Date: 04-08-24
Preacher: Ps Brenda Lim
Title: Doing All For The Glory of God
Doing All For The Glory of God
To be blessed by the same anointed speaker within the span of a month is indeed a blessing from the good Lord! Ps Brenda is a ‘plain talker’ and the words that come out of her mouth are straight from her heart. She just says it as it is.
Today’s message considered 5 areas in our lives for the glory of God. These areas are our thoughts, our words, our works, our body and our treasures. For each area, Ps Brenda illustrated the points made with relevant real-life anecdotes.
To be like Jesus, we begin with our thoughts. I feel it is so appropriate to begin with this area, as our thoughts govern our feelings and behaviour. Here Ps Brenda
quoted Proverbs 4:23. She cautioned the congregation against negative thoughts that struck even Jesus in His final days on earth (John 12: 27-28). She said that while we may find it hard to control our emotions we certainly can control our will. So in Cor 10:5, the Bible tells us to take every thought captive to obey Christ. Next, Ps Brenda debunked the saying that ‘sticks and stones will break our bones, but words will never hurt us’, for careless words do hurt. She quoted 3 verses from the Book of Proverbs to testify: 16:28, 26:24 and 26:28. Hence we should let our words be encouragement and exhortation.
We are to do well in our works whether at home or in our work places, that is, wherever God places us to be and Jesus, our role model, is a worker himself. We are to be worthwhile witnesses for Christ. Ps Brenda shared the advice of a retired doctor, who was himself a patient at her workplace, when she asked him how to be a better chaplain. He told her that we are to accept God’s season in our life (our chronological walk with him), to know our colleagues, to be faithful and to do our work well for the glory of God.
The next area being talked about was our body. Ps Brenda quoted 1 Cor 6: 19-20 as a biblical reference. Here she pointed 3 challenges especially for men and these are the corruption of power, the handling of money and the seduction of sex. She related a personal anecdote when she had to conduct a pre-release class among 16 prisoners of whom 5 were Christians, and she asked them what the first thing each would do on his release. One of them, a Christian, said that he would embrace a woman as he had been starved for so long. Ps Brenda replied that when he did that he would be bringing Jesus along as Christ lives in us. And whatever he would do, he would be inviting Jesus to partake of the same. The key to overcome all these is our willingness to put God at the centre of our affections. She quoted 1 Cor 10:13 and Rom 8:31 – 37 as biblical references to give us the victories over temptations.
Finally, our treasures. Proverbs 3:9 and Matt 22:21 were quoted and she referred to the giving of tithes and our substance as a spiritual discipline if we want blessings in our lives.
In conclusion, she urged the congregation to live for God’s glory and not for selfish gain.
