as:

1. Lowliness and meekness - humility
2. Longsuffering - patience
3. Forbearing one another – bear with, endure
4. Endeavouring – make effort

And we do so out of this agape-love:

1. To seek those who have not understood the blessings and hope we have in Christ. (Luk 19:10)
2. To keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. (Eph 4:3)
3. To “spiritually mature” to defend the faith (Eph 4:15)
4. To edifying of church/brotherhood (Eph 4:16)

The love taxonomy could be a difficult phenomenon to be explained by conventional wisdom. However, God’s Word shines a brighter light on the idea of agape-love in the spiritual sense. But this is only the start. We have to continue to pray, study and serve God to fully appreciate the breadth, length, depth and height of Christ Love (Eph 3:18-19)(1 Jn 4:16). Don’t give up. For our finite mind then to understand, so what is agape-Love? 1 Jn 4:8 (God)!

Cross of Christ

Cross of Christ is the only way for man’s hope of salvation. (Col 1:20). All alone our Lord endured the persecution, agony and shame to gain victory over physical death (Heb 12;2). It is only through Christ, man can be united with God. He is the one and only way to Heaven. (John 14:6).

He showed us that the route to heaven is very narrow, filled with challenges, sufferings and persecution (Mat 7:14), (Mat 10). And only few can find it! Only for those who are able to follow our Lord’s footsteps. Mat 10:38 - And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

In our daily pace of life, we may be faced with many distractions that may “cloud” the narrow way which our Lord has shown us in His Word. For example, pride and pomp of life, love of money, ambition before God, “fit” into the culture of the social group, status (1 Jn 2:16, 17). Are we going to compromise our opportunity by falling away through this “cloud”?

We can stay the course against fleshly lusts and affections from the world in four ways:
(1) Crucifying (subdue/ bring under control)(Gal 5:24)
(2) Denying (abstain – saying ‘NO’) (Luke 9:23)
(3) love not (hate – feel intense dislike) (1 Jn 2:15)
(4) flee (remove yourself) (2 Tim 2:22)

Essentially, is to pull the “weight of Christ” – making the stand of Christ, firm, clear and simple daily!

And of course, done so with the (attitude) humility (Php 2;8) and (action) walking in the Spirit (Gal 5:16) of Christ. These ways would help us to face any persecutions, agony and shame that may come with following Christ in the narrow way!

Gal 2:20, I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

My lovely son, Elias

My Lovely son Elias,
Little one from above,
Full of love and joy,
You came in this world with ahoy!
Mummy, Daddy, Eva love you
Not a day or night pass without your smile and hug
I hear you speak and hold even when we are apart
This distance and duration bring us closer together than ever
May you grow and be strong in the spirit and power of Elias
Who brought glory to the Lord even when outnumbered
Your name means “Yahweh is my God”
May you love and trust in the Lord
Grow up has a soldier of the Lord
And He is all we got!

My beloved Elias, Happy 1st Birthday!
- Daddy

10 Oct 10 0554hrs (SGP); 09 Oct 10 2255hrs (UK)

Lord's Army

Live-Firing is an important aspect of military training. It is the moment of truth when one discovers his ability to use a weapon or even coordinate an assault to achieve mission objective. Though being involved in countless live-firings as supervising, conducting or even as a firer, each experience is still a fresh experience for me. I remember as a young platoon commander, I have to run up the hill with my men supporting fire behind me. “Platoon! Cover me!” I shouted and start cheong-ing up the E-shaped knoll.. while shots are raging around me on targets infront. For the few seconds, my heart will be pounding as loud as the shots and my men echoing behind me in my ears.., I would see rounds chipping off the wooden targets and smell all kind of things …sand, sweat and maybe even ...fear...i think!

Even though I believe in my men, trained them well and had all the SOPs established.. there was something holding me back … somehow .. not allowing me to free up my abilities/ prowess. All though I appear “normal” during the session. I do ask myself: Why are my steps staggering? Why am I not moving faster? Why am I not being observant enough to keep watch of my men doing a flank while rounds shooting over my head? What is holding me back? Is it that I am weak? - No!. Is it that I cant see – Definitely Not!. It is something else, its not something physical but maybe emotional. I could have been making sense of things around me in a negative way. For example, what if that round is going to hit me, Am I running off direction – it is more like my internal conflicts were distracting me from a higher goal. My Men, Our mission and Purpose!

“Fear”- yaw-ray' in hebrew, is described as unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain in the oxford dictionary. It is a negative emotion on things which could likely cause harm or danger. In my case, definitely, the internal conflicts were negative as they “harmed” my focus which was key to my goals. If we remember in Isa 41: 9 – 14, God continuously reminded and consoled the exiled jews in Babylon captivity, “Fear not!” (Isa 41:10, 13, 14). Our Lord/ Master recruited us, we are His soldiers/servants and we are to report to Him only. We do not have to be distracted by the “rounds” that we see, “noises” that we hear or “smells” from the World that may threat to overwhelm us in our daily activities. For example, future uncertainties, current ailments, challenges or struggles in our individual lives. God commanded that He will help us! (Isa 41:10, 13, 14) by being there for us always to strengthen us (Isa 41:10), holding our hand (Isa 41:13) and upholding us from danger (Isa 41:10)! All we have to do is to trust in Him and follow after Him! If we are in danger, just call on His name: Lord, Help me! He will immediately save us just like how our Lord Jesus Christ saved Peter from sinking in troubled waters. So that we can continue on our mission to serve Him. Always remember the strength of our Lord and His promises! No mountain too high nor the shadows of the valley too deep!

We are in the Lord's Army, we are not a one-man army! When He is with us, nothing is against us!

Rock of my Strength

As part of my civil engineering undergraduate research project, i was testing soil samples on their compressibility after subjected to water, I came across rocks which could many times "ruin" my studies! In many instances, I would have to specially remove them to ensure an accurate testing of my experiement. Without the rock, indeed the soils samples easily mashed and crumbled when subjected to pressure or even water. This observation made me appreciate the "strength" of the rock which i relentlessy got rid of to achieve success in my research goals.

While I was reading Psalms 62:6-7, we notice David's dependence on God. He proclaimed the strength that he found in God. "He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defence; I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God."
He refered to God only to be his rock, a description of something unmoveable, of abundant strength, and reliability. God is also described as his only way of deliverance and victory. He added in verse 7 that his human needs of strength (boldness and courage) and refuge (place of safety and hope) is ( presently even during suffering) in God! Beautifully mentioned in verse 7, David reiterated and emphaised that it is only in God he has deliverance, safety and honor (outcomes of things to happen) as he lives daily during both positive and negative times with God's help.

From these verses, we can see that we have to put God has the rock of our strength! Not out of our own abilities or minds. All talents and skills are blessings from God. We should put God has our key core stone in all things we think, say and do! He is the core foundation, He is the motivation in our hearts and minds! Even during our weakness, lets run to him for safety. So that no pressure or measure of challenges could "mash" us like the weak soil but remain unmoveable as God is our solid rock!