Sunday, November 03, 2024
Restore (reflecting on Ps.Peter Sze’s sermon on 3 November 2024)
Enlarge the place of your tent,
stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
strengthen your stakes. (Isaiah 54:2)
ENLARGEMENT
God is continuing to enlarge us, as a church and individually. I look back from what I have today vs a year or two ago, I am grateful for the gradual enlargement; from within and without.
God began restoring me during MCO in 2020 from zero. I was dead broke. End of 2022, I was asked to develop health courses for UTMSpace. It took me 1.5 years to write 3 teaching modules;
(1). Disease Specific Nutrition
(2). Regenerative Medicine & Stem Cell Therapy
(3). Understanding Nutrition & Supplements
God gave me the opportunity to expand "me" and I courageously took it, as every page I wrote I would have had read 10 pages of information to crystalize out course manuals/books and PowerPoint slides. No nights out as just read, read, read, write, write, write. As a result, my knowledge expanded, especially on Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Therapy. Reading makes a man broad, but writing makes him precise. In a short space of time I have absorbed and consolidated my knowledge on the subject by writing out what I had absorbed into a course manual.
Today on a Sunday afternoon while writing this article, a large reputable stem cell lab approved by NPRA texted me for education collaboration. Coming Wednesday I will be going to Shanghai to do similar collaborations. I am not a professor or a bench top scientist. Instead God has turned me into one of the best medical marketeers and health educators around.
RESTORATION
As Ps Peter puts it as your tent enlarges, some cords may have loosen and some tears may have emerged. God will not only expand us but restore us and transform us back to the state that He had intended to be. He intended us to have successful careers and good marriages/relationships.
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, 20 and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. 21 Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets (Acts 3:19-21).
When Jesus died on the cross, He restored all that mankind had lost, and that’s a relationship with our Creator. The process of restoration had already begun ‘positionally’, though with the unfolding of time it will manifest in reality as we walk closely with Him.
1. Restoration of our relationship with God
For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son (Romans 5:10, NLT).
As we have restored our friendship with God, we can come boldly to the throne of Grace (Hebrews 4:16), and not have fear, guilt or condemnation. Indeed we are sons of God and co-heir with Christ. A relationship with God is a pre-requisite to have restoration in other areas.
2. Relationship with others
Social skills are important to help us navigate through society and especially if we are in the market place. I am also still developing my social skills, etiquette and how I should interact with others.
Of course I have a desire to settle down but somethings we have no control over. If the devil cannot hurt you, he will attack the feelings of someone you love or confuse that person. Yes it hurts, but I have to learn to let go without attachment to outcomes. She may return once she has healed and grown, or the Lord will give me someone else as long as I am faithful. When the devil sows doubt in her mind, she needs space to decipher what are the true meaning of these feelings. Meanwhile, I have grown to be understanding and compassionate with no anger.
Sometimes it is hard to understand why certain things happen. I believe every tear, every heart break is to prepare me for a love that is on its way. A love that is more meaningful, more fulfilling and transformative than I can ever imagine. God sees the pain I carry, the resilience I have shown and the strength I had to muster again and again. I have grown into a person who can hold more love, more compassionate and with more understanding.
3. Restoration of our health
But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,’ declares the Lord (Jeremiah 30:17)
I am 55 this year, and I have never been fitter since I was 18. Honestly God has restored my health, that I lost while stressing myself building my early career. I had a whole day comprehensive health tests in China in March this year. My results when I was in my 30s and 40s were not as good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CJY8z2Z5pc
As my knowledge on nutrition and healthy living improves I am applying them to myself with great results. I have to live what I teach and preach in my books and lectures. I had intravenous stem cell therapy twice this year and once via a nebulizer. I will soon go for gene therapy for cancer prevention and plasmapheresis for blood purification.
The hospital in China had very advanced equipment and my results were all good. The professor even said I will still be sexually able when age 80.
I am now living and sharing with others God’s divine health via my lectures, talks and books. God has truly renewed my body, my skin and my youthfulness. It is not just the outward appearance but the positive energy that I emanate to others.
4. Restoring my soul
He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake (Psalms 23:2-3).
Every day I muster the courage to do what is ahead of me. Many do not see my inner fears and struggles. Some sales targets didn’t come to expectations, while the relationship break up drained me emotionally. No one understands my sufferings besides God. He refreshes my soul every day and tells me its ok and just move on as He is actively working out everything for me behind the scenes.
5. Restore my lost and wasted years
In my early working years I worked hard to build myself. But then I teamed up with someone and that was a nightmare. For a dozen years I was bleeding to sustain my business because of his mismanagement. A person who was supposed to be my mentor.
Meanwhile a lot of people have built successful careers while I was fruitless.
“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—Joel 2:25
There can be decades when nothing happens, but there are months when decades happen. I can see that God is now restoring what I loss in the 12 fruitless years that the locusts had eaten. God is accelerating to not only catch up with others that has gone ahead of me career wise, but maybe soon even ahead of them.
How is God going to do that you may ask?
When I first started selling my health books it was just via local stores like Popular and in the pharmacies. Now God had expanded it to other countries via a direct selling company with over 100,000 active members in Asia. And soon I will be based in China, and will be selling my books there. Some groups in China that we collaborate with has over 200,000 members in their 15 aesthetic hospitals.
God will multiply my fruitfulness through logistic chains and business networks that others took decades to build.
Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true (John 4:37).
There is no serendipity. Everything is orchestrated by God. In the grand fabric of the universe, God has woven into the tapestry of my existence, that now my destiny and my journey are aligning.
God led me to develop the Regenerative Medicine module for the UTMSpace course but I didn’t know what else He had in mind. Only after I had written the module did God opened up an opportunity to have a stem cell clinic in Malaysia to give me more credibility (practical aspect not just theory), Now God is about to springboard it to other centres overseas. Next week I will be going to Shanghai for preliminaries to set up a Regenerative med/stem cell/gene therapy clinic is Shanghai. God is still aligning many things for me which He will slowly unfold in time.
6. Restoration of my Ministry
When I was down I could hardly mutter the word God. I had ambivalent feelings. Why did God whom I profess wants to bless me and prosper me, allowed all that can go wrong go wrong? I of course stopped worshipping God, stopped going to church and definitely didn’t write anymore. I even stopped writing on health matters for a decade until recently.
Now God is completing the puzzle and I understand why. He wanted me to go though all those tough times to know it by experience, to refine me and prepare me to be an end-time financial pillar for His kingdom.
My earlier Christian writings were all theological, all theory and harsh. Now my writings are graceful and experiential.
The Shunammite Woman
14 “What can be done for her?” Elisha asked.
Gehazi said, “She has no son, and her husband is old.”
15 Then Elisha said, “Call her.” So he called her, and she stood in the doorway. 16 “About this time next year,” Elisha said, “you will hold a son in your arms.”
“No, my lord!” she objected. “Please, man of God, don’t mislead your servant!”
17 But the woman became pregnant, and the next year about that same time she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her ( 2Kings 4:14-17)
In 2 Kings chapter 4, there is a very kind Shunammite woman who was very hospitable to Elisha every time he is in town. She will always prepare a room for him.
She had a hidden pain, a hidden need. We too all have, I know I do. She was childless. Elisha told her she will have a son and surely she did give birth to a son the next year. The truth is God can restore your deep and hidden needs. This resonates with me as I too want to have a family one day.
MORE THAN RESTORED
Elisha told the Shunammite woman about an ensuing famine and to move to the land of the Philistines but when she came back her land was confiscated. So she went to appeal to the king.
Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, “Go away with your family and stay for a while wherever you can, because the Lord has decreed a famine in the land that will last seven years.” 2 The woman proceeded to do as the man of God said. She and her family went away and stayed in the land of the Philistines seven years.
3 At the end of the seven years she came back from the land of the Philistines and went to appeal to the king for her house and land (2 Kings 8:1-3).
But through God’s intervention, the king not only restored her land to her but also the profit from the years she was absent from the land.
The king was talking to Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, and had said, “Tell me about all the great things Elisha has done.” 5 Just as Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, the woman whose son Elisha had brought back to life came to appeal to the king for her house and land.
Gehazi said, “This is the woman, my lord the king, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life.” 6 The king asked the woman about it, and she told him.
Then he assigned an official to her case and said to him, “Give back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her land from the day she left the country until now.” 2 kings 8:4-13.
I had lost everything before. But God is restoring me as I write. I had lost all my pride and joy. But now God is restoring my glory. He will never let your glory fade and die. Whatever your situation, expect God for a great restoration, a great miracle. This sermon by Ps Peter on RESTORE to me aren’t mere words or wishful thinking. It is very real to me. I am living it!
Whatever God started in you is always good, and He will finish it and see it come to pass. He is not man, that he shall lie. I know my road ahead will be challenging. But He has moulded me into someone who can feel His intuition and leading. Everyone’s journey is different just as mine is different from yours. We all have different assignments and I needed more time than others to “grow” and be able to handle His destiny for me. I am now someone less fearful and have a larger capacity to do His work, to love and to positively impact others. Amen!
