Oh dear God we ask of your favour
Come and sweep through this place,
Oh we desire you!
I just wanna be with you, be where you are,
Dwell in your presence, O God.
Oh I wanna walk with you!

C: And I will climb this mountain
And I step off the shore
And I have chosen to follow,
Be by your side forevermore!

Tell me what you want me to do Lord God
Tell me what you want for my life
It’s yours, oh God, it’s yours!

Do your will!
Have your way!
Be Lord God in this place!
Oh I want your will to be done!

C: And I will climb this mountain
And I step off the shore
And I have chosen to follow,
Be by your side forevermore!


G’day mates! Wonder what OSIM stands for? Oh Shit It’s Monday! Ok lame, bad Monday joke. Hahaha well seriously, I used to be sceptical about Monday because my life was routinely boring. But after I made a conviction to live my life as consistently as possible, keeping God in focus throughout, Monday is no longer boring! I pray that you will also be committed to keeping your life pure and holy, pleasing unto the eyes of the Lord.

And so, today being Monday, the After-Sunday-Syndrome is creeping back, and here’s a good recipe to kick out! This week in ASS, we focus on arguably the most popular parable Jesus told: The Parable of the Prodigal (Lost in some versions) Son.

Luke 14: 11 – 32 depicts this immensely popular parable, the context being Jesus sharing parables in the presence of the Pharisees and teachers of the law. It is notable that ‘sinners’ were present during this point of sharing, and Jesus was under scrutiny for ‘welcoming sinners and eating with them’.

I don’t have to repeat the story because you know it (unless you were living in Mars) but essentially, the parable has three main parts:

1.The son takes his father’s money
2.The son realises his stupidity and returns
3.Father welcomes him home.

Of course there are other parts that are equally worth mentioning but due to length constraints, let’s keep it to these few.

Let’s tackle one at a time.

~The son takes his father’s money.

I think if I go up to my father and ask for my share of the family’s wealth, I’ll probably get smacked in the head. My point is no one in the right frame of mind would ask his daddy for that kind of money. Not even during that time. It was deemed as rude and suggestive of one’s father’s impending demise.

This reminds me that sometimes when we ask God for things we need, we ask Him to provide for EVERYTHING we want without realising that what we ask from Him is rude. It’s easy for us to fall into this trap, because we feel that we don’t have everything that we want. So we tend to ‘go shopping with God’.

‘Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered all his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.’

Sounds familiar right? Many times we don’t appreciate the grace God gives us and distant ourselves away from Him, thinking we know it all. We’re not God-focused and we don’t allow Him to increase but allow ourselves to increase. Making things worse, when something bad hits us hard, we clamp up even more, blaming God, blaming everyone but us. I’m sure you’ve gone through this before. I did.

~ The son realises his stupidity and returns
Ever had that feeling that you know you’re doing something bad and foolish but still KEEP doing it? I struggle with that too. Let me share a slice of how this relates to me. In Sec 2, I used to like to be nasty with my language in school. I couldn’t control myself. Until one day, I heard myself and I wondered: “Why am I speaking like this?!” God challenged me to stop and within a month I was completely clean. Praise Him!

I think the worse thing to do is to sin and try and cover it up, especially when you’re in church. You put on that goody-too-shoes image that you often hide behind. Don’t do that! If you cannot realise what you are doing, the best thing to do is to pray Psalms 139.

When you realise that whatever you are doing is wrong, you’re on the right path to repent. But repenting isn’t easy work. I had to put in a lot of hard work during that month, and many times I stumbled. But thank God, I never gave up and I repented of my sin.

Need I say more, brother?

~Father welcomes him home.
Our God is an amazing God. When you are sinning, He still says, “My son, I died for you. I have forgiven you of your sins.” When we turn back to Him and take the first step, He takes a thousand more towards us. There is no better comfort than to reside in God.

In the parable, the father saw his forlorn son walking toward the house and ran to him. He put a ring (this is significant because a ring on one’s finger meant power) and the best robe on him. Similarly, when we take a step back to God, He places a ring on us, calling us His own.


Reflection:
Read Psalms 139. Have we been running away from God, not putting our God-given talents into good use for His kingdom?


isaac
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Love that’s stronger,
Love that covers sin and takes the weight of the world

I love you so
And I give up my life to say “I need, you so. You’re my everything.”

In serving the army, there are a few lifelines that make you feel you’re not secluded from the outside world, one of which is music. Since our cell group has evolved from talking about secondary school, concluding that ACS is better than SA(HAHA) to mortars, machine guns and that @^##^! sergeant of ours, I believe many would identify with me here. With that I begin this week’s ASS.

So there I was, listening to music while pretending to do work like all good lao jiao NSFs do, and I realised that, hey! I’m going to leave the service soon! Not to laugh at those who just went in, I mean we all serve 2 years equal, but I began to reflect on my NS life. One of the key verses I held, and still hold till today, was Acts 1: 8. Have I been a good testimony to everyone around me?

I was brought to Matthew 18: 21-35 immediately: The parable of the Unmerciful Servant. After reading it, I questioned myself. Am I like the unforgiving, unmerciful servant who takes grace from not just God but others for granted?

When we look at the parable from a third person perspective, we always find ourselves commenting, “What a lousy guy, forgiven still go and kachiao others.” Twist that around and imagine God’s looking at YOUR life from a third person perspective, sees you doing the very same thing and laughs to himself. “hahaha Isaac! Say people say yourself.” Thank God for His Grace!

The Lord’s Prayer also contains the similar element of teaching from this parable: “….forgive us of our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Yes, it’s time to reflect on what we’ve done so far. Have we been like the servant that didn’t show grace to his peers? Have we forgiven those who trespass against us?

Freely you gave it all for us,
Surrendered your life upon that cross!
Great is Your love,
Poured out for all
This is our God

Lifted on high from death to life
Forever our God is glorified
Servant and King
Rescued the world,
This is our God.

With His blessings,
Isaac

Ok fair warning: the content below contains plenty of history and writing styles you will typically find in a thick history book. If your response to history is to bury the textbook and forget it ever existed, I strongly suggest you read only the part on the parables. Like all history texts, this is expectedly long and I ask for your patience as you scan through the post. I’ve tried my best to shorten it. Haha! Here’s this week’s ASS, history style.


On May 7, 1945, at General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s headquarters at Rheims in France, Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, formally ending almost six years of war in Europe. Following six years of violence and bloodshed, it took only a mere three seasons for the Grand Alliance of United States, United Kingdom and Soviet Union to fall into pieces. The broken alliance between ‘The Big Three’ spelt the beginning of the ‘cold war’, a term coined by the preeminent journalist Walter Lippmann of the 1940s, and painted a torrid picture of clashing ideologies for generations to remember.

In the study of history, the basic rule of thumb is to identify the cause and effect the situation brings about. We read that once Hitler invaded Poland, seeds of World War II were sown. That’s cause and effect. I like history because I’m always fascinated on how old men used to lead their younger days, how they made silly mistakes. Turn the clock back to 1945 where an uneasy peace nestled upon the globe, where the world mourned for the lost in WWII. Turn further back and you find part one of the World War Saga, where Hitler was a sergeant in the German Armed Forces.

The point I’m driving across is that we all possess a piece of history tucked under our arms and we do not even realise it. It is recorded in the Gospels, the many parables Jesus told to the people, the hidden secrets of how the Kingdom of Heaven is like. Yet some treat the parables clearly as a boondoggle. We read:

(This week’s scripture text is taken from Matthew 13: 44 – 52)

I was pondering on how we can link the bible to what happens in the not-too-distant history, the World Wars and the Cold War. The flexing of military might is commonplace not only in the form of the United States Army and it’s entirety of weaponry, but also in the bible too. The ten North Korean divisions led by tanks and supported by 1,643 guns crossing the 38th parallel mirrors the invasion of Jerusalem by King Nebuchadnezzar and his army.

In more ways than one, history strengthens the why Jesus died for us. Jesus is part of history, but He isn’t history. AMEN! The often-overlooked human cost of fighting the Cold War finds a clear voice in “MIA,” by Marilyn Elkins, the widow of a Navy airman. The prolific incidents of Dien Bien Phu, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs invasion point at the possible numbers printed on the press listed as dead. Encompassing so many perspectives and events, the cold war succeeds at an impossible task: illuminating and explaining the history of an undeclared shadow war that threatened the very existence of humankind. Jesus Christ succeeded in an impossible task: beating the devil down with two sticks and nails and saving humankind with His blood.

Throw the surface-to-surface and intermediate-range ballistic missiles on Cuba away. Throw the bows, arrows and spears used by King David and his magnificent army away and we have the same thought lingering since man knew how to think: life after death. What is the kingdom of heaven like? Jesus tells the people about the kingdom of heaven through parables because even though they have seen and heard from the Son of God Himself, they still are adamant and do not believe.

As important as the first strike capability was to the US and the Soviets at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, so is the importance of grasping the meaning of the parables. We are at DEFCON 1-wartime. Because things need to be done and lives are waiting to be saved. Because we hold the key to letting our friends know about the truth of salvation.

“Dear God, thank you for teaching me the valuable lessons through the parables and through history as well. Help me Lord, to identify the areas of my life that are not in accordance to Your Word. Teach me Lord, to use the parables to reach out to my fellow friends. Your will be done, Lord! In the mighty name of Jesus I pray, Amen.”



God and the soldier all men adore,
In time of danger and not before.
When the danger is past,
And all things righted,
God is forgotten and the old
Soldier sighted.*


*The above poem was found in a British sentry box at Gibraltar.


With His blessings,
Isaac
ASS0140909

hi guys! if you're wondering where in the World Wide Web is this week's ASS, it's currently in two places. one, in my office com and two it's in my head.

IT'S UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

sorry for the delay but i hope that YOU have been seeking the Lord in your time this week. don't forget to do so!

*one good way to start the ball rolling is to ask the Lord: Search me, O Lord. Show me the areas of my life that displease You. Change my heart O Lord, make it ever pure. This is my cry, my one desire. Amen.*


With His blessings,
Isaac