Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
Hebrews 12:26
The year has hardly started, and the world has already witnessed some earth shaking unprecedented events. A foretaste of what God has in store for us. Not to destroy us, but on the contrary to save us from our inexorable ride to eternal damnation.
1. The bringing home by our Lord of a significant number of Christians in the Air Asia disaster.
2. The export of the conflicts in Middle East to Europe with the recent acts of terrorism in Paris.
It felt surreal for me having just left Paris a few days before it happened.
2. The continued perilous drop in crude oil prices
3. The unprecedented roiling of financial markets from the removal of the Swiss franc cap.
Even with CHF330 leftover from my recent trip to Basel, I could empathize with the windfall the Swiss must have felt with the enlargement of their purchasing power.
Imagine a sudden end to the relentless QE? Properties, equities and everything funded with cheap monies will collapse. Imagine an America that will soon make gay marriage legal nationwide. A repudiation of her once God honoring tenets. Will Washington D.C and New York City be shaken to its core, to remind self serving men that they can choose to deny God, but no one can ignore His Sovereignty.
Much as "what's next," will increasingly occupy our minds, what's important is "why Lord? and what must we do Lord"
May the thoughts that are shared below, that was penned in Dec last year, but released now, be used by our Lord to remind all that only in living a life that seek to be transformed by Him, can one be ready for the intensifying storms that could outweigh the 2008 subprime crisis.
And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
Hebrews 12:27
Children of The Light#6 Christ is near (18 Dec 2014)
Dear....
'But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.'
Mathew 4:4
There is a decidedly longer gap in my penning the thoughts that our Lord put in my heart.
It is not due to the ever present distractions of our fallen world, but rather, I have been waiting upon our Lord. For clarity of heart, and discernment of His will, for I believe we are on the cusps of a great shaking.
I have set the Lord always before me:
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Psalms 16:8
Many more will be knocked off their comfortable perch, over the next one year. For their souls are at stake, even as many continue to move down the slippery path to eternal condemnation, in their myopic effort to preserve their temporal earthly treasures.
Who would be there to help the awakened realign their lives to Christ?
" The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places;
yea, I have a goodly heritage."
Psalms 16:6
I count my life a blessed one, for God has not just given me peace and joy, He has given me a lovely family, good career, wonderful friends and soul mates, and also a materially comfortable life. And much as there were also many opportunities to be in the abyss, He has always seen me through. And I have come to learn that God will continue to put us through the crucible of fire, as He refines us, till Christ returns or when God so decide to take us home.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity,
nor sworn deceitfully.
Psalm 24:3-4
Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle?
who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness,
and speaketh the truth in his heart.
Psalm 15:1-2
Both verses above were not deliberately chosen by me. They just happened to be in two entirely disconnected biblical articles that I had read. God always awes me with His prescience of verses twice over.
To be transformed unto Christlikeness requires a willing and responsive heart.
A heart that is willing to wait upon Him. A heart that wants to and will be totally reliant upon Him and Him alone.
What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him?
Deuteronomy 4:7
Waiting upon our Lord is about resting in Him, about living a prayerful life. For prayers indeed bring us into communion with our omnipresent God.
Waiting upon our Lord is also about surrender. A truth I learned this morning from a brother in Christ. To unlearn all that helped define our lives, and to let God equip us His way for the role He has next called us to.
This absolute surrender and total dependency upon our Lord is counter intuitive and never easy, for we will resist. For like many, even when I am sure of God's calling, I am often tentative because even if I am willing to move out of my comfort zone, I am unsure as to the efficacy of the move, for I often feel a sense of inadequacy with what I have to be successful. And that has often deterred me from moving boldly forward.
This morning, God reminded me of Gideon. His prompting was so compelling that I even considered renaming myself Gideon.
And an hour later, as I fellowship with a brother in Christ, without any prompting from me, he brought up the example of Gideon. Indeed our God is not just near us, He will speak to us.
God wants our obedience, not our sacrifice. God worked through us, not with us.
'See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.'
Jeremiah 1:10
The pruning has gathered pace. Russia, oil prices, ISIS are but a foretaste, for much as men are increasingly evil, God wants to save those who are willing.
To be His instrument in this great rescue, we must be willing to surrender all, for then will the world witness God fully at work in our lives. For the starting point for all who is blessed to believe and want to follow Christ, is the willingness to submit totally. That is not just an act of repudiation of the sin of disobedience of Adam, but a commitment to let the Holy Spirit restore us into the original relationship that God intended for men.
Stewardship of all His creation on Earth, and total dependency upon God our Father.
God blesses
Eng HIEANG
18 Dec 2014
