The Royal Priesthood: Differences Jesus Has Made In My Life

“He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps.  He has put a new song in my mouth --- Praise to our God; many will see it and fear, and will trust in the Lord.”  Psalm 40:2 – 3

 

We are now at the tail–end of our study of the book Esther, and I am simply out of words at how God has used this study (once more) to reveal fresh truths in my heart --- in my life.  It has helped me look at how God has shaped me over the years granting me more than enough grace I needed for each trial and triumph.  Indeed, it has been an exciting walk with my God.

 

One of the questions we talked about during our study was: What differences has Jesus made in your life that are outward signs of your new identity as a member of the royal priesthood?

This made me reflect on my own journey with the Lord, on how I have grown in my relationship with Him, and on how He has continually reshaped my own view of the world.  So, I started to make a list of the differences Jesus has made in my life that are not only outward signs of my new identity in Him, but are inward evidences of the work He is doing in me signifying that I am His child. 

I have a desire to know Him more in my life and to make Him known. 

I grew up in a religious family, and so I always knew and accepted that there is a God.  I regularly went to church and prayed, but only because I had fear that I might be punished for not doing so or for fear that God’s hand might be against me if I don’t utter a prayer to Him.  My view of God while growing up is that of a guy who controls everything from a distance, and I better get Him on my side or I would be in trouble.  But all that changed when I personally met Him during a life crisis in my college years.  Life, for me, definitely made a huge turn-around.  The hunger in my heart to know Him more and to make Him known became increasingly intense.  He sought me out daily, and I couldn’t help but respond to Him.  This has never ceased, but only became stronger each day.

I have a desire to pray for people and a burden to share the Gospel.

Growing up, I have prayed --- at least a hundred times --- over and over again the same prescribed prayers at church services or church-organized activities.  I was not really taught how to pray to a loving God who is a Father, and I never really knew how to relate to Him especially since I did not grow up with my own father.  So in a way, I would pray mechanical prayers.  I do, however, remember praying in my own words during my high school and college years.  Mostly, I prayed for my classes to get good scores on tests, for asking stuff that I needed then, or for asking him to keep my family and friends safe in His hand.  But even with those prayers, I did not know for sure that I could pray for them.  I just, somehow, said them in my prayers.  I know now, for sure, it was God who has prompted my young, impressionable heart to pray for those things on my own. 

Now, God has placed a burden for me not only to pray for myself or my family, but to pray for other people who may not even be my friend; strangers to me personally, and especially those who have not yet accepted Him in their lives.  He has placed these individuals in my heart, and He has given me a burden to pray for them and to share to them the gospel.  This inclination to pray for these people is, unmistakably, from Him.  Only He can give me the heart to love others, for I know I am more inclined to loving my own.

Lastly (for this writing), but certainly not the least and definitely not the last on the list of the differences God has done in my life, I have the desire to be in fulltime missions.

Working and earning independently are things that I learned early on in my life.  I started selling stuff in school when I was 10 years old.  I was taught early on what income, expenses, and profit meant.  I knew how much I would price my items to get enough to cover what I spent on the items I sell and enough profit so I can at least see some earnings.  In high school, I continued selling stuff --- better stuff.  And at the same time, I would sometimes work on the catering business of my aunt to prepare hundreds of lunch boxes and to also serve hundreds of lunch and dinner plates.  I would be exhausted, but I would be overwhelmed with joy when I get my wages.  In college, I still sold stuff; and again, better stuff than what I sold in high school.  And I also started working part-time at fast food restaurants.  I would go to school during the day, and work through the night.  And when I graduated, God blessed me with a teaching job two months after I graduated.  And even with my teaching employment, I still ventured out and sold stuff to earn more. 

My life has been defined with work and earning.  I don’t particularly like asking people for anything at all, let alone money.  So when God called me to the mission field, I was not jumping up and down with happiness.  I was instantly thinking about the savings I have and how I can use that so I can go to missions without raising funds.   But even that, God took away almost as fast as I thought of it.  He wanted me to rely on Him.  And, I did.  The next thing I knew, I was flying to China fully-funded.  I was beyond humbled with how God worked it out for me despite how uncomfortable I felt with raising funds.   He wanted me to trust Him and not my seemingly capable hands.  I know I could have not raised the money I needed if He was not behind all of it.

The desire to be in missions stuck with me after that.  And I knew, then, He wanted me to go fulltime.  I had to give up working and earning.  He wanted me to fully trust Him for what I will need daily.  And ever since, He has never failed to provide for us through people who have given to my husband and me sacrificially.  And we are always grateful; always humbled for the generosity of these fellow brothers and sisters and for how God has touched their hearts to partner with us in His work here in Thailand.

When I look back, I know I am not the same girl who saw God as a distant being who controlled people’s lives.  I know I am not the same daughter who thought she can never experience having a father to cry out to.  I know I am not the same woman who used to think that she can only trust herself to provide for her needs. 

I am a member of the royal priesthood.   I am a covenant child of God.  I am blatantly identifiable in robes of righteousness and garments of salvation (taken from Beth Moore.)

I am God’s. 

This is all because of Jesus, and what He has done on the cross for me.

 

On Haman and Pride

In God is my salvation and my glory; the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.  (Psalm 62:7, NKJV)

Eager for the Lord’s revelations, I have been studying the book of Esther with some of God’s warrior princesses.  As we have been digging into the story of this beautiful and courageous woman of the Bible, I reflect on what God is saying and not saying on these pages of the Scripture.  And on these pages, I am embarrassed to admit that I (unfortunately) see more of myself in Haman than I would want to think.

Maybe I am not alone on this.  Maybe most of us, if not all of us, can identify with Haman’s obsession of himself.

Like Haman, we can become self-absorbed constantly wrought with ourselves --- our strengths and our weaknesses, our successes and our failures, our past, our present, and our future --- invariably plagued with either wanting to be honored or wanting to be invisible in a crowd.  In both cases, we have narrowed our focus on ourselves.  And like Haman, we can easily jump into presumptions that honor or disgrace is ours when certain situations arise.  God help us! 

Pride is so destructive and so subtle that at times we can be so consumed by it we don’t even realize it has taken us captive.  It can also take different forms and manifest itself in different areas of our lives.   To esteem ourselves extremely high or extremely low is a characterization of the condition of our hearts and how the lies of the enemy have taken root in our lives. 

God has shown me through this study that I suffer from this dangerous condition.  And I am grateful that He has shown me this so I can begin the process of breaking free from it.  It will not be an easy undertaking, but I know that with His truths I can begin walking victoriously free from this bondage. 

I keep a prayer journal so I can look back and see how God is working in my life.  Below is a prayer (using Colossians 2:18) I wrote to Him a few days ago as I continue the battle with pride.

“Forgive me, Father, for the wickedness in my heart and the pride that I have allowed to consume me.  I pray, dear Lord, let no one cheat me of my reward, let me not take delight in false humility and worship of angels, and may I not be vainly puffed up by my fleshly mind.  Help me to break free from the stronghold of my pride and self-righteousness.  Help me to live my life victorious over these, open to love others as You love them; and to have Your wisdom.”  (January 29, 2013, Journal Entry)

I am sharing what God has revealed to me not so that I can embarrass myself, but because I want you to know that God is not going to leave you just the way you are right now.  He is doing a work to perfect you and to help you grow more as His child.  During one of the study times with the book of Esther, He showed me this verse that really spoke volumes to my heart. 

“In God is my salvation and my glory; the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.”  (Psalm 62:7)

Indeed, in God is my salvation and my glory!  Indeed, in God is my strength and my refuge!  No one else can give me what I truly need but Him.  This world is so fickle-minded and can quickly change from being for you to being against you.  I love the way Beth Moore said something about following Mordecai’s example of not allowing honor to get in your head.

“Let’s pursue a walk with God so close that the spotlights of this world --- be they for us or against us --- are eclipsed by His enormous shadow cast on our path.  There in the shelter of the Most High we find our significance and the only satisfaction of our insatiable need to be noticed.  There and there alone we are free to be neither depressed nor impressed with the capricious reactions of this carnal world.”  (Beth Moore, Esther:  It’s Tough Being A Woman)

 

Oh, I pray this over you sister!  I pray that you and I walk so closely with our God that whatever honor or disgrace this world may offer us is going to be overshadowed by His presence.

On Persistence

My God is persistent.  He is persistent on loving me, persistent on burning in me, persistent on keeping me wholly for Him. 

This is what He revealed to me about Himself in the last few weeks. 

October 19, 2012 was the expiration date of my Thai non-immigrant visa.  This visa is the hinge of all our documents here --- my work permit, Jason’s visa --- thus allowing us to legally stay in Krabi.  In February of this year, I acquired my U.S. citizenship in Hawaii where I was granted my US passport.  This event marked the end of a long process of making sure that it’s okay for me to stay out of the States for a very long time.  Thinking that since I am no longer a Filipino citizen both Jason and I agreed that I should use my US passport in entering Thailand.  And our first agenda on the first day of our arrival here was to go to the immigration office to figure out how I can transfer all of my visa stuff from my Philippine passport to my US passport.  After explaining our situation with what we thought was enough information to the immigration officers, the advice we got was to wait for October --- the month of my visa renewal.  Needless to say, we took it as raw and as simple as the advice came from the authority we believed understood where we are. 

Our naïveté brought us eight months later to a huge immigration bureaucratic mess that could have ended up with us leaving the country.  Learning of our mistake, our hearts were crushed and, I must admit, I was very angry.  It is never as simple as that.  Not with immigration.  Now we have this exorbitant amount to pay at the border with money we don’t have, and I have to leave the country immediately.  For me to go back, I have to re-apply at the Thai Embassy in Penang, Malaysia hoping to be granted, despite being branded as overstaying for 208 days in Thailand, with a new visa on my new passport. 

We prayed. We spoke to fellow Christians, and they prayed.  We shared with our supporters, and asked for prayer and help.  And we prayed more.  And in 3 days or so, not only did we raise more than enough money to pay the fine and for the trip to the border but our hearts were filled with extreme peace and comfort with the assurance that all will be well. 

We felt your prayer.

We felt God.

The incident that happened turned out to be a reminder for us that God is persistent in keeping His love, in keeping His promises, in keeping us wholly for Him.  He wanted to show His strength when we are totally weak and desperately in need losing any control over the situation.  The confusion at the immigration and the anger that resulted out of it was definitely the enemy’s handiwork, but the glory that came out of the mess because God’s people gathered together in strength for Him was definitely our Lord’s handiwork.  

For some, what happened was mere bad luck.  For us, what happened was a God moment.  One that would make you look to Him and say, “You are indeed amazing and persistent!”

Staying Married is Not About Staying in Love (from "This Momentary Marriage" by John Piper)

Marriage passes through breathtaking heights and through swamps with choking vapors.  It makes many things sweeter, and with it come bitter providences.      - John Piper


In a few days, Jason and I will be celebrating our second anniversary as a couple.  Still on the honeymoon stage, as many would say, and still such a young couple.  In some sense, that is true, but in another it isn't. As you know, we moved to Thailand to obey the Lord's call on our lives.  We are serving the Lord together in a very dark place, and are experiencing the effects of it on all sides of our marriage.  Good and bad.  But the best thing about it is that we have been brought to a different, very intimate height in our relationship not only with each other but, on a personal basis and as a couple, with our God.

We are young and still very much inexperienced in marriage.  We both know that we still have so much to learn, so much we don't fully understand.  But one thing we do know is that marriage is the doing of God.  And ultimately, marriage is the display of God.  These are not my own words.  These are borrowed from John Piper in his book, "This Momentary Marriage."  This is the foundation of marriage.  It exists for God's glory.  Many of us forget that marriage is not just about two people coming together to share a life together, but it is about God joining two very imperfect people in one flesh.  That through marriage we may experience the beauty of God's love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness. 

Marriage is patterned after Christ's covenant relationship to His redeemed people, the church.  And therefore, the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display. That is why marriage exists. If you are married, that is why you are married. If you hope to be, that should be your dream.  (Again, these words are borrowed from John Piper.) This, therefore, means that staying married is not mainly about staying in love, but most importantly, it is keeping covenant.  This also means that marriage is not held together by money, sex, kids, or jobs.  All good things, but also not strong enough to keep the joy and peace in our marriages.  Only God can fully satisfy us in all our needs.  Only God can truly sustain marriages.

We all have been lied to with our culture today of easy love and casual marriages.  We all have come to believe that marriage only lasts as long as these mushy, warm feelings in our hearts stay.  And when these emotions move on, we are left devastated and disillusioned.  Some have learn to stay in the marriage for the sake of it, others have learned to move on and find the "mushy, warm feelings" again with another person.  Only to find out that even with this person it will not stay on. 

Staying married is not mainly about staying in love.  It is about keeping covenant.  I hope we see that the main doer in marriage is God.  May we see it as the wonder God has created it to be; and may we live it as God has purposedly designed it to be.




Jason and I are currently reading the book, "This Momentary Marriage," by John Piper.  I recommend it to everyone who is married and are seeking to be married one day.  I will be posting more about what we have learned from this book in the coming days. 

On "Desiring God"

I am currently reading, "Desiring God" by John Piper; and I have been extremely blessed with the depth and genuineness of his writing catching myself often reflecting on his ideas in the last few days. I have yet to finish the book, but I want to share with you some lines from it that struck me the most. The whole book has got me thinking a lot on loving the Lord and the joy that comes with it, so really these lines are by no means representative of the whole but it will give you a glimpse of the profundity of the subject on desiring God. So here it goes...

"Happiness in God is the end of all our seeking. Nothing beyond it can be sought as a higher goal."

"The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever."

"This is a subtle thing. We strive against God's all-sufficient glory if we think we can become a means to His end without making joy in Him our end."

"On the contrary, the one who actually sets himself above God is the person who presumes to come to God to give rather than get. With a pretense of self-denial, he positions himself as God's benefactor --- as of if the world and all it contains were not already God's!"

"Strong affections for God, rooted in and shaped by the truth of Scripture --- this is the bone and marrow of biblical worship."

"Love is the overflow of joy in God that gladly meets the needs of others."


"Love is the overflow of joy --- in God! It is not duty for duty's sake or right for right's sake. It is not a resolute abandoning of one's own good with a view solely to the good of the other person. It is first a deeply satisfying experience of the fullness of God's grace, and then a doubly satisfying experience of sharing that grace with another person."

"Love abounds between us when your joy is mine and my joy is yours. I am not loving just because I seek your joy, but because I see it as mine."

"But in truth, everything Christians 'give' to God is simply a rebound of God's gift to them. All our service is done 'in the strength that God supplies' (1 Peter 4:11), so that it is in fact God who 'earns' the reward for us and through us."

" ... there are rare and wonderful species of joy that flourish only in the rainy atmosphere of suffering."

"When the Holy Spirit awakens the heart of a person to delight in the holiness of God, an insatiable desire is born not only to behold that holiness, but also to be holy as God is holy."

"It is an indictment of our own worldliness that we feel more exhilaration when we conquer an external mountain of granite on our own strength than when we conquer the internal mountain of pride in God's strength."

"The miracle of Christian Hedonism is that overcoming obstacles to love by the grace of God has become more enticing than every form of self-confidence. The joy of experiencing the power of God's grace defeating selfishness is an insatiable addiction."

"Normal Christian life is a repeated process of restoration and renewal. Our joy is not static. It fluctuates with real life. It is vulnerable to Satan's attacks."

These are but a few of the lines that caught my attention while reading the book. I hope that it has given you some insight on being a Christian and our happiness in God. But like I said, these lines don't represent everything that the author is trying to convey.