Artificial Intelligence has in the past few years exploded into every sector of humanity. When I first started using AI with the earlier Chat-GPT models, it still seemed pretty dumb. But now, with Anthropic’s Claude, Google Gemini and a whole host of other Large Language Models, AI is undoubtedly smarter than any human.
AI Superintelligence holds the promise of helping us to run economies, discover cures and boost our productivity to unimaginable heights. Many countries, even Singapore, is heavily banking on AI for the foreseeable future.
While AI appears to keep improving rapidly week by week, I’ve been asking the question: Is AI the solution to cure humanity’s woes?
I don’t think so.
When we look in the Bible, we find King Solomon as the prototype of a human who was the wisest man who ever lived. I believe his life and story will shed some light on AI’s benefits and also its limitations.
King Solomon had the special privilege of having God appear to him in a dream. When asked what he wanted, Solomon asked specifically for wisdom. God was pleased with him and blessed him with extraordinary wisdom. We read:
29 God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore.30 Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt.31 He was wiser than anyone else, including Ethan the Ezrahite—wiser than Heman, Kalkol and Darda, the sons of Mahol. And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations.32 He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five.33 He spoke about plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also spoke about animals and birds, reptiles and fish.
1 Kings 4:29-33
King Solomon was probably like super intelligent AI that we have yet to have seen! His wisdom led to the flourishing of the kingdom beyond any of the previous rulers. I believe AI can do the same for those who know how to use it effectively to improve their work.
However, despite of King Solomon’s wisdom, he made some really foolish choices (which I believe he was fully aware of). He married foreign wives and his heart was led astray to idols. Knowing what is the right thing to do is different from doing the right thing. In the end, God decided to give the kingdom away to another person (Jehu) and during the reign of Solomon’s son, the kingdom of Israel was ripped into two kingdoms. His dynasty was over.
We all know many benefits AI brings. From Solomon’s story, let me point out two cautions even as AI enters our daily life.
Caution #1: Knowing more doesn’t make you less sinful.
King Solomon knew the facts. He knew what he was doing was wrong. But he still chose the wrong path. Our hearts are deceitful and in the end, we often rationalise our choices and choose what gives us pleasure.
God will not hold AI accountable for our actions. We make our own choices and God will judge us for them. When we are using AI, take it with a huge pinch of salt – it’s just statistical probabilities of what it has been trained on and what is likely to give the best outcome.
In the Bible, God sometimes asks people to make choices that aren’t rational. God’s wisdom are higher than our ways. We cannot always take the logical path that our human minds and AI suggest. We have to seek God’s direction and leading.
Caution #2: AI augments our human sinful condition.
AI is similar to giving us superpowers – power to do great good and great harm. I don’t think when Albert Einstein discovered the formula for Theory of Special Relativity E= mc2, he knew that it would be used to make the atomic bomb. With every technology upgrade, the evil within our sinful hearts will lead us to find ways to use it in sinful devious ways (e.g. deep fake pornography, computer viruses).
The problem with AI is that it doesn’t have ethics. Of course not, it’s a machine. We humans have to give it the guard rails. However, we are deeply flawed and without the Bible as our compass, how can we give AI the proper guidance?
In this post-modern godless era, we are the “gods” and design these digital AI “creations” to our making and likeness. That’s scary. AI might become the next Tower of Babel that God needs to intervene.
King Solomon even in his super intelligence made poor choices. What we must do is to come before God admitting that we need him more than ever and that no AI can ever replace God. As I write this, I realise how frequent I turn to ChatGPT or Gemini to ask a question instead of going to God first!
I pray that God will grant each of sobering wisdom in how to use AI as a good slave and not to let it be our cruel master. We have to account to God one day of the choices that we make and no AI can stand in judgment for us.
I’ve always been a fan of the One-Minute Manager style by Ken Blanchard. In my arduous journey of learning Project Management, I felt that it bears many similarities to cooking. Thus with the help of AI, I’ve created a series of lessons and stories to help myself grasp the topics better. Though I know this is not my usual Christian post, I guess we could all use a little help in whatever project we’re doing. God bless!
Gary stared at the blinking cursor on his laptop as if it were a metronome for his frustration. The sprint review had run long, the model demo ran short, and the product director left him with a parting shot: “We need clarity, Gary.” He closed the lid and rubbed his eyes.
Denise, his wife, peered around the kitchen doorway. “Clarity, huh? Take a break and come help me with dinner. You might learn something.”
He followed the scent into the kitchen. Spices lined the counter like an orchestra tuning up: cumin, coriander, turmeric, dried chilies. A cutting board waited beside a heavy pot.
“What are we making?” Gary asked, reaching for a knife.
“Stop.” Denise smiled. “First rule: decide the dish. Tonight, we are making spicy chicken curry for four diners. Not ‘something with chicken.’ Not ‘let’s see what happens.’ A clear, specific dish.” She held his gaze. “Projects are the same.”
Gary laughed. “Okay, okay. Spicy chicken curry for four. But how does that fix my sprint review?”
Denise measured out the spices with quick, unhurried motions. “When I say spicy chicken curry for four at 7 p.m., medium heat, thick gravy, that one sentence tells me what to buy, how long to marinate, how much to chop, when to simmer, and how to plate. It also tells me what not to do—no side dishes that will derail the timing. It’s a goal that directs every choice.”
She slid onions into the pot. The kitchen hissed in agreement.
“In your world,” she continued, “your team keeps getting vague instructions like ‘Make it better’ or ‘Add AI.’ That’s like saying ‘Cook something.’ You’ll wander, you’ll debate, you’ll be late—and everyone will still be hungry.”
Gary leaned on the counter, listening to the onions crackle down. “So I need a one‑sentence goal for the project, like your dinner sentence.”
“Exactly,” Denise said. “Say it out loud. Make it testable.”
Gary tried: “We will deliver… a model… soon.”
Denise raised an eyebrow.
He tried again: “We will deliver a model that detects breast cancer with ≥90% sensitivity in under 30 seconds, ready for the radiology pilot by the end of Q2.” He felt oddly lighter.
“Better,” Denise nodded. “Notice how that goal answers the basic appetite questions: what we’re making, for whom, how good, and by when. That’s your dish.”
She added garlic and ginger to the pan; the room bloomed with fragrance. “Same idea in HR,” she added. “If your recruiting partner says, ‘We need great engineers,’ that’s nothing. But, ‘Fill three data engineer roles with signed offers in 90 days, with ≥80% offer acceptance’—now you know what to shop for and when dinner goes on the table.”
Gary grinned. “And for our hospital innovation fair: ‘One‑day event for 200 attendees with 95% satisfaction.’ That would’ve saved last year’s chaos.”
Denise stirred the pot, then paused and looked at him. “Here’s the trick, Gary: the goal prevents accidental side dishes. If the curry must be ready for four people at 7 p.m., I won’t start making naan from scratch at 6:30. In projects, your clear goal stops mid‑sprint detours—new features, new platforms, new metrics—unless they feed the dish.”
Gary took the wooden spoon. “So the dish decides the shopping list, the timing, and the no‑thank‑yous.”
“Right,” Denise said. “Clarity is kindness. To yourself, your team, and your diners.”
They worked in easy silence: chicken sizzled, spices darkened, and the sauce took shape. Denise tasted, then handed the spoon to Gary. “Taste this and tell me if it matches the goal.”
He tasted carefully. “Heat is there. Not watery. Feels like a proper dinner for four.”
“See?” she said. “A clear goal gives you a taste test. Without the goal, you can’t tell if you’re on track—you just keep seasoning and hoping.”
Gary set the spoon down, thoughtful. “You know, I keep skipping that one‑liner because it feels too simple. But the team’s confusion is expensive. Meetings, misfires, missed deadlines—like cooking with no dish in mind.”
Denise smiled. “Simple is not simplistic. It’s precise.”
He took out his phone and typed: Project Goal — Breast Cancer Model Pilot: Deliver a model that detects breast cancer with ≥90% sensitivity in <30s inference for the Radiology Department pilot by 30 June; success = sensitivity ≥90% in offline evals, <30s measured in staging, and pilot sign‑off from Dr. Ng.
He looked up. “I can do the same for recruiting and the innovation fair. And start the next sprint review by reading the goal out loud.”
Denise ladled the curry into a serving bowl. “Start every meeting with the dish. When the conversation wanders, bring it back: ‘Does this help us serve spicy chicken curry for four at 7 p.m.?’ If yes, continue. If not, park it.”
They set the table together. As they sat down, Denise added, “Tomorrow, we’ll talk about scope—the ingredient list and the things you won’t cook. But tonight, let the team know what they’re making.”
Gary raised his glass. “To the dish.”
“To the goal,” she replied, clinking glasses. “Dinner—and projects—are won in the first sentence.”
Try this now (Gary’s takeaway)
Write your goal in one sentence:
We will deliver [thing/outcome] to [audience] by [date] achieving [measurable standard].
Questions to anchor your goal:
What single sentence succinctly but thoroughly describes your project goal?
What measure will you set so you can say, without debate, we reached the goal?
Next time with Gary and Denise: Lesson 2 — Scope = Ingredients List (what’s in, what’s out, and how to stop cooking accidental side dishes).
1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Col 3:1-17
(This is part 3/3 of a series. View part 1 and part 2here)
When I moved to secondary school, it was a huge change for me. I studied in a neighborhood primary school and then in secondary school, I joined a Methodist Christian school. I remember as a clueless sec 1, every Tues there was chapel service. Guys had to wear a tie that day and as a young kid I didn’t know how to tie a tie. So my father helped me to tie it before going to school. It felt so weird, like I’m choking to death, and I’m thinking how does this make me look more formal or proper? Anyway, all the boys have to wear that (not mentioning that girls have to wear that everyday! We boys are so weak) on Tuesday for chapel.
After attending chapel and exiting the hall, I proceeded to rip off my tie. Freedom. But an older boy told me “You’re not supposed to take off your tie for the whole day!” Wah, I panicked because my father wasn’t there and I didn’t know how to tie a tie. Thankfully, this kind soul quickly helped me tie a tie and wear it back on. Those days, in Sec 1 and 2, we didn’t have aircon classrooms so it was really hot. But that was the school culture we had to follow.
Entering a new school would mean having different practices, different customs, different behaviours to follow. It’s the same for all of us, whether entering a new school, new group of friends, new work groups, new club, new relationship, moving from Sunday School to Youth Group or Youth Group to Adults.
Similarly, there are new customs in God’s Kingdom. It’s not just when we get to heaven, but right now. God wants us to impact the world around us. We are to represent Jesus to the world. I like the word “represent”, it breaks down into “re-present”, meaning to present again. When you represent your group and give a presentation, you are presenting what the group thinks. When you represent your school at a sports event, you are presenting what the school is like. When you represent Jesus, you present Jesus to others. The question for us is this – how well are you re-presenting Jesus to others? When people look at you, do they see Jesus or just you? And hopefully, they don’t say, “He definitely doesn’t look like Jesus at all!”
Do you want to re-present Jesus as best as you can to others? Do you want to taste the new culture of this heavenly kingdom in your homes, your schools, your family? If that is your desire, then there are three things you have to do to be a Radical Christian.
Shift your focus
Slay your sin
Show your love
Shift your Focus (3:1-4)
Sometimes we really miss the good old days where life was simpler, more enjoyable and fun. But that’s the phase of growing up. If we keep looking at the past and wishing we could go back to it, we lose sight of the present and the future. I once read a quote: “When driving, why is the rear view mirror smaller than the front screen window? Because we’re supposed to look ahead more than we look back.”
What are you focusing on?
After encouraging the Colossian believers to build their lives on Jesus only and keep switching back to Gospel mode (growing in your new identity and new freedom in Jesus). If you can do these two things, that would be wonderful. But Paul now adds on the final challenge so that they will continue to live as radical Christians.
1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Col 3:1-4
Because you are now God’s child, in God’s family, Paul reminds the Colossians that they now should have a new perspective in life. It’s very different when you’re in front of the class to give a presentation compared to sitting down to watch one. It’s very different when you’re serving drinks compared to the one buying it (I used to work in Yakun). It all depends where you’re looking from.
As Christians, we are no longer outsiders to God’s kingdom but we are insiders looking out. No longer are we only living for this earthly life but now, we have a new citizenship in heaven. We died to this old earthly life and have been raised to a new life in Jesus. Paul says that we should look up, look at Jesus who is seated in the heavenly realms and not get lost in the day to day life here and now. As we look up, our perspective changes from an earthly one to a heavenly one. Why was Paul telling them to change their perspective?
When our perspective changes, everything changes.
In the movie the Matrix, the hero Neo was living an ordinary life of an office worker. But unknown to him, he was actually living as a slave inside a computer program designed to control the lives of everyone inside it. When he was shown the reality of it, he had a choice – accept the truth (red pill) or live in ignorance and continue life in the simulated Matrix (blue pill). Neo took the red pill. His perspective was dramatically changed and Neo decided to face the cold hard truth of this machine-created world.
When our perspective changes, everything changes.
This is the first and most important step to becoming a radical Christian. Will you shift your focus to Jesus, an alternate reality, an unseen kingdom of God or will you keep your focus on this earthly life and ignore everything else?
We have a choice to make everyday – red pill, blue pill? Will you live for this world and this temporary life, or will you live for Jesus and what is eternal?
Shift your focus.
The second thing to be a radical Christian is to…
2) Slay your Sin (3:5-11)
The Colossian Christians were trying very hard to be holy but apparently it wasn’t working. There were arguments, sexual sin, lust, bitterness, dirty language and unforgiveness in church. On the outside, they were doing all the “right” things, but their lives were no better than an unbeliever. Sometimes, it’s even worse.
Paul tells them to stop their sinful behaviours that were hurting one another.
5 So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. 6 Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. 7 You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. 8 But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. 9 Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds.
Col 3:5-9 (NLT)
You see the word “earthly nature” repeated from the previous verses. Those whose perspectives are only focused on earthly things will lead earthly sinful lives. Even in the church today, do you still see these kinds of behaviour? These are the very sins that caused God’s wrath or anger to be poured on the human race. These are the very sins that Jesus died on the cross for. And now, even as believers, they were still doing these same sinful things.
Paul was saying that something was wrong! This sinful earthly behaviour was part of your old life before you knew Jesus! You have a new identity in Jesus Christ who has stripped you of your old sinful nature and the wicked deeds. Why are you going back to that evil lifestyle? Why do you keep going back to getting angry, lusting, watching pornography, stealing, lying, jealousy, foul language, greed?
That’s because even though they have become Christians, their perspective was still earthly. They did not set their hearts and minds on things above. Their focus was wrong.
It’s interesting that Jesus has cut away our sinful nature, but Paul tells us that we still need to put to death whatever belongs to it. What does he mean?
Think about cancer, it is one of the most deadly illnesses around. The doctor will use aggressive surgery or chemotherapy to destroy the cancer as best as he can. Because cancer has the ability to multiple and spread very quickly and once that happens, it will be almost impossible to cure. Sometimes, the cancer is removed and it is stopped from spreading. But…traces of it will multiply and spread. If it is not addressed quickly, it will appear again and become an even more serious cancer. Even though the main cancerous tumour might be removed, some pockets of cancer cells remaining must not be underestimated!
Even though Jesus has cut away from sinful nature (much like a doctor removing a tumour), there remains traces of the old nature within us. There remains that evil nature that wants to grow and conquer us once more. As long as we live on this earth, it is a constant battle we must fight with daily. John Owen, an old English pastor, said this “Be killing sin or sin be killing you”. If you do not keep slaying sin everytime it crops up in your life, sin will grow stronger and stronger and it can eat you up.
The problem is that we often think sin isn’t that deadly. And often it starts off by telling ourselves that it’s just a little sin. Playing with sin is like keeping a super venomous snake as a pet and thinking it’s so cute.
Just ask the divorced husband who thought watching porn won’t hurt anyone. Now, his family is broken and devastated.
Just ask the jailed office worker who thought that no one would notice her taking a bit of money from the company.
Just ask the student who thought vaping would be cool. They might even have lost their lives.
Far too many people play with sin instead of slaying it. Another reason we don’t slay this cold harsh truth – we love our sin too much. We are still selfish and focused on enjoying our earthly desires and pleasures. James scolds the Christians with strong words:
1 What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? 2 You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. 3 And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure. 4 You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.
James 4:1-4
Our desires are at war within us. There’s a desire that wants God’s ways and there’s a desire that wants our sinful ways. We want to be the cool Christian who is liked by the world and God. Instead of loving heaven, we view our earthly lives as the only thing that matters. “I want to enjoy myself right now! I want my way! Why do you always get what you want? I want to be smarter, prettier, more athletic, more well-liked!” James makes it very clear – friendship with the world (meaning choosing the world’s evil desires) makes you an enemy of God. There is no sitting on the fence. Which side do you want to be?
Let’s be honest. Even in the church, some of us are Christians in name only but our actions are no better than any other unbelievers. We lie to one another, we get angry, we use dirty language, we covet, we lust, we fight to get what we want. I must admit there is an ugly part of myself I rarely like to face.
I remember one night with my wife when we had a very tough conversation about how I hurt her feelings and didn’t cherish her as I should have. I had put my own interests first. I was trying to defend myself, but the more I defended the more angry she became. And she said to me “Seth, I’m not sure you’re the man I married.” And at that moment, the Holy Spirit convicted me, my heart was broken. Instead of defending myself, I realized how unloving and ugly my actions were. And I burst out crying on the couch (which is unnatural for me) full scale weeping, ugly face type, “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I didn’t love you better. I wish I was a better husband too.” Even as Christians, we struggle with representing Christ and slaying our sins.
Paul reminds us – “Hello. You are now a new creation in Christ. You have died, buried and have a new life in Jesus. It’s no longer you who live but Jesus who lives in you. Why are you still doing all this toxic stuff to one another? All these are way out of alignment with who you now are! These are all part of your past before you knew Jesus and now is the time to slay your sin!”
In verse 10, Paul continues by commanding the Colossian Christians:
Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.
Col 3:10 (NLT)
We are all a work-in-progress. We have to keep putting on the character of Christ and our minds need to be renewed and transformed to become more like Jesus. That’s the goal of discipleship – to become more like Jesus. As we know Jesus more and more by reading the Bible, dwelling on the truths, communing with God in prayer, we understand His ways and become more like Him. They say married couples tend to look similar the longer they are married, because they keep looking at each other and reflect each other’s mannerisms and image. The more we reflect on Jesus, the more we will resemble him. The more we reflect on the world, the more you will resemble the world and all its evil desires.
When we realise that the goal of discipleship for each of us is to become like Jesus, differences between us fade away. Our race, the colour of our skin, the school we attend, our gender, our social status, our looks, the music we like, sports clubs, the things that usually “divide” us – they all fade away because we all are being transformed into the likeness of Jesus. Paul says in verse 11:
11 In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.
Col 3:11
All the differences that usually divide us have been broken down. When I look at a person so different from me in terms of race, country, age, social class, language BUT I know he or she is a believer in Jesus, that’s all that matters. He is my brother in Christ because Christ is all that matters and he lives in all of us. Apparently, I think there were some disagreements going on in the Colossian church and all these statuses were separating them even in the church.
If we think back to the previous parts of the book, as Christians we have so much in common. We all identify with the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus. We have the Holy Spirit living in us. We are children of God the Father. We are siblings in the family. Jesus is like our brother. We will see one another in heaven for all eternity (some of us find that really scary). What unites us is much more than what divides us.
Do you have trouble loving people? Let’s not talk about outside the church, in school etc. But let’s talk about loving people in this youth group. Are there people you dislike, find irritating, don’t talk to, look down upon for whatever reason? Do you see what the differences are more than what is in common? It’s really tough, even for me. There are some people that when we get closer will rub each other the wrong way. If there’s no one that you find it hard to love, it’s probably because you don’t know each other very well yet!
But it’s so important in the church family and part of our growing into the image of Jesus to learn to love others better. As we interact with others in church, we must slay our sinful behaviours such as anger, rage, malice, jealousy, lust, pride, greed, selfishness. I’ve found long ago that God places difficult people in our life to teach us how to love like God loves. You know, diamonds are formed by high pressure on carbon (pencil lead). God uses tough situations and people to transform us into glittering diamonds.
As we shift our focus from an earthly to heavenly perspective where Jesus is, we will..
Slay your sin.
The third thing in becoming a Radical Christian is to Show your love a) in your actions and b) your words.
Show your Love in your Actions (3:12-15)
Paul says:
12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.
Col 3:12-15
We see such a contrast from the previous list of sins and this new list of love. Paul uses the language of taking off dirty clothes of sin and putting on brand new clothes of love. And if you look carefully, all these new values are all about relationships – tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility (acknowledging you don’t know it all and are willing to serve/learn), gentleness (to treat those who hurt you kindly), patience (to explain something for the 100th time and they still don’t get it), when other people make mistakes you let it go and forgive them. Wow that’s really tough, and doesn’t that describe Jesus? He forgave those who condemned him to death on the cross. Paul expands on this further when he writes “Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others”. How much you forgive others depends on how much you think God has forgiven you.
I may judge someone who is always late to class, hand up assignments. But I forget that sometimes I too am late! But of course, “less late” than that other person. There’s a secret lens when we look at our own faults and others faults. Others are proud while I’m being confident. Others are cowards, while I’m being cautious. Others are stubborn, while I’m being strongwilled. Others are cheapskate, while I’m being thrifty. Others are lazy, while I’m waiting for the right moment to act. We need to be honest with ourselves and our faults. We really don’t love others as we should.
Paul summarises all these actions in one word – love. Love is the foundation, the glue that holds us all as a family together.
When someone asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment, how did he reply? “Love God, love others”. The key to becoming like Jesus is to love like he loves. That’s easier said than done, especially when someone is making fun of you. Love is not the emotional word between lovers but a higher level of love – Agape. It is a Greek word that means a selfless self-sacrificial unconditional type of love for another.
Most of our loves are conditional. If you help me and are nice to me, then I will love you. If you are nasty or hurt me, you don’t deserve my love. In fact, you I hate you. Love is very conditional today. But how does God “agape” love us?
…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8
and…
10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation (sacrifice) for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
1 John 4:10-12
These verses are so powerful and really cut to the heart. God chose to love us and to send Jesus to die for our sins not because we are lovely people. We were evil, unloving, God-hating, selfish sinners, who did not deserve one ounce of love. But God loved you. And if God so loved us wretched people, we also should love one another. Do you know something amazing? When we love God, we make the invisible God visible. His love that first loved us is meant to be shown towards others. And when others see that love displayed, they will say “I think I’ve just seen God.”
During a plague in the 3rd century, when fear and death filled the Roman Empire, most people abandoned the sick — but the Christians did the opposite. They stayed to care for the dying, comforted the hopeless, and even buried strangers who had no one else. Their courage and compassion shone so brightly that the world noticed and said, “See how they love one another.” The historian Eusebius wrote, people began to glorify “the God of the Christians” because of their love in action. In the darkest time, their selfless care made God’s love visible — and through that, many hearts were drawn to Jesus. True love isn’t easy; it’s choosing to love when it costs something. That’s how the early Christians turned a plague into a platform to show the gospel.
If you want to become more like Jesus, you need to love like he loves us. You need to forgive others like he has forgiven us. It’s humanly impossible and God’s love must flow through us to others. We simply cannot produce that kind of unconditional love ourselves.
Secondly, in this new nature of love not only do you show in it your actions, you also…
3b. Show your Love in your Speech (3:16-17)
16 Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. 17 And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.
Col 3:16-17
I must admit I struggle with having a heavenly vocabulary. As a young kid in school, I was one of the rudest, crudest kid who loved insulting and making fun of others. I think I liked to push others down because I was so insecure in my identity that I wanted to appear better than others. It’s so easy to follow the crowd and to bully others with our words, call people names, flame others online, use filthy coarse language and throw f-bombs around.
As kids, our words can be really brutal and scar others for life. Words can even lead others to be so hurt and depressed that they want to kill themselves. Do our words tear people down or build them up? Proverbs say that the tongue has the power of life and death (Prov 18:21). No wonder Paul talks about how having a heavenly focus should change our vocabulary too. Instead of using words to curse others, we use words to teach, guide, build up, encourage. Words of thanksgiving and praise to God. And the key to having a tongue that flows automatically with God’s truth is in verse 16.
“Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives”
Do you notice your true self comes out when you least expect it, under pressure? Like when you make a mistake and you say “SHIT! Or DAMN!” Do you know why? Let me give you an example. You overflow what you fill your lives with. Out of the overflow of your heart, your mouth speaks.
If you fill up your minds and heart with trash and filth (sinful thoughts, lust, porn, greed, jealousy, hate), the sponge looks exactly the same on the outside but when life’s pressures squeeze you, what comes out? What if you fill your minds and hearts with the Gospel of Jesus, fully and richly, filling every part of your lives? Clean water comes out under the most immense pressure.
When your perspective changes, everything changes. When you’re focused on Jesus and heaven, we realise we belong to a different kingdom, and our allegiance to a different king. It has a different culture in the way you view and slay sin, and in the way you show radical agape love in your actions and words.
Let me close with the final verse in this chapter as a challenge for you.
And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.
Col 3:17
How have you represented Jesus well to your friends, to your family, to your classmates, to your neighbours, to your parents, to your church? How are you presenting Jesus to others? Do they see someone who has a different perspective on life, different values of love, kindness, forgiveness, different vocabulary of encouragement, good advice, gratefulness? Or do they see someone who is more like the world?
Will you focus on earth or heaven?
Will you play with sin or slay your sin?
Will you show love in all that you say and do even when it’s hard?
When your perspective changes, everything changes.
Imagine with me. If I could grab you into a space rocket and we go higher and higher into the sky. Things get really small. People get really small. And soon we see the earth and all the nations of the world. But that’s not high enough, we go even higher. And we see planets, the milky way, the universe. But that’s not high enough. We are still trapped into this container called TIME. Let’s go out of time, and we realise that’s where God is. He’s outside time and our life is just a small blip. And what really matters is after we leave this really short time that God has placed us on this earth to be with him. That’s where life really happens. That’s where Jesus is seated in the heavenly places.
Has your perspective changed? Some things that seemed to matter so much right now, the latest bubble tea, scoring A1s, TV series, going on a holiday, having a great job and getting married one day – these are all important BUT they all pale in comparison to the life that is truly life. If only we could step out of time and see as God sees us.
There are nights when I think about life, the meaning of life, what am I doing here and where we are going next – I break out in fear and sweat. Is this just a game of Monopoly, we collect money, we buy houses, we go jail BUT at the end of the game, everything goes back into the box? Does my life have an ultimate meaning beyond this life? Does whatever we do now really mean anything? I believe there is.
I feel the life we are living now is just the rehearsal for the actual show in heaven. I don’t know what it’ll be like but I’m excited to meet Jesus. That’s why Paul could tell Christians to be generous, to bless others, to do good because you’re “storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.” (1 Tim 6)
Will you choose to be a radical Christian who wants to take hold of that which is truly life?
Take this time right now to come before God. Don’t care about others, just you and God. Don’t care about what others will think about you. I want you to be really honest with God tonight. God is here in our midst and he knows your heart, he knows your pain, your struggle, your challenges. Talk to him, confess how much you need Jesus to fill your hearts and to change your perspective. We will not rush through this moment.
Non-Christians
Do you know Jesus? Is this life all you’re living for?
Will you accept his love for you? He has a good plan for your life.
Pray this prayer with me:
“Dear Lord Jesus, I’m sorry for my sins. Thank you Jesus for dying on the cross for me and rising from the dead. Please come into my life and be my Lord and Saviour. In Jesus’ name, I pray.”
If you’ve prayed that prayer, based on God’s word, you are His child and have eternal life.
Christians
Do you struggle to slay sin?
Do you find it hard to love others?
Do you find life is painful and meaningless?
Come to Jesus and ask him to renew you into his image (kneel). Put to death sin, put on love. Ask him to change your perspective of life, to know that we are living not for this life but the next. We are not living only for ourselves but for God.
If there is someone you need to apologise or forgive, will you do it (can be here or outside, parents)? Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Sometimes it might be forgiving yourself because you hate yourself and you even want to kill yourself. No one is too far from God, he loves you. Jesus died because you are worth it, he died so you don’t have to die. If you ever question your value, look to the cross. That shows you how much he loves you.
Questions:
What is one key takeaway you have? Why is it impactful to you?
How would a change from an earthly to heavenly perspective change our lives?
Organ failure happens when a shock to the body causes a lack of oxygen being pumped to vital organs and treatment is not given on time. When vital organs malfunction and shut down, death is imminent. The process of organ failure can be sudden or in stages – 1) compensatory shock (treatment can reverse effects), and then 2) decompensatory shock (treatment hard to reverse effects).
How is this linked to the local church?
My wife, who is a pharmacist, shared this interesting analogy with me and its parallelism to the local church which is often biblically referred to as the “body of Christ”. After some research, let me share with you from the biological standpoint first and then my insights.
Shock can be caused by several factors: 1) Hypovolemic (drop in blood volume due to injury or bleeding), 2) Cardiogenic (injury to the heart so it cannot pump blood well), 3) Obstructive (obstruction so the heart also cannot pump blood well), 4) Distributive (blood vessels become leaky, can be caused by allergy or infection).
In the initial state of shock, the body is able to compensate so that vital organs are able to receive sufficient oxygen to keep operating. This might be to increase heart rate or constrict vessels to deliver more oxygen to the tissues affected. Blood supply is channelled from non-vital organs (e.g. skin, kidneys) towards vital organs (e.g. brain, heart). On the surface, blood pressure is fine since it is compensated for. However, there will be some early signs that the body is on the route to failure (e.g. clammy skin, weak peripheral pulses, reduced urine output). Timely treatment (e.g. supply of oxygen, intravenous fluids, medications to treat underlying causes of shock) is paramount to avert further deterioration.
If treatment is not given during the compensatory stage and shock is allowed to persist, the body shifts into the decompensatory stage. The compensatory mechanisms are insufficient to perfuse tissues with enough oxygen and thus overwhelmed. Working way past overtime, the organ finally gives up and breaks down. This leads into organ dysfunction and irreversible tissue damage. Finally, if the decompensatory stage continues, vital organs such as heart, brain, or lungs will fail and the person will die.
I think this is one of the most important posts I have ever written and it warrants much reflection from pastors and ministry leaders. I am writing as one who has been in the trenches of ministry and have experienced the difficulty of it. I pray this will help you in your local ministry too.
Churches do not fail overnight.
Pastors do not call it quits overnight.
Cell groups do not break down overnight.
Ministries do not self-destruct overnight.
People do not walk out overnight.
Sometimes in black-swan (rare) events, shock is sudden and it ripples vehemently throughout the entire church. This will affect the whole church functioning for some time and a period of healing and rest will be needed.
But in most cases, the journey to failure takes two stages similar to organ failure – compensated and then decompensated. There is a shock in the system that causes the body to react.
The “shock” in the system can be due to:
An event that causes a church or members to be deeply hurt or divided
The preaching is shifting from its biblical truth and richness, thus the people are not being fed or “oxygenated” with the Word of God
Leaders are loaded with much administrative tasks or red-tape which obstructs them from serving fully to the best of their abilities
Most members are generally spiritually weak, tepid, passive and few serve
This list is non-exhaustive and depends on your local context.
With this shock occurring, the church shifts into the compensatory stage where people are working hard to fill up the gaps. If a cell group is not functioning, another cell group might pick up its slack. If a leader is not functioning, another leader might jump in to rescue the situation. Just like the body compensates by directing oxygen from non-vital to vital organs, the church might compensate by focusing all its energies on vital ministries (e.g. Sunday service, children’s church) and ignore the other “non-vital” ministries (e.g. outreach, prayer meeting, youth ministry).
It is in this compensatory stage that alarm bells should be ringing and treatment must be given! On the surface, all seems to be functioning still. But the cracks are beginning to show. We can see that this will lead to problems in the future. In a matter of time, if the shock is not addressed, it will lead to the Decompensatory stage.
At this stage, tissue damage is done and possibly irreversible (in God’s unlimited power, He can always restore and heal – but you have to give an account if you allowed that damage). Those who were compensating earlier are overwhelmed and realise they cannot keep up at this frantic pace. Some will melt-down, some will burn-out, others will drop-out.
This will lead to “multiple organ dysfunction” as multiple groups or ministries in the church start breaking down. Past a critical tipping point, the church will become an unrecognisable shell of its former self. Usually, the church or ministries won’t shut down but a few loyal die-hards will keep it running (however minuscule it has become). It will be a sad state of affairs by that point.
My goal of this post is for leaders to thoughtfully and honestly assess the state of their flock. Jesus is the head shepherd while you are the under-shepherds who must give an account to Him one day. Are your sheep healthy? Are they surviving but compensating? Are they going to decompensate anytime from now? What underlying causes of “shocks” do you need to ruthlessly address?
I cannot give you an answer of what you should do – only God can. It will be unique for your local church context. But I can tell you that you must take action before it is too late.
6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
16 Therefore let no one pass judgement on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
Col 2:6-23
This is Part 2, in a series of 3 posts. View Part 1 and Part 3.
I remember in the army, they were super strict with rules. One time when a sergeant gave me an instruction, instead of replying “Yes, sergeant”, I said “Yeah ok.” And I somehow broke a rule of replying to my superior with politeness and formality. Because of that, I was punished by shouting “Yaya papaya” in the parade square for about 5-10 mins to learn my lesson not to reply with the word “Yeah”. Once I booked out of camp, I went back to replying with “yeah” and was especially careful only when I was in camp.
Even in a camp we have rules – do this and don’t do that. Follow the camp commandant’s instructions. Don’t go out late by yourself. If you break the rules, you will be punished.
We have rules in homes (you have to do your homework then you can play, eat your vegetables), in school (hand up your homework on time or you will be punished), in Singapore (don’t shoplift, follow traffic laws, don’t vape).
Now, what do you think are the reasons for all these rules? For our own good, protection, harmonious society etc.
Rules are meant to change us into better persons. But we really don’t like rules. In fact, we want to rebel against rules as much as we can. We want to test the limits of rules and look for loopholes.
When we come to the Bible, we sometimes view it as a big set of rules to follow.
If we do the right things (read your Bible, pray, give money, attend church and youth group) and don’t do the wrong things (skip church, beat up your siblings, lie to your parents), you’re cool with God and God is cool with you. But if you do the wrong things, God explodes in anger and is going to punish you!
And it gets really tiring to keep all these rules right? Actually, I believe each one of us knows that rules are important to make us better people and for the good of the world we live in. I believe each one of us wants to change and make an impact through our lives but find it so tough. That’s because we are approaching this idea of change wrongly.
Let me ask you a question: do you obey those in authority (government, police, boss, teachers) out of love or out of fear? Do you obey your parents out of love or out of fear? When you obey God, is it out of love or fear? I believe that if we obey rules from a fear-based mentality, it doesn’t really change our hearts. It just shows that the fear of punishment is stopping you from doing what your heart actually desires.
It is particularly dangerous when we go through the Christian life with a fear-based rather than love-based mindset. The first danger is that we keep all the rules and think we’re doing very well even though our hearts are unchanged. The second danger is that when we see that we can’t keep the rules, we are either crushed by the immense guilt or are tempted to forget about all the rules completely. Is there a better way? I think the passage today helps us to achieve real lasting change.
The Colossian Christians similarly believed that as long as they were following God’s rules, performing the right Christian activities, they were okay in God’s sight. In fact, they believed that by creating tons of rules and attaching it with harsh punishments, that would be a huge deterrent to stop them from sinning. And if they weren’t sinning, that means they were good Christians. But as we shall see, rules and Christian activities do not go deep enough to transform our lives.
Two useless ways we try to change ourselves are…
“Self-control mode” – “Self-control mode”
“Church mode” – doing more Christian stuff
“Self-control mode” – making more rules
8 Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.
20 You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, 21 “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? 22 Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. 23 These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires.
Colossians 2:8, 20-23 (NLT)
In my previous post, I mentioned that false teaching had captured the Colossians’ thinking. These ideas were “empty philosophies” and “high-sounding nonsense” from the human mind rather than from Jesus. We continue on to verse 20 and 21, where Paul questions them, “Why do you keep on following the rules of the world?”.
Apparently, the Colossians were given many strict rules to follow in order to be holy. And as Paul says, these rules “may seem wise” because it needs a lot of self-discipline and effort. We would think so too, right? No pain, no gain. If I want to lose weight, I must sacrifice bubble tea, eat more vegetables, exercise more even though I hate it. If I want to be the best in class, I must cut out play time, using my phone, clock in my hours mugging in order to be the best. Similarly, if I want to be holy and cut out sin, I must discipline myself with a lot of rules. For example, if I want to address lustfulness, I may choose to set a lot of rules such as adding search filters to my phone, or not looking at scantily clad women in images and videos.
All these rules are great in themselves. But Paul goes deeper than that.
Look at verse 23. “But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires.”
You can follow all the rules on the surface, but Paul says that your heart is not changed. It is still filled with evil desires that lead to sin. These rules are suppressing your sinful actions because of punishment. Are rules the only thing that is stopping you from sin? What if those rules were taken away? Would you choose to indulge in sin?
There’s a movie I watched sometime ago which had this idea “The Purge”. Once a year, for 12 hours during the night, all laws were lifted and any crime would not be punished. What do you think happened? Of course, all hell broke loose and most people just gave in to the worst sins possible.
With all the rules around us, our human nature is to find ways to break the rules and to get away with it (even if parents say you cannot use your phone, you will find a way). And hopefully, no one noticed it. In our heart of hearts, we somehow feel that rules are just like a prison cell that is there to kill our fun and take away our pleasures. It’s not really for our good but just a wet blanket made by people in authority to make life miserable.
Do you feel God is like that, a killjoy? And have you ever wished that God would take away all these rules and let you do what you like? You know, the issue isn’t having more rules to guide us or less rules to give us freedom. The issue is actually our hearts.
No matter what rules you can set, it cannot change the heart. How can you know the condition of your heart? Consider this scenario – if God magically took away all the rules (10 commandments – don’t lie, cheat, steal, lust), without any fear of punishment, what would you do? Would you continue to do the right thing or take it as a free pass to sin? Someone once said, “The true test of your character is what you do when no one is watching.”
Or to test your heart in another way – are there things you do in secret that you will be ashamed of if someone saw it? If there are, this means that you’re just following rules for the sake of appearances, not because you really want to do it. I must confess that the temptation to sin is very strong and even with many rules, our hearts will find a way.
Self-control mode with all its rules cannot conquer your evil desires.
The second useless way we try to change ourselves with is…
“Church mode” – doing more Christian stuff
16 So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. 17 For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. 18 Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud, 19 and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it.
Col 2:16-19 (NLT)
What is Paul talking about? Who was condemning who? It seems the false teachers were teaching lies that for the Colossian Christians to kill sin, they had to perform the right religious rituals. Not only that, they needed to observe certain Jewish festivals, food and drinks! The false teachers were waving a finger of disapproval, “Why aren’t you observing the correct Jewish diet? Why aren’t you celebrating the Jewish festivals such as the new moon or Sabbaths? Don’t you know that you’re not being good Christians by leaving all these out?” In today’s context, we could be extreme too: “Why are you still eating pork unlike the Jewish people? Why are your services on Sunday instead of the Sabbath which is Saturday? How can God bless you when you’re not observing these activities?”
It sounds pretty ridiculous to us today doesn’t it? But at that time, Christianity started from the Jewish people. And these false teachers were telling the Gentile Christians that they had to follow Jewish practices to be accepted by God. But Paul destroys that immediately by telling them that these practices were gone. They were shadows of a reality and now the reality Jesus had come. What does he mean?
If you’re looking down the corridor and you see a shadow walking, you know that someone is coming right? Is that shadow the real person? No, light has cast a shadow of the person. Paul is saying that all the Jewish festivals and practices were only shadows. It was the shadow of Jesus. He was coming but not yet. But the fact is that Jesus had already come, the real deal is here. You don’t need the shadow anymore. Jesus in the flesh is here!
It’s like you have a favourite K-Pop star/“Blackpink” and you have his/her poster plastered around your bedroom. One day, you hear that this K-Pop star is coming to Singapore and you rush down to the airport to catch a glimpse of her. Everyone is crowding there and you even brought your poster down for her to sign. Then the crowds start cheering and taking photos. The “Lisa or Taylor Swift” whichever star is here! She is walking down the aisle and going to pass by you…now, would you stare at the image of the poster or the real person right in front of you?
That’s the same thing. The religious practices of the past before Jesus came were pointing to him. Now that he has arrived, those aren’t needed anymore. Jesus is the fulfillment of all things – he is the better tabernacle, the better priest, the better sacrifice, the better festival, the better temple.
Paul goes on to warn the Colossian Christians that these false teachers were proud, sinful and not even connected to Jesus. So don’t even bother with them but rather, focus on Jesus, who is your true head. God is the one who directly nourishes and grows his body. Jesus is all you need.
Now, you might be thinking, these Colossian Christians were really dumb. I won’t be tricked by these false teachers. Why would they choose to follow these weird rules and activities? Because following rules and activities only require external actions without inward change. I might think “Ok, I will go to church every week, I will participate in cell group, I will tithe, I will pray before every meal. Ok God, I’ve done my part.” But God doesn’t just want your actions, he wants your heart.
In the Old Testament, there were people who were doing all the right religious stuff, but God was still angry with them. God said:
21 “I hate all your show and pretense—
the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies.
22 I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings.
I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings.
23 Away with your noisy hymns of praise!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice,
an endless river of righteous living.”
Amos 5:21-24
You can do all the right Christian stuff (attend church, worship God passionately, read the Bible, join Christian events) but God sees your heart. Just like how God saw beyond the surface that these “rule-keeping” people were still unjust and unrighteous.
To test your heart, ask yourself: if God would not bless you for doing all these Christian activities, would you still do it? Would you serve God even when you have to suffer for him?
Just like the Colossian Christians, we may feel that “self-control” and “church” modes would truly change us. But Paul tells them that it doesn’t transform us deep enough at the heart level.
What then is the solution to real change? Again Jesus is the key. Jesus all we need for real lasting change.
Paul reminds us clearly,
The Key to Real Change is “Gospel mode”:
Grow in your new identity in Jesus – “I don’t want to sin” (2:9-12)
Grow in your new freedom in Jesus – “I don’t need to sin” (2:13-15)
Grow in your new identity in Jesus – “I don’t want to sin” (2:9-12)
9 For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. 10 So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority. 11 When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. 12 For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.
Col 2:9-12 (NLT)
In chapter 1, Paul said that Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God. In verse 9, he adds that Jesus is fully God and fully man. Due to the very fact that the fullness of God dwelled in a human body, Paul amazingly uses a connecting word in verse 10 “So/therefore/as a result” to Christians. Just as God fully dwelled in a human body, so as a Christian who is united with Christ, he too fully dwells in us. He describes our union with Christ as “complete”.
In the Greek, it refers to being completely filled up to the brim, not lacking in anything. The original meaning of the word literally means to cram a net or to fill up a hole in the ground. This same word was used when the disciples had a miraculous catch of fish where their nets were filled to the max (Matt 13:48)! What is Paul trying to say here?
When we are believers in Jesus, the Holy Spirit which is also the Spirit of Jesus, comes to live fully with us. It was not a free plan where certain functions are limited but the FULL plan, full access. We are complete in Him and lack nothing else. When we use the phrase “He or she completes me” or “Ice cream will complete this meal”, it means that originally there is an emptiness that can be filled only in one way.
St. Augustine said: “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You”. There is a hole, a longing within us that can only be made complete by God and nothing else. No boyfriend/girlfriend, no money, no achievements, no iphone, no holiday can fill this hole except God and God alone. And Jesus completes us.
How does he complete us? Through his death and resurrection from the dead. It’s as if we died with him on the cross when he died. And we are raised from the dead to new life when he rose from the dead. (add image of man dying and rising with Jesus) We completely identify with Jesus’ life and death. This is most powerfully shown in baptism. When we go down into the water, we identify with the death of Jesus. When we get up from the water, we identify with the resurrection of Jesus. And as we sometimes gasp for air when we exit the water, it’s like new life is given back to us and symbolically, we are now given a new life. Just to clarify, baptism doesn’t save you, it is a symbol of the spiritual act that you have fully identified with Jesus.
In national service, all males have to cut all their hair short. In other groups, you may have other ceremonies to show that you’ve fully identified with the group. As Christians, it is our full identification with Jesus.
What is the result of that? Verse 11 tells us – it is the spiritual circumcision of our sinful nature. What is circumcision? It’s the cutting away of flesh from a certain part of the male body. It was a sign that you were related to God’s people. It was so important that those who refused to be circumcised were excluded (not in a relationship with God)! Thankfully, as Christians we don’t need to do this to become God’s people (Side note: please don’t do that to yourself, you are complete in Christ right now).
God used this ritual of circumcision to point to Jesus. When we enter a relationship with God by believing in Jesus, Jesus does a spiritual circumcision. He cuts away the flesh of our sinful nature from us! That is why in the Old Testament, God actually wanted his people to have a spiritual circumcision of their hearts too. We read this:
“Circumcise yourselves to the Lord;
remove the foreskin of your hearts,
O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem;
lest my wrath go forth like fire,
and burn with none to quench it,
because of the evil of your deeds.”
Jeremiah 4:4
What does this have to do with the Colossians?
Paul is telling them, “You are complete in Christ right now and you don’t need to follow all these rigid rules and Jewish rituals in order to overcome your sinful nature. When you unite with Jesus in his death and resurrection, you have completely, fully identified yourself with him and he has already cut away your sinful nature.” With Jesus, our sinful nature is cut away and he changes our desires. As we grow in our new identity in Jesus, we can remind ourselves that “I don’t want to sin”.
Have you fully identified with Jesus? The right place where change begins is inside you.
The second key to real change in Gospel mode is to…
Grow in your new freedom in Jesus – “I don’t need to sin” (2:13-15)
13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.
Col 2:13-15
Paul goes on to say that we are dead because of our sins. The wages of sin is death. But God in his marvelous grace and mercy, made us alive with Christ by forgiving our sins. He freed us from the penalty and power of sin and death. You see, Jesus was the only perfect sinless man who ever lived. If anyone didn’t have to die, it was him. He died not for his sins, but for all our sins. If our sins were not forgiven, our final destination is hell forever.
Verse 14 contains some of the richest language of how amazing God’s forgiveness is. God “cancelled” the record of sins against us and nailed it to the cross. The original word “record of charges” was a business term, an IOU certificate that says you must repay it in full. All of us have a record of sins because we have failed to obey God’s law. Based on God’s law, it says that we all need to repay this debt of sin back to God. Of course, with our sinful nature, none of us can. We will sin again and again and again. But God cancelled this debt of sin through Jesus’ death on the cross.
It’s similar to our modern idea of “cancelling” someone – to destroy someone so completely in every area of life (his work, his relationships, his job, his identity). But Jesus’ death goes way further – God cancelled our entire record of sin against us (past, present and future sins). The worst sin you haven’t committed yet has already been forgiven!
We like to weigh our good and bad actions on a scale and see which one is heavier. If our good actions outweigh the bad, we feel happy and think God will accept us. If we feel our bad actions outweigh the good, we feel anxious and believe God will not let us enter heaven.
Let’s say you come to my house and I want to cook omelette for you. I take out 5 eggs and crack each of them into a mixing bowl. However, one of the eggs is rotten and the stink fills the kitchen and makes you feel like puking. But I say it’s fine, there are 4 other eggs that are fresh. I throw the rotten egg into the mix and cook the omelette for you. Would you eat it? Why?
As long as there is a bad egg in there, no amount of good eggs will remove it. Similarly, doing more good actions will not remove the bad we have done. 1 sin will spoil the 100 good deeds we have done. God will not let us into heaven without a perfect 100% record. So how can anyone enter heaven then?
Only through Jesus’ forgiveness of our sins. Only one man obeyed the law – Jesus Christ. The perfect man who obeyed all of God’s laws completely down to the letter. Because of that, he could die in our place as the perfect sacrifice.
When we believe in Jesus, all our records of sin are nailed to the cross, it’s permanently gone, wiped out, erased forever! Deleted from the recycle bin too.
How did that happen? Verse 15 tells us – Jesus disarmed the powers and authorities. This is very interesting. In verse 10, Paul says that “Jesus is the head over every power and authority” and now he has disarmed the powers and authorities that were holding us hostage. It’s like we were captured by the terrorists but Jesus who is stronger and more powerful comes in to disarm their weapons and to free us. Who do you think the terrorists represent? The devil. The devil has enslaved us and reminds us with our record of sins that we’re sinful, we’re evil, we belong to him, don’t think you can easily get out of it! It’s like we signed a contract thinking it would lead to enjoyment and freedom but it just leads to pain, death and sorrow.
Jesus in his death on the cross, cancelled the record of sins that the devil was using to control us. He nailed it to the cross and disarmed the devil’s grip over us. Not only that, Jesus “made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross”. In ancient times, when the Roman army conquered another power, the conquered soldiers were stripped of their weapons and clothes to symbolise their total defeat. Then the Roman general would lead his captive through the streets of the city for all the citizens to see as proof of his complete victory. Similarly, Jesus, through his death, disarmed the devil and his minions, and paraded them to the world to show that he had completely defeated them.
What does it mean for us? Paul is telling the Colossians and us: you are now fully identified with Jesus and also fully freed of your sins, why are you still trying to observe all these rules and rituals in order to become better Christians? Don’t you understand that we once were trapped because we can’t obey the law and now you’re still adding more laws to obey? Don’t you understand that God desires heart change, not just doing the right things? You’re trying to change outside-in instead of letting the truth of the Gospel change you inside-out.
Grow in this new freedom in Jesus. In the past you had no choice to free yourself from the desires to sin. But now, Jesus has freed you from the power of sin and you really don’t need to sin anymore. Of course, we will stumble and fall. But Jesus is waiting to pick us up and help us along this journey of spiritual growth.
What are we to do then, knowing that the secret to real change is Gospel mode? It’s very simple.
Keep walking with Jesus (2:6)
6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him,7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
Col 2:6-7
In the first part, the challenge was to build your life on Jesus and him alone. Now, the challenge is after focusing on Jesus, to keep on walking with him. Stick close to Jesus.
We have to keep switching back to “Gospel mode”. Tim Keller describes it this way:
A fundamental insight of Martin Luther’s was that ‘religion’ is the default mode of the human heart. Your computer operates automatically in a default mode unless you deliberately tell it to do something else. So Luther says that even after you are converted by the gospel your heart will go back to operating on other principles unless you deliberately, repeatedly set it to gospel-mode. We habitually and instinctively look to other things besides God and his grace as our justification, hope, significance, and security.
—Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith
Let your roots grow down deep into Jesus. Understand, reflect, meditate on the wonderful truths of the Gospel daily. Don’t try to conquer sinful desires by adding more rules or doing more Christian stuff. You conquer sin by continuing to grow deeper into the truths of Jesus, the ultimate conqueror. He conquered sin and death on the cross, removing the record of sins, cutting away your sinful nature and disarming the power of the devil over you. Let these truths become second nature to you.
When temptation to sin comes, and you feel your desires rising, your pulse racing, your mind pushing you to sin, tell yourself – “This is not who I am. I am a new person in Christ. Jesus has cut away my sinful nature. Jesus has destroyed the grip of the devil over me! I am free in Christ! Satan, you have no more power over me!” Resist the devil with Jesus, not by your own strength.
When you see church or being a good Christian boy/girl as a duty to perform, reflect on the truth – God doesn’t need your religious activities, he wants your heart first. Ask God to help you fall in love with Jesus and to see his love for you afresh. Change your heart desires to desire Jesus more than anything else in this world. Like the story of Martha and Mary, we can be so caught up in doing things for Jesus, instead of spending time with Jesus. Don’t fall into that trap. Whenever you feel exhausted, take time to sit at Jesus’ feet and savour his presence, feel his love and acceptance of you. This is the more important part.
When our hearts are changed, our actions will change naturally. I don’t like to do housework but I love my wife and because I love my wife, I want to do something I naturally don’t like to do. So I wash clothes, I mop the floor, I do dishes. When our love for God overwhelms us and transforms our heart on the inside, we will naturally hate sin and do things for God out of love and gratefulness to him.
Will you turn to Jesus and keep walking with him each day? As you walk with him, I promise you that you will grow in your new identity, you will grow in your new freedom. Your desire will be not to sin but to please God in every part of your lives. You will slowly but surely be changed to look more and more like Jesus.
Not a believer
Do you think Christianity is all about rules and doing Christian stuff? List of do and don’t and you need to do the right things to enter heaven? Let me tell you – we are all sinners who cannot meet God’s standards. When you reach the door of heaven, God will not ask you “How often have you gone to church? What books of the bible have you read? Did you obey your parents?” The only question that God will ask is this: “What have you done with my son, Jesus Christ?”
Have you accepted his saving work on the cross for your sins, or have you rejected him? Have you fully identified with his death, burial and resurrection or ignored him? It all boils down to this one question and you MUST answer it today. “What have you done with my son, Jesus Christ?”
This is not an imaginary question but a question of life and death. The stakes are high. Will you accept Jesus’ perfect sacrifice in your place for you and ask him to forgive you of all your sins? Or do you love your sin so much that you’ve rejected Jesus?
If that is your desire to have a new identity with Jesus and to have a new freedom from sin, will you pray this prayer?
“Dear God, I’m sorry for my sins. Thank you Jesus for dying on the cross to free me from the devil’s power. Thank you for rising from the dead to conquer death. I place my trust in you and ask you to forgive all my sins. Please come into my life and change my heart. I accept you as my Lord and Saviour. In Jesus’ name I pray.”
Believers
Maybe you’ve been relying on rules and Christian activities to conquer your sinful desires but you have been falling into it again and again – anger, jealousy, lust, greed, lying, stealing, pride, self-hatred. And you feel stuck and that God is so disappointed with you. I’ve been there before and I know how easy it is to feel so much guilt weighing on us.
I want you to know this truth – Jesus died to free us. He is the ultimate sacrifice that replaces all this striving. Rest in Jesus’ finished work on the cross. Remind yourself that you are a new person in him, you are no longer the same old sinful self but a redeemed child of God. He has put the Holy Spirit within you to guide you and transform you day by day. If your desire is to continue to follow Jesus closer and closer moment by moment, will you tell Jesus your desire? Ask him to help you be rooted and built up in Jesus, strengthened in your faith and thankful for what Jesus has done for you.
Questions:
What is one takeaway from the sermon?
Do you tend to change yourself by “self-control” or “church mode”? Do you think that makes you a better Christian?
How can you grow in your identity and freedom in Jesus?
13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
Col 1:13-23
In primary school (many years ago), we had a yearly height and weight checkup and I was often one of shortest boys in the class, even shorter than most girls. The teacher would ask us to stand against the wall and he would use a ruler to measure it. I really hoped that I would grow taller, even 1 cm would be woohoo! Though I don’t think I’ve grown very much. I liked to watch super tall NBA players dunking the ball and playing computer games – liked to create myself and make myself the maximum height possible, 7’7”! In my quest to grow taller, I remember reading a book that said you got to eat more. So I ate a lot more, and all I became was grow sideways!
Why was I so eager to see myself grow taller?
Honestly, I think it was to build up my sense of self-esteem so that I would appear more manly, be more athletic, and truthfully, be admired by others, maybe increase my chance of finding a suitable life partner (who would want to marry a dwarf right?).
We want to grow not only physically, but also we want to excel in our studies, school positions, sports, music, game levels, friendships or appearance.
In Singapore, a huge part of our lives is about studies. We spend the first 20+ years of our lives studying!
Let’s think deeper. Why do you study so hard? For me, I wanted to please my parents, have a promising future, get a good job with money, enjoy pleasures, buy anything without looking at the price etc.
These are all good motivations but should we build our lives on these things?
Over the next three posts (Part 2, Part 3), we are going to look at selected passages in Colossians and if there is only one point you take away, it is this:
Jesus is all you need
The book of Colossians was likely written in AD 60 by the apostle Paul during his time in prison, together with other “Prison Letters”. As the title of the book suggests, he was writing to the Christians in Colosse (present day Turkey).
How did the gospel reach Colosse? During Paul’s three-year ministry in Ephesus, Epaphras had been converted and carried the gospel to Colosse. Most of them started house churches and were primarily Gentile believers (non-Jews).
This church was relatively young and it apparently became the target of false teachers who were teaching wrong things. This led to Epaphras’s visit to Paul in prison and ended up with Paul writing a letter to them. When we read a letter, usually we have to infer the context and the situation. This is very important to understand a letter.
Take for example, if I received a text message – “You will get it from me tonight.” How would you interpret that? Is it from an angry wife? Or is a friend passing me something? Depends on who is writing the message right? What’s the relationship to me? What did I do recently? You would need to know the context better to understand the meaning of the text.
It’s the same for the letter to Colossians. These are people long gone (2000 thousand years)! We only see one side of the situation – Paul’s response to them and we need to guess what was actually happening. Thankfully, we have Bible historians and scholars to help us today and from studying the book, the Colossian Christians were building their lives on three shaky foundations. It’s applicable to us today.
What We Often Build Our Lives On
People – Letting others define your life
Pursuing Experiences – Chasing moments instead of Christ
Performance – Letting culture tell you what success looks like
1) People – Letting others define your life
I am telling you this so no one will deceive you with well-crafted arguments.
Colossians 2:4 (NLT)
The Colossian Christians were being bombarded by false teachers who were teaching them how to grow spiritually. Paul says these false teachers had “well-crafted arguments”. The Colossians were being “deceived” because of how convincing, how impressive, how well-supported their arguments sounded. Maybe they used Claim, Evidence, Reasoning to make their teaching sound so correct.
Instead of judging the content if it was truly biblical, the Colossians were deceived by the smooth talkers that what they were saying was the truth.
Have you ever met a smooth talking person who made you buy something that you would never have bought? It might be a friend from school, an influencer reviewing a product online (you know it’s paid right), Google reviews, or a random person on the street.
Usually, when my wife and I are looking for a place to eat, we turn to Google reviews. The more reviews, the better. The higher the rating, the better. But more often than not, we were deceived by the number of good reviews. The food wasn’t really very good and upon reaching, we found that the restaurant motivated customers to write “5 star reviews” to get a free dessert/drink.
Similarly, these false teachers had the appearance of having it all on the surface but actually their teaching was all fluff. They were using their skills of talking to mislead believers from following the true source of spiritual life – Jesus.
How about you?
Are you drawn by the latest Christian influencers, speakers, books or videos as your source of spiritual growth? Are you more drawn to who is most entertaining rather than whether the content is true? I’m not saying that all good speakers are liars! What I’m saying is we need to have our antennas up when the speaker is so persuasive, that he or she is giving truly biblical content. To differentiate truth from lies, you need to know God’s word too! Do not be deceived by well-crafted arguments.
Sometimes, we let the voices of people define our lives. We so want to be accepted and liked by others, that we give in to please people. Or there’s someone we really respect and admire that we hang on every word they say. But the problem is that people aren’t always right. People will let us down. People will disappoint us. Best friends can turn into your worst enemies overnight. People don’t always keep their promises. Even husbands and wives will frustrate one another.
While having good friendships and loving relationships are important, we cannot build our lives on that.
The second thing we often base our lives on is Pursuing experiences.
2) Pursuing Experiences – Chasing moments instead of Christ
Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things.
Colossians 2:18
To provide some context, the smooth-talking false teachers were asking believers to desire a certain kind of spirituality by “self-denial”, “worship of angels” and “visions”.
They were saying, “You got it all wrong, it’s not Jesus that helps you grow spiritually. The latest research and our experience has shown that you need to deny your earthly desires and punish your body in order to be holy. You got to worship heavenly beings like angels which are powerful creatures! You got to ask God for visions and special revelation, a hotline to heaven! These are the things that help you mature as Christians and push you to the next level.”
They were sugar-coating all these lies with nice-sounding arguments. But in every lie, it always contains some form of truth. If it was an outright lie, no one would believe it. There’s a viral “Fake or Cake” game and in it, the fake cake tries to copy the real cake as best as it can to fool people. How can you tell? By carefully dissecting to see what’s inside. It’s the same here.
The false teachers were teaching things that didn’t sound like an outright lie. In fact, it sounds quite possible, even biblical. Jesus said to “deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow him right?” Aren’t angels like Gabriel or Michael powerful beings worthy of worship? Maybe they can help us do things we can’t do in real life. Or God spoke through visions and I want the latest word from God directly! Doesn’t that prove I’m closer to God if he speaks to me? These are all lies mixed with truth and if we are not careful, we can be deceived by it.
For example, the prosperity gospel – God blesses us spiritually, materially and bodily. Jesus became poor so we can become rich. By His stripes, we are healed. A Christian should not go through any form of suffering. Are these complete lies? No, of course not. But it isn’t truth. A half-truth is still not truth! We need to discern the fake from the real.
Another example is thinking that spiritual experiences or gifts make you a more mature Christian. If I see visions, speak prophesies, does that mean you’re closer to God? I’ve learnt over the years that spiritual experiences and gifts have no link to spiritual maturity. In fact, the danger is when we confuse spiritual experiences as equal to spiritual growth!
Compare driving a gokart with driving a real car. Who has driven a gokart? Let’s say I’m super skilled at gokart but what if I thought one step further? Since I can drive a gokart well, I can definitely drive a real car just as well in real traffic. Is that necessarily true? Of course not. It’s a whole different ballgame. Similarly, just because you have spiritual experiences and gifts doesn’t mean you are a mature Christian. We can have all the gifts and experiences but not the maturity to handle it well.
These are just two examples of lies mixed with truths. In the Colossians case, it’s not wrong to deny ourselves, to respect angels, or to seek visions from God. But when we pursue these experiences instead of pursuing Jesus, something is very wrong. It becomes all about us. It mutates into what we have to do instead of focusing on Jesus, the one who has done it all for us.
For many of us, we love to pursue experiences like going on a holiday, enjoying a sumptuous meal, going to a concert, buying the latest phone. These are not wrong, but something is very off if that’s all we’re living for. I have a friend who works hard to be promoted and get a better pay so that he can maintain a certain lifestyle of driving a car or going on nice holidays. Is that all there is to life?
What we most treasure and desire shows in how we spend our time and money. Are we building our lives chasing momentary highs that will not last?
The third thing we often base our lives on is performance.
3) Performance – Letting culture tell you what success looks like
Paul warns them:
Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.
Colossians 2:8 (NLT)
Now, Paul uses the imagery of being captured by false teachers. False teaching captured them by a kidnapper.
How were they captured? By “empty philosophies” and “high-sounding nonsense”. Paul does not mince his words. The source of all this supposed wisdom comes from human thinking and spiritual powers of this world.
What is he referring to exactly? It seems that these teachings sound great but actually come from worldly or demonic sources. The apostle John says:
We know that we are children of God and that the world around us is under the control of the evil one.
1 John 5:19
We are fighting an unseen war. There is a spiritual realm beyond this real world. We are in the world but not of this world. Of course, the world doesn’t refer to this earth but the worldly system, ideas and beliefs that go counter to what God wants for us.
When I’m speaking to you, I’m fighting on a spiritual level. I’m fighting for the war of your mind. Will you let worldly ideas control you or will you let the Word of God renew your mind and change you?
In the Colossians church, false teachers were poisoning their minds with wrong teachings. These teachings were actually not freeing but enslaving them. It’s like running on a treadmill and thinking you’re going somewhere! That is why listening to gospel centred expository preaching is so crucial to our spiritual health. Teaching must come from God’s word directly!
If the sermons are all about 7 ways to manage our time or to avoid stress which uses worldly ideas ONLY without addressing the heart, it is ultimately useless. The Word of God when faithfully preached will change us. Often the world tells us that love is love, look out for yourself, get the highest paying job whatever. These are worldly ideas not founded on God’s truths. When we choose to follow the crowd, ideas that society thinks is right or best, cultural norms, these may not be aligned to God’s truth. It’s like eating junk food – it fill you up but doesn’t make you strong and healthy.
One of the most powerful cultural stories is what success looks like. Singapore was built on hard work which transformed it from a backwater kampong to a first-class city. It seeped into our culture that we need to work hard to achieve what we want in life and to taste success. It all depends on you. Everyone thought that Singapore won’t make it but we did. And it drills into our minds today that we die die must perform well to be a success. Those who cannot make it are left behind by society. If you don’t study hard, you become a road sweeper or garbage collector.
But is it true that you have to have straight As to be a success? Is it true that your future is doomed if you did badly in school? Depends who you ask. What would God say? You’re saved by grace, not by grades. That’s the truth you can rely on. God loves you without you doing anything for him. He loves you as you are, no matter your test score, your ranking, the amount of money you have, the house you live in. He loves you for you.
When we build our lives on performance, people and pursuing experiences, it is a very shaky foundation that can easily topple. We will reach the top and realise it feels so empty. What was I doing this for?
“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
― Jim Carrey
The Colossians were building their lives on all these things but Paul points them to the Person of Jesus. He was trying to tell the Colossians and us today that…
Build your lives on Jesus and him alone!
Don’t let people define you, don’t let pursuing experiences distract you, don’t let what the culture says success looks like discourage you.
Build your lives on Jesus because…
You can Rely on His Power
You can Rest in His Love
You can Rely on His Power (1:15-18)
Paul describes the greatness of Jesus in poetic form. (img Jesus as powerful above earth)
Jesus is God made visible in the flesh. He is fully God and fully man, when we see Jesus, we see God. As Eugene Peterson says in The Message which is a paraphrase, God took on flesh and moved into the neighbourhood.
Furthermore, Paul highlights Jesus fantastic achievements:
He existed first before all creation, the beginning (can we even think far back, when the earth was empty thousand of years ago, God was there already. If you strip everything in this universe, God will still be and has always been there)
He created and holds everything together in the world and universe (without his power we would be dead in an instant, shifting the earth’s orbit by just abit in relationship to the sun would either cause us to be burnt up or to freeze to death)
He created and controls all seen and unseen powers (all powers and leaders and governments are ordained and controlled by Jesus, though we sometimes don’t feel that God isn’t in charge)
He is the Head of the church (he is the one who gives life to the body and leads us)
He is the First to rise from the dead (this is very significant because this is the core of our Christian faith and hope for eternal life. Because Jesus conquered death when he rose from the dead, we are assured that we too will be alive in Him one day!)
Jesus is God and is truly number one in everything.
Being first is our Singaporean dream too right? We want to be first in class, first in competitions, first to buy labubu etc. But if Jesus were here, he would say no need to be first, I am already first and you can rely on me!
Jesus’ mighty power is the answer to our own struggle for power. We like to feel that we are in control of our lives and future. We study hard, we exercise, we eat healthily, we make friends. But many things in life are out of our control. Just look at Covid-19 killing people, wars around the world affecting economies, AI replacing jobs. We are actually very helpless. Even if you have a sharp mind, athletic or musical talents, where did it come from? God. It’s really God’s gift of sheer grace to us and we cannot be proud of it. If God can give it to us, he can also take it away from us in an instant.
But thankfully, we can rely on Jesus’ power. He is powerful and in control of everything and everyone. When everything feels lost, turn to God. He gives us hope when things seem hopeless. We don’t need to seek to be in full control of our lives when we know that God is with us.
Not only can we rely on Jesus’ power, we can also rest in Jesus’ love.
If the first part shows how lofty, powerful and high God is (the farness of God), the next part shows how loving, intimate and close he is to us.
You can Rest in His Love (1:13-14, 19-22)
Jesus became God made flesh on this earth, born as a baby to “rescue us from the kingdom of darkness and transfer us into His kingdom” (v13-14). Jesus purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.
You see, when God first created man, we were in a perfect harmonious relationship with him. However, man chose to disobey God (sin) and this relationship was destroyed. Because God is holy and man is sinful, there now was a wide gap between us. Sin demands punishment and we are hopeless to save ourselves. Our destination is hell which would make the devil very happy to see us go there. But Mankind wants to save themselves by doing good deeds, giving money, even religious practices but none of that can mend the relationship with God.
God’s standards are way higher than what we think they are. No one can reach God’s level of holiness to enter heaven.
If we cannot go up, someone must go down to save us. Thus, God sent Jesus to be born as a Jewish baby, to live a perfect life and to die on the cross for our sins. Sin must be paid for, and Jesus paid for it with his life. He was cruelly nailed to the cross for our sins but God raised him from the dead. All those who trust in what Jesus did will be forgiven of their sins and given eternal life. Why did Jesus come to save us? Love.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16
A wise person once told me – “You know how much you love someone by what you’re willing to give up for them.” It’s so true. Jesus purchased our freedom not with money but He paid the highest price possible – his life. He has freed us from the devil’s kingdom and brought us to his kingdom. There is now peace between God and Man through Jesus’ blood. Paul says:
For God in all his fullness
was pleased to live in Christ,
and through him God reconciled
everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.
Col 1:19-20
You may think I’m not that bad. Do I really need to be saved?
Paul continues in verse 21, we are all far away from God, enemies, separated by what? Hostile minds and evil deeds. You may not have killed someone but have you ever been angry with someone? You may not have committed adultery, but have you ever looked with lust at someone? Have you sinned in your thoughts? I have, countless times. We cannot define sin based on our standards but on God’s standards.
Jesus reconciled us with God and as a result, we are brought into his presence, holy and blameless before him without a single fault. How is this possible? Is he talking about when we get to heaven or right now?
If you were to appear before God right now, and he asks “Why should I let you into heaven?” What would you say?
We all have to take this exam to enter heaven and get this – you only get in if you get 100 marks a perfect score). But Jesus got that 100 marks for you when he lived the perfect sinless life on this earth. And Jesus’ perfect exam score is given to us when we trust in Him. It’s as if we got it ourselves! God looks at the perfect score sheet, looks at us and says “Go right on in”.
God isn’t letting us in because we’re good but because we’re trusting in Jesus’ perfect record. That’s why when God sees us, he sees Jesus, holy and blameless. That is the heart of the good news of the gospel. Tim Keller reminds us that the gospel isn’t good advice (what we need to do) but good news (what has already been done).
When you truly grasp how much Jesus loves you, it frees you from striving for people to love you. It frees you from hurts and pains because you know you are eternally loved by God. Even if no one loves you, God loves you. And he proved it when he sent Jesus to die for you. So rest in his love.
What is left for us to do then?
Conclusion
Paul gives them the application:
if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
Col 1:23
Anchor your life on Jesus and the Gospel and don’t build your life on other things. It sounds as if it’s all up to us and our willpower to continue but it’s not. The “hope” is a promise from God to us. He will 100% save us if we keep believing in Jesus.
There will be challenging times when we doubt God, we fall into sin, we lose faith, but don’t ever lose heart. Keep turning back to Jesus and reject the other shaky bases you build your lives on. God assures us that if you believe in Jesus, you are reconciled to him. You are a child of the most high God, and you can rely on his power and rest in his love.
I was born into a Christian family, attended Sunday school and knew all the Bible truths. I seemed like a good boy in church but outside was another story. I was a terror and nuisance in school. And I thought I was okay, as long as I knew my bible, said my prayers, said sorry for wrong things I’ve done. I knew about God but I didn’t really know God himself.
In secondary school, when I was 14, I was attending a chapel service in Aldersgate Methodist church. I remember sitting there, feeling the warmth of the sun through the stained glass chapel. I felt like sleeping but the sermon hit me hard. I cannot remember exactly the words, but it felt like the message was directed at me. I always thought, “I’m a good boy, I attend church but mess up once in a while. I’m okay.” But it struck me to my very being and core that I was not a good person. And for this wretched sinful evil person that I was, Jesus came to die for me because he loves me and wants me to be reconciled to him. The Gospel convicted me and I believe at that moment, I became a child of God.
What will you build your life on?
Do you know about Jesus or do you know him personally? Is it just head knowledge or a living relationship?
You are not here by chance. God brought you here for a reason. After listening to who Jesus is and what he has done, maybe you feel a stirring in your heart. I want to give you an opportunity to accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour.
If that is your desire, pray after me:
“Dear Lord Jesus, I’m sorry for my sins. Thank you for dying on the cross and rising from the dead. Please come into my life and be my Lord and Saviour. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.”
Now, for those who already are believers in Jesus, let me ask you.
Are you building your life on something other than Jesus?
Are you building your life on what people say, what people think of you, social media, influencers? Or building your life on pursuing experiences in life, whether spiritual or physical? Are you building your life on performance and striving to reach what culture says success looks like?
Do you truly treasure Jesus or is he just one another part of your life? Are you drifting from Jesus and the hope of the Gospel? Paul is telling us, there is no one else who we can run to. Only Jesus. So stand firm in the one who loves you and gave his life to save you.
If you would like to recommit your life to Jesus, can I invite you talk to Jesus? Tell him sorry for trusting in your own righteousness, turning to other sources instead of Jesus. Tell him to hold you fast in him and to focus on him only.
Question:
What do you tend to build your life on? Why do you think so?
How might Jesus’ power or love be the answer to your deepest needs?
It’s been around 2025 years since the first Christmas and Christians round the world celebrate Jesus’ birth every single year.
For me, it can seem so routine. So familiar.
And with familiarity, breeds forgetfulness.
A certain sense of numbing creeps over me, a glossing over what we have heard countless times – the young Virgin Mary having a child supernaturally, the shepherds tending their flocks by night, the wise men traveling from the East, Jesus being born in a manger because there wasn’t room at the inn.
But this Christmas, I’ve been puzzled and troubled by the nativity story. While Jesus’ coming was expected, how he came was really unexpected.
Some questions of the “un”expected elements of Jesus’ birth crossed my mind once more:
Why did Jesus come into world as a helpless baby and not as a full-grown adult?
Why did God choose young, poor parents for Jesus and not the rich or powerful?
Why did God reveal Jesus’ birth to poor, uneducated, despised shepherds rather than the elite kings and religious leaders?
Why did God lead pagan astrologers from a distant foreign land to pay homage to Jesus?
Why was Jesus born in a stable and placed in a dirty manger?
Why did He live in a crappy backwater town called Nazareth?
These facts really baffle me. Why would God choose to place himself in absolute poverty from his very birth and likely his whole life? It is unexpected because no one would have expected the God of the universe to enter under such dismal conditions!
But I believe it is theologically rich and purposeful:
Jesus came in poverty so that there would be no barrier to reaching him.
Imagine if he came as a rich, powerful ruler. The poor would have no access to him. People would have to pay their way to reach him.
But Jesus identified with the poor by being one with them. He’s saying to us that we don’t need to have power, wealth, or status to come to him. In reality, he has come down to us. No one could claim that Jesus was inaccessible.
God tells the people of Israel:
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”
Isaiah 55:1
We can be dirt poor without a single cent but able to enjoy a relationship with Jesus. We come to him just as we are and he accepts us as we are. The lowly shepherds and the pagan astrologers found Jesus first, not the leaders. Therein lies a nugget of the heart of the Gospel.
The Gospel is for everyone – the weak, the ashamed, the lowly, the powerless, the discriminated, the outsiders. It’s something that money cannot buy, power cannot force, status cannot manipulate. Salvation is given freely to those who confess their helpless state before God.
What about the rich? If the poor can access Jesus because it isn’t about what they have, the rich can definitely access Jesus too. The problem is that the rich feel that they don’t need Jesus. With great wealth comes great self-sufficiency.
The rich don’t see the need for God or feel that all they have accomplished is by their intelligence and skills.
However, the truth remains that the rich don’t realise how “spiritually poor” they are! We are all sinners in need of Jesus’ grace and redemption from the fiery flames of hell.
In the Sermon on the Mount, the first beatitude from Jesus was: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:3) Only those who recognise their spiritual poverty would be blessed with the kingdom of God.
This Christmas, reflect and give thanks to our “un”expected Jesus. Reflect on how we are all “spiritually poor” in need of Him. He became poor so that everyone, I mean everyone, from all walks of life, backgrounds, statuses, age, race can come to him freely.
When we accept Jesus’ death and resurrection on the cross for us, we will become “spiritually rich”.
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.
2 Corinthians 8:9
Blessed Christmas! May Jesus’ life and love radiate your hearts.
Note: For best experience, click on the three vertical dots at the bottom bar and select “Enter full screen”. Click only on the underlined hyperlinks in the slides and not the next slide button (that’s cheating)!
I have been supremely encouraged by the lives of well-known and less-known Christians depicted in The Torchlighter: Heroes of the Faith series (meant for kids but it’s really impacted me too).
I think it is a shame that Christians do not know the struggles and faith of these early Christians and missionaries. We really need good role models today to inspire and guide us.
With the help of AI and of course fact-checking, I have gamified it into a simpler version of “Choose your own adventure” gamebook. I really love game books from my younger days (e.g. Lone wolf series) and pray that this will encourage more to live boldly for God as Salt and Light in this world!
If you liked this, please leave me a comment on who you like to see next.
Have you ever wished you could use data analysis in church data?
Me too.
I find that churches are far behind in using the skills and techniques that other organisations have employed for years. This has really left churches in the Stone Age I’m afraid and we have been making blind decisions without concrete data.
Of course, as a previous church staff, I know very well how data analysis can seem opposed to biblical ideas such as “We trust in the Lord and not by numbers” or “David did a census and God judged him for his lack of faith”. There is a time and place for this, but God usually works through our human wisdom and intellect that he has blessed us with.
If churches hire logistics, finance, admin, or HR staff for their skills, why not use data analysis as a skill to improve the way the churches work and make decisions? In fact, data analysis is just a tool to aid in decision making. It is not the voice of God but one that you consider in your decision making.
What are the applications? Plenty!
For example, you could analyse attendance or giving trends to forecast if you need to take certain concrete steps. You could understand who you need to train or check in urgently with so that they won’t fall through the cracks. You could recommend where a person would most likely fit in to serve based on their demographics and gifting. You could strategically outreach in the community or discover needs to meet based on data.
Data is indeed the new oil as they say. It is not counter to faith but general wisdom that God has given us.
I will be sharing some very simple techniques over a few posts that you can use just with the trusty Microsoft Excel. If you don’t have Excel, you can use the free Google Sheets (99% of the functions are similar).
Collaborative Filtering for Recommendation
What is this all about?
Let me give you a scenario.
If someone in your church wants to read a good Christian book, how can you (without knowing them) recommend a book they will likely enjoy?
In a nutshell, collaborative filtering is recommending based on how similar their likes and dislikes are with other people.
For example, let’s say I’ve collected the ratings (1-5) from church members who have read the books from the church library and this is what I got:
Now, there are two persons (51 and 52) who I think should read more books. Which book should I recommend to them?
Should I recommend both books by Jackie Hill Perry or RC Sproul? One of them? Or maybe even neither?
In this method, we will first determine in terms of their previous ratings of other books (Tim Keller to CS Lewis), are there other persons that have a similar rating? The assumption is that if you like or dislike similar items, I can more accurately predict if you will like what you have not seen.
This is kind of like Netflix (which uses a way more advanced recommendation system) that asks you if you liked or not liked a movie and then…recommends you shows saying “People who liked XXX movies, also liked YYY”. That’s similar to what we’re trying to do here – “People who liked XXX books, also liked YYY books”.
How then do we determine similarity? I won’t get into the mathematics which uses a Cosine Similarity formula. Suffice to say, people who are more similar get a higher score while those more dissimilar get a lower score. Once we calculate the similarity scores, it’s easy now. We rank from 1 to 50 who they are most similar with and then pull out their ratings.
I highlighted the top 3 similarity rankings for each. We see in the table above that Person 51 has a similarity score of 96% with P20 (not shown) and P32, 95% with P40. While Person 52 has a similarity score of 97% with P42, 96% with P25 (not shown), 95% with P29.
Now there are various ways you can predict the ratings for Persons 51 and 52. You can choose the ratings for the top similarity ranking or you can take an average of ratings for the top 3. For simplicity’s sake, I used the ranking from the top similarity and filled up the table for P51 and P52.
Using the ratings from the most similar profile, it seems Person 51 would likely (rating 3 so…kind of) enjoy Jackie Hill Perry’s book and really dislike RC Sproul’s book (rating 1). For Person 52, I would recommend RC Sproul’s book instead and it’s likely to be a fantastic read (rating 5). By the way, this is hypothetical data so I have nothing against any of these wonderful authors!
This is one way you can use Collaborative Filtering for recommendation. It can be sermons, books, churches, you name it. I would think this might be also useful for recommending which ministry you are likely to thrive in based on your profile similarities and giftings. I will address this in a future post.
As always, data analysis depends on how much data you have and the quality. If you don’t have the data you need, start collecting it now!
If you like to know how to do this in Excel, you can contact me or watch this great video by David Langer:
Every now and then, a friend will mention to me that they want to be a real estate agent to earn big bucks and escape the 9-5 rat race (or concrete jungle).
Let me share with you the realities so that you will count the cost of being a real estate agent. I’ll also share why I’ve decided not to do it full-time anymore.
I took the real estate exams in 2023 and thankfully passed it the first time! It was tougher than any university exam I have sat for and I believe the government wants to ensure that only committed and serious candidates enter the industry. Right now, there are more than 35,000 registered property agents in Singapore, though the number of active ones is likely less than 10,000 (from hear-say).
However, as any bright-eyed new agent, I thought I stood a chance of getting rich clients and closing deals left, right and centre every week. The reality is much more challenging once I experienced the industry full-time for a few months.
Pros
Potential to earn a lot of money. This is one of the only jobs in Singapore where education doesn’t play a part in how much you can earn. The sky’s the limit, depending on your time and effort. I’ve met agents with low education but earning more money than any doctor or businessman.
Freedom of time. You are your own boss. You decide which clients you want to take and the kind of property deals you want to target. You can spend more time with your family, sleep in and beat the work crowd.
No age limit. In the traditional workplace, you will likely be retrenched or retired once you hit a certain age. But being in real estate allows you to continue this work long after retirement.
No dress code. You don’t need to adhere to the usual office attire. Some agents prefer casual looks while others invest in branded dressing and nice cars.
Cons
Potential to earn way less money. Over a period of 9 months, I earned the commission equal to roughly 2 months of my previous salary (which wasn’t that high). If I had done a blue-collar job with a low but stable salary, I would have earned more. If you’re the sole bread-winner, you cannot afford this kind of risk. Real estate is highly competitive and only a small percentage succeed big-time. Don’t be misled by the “millionaire producers” stories — they represent only a small fraction of the total number of agents. Statistically, the majority earn an average income (around $50k a year).
No CPF, bonuses or health benefits. As a licensed real estate agent, you must come under a property agency. You’re self-employed and not paid anything by the agency. In fact, you have to pay them for services and support (e.g. paperwork, app technology, training). Depending on the agency, you start off with a percentage of your commission being taken away, and as you rise in rank, you keep more for yourself. However, when you get sick or hospitalised, you have to absorb the full cost yourself. Having a normal job allows you and your dependents to access medical coverage.
You have to source your own clients. Since you’re self-employed, every agent is responsible for generating their own business. Leads are your life-line and not something others can easily share. Choosing the right mentor or team is very important, as they play a key role in your learning and growth.
You have to pay first to (hopefully) make later. Many agents invest a lot of money upfront for advertising (e.g. social media ads, property listing portals, flyers, home staging, transport) with no guarantee of returns. Advertising costs can amount to around $5-10k a year (and this is on the low-end). For example, a basic Property Guru account is $1,600 per annum, with optional add-ons to boost your listing visibility. Like any business owner, you have to invest upfront to start your business and stand out from the other 35,000 agents in Singapore. If it doesn’t take off, you’ve lost whatever you’ve put in.
No fixed working hours. In the usual workplace, we can usually rest once work ends. But in real estate, especially if you need the money, you can end up working even longer hours. Most viewings are on weeknights or weekends, meaning you may have to sacrifice family time. Clients’ schedules often come first because you fear they might choose another agent. In the end, it’s still a customer service business where satisfaction is key.
Highly competitive nature. When selling new-launch projects, I had to pay a few hundred dollars to the agency to be part of the project core team (aka booth duty). A duty roster would be created to sit at the show flat for 6-8 hours, hoping to land walk-in clients. However, there is a queue system among agencies and walk-in leads are distributed by ballot, which makes it unpredictable. Even if you get to engage a walk-in client, it doesn’t guarantee a deal. In my experience, the time and effort didn’t always justify the returns.
Steep learning curve. A real estate agent is like a one-person business where you are the company and all the employees rolled into one. You’re selling yourself. That means you have to do everything – plan advertising schedules, create a social media presence, do financial calculations, sell and close deals, negotiate, get and keep leads (which is getting more expensive as people prefer DIY options). Many people underestimate what’s involved. 90% of all startup businesses fail and real estate isn’t far from that number.
To summarise, being a real estate agent is not for everyone. It looks flashy and glamorous on the outside but the reality is very different. Maybe it’s just my risk-adverse and introverted personality, but if I could restart the process, I would do it part-time (if your company allows) as a side hustle and then consider full-time once I had learnt the ropes or built some momentum.
I also know several experienced agents who have to keep grinding to earn money every single year. Agents have to keep pedalling just to keep up with the pack. It’s a different kind of rat race that can be even more intense and harsh than any normal 9-5 job.
Artificial Intelligence has in the past few years exploded into every sector of humanity. When I first started using AI with the earlier Chat-GPT models, it still seemed pretty dumb. But now, with Anthropic’s Claude, Google Gemini and a whole host of other Large Language Models, AI is undoubtedly smarter than any human.
Christmas.
Seth Tan 
