Blog 23 May 2024 : Divine Healing, God's Unconditional Love, Trinity, The Gift of Righteousness, Law vs Grace
23 May 2024 - Divine Healing, God's Unconditional Love, Trinity, The Gift of Righteousness, Law vs Grace
Sometimes we learn to function as a bridge to bring people to God, sometimes to bring God to people.
I was in an online cab on the way to my private student, the driver wore a mask & frequently coughed. I frankly felt that I just wanted to relax instead of being engaged in some conversation, but I was practicing that "I have feeling but I don't need to be controlled by my feeling". So I opened up a convo, "Do you have a lot of phlegm in your throat?" in which he said, "Yes, I caught the cough from my wife." I shared with him that I do divine healing (I'm practicing the Christ's given authority as in Mark 16:17-18) that made him responded, "What is that?". I then said, "Let me just put my hand on your shoulder for a moment & your throat will be better" & I did so.
Soon after that his coughing noticeably less frequent. I was just sitting quietly on the the back seat till he asked me, "How come your hand laid on my shoulder & my throat got better?", I explained that it's supernatural, it's more practical to lay hand on the shoulder than on the throat of someone driving the car. I further explained that the healing is the manifestation of God's unconditional love to him. I asked him if his wife still coughed, he said, "Yes, I think she caught it from our maid." I then declared healing for his household too.
He asked me if I'm a Christian in which I said yes. He shared that he grew up in Christian family, his parents are Christian, nevertheless he didn't share about his own belief.
Interesting convo was still going on as he was curious of what I believed, he asked me, "Why do you believe that Jesus is God? Isn't He just a prophet? There's only one God & you can't worship human. Jesus will come back again to rebuke those who worship Him as God. Why there's an old testament & new testament?"
A 30 minutes journey from the north side of Singapore to Bedok South is long enough to briefly share something with him. Here are some points I shared (I didn't share the exact Bible verses with him, but I wrote some verses here are the references of the points I shared) :
1. It starts from our sinful state :
This is the fact : we all are born in sin. Our sinful blood flows from our first ancestor.
Romans 3:10 : As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;"
2. Our need of salvation :
The fact that God's justice is perfect, there must be judicial righteous payment in order for God to forgive us. He doesn't forgive our sins like someone "sweep the dust under the carpet" like nothing just happened, justice must be satisfied.
God Himself demonstrated that there must be an innocence blood shed for the guilty. After the fall Adam & Eve covered themselves with fig leaves, but God made them garment of skin to clothe them (Genesis 3:21) - that shows us that there was an animal died to cover Adam & Eve after their fall.
It's a very humbling realisation that by myself I'm not good enough to His standard of justice (which is nothing less than perfect). No human being could save me from the eternal punishment, not even so called "my own goodness" - we were hopeless. We need God's redemption for our salvation.
3. Even though He is just, God is essentially love :
Yes, as God He is a Majestic King of all kings, but He's not the kind of God that just give instructions for us to follow tightly - He just wants to save us, even from our own sins. Regardless of our sinful state, He still loves us unconditionally. He doesn't want us to be separated from Him & perish, hence He came out with the "redemption plan" that doesn't depend on our effort. This is a good news!
4. How did God redeem humankind?
He needed to prepare a worthy sinless blood. LOVE sacrifices.
I explained to him that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1)
And the Word became flesh (human) and dwelt among us (John 1:14)
As human He was named Jesus, a 100% God & 100% Human
Hebrews 10:5 "Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, But a body You have prepared for Me."
As Spirit God doesn't have body & blood, but the only way to have worthy sinless blood is by becoming human & bleed to redeem humankind.
Philippians 2 explains further Who Jesus is, "5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
I understood his confusion as if God is more than one, I then shared the point #5 to him.
5. What is the Trinity God?
We can't think our Creator with us (the creation) as the reference. I shared some "silly & imperfect" illustration to him, it's just an attempt to explain a Being Who is greater than me, "Imagine a big bottle of water. I took some part of the water body in a small container & put it in the freezer, it would be an ice cube. Some part I put it on a pot & heat it up, it would be invisible gas. Though they are different in appearance & place but they are actually the same, just H2O.
How to explain it further? Is it 1 water, or become 3 water? Nevertheless God isn't measured by physical volume like they way we see or think. He's also not like us, just because He is with me here in Singapore it doesn't mean He is not in Jakarta. Who ever says "because God came as a man it means God is not in heaven" has limit the greatness of God in his/her mind. God is "Echad" (check out the Hebrew word "Echad"). Genesis 1:26 "Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;"
The existence of Trinity : Matthew 28:19 "baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"
I continued to expound Jesus to him : there's why it is important for Him to be born without human father (virgin birth) to keep Him from the sinless blood. Placenta of a mother's womb only send in nutrition & send out secretion, no blood from the mom goes to the baby. Therefore in this manner Jesus is called the Son of God. Long before Jesus was born prophet Isaiah already prophesied about Him in Isaiah 9:6 "For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
7. The importance of His passion & crucifixion
He is the true lamb of God Who fulfilled the prophecies (a lot of them, including in point #2 & #6).
Hebrews 9:12-15 "Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance."
He wasn't murdered per say but He gave Himself as He knew His mission is to shed His blood - John 10:17 "Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again"
8. He shared with me that he heard that Jesus will come back for the second time to rebuke those who worship Him as God.
I said that I heard that too, but it depends on what reference we personally believe. I shared what I believe as the truth from the Bible, since Jesus was born, He has been worshipped, I recalled the nativity story.
Matthew 2:1-2 "After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw His star when it rose and have come to worship Him.”"
Matthew 2:11 "On coming to the house, they saw the child with His mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him (only)."
And I also shared with him from the point #1 before that Jesus is not just a prophet, but He is the Word of God Himself (John 1:1).
He created the whole universe - John 1:3 "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made."
9. Why there are old testament & new testament? - Law vs Grace
I briefly shared that there are 2 major covenants God deals with humankind. It's a story of human being that has the propensity to depend on themselves rather than in God. Even human want to get God's salvation & blessing by their own merit/perfection (covenant of law) not realising that we actually are bankrupt. Once we think we're blessed we would think it's because we are righteous in God's eyes, we think that His love is conditional to our perfection. This actually makes us puffed-up, we feel "holier than though". I shared a story of Lucifer, the fallen archangel that used to be God's worship leader. He was created by God beautifully & thought that he deserved to be god than God Himself - Isaiah 14:12.
He shared with me that he also heard the story of the fallen archangel.
I shared a story of the 10 commandments given to the Israelites through Moses (also known as the law of Moses), it's actually a strict standards of God to bring them to the end of themselves. The intention was to make them realised that they can't hit the standard perfectly so that they realised that they needed a Saviour. The old testament was the story before Jesus was born, a lot of the story showed how mankind couldn't coupe up with God's standards. Where else the new testament tells a story of Jesus and what He did in redeeming us, and how we could live under God's grace by putting our trust in Jesus Christ (covenant of grace).
This reminds me to Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed.
10. Righteousness is a gift to be received
What God did on the cross as and through Jesus was actually for our sake. He became the perfect innocence "lamb of God" whose blood redeemed us from our sinful state. John 1:29 "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!""
This is the foundation of the forgiveness of sin & our salvation. Once we put our trust in Who He is & what He has done, His righteousness becomes ours. My righteousness is no longer based on my own imperfect action which is fluctuating, but it's based on how perfect His redemption is.
11. Revelation from Chinese pictograph
I'm a Chinese who doesn't speak Mandarin, I shared with him some recent interesting Chinese character (pictographic language) I happened to learned, it's "righteousness" (yi). I quickly searched in on the internet & showed him during the red traffic light, he understood the character. It's very interesting to know that even our Chinese ancestor wrote it as "lamb" (yang) on top of "I" (wo). That word already showed us long time ago that we couldn't cover ourselves with our own righteousness, the true righteousness only can be received - it's a gift from what the Lamb has done for us and as us. This truth is very congruent with Genesis 3:21 as a prophetic act I shared in point #2 and with John 1:29 as the fulfilment of that prophecy.
(And as I'm writing this blog I learned that the word "I" (wo) consists of 2 symbols, "hand" & "knife". I think this shows human nature, subconsciously we have "knife in our hand" - war is in our "hidden" nature. I recalled the first murder written in the Bible (Genesis 4:8) when the son of Adam & Eve, Cain killed his own brother Abel due to his jealousy as Abel's offering (first born of his flock) was favoured by the Lord over his offering (fruits) - animal offering typifies redemption by blood & fruits typifies bloodless offering - God's way is by redemption, He sacrifice His own Son for His great love to us (a "scandalous" love story); very where else "religion" is human effort to satisfy God.
Like Cain, when we optimise our own goodness/self-effort to reach God, we could sadly dive into pride & jealousy, "I'm holier than thou" kind of attitude. Many people have been killing each other in the name of religions.
Imagine if there's no covering of the lamb on us, even our goodness is actually evil. This just proves that only by grace we are made righteous. Ephesians 2:8-9 "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.")
It doesn't mean good deeds are not important, but they are not the requirement (roots) to have peace with God. But once we put our trust in God's redemption through Christ, your love relationship with God will produce good deeds (as fruits).
I recalled the most famous Bible verse John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
12. God loves him personally
He looked excited with what I'd been sharing, and I noticed that he didn't cough anymore, so as I'd reached my destination I said," Thank you. Enjoy God's healing for you. God bless you & have a great day ahead."
What a memorable journey.
Daniel Purnomo, 27 May 2024
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