Sin – 12th April 2024

“And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him.” 1 John 3:5, NLT

We are faithless with fearful hearts when we live as slaves of sin with a law-based mindset. We will sin less and less when we are allergic to sin. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to live with a grace-filled mindset and hearts overflowing with God’s love. The Holy Spirit fills our hearts with the love of God to strengthen our confidence in the hope of God’s salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

As a child of God, we do not have to hide from our sins or to try to earn God’s love – we do not have to earn more, do more, or be more. We are enough and have enough when our hearts are purified from sin and filled with God’s agape love. When our desire is to glorify God in all that we do, we have enough grace each day as the broken body and poured out wine of Christ,  to do what we need to do – to be the hands and feet of the Risen Christ to a sick and dying world.  

One day at a time
Filled with moments of God’s grace
Joy unspeakable

Live from inside out
Overflowing with Christ’s love
In God’s grace alone

Be a child of God
Cleansed from sin by the Spirit
Share our Father’s love

Lord, thank You for Your grace to sin less and love more.

SDG

Father – 11th April 2024

 “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” 1 John 3:1

Our image of God determines the way we live our lives. It is only when we receive God’s love that we will begin the journey to live in God’s presence in the garden of love deep in our hearts. But the deep idols of power, control, approval, and comfort are the weeds in our minds that draws us away from the agape love of our Heavenly Father. Like Adam and Eve, we hide from God when God becomes our Judge instead of our loving Heavenly Father.

Jesus came to reveal that God is not only our Creator but our Heavenly Father who want us to be the best that we can be. God waits patiently for us to turn back to Him to receive the gifts of His grace every day. Jesus taught us to pray to God as our Heavenly Father so that we will remember that God’s desire is for all humanity to live together in love and forgiveness as His beloved children.  We are to be in relationship with God as our Heavenly Father by grace and not as a Judge trying to obey the law to please Him.

Idols in my heart
To seek power and comfort
Blinds me to God’s grace

On the cross of Christ
Our idolatrous hearts are changed
Live by grace alone

Our Father’s embrace
Garden of grace in my heart
To love and forgive

Lord, help me to use Your gifts of grace to share Your Fatherly love with others.

SDG

Anger – 10th April 2024

“Don’t sin by letting anger control you. Think about it overnight and remain silent.” Psalms 4:4, NLT

It is not sinful to be angry. In the Old Testament, we are reminded of the anger of God towards sin and evil. We need to read the Old Testament with the mind of Christ and read the New Testament to have the mind of Christ. Anger can lead us into sinful actions when angry thoughts control our behaviour.  As imperfect human beings we will be provoked to anger, but the good news is that we can crucify our anger with Christ on the cross.

In silence we meditate to be nonjudgmentally aware of the inner critical voice in our subconscious minds that is generating A.N.T.s (automatic negative thoughts such as overgeneralising, mind-reading and fortune-telling) underlying our anger and let the Holy Spirit change them into P.E.T.s (prayerful enlightening thoughts) so that we can respond with patience and wisdom.

By God’s grace, we can be in control of our anger instead of being controlled by anger. Jesus was moved by anger to raise Lazarus from the dead (John 11:38) and to drive the people selling animals for sacrifices from the temple (John 19:45). We can let the Holy Spirit transform our anger to compassion and to glorify God.

Anger is not sin
Turn anger to compassion
To heal and forgive

Reframe angry thoughts
That leads to blame or to shame
Let the Spirit lead

Set free from anger
With the righteousness of Christ
Share the grace of God

Lord, channel my anger into righteous actions for Your glory.

SDG

Ignorance

“And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.” Acts 3:17, ESV

We are living in hell on earth because so many of us do not know God as our heavenly Father. Ignorance of God’s love is the root cause of all the suffering in the world. The Jews forgot the horrors of God’s judgment in Egypt that were needed to change Pharoah’s heart to set them free. They forgot the taste of God’s judgment when they broke God’s covenant in the Promised Land and had to eat the flesh of the children when they were under siege by the king of Aram (2 Kings 6:29). Likewise, our hearts are hardened when we live in ignorance of the love and grace of God. Our stony hearts keep us from seeing others as our fellow brothers and sisters in the family of God.

Jesus came to turn us back to God for we have all forgotten or ignored the signs of God’s grace. In Christ, our stony hearts are changed into hearts of flesh so that we can see God as our heavenly Father and to listen to His loving voice in silence. Instead of living in slavery to sin under the law of the Old Covenant we can choose to live by the grace of God under the New Covenant. With the Holy Spirit we can share our needs and weaknesses to experience the grace of God as we pray for one another.

God did not create
A cruel and messy world
Infected by sin

Horror of judgment
Man’s inhumanity to man
Living without God

Hearts changed in silence
Minds opened to hear and see
Miracles of grace

Lord, keep me from the ignorance of Your love that I may see the miracles of Your grace.

SDG

Faith – 8th April 2024

“And his name – by faith in his name – has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.” Acts 3:16, ESV

Life will be messy and imperfect for we live in a fallen world. But Christ died and rose from the dead to show us that God’s grace is always enough, and His power is made perfect in our brokenness. In Christ, we always have God’s power and presence with us. The kingdom of heaven is seen when Christ is in us and not in what we do. Life is meaningless without faith in the grace of God that is revealed in Jesus Christ.

Faith in Jesus Christ
Power of God’s healing love
Miracles of grace

The way of the cross
Power to face suffering
Hope of a new life

Life will be messy
But by grace all will be healed
Broken but beautiful

Lord, give me the grace to grow in my faith in Your healing love.

SDG

Receive – 7th April 2024

“Then he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” John 20:22, NLT

To believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is to be reborn again. It is to live by grace the new life as a child of God. Just as God breathed the breath of life into Adam to give him physical life, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit into us to give us life in the Spirit. We cannot understand the things that God wants to give us with the spirit of the world. We need the power of the resurrection to bring peace to a world infected by sin and evil. We need the Holy Spirit to see the kingdom of heaven that is hidden in pain and suffering.

To receive the Holy Spirit, we have to open our hearts to God with the spirit of poverty – blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We have to come to the end of ourselves – to see our pride crucified on the cross of Christ and let the Holy Spirit move freely in our lives. The Holy Spirit is the spiritual power of the Risen Christ in our lives.

It is the spiritual atomic power of the goodness of God that was revealed in Jesus Christ and is in us when we are led by the Spirit – the power to love, heal and forgive. Without humility and repentance, the taste of power leads to the lust of power, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is only with a poverty of spirit that we will have the power to turn the world upside down. It is by living from inside out with a total dependence on the Holy Spirit.

Receive the Spirit
Breathe in the Holy Spirit
Be still to listen

To heal and forgive
Gift of the Holy Spirit
Love one another

Live from inside out
To turn the world upside down
Led by the Spirit

Lord, crucify my pride that Your Spirit may flow freely in my life.

SDG

Believe – 6th April 2024

“Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!” John 20:27, NLT

We live in a world that has forgotten God and where God’s presence is hidden in the hustle and bustle of life. We are distracted and deceived by technology that is interrupting rather than informational and our minds are infected with fake and false news. We now believe only what we can see. We are faithless in the mysteries of spiritual realities which we cannot see. We are living in a famine of truth and are enslaved by our fears. We need the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truths to find the Truth in the Risen Christ. We need the Holy Spirit to change our stony and stubborn hearts so that we can believe and see God’s amazing grace.

To have doubts is to be human but doubts can drain our faith in God. However, like Thomas, we can turn our doubts into a growing faith in the Risen Christ. The good news is that God is faithful even when we are faithless. Jesus came to be the living Word to open our eyes to the reality of heaven here on earth. In Christ, the Word of God becomes the Sword of the Spirit to expose the pride, greed, and lust in our hearts that keep us from having faith in God. We need to meditate on God’s Word, not to fill our minds with information, but to renovate our hearts. When our heart’s desire is to seek God, we will grow the mustard seed of faith to believe and to cultivate the be-attitudes of the kingdom of heaven.

Fear is a symptom
A life without faith in God
A life with no peace

To doubt is to be human
Faith in the resurrection
Believe and see Christ

Live by believing
May others see Christ in us
As we care and share

Lord, remove the weeds of unbelief that I may bear the fruit of my belief in Your resurrection.

SDG

Fellowship – 5th April 2024

“But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7, NLT

To live in the light of God is to see our need for one another and our interdependence on one another. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin so that we are no longer blinded by sin to live for ourselves but to care for others. The biggest obstacle to charity is insecurity. We need the shield of faith to put to death the idolatrous strategies of the world to strive to seek success purely by human effort instead of thriving by living a life of faith with the power of the Holy Spirit.

We will be distracted and discouraged in our interactions with others. We will be tempted to blame and shame. We are all mirrors of our sinful human nature but in Christ we can be windows of God’s grace for one another. Prayer is to grow the mustard seed of faith in us. Jesus spent much time in solitude and prayer to be with God so that God can be in Him. Likewise, we need to spend time in silence to seek the gifts of the Holy Spirit and to bear the fruit of the Spirit. For it is only the Spirit that can bind us together in love as the family of God.

Set free from our sins
Fellowship to care and share
Windows of God’s grace

To live in the light
Unquenchable faith in Christ
Walk by the Spirit

By the blood of Christ
Live as the children of God
A light to the world

Lord, teach me to live with others in the fellowship of Your love.

SDG

D.E.W. – 4th April 2024

“Harmony is as refreshing as the dew from Mount Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion. And there the Lord has pronounced his blessing, even life everlasting.” Psalms 133:3, NLT

Heaven on earth is where we live together as brothers and sisters in a loving and caring community. There is no single villain or single hero in a caring community – we seek to discover everyone’s worth – the d.e.w. of everlasting love. The good news of the gospel is that Christ has risen and is alive in us. In Christ we are allergic to sin, addicted to Jesus and available to the Holy Spirit.

We need spiritually developed people filled with the power of the Spirit to be peacemakers. When we live as children of God, we will be peacemakers and not warmongers – to make peace and not war. The gospel of peace is speaking truth to power to expose the lies of evil. To draw attention to the danger of power and prestige and the temptation of wealthy power.  We need to face and understand our shadows – to transform our fears and hurts so that we will not transmit them to others. To do so, we need the discipline of silence to rest in God’s loving embrace.

We are all precious
Discover everyone’s worth
Live in harmony

Life everlasting
In loving communities
Heaven here on earth

Listen to embrace
Be filled with the love of Christ
Live as God’s children

Lord, help me to d.e.w. today

SDG

Unity – 3rd April 2024

“Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” Psalms 133:1, ESV

It is so sad that Jews, Christian and Muslim are not able to live in unity when they have a common faith in the God of Abraham. The horrors and tragedy of the wars in Gaza and Ukraine are grim reminders of the potential for evil that lies deep within the human heart. Aggression is inevitable in a world that is divided by race, culture, and creed, and driven by pride, greed, and the lust for power.

There is a spiritual war between love and evil. The good news is that Jesus has won the battle. Like King Hezekiah, we can pray, “Now, O Lord our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O Lord, are God.”¹Jesus came to reveal the wonderful vision of God for human beings to live in unity as the family of God.

Instead of trying to put on an armour to fight the devil,² we can put on our personal protective equipment to keep ourselves from being infected by the virulent virus of sin. We need to put on cap of salvation, the mask of peace, the gown of Christ’s righteousness, the gloves of faith and God’s Word, and the belt of truth. In solitude, we let the Autonomous Negative Thoughts (A.N.T.s) die so that we can live in unity with others with Positive Encouraging Thoughts (P.E.T.s).³

The early disciples showed the world how to live together in a co-operative and compassionate community by pooling their resources for the common good. Jesus came to empower us with the power of the resurrection to form creative communities of compassion. As followers of Christ, we are to live as the risen body of Christ to heal a broken and dying world.

Warring thoughts divides
The elephant in the mind
Blinds us to God’s grace

Loving thoughts unites
By the power of the cross
Live in unity

Bring heaven to earth
Live for the good of others
With the love of God

Lord, help me to seek unity and to live in diversity by Your Spirit.

SDG

1. 2 Kings 19:19; 
2. Ephesians 6:13;
3. Berit Lewis: Aging Upwards, page 93, 
4. Acts 2:45