SAVED BUT NOT SAFE

“The Lord said, “Go over to Straight Street, to the house of Judas. When you get there, ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He is praying to me right now.” Acts 9:11

Ananias no doubt is a true child of God who truly believes in Jesus as his Lord. His soul is already delivered from darkness and sin and his destiny is to be with the Lord in eternity. Yet here on earth, the Lord needed to deliver Ananias . . . not from sin but from being a safe and selfish servant of God. To be a Christian in those times required a bold step from your safe zone. Initially, Ananias took that step when he followed Jesus. God needed to push him a little bit more into the water of obedience. It is God’s commitment to lead us to live an obedient life, eventually becoming an obedient church.

The road to obedience is not a safe road. The only guarantee is that God promised to walk with us in this unchartered road of obeying His will. For Ananias, his assignment was to minister to Saul, the butcher of Christ’s followers. This time, Ananias thought of arguing his case before the Lord, which the Lord graciously heard. At the end of his dialogue with Jesus, Ananias chose to obey! The Lord first needed to disturb Ananias’ safe life, then, as he was jolted from his comfort zone, the Lord gave His direction to him. Whenever we ask for God’s direction in our lives, we are also asking for Divine disturbance! Without God’s disturbance, I doubt if we will want His direction?

Unknown to Ananias, God was delivering him from living an uneventful life. As he obeyed God, Ananias crossed his Jordan to the other side. [It is in obeying that we become more dependent on God; more sensitive to listen to His guidance; more walking by faith than by sight.] From the moment Ananias stepped out from his home to step into the apartment of Paul, he was being delivered from the safe life and radically ushered into a God-ordered chaos! And from the moment he stepped out from Paul’s abode, Ananias tasted a deep sense of God’s peace and God’s presence that originally came from God’s disturbance. Disturbed, directed and delivered! As Christ’s follower, you and I have our own assignments from God. Expect a Holy kind of disturbance that you and I might experience a deep Holy fear of God eventually leading us to plunge into the ‘unchartered’ road of obedience. It is not always safe but surely, this is the pathway of the saved! “Oh Lord, from the desire of being so safe, deliver me; from the addiction to always be in control of my life, release me.” Amen.


Prayerfully,

REV. ARNEL TAN

How To Be Thankful

You see as a parent one of the things that I taught my children were words like, please and thank you because I want them to be grateful with God and in life. In our culture, there’s this debt of gratitude, this could be a good practice but what most important is that we learn to be more thankful to God and in life. Why is it important to express an attitude of gratitude? Well it is a sign of contentment.