Master of Our Freewill
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced in mid June 2006 that he would transition out of his Microsoft CEO role beginning in July 2008 to further his career in philanthropy with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill and Melinda Gates have already contributed not less than 16 billion US dollars to the foundation comprising three major program areas—Global Development, Global Health, and U.S. Programs.
Bill Gates has been number one on the Forbes list of The World's Richest People from 1995-2006 with 50 billion US dollars of assets. I am sure he is both a well-known entrepreneur and a much talked about celebrity of humanitarian efforts. What you might not have known is that there are also reports that he is also a man with the usual struggles as you and I have. Would you believe that people such as Bill Gates still has struggles over values and meaning of life? It is genuine even though it sounds surprising.
Do you still remember the parable of the foolish rich man in Luke 12:15-21. Before telling the parable, Jesus warned his listeners to beware of all covetousness for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. He then gave a self-explanatory story of a rich man bothering over where to store his bountiful crops. The rich man decided he would build larger barns so as to store up all his grain and goods for his own future use and enjoyment. Nevertheless, he was not aware that God would reclaim his soul that very night. Jesus then posted a question to the rich man, “The things you have prepared, whose will they be?'
This simple story of value disorientation is so true that Bill Gates is not the only rich man struggling for an eternal answer in our Age. You might have heard of Thomas Kwok's (郭炳江) testimony of how he was led to the Lord Jesus by an immense feeling of emptiness, sadness and uncertainty around late 1994. It is so true that (Luke 12:34) where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. In terms of freewill, the actual deployment of one's riches is the true sign of his freewill and values. There is a similar oriental philosophy that true richness is measured by how much one spends not how much one has. In this sense, Mother Teresa is truly rich even by earthly standards.
Beloved, we all know that Christians are not exempt from the need and temptation of money. An honest test of our values and volition is the way and manner with which we spend our money or riches. Let's be reminded by the foregoing parable that we should opt to lay up our treasures in heaven while we are still free and masters of our freewill.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Daily Devotional for August 24th
Trials and Freewill
A friend of mine is facing a tough decision ahead – he needs a drastic treatment to release himself from a persistent and overwhelming financial burden. He is a free man and definitely nobody can rob him of his freewill. However, mature adults as we are know pretty well the dilemma facing such significant and vital decisions in life. What matter are usually not the facts but our emotion and perception.
It is a human nature to seek security and safety as well as to avoid uncertainty. However, it is more often than not that we tend to over protect ourselves with such inclination. As a result, we might end up entangled and become estranged with unjustifiable details and worries in our decision making process. Hence, we loss our orientation in the forest (of reality) while paying too much attention to minute details of a particular spot in it. Is this amazing to you? Let me testify with my and others' experiences known to me, we are biased towards over protection and disorientation unless we have been trained and coping with similar challenges before. Otherwise, it is only through God's grace and guidance that we could make right the first time when we are faced with a threatening and impending challenge.
The Apostle James is well aware of our weaknesses with his teaching (James 1:2-4) telling us to count it all joy when we meet various trials. He further states that for we know that the testing of our faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that we may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Brothers and sisters, do you agree with James? Proverb 15:33 tells us the fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility goes before honor. It goes further (16:2-3) to state that all the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit. Thus, our plans will be established by committing our work to the LORD. An important illumination from the foregoing teachings leads us to understand that trials, humility, trust and commitment in the Lord are essential to set us free from our fleshy and sinful bondages.
Dear brothers and sisters, let's encourage one another to commit ourselves during the trials of life to the promises and teaching of God the Father if you were facing an imminent challenge. Let's also experience how true it is that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom!
A friend of mine is facing a tough decision ahead – he needs a drastic treatment to release himself from a persistent and overwhelming financial burden. He is a free man and definitely nobody can rob him of his freewill. However, mature adults as we are know pretty well the dilemma facing such significant and vital decisions in life. What matter are usually not the facts but our emotion and perception.
It is a human nature to seek security and safety as well as to avoid uncertainty. However, it is more often than not that we tend to over protect ourselves with such inclination. As a result, we might end up entangled and become estranged with unjustifiable details and worries in our decision making process. Hence, we loss our orientation in the forest (of reality) while paying too much attention to minute details of a particular spot in it. Is this amazing to you? Let me testify with my and others' experiences known to me, we are biased towards over protection and disorientation unless we have been trained and coping with similar challenges before. Otherwise, it is only through God's grace and guidance that we could make right the first time when we are faced with a threatening and impending challenge.
The Apostle James is well aware of our weaknesses with his teaching (James 1:2-4) telling us to count it all joy when we meet various trials. He further states that for we know that the testing of our faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that we may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Brothers and sisters, do you agree with James? Proverb 15:33 tells us the fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility goes before honor. It goes further (16:2-3) to state that all the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit. Thus, our plans will be established by committing our work to the LORD. An important illumination from the foregoing teachings leads us to understand that trials, humility, trust and commitment in the Lord are essential to set us free from our fleshy and sinful bondages.
Dear brothers and sisters, let's encourage one another to commit ourselves during the trials of life to the promises and teaching of God the Father if you were facing an imminent challenge. Let's also experience how true it is that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom!
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Daily Devotional for August 22nd
Restoration of Our Freewill
I mentioned yesterday that our world is filled with so much illusions and false teachings working to hinder and disable our free choice in Jesus Christ. It practically means our freewill could be impaired. Yes, it is possible to impair and even deprive somebody of his/her freewill! It involves profound philosophical concept and ideas. Nevertheless, freewill is basically independent and free volition on a pragmatic ground. In other words, freewill is the power to make conscious choices and deliberate decisions in a free and independent manner.
Nowadays, some people question the existence of “freewill” because they claimed that there is scientific evidence showing that people make decisions before the area of the brain responsible for rational thought even gets activated. It is definitely an issue too complicated to be thoroughly discussed in this article. However, we may refer to some of our daily experiences to get an insight of the issue. Parents know well how conflicting or uncontrollable our children and youngsters are. Their behavior is not only rebellious but often unpredictable. For instance, most young children would be excited and happy to go to parties and most of them would make honest promises for behaving well. Nevertheless, clashes and quarrels among youngsters are almost inevitable subsequently. This is a typical illustration for our (youngsters’ at least) inability to fulfill or live up to our freewill and its promises.
Adults are not much better. Taking the example of making New Year resolutions, an American statistics shows that in the longer term, 80% of resolution-makers become resolution-breakers. If you would make a log of what you’ve been decided or resolved to achieve or do and follow them up diligently, I am sure you would agree with me that we are more often side-tracked or off-tracked than not. One of the main reasons behind such discrepancies is the impairment of our freewill. The question becomes then what shall we do to restore our freewill?
The Apostle Paul states that (II Cor. 3:17) the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. In order to regain freedom and hence freewill, we must trust and be abide by the Lord Jesus. The reason is obvious, no one can be living and free before God our Father without a regenerated soul. From a biblical point of view, we may attribute the impairment of our freewill to sin. Indeed, we were once dead but are alive, were lost but are found as God’s children. In order to keep and cherish such a miraculous regeneration and the faculty of freewill, let’s be reminded of the importance of keeping our heart with all vigilance; for from it flow the springs of life (Pro. 4:23).
I mentioned yesterday that our world is filled with so much illusions and false teachings working to hinder and disable our free choice in Jesus Christ. It practically means our freewill could be impaired. Yes, it is possible to impair and even deprive somebody of his/her freewill! It involves profound philosophical concept and ideas. Nevertheless, freewill is basically independent and free volition on a pragmatic ground. In other words, freewill is the power to make conscious choices and deliberate decisions in a free and independent manner.
Nowadays, some people question the existence of “freewill” because they claimed that there is scientific evidence showing that people make decisions before the area of the brain responsible for rational thought even gets activated. It is definitely an issue too complicated to be thoroughly discussed in this article. However, we may refer to some of our daily experiences to get an insight of the issue. Parents know well how conflicting or uncontrollable our children and youngsters are. Their behavior is not only rebellious but often unpredictable. For instance, most young children would be excited and happy to go to parties and most of them would make honest promises for behaving well. Nevertheless, clashes and quarrels among youngsters are almost inevitable subsequently. This is a typical illustration for our (youngsters’ at least) inability to fulfill or live up to our freewill and its promises.
Adults are not much better. Taking the example of making New Year resolutions, an American statistics shows that in the longer term, 80% of resolution-makers become resolution-breakers. If you would make a log of what you’ve been decided or resolved to achieve or do and follow them up diligently, I am sure you would agree with me that we are more often side-tracked or off-tracked than not. One of the main reasons behind such discrepancies is the impairment of our freewill. The question becomes then what shall we do to restore our freewill?
The Apostle Paul states that (II Cor. 3:17) the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. In order to regain freedom and hence freewill, we must trust and be abide by the Lord Jesus. The reason is obvious, no one can be living and free before God our Father without a regenerated soul. From a biblical point of view, we may attribute the impairment of our freewill to sin. Indeed, we were once dead but are alive, were lost but are found as God’s children. In order to keep and cherish such a miraculous regeneration and the faculty of freewill, let’s be reminded of the importance of keeping our heart with all vigilance; for from it flow the springs of life (Pro. 4:23).
Daily Devotional for August 21st
A Matter of Choice
Besides God, another important factor determining our life destiny is our freewill since we decide with our freewill to believe or not. The Apostle Paul points out in II Thess. 2:13 that from the beginning God chose us to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. The work of the Spirit is definitely initiated by and of God while our belief in the truth is essentially a personal response and choice by the individual believer. Paul also reminds us (Heb.11:6) the importance of faith for without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Bearing in mind that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb. 11:1).
I am sure most of us (if not all) must have some kind of “crossroad” experience where we are stranded at a junction of choices because we hesitate and could not make up our mind on which way to choose. The underlying reasons are various. Some may find it difficult to make a choice because they could not see through the available pathways regarding their destinations. Others may simply find that making a choice is too risky for them. Hence, they'd rather somebody make the choice for them.
As you might know, I had been serving as a civil servant before I embarked on my current career as an independent evangelist. The main reason for leaving my former job is basically that I am a job seeker in our Lord's Kingdom. As Christians, we would certainly long for a commendation by the Lord Jesus regarding our earthly works. The Apostle Paul has made a very vivid comment [I Cor. 3:12 – 14]: "If any man builds on this foundation (i.e. Jesus Christ) using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward."
A Christian brother has once asked me, "Howard, are you so sure you are making the right choice?" My heartfelt answer is: "I am not sure if my choice is the best but I believe in our Lord and His choice which is the best." I think you would agree with me that our present status as a chosen people is really a grace of our Lord who, with His wisdom and foreknowledge, had chosen us right from the beginning of our lives at least.
Let us treasure our status as the Lord's chosen people through our choice of His will and plan for our lives. This is especially important when our world is filled with so much illusions and false teachings working to hinder and disable our free choice in Jesus Christ.
Besides God, another important factor determining our life destiny is our freewill since we decide with our freewill to believe or not. The Apostle Paul points out in II Thess. 2:13 that from the beginning God chose us to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. The work of the Spirit is definitely initiated by and of God while our belief in the truth is essentially a personal response and choice by the individual believer. Paul also reminds us (Heb.11:6) the importance of faith for without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Bearing in mind that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb. 11:1).
I am sure most of us (if not all) must have some kind of “crossroad” experience where we are stranded at a junction of choices because we hesitate and could not make up our mind on which way to choose. The underlying reasons are various. Some may find it difficult to make a choice because they could not see through the available pathways regarding their destinations. Others may simply find that making a choice is too risky for them. Hence, they'd rather somebody make the choice for them.
As you might know, I had been serving as a civil servant before I embarked on my current career as an independent evangelist. The main reason for leaving my former job is basically that I am a job seeker in our Lord's Kingdom. As Christians, we would certainly long for a commendation by the Lord Jesus regarding our earthly works. The Apostle Paul has made a very vivid comment [I Cor. 3:12 – 14]: "If any man builds on this foundation (i.e. Jesus Christ) using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward."
A Christian brother has once asked me, "Howard, are you so sure you are making the right choice?" My heartfelt answer is: "I am not sure if my choice is the best but I believe in our Lord and His choice which is the best." I think you would agree with me that our present status as a chosen people is really a grace of our Lord who, with His wisdom and foreknowledge, had chosen us right from the beginning of our lives at least.
Let us treasure our status as the Lord's chosen people through our choice of His will and plan for our lives. This is especially important when our world is filled with so much illusions and false teachings working to hinder and disable our free choice in Jesus Christ.
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