{"id":11532,"date":"2022-08-23T00:00:39","date_gmt":"2022-08-22T16:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/?p=11532"},"modified":"2022-08-25T11:34:02","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T03:34:02","slug":"sermon-reflection-3-crucial-emphases-to-finish-well-in-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/sermon-reflection-3-crucial-emphases-to-finish-well-in-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Sermon Reflection – 3 Crucial Emphases to Finish Well in Life"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t

Posted by Darren Lim \u2022 Aug 23, 2022<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

It is 6am in the morning. I am nowhere close to landing on my sermon reflection than I was the night before. After deciding to come at it fresh the next morning, at least four different threads of reflections were sketched out as strawman on paper. I was half-heartedly adding arms and legs to it but struggling to start because I knew in my heart of hearts, this was like settling for second best. Best was not a matter of placing or ranking reflections from first to last \u2026no nothing of that sort. It was more the fact that there is always the temptation of settling for familiar themes and writing something \u201ceasi-er\u201d than the most pertinent issue that speaks of the current state of internal affairs. In the end, I felt moved to answer the most basic question – Am I jaded in my faith? So with a short prayer and a deep breath\u2026 let us dive headfirst into this reflection and try to unpack things in my head.<\/p>\n

What is the current state of my soul? How shall I liken it? It feels like a zombie-like daze. There seems to be a spiritual fog (shared in a previous reflection) where God feels so distant. It is oddly comforting to know I am not alone! Other CG members felt that way too during the last word session. There is a sense of going through the motions. We were all jaded, sick and tired of the never-ending zoom meets and life’s neverending challenges. We all came out of last week\u2019s session with a commitment to support each other throughout the week via Whatsapp, be it in prayer, sharing of Scripture or a worship song.<\/p>\n

But the fact of the matter still begs to be addressed. I find myself uninterested and detached from the things of God. It takes much effort to allocate time to read the Bible. Even more difficult to journal anything insightful as I struggled to hear from God. I am content to attend online celebrations from the comfort of my home. Nothing wrong with that except that a feeling of detachment persists. Standing while reading the Word of God and singing during worship feels superficial and mechanical.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s sermon reminded me that the health of my prayer life is the root cause. It is not as rich and frequent as it should be. The question is why? Why do I feel this way? How do I have a Spirit-filled and invigorating prayer life? Not in any way diminish the eminence of the Father and the Son, but, I realised that I have not sufficiently acknowledged the person and ministry of the Holy Spirit. It was easy to visualize a relationship with God the Father and Jesus the Son because it is easier to use our earthly relationships as a starting point. But this is a little more difficult with the Holy Spirit. There is no precedent in which to base it on. He has not been given as much reverence as He deserves. It is easy to forget that the authority of Scripture is inspired by Him and should be treated with utmost reverence and receptiveness. It is perhaps the main reason why I feel God is so distant. Jesus is the Word and the Holy Spirit the breath that deposits truths deep within us.<\/p>\n

I now make a commitment to wake up every morning also acknowledging and praying to the Holy Spirit as the very presence of God in-dwelling within me. I pray that Holy Spirit, You will overwhelm me in such a way that I have no choice but to be joyful in Christ and to live out the kingdom of God daily.<\/p>\n

Psalm 37:4<\/a>\u00a0Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is 6am in the morning. I am nowhere close to landing on my sermon reflection than I was the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[119],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11532"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11534,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11532\/revisions\/11534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}