“Verily I say unto you, except you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3
Such was one of the many beautiful wisdoms the Lord has. I don’t think He meant that as a qualifying statement, but rather as a matter of truth, just like saying a cat cannot bark.
Coming from Heaven, the Lord knew what He was saying. After all, He was the Word that created everything in Heaven and on Earth. Together with Father, they decided what the kingdom of heaven should be like and how it operate. Through the depiction that He gives in the Bible, I gather that the kingdom of heaven is limitless and has all the things that logical minds cannot fathom. It is a place where you need to have the kind of faith that will believe anything, just like what a child would believe. “According to your faith, it is so,” says the Author of faith.
I believe thus if He says anything, it means anything. If He says, ask and you will receive, it means just that. It is really that simple. It is so because His plan for each of us is so grandiose that it would take a sincere and perfect (trusting) heart to believe and agree with Him, a heart like a child’s where we all were once.
I believe it is by design. He has always meant it to be that way.
Life started simple
As a little girl, I would run around the yard in our neighbourhood with my brother and my cousins, looking for butterflies, catching worms, chasing each other. On some evenings, an ice cream peddler would come and we would drop everything in our hands and rush to him and spend our weekly savings buying ice creams when our parents were not looking. That was the highlight of our week! There was one time, after happily opening my ice cream wrapper and taking my first lick, I heard my first uncle calling us from the house. We had no choice but to throw away our ice cream and ran back to the house while gesturing to the ice cream peddler to make his move! That memory still makes me smile to this day.
Simple things made us happy. I would look forward to the school day just because I had planned the snack or stationary I would buy with my daily allowance. Then adulthood entered in and reality (of this world) set in.
As far as I can remember, I have always been a responsible person, even since of a young age. It was as though it was ingrained in me. My mother told me that during my kindergarten days, I would prepare my uniform for the next day with the matching handkerchief to go with it. The habit continued to my primary school years. At the age of six, every night I would have my bag neatly packed, banded for each subject, and all my pencils sharpened.
It was not long before I felt that everything depended on me and my performance. Gradually through the years, I started to feel that life was heavy and tomorrow was a dreadful word. Being a star performer in my study did not help either, I felt the need to maintain the 'reputation'. So that was the story of my life for almost two decades. All along 'knowing' Jesus, just not at the level that word really means.
The voice
Then one morning, as I was putting on my make-up, getting ready to go to the office, I heard a voice within me. It was the Lord. He said, "Why do you go through life like you have to take care of yourself?" That stopped me in action. I knew what He meant, but I did not know how to answer that. There were too many hurts and disappointments, I was toughening up myself each day. It was hurting me yet I did not know how to stop. But the Lord knew.
That was probably the beginning of Him saving me without me even realising it. But things went worse before they got better. With each bad experience, my grip on this life got stronger. I controlled everything I could control to prevent myself from getting hurt: my diet, my schedule, my work ethic and more.
After my daughter fell ill, health and nutrition became my focus. I was determined to learn everything I needed to learn to improve her condition. I tried to follow different kinds of diet lifestyles from gluten-free, paleo, sugar-free, you name it. But the more I followed, the worse our health became and I went into despair not knowing what else to do.
Fallen from Grace
Little that I knew then that I had fallen from grace and I was living my life depending on my strength and ability, which is the flesh. The Bible calls such man a cursed man.
Thus says the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good comes; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Jeremiah 17:5-6
The first curse that is mentioned in the Bible is right after the fall of Adam:
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in sorrow you shalt bring forth children; and your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.
And unto Adam he said, Because you hast hearkened unto the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat of it: cursed is the ground for your sake; in sorrow shall you eat of it all the days of your life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to you; and you shall eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shall you eat bread, till you return unto the ground; for out of it were you taken: for dust you are, and unto dust shall you return. Genesis 3:16-19
Pain in childbearing became a curse for women from then on. But notice the other curse where it was told of Adam and his descendants that they had to depend on their strength to bring the produce of the earth just so they would have something to eat. This was what Paul was rebuking the Galatians church for.
The Galatians church was considering going back to the law to be justified before God, to leave the real salvation in Jesus Christ for a shadow (the law). They wanted to rely on self righteousness again. Paul reminded them that they received the Holy Spirit and the working of miracles through the hearing of faith after they were saved having believed in Jesus Christ.
He then went on reminding them that Abraham the patriarch of the Jews was justified (counted as righteous) by God through faith because he believed God when He said He would bless him. Abraham knew only the righteous was blessed, and he knew he was ungodly, so when God promised Him that, God was counting him righteous, and he believed thus it was so.
What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?
For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
Now to him that works is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that works not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
Even as David also describes the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputes righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
Comes this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also? for we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness.
Romans 4:1-9
Hence Abraham was made free from the curse of Adam; because he was righteous, and the righteous are only blessed, not cursed. In other words, Abraham received good things from God by simply believing that God would do what He promised, not through hard labour and sweat.
The Bible calls this the blessing of Abraham and the Spirit is saying that in Christ, being Abraham’s seed, we have the same blessing as Abraham, that we receive the promise of God through the Spirit, through faith. It was made possible because Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree. That was the reason Christ had to die through the means of a cross, and not others i.e. stoning which was the norm according to the Jewish law.
I had no knowledge of the above at all. For almost two decades, I relied on my strength and my flesh to get health and wholeness only to go further to destruction. Having gone through so many disappointments, I stopped trusting the Lord and departed my safe place. However, nothing could give us the answer. In the case of my daughter's health, all the doctors we went to had no explanation of our condition, but it was as though whatever we ate we would suffer a negative reaction. I knew then that only God could help us.
Returning to the Cross
My turnaround started just before COVID hit. Toward the end of 2019, I started pursuing God wholeheartedly. I wanted to know the truth. I would wake up at dawn to seek Him every day, through worship and in His words, the Holy Scripture.
To understand His word accurately, I would copy an epistle in its entirety word by word into my journal again and again, Romans being my favourite for it has the most detailed explanation of how salvation in Christ works. Slowly but surely, I started to see the full picture. I began to understand what salvation in Christ really means.
With every moment spent, my understanding of God's will for me continues to grow. He would guide me each day even down to practical things like what to eat or to cook for my family, which is the area that concerned me the most at that time. I was so deep in the belief and the law of this world but His Word set me free.
By studying the perfect work of Jesus Christ, I learned that because of what He has done on the cross, my health has been restored even to divine health, not depending on the nutrition law of this world, but because His body was broken and His blood was shed as a payment for all my sins. I began to understand what it means that the just shall live by faith.
Just as we came to salvation through faith, now that we are saved, everything in our lives works by faith, even what we believe about food. Faith is what allows the Holy Spirit in us to bear witness, whether it is healing or working of miracles.
Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he that condemns not himself in that thing which he allows. And he that doubts is damned if he eats, because he eats not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Romans 14:22-23
So, each day I have to renew my mind with this truth of His finished work, considering not how and what my body feels. I now partake in the Lord’s supper every morning during my quiet time with the Lord and every night together with my family, declaring the finished work that the Lord accomplished at the cross. Nothing is too small for me to consult the Lord and He always guides me. When I sense peace within me, I will take the step of faith and do it.
Enjoying Life
I now live believing that I am healthy and whole, not because of what I eat, but because the Lord was made my ransom therefore my flesh is fresher than that of a baby's, and my youth is being renewed:
If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness: then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom. His flesh shall be fresher than a child's: he shall return to the days of his youth: He shall pray unto God, and he will be favourable unto him: and he shall see his face with joy: for he will render unto man his righteousness. Job 33:23-26
It's a bit like walking on water, you really walk by faith. After a while, my faith would grow and I stopped caring about any negative effect, which became lesser and lesser. It has not been easy, but I chose to believe because I saw the tremendous love Father poured out through His Son, my Lord Jesus Christ. Surely I can trust Someone who sent His only Son to die for me and Someone who endured the cross and loved me till death, so I think to myself.
Today, I eat whatever I felt led by the Spirit: I eat what the Lord would eat, choosing good and the best in the name of love. And each time there's a craving to eat a piece of bread or a slice of chocolate cake, I choose to believe I can eat it now because I have been healed.
My daughter who was once diagnosed by a specialist as having more than thirty allergic reactions can now eat anything, anything she desires without any negative reaction.
At times I would still cry when I eat a slice of cake or a bowl of laksa, which would not have been possible without the finished work of Christ. His body was broken amid the payment of my sins so that my body is whole. This is just one of the many miracles and benefits of the Cross, of which I am forever grateful.
So yes, eat that cake and enjoy that sushi for the Lord Jesus has come to give life and life in abundant.
He that eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he that eats not, to the Lord he eats not, and gives God thanks. Romans 14:6
Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepts thy works. Ecclesiastes 9:7
The verse above is a prophetic verse that speaks of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, for that is the only work that Father accepts:
Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. John 6:28-29
