There is a funny perception that the Lord our God is generally a slow worker, that the song to be sung is "In His Time". There always seems to be the perception that God works things slowly while man rushes to run ahead of him. I suspect that there is a flaw hidden in this line of understanding.

The problem resides in man's attempt to generalise God into understandable bite size bits. He is always working according to his schedule, which means he is rather quite slow. He is always loving and does not punish, there seems to be no claws in the modern day christian God. He is friendly, always the gentleman and is supremely compassionate. And the truth is all that is true (though the slow part is very debatable) except that when it is not emphasized along with his other attributes they form a faulty picture of God.

Intellectually, God is not a tame lion. He cannot be caricatured or generalised or approached languidly. He is not easily understood and must be revered with a awestriking love. He is known to send judgement swiftly, He has called His people to flee Egypt quickly, to repent immediately and to preach the gospel with a die hard urgency. Similarly, He has told them to wait patiently, to know that in time He will accomplish His work and thus to gear up their faith despite what may appear to be constant evil all around. So there are times He is quick and surprising to the unexpecting, slow to the eagerly waiting but always true to His timetable.

There is no simple way to understand His timings.

I think we must realise that all things work out according to His time, but we must be sure to realise that this does not mean a lack of urgency. We must be very patient and impatient at the same time, very loving and very much angered at wrong, very kind to all and very fierce with false teachers.


Jesus is not everything and anything to you
He is either God or nothing to you
All precious or All hated
All loved or treated with all contempt ...

But He will come again to you
Then He can be nothing but God to you
All precious and feared
Loving all good and treating with contempt all evil.

My Jesus means everything to me
Everything defines its meaning from him
Wait in patience for His coming
repent in haste for He is coming
and watch with steadfastness
The signs of His coming.
For Jesus means everything.

If Someone says he loves Jesus, these should be evident,

1) A real love for the poor, needy, disabled, weak and shamed.

I remembered watching a man who loved giving bible studies and talk about God cringe when he saw some poor orphans and old folks wander about the slums. Quietly, while some others walked up to hold the hands of the children, this guy stared uncomfortably at the children from the corner of his eye. Didn't want to get his hands dirty and so he moved to slip away. Rather unfortunately, I noticed and watched in tremendous disappointment. No matter, how massive the anointing he had thereafter, the quality of his music or the many bible studies that he liked to give to the youth, it could not cut ice with me anymore.

Anointing in music or preaching are not reflective of a real and intimate relationship with Jesus.

In contrast, a christian who did not possess as robust a theology, who never felt confident giving bible studies embraced the orphans, completely ambivalent to the dirt on his shirt. He did so in a rather clandestine fashion and i happen to observe when he didn't notice. Thereafter, whatever he said, I listened and thought much of it.

2) A real love for Prayer and the Truth.

No one can say he loves the bible if he does not love prayer, its completely absurd. To say to my wife how much I love reading her love letters but I don't like spending time with her is a sure recipe for having her cook me a horrid dinner. They do not fit. To love Truth is to love Prayer and vice versa. Also if we do not handle truth carefully, its a sign we don't take Jesus seriously. I've heard someone tell me that its alright taking a bible verse out of context if it works! That's dangerous. It might have short term effects but in essence, one subjects truth to results and in the long run its devastating.

No prayer, no love for truth, no love for Jesus.

3) A real love for fellow brothers in Christ.

On this matter I've had many battles fought so its with certain passion that I write here. If two people do not hold to the same truth about Christ, there can be no unity, no matter how close they are. That's really important! In the army, my fellow instructors and I can engineer tremendous camaraderie amongts our Recruits (far better than that in BB), but only the Holy Spirit can give real love amongst brothers.

So if we love our brothers, we would really care about Christians who are persecuted and be bothered about those who spread falsehood amongst the brethren. We cannot hate those who love the Jesus of the Word but will have teeth to face off the false teachers who teach a false Jesus.