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Rom 8: 35 Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or
nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written: “For Your sake we
are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the
slaughter.”37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors
through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor
life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor
things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord.
A well known blogger recently
posted about "loosing faith", her trials and tribulations in her ex-gay
journey through the Real Love Ministry in Malaysia ultimately made her
to question the reality of Christ Himself in her life.
The damage done through ex-gay
ministries are grave, and we need to speak out of the harm caused and
the faith unduly manipulated with an anti-gay aggenda. The result is
self destruction and a demise of Christian faith.
Christian Faith if genuine is not
only a tradition or sacraments, nor a mere connection to a higher
spiritual reality. It is communion with Jesus
Himself, and becoming a child of God. We belong to Jesus in the baptism
of faith. His righteousness becomes ours.
The hardship, pain, despair and
loneliness we suffer, the thousand arrows by the church, society and
family takes a grave toll on our faith and
trust in God. Where is God? where is Jesus to defend the weak?
The church which was supposed to
represent Christ becomes the symbol of oppression. The hand of mercy and
grace, becomes the hand of hatred and harm. We take away the Saviour
from the weak, the wounded, the lost who needed Him most and replaced it
with law based religion.
Even an affirmative christian
church would hardly work, because it is much more than saying God loves
you, and put on some bandage and then commission them to do good and to
love the poor. We end up with an elite gay church of the wealthy and
well to do intellects.
Because ultimately, we have lost
everything, our lives, our hope, our faith, and our family and
relationships. We stare at the sky and say "Why Lord!".
At the end of our lives and
strength, an intellectual religious tradition does not replace the
need for the reality of Christ in our lives as we are spiritual beings.
Without the Blood of the Lamb, there is no power, no touch of the Holy
Spirit. Only in
Christ saving grace, do we become the temple of the Holy Spirit.
When you lost everything, nothing
much matters anymore. The sound of the ringing gong of anti-gay rethoric
by FCBC, and the veil homophobia by NCCS means little. You can only die
once. You can't die again and again.
That is when you reach the point
of God's grace, when you know there is non left of you. All your pride,
hopes, and faith is nailed to the Cross of Calvary.
There is two choice, just as the
prisoners on the left and the right hand of Jesus. We can mock Jesus, or
we can still worship Jesus when we have nothing.
When your faith is lost, you
realised you can't save yourself. Let us be found resting at the foot of
calvary. It is not your faith that matters, it is His faith.
When we stoop low at the Cross of
Calvary, to worship the resurrected Christ, when we open our arms wide,
we come to a position to receive God's grace and mercy. There is nothing
of us to boast, but all of Christ.
The Holy Spirit is often referred
to as the Oil of Annointing in our lives, and we the lampstand of the
Holy Spirit.
We can't survive long in these
harsh and hostile world we live in without the oil of the Holy Spirit to
keep us burning full of faith and fire for God.
It is only at the Cross of
Calvary, because Jesus has paid the price, and has resurrected, that we can
receive God's abundant grace. Our oil jar is full and never shall the
oil stop flowing.
When we have nothing left, the
only thing left is to get ready empty jars, to expect God's grace to
fill our lamps.
Give me oil in my lamp keep me burning
Give me oil in my lamp, I pray,
Give my oil in my lamp, keep me burning,
Keep me burning 'till the end of day.
Sing hosanna, sing hosanna, Sing hosanna to the King
of kings! Sing hosanna, sing hosanna, Sing hosanna to the King!
Give me peace in my heart, keep me resting,
Give me peace in my heart, I pray.
Give me peace in my heart, keep me resting,
Keep me resting 'till the end of day.
Keep me burning O Lord by your
abundant grace and mercy till the end of day when Jesus comes back.
Give me peace Lord, give me rest
in my heart today, for I can't go on no longer without Your Holy Oil.
Light my lampstand O Lord and may
the light of the Holy Spirit in my life keep me at rest and give me
peace.
Let there me waves upon waves of
God's grace in your life through Jesus Christ. Where each wave ends, may
another wave of God's grace comes unto your life because God is a good
God and His mercies endures forevermore. Praise the Lord.
Let us be found ready to expect
God's grace with an empty Oil jar ready and waiting when all is lost and
when we are empty and thirsty for God.
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