Methodist and the Word of God

TRAC President's Message (December 2008)
THE ESSENTIAL MELT-DOWN

If there is one thing that we must learn from the current meltdown in the financial markets, and a shaking of the world’s economy, is that we cannot trust the various systems of this world. Our trust must be in our God. It is ironic that the starting point of this turmoil started in a country where the dollar note states “In God We Trust.” Yet that is exactly what we did not do. Instead we have placed our faith in money, and man’s ability (or rather clearly revealed now, his inability) to manage it.

A ‘melt-down” is probably the most accurate word to use. Before we can get pure gold, the ore has to be melted down in liquid form, and from this we will be able to extract a very refined state of the element. Our trust in the world’s system has melted down, and it is the correct time for us now to extract from this situation the pure kind of realities we need in order to overcome.

In the light of eternity, our money and material wealth are worth nothing, and cannot be carried forward into our future. Most of us know this for a fact. Yet, when it comes to living day by day, our worldview is framed by what we see in this world and what we work with in this world, even though we know that they will not last for eternity. We become dependent and in a large way have placed our trust in money in order to survive, even though we say we trust God.

What will last in eternity are the things of God, especially the Word of God. The Living Word of God is God Himself. In communicating to us, this Living Word comes to us in the written Word. God has allowed Himself to be understood in the written words of Holy Scripture. However, these written words are not to be understood only as coloured words printed on a white sheet of paper. Neither is it to be understood only as English, or any other human language. The Word, in written words, is more than just what we see on the pages of the Bible. They commit to us the very truth of God. The words in the Word are the truths of God, truths that last for eternity. When we believe these truths, we receive eternity into our lives.

For us to arise out of the ashes of the crumbling world systems, we must construct our lives now with these eternal elements of God’s truth. They are not tangible to our physical senses, but they are eternal realities just as cash is what we can feel when we rub them between our fingers. The truths of God are real, not imaginary. They are not simply even thoughts or ideas we have conceived in our minds. They are spiritual realities. They are the very substance that make up and shape our eternal destiny. When our bodies turn to ashes and all our cash as well, what remain of us are the eternal realities that we have received into our lives.

Hence, if our financial stockpile has vanished, what will see us through is the truth of God that says, “I will open the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessings that there will not be enough room to receive it” (paraphrasing Malachi 3:10). The blessings that we will receive from this heavenly storehouse will come to us as tangible earthly substance we can use here in this material world. Yet the source of where it came from is eternal spiritual heaven. Heavenly realities were transformed to produce material that we can need here on earth. But for that to happen, we must meet the terms and conditions of that written word in Holy Scripture to “bring all the tithes in the storehouse (of God) that there may be food in My house” (Malachi 3:10, italics mine).

God’s eternal word is that we must trust. That word is what will see us through. That word is recession proof, unchangeable, and it is activated by our faith in it.

This Advent season is a reminder to us of how God did just that more than two thousand years ago. The Christ Child came into this world in a similar process. The baby (earthly being) was conceived when the Holy Spirit (eternal reality) came upon the virgin, through the eternal Word (another eternal reality) announced by Gabriel, and received in faith and submission by Mary (Luke 1:26-38).

It pays eternal dividends to know God’s Word, and receive it by faith.

Have a very blessed Christmas, and may all the eternal realities that the Christ Child came to bring on earth, be yours to enjoy as well.

Shalom

Rev Dr Wee Boon Hup

TRINITY ANNUAL CONFERENCE (TRAC) SINGAPORE
copied from http://www.trac-mcs.org.sg/index.cfm?GPID=61