What matters most

What matters most in my life? in yours? Family? Health? Happiness? Satisfaction? Worthwhile work?
What if you and I lose everything even our health? What's left?
Job was a man who experienced a loss beyond what most men have lost - his children were killed, his possessions and wealth all gone and his health was affected with severe sores in his body.
On top of all this he had un-empathetic and non-understanding friends and wife.
What did he do? What was his response?
Strangely, his response recorded in Job13:15 was : Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.
The 'he' and 'him', Job was referring to was God. Job was saying: Though God kills me, I will still hope in Him.
What profound faith! Job's faith was that even if God took EVERYTHING from him including his life, he will still trust, hope, believe, remain faithful to Him.
Do we have this in us? Have we come to a point in our Christian faith that we can completely cast our ALL to Him who loves us deeply. Or is our faith still a 'vending-machine' faith where our relationship to our Lord and God is bless me, bless me, bless me ... or else...
God knows our hearts. Let us allow the Holy Spirit to change us from inside out to have this 'full surrender' faith like Job each and every day. That WHATEVER happens, we declare to all, both humans and non-humans, that God is my God.

From D to C through steps of GRACE

We need to take up the shield of faith to quench the deadly darts of the evil one:

Dart 1: the spirit (demon) of doubt who makes you question God's Word and His goodness

Dart 2: the spirit of discouragement who makes you look at your problems rather than to God

Dart 3: the spirit of diversion who makes the wrong seems more attractive than the right.

Dart 4: the spirit of defeat who makes you feel like a failure so that you don't even try or trust God for victory

Dart 5: the spirit of delay who makes you put off doing something so that it never gets done especially in obeying God.

Our counter-offensive through the Holy Spirit for each of the darts.

Let us daily put on the Lord Jesus and His Spirit will give us :

1) Confidence (believe and trust) in God, His Word and His Goodness

2) Courage (encouraged and empowered with boldness) to see God bigger than anything or anyone else

3) Concentration (focus) on what God said and move forward in truth 

4) Conqueror's attitude ("we are more than conquerors through Christ") that to fail does not mean we are a failure

5) Control (by the Spirit) so that we are quick to obey and disciplined to live out our lives under Christ's Lordship

GSHR

Lord I pray that my workplace will see a transformation from sin-stained to Christ-touched culture. Change the elitist to gracious practices. Transform "two-faced" to sincere relationships. Make 'butt-kissers' become humble and respectful persons. Thank You. Amen and amen.

Why BGV?

BGV stands for Blessed Grateful Victor which is my pen name for this blog. Blessed because without God's blessing I will not be where I am today. Grateful is what I intend to be everyday (hence my other blog a Heart of Gratitude Praise Journal) for every of God's blessing. With His blessing and my gratitude, I will be victorious every day!

New versus Old

When one is born again after trusting Jesus Christ as his Saviour, there is a new nature created in the image of Christ. This is the New Man, filled with spiritual insight and strength because of the Holy Spirit who now resides in him. But the Old Man, the sin nature of each one of us is still there as it can only be removed if we are apart from the physical body we now have.
Hence daily it is a constant battle of the New Man vs the Old Man in us. The New Man has victory if we listen and do the will of God daily. But if we listen to the temptations of the evil one and obey them, we lose and the Old Man in us wins.
Thanks be to God for the victory that we have in Christ who now cancels our sin nature and replaces that with His pure nature.
SIN is, as the middle letter represents, the 'I' nature - self-centred, egoistic and proud. 
CHRIST now replaces our SIN nature when we trust and submit to Him. Notice that the I is still there, as trusting Christ does not make us a robot but we are still unique in our person-hood. But now the I does not occupy the centre position but is subsumed in CHRIST as He lives in us through the Holy Spirit.

WANTED: New Wineskins

All of us who have received the Lord Jesus as Saviour have the New Wine of the Holy Spirit. This new wine enables us to live victoriously as conquerors through our faith. Sin is no longer our master but Jesus is our New Master. But yet some of us are defeated in our daily walk because we still try to keep the new wine in old wineskins. These old skins are akin to old habits and traditions that do not help us and often hinder us in our growth. Old skins especially surface when believers come from Christian homes being products of earlier generations of believers. The "DO NOT"s and "CAN NOT"s of traditional or conservative Christianity can stifle the Holy Spirit's work in us if we are not careful.
May the Lord help us to have our minds and hearts opened to see His new wineskins for us so that the New Wine of the Spirit can be poured into and out of. May we not brand everything that we do not understand as "heresy" or the "wrong gospel" without coming to the Lord and asking Him to reveal His ways to us.

Persevering Faith in Times Like These

The times we live in increasingly show the myriad attacks of our common enemy.
But God is on the throne and He and He only sovereignly rules and reigns.
We need to have perseverance through these times to endure to the end.
We need faith to believe that ALL things will work out for good if we believe and trust in our Good God.
We need persevering faith that will take us through the most difficult of situations one step at a time.
THANKS BE TO GOD who gives us the victory through His Son Jesus Christ!