Early trick or treat... ;)

Over the past few days, wife and I talked a lot about various things... from the differences between virus and bacteria... to our day to day life... and even about how certain can we be regarding Bible's truthfulness!

Friday's scripture reading was Paul talking about Christian doctrines and its practices, today's reading was about further practical Christian living. Paul sure answered a lot of questions... and what Paul has done for Christ in his life certainly still has a lot of influence around the world too!

Yeah, there's no way to know for certain, we can only take these things by faith. Of course our faith can only grow with experience. If we've never experienced the amazing grace of God, singing the song amazing grace a zillion times still won't help people understand what God's grace is about... How can we experience it? When we have no more faith, hope and love... what are we to do? Just sit there and wait for death?

Anyway, the conversation we had about bacteria and virus is kinda interesting in retrospect. Virus, in latin is basically just poison or toxin. It cannot grow... and it cannot reproduce itself. Kinda like Satan. It cannot create anything like God. When it enters a host, it only causes damage. Causing the living host to get sick. When the host dies, virus won't really 'die' because it's not really 'living' to begin with. It'll simply remain that way... until someday another host somehow get a hold of this virus...

Viral attack is very much like what Bible describes as spiritual attack. We cannot really 'see' the virus. Nor can we really 'see' spiritual attacks. What we know for sure is when we get sick... can no longer stand firm...

God gave all of us immune systems to defend against viral attacks. God also gave us armor of God to defend against spiritual attacks. There are just so many real life principles that matches biblical principles... God helped me see this truth, and this is why I have faith. I don't just have blind faith.

Pastor Jim over the weekend also talked more about the beattitudes. Blessed are those who mourn. Why? Because God will draw close to those who mourn, those with broken heart... to comfort them. Average folks will be more humble and be more willing to accept help from God when they've lost all or when they just can't get things to work out..., but of course some folks will remain stubborn. Some of the weird kings of Israel did this... they were so godly earlier on, but for whatever reasons, ended up so anti-god in the end. Even when he's sick and he still refused to seek God for help...

This is most likely some sort of spiritual sickness.

Pastor Jim also talked about being meek... which means we should cooperate as much as we can without compromising. Means we have self-controlling strength... we could've done it this way, but we choose not to do that and do things God's way! If I can beat you up but chose not to, that's being meek. If I can't beat you up anyway and choose not to fight, that's just weak. So there's a difference between meek and weak. As long as God is with us, it's okay to be weak I guess. But point is God also want us to be meek. We ought to just do what's right.

Which leads us to hunger and thirst for righteousness. Are we really hungry and thirsty for God? If not, is it because we're filled with the junk food of this world... or perhaps we're 'sick', that's why we lost our appetite?

What in this world can really fill us up? What can really satisfy?

When things are good, for sure we need to thank and praise God. When times are bad, all the more reason why we need to seek God and His help! God can certainly prescribe a treatment that instantly heals us, but God also could prescribe some sort of longer term treatment.

Only thing I do know is that God will give all of us the best possible treatment.

For example, God gave me my wife and gave me to my wife so that we can 'treat' each other right! Satan's task... or the purpose of the virus is to 'trick' us.

Trick or treat? The choice is ours! ;)