Is Jesus a King or Servant? A Thought To Ponder

Is Jesus a King or servant? This question may be easy for the mature Christian to answer but it is worth pondering again in these current perilious and majestic times on earth.

Jesus Christ is a servant only insofar as the Redeemer, in giving His life to us unsaved souls that we may gain eternal life through the redemptive mercy of God, served the gift of eternity to mortal mankind. In simpler words, He died that we may live. He became low to the point of being scorned, tortured and killed, that we may rise up to the throne of God.

Which Son of God would come down from Heaven to take the flesh of man and die for mankind who do not even know him? Which samaritan would give his life for a complete stranger?

Is there a religion in this world that a divine being would come down to the level of lowly creatures who are plagued by wickedness and sin in their hearts, to rescue them from their folly?

The reason He did it is, not only because God the Father asked him to do it. He gave His precious life and sacred blood as an offering to save something truly great and majestic in man, namely the genetic blueprint that we have in our spirit and soul.

So once we are saved, what is our relationship to Jesus? Is He still a servant or is a King? In Romans, Paul says we are to reign with Him as we are co-heirs with Christ in the Heavens.

Romans 5:17 says, “For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.”

First, the gift of righteousness is a gift given to us not because of what good deeds we have done but because of the blood shed by Jesus. Whenever the devil accuses us in front of God, Father God sees His Son in us, for we carry the crown of righteousness.

Second, having received this gift, we are to reign in our lives on earth. It does not mean to take physical dominion and prosper but to reign as Christ reigned his own life.

In Romans 8:17 Paul says, “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”

To reign as co-heirs of Christ means we have full rights, as God the Father's adopted sons, to receive His inheritance just as Jesus, Father God's only begotten Son, is the natural heir of the Father.

Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, is the natural “heir” of the Father. “ Thus, being a co-heir with Christ means that we, as God’s adopted children, will share in the inheritance of Jesus.

In Galatians 4:7, it is written: “You are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.” So these powerful words speak of the redeemed as part of the family of God the Father.

But when Jesus comes to take us as His bride, we will still be co-heirs with Him. But more than that, we become betrothed to Him in marriage. As His bride, we are to show love, honour, respect to Him as our King and spiritual husband.

He is thus, no longer a servant in this realm. He will guide us, counsel us, train us and mould us for God's divine purposes. There are many glorious mysteries which God has not revealed. But we are not to speculate further and implant our own understanding of this new relationship with Jesus our bridegroom.

Being the Son of God and our bridegroom, Jesus is our kingly husband, to all redeemed man, woman and child. In no way are we to refer to Him as our servant King. He may still have the attributes of a servant leader, but that fact doesnt inform our relationship with Him.

Now, when Jesus comes back to the world, He will come back twice, once for the Rapture and the second time, in the last battle of Armageddon on the Day of Judgement when all peoples on earth, good and evil, kings and servants, rich and poor, will be judged and separated as sheep on His right and goats on His left.

So in these end times, Jesus is a King as He chooses who to rapture to be His bride and who to take to Heaven after the tribulation has refined many people and caused many, especially the Jews, to open their hearts to Him.

 

Abiding In Christ: The Tree & The Roots

To abide in Christ is to be rooted in Him, not as a leaf or a branch but as a root. A leaf can be pruned when it is overgrown. But a root is always there. A leaf can be easily torn off from the branch. Likewise a branch can be torn off from the tree. But a root is grown into the soil.

Unless we reject Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, the root can not be torn out.

When we live in the world, the storms and winds will blow at the tree and we will see many changes in our circumstances. But if we hold on to our salvation in Christ, we shall not be moved. That salvation is in the faith of our Spirit man, holding on to Jesus our Saviour and Helper. He will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear to the extent that we lose our salvation through disobedience and living a sinful life. It is said adulterers, fornicators, homosexuals and liars will not enter into the Kingdom of God.

The root of the tree is our will interwined with our faith to hold on to Jesus, our God. But if we willingly allow the winds or some gardener to pull out the root, then we shall be responsible for the loss of our salvation.

Like a ship that is unanchored without a sail, it will sail into unknown waters and we shall meet an unwholesome end, an eternal death.

Jesus provides a way out of our storms, He provides a way out of our deepest crises, He is our Counseler and our Helper at all times. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. His nature is love, mercy and grace.

We who abide in His nature and take on the vessel of Christ, we will not have anything to do with inequity, with quarrels and worldly pleasures.

Man is made for communion with God, his creator. But if he decides to commune solely with his fellow beings without reference to His Creator, he is like a soldier without a general, a ship without a compass, a plane without a radar.

Man is made body, soul and spirit. The soul is both the mind and the emotions. And that is the point where Satan attacks us: by speaking lies and half-truths into our minds so as to influence our emotions. Eventually, if we listen and believe in satan's voice and lies, we shall act in ways that dishonour and displease God. We will not be counted worthy of our salvation.

And that is where the devil boasts of his half-won victory. He shall point out to God and the whole world, saying: "Look here! Here is a man who was once saved but just look at him now: sinning and lying like no one's business, pretending to repent for a while and then going back into sin. Why should such a man be worthy to be saved and enter Heaven? Isnt he a poor example of God's mercy if he can just repent before he dies and enter Heaven?"

This is a serious accusation that seeks to besmirch and stain the reputation and grace of God. It is like the devious snake in the garden of Eden who told Eve that she will be like God if she ate the fruit from the forbidden tree.

Quiet Nights, Quiet Dreams In Bangkok

Travelling in Bangkok for three days, taking the BTS, the MRT and eating at the food courts and street stalls is an enriching experience. 

Beneath the vibrancy, the decadence, the youthful expectancy of the city folks lies a certain sadness. This sadness is of a beauty that is out of this world, like the stars in a quiet night evoked by Antonio Carlos Jobim's Corcovado.

Bangkok is a city that is so well organised in its transport system that it contrasts with the streets where all kinds of vendors and hookers dwell to sell their wares. The physique and the faces of the Thais are very different from the Chinese and the Malays. Some are big boned and quite large. Quite a few share the sharp noses and high cheekbones of Caucasian or Indians.

But beyond the physical, there is something about the people's character that is uniquely Thai. They have a very independent history linked to the royal kingdom and Buddishm. Yet they have a strong inclination for beauty, order and dreams/aspirations. They seek these things in a graceful albeit not necessarily ethical or moral way.

Yet, if there is a city that can be subject to a world government, I ask myself how would Bangkok adapt to it given its paradoxical mix of liberalness and its unique Thai customs.

The Thai language could be the only barrier that shields the Thais from the world. They seem to see things very differently from others, having no inclinations to be allied with any regional or global power. Yet Thailand has been the subject of political intrigues of its own, the palace scandals and secrets that were intertwined with the business elite and the military.

In my opinion, this is a country that needs the refreshing peace of Jesus Christ's forgiveness and mercy. The urban Thais are a graceful and aesthetic people but they have lost their ways in the deceptive worship and entanglement with the philosophies of Buddhism, hedonism and like other Asian cities, materialism.

The mystery of the former king's life and influence over the Thai people is like an extended family mythology and that mythology has passed away with the King's death in 2016.

For investors, the key question is whether Thailand's economy will become stronger and be liberated from the clutches of the military junta after the elections in late 2018.

That question depends on so many factors one of which is the awakening of the people to what is truly going on in the world, especially the ascendancy of China in the region and the political changes in America.

At the very least, Thai society is free from the menace of the race card, a tactic used by politicians in places like Malaysia and America to divide and rule.

Quiet nights and quiet stars Quiet chords from my guitar Floating on the silence that surrounds us Quiet nights and quiet dreams Quiet walks by quiet streams And the window lookin' on the mountains and the sea how lovely This is where I want to be Here with you so close to me Till the final flicker of life's ember I who was lost and lonely Believing life was a only a bitter tragic joke Have found with you the meaning of existence oh, my love

Um cantinho, um violão,
Esse amor numa canção,
Pra fazer feliz a quem se ama,
Muita calma pra pensar e ter tempo pra sonhar,
Da janela vê-se o Corcovado,
O Redentor que lindo.

Quero a vida sempre assim,
Com você perto de mim,
Até o apagar da velha chama,
E eu que era triste,
Descrente de sinismo,
Ao encontrar você eu conheci,
O que é Felicidade, Meu Amor.

Bon Apetit, Monsieur Camus

The Europe of the early 1970s, the Europe of the mid 1980s and today's strange conglomeration of old and new cities called the Eurozone are so far apart.

I lived in Europe for a decade of my life: 3 years in England when I was a child, followed by 2 years in Paris when my artist father moved there to make his mark in the highly competitive art world. Finally, I spent 5 years in London studying for my pre-university and then attending the prestigious London School of Economics.

Culturally, I was brought up in an environment of European classical music, art and literature. I grew up absorbing the music of Mozart, Spanish guitar of Segovia and later in life, Bach. My appetite for reading fiction started when my Bohemian uncle suggested authors such as Herman Hesse and Albert Camus. From Hesse, I ventured on my own to the Russian Dostoevsky, whose Crime and Punishment was a compelling read into the soul of an intellectual criminal.

But at the same time, I was a great fan of Bob Dylan's folk and love songs. This multi-faceted taste in music from classical European to the free-wheeling expressiveness of contemporary American music reflects the dual pull of two cultures: the old reverential and the new expressiveness.

As a matter of personal inclination, I like the European sense of vast orderly spaces, the juxtaposition of the Baroque, the Imperial against the minimalist structures of modern architecture such as the Pyramid at the Louvre. The Italian surrealist de Chirico's paintings captures the melancholic vastness of the European psyche: introverted but filled with a profound meditation on life.

But when I look at the Europe of today, there is a cry in my innermost being: What have you become, O Europe, from the streets of Paris to Rome? 

Apart from the economic crises caused by entangling 19 nations into the Euro currency and the control of an unelected European Parliament, the Europe of today is beset by problems of Islamic inspired terrorism, open border globalism, pretentious cultural inclusiveness, the rise of Islamic issues with the influx of refugees and increasing political power of Islamic friendly governments.

The Shadow of Camus

If there is one writer whose writings encapsulated the angst and future destiny of Europe, it is the French Algerian writer Albert Camus. For him, the destiny of man is a complex, lonely journey, which, after struggling through the maze of deep spiritual longings, ultimately leads to a one way street towards a city called nothingness. 

Existentialism is a strange philosophy. It is like the symbol of the serpent biting and eating its own tail. Man, perhaps because of his highly developed intelligence and knowledge, who, having failed to find a meaning of life predicated on his own rational and intellectual terms, has to arrive at a philosophy of meaninglessness, as if to mock the universe.

Camus would have been a more sincere writer if he had been a poet as he was adept at expressing the lost condition of modern rational man. But as a serious novelist and essayist, he claimed defeat in his quest for truth the moment he declared there can be no meaning in life except what man can make of it, which for him, was to be a philosophical rebel.

So in the current crisis that Europeans are facing today (apart from the economic one linked to its common currency system), we have the problem of cultural inclusiveness and tolerance of a non European feudal culture besieging the foundation of post European culture, which was formerly simply a tension between Christianity and rational philosophy. 

Once the existentialism of Camus gave way to an expanding European community built on making peace and economic union with its southern neighbors at all costs, even to the extent of risking the security of the nations, we have what we see today: enclaves of largely Muslim immigrants living in the suburbs, hardly integrating with the Europeans and posing tremendous economic costs in terms of social benefit spending not to speak of the security nightmare of containing the upsurge of Islamic jihadist attacks.

The Guilt Ridden Lion

In England, I am baffled by the widespread integration of Islamic representation in politics and social life. It is as if, the British government is burdened with tremendous guilt for invading Iraq after being deceived by the globalist Prime Minister Tony Blair.

A nation burdened by guilt over its past misdeeds should just be honest and repentantly apologise (like the post war Germans) to the nation it nearly destroyed. Instead, Britain decided to make amends by accepting the partial assimilation of Islamic values into British society as if this could wipe away the national guilt of its initiative in co-launching the Iraq war with the Americans on false pretexts.

The Future: An Empty Horizon?

Looking ahead, the growing tension between populist nationalism versus the European Union's pan globalism is going to get worse if there is no intelligent political awakening to the underlying decadence of Europe's foundation, which was once based on sovereign freedom of thought and governance.(Just look at the violent, anarchist Antifa movement in European cities).

But as I said earlier, the intellectual awakening that Camus called for is not a genuine awakening from the half light of dawn to broad daylight. In fact, it is a step into a prolonged twilight where the streets ahead, like Giogio de Chirico's street landscapes, lead to an unknown, empty horizon.

Camus himself, said "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." The potential tragedy of Europe is that the act of rebellion is not against the old established order of post Renaissance enlightenment. No, what he really meant, at heart, is that the rebellion is against an unknown, unresponsive, silent God.

The truth of the matter is that the Creator Himself, so generous and gracious in His dedication to the European peoples, was never silent. The Europeans, as they grew weary and disheartened by two devastating World Wars and finding limited leeway in their intellectual tools of analysis, closed their minds and hearts to the quiet voice of God.

The rebellion against civilization always starts innocently with an intellectual game of rebellion in the form of well-written novels. Gradually, that rebellion will morph into a rebellion against every civilized value of freedom and independent right of life.

It is my hope that European citizens (unlike the governing elite) do not allow themselves to misconstrue the populist, anti globalist movement as a kind of racist, bigoted, nationalism but as a genuine step in reassessing their intellectual identity and heritage.

(Had Camus been alive today, he would be shocked to see how existentialism prepared the ground for Fascism, socialist anarchism and eventually the bureaucratic fiefdom of the EU. Bon apetit, Monsieur Camus!).

   

Global Economic Crisis in 2020? A Dialogue on Linked-In

This interesting discussion started with Derick Tan (an active trader and investor in the stock, commodities, currencies, bonds and property) saying that there will be a sovereign debt crisis in the world. So I asked him to elaborate:

LSR: Sovereign debt crisis in southern Europe?

Derick Tan: Sovereign Debt Crisis (SDC) not only in Europe, also in Japan & later on U.S.

LSR: Not in the near term of next three years at least for the US. Yields may be rising but its a mistake to ignore the fact that GDP will rise too. Its the latter that pulls up interest rates.

  

Derick Tan: Personally, I feel Janet Yellen is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If she doesn't increase interest rate fast enough, there will be a pension fund crisis, which is already starting to hit some pension funds in U.S. If she does increase interest rate at a faster pace, it is going to bring the world down on its knee. Donald Trump can say all he want about bringing U.S.'s GDP to 4%, I seriously doubt he is able to do it. There will be a global monetary crisis 2020-2022, because of SDC in Europe, Japan & U.S. Just my personal view. Thank u.

LSR: It is true that the world is in an economic and political crisis. If we can see the factors that caused this crisis (not just one factor alone), then we can analyse what are the changes happening today.

1. The low interest rate era is ending with rates in the process of rising. Whether it is on a real or nominal basis depends on the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.

2. The leaders who caused a widening of the rich and poor gap are being replaced. Just ask anyone who is lower economic class than yourself....Just today I spoke to a Singapore taxi driver and after telling him the Spore markets went up this year, he replied only the rich benefited from stock markets. And several taxi drivers I spoke to are critical of their self-serving governments, even in a corruption free place like Singapore.

3. If you agree that the one and key solution for the US economy to grow faster but that the chances are very slim, I think we should all give Trump a chance to bring about that economic miracle. 

4. The character assassination and attempts at impeaching Trump is driven by spurious reasons. He overcome all odds to win the election. That alone takes tremendous genius and energy. He needs all our support, esp to restore peace in the Middles East and destroy or weaken at least ISIS, even if it means colluding with the Russians.

Looking into 2018 The Year of Triumph?

2017 is almost half way through and it has been a truly exciting roller coaster. The election of Donald Trump against all odds has been for me, a personal victory of sorts.

For many years, I have been concerned about the deterioration of the world political and economic order, especially with the disastrous policies and failed leadership of Barack Obama. The Syrian 'civil' war and the way the refugee crisis unfolded in Europe was the straw that broke the camel's back and the camel is essentially the Europeans and Americans. Brexit was the right response to teach the European Union that nations have a real choice to leave and regain their sovereign identity.

Having said that, the first few months of President Trump's administration has been quite mixed. He had more problems with the FBI and allegations of Russian collusion in the election, a charge which I see as truly without any logical basis. Yes, he may be friendly with Putin but if his alliance with Putin is to destroy ISIS and restore peace in Syria, then it is a positive thing.

The first year of Trump's presidency is likely to be rough and filled with road blocks from the elite who want him gone and impeached. But 2018 will be his biggest test because by then, he will have to carry through his fiscal stimulus and tax cuts to revive the US economy towards the 3.0% plus growth pace, which is the lower range of his 3-4% target.

The Winter of My Country Has Come (Long Shih Rome)

The winter of my country has come,
Like a thief in a quiet night,
And a crimson sky at the break of dawn.

The winter of my country has come,
To break the soil and freeze the running stream.
The man of history has come,
Awakening us from our restless dreams.

The winter of my country has come,
Even in the eye of a tropical storm,
A winter of broken wishes,
A winter of stolen rhymes.

The watchmen have left their posts,
The wolves are gathered at the gates,
Rumours of wars and twists of fate
Hamlet's dilemma: to act or contemplate.

Is there light after the darkest hour?
Can a good man be kept from the love for power,
Is that a sound of clashing empires?
Only God knows our deepest desires.

The winter of my country has come,
To a country ruined by broken dreams,
Like a horse caught in mid-stream.

And in the distances we hear
News that a great change is near,
From the land of the free
Like an arrow shot across the earth.
Trusting that, at the end of days,
There is nothing left but to praise
The Lord of Hosts who seek the good and the brave.