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Rising Cost of Living & the End Time

7 June 2022 blogpastor 2 Comments

I was seated at the Giant supermarket when my wife came to me and showed me some French beans. She said the price has doubled. Later she brought to me another two types of vegetable and told me the amount it increased. Yesterday, I also read in the news that some premium petrol has reached the SGD$4 per litre mark. Unheard of in all my thirty years of driving. It seems that prices have increased more than 50% in many cases. Electricity rates have gone up. Transportation costs have gone up. Food prices have gone up. My wife informs me about price increases. She does the grocery and pays the bills. She knows.

I sometimes tell her, “Can you quote Philippians 4: 19 “my God shall supply all your needs” at the end of every update of price increase?” God’s promises need to be mentioned alongside news of inflation. It is an antidote to worry and fear. Faith comes by hearing the word of God.

This inflation looks likely to be set in place for the long haul. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has affected the world. Pandemic lockdowns have caused disruptions of supply chain distribution and will continue to do so as long as China keeps its zero-covid policy. And not to forget: the GST increase the Singapore government had announced it would implement from 1 January 2023 onwards. It will keep its word.

We are living near the close of this age. The black horse and its rider (symbol of famine or food shortages) with the pair of scales in his hand in the Apocalypse (Rev 6:5,6) reminds us of what is to come. “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, or three quarts of barley, but don’t lay a finger on the oil and wine”. What can feed only one person can only be bought with a whole day’s wage. Barley would be cheaper but still the amount would not be be enough to feed a whole family. The poor will suffer. Only the rich can afford what was once affordable for the middle income (oil and wine). Cost of living will skyrocket. So will lawlessness. Only the love of many will decrease, will grow cold (Matthew 24:13).

Where does this leave retirees living off the monthly amounts from their CPF retirement savings? If they receive a monthly payout of SGD$1,000 a month, it will be able to buy one half of what it used to be able to buy in goods and services. The current crisis invites us to trust God to be faithful in providing for us. He who feeds the sparrows knows our need. It invites us to live within our modest means and find contentment and joy in Him alone. It invites the well-off to look out for poor who are in need, and to share God’s abundance with them. The church has the opportunity to truly become the community of love Jesus envisioned. May the world see this and say, “How these Christians love one another!”

Preparing Pilgrims for the Camino Ignaciano

31 May 2022 blogpastor Leave a comment

Preparing people for the Camino Ignaciano 2022 has been a joyful experience for me. The word camino in Latin means path or way or road. The famous camino is the Camino de Santiago, which is an ancient pilgrimage network of paths and roads that pilgrims travel on foot to reach the destination of the Cathedral de Compostela. The Camino Ignaciano (“Ignatian Way”) is another pilgrim route of 640km taken by St Ignatius from Loyola to Manresa. You can read more about this HERE. The difference between this pilgrimage and the “original” is that this has an added silent retreat component of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius enclosed within the camino. This contemplative component makes it unique.

My role in the Ignatian Journey team together with Matthew Chen, is to prepare people for a more fruitful experience of this walk. Obviously, physical conditioning is part of this process, so the team has organised a series of monthly walks beginning with easier walks to more challenging ones, as the pilgrims approach the date of their departure in September and October. Learning to walk with the Ignatian dictum of finding God in all things is the other thing we hold space for them to cultivate during these organised walks.

Thus far, we have had four practice walks and I have begun to meet wonderful people who love the Lord and hope to experience Him through this camino. They are all of different levels of physical fitness, with a few apprehensive if they would be able to keep up. I am confident they will be able if they keep having regular lengthy walks outside of the organized walks. While doing this, they can continue to learn to be more fully aware of God’s presence all around them and to enjoy God’s many bountiful gifts of His creation and man’s.

I am enjoying it because my years of hiking and prayer experience is both being used by the Lord to help prepare these people for their camino. I enjoy getting to know a few of them and to hear some of their stories. I like it when I see these friends bathed in perspiration, or relishing the fresh forest air and birdsong. In addition, I can feel the sense of achievement and anticipation building up among them with each practice walk. It is a joy to see them greet and share stories with each other, months before they walk together in the cool but sunny weather of Spain in September.

Christ’s Finished Work: Intercession of Christ

24 May 2022 blogpastor 4 Comments

This is part of a planned series of writings on the topic of “The A to Z of Christ’s Finished Work”. I am writing it alphabet by alphabet. Thus far the others that I have written can be found HERE. Feel free to use it in personal or group discipleship discussions to establish the faith of believers. It can also be used to inspire ideas for pastors to use as a series of messages to strengthen the faith of the congregation.

Fruit of the Finished Work

Christ’s intercession for believers is a fruit of his finished work. Without his death and resurrection, there would be no basis for intercession to the Father on the believer’s behalf. The basis of Jesus intercession for believers is that he paid the price for their redemption, the forgiveness of sins, once and for all, by giving his sinless life to take away the sins of the world. “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Romans 8:33,34).

Picture the evil one before the God accusing believers of their faults, shortcomings and sins of omission and commission. The accusations are not without basis and the believers have to admit to them. However, there is an Advocate, a defence lawyer in the heavenly courts who speaks us for us to God. He says in effect, “These believers have sinned in thought, word and action. However, I came to earth, and I paid the price for their redemption, the forgiveness of all their sins. Therefore, I intercede on their behalf on the basis of my shed blood, that they be forgiven totally of all wrongdoing, and that they stand before you clothed in my righteousness instead”. God listens to Christ’s valid, effectual intercession and our sins are all cancelled out and we are acquitted.

The Freedom of a Forgiven People

This is why believers can live in the freedom of a forgiven people. They are far from perfect and do sin and fail daily, but they have Christ to intercede for them not only in this life but also on the day of judgment. “But if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation of our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world” (1 John2:1,2).“Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb 7:25).

Following Jesus with such a deep and complete assurance leads to confidence instead of fear, peace instead of condemnation, joy instead of a spirit of heaviness. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this will not lead to careless, playful, deliberate sin. It does not. In fact, the opposite happens. Such generosity of forgiveness, empowers the sinning believer to again be aware of his sins and need, to turn to God and be even more grateful for Christ’s finished work, thus spiritually empowering him to love Jesus much more.