Happily ever after...

This week we had 3 weddings in 5 days. Craaazzzyyy! It was beautiful. All three couples know and serve the Lord. Marriage is beautiful because marriage is of God. Maybe you don't have a good view of marriage due to your experiences. I'm sorry if that is so. When two people get married, two people are responsible to make it work. You can't always control the other person's decisions and actions, but when you are a Bible believing Christian, and you marry another Bible believing Christian, you both submit to God and play by His rules. If there are no rules, anything can happen. It's like a lucky packet. You might not be so lucky.  If there's no accountability to God, you make up the rules as you go, and it might not be to the benefit of your spouse.

In a lawless, godless society, marriage is defined by man, and love is defined by feelings. Feelings are as inconsistent as the weather. "Following your heart" is offered by many life optimisers/personal growth gurus and other 'clever people' as the key to a happy, fulfilled life. Your head or your heart? Neither! Your brain might be fed with the wrong information and your heart can't be trusted (because of sin)! Its best for us to trust God, who understands us more than we understand ourselves, because He designed us and made us. 

Genesis 6:5

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Jeremiah 17:7-19

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,

     whose trust is the Lord.

  He is like a tree planted by water,

    that sends out its roots by the stream,

and does not fear when heat comes,

    for its leaves remain green,

and is not anxious in the year of drought,

    for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

 The heart is deceitful above all things,
    and desperately sick;
    who can understand it?
  “I the Lord search the heart
     and test the mind,
to give every man according to his ways,
    according to the fruit of his deeds.”

God showed us first hand how to approach marriage. Marriage is a covenant. A covenant by definition is giving what you've got, and sticking to your word despite the other party's failure to do so. Its different to a contract, whereby failure of the one party to do their part frees the other party of their commitment. The pattern for marriage is reflected in the gospel. The Bible starts with the first marriage between Adam and Eve, and ends with the promise that Jesus is coming back for His bride (the church). The church is every person who has received forgiveness for their sins through Jesus' blood sacrifice (God's covenant to Abraham fulfilled), and is therefore adopted into God's Kingdom. Throughout the Old Testament, God pursues His people, but they keep betraying Him. They find themselves other gods and live as though He didn't exist. Despite this, he forgives them time and again. He still honoured His covenant with them by sending His Son, His own flesh, to die for them, so that they can be saved and share in His glory for ever and ever. This is the most beautiful love story of all time. (Its the only one where they REALLY live 'happily ever after'!)

Jesus, an image of the 'husband', loved his bride so much that He was willing to die for her, in order to save her. In the same way husbands must love their wives, by dying to themselves. (See Ephesians 5). Similarly, the church must submit to Jesus (honour Him, respect Him, trust Him, obey Him, be faithful to Him and Him alone) in the same way that a wife must submit to her husband. It might sound abusive/old fashioned to us, but show me a husband who loves his wife as he loves his own body, and I'll show you a wife who happily submits to him. If ever we don't understand this concept, we must look at the example of Jesus, who demonstrated this perfectly by first loving and pursuing us, while we were still sinners.

We are not perfect, however, and when two sinners join in marriage, we can be sure that they'll hurt each other and sin against each other. But when they sin, by God's design they should both be humble enough to repent before each other and before God and turn away from their sins. As a Christian we have the Holy Spirit, who convicts us of our sin and makes us hate sin, so that we don't want to do it again. Selfishness kills marriages, and selfishness is at the root of sin. Considering this, we can can see why a Christian marriage has hope of succeeding. I don't know how any couple can stay together without submission from both parties to follow God's rules. Such a marriage is blessed of God. 

If marriage is so hard, why do we even bother? Do we marry for happiness? What if marriage wasn't designed to make us happy, but to rather make us holy? (Gary Thomas in 'Sacred Marriage'). Look around you and you'll see that marriage is no recipe for a 'happily ever after'. Even if you have a happy marriage, your partner can be killed in a car accident or contract a deadly disease in a second. True happiness is just not possible in this life.  No matter how hard you work at it, no matter how many '10 steps...', '7 keys...' or '3 solutions...' you follow, if you look for happiness and fulfillment in people or things, it will fade. True happiness, I believe, is in eternal security. Eternal security is found in Jesus.  Mark 8:36 Jesus says: 'For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?'

Everything seems to come back to our situation. I have realised that when I keep looking at what we don't have, what we've lost and what we long for, I am very miserable. But when I look at what we have in Jesus – eternal security, the hope of a perfect future in heaven where we'll be reunited with our beautiful baby where everything will be happy to a degree that we can't comprehend on earth, no lack, no pain, no tears and no longings, no imperfection – we have peace. What we had or didn't have on earth won't be a patch, it will be insignificant, ridiculously petty, forgotten. And nobody can take the peace that He gives away from us! Thank God.

The truth and nothing but the truth

I am a mother. I am childless. I am a childless mother. I don't feel much like a mother, but I can feel the childlessness very clearly. Is childlessness without motherhood more bearable?

I can't deny that the pain that I feel is very real. Tomorrow would have been Tabitha's 7 month birthday, and I wish I could say that the pain is getting better. In fact it might even be getting worse. I wish I could tell other hurting parents out there that the pain will subside after a while. I'm sorry, at this stage I can't. I can only tell you that the only thing that sustains me is God's Word. Through it I can learn and grow and get to know Jesus better. With Him I can face each new day and the hope that it brings.  Despite sorrow, I can get excited as I discover more truth through God's written Word. It is an ongoing journey, that will keep me occupied my entire life. Yes, while I have eyes that can see, ears that can hear and a clear mind, you will never hear me say that I am bored. I thank Jesus for the joy and hope that is found in Him.

I will continue to share my learning with anyone who is willing to listen. The more I learn the more I realize how little I know! I pray that it will encourage you to also study God's Word for yourself, because in order to know God you need to find out who He is. Not according to your friends, your pastor, your family, the magazines, the latest hype, the spirituality shelf in the secular bookstore or even the bestsellers list in the Christian bookstore. For instance, we will all agree that the best way to get to know a celebrity would be to spend time with him/her, rather than to read articles in the media or listen to gossip. You will have a perception of that person, but unless you meet them and spend time with them and listen to what they say and feel, you might think you know them but you will only ever know a twisted version of that person.  Lets not assume we know God based on what we hear. Lets get to know Him personally by discovering what he wanted us to know about Him, conveniently bound in book form, but every word divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit.

For most of my life I didn't really have any real motivation to study God's Word. I thought that going through the Christian motions was enough. I thought that having a basic knowledge of the Bible was enough. I thought that praying was enough. But I found that if you rely on your basic knowledge and what other people tell you, or even on reading Christian books, watching Christian programs or listening to Christian music, you will never really want more because your conscience tells you you're ok. The problem with that is that you might not be ok. Because why would anyone who call themselves a Christian not be interested in knowing everything about Christ? Today with social media, we can follow every word uttered by our favorite celebs. The true fans will make sure they acquire the means in order to know all there is to know about their favorite sports person/singer/actor or whoever. If you say you're a rugby fan, but don't follow any matches, people will think you're a joke. So don't call yourself a Christian if you don't have a desire to study God and delight in learning everything Jesus ever did and said.

If that's you, I will humbly ask that you reconsider how BIG and HOLY God is and how SINFUL you are. Because only when you realize your need for God's mercy will you ever truly be saved. Nobody is saved because they put up their hand, say a prayer or even desire to live a better life. If we can earn heaven by our own doing nobody will need Jesus to be saved. But none of us are perfect, therefore none of our efforts can ever be good enough. And no judge who is fair and just will let a lawbreaker go free without sufficient punishment. Even us who are imperfect are opposed to injustice when a rapist or murderer is not sufficiently punished. How much more of a fair judge is God? If He is fair and perfect, he cannot make any exceptions. If I just think of all the things I've done that are against God's moral law, there is no way I can ever prove myself innocent of punishment.

The wages of sin is death. When Jesus died for us, he offered a means whereby we can be bailed out. When we believe in Him and repent, he becomes our mediator – He volunteered to take our deserved punishment so that we can go free. He took death – the punishment for sin – upon Himself. Therefore only through the perfect lamb, Jesus, justice prevails.  And God, who is self sufficient and doesn't need us, loved us enough to orchestrate history in order that this can happen, so that we can be with Him for eternity. 

Think of how a person desires a child. Nobody needs a child, but most of us want a child. In reality the child will be an inconvenience and cost a lot of money and time and even if we give our best, the child may never be thankful.  God, as one would expect of a perfect parent, gave us His all. He came down to us, in human form (Jesus), because He knew we're just not good enough to get to Him. Through Jesus we can be adopted into His family. And then all the unthankful children say 'surely Jesus can't be the only way!'. Did anybody else bail you out? Unless you are sinless, you need someone to bail you out, you need Jesus. That is the true gospel dear friends. Don't waste more time. Its very important that we all consider this seriously so that we can be convicted of our sins, realize our need for Jesus, come to repentance before a holy God and be saved from eternal death.

Sadly when I look around me I see so many spoilt, disrespectful, foolish, rebellious children. Children who disrespect their Father, or who act like they don't even have a Father. They move in with other parents who are more open minded and who's rules are not so strict, even though there's no love or fulfillment there. The spoilt ones think they can't do anything wrong in their Father's eyes. They are so consumed with themselves that they actually worship themselves. They seek recognition for their 'greatness' wherever they go. They listen to other people telling them great, but false things about themselves that make them feel very good. They expect their Father to abide by their commands. They expect Him to fall in with all their plans. They think the Book their Father gave them to tell them who He is, is actually about them. They try and use it to get special treats from their Father. They put words in the Father's mouth and then believe it as if He actually said it. They think the Father is only there to serve them, and thereby miss the whole point of the beautiful relationship they could have had. If only they could understand that their Father is BIG and everything they have is actually from Him. In fact, they would not even have existed if it wasn't for Him. Maybe if they humbly realised that they're actually just the child, and that their Father is the actual Father, they would ask for forgiveness and be content to just be loved and love Him back and enjoy spending time together. They might even end up paying attention to their Father for who He is, and not for what He can give them. And they might realise they're not as great and deserving as they thought they were.

I encourage you therefore to seek the truth, get to know your Father. The best way is to sit at His feet, listening to the words directly from His mouth (the Bible). The truth about God is not relative. Its not different for different people. Its not whatever you feel is right. Its not what you believe in your heart. The heart is deceitful and wicked, the Bible says. Just like there is only one truth about you, there is only one truth about God. Just like the truth about leap year is the same for all people, whether they believe it or not, the truth about God is the same for all people, whether they believe it or not. And its not a mystery. Its available to all humble enough to seek it. And it sets us free, even when its not what we want to hear. I know this may come as a surprise to many, but everything you hear that sounds Christian and good and beautiful and motivational, is not truth. The Bible is a two-edged sword. It cuts right to our hearts. And it hurts sometimes. Repentence, self-denial and taking up your cross doesn't come naturally to self-righteous, self-consumed, status hungry, comfort seeking, arrogant people.

This passage sums up quite a bit of what I mentioned.

2 Timothy 3
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. 9 But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

All Scripture Is Breathed Out by God
10 You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11 my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. 12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Ps. If you've never read God's Word, I suggest you start with John. 

Pps. Sebastian is doing well at home, praise the Lord! He is still breathing with the help of a little oxygen. Please continue to pray for him and his mother!