Does God speak to us?

Here is a response I gave to my friend blog on God speaking to us:

This is a really interesting topic! I like your entry on "Does God only speak to Christians?" I believe that He speaks to everyone, though being a Bible-believing Christian helps because the Bible tells us that God speaks to us.

I like to use the analogy of a phone call. Have you ever noticed that when your friend calls on the phone (let us assume you do not have Caller-ID), you will recognize his voice even if he does not tell you who he is? Being able to recognize someone's voice comes with a relationship. Having a relationship with God -- praying to Him, telling Him our problems, listening to Him respond to our problems, trusting Him in our difficult times -- all these help us to hear His voice better day by day.

Just as your friend can write emails, or send pictures, or talk to you over the phone, or meet you face to face, I believe God can speak to us through all these avenues too! Through emails (His Bible), through pictures (dreams and visions), through phone conversations (His voice in our head, or audible voice), or face to face (Moses' encounter with the Lord, seeing only His back). When I first began as a Christian, I was amazed how God spoke to me through pop music: the lyrics would answer the questions I had. Then, God started speaking to me through the words in the Bible. At that time, I thought I knew all about how God speaks to us. At that time, I found it funny that people like Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Moses heard God spoke to them, with a voice. I thought perhaps God doesn't do that anymore. Yet, I could not find any scripture to prove this.

After being Christian for three years, I started to question the voices I heard in my head: what if the voice is not my own, but God's? So I asked the voice, Are you God or just a figment of my imagination? Surprisingly, the voice spoke back and said that He is God. Still, I thought I was hallucinating. I wrestled over this issue for months, and the voice continued to teach me that He is God, not myself. He taught me to have conversations with Him. He asked me if I thought the wisdom that was in the voice is from myself, or from someone outside of myself. He also warned me that there are many times when the voice is indeed not Himself, but my own voice, or the voice of evil. He taught me that in order to discern His voice more, to separate His voice from other voices, I have to read the Bible more. The Bible is a record of His Confirmed Words: i.e. there is no doubt the Bible is His voice. When I read more of the Bible, I will learn what His voice sounds like.

One day, I gave in, and confessed that I could not ignore the voice any longer. I confessed that the voice is God's own voice. Since then, my new commitment to this caused exponential growth in my ability to hear His voice. I have seen some people claim that such a thing is heretic: it lessens the importance of the Bible as God's Word. I disagree. Since accepting His voice, I gained a deep hunger to read more of the Bible. God says that He desires to speak to us clearly and directly, through the Bible, through friends, through the church, through pictures, through songs, and even through our thoughts, the voice in our head. "Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy." 1 Cor 14:1

The more love, for God and for His people, we have in our hearts, the clearer we hear His voice, and the more love we gain in the process as well. Learning to hear God's voice is a life-long process: now we can only hear in part, but when we see Him at the end of time, we will hear clearly (1 Cor 13:9). We must always bear in mind that because of our sinful nature, we often do not hear God 100% correctly. We should always test what we hear with scripture and with others (1 Cor 14:29).

Hearing God's voice is pure joy! Imagine what our Quiet Times will become with His voice guiding us! "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened."

Dude, who made the car?

Science discovers how the world works, pretty much like a mechanic investigating how a car works. In science, we do not invoke God in explaining our theories, just as a mechanic does not investigate who designed the car in the first place.

Yet, such questions about who created our world can be an important one.

We need find an answer for ourselves, whether this world has a Maker in the first place, and if it has one, who is this Maker. We should not leave the question unanswered because of our bias in how we think this world should operate: e.g. believing that this world should operate in a completely random and deterministic manner. Some people go through their lives without questioning their beliefs.

If we believe that this world operates in a random fashion, without a God, the question is: what are our reasons for believing this? Similarly, if we believe that this world has a God, what are our reasons for believing this? Contrary to popular belief, Faith goes hand in hand with Reason.

When I was an atheist, my reason for believing there is no God is this: because I do not see any evidence of His existence. I have heard stories of miracles, but I have never witnessed one in my life. It seems to me that all the miracle stories are made up by over-zealous Christians or other religious people. Many times, these people believe their own made-up stories!

Many events have occurred in my life since God revealed Himself to me. To me, the evidence of God is now undeniable. When I look back on my life, I realize that I was not approaching the question of God's existence in a fair manner. I had often rejected people's experiences or historical texts like the bible as false. I never investigated these accounts in a scientific manner, which is to reject them only when I find evidence of falsity. I rejected them because I had a bias: I believed that there could be no God. Instead, I was finding evidence to support my belief. "Evolution", "Dinosaurs", "Big Bang", "Science says so": these were some of the evidence which I collected against the Bible. And the best part was that I had never read or studied the text which I attacked so much.

As a science researcher, it excites me to learn new things about how our world works. It amazes me even more now, that all the beauty and symmetry in the laws of physics and in mathematics I had admired since young -- all this beauty is there because we have a wise, smart and creative God. This is one of the reasons why I love science so much: because I know that God has so much more in store for us to discover in His wonderful creation!

Science and Religion

I finally recorded my talk on Science and Religion! I gave the talk to some colleagues here at my worksplace on 1 Dec, and we had some really interesting discussion after that. Thanks to my brudder Joel, you can access the presentation file and voice recording at this website:

http://www.stanford.edu/~joelgoh/shaowei/talk/

Here is a short gist of what I spoke about:

1. Science vs Religion

Three major arguments by Science against Religion:

• To understand our world, there is no need for a "God hypothesis".
• We cannot observe God, so God cannot be real.
• Evolution and Big Bang has proven that God does not exist.

We will discover that these arguments are true to a large extent (which is why they are so convincing), and will uncover some deep unexpected questions as well.

2. If God exists, how are we supposed to find Him?

We discover that the Greeks who lived 2000 years ago wondered about the same question, and a man named Paul had some answers for them.

What's with God and worship?!

I got the following dialogue about worship from my Stanford campus pastor, Glen Davis. As usual, Glen invents an incredibly witty and funny way of explaining difficult concepts. He is one guy I really respect for being truly intellectually honest about faith! Hope you enjoy the following as much as I did!

Q: Does God need us?
A: No. God did not create us because he was lonely or lacking in anything. He had perfect community within the trinity before creating anything.

Q: I thought maybe he fed on our worship or something.
A: No. You've been playing too much Dungeons & Dragons.

Q: Then why did God create?
A: For the same reason that an artist paints or a singer sings. For the joy of it.

Q: So why should God care whether we worship him or not?
A: Because God is love.

Q: You didn't answer my question. What does that have to do with worship?
A: Yes I did, I just didn't unpack it. Here's how it goes: love is to desire good for someone else. God is the ultimate good and so he desires Himself for us.

Q: That sounds fishy. How is worshiping God good for us?
A: Let's hit it from a different angle - God's highest value is God. That's not arrogance--that's a simple realization of truth. God understands that He is greater than any thing in the universe (or indeed the whole universe put together), both from a standpoint of raw power and from a standpoint of moral perfection. If God were not intelligent enough to understand his own greatness and not truth-loving enough to admit it he would be a very poor God indeed. In fact, to not recognize his own perfection would be evidence of horrendous imperfection.

This is where we come in. When we don't acknowledge God's greatness and give due honor to his perfection (which is another way of describing worship), we reveal our horrendous imperfection. Moreover, we begin to build our lives on false assumptions--assumptions that are dangerous. We begin to ignore the existence of a real and binding moral code external to ourselves, and so we take immoral actions and reap painful consequences. Ultimately, we reap the final consequence and are consigned to eternity apart from God (a fate more horrendous that we can conceive of, for we are not truly separated from him now).

Because God loves us, He doesn't want that fate for us.

Q: Saying how not worshiping is bad is not the same thing as saying how worshiping is good.
A: True enough. The flip side of the coin is that God wants to help us overcome our horrendous imperfection. He wants us to become morally admirable, even as he is. We have to at least admire moral perfection to make any progress towards it. There are other ingredients, but not admiring or desiring moral perfection will certainly stymie progress.

To admire it is to admire God, which returns us to the idea of worship.

Q: Perhaps. What does that have to do with evangelism?
A: Everything--we aspire to moral perfection (or at least sustained moral improvement) and so we desire to become more like God. God wants people to worship him and so we desire the same thing for much the same reasons.

Q: Much the same reasons? What reasons are different for us?
A: An additional motive for us is the desire to bring God pleasure.

Q: Not only do I have to worship him but I have to make him happy as well? How neurotic is this guy?
A: You miss the point. First, we don't have to worship him. We have a choice, and the choice (like all choices) has consequences. We either understand the nature of reality accurately or we do not. Upon understanding it, we either act congruently or we do not.

Second, we don't have to make him happy. But what else can you get for the guy who has everything? Bringing him pleasure is about all that we can offer.

Q: Why should I care whether or not I offer him anything?
A: Let's see--gratitude for being created, gratitude for being forgiven, gratitude for giving us help in our journey towards being like him, and that whole love thing.

Q: That whole love thing?
A: Yeah. We ought to love him because love is moral. Loving him means we want what's best for him. Bringing him pleasure is undeniably better than bringing him pain.

Q: But why doesn't that motivate me?
A: That brings us back to the whole horrendous imperfection thing...

God of Debugging

I want to share an amazing story from my friend, Sieweng, who works here at I2R with me. I meet her every morning on the bus to work, and we would chat about many things. One day, we talked about prayer: that it is about having a conversation with God. I told her that we have a God who desires to help us in all our problems.

Sieweng is writing a program for one of her research work. She has spent a lot of time debugging the complex program. About two weeks ago, she got really frustrated over a particular bug, so she asked her God to help her. That Sunday night (13 Nov '05), she had a dream. In the dream, she solved the bug and was extremely happy. When she woke up, she tried to remember the solution but could not. She felt a little upset, but she was encouraged by the dream to work at the program again.

So that faithful Monday morning, she studied the bug. She had an idea to view the problem from a different perspective, and tried it out. Suddenly, the program worked! She felt so happy that the next morning on the bus, she was still beaming about it when she told me about her marvelous encounter with God.

To others, it may all seem like a coincidence. But many of us who have been touched by God in a similar way know how it feels. You know deep in your heart that it did not happen by chance.

Overcomer

That is one word which God spoke clearly into me, since last year when I was in Budapest. Another word that God spoke clearly of is warrior . It seems at first to me, that perhaps God was telling me about my future, that I would have to endure and overcome the troubles of some sort, or that I would be a mighty warrior of God extending His kingdom here with the rest of His army of saints.

Then, I realized that God was using the words to tell me more about my existing circumstances: the problems I had adjusting to life in Budapest, the weak relationship I had with my family which He wanted to strengthen, the stress over applying for graduate school. God wanted me to overcome those problems. Even if I fell down again and again, He just wanted me to pick myself up again and again. He wanted me to never give up.

A few months later, I was especially encouraged when I read Revelations. In Jesus' words to the seven churchs, he always ended of by encouraging those who overcome.

"To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God." Rev 2:7

"He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death." Rev 2:11

"To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it." Rev 2:17

"To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations, ..., just as I have receuived authority from my Father. I will also give him the morning star." Rev 2:26

"He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels." Rev 3:5

"Him who overcomes, I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name." Rev 3:12

"To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne." Rev 3:21

What was encouraging was that Jesus didn't say, "To him who accomplishes many things". He said that we only have to remain faithful to Him, never giving up. Recently, I was reading "Day of the Saints" by Bill Hamon, and the author talked about exactly the same things! He described how as saints, we are overcomers and warriors in the Lord! The book touched my heart deeply in a way only God can. This is why I chose to write this here in my blog.

God gave me a word two weeks ago: "I desire to work through my people - not through those who do not fall, but through those who fall and always pick themselves up again." The Bible is full of stories about people who fell and picked themselves up again to be used by God: Moses who killed someone, Joseph who was thrown in jail, David who killed a man for his wife, Peter who denied the Lord, Paul who persecuted the Christians. God is an expert in helping people to their feet, if they would allow him to do it and not depend on their own strengths.

Worship: A Conversation

When I first became a Christian, I always looked forward to worship at my church (FCBC) every week! I loved how I felt during worship: the joy, the love, the peace, the beauty, the overwhelming revelations of His Being & His Kingdom!

Later, I heard a message on how worship is not an experience. A lot of people go to worship to experience the music, or the happiness. But after that, they forget everything and return to their normal lives, living for themselves and not for the Lord. You can tell this is the attitude of the people when they say things like this: "Today's worship was really good! I felt really good at the end of it."

I think the message really woke me up to the true meaning of worship: that worship is what we are offering up to the Lord, and not what He is giving to us. In worship, we are trying to please God, and not about waiting for a wonderful experience from Him.

Then, after that, I felt guilty whenever I step into a worship session expecting a wonderful experience. I would focus my mind on giving my praise to Him: "You are good! You are Holy!" Yet, the words felt meaningless, because I did not say them with conviction.

Recently, I brought my guitar to my office in I2R, and starting practicing on it just as Joel had taught me. Sometimes, worship in the prayer closet, is even deeper and more beautiful than in church. I am not saying personal worship is better, because the Lord is greatly blessed when He sees His people coming together in love before Him. But He also desires worship that is deep, that is not distracted by thinking of what others think, that is in Spirit and in Truth.

Worship in the prayer closet taught me that just as "we love because He first loved us", we cannot worship Him unless He aids us. Worship is like a love conversation:

"God, I want to worship You."

"Then, let Me help you. Do you know of My great love for you?"

"Yes, I do, but I don't know enough. What I know is only a grain in Your ocean of love for me."

"You are right, that is why worship will carry on to eternity, as you receive surpassingly great revelations of that love, forever. My Spirit will reveal these things to you, for you cannot know them by your own."

"Then Lord, fill me with Your Spirit, so that Your Spirit may speak Truth to me, that I may worship You in Spirit and in Truth."

"My Spirit is free, you cannot earn it by your own deeds or righteousness. Yet, My Spirit comes with a deep price. That price was paid by Me, on the cross. I died, so that you can worship Me, as you do now. For the right and ability to worship is the greatest blessing I can give to you. You will desire it and enjoy it for eternity."

Oh, that when we worship, we will not stick to the words of a song! That the songs may guide us into Truth, but the songs are not the worship! Worship is a conversation, an experience by both the Lover and the loved! If we do not experience Him, how can we worship Him? Yes, there will be times in the desert when we do not feel Him, yet we will continue to worship Him with whatever left we have, just as Job did. However, the Lord desires that we experience Him in worship: the experience should not be the focus, but it should also not be neglected.

When looking back at some of the worship conversations I have with God, I find it interesting that when I remove God's parts, it sounds like some worship song to me. I realized that many worship songs were written as part of some spiritual conversation with the Lord, and we need to hear the Lord for the words between the lines!

I am still thankful for the message I heard about worship: that it is not about the gift (worship experience) but about the Giver. It has helped me to gain a deeper understanding of what worship truly means, and I can now come to worship at church, not just expecting a gift, but also prepared to give one!

Just Ask Him

Ever sat down in your prayer closet, and didn't feel like praying at all? That happens to me pretty often. Even though prayer always leaves me filled and joyful, somehow I still feel the reluctance when I sit down to pray. I always try to start by focusing my mind on Him, or by reading some Bible verses, or singing some worship songs. These methods often fail.

One method that always works is this: Just ask Him. Just ask Him to calm your nerves, so that you will not keep thinking of all the tasks that need your attention that day. Just ask Him to show you His love so that you will be filled with love for Him. Just ask Him to teach you more about Him, so that you may grow wiser and know His will for the day. Just ask Him. And wait.

The problem is that my mind cannot comprehend why this works. Even though I know that He is able to do all things, I keep depending on my own strength or effort to come to Him - I use my own effort to focus on Him, to read His word, to worship Him. I am learning more and more that by myself, it is impossible.

Perhaps this is why Paul says: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." in Phil 4:6-7.

This verse really spoke to me when recently, I felt overwhelmed by the amount of work required of me for the upcoming Japan and Iran trips. On top of that, I had quite a bit of research and reading to catch up on. Then, there was the Spook Show: I was worried that my friends would not enjoy themselves that evening. One method that always works in relieving me of stress is to write all my worries down. I did that. I felt worse. I had a lot more work back when I was in OCS HQ, but I never felt the same kind of stress. I felt useless.

So I did the only thing I could: I asked Him for help. I didn't know what this help would be. He should know better. For a while, I waited and nothing happened. Then, Paul's words came to mind: "Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance." Wow, it is PURE JOY! Pure, like gold or silver! Isn't that amazing, that I can experience pure joy through my trials. Paul has often written on joy, but seldom has he talked of joy that is PURE. I saw that my problems were a testing of my faith. I saw that in my weakness, I have to learn to depend on God. Woo hoo! More glory to Him! More victory! More miracles! More wisdom! More joy! How awesome! How exciting this adventure will be!

I still don't understand how it works: just asking God. I think I subconsciously still feel that by asking God, I am just reminding myself to think about what the Bible says about my problem. Yet, the solution comes out of the blue, from God's heavenly realm into my mind. I can't explain it, I am not exaggerating. Perhaps that's why it is so beautiful : )

Worship in Spirit and Truth

I read the following from "The Call" by Rick Joyner. Here, Rick just fell into a deep sleep, and is caught up to the Heavenly realms where he witnessed these things. Hope it will bless your heart as much as it did mine. From Page 203:

"I saw the Father. Millions and millions were attending Him. His glory is so great and the power of His presence so awesome that I fel that the whole earth would not have even measured as a grain of sand before Him. When I had once heard His audible voice, I felt like an atom standing before the sun, but when I saw Him, I knew that the sun was like an atom before Him. The galaxies were like curtains around Him. His robe was composed of millions and millions of living stars. Everything in His presence was living -- His throne, His crown, His scepter. I knew I could dwell before Him forever and never cease to marvel; there was no higher purpose in the universe than to worship Him.

Then the Father became intent on one thing. All of heaven seemed to stop and watch. He was beholding the cross. The Son's love for His Father which He continued to express through all the pain and darkness then coming upon Him touched the Father so deeply that He began to quake. When He did, heaven and earth quaked. When the Father closed His eyes, heaven and earth grew dark. The emotion of the Father was so great that I did not think I could have survived if I had beheld this scene for more than the brief moment that I did.

Then I was in a different place, beholding a worship service in a little church building. As sometimes happens in a prophetic experience, I just seemed to know everything about everyone in the battered little room. All were experiencing severe trials in their lives, but they were not even thinking of them here. They were all trying to compose songs of thanksgiving to the Lord. They were happy, and their joy was sincere.

I saw heaven, and all of heaven weeping. I then saw the Father again and knew why heaven was weeping. They were weeping because of the tears in the eyes of the Father. This little group of seemingly beaten down, struggling people had moved God so deeply that He wept. They were not tears of pain, but of joy. When I saw the love that He felt for these few worshippers, I could not contain my own tears.

Nothing I had experienced gripped me more than this scene. Worshipping the Lord on earth was not more desirable to me than dwelling in all of the glory of heaven. I knew that I had been given a message that could help prepare the saints for the battles that remained on earth, but now this did not mean nearly as much to me as trying to convey how we could touch the Father. Genuine adoration expressed by even the most humble believer on earth could cause all of heaven to rejoice, but even more than that, it touches the Father. This is why the angels would rather be given charge over a single believer on the earth than to be given authority over many galaxies of stars.

I saw Jesus standing next to the Father. Beholding the joy of the Father as He watched the little prayer meeting, He turned to me and said, "This is why I went to the cross. Giving My Father joy for just one moment would have been worth it all. Your worship can cause Him joy every day. Your worship when you are in the midst of difficulties touches Him even more than all of the worship of heaven. Here, where His glory is seen, the angels cannot help but to worship. When you worship without seeing His glory in the midst of your trails, that is worship in Spirit and in truth. The Father seeks such to be His worshippers. Do not waste your trials. Worship the Father, not for what you will receive, but to bring Him joy. You will never be stronger than when you bring Him joy, for the joy of the Lord is your strength."

Prayer by Faith

I just started reading "Why Revival Tarries" by Leonard Ravenhill. I thought it was interesting and important how the author mentions prayer in the first few chapters of the book. So today, I asked God what it means to "pray by faith".

First, He told me to hold out my hand in front of me, and keep my eyes closed. He told me to see my hand with the eyes of my heart. Even though I could not see my hand with my physical eyes, I knew that my hand was right in front of me.

God asked me why I knew my hand was right in front of me. I replied that because I had willed it to go there, and I knew that I had the strength in my arm to bring it there. "Those are the key words," He noted, "Will and Strength".

To pray is to ask to know the will of the Lord. When we pray knowing the Will of the Lord, we pray with confidence that He who wills it will also bring it to pass. We also pray because we have confidence that He has to Strength to bring it to pass. Our prayer is an expression of our trust in His Will and His Strength.

We do not see the fulfilment of the prayer with our physical eyes, yet God wants to teach us to see it with the eyes of our heart. With confidence, we know that it is fulfilled, just as I was confident that my hand was in front of me. This faith is important, because without faith, it is impossible to please God.

How to do know if something is the will of the Lord? Put it on the altar, and ask the Lord to burn away anything that is not of Him. He will reveal to you what remains, and if He does not reveal, He will show us what we need to learn or overcome in order to see it with our heart.

Dental Surgery

I went for a dental surgery yesterday, to have a piece of my bone moved from the chin to my gums. Before the surgery, I was totally at peace, feeling no stress at all. God told me that He would be with me throughout. It was only when I was wearing my surgery clothes that I started to fear the pain. He, in all honesty, told me that there would be pain, but His grace would be sufficient for me to bear it.

Indeed, there was a point in the operation when they were drilling the bone out of my chin, and they could not loosen it so they used a chisel. The pain struck straight to my bone. In that moment, God shouted out, "TRUST ME!". I gripped my hands and thought, "God, save me!" His peace filled me, and He told me, it would soon be over.

After the operation, I realised why He said, "TRUST ME!". I was not to trust in my own courage (which I had none), nor was I to trust in the dentists. Yet, God was guiding the hands of the dentists, He is the real one who was doing the operation. That's why I should trust Him. Only He can give me peace.

I was also reminded during the surgery, how it was like surgery on our hearts. God did not promise us no pain. In fact, He warns us of it, and tells us to count the cost. Without surgery, there can be no healing and no change. We need to Trust in Him, our master Surgeon. His grace is sufficient for the enduring of our pains.

The Final Quest

I am reading this awesome book by Rick Joyner called "The Final Quest". It is about the visions that God gave him with regards to the Last Days, and God's calling for us to stand firm in Jesus, seeking after Him with all that we have. At first, I was apprehensive about the truthfulness of his visions, but God showed me that even if I was very sure that the visions were from Him, I should still test everything it says with discernment.

As Rick Joyner himself mentions, just because there is a danger that prophecy can be misused, it does not mean that we should avoid or ignore it. It is a gift given by God for our encouragement, comfort, and edification (building up). Never, however, should prophecy be given the same certainty as the Sciptures. We should test everything we hear by coming before Jesus for wisdom.

I have not regretted reading it. It really challenges me to live up to the ideals that Jesus calls us to. It really challenges me to reconsider the realness of the spiritual realm over our physical world. It really challenges me to have a new sense of urgency.

"The Final Quest" is the first in a series of three books about Rick Joyner's visions, which includes "The Call", and "The Sword and The Torch". I thank Cynthia for first encouraging me to read his books, and Shih Yang for kindly lending them to me.

Introduction

Hi everyone, I decided to start blogging in order to share some of the thoughts which are shaping and changing me as a person. Perhaps, it would be appropriate to begin by sharing about how I came to be a believer in Christ Jesus. Below is a link to the testimony on my website:

http://www.stanford.edu/~swlin/projects/church/testimony.htm