Shine-a-life

Lack of faith

2011-08-09T15:01:00.004+08:00

"When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there. ⁵⁴ Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. ⁵⁵ “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? ⁵⁶ Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” ⁵⁷ And they took offense at him.
But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”
⁵⁸ And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. - Matthew 13:53-58

Praying for a kingdom-first business

2011-07-22T14:49:00.003+08:00

I am praying for a kingdom-first business set-up.

I have to.

After being in this business for 5 years, the Lord has been growing this business for us steadily especially in terms of its offering of products and services which is pretty niche. Though we are still a pretty small retail outlet, we have much potential to grow to serve a larger clientele. Looking ahead, there are still much sales channels of exploration. We are hoping to establish a model where the business will run by itself with or without us running it, but of course that's still far fetching now. But one thing that I learn is that we need to constantly produce new products and services for our customers so as to draw them back again and again.

In this whole business process, I personally find toughest is to interact with the my business partners , in this case, my brothers. Why do I say so? Because I find that we all have different ideas and though there are times we agree, there also many other times where we disagree. Personally, sometimes I struggle to communicate my own needs and desires and also thoughts with them, being the youngest doesn't help.

As I reflect upon this business, I realised we are almost just like any other business with one single solid motive ~ that's to earn profit and make a living.

On the surface, its seems reasonable. We all need to earn $$ and live . But after 5 years of pursuing this goal, I realise that I am living out Genesis 3:17-19 in full measure:

¹⁷ To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”

Work is a toil. I am feeling it. I have experience strife, unhappiness and emotional upheavals in the work. I think you as a reader, knows what I am talking about when I say: " how I wish i can be a millionaire now and I don't have to work a single day anymore" : P

As i am reflecting on this issue, i realise i may facing all this because i have the wrong purpose in this business. This business is God-given, no doubt about that. I still remember 5 years ago, I pray that my family will have more opportunity to spend time with each other, and this business idea come within a week of the prayer. We took it up and God has bless me with many divine moments that has to be from Him and Him alone.

But I confessed and I repent of the fact that there are also many other decisions that are made without consulting Him. Big or small ones, I realised sometimes I myself even overlook them in prayers and committment to the Lord. How can I ever say that I am a follower of Christ and yet I do not know to fully commit to Him?

No wonder when things turn for the worst, I became frustrated, angry or just simply upset. And that's when u find me asking God the whys, the hows and pleading for His divine intervention. And crap, sometimes , I didn't even ask Him to help, I just depend on our minute human strength.

This cannot be.

So i need to start praying and I pray that in the name Jesus for God to forgive me and I pray for a kingdom-first business from now on that everything comes from the purposes of God. Amen!

about certificate and dreams.

2011-06-27T17:30:00.004+08:00

Many years ago, when i was 16...

When i just finish my O level and I was enjoying my first December Holiday in a long while without having to worry about any school work as I await my results. I remembered at that time I was reading the book Alchemist written by Paulo Coelho. It was given to me by my form teacher as a farewell gift. The book (which is a international best best best seller) spoke to me a lot about following my heart and my dreams in life and not just doing flowing along in the main streams of life. What it did was that it set me to thinking what I like to do, where my interests and passions are, and what my dreams are and whether I could give it a try.

Everyone had dreams of their own, and mine at that time was clear and ambitious: to be a multi-millionaire so that I can set up a charity foundation to help solve social ills like feeding the poor, etc. It a big dream, and I knew then that if the passion is real, its do-able and its workable as a life path.

During my sec 4 years, I remembered i was on a bus ride home with one of my Parry Primary school ex classmate. She was a former prefect in school and she always one who goes for good results and be excellent in academic. As we were just catching up on life, somehow the conversation leads to the importance of a person having a certificate.

Certificate, one of the 5Cs of that era , the other 4 being, car, condo, career, cash.(if i can remember correctly, is deemed as one of the most impt criteria of being a successful person. This is because, with a good certificate or education qualifications, one can land a decent job with a decent prospects that pays you a decent salary that potentially can gives you a decent, car, condo, and a decent looking bank statement. So certificate is i guess the mother of all success seemingly.

seemingly.

until i start arguing with my friend, who i never seen since that fateful day. That day i argue with the fullest of conviction that having a certificate is not important in life. not at all. whether you have certificate or not, one could still make it in life, successful or not, its really one's view point. nothing to compare.

my dear friend was distraughted and was put to disbelief by my argument, how can it be that someone on island Singapore can ever thinks that certificate is not important at all?

I did not exactly write a graduate level thesis to argue with her. but there and then, at the age of 16, i was convicted enough to know that life is not about pursuing of certificate and good results. there's certainly more.

I will always remembered this incident in my life because its just how God makes me to be, as i realized many years down the road, that having a certificate is never going to be my way of creating a security in life. yes, i guess, ppl needs a 5C in life because it makes them feel secure.

Many years later, i told my gf-turn-wife-now that i chose not to go Uni because i don't need a degree to help a needy person. yes that's right, i don't need a certificate in order to help someone. This statement alones, helps me score highly on her impression board of me. =)

And as i think back, i thought that is amusing how i become who i am today, and just thank God that i had that interestin argument with my primary school friend who i have not seen since then. I pray that she will meet God one day and spend eternity with Him.

And i just thought that God must have find it amusing and caused me to meet Him along the journey of pursuing my dreams when I land my first full time job in a social svc job.

Personally, I am not sure whether i will really be a multi millionaire and be able to start a charity foundation that can give a lot of money to bless the poor and needy to the society in any point of the future.

But what i do know that is that along the way, because of a dream and a conviction that certificate is not all there is to life, I have the opportunity to see a life that's more than chasing certificates. And in all this I praise and give glory to God for its He who makes me who I am and caused me to have a dream and to be passionate and courageous to chase after it against the mainstream of life.

What I am sharing is that for you who are young and still studying and under pressure to get that all important qualification. Well, go ahead to do your best, but don't do it because your parents, your friends expects you to. but do it because you have a dream and a passion in life, and that whatever you are learning now will help you to get to where you want to be. Do the same thing with a change of view point.

Be selfish for a moment in your life and start making decisions for your own future, from your own passion. and you find that its not a selfish decision after all.

stop chasing that certificate, chase your dreams.

And who knows, you might meet God just along the way.

Volunteering in Singapore

2011-06-13T17:05:00.002+08:00

I thought I should start a blog series on volunteering in Singapore, given my exposure to it this last decade. I thought it will help you readers to have a better understanding. If you are volunteer wannabe wanting to find out more on volunteering or a burn-out volunteer taking timeout and wanting to gain perpective, well watch this series and hope my sharing can be a blessing to you : )

Rachel's Tears : Committment to Christ

2011-06-11T13:18:00.003+08:00

A few days ago, I chanced upon a book in the bookshelf of my newly moved in house with a cover of a young looking western girl titled Rachel's Tears. It was part of my wife's collection of books since young.

Intrigued by the book cover and title and position in the rows of Christian living books. I picked it up and started reading. The book was about the spiritual journey of Rachel Joy Scott, an young American teenager who studied in Columbine High School and was killed as part of the Columbine tragedy in 1999, where 2 student gunmen shot and killed 13 students and teacher in the school, the 2 gunmen committed suicide after that. Many others suffered gun shot wounds too.

This book is an moving account of both the incident and the aftermath. And more important, the author, who is the parent(divorced) of the main character Rachel, wrote the content of the book mainly from the diarys/jorunals of Rachel's acounts of her own faith/committment to Christ, her personal struggles.

Through the book, the reader is presented with great insights to the life of young Rachel who was a talented drama actress in school and also was seen as a firm follower of Christ who dares to say no to the worldly things despite immense peer pressure and also a particularly kind person who seeks out the loners/outcast in her school to befriend them. She's also a follower who dares to share with the lost. She walked the talk.

I was particularly moved by the poetry and songs written in Rachel's journal that were written to God, very much like the Davidic Psalms in the Bible where the author shared her struggles with God in beautiful words...... this speaks of intimacy which i believe not many Christians have, especially those who behave religiously. And I am actually very encouraged and inspired by this, as although she is a teenager, she could reach that intimacy with God through a real and trueful heart towards God . This entails a acknowledgement of man's weakness and sins and coming to the cross of Jesus.

I am encouraged because i believe if God could lead Rachel to be such faithful and committed follower, then God could lead a lot of us to that level too. This is, of course if we allow Jesus to be who He is in us.

This is the best line that i see in the whole book:

Let Jesus be Himself in us.

There are many moving accounts of Rachel's life and I kinda teared through the book because one wonders why did this school shooting tragedy ever happened. Rachel was about the same age as I if she is still alive today. When this tragedy happened, i was in my sec 4 O level year and oblivious to the things of this fallen world. 12 years later as i read this book and googled about news on this tragedy. I am truly amazed what God has done since then through the ministry work of Rachel's parent and siblings. They basically went around sharing Christ's message of hope to the young and old alike around the country and on TV.

What human thought to be evil , God has turned it around for a greater good.

The book suggested from actual witness account that Rachel were killed for her faith because before the killer shot her in the head, they asked her if she still believe in God. Rachel said yes and there went her last breathe on earth. Many other victims are Christ followers along with minorities in the school.

I thank God for the book and i think its moving me back to a life that wants to continue to journals my thoughts, struggles and victories before God and singing praise and worship.

One final thought on this post which i leave to the Lord tell us from John 12:24:

²⁴ Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Somebody say Amen to that : )

Praise the Lord!

Visions from the Lord

2011-06-05T18:35:00.004+08:00

¹⁷ “‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams" Acts 2:17

I firmly believe we are living in this last days that Apostle Peter talks about on Pentecost day 2000 years back. And the reason is that I have the privilege to see visions from the Lord myself. Over the past few years, I believe the Lord has blessed me with many visions. And many of them are pertaining to people around me, some are future happenings, some are situations that are occuring and mostly are on things that I do not have any idea about. Sometimes I have interpretations, sometimes I don't.

But for all the visions that were given, one thing were resulted that I ended up praying for these people shown in the visions. They are normally friends/family that I know. In some situations, I was impressed enough to write an email, or send an sms of prayer to them to perform some form of edification, to build them up in faith.

Couple of months ago, I had an most interesting vision of a brother whom I consider dear to me. It was an pretty troubling vision. After some waiting and prayer, i send him an email to warn him about certain sins that might be happening in his life as the visions seems like he is facing a consequence to his sins. He replied in the email that he will like to know what is the exact vision details as he accepts the prayer I have for him.

So i went typing off on my Iphone 4. As i was typing it to near finish, LO and BEHOLD, an invisible finger backspaced the whole paragraph text, word by word, letter by letter! I tried, in desperation to stop the deletion but it was futile, i managed to stop it for a second or two, and it start back spacing again until everything was wipe out.

I was on a bus, when this happen. And my heart almost stop. Shock of my life. Sensing that it might be the Lord's doing, I typed an email to my dear brother and said that God probably does not want me to share with him the vision at the point of time.

Nonetheless, over the course of the next 2 month, the backspacing incident and the seriousness of the content of the vision lingered around my thought and prayer life. I seek God for a further and deeper interpretation and wait upon Him for the peace to release the details of vision to this brother.

Sometime later, I went to prayer mountain in Seoul, South Korea during my honeymoon in May. Once again, I find myself praying for this incident and vision. Then, on my train ride across the country to Busan, I find God giving me the sense of urgency and peace to release the details to my brother, including a different interpretation that seems more relevant to this brother.

So after i came home to Singapore this week, I send an email detailing all that i saw in the vision along with the new interpretation. My heart was settled at peace and I pray that he has the wisdom to test and to see whether its really a message for him and his family. As its sensitive and inappropriate, i shan't share this detail online. But suffice to say, its of great ministry and family direction imporatance for this brother. And that explained the pro-longed waiting upon the Lord to release this message.

And I just like to share that i received an email from this brother saying that I can never believe how timely and how relevant the message was as he was embarking on this new task given to him by the Lord. And its just so incredible! Praise the Lord! To Him be the Glory that he shall share the secret things with man.

I still await more fascinating stories to be told by this brother. But i am just so fascinated by the Lord alone on this interesting, supernatural visions that He has been blessing me with all this while. And I thought as you read this, you might have, as a Christ follower, had had a similar encounter as me and you are wondering what you should do with it, so i put together some key points below for you to know and thus decide on the best course of what you should do in handling the visions from God.

1) Visions are from God. He is the source. (read point 8 also)

2) If it impressed on your heart greatly, it means the Holy Spirit wants you to know the situation that's happening.

3) The top priority is to pray for wisdom , including interpretation to the vision.

4) If there's an interpretation, then you need to ask God whether you can release it to the person concerned. If you could , then next question is when should you do it. This takes great sensitivity to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. And peace of heart is usually a great way to gauge the suitability and timing of release .

5) Its better to release it via a prayer coupled with scriptural support., i.e it must be biblical. I think God don't release a vision that's contradictory to His word.

6) Understand the heart of God, why does He wants to release the vision to you. What's His purpose.

7) Not every visions needs to be released, sometimes, the Lord just want you to have keep the person/situation concerned in prayer. One never have to release it unless and until the Lord asked him to.

8) Be careful that not all visions are from the Lord, as its spiritual, remember that the devil could be behind it and use them to deceive us. The key here is discernment and also to test the biblical portion of it. So it really helps that you know the bible well.

9) I believe its stewardship as well, visions are secret things from God, and we need to be responsible in handling them well. Do not anyhow disclose it to others. In the old testaments there were many prophets who were God's messengers and all of them were held responsible by God to deliver the message and also how they deliver them. So do be careful.

I am sure more can be added to this list, but suffice to say, visions from the Lord should not be taken lightly. When it doubt, check with leaders around you without divulging too much details.

God bless you : )

Praise the Lord!

What's next?

2011-06-01T19:31:00.002+08:00

What's next?

This is a question that I have been asking myself, and something that I have been praying about for months.

As i am taking time to settle in to my newly wed life, enjoying the responsibility of a husband with the obvious household duties. More or less as the settle-in period is up this month or 2, i think its time for me to really step into a higher gear to seek God for His plans and destiny for me and Joelle as a couple and even as individuals.

Today, I find myself asking God again to use me, if he pleases, to be an instrument to participate in 'solving' any social ills in the society that i live in. And when the answer comes, i certainly supposed my wife will be wrap into being part of an parcel of this journey. She has been an great helper and I am sure the Lord will combined the talents we have and put it into good use.

Meanwhile, i guess i will be faithful in discipling the younger ones and wait upon the Lord. Although I couldn't say for sure, in the lead up to my wedding and after, I do have a few glimpse of my future prospects of being involved in certain social entrepreneurship endeavors, with surface level chats with managers in this arena . It excites the core of me, my dreams and aspirations. But it also challenges my self-perception of whether i am up for the job, in a voluntarily form, of course.

I guess the prelude to the next book of my life has got to be a prayerful one.

Amen!

Back from South Korea

2011-06-01T19:23:00.003+08:00

Back from Honeymoon in South Korea, hope i can upload photos soon.

Its has been a great 2 weeks trip with my lovely wife. Some trips highlight are:

Climbing Mt. Hallasan in Jeju-do, the tallest mountain (more than 1.9km), abt 19km round trip on foot.

Going to Prayer mountain in Seoul set up by the Yoida Full Gospel Church to spend some quality solitude time with the Lord.

Eating Korean food, they have a pretty good culture of cooking food BBQ style on their restaurant table, and its really taste more delicious that way. : )

Getting a body worth of rashes , itchy itchy, think its because of the difference in our humidity which makes my skin dry and thus rashes developed..

Hope I can find the time to provide some review in tripping to South Korea, its worth the money and the time :)

God is good!

Singapore's General Election 2011

2011-05-08T12:28:00.003+08:00

Hi everybody,

Been a long while since I blog . Over the last few months, I got married(on 19 Feb) , and I moved out of my parent's house to our new place at Punggol just bfore TGIF. And you can imagined the amount of time and work involved in this major milestone of my life. And I truly thank God for His strength and providence in this new beginning of my life. Hereby, I just want to say a big thank you to my family and friends who has helped Joelle(my lovely wife) and I in this journey so far.

Thank you!

General Election in Singapore, 2011

In Singapore, we have a General Election every 5 years or so to elect our local Members of Parliament (MPs) to serve our constituency. Some of them will then become part of our Cabinet of Ministers and other office holders to serve and represent the government of Singapore in this global world. Some 87 MPs seats were contested.

A little background

Since Independence in 9 August 1965, Singapore's ruling party has been People's Action Party led first by world famous current Mentor Minister(MM) Lee Kuan Yew. MM Lee and his government led people of Singapore to steadily grew from a Third world country to a First world one. He was succeeded by now Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong. Now in the 3rd Generation of leaders, MM Lee's sone Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is leading the pack.

Singapore is a democratic society, with values found strongly on meritocracy, where each citizens are rewarded accordingly to merits of their works and such. To be fair, Singapore has been exceedingly successful in tapping on its human resources to shine on major economic front: from having a world class top Airport, one of the busiest trading ports, outstanding street and home security, and corrupt free(i think so) government that helps attracts big name MNCs investors into our country. This means that most Singaporeans do not have to worry too much of a getting a job. (the only worry about job is whether its to our likings I feel, and that's the reasons why the govt feel that its impt to bring in foreign workers to the work that we don't like to.. mainly in the construction and service line). Though foreign obeservers often note that ours is a authoritarian one where there is lack of freedom is expressing political views in addition to a media that seemingly do not dare speak up too much against the government.

Nonetheless, in this election, something shook our perception of this nation and Singaporeans are, in my own words, 'rudely' awaken by the rallying cries of the Opposition Parties. I said its rude because as a Singaporean, I love it here, although cost of living are increasing and there's are easily many things to complain about like the ERP n high housing cost, its still a safe, clean and comfortable place on earth to stay in. Without natural disasters like earthquake, volcanoes or typhoon to worry about, we are indeed a blessed nation. Thus I feel that there's really not much an issue for us Singaporeans to cast a vote for the ruling PAP party to let them carry on the good work. It's almost like a default setting for a newly bought computer/laptop's default to enjoy the OS of Microsoft corp. It's seems default for me as a 28 yr old to put a vote for PAP who has seemingly been running Singapore pretty well.

So it rude awakening when during this election 2011, for the first time in Singapore's history that almost every one of the 87 seats are being contested by the 6 Opposition Parties who has suddenly risen to life. And almost every eligible Singaporean voters has to vote on Polling Day (lest constituents of one Tanjong Pagar GRCs helmed by MM Lee as the oppositions for it did not make it on time on Nomination Day to submit their application).

If our government is ok.. then why so many opposition voices?

During this hotly contested election campaign, unhappiness on national issues like rising cost of living, young couple unable to purchase their first home due to the incredibly high price of housing flats, and also public accountabilities of our ministers. One everlasting issues is definitely of their ridiculous high paying salary that's unmatched across the entire world.

But of all this issues, personally, I feel that though good, they will never help their party to win any seats in the parliament especially considering many of the candidates are greenhorns in grassroot work. If these national issues needs to be solved, anyone with common sense will come to conclusion that a more experienced and higher calibre PAP candidate with the backing of a power PAP party will be more suited to be voted into the role and help solved the issues at hand.

But what captures my heart and attention and that rudely awaken me from my perception of this whole election is this slogan from the Worker's Party, which is:

Towards a First World Parliament.

For the first time in my life, I was challenged that although we enjoyed First World, if not first class citizenship in comfortable Singapore, do we also have a First World Parliament? Are our MPs really doing their job or slacking and doing their basic minimums to help them be elected every round? Is our government really as good as it seems?

The strongest premises of argument put forth by the Worker's Party candidate, I feel is this: As Singaporeans, do we really want to see a government that's filled with candidates from the Ruling PAP party only? Is this the first world that we want to live in without any opposition or so called Alternative voice to the national policies being set in the parliament, and that there's no challenge to the public accountability of actions by the government?

For me, this turn the whole tide around for the default setting of voting PAP into power again.

It's like Microsoft vs Apple.

Yes, most of us use OS of Microsoft but we as consumers have choices too like the popular Apple Mac OS. And i think the presence of Apple's innovative has help make the PC market competitive and each company's OS has become more innovatively better and still kept at reasonable cost for us. And overall, we as paying consumer win from better products as compared to the scenario of having one monopolying Microsoft.

Likewise, Singapore cannot have a Parliament that consists of just 2 opposition party candidates as it was for the last couple of decades or so. Lest the ruling party becomes complacent or has already became one..

Having play this cleverly logical and yet emotional tactical campaign to the constituents of Aljunied GRC, a eventual patriotic sense of seeing a First world Parliament fueled by bottled emotional angst towards PAP, its no surprise that emotions won over a otherwise rational ppl that we witness at pass midnight yesterday the Historic Win of the Worker's Party against the PAP in the Aljunied GRC.

Together with Hougang SMC, the only opposition party to have won any seats in the Election 2011 , the Worker's Party now have 6 MPs seats vs PAP's 81.

The rest like they say, is waiting for History to unfolds itself further. And the only prayer that I pray is that the Opposition voices do not just oppose for the sake of opposing. But they will instead learn to be cooperative and constructive in their serving of this nation.

And may all of us know that this nation's government is chosen and elected by God himself, and let's learn to submit to its authority. Amen.

"Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God." - Romans 13:1

Growing Hunger and Pursuit of God

2011-01-22T12:38:00.004+08:00

This year, our church's theme is 'Come, Holy Spirit' and lately, I am sensing a couple of major themse that revolves around Hunger and the pursuit of God Himself.

Hunger is define as
a) a strong desire or need for food.
b) The discomfort, weakness, or pain caused by a prolonged lack of food.

In 'spiritual terms', what then is our spiritual food? I think our Lord Jesus knows about our sprirtual needs to when He speaks to the crowd in John 6:35:

"Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."

In this one verse, there's a proclamation of truth and 2 subsequent promises of God. The truth is that Jesus is the bread of life, in the spirtual sense. And in that, the promises are that when we go to Him, we will be filled, and that even as we believe in Jesus, we will not be thristy.

At this point, its good to note that, in the tabernacle of God, in the Holy Place, a table of showbread was placed there for the priest to eat. It signifies God's willingness to fellowship and communion with man. You can read more about it here.

In the 5 years of knowing God so far, I realised that, seriously, there is still so much of God that I do not know about.

And my spirit is hungering to know more about God. There's a void, pretty big one, to be filled by Jesus, the bread of life.

Could it be, as author Tommy Tenney share in his book, God Chasers, that the 'showbread' in the church today is missing?

Because, as explained in the book, people are hungry, yes in the spirtual sense, and many try to fufill their hunger in the spirtual by going to fengshui or geomancy for prosperity, and wearing or carrying amulet, beads, lucky charms and stuff for protection. If you care to look around, ppl are on a constant look out to find these stuff, because they want peace and security in their life. I know, because i have been thu this before coming to know God.

And if the church is unable to 'provide' for the hunger needs of the people, they are not gg to stay for long. I believe that individuals has to experience God themselves to substantiate their faith. Our faith in God cannot come only thru the Bible reading alone. We cannot read about Moses meeting God at the burning bush, without us ourself meeting God at our own burning bush.

We cannot read Jesus talking about Himself as the bread of life without ever eating of the bread ourself - to taste that the Lord is good.

Not sure about you, but there's a growing hunger in me to want to know this Jesus - by coming to Him to eat the bread of life. I want to taste(experience) for it myself again and again and again.

It's not only about reading about the cloud of His presence in Exodus, its about experiencing the cloud of His presence in real life.

And this is that. My prayer.

to know God by experience all if not most of what He has describe Himself as through the Bible. However God may choose to manifest Himself in our midst.

But individually and coporately, we need to hunger and hunger and hunger, till His promises in John 6:35 come to pass.

Holy Spirit, come and fill us now!

No Higher calling

2010-09-21T13:51:00.003+08:00

Down at Your feet, Oh Lord
Is the most high place
In Your presence, Lord
I seek Your face, I seek your face

Chorus
There is no higher calling no greater honor
Than to bow and kneel before Your throne
I'm amazed at Your glory, embraced by Your mercy
Oh Lord, I live to worship You

Down at Your feet, Oh Lord
Is the most high place
In Your presence, Lord
We seek Your face, we seek your face

by LENNY LEBLANC

This song just came into my heart during work time, and when i look at the full lyrics, just can't help but keep singing it that there is no higher calling than to be at the feet of Jesus...

Is any one of you in trouble?

2010-09-17T00:11:00.003+08:00

13Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing
songs of praise. 14Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the
church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And
the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise
him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to
each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a
righteous man is powerful and effective. - James 5:13-16

I heard this sermon on James online by a Pastor in the city, and it was presented in the context of helping a member in the body of Christ to be prevented from wandering away from the truth as verse 19 of the same chapter continues:

"My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should
bring him back, 20remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his
way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins."

At least, this was what i caught, and this was what i in turn shared with my cell members last Sunday and it turned out to be something that was very applicable as we are going thru a season where we are asking God to deepen our walk in Him.

Looking at the word from James first. James spoke about a sinner who wanders from the truth, and James 4:8 defines Jame;s perspective of a sinner : "Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded."

Double-minded!

In James 1, we read about James' warning about double-minded people too, who doubt God and who is deceived and thus sin.

i shall not dwell on the topic of who a sinner is and what he is capable of, as we all know full well. But the main aim of this sharing is on the recourse of it. We know that the minute we believe in Jesus, we are forgiven of our sins and we can come into fellowship with the intimately. Nonetheless, as the days goes by, things happen, good or bad, and there will be times we may or may not wander away from the truth depending on each of our individual walk.

Thus, i think in studying of the book of James, I do point you to the intro verses that i have at the start of this sharing? to summarize, James asked 3 main questions: Is any one of you in troubles, sick or has sins? Well, and the main 'solutions' presented is to get someone to pray along this brother or sisters, who might have troubles, sickness ot sins to confess.

Well simple enough. And yet in this simple last final points of his book, James presented a timeless truth for all of us in the body of Christ:

that we need to share with others about our life : good or bad!

Amen!

Because if we don't, one day when we wander from the truth, nobody might ever find out and bothers to bring us back to Him! and thi is something that you shouldn't test out i hope!

But it got me thinking really hard, i look at my personal experience and i realise i have not been so straightforward in sharing about my life too in cell group setting especially.

During cell group, there will always be time where i was asked to share how's my life. Mainly i will share about the blessins in relationship, ministry, work, etc.. there will rarely be times when i am honest to share about my not-so-positive side of my life...

and what does James have to said about this, i hear it pretty loud, he is saying to me :

'Do not be deceived. My dear brothers " - James 1: 16

Amen! I or anyone of us will certainly have some kind of troubles, difficulties, sins, sickness at any point of our life. But the questions is do we always are open to share it? or are we so concerned about our Victorious, Iron-man or wonder woman image that we shall not risk tarnish it and protect it at all cost?

Food of thoughts for all of us today.

I encouraged you and I pray that the Lord opens your eyes, wherever you maybe to go back to your cell, or church group or whoever you could have to pray for you because you have learn to share with them your down and outs.

I believe and I want to believe that out of this openness and transparent lifestyle couple with wisdom to say it in a edifying way, we will all grow deeper in God personally, and also helping others out of their own dark moments by inspiring them to share deeper about their life also.

Christ Jesus promised us that troubles we will have, but fear not, because His presence will be with us all. And let's invite His presence into our cell or life group once again to teach us to share our troubles too.

Amen!

The danger of Drifting

2010-08-28T13:30:00.004+08:00

We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. - Hebrews 2:1

Last month, my church's senior pastor preached on the message of the danger of drfting away.

As weeks past, I pondered hard on the message and I realised that this is indeed a very important warning from the word of God that I or anybody in the kingdom of God needs to take heed of.

Like a person on a kayak who does nothing on the river of life, a man of God drift away when he does nothing too.

Nothing in the sense that we find ourselves reading the bible less regularly and lessconscientiously.

Nothing in the sense that we find ourselves praying when we have a felt need, or don't even remember to.

Nothing in the sense that we find ourself serving, yet it does not requires much effort to.

Personally, i am finding myself in this stage where I am drfiting dangererously towards nothingness.

Some people call it being in a comfort zone and the solution is to get out of the comfort zone. Yet, this sounded too simplistic. Interesting that in Hebrews 2, the Holy Spirit decides to use the word : Drift.

I googled the word Drift and some interesting definition came up:

a) move in an unhurried fashion

b) stray: wander from a direct course or at random

c) freewheel: live unhurriedly, irresponsibly, or freely

d) be subject to fluctuation

I think drifting is more than being comfortable. its dangerous, to any one who has committed his life to the Lord, and the greatest danger is this:

that he does not even know that he is drifting.

At this point, i can only look up and pray:

Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for this message and warning from you. I confess that I have not been diligent with my walk with you and I pray that you forgive me. I pray that Lord you bless me and keep me in your kingdom and help me to be dliligently studying your word, communicating and drawing close to you regularly and to serve you with a joyful , giving heart. Amen!

Cell Group has been real recently

2010-07-24T15:51:00.005+08:00

In my church, Faith Community Baptist Church or FCBC as its more popularly known, members are encouraged to be in a cell group where there is generally a leader who are more spiritually mature leading the group of members. Meetings are ususally held weekly or bi-monthly.

I have moved to my current 'new' cell group for about 8 months and I would say that we have a strong leader who is prayerful and shares the Word deeply. But from the start till recently, I have enjoyed a pretty surface-level relationship with my fellow cell brothers, there are about 12-14 of us . Until recently, we met each other probably about twice a month at most for cell group . But due to the nature of cell time -where the nature of 4Ws are being play out, (Welcome, Worship, Word, Works), there are hardly any deeper level of interactions among brothers. This explains the surface-level or almost 'hi-bye' relations that i personally experience.

On my part, i accepted it somehow cos i thought its just the way it is. talk about stero-typing. Although deep inside of me, I would really prefer to have at least a few brothers there where i could relate more intimately with i.e being real friends... but i just leave things as it is. that's the way i live normally.. leave things as it is.

Nonetheless, its never God's intention for cell group to be like this. so i found out with a spate of recent events in the cell where attendance is dropping, and ppl are missing cell events without informing the leader. Definitely, it troubled our leader who with all his ability tried to bring everyone into accountability. Thinking back i guess i did failed to inform him a couple of times whenever i could not make it for certain events.

As the situation wasn't fast improving despite various measures taken by my leader... One fine day, he decided to write a long email to everyone, plus a handful personal ones and met-up with those who's having issues. The email basically gave everyone a good overview of the state of our cell group and its really in a 'discipline' tone telling us that this can't carry on. We are not taking the things of God seriously can't go on.. that when there's some event/meeting on, we should have the basic courtesy to inform and be accountable to if we can't attend.

if we can't make it for a movie outing with our friends, will we not inform them? So what more of the things of God?

So after a few rounds of gathering and talking thru, many(if not all) of us 'repented' and decided to become positive edificators in the cell.

My cell leader shared that there are 3 kinds of edificators around,
the negative - complain, complain and complain
the neutral - let things happen, about 80% of us including me.
& the positive - make things happen and build up others.

Eversince the 'discipline' move of my leader, some major 'changes' occured:
a) We have weekly cell meetings, thus giving us more time to know each other.
b) everyone of us volunteered for a role to play in the cell, thus becoming postive edficators overnight, haha, i volunteered my talents of admin : )
c) for the 1st time, i see more than 10 brothers attending the cell time! Awesome!
d) & ya its just differnet lo. : )

This brand of Christianity more real, cannot always just express love thru affirmations, praise, good words, and enduring slackness, sometime a 'iron' hand must be used, to so that we all wake up from our slumbering.

Amen!

Gathering in

2010-07-15T01:16:00.002+08:00

i remember taking a step down from Boys Brigade ministry earlier this year on a few reasons:

At first, when people asked me, I will tell that I have been neglecting my business, and I really need to be focus in it and expanding the business, i.e i am giving it a higher priority than ministry work.

Secondly, i was given a teens open cell to lead which was a new challenge and a high requirement of committment. Then , I decided that I only have that much time a week able to allocate for ministry work and I chose to take the time to stabilise in building the relationship with this teens group.

I make the decision to step down from BB based on the premises that Ps Benny Ho taught to lead a balance, priority based life as the following by putting God first:

1. God
2. Me
3. Family
4. Career
5. Ministry ( which includes BB and open cell then)

Family relationship was also not in the best mode as i have neglected spending quality time with them ( both my own family and Joelle's family)

Looking back, I remember my start of the year conversation with my youth pastor on making this decision. He was wise in asking me to make the decision myself thru prayer and own discernment. Cos i was asking him to give me direction, but he told me that at my stage, its better that i learn to make the decision then depending on him (leader) to make it for me.

So i took the time and seek God and I see that I need to be released from Boys Brigade. Back then, I was kinda putting BB above everything else including God Himself, and it was kinda blinding me going forward if i have not stop and look at it perspectively.

Serving God in ministry is of course, great. But when it becomes a self serving activity, then it has to be stop somehow.

So i took the step out.

And over the last 6 months, the things that i went focusing on did come to pass. The business has expanded, and i am much more focus and committed at work, giving my excellence on it (despite still struggling in certain areas like creativity and relationship with my bro at times)

spend more time with family definitely : )

and also the teens open cell has stablised and everyone is prayerfully growing in the Lord and its exciting to see them bringing friends to church, and participating in the things of the Lord.

And as all of this has come to pass, i am feeling a nudge in my heart in the last month on the boys that i left in BB, esp the sec 4s and some others.

they have not been saved! and recent high profile events amongst them and a hospitalisation of one of the boy caused me to re-connect with them.

probably divine. excellent timing given that many of my year goals are settling down well, given that the church's 40 Days of Faith campaign is in season, given that the Os are coming. given that i m probably one of the best connection that they have to the Lord, given that i have the strong foundation of relationship with them.

if not me, then who?

Gathering in.

I almost hear the Holy Spirit aloud that its the time already. its time to gather in.

Gather in the harvest.

O yea, i heard this one.

Pretty loud..

Pretty clear..

Amen. : )

to journal more

2010-07-10T01:38:00.003+08:00

Hi friends,

thanks for checking back this blog from time to time, if you have been following this blog since its inception back in 2006, you will realise for the last year, i have stop blogging regularly....

but as i was going thru my more regular entries in the past, i realised that i have done quite a fair bit of sharing that kinda 'wow' myself, din know i have that much of a 'writer' in me...

so i think about it, i tot its good to continue to write and write more regularly... i always believe in journaling since young.. used to keep exercise books of jorunal thru my school days.. ususally about crushs on girls that i like and my dreams in life... it keeps me going, .. in a sense that there are so many things in life that you just couldn't tell anybody then that u have to find some place to export it out on..

but when i found Jesus, i stop the exercise book journalling, and this blog has been the export of my inner world tots... till the past year or so... i realise so much precious memories are not been journal down.. and i think its high time for me to start doing so...

in addition, i also believe that our Lord is a living God and there are much precious revelations about things of His kingdom that I have the benefit of knowing , and as He wills, I hope I am able to share some of this learnings and revelation up here so as to benefit the body of Christ.

God is really good, and has been exceedingly gracious to me all this while. i pray that He gives me the strength, discipline and inspiration to continue writing up here.

May His hand guides mine...

Amen and Hallelujah!

Expanding

2010-07-09T13:59:00.003+08:00

This year, we have been on expansion mode in business, and God has been good as I can sense His hand leading us through.

Major Highlights:
a) Jan- Shifting to bigger office
b) May-
i)Bulk order from local hospital for their nurses, which keep us busy all the way till July. Its the biggest project ever undertaken in our company history.
ii) we hire a full time retail staff, so that we can be more focus on the back-end.
iii) We start looking for new places to retail, plaza sing's door seemed to be closed to us for the moment.
e) July- Opening of new pushcart at Suntec lvl 1 - doing personalised Gifts as well with more product range.

Currently, we are looking for part timer/ full time sales staff. If you have anyone to recommend, please lenk t me know : )

Looking back at the past 4 years, I think God has been really blessing us. From selling stick-on sandals, to the ever-popular zip-it bag to the personalised gift business. I think its a long learning curve and i realised really how graceful God is to me.

Like how i realised i am not such a hardworking person, not as smart as i think i am, not as good as i tot i am, basicially it was really a humbling experience. Thank God for my bros who are some of the most hardworking ppl that i ever seen . Without them, i think this business is long gone. haha

God is good to provide : )

Praise God!

story of His

2010-07-03T18:20:00.002+08:00

Everyone has a story, and every story has a beginning.

I guess my beginnings really came into being as my paternal grandma's ending hers.

As the youngest the family, i was often ordered around to do chores, and with no one younger than me to demand the same, i took it upon my grandma. I was nasty in attitude and action. Disrespectful. Hypocritical. Nice to 99 persons, nasty to one. That old frail, over obese, lady at home.

I never really knew my grandma when growing up. But as her youngest grandson among some 50 + other cousins, she certainly adored me and will spend time with me. Naggy yes, but nice. So I couldn't really understand why I behave the way I did.

I guess my life really began when there was this late afternoon in summer 1997, I was in sec 2, and playing computer with my brother near the kitchen. Out of a sudden, there was a loud bang, I turned my head , there was she, lying on the floor, cringing her head in pain.

I called the ambulance, it came and brought her away for weeks. Later, the doc send her back home, because the tumor in her brain seems uncurable, and its better for her to spend her last day at home.

My working parents couldn't handle. My dad's 7 other sibling couldn't take her. So we hire a maid, still remember there was so much worries about how to pay for their extra expenses. Both my parents earned just enough to feed us 4 children and her. not anything more..

We scrapped by those days, we install handicapped friendly hand grab bars in the toilet (its still there) and when she can't walk, we got her a wheelchair... so my experience in handling wheelchair goes back a long way...

As the days went by, she became weaker as her appetite slows. There were times where the responsibility was upon me to be home straight after school to get her lunch(before the maid arrived) There was this once, and I will never forget...

My mum left for work in the morning after we were off to school. But before she left, she will 'placed'my grandma on her bed and let her lied there till someone elses reach home... and that's probably 8am in the morning and by the time i reach home, its like 2 plus pm... One time, as soon as i reached home .. i went to her bed room and find her on the bed.. i was so sad to see her lying there immobile.. she must be in great discomfort... so i decide to shift her to the wheelchair next to the bed so that i can help move her aorund the house, so that she won't be bored, or at least can bring her to the toilet to relieve her self..

With all my strenght, I was probably 45kg then carrying someone2-2.5 times my weight.. she was really obese... I put my arms under her arms to have a good lock and tried carried her over... but she was too heavy and I dropped her on the floor. And in the end, i didn't had the strength to carry her back to the bed too..my grandma was so nice, she said its okkk.. its okk.. so i spent the time with her on the floor... I called my mum to come back earlier, and she did after a while and a while..and after she came back, together we help her to the wheelchair..

i guess that was my first time 'hugging' my grandma.

She passed on in one of the autumn months, and i really regretted that i only really get to know this 88-year old lady in the last weeks of her life.

And its in this last weeks, that my life really began to take on a different meaning.

Call it a self-redemption act, i start treating life in a more serious and mature outlook, inasmuch, attempts to be nice to ppl, do volunteer work, work in a charity, and i guess its in such an ironic path that i met God send angels in sisters and brothers in the social work or volunteering that i found Jesus... or should i say.. Jesus found me?

Christ has set me free.. free from my regrets, free from my self imposed heartaches or action.

but as i write this, i realised that life is beautiful and it has not end for me yet. No, it's never ending.. its eternal... the Bible tells me so...

i think we all have a story that the Lord wants us to share, because He loves telling stories too..

Stories help us to be stronger in that it reminds us that we are human being who has a love and a compassion to be given out to those who needs them.

I have rested for a time, just feel the urge to start giving again.

and maybe, someone else's story may just have a new beginning..

Praise Jesus!

Wedding prep

2010-06-26T18:08:00.006+08:00

The last 2 months has been about prep prep prep for wedding! I was busy preparing for the wedding next year, and a few things has transpired.

The date of my wedding with my fiance(did i tell you i proposed?) is 19 February, i.e our Holy Matrimony. the next day will be our banquet date.

I have reserved TC Auditorium (our church venue) but its not confirm as church's calendar is not out yet. Paid the deposit for the banquet at a restaurant @ Suntec. So at least something is done.

We got a bridal package with a Taiwan Based shop, tot it was a great idea to go Taiwan to shoot our pre-weddings, but its not so awesome when we find ourselve short of time. So most likely have to sell it at forum or something and going to get another local package. Anyone wants to buy from me? Its pretty good deal!

Home wise, we truly thank God that the most headache issuse has easily become least of all because God blessed us with a totally NEW house with basic furnishing n furniture! My second elder brother and his wife has balloted a BTO flat at Punggol and its coming end of this year. My bro is not moving in and is letting us live at the place rental FREE! wow!

This is truly a blessing from God because we haven't had much cash to get a 2nd hand flat with COV at peak level recently. So with this flat, we will be able to ballot for our own BTO. We tried one in May for Punggol but the queue number was too high..

I remember brother Samuel telling me that if God wants us to stay in a certain place, He will make sure we get a good number. So I guess we will wait for the next of BTO : ) Amen!

Other than all this prep, it also has been a time of discussing with parents on the wedding and everyone in my house has been chipping in ideas which i am really thankful of. My fiance said that I discuss with them more than I discuss with her... so i better start waking up my idea.. :P

But it has been a most exhilarating time looking at all the different packages and asking friends, researching online, forum, etc etc.. its like a little boy walking into Toy s rus for the First time : )

God has been faithful to provide for me thus far. I realised how indeed important it is to pray and committ everything to the Lord.

Amen!

30-30-30

2010-04-25T15:47:00.002+08:00

Last week, I have a most unique encounter with the following triplets of number:

30-30-30.

On tuesday, I was surfing the Major League Baseball site, MLB.com, (i am a baseball fan!) and I chanced upon this advertisment from this website that goes something like wanting to broadcast

30 games from 30 teams over the next 30 days.

It make an impression as its quite catchy somewhat.

On that evening, while doing my quiet time, I happened to decided be going thru the book of Judges and I was reading the Judges 10, where the records of one of the Judges were told:

" 3 He was followed by Jair of Gilead, who led Israel twenty-two years. 4 He had thirty sons, who rode thirty donkeys. They controlled thirty towns in Gilead, which to this day are called Havvoth Jair. [b] 5 When Jair died, he was buried in Kamon. "

Gasp.. its 30-30-30 again!

I asked God what does it mean? 30 sons who rode on 30 donkeys to control 30 towns.

No, i din hear anything yet. So i leave it as it is.

The next day, I continued to read the book of Judges, and lo and behold, Samson, probably the super-man of his time, just that he can't fly... in Judges 14 decided to give a riddle to his 30 friends:

"10 Now his father went down to see the woman. And Samson made a feast there, as was customary for bridegrooms. 11 When he appeared, he was given thirty companions.

12 "Let me tell you a riddle," Samson said to them. "If you can give me the answer within the seven days of the feast, I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes. 13 If you can't tell me the answer, you must give me thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes." "Tell us your riddle," they said. "Let's hear it."
14 He replied, "Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet." For three days they could not give the answer. "

Amazing right, 30 friends and a bet of 30 garments and 30 clothes!

30-30-30

Ok, now God has my attention.

What's up with this 30-30-30?

well, i am clueless, but its quite interesting for anybody isn't it?

May God reveal in His time : )

:)

Praying on all occassion for all the saints

2010-04-14T12:04:00.002+08:00

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and
requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the
saints. - Ephesians 6:18

God is the healer

2010-03-31T15:08:00.003+08:00

Today, I am visiting David, my friend who is a cerebral palsy from young and has sustained spinal injury in recent years that caused him to rely on wheelchair for mobility as he is not able to stand and walk for long due to the spinal injury.

For long, I have visited him and in the last year I started praying for him to be healed in Jesus Name, and that he will be free from the need of wheelchair and live a independent lifestyle.

This last week i was reading a book from Ps David Cho Yonggi on living life in the 4th Dimension i.e living life by the Spirit. And I heard him repeat over and over again , stories upon stories of victories, healing etc thru envisioning them under the power of God.

There was a story of how one day he visited Dr Peter Wagner in the States, and they had this Iraqi who was amputated on his lower limb i.e no leg. Thus, Dr Wagner, after reading Ps Cho's book on envisioning and praying in Jesus name started praying that God will grow out a leg for this Iraqi. At the beginning , nothing happened despite Dr Wagner shouting and praying loud. The rest of pastors in the room started consoling him as it was quite an impossible thing to happen.

But Dr Wagner persisted on.. and Viola! after one loud shout of " Leg grow" a leg really popped out under the Iraqi lower limb! Seconds later, he jumped around the room in joy.

Incredible!

What a testimony! Dr Wagner explained to Dr Cho that he has prayed and received the faith from God and has envisioned and believed firmly that God will grow a leg out of this Iraqi. And as he believed in his heart, he prayed. And as he prayed, God came true for him!

Hallelujah!

--
With this and many faith stories, I started believing that if the same God can heal them, He certainly can heal David too and set him free from a life of defeat & despair on wheelchair and heal him.

This few days, I suddenly have this surge of great impartation of belief that David is going to be heal completely!

I decided that the date is today. And I decided that I am going to pray for him and I am going to work through with him to help him see and believe that God is going to heal him completely and he does not have to depend on wheelchair anymore and he can live life normally.

God showed me that he has a lot of hatred in his life and it is eating up his body and mind. And God is going to have him healed and set free from this area of sin so that his body healing might be total.

What a night its going to be!

God is the healer and he is going to heal David completely tonight! He is going to walk, he is going to jump and he is going to have to throw away his wheelchair!

We are so praising God!

Hallelujah!

On the cry

2010-03-21T12:54:00.003+08:00

This few days, I just feel on the verge of crying.

No, i am not crying because my gf lost his iphone and we have to get a new one for her.

No, i am not crying because I was sick this whole week, and have to fight bad allegy reaction to medicine. burning skin, fighting the urge to scratch away the itchiness. have to fight it off w/o having the time to see doc, never been under such kind of persistent attack. horrible, don't bath hot water when u have rashes.. it make it worst..

No, I am not crying because I am fighting against tiredness and lack of sleep.

But I want to cry because the Lord is bringing me through a time of brokenness.

so that I may know Him better.

a new boldness and willingness to pray

2010-02-27T13:57:00.002+08:00

Our church is undertaking a 24-hour 40 day prayer fast season, and I thanked God that this has actually happened. In my memory, it must be my first participation in such prayer meeting where His people comes together to pray non-stop for 40 days at a single place in my church.

This year, my church senior pastor challenged us to rise up a Joshua Generation, where we go into the promised land and claim our territory. And what a time it is to first consecrate ourself and humble our self before the Lord to seek his face.

The Big IF:

2 Chronicles 7:14: If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

I went for my first dawn prayer at 6am thru to 11am on Thursday, and it was an awesome time with the Lord and His people at our church's chapel. Personally, I feel revived in my prayer life which was as sporadic as it can be previously. In the chapel, however, through participation and focus prayer points, I was led to fight the spiritual warfare both for myself and the church. And I realise how much I have needed this prayer breakthrough in itself.

It was indeed God's blessing and healing us AS and IF we seek Him. what a Big IF.

That Anxiousness within.
I went again this morning with some of my boys and my gf and the Lord was there. I was impressed from this 2 verse from Psalm 139:

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

I allowed the Lord to search my heart and lead me to know my anxious thoughts. I heard the Lord telling me that I have been anxious in my family, about their salvation , about working with them. The anxiousness has suffocated me for a time or so and the Lord wants to set me free.

I realised I haven't had the boldness , or faith to pray for their salvation. I pray for them yes, but not with much conviction. Not bold enough. Willingness seems to be lacking for a time now.

So I repented and I pray this:

I pray that God gives me a willingness to pray for their salvation for i know i have lost it. I pray that God gives me a boldness, a faith to dare believe that they will come to know Him for I know I don't have much faith.

I pray that God takes away this anxiousness from within me.

A new boldness and willingness . . to pray.

I pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Pansonic Viera 42 inches Plasma TV TH-P42C10

2010-02-12T17:52:00.002+08:00

Hi friends,

Any of you interested to buy a new tv? I have a Panasonic Viera 42 inches Plasma TV TH-P42C10 to let go. I am selling way way below market price. If you are interested, please let me know. The TV store guys will come deliver to your house and install for you at no extra fees.

Check out this link for the TV specs : http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/home_av/tvs/0,39037585,44628984p,00.htm

Serious buyer only please. Message me ya.

It's brand new and I have no place to put at my house. : )

Fonts

2010-02-02T13:47:00.003+08:00

Looking for nice fonts to use for multimedia projects? I came across this website called Dafont where you can download different font that's being offered from your OS.

Just click download, scan for virus and install and try it on your microsoft word/powerpoint projects and you have a new fonts such as below : created for fun, yes the angels are fonts too..!

tada!

homeless, jobless in Singapore

2010-01-19T18:22:00.003+08:00

I met someone who is homeless and jobless in singapore.

Does not want charity to help, because depressed and don't want to stay in a Home. needs a house/ room to stay in urgently. But no money to rent.

that's something new.

What can I do to help?

Count the grass patches => 17+3 =20 ??

2010-01-15T23:56:00.003+08:00

I have an amazing encounter with the Lord @ work and I wrote an email to share with my prayer buddies @ the marketplace, do read and be inspired by what the Lord can do in the marketplace : )

"Dear fellow Prayer buddies @ Suntec,

Just want to share a recent personal testimony @ work.

Expansion
As you all know, my brothers and I have been operating a pushcart here at Suntec. We also have a small serviced office at tower 2 as part of the operations. Recently, we decided that its time to expand our biz after more than 3 years in Suntec. We realised that part of this expansion process is to first look for a bigger office to put in more equipment and products. The Lord is good and we have one ex-office neighbour who is now renting a office at Tower 1 and recommended that we take a look at some of the other empty office rooms from his landlord.

This office is actually at Tower 1’s 4th level and the room's window overlook the sky garden directly. The interesting part here is on the rental fees. The landlord quoted $2400 initially,and we feel that it’s a little costly. We like the office’s space and its location(walk shorter distance to our push-cart)

Unsure and concerned about the extra costs, I decided to seek the Lord about it. Interestingly, the Lord led me to the sky garden where we used to have our prayer meetings to pray. As I stood prayin, the Lord blessed me with a scene of sparrows eating away at the grass patches at the sky garden.

There and then, I was reminded from Matthew 6 :26 "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

God was telling me not to worry, for He is Jehovah Jireh.

On Holy Ground

I was probably standing on holy ground, when the Lord suddenly prompted me to count the number of grass patches at the sky garden. If you recall, the grass patches at sky garden are segregated rectangularly. So I went counting… At the right end of the small waterpool was 17 count of green patches, while the left end was another 3! So I asked the Lord whether its going to be $1700 or a total of $2000, as I am convicted that each patch of grass must be $100 each : )
As I couldn’t quite decide which amt, I kinda went away claiming that the rental will be $1700, but will still be glad if its $2000. But I know I have the peace of the Lord that He’s going to make the deal happen in that region.

Praise God 17+3=20?

Amazingly, after some negotiations, I finally got to take a look at the details of the contract breakdown as below:

Rental of office: $1700
Servicing, maintainence,furniture(very well furnished) and others misc: $300

It adds up to a total of $2000 , in the exact formula of 17 patches plus 3 green patches! I literally went wide eyes and enjoyed a PRAISE THE LORD moment!

It must be one of the weirdest way of deciding how much to pray for the rental. Counting grass patches! But Praise God for confirming it in such a way that I know that this office is a blessing from God and He is with me in this . Just want to encourage you all that God is great and He will provide for all your needs so long we dare to ask and seek Him in our marketplace.

May you encounter God in a deep deep way this year too : )

Thanks for reading!

God bless and see ya around,
Mingchun : )

---
All Glory to God!!

Reflections and Thanksgiving for 2009

2010-01-02T16:14:00.007+08:00

Praise God indeed for 2009.

Towards the end of it, something happened and certain messages from 3rd heaven finally went past its way thru the 2nd heaven and reached me. They called it prayer breakthroughs, I thought it sounds just right.

There are many things that I thank God about, just to list some with reflections too:

Baptism
For many, I guess baptism seems like a religious, traditional, must do, must follow, going through the motion thingy.

For me personally, its an act of obedience to God's command and prompting. Somehow, I always know or wished that God will use me to share my personal testimony on my conversion experience on stage on my baptism day, because I believe God has greatly blessed me with a rather amazing story to tell, and I really excited and glad to tell it.

Thus, its literally like dream come true, and I know its God's way of honoring that desire in me to share with others when i was given the chance in April 09.

It was my first time speaking to hundreds of people testifying of God's love for me, and it's my prayer that God will use me more and more to speak to an even greater multitude of people.

Praise God for His love.

Family

Towards the end of year, I got to find out about some inter-relational conflicts and issues that I was hidden from, and it was then i realised how sometimes that people esp. family could be offended by each other, that i have to really not neglect and seek to love them and not take things for granted. From 2010 and beyond, i pray that God will help me to really exercise that measure of His love that i give to serve His people into that of my family. I know I have neglected my family given the amount of time i spent out of it.

This same neglect occurs in my career too, for i have unwittingly put my focus off it, and it has caused unnecessary troubles. But i believe that God is in control and has His ways to help me to prioritise my life. I am definitely under-going trials as that of a healthy discipleship in Christ. I pray that God will shift my heart's focus to be more balanced and not wanting to do too much.

In ministry, 2009 has been a year where I took on much responsibility in BB. I like doing what I do (except the admin part :P) and God has certainly given me the opportunity to speak His truths to the boys. Through this process, I have been equipped with much useful skills to lead and it does helps in my confidence building in terms of doing.

I thank God for the many boys who has come to accept Him in their life this years. One great take-away this year I have is that there's a time for everything -- that what i sow, i may not necessary reap. Thus, I sense that God is leading me to let go and to let live.

The most amazing prayer answered

This probably will take a full posting in another entry. But in early November 09', while praying, I was led to pray that I will find my 12 by end 2010. On further tot, I tot I should exercise a bigger faith by praying that i have that by June 2010. I believe it will be done because I know God answer big faith prayers.

At that time, God used a movie story of Deng Xiaoping to tell me that He will be starting to do things very quick in my life, and He wants me learn to be as quick too.

Probably only my gf, my leader and I knows about this prayer. And amazingly, God answered that prayer in just a matter of 1 week. 1 week!!

One of my fellow leaders is moving on and has a grp of teens that needs someone to 'take-over' . the no. is 11. And exactly that week, I consolidated one teen of the same age-group out-of-nowhere. And viola! i find myself tasked with co-leading a group of 12 church teens plus some of my open cell BB boys.

And over the last few weeks, God has been so amazingly working through us in stablizing the group and we have bonded as quick as the glue was being released.

How quick the Lord has moved indeed! My faith probably increased 12 fold over this period.

All glory to God and praise Him !

Last but not least, Joelle and I has been growing steadily in our relationship, and God has really put me through a number of tests to help me to be a leader between the both of us. God is good and He is in control.

Somebody shout Amen!

Hallelujah!

cycling at ECP

2009-12-10T00:02:00.004+08:00

i suppose our Touch Center at marine parade is really quite a good location as its near ECP and thus have more options for recreational actitivties. my gf looks pretty cute hor?

this is handsome Yunghoe, so glad that he accepted Christ some months ago and just so thankful to God for this young life, glad to be able to guide him here and there thru the last 2 years plus. glad to be a fren,.

this is zhen Yee, it was his birthday celebration at mac at ECP. u can see that i look better :P diaoz..

we wear the SAME GREEn! we love green!! its my first time cycling on a double bike! its not so easy to balance. but as i was a skilful biker, it took me only 3 hours to cycle properly. ya 3 hours only..

most of us, some shy boys not in.. they are mainly from sec 2, pretty on, always love to cycle wonder why?

oh. went cycling last month at East coast with some of my boys and girls from my gf side. been a long while since i cycle at ECP. missed my younger days where i often go there to blade with my mumbo frens. but guess its a different season, and i had to move on. glad to do this recreational activty, thank God for my girlfren who has been such great helper in everything that i set my heart to do. so supportive. so thankful to God.

Hallelujah!

It's a new season indeed

2009-11-23T23:41:00.003+08:00

Due to a series of consolidation process in the youth ministry a.k.a Youthnet of our church, I find myself in a new cell group with a new cell leader...duh..

And I am excited, for I find myself with new challenges in serving and its all glory to God that I have the opportunity to participate in His finished works.

Looking back, the last half a year has been challenging to me in the area of cell planting and leading. There were many things that I wished I had known, and many pains that I wished that I did not had gone through. Things like how to consolidate a young believer into the group, like how to do follow-ups, like how to run a cell, how to catch the fishes, where to throw the net..

Adding to it, I had to face self-doubts, conflicts, where and how to draw and communicate boundaries. Being lied to by the devil and not rebuking the devil and living with the lies were the most painful experiences..

many struggles, many frustrations, endless sms/calls to get ppl to come n they simply don't, and it seems so discouraging. what did I not do well? what could I have done better?

many questions, many thoughts, many pressings on. oh well, nobody said it was easy.

eh.. wait a minute. Jesus did.

Luke5:4-6: " When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon," Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."

Simon answered," Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets."

When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break."

As i write this, I tot to a certain a measure I do feel like Simon Peter over the last year or so. worked hard, but not much of a desired result...

But I looked back to my prayer list and over the last few months, i realised the Lord has been starting to bless me with breakthroughs upon breakthroughs. Breakthroughs of catching the heartbeat, the principles, and the reality of having the numbers to work with in order to experience more mulitplication.

Praise the Lord.

i really Thank God becuase I feel so alive and excited right now, because it's pretty major prayers in the process of being answered and i really claim and praise God for it. More importantly, it came right after a painful process of much brokeness and frustration over things that I wished did not happen. But the Lord is indeed in control, and indeed He hears my prayers and has lovingly assured me that He will helped me through There are so many wonderful passages that He has brought me to read through that I hope I could share more regularly with you guys.

But i figured when Jesus first called his disciples, He primarily called them to be fishers of men " then Jesus said to Simon, "don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men."- Luke 5: 10

I believe this is the primary heartbeat of God to catch the lost and to disciple the nations with His kingdom principles. And we as believers are are His instruments and primarily called to do that, let's do indeed do just that well and faithful, and He will show the way, just like what He is doing in my life.

God is so good. Let's intro more ppl to Him.

Lifting the fog

2009-11-16T16:06:00.005+08:00

I was reading a book this morning and through the author's narration of his experience in coming to the cross to renouce certain hidden sins concerning idolatry, withcraft, sorcery. As he relates his story on how God has surfaced this past hidden forgotten sins and how the Lord delivered him from it, so that that he could have break free devil's argument and hold in his life in this area.

It's true that as when we say the sinner's prayer and mean it from our heart, we will have a immediate relationship with out Lord Jesus Christ. But nonetheless, there are still many areas in a believer's life that's need to be work out and conform to that of Christ.

A clear example of my point is that of repeatedly sinning. For man, we could easily relate to the struggle against lust. Time and again, we find ourselves in similar un-desirable situations and only the grace of God carry us thus far.

The author points the need to go to the cross daily to ask the Lord of all the hidden sins in our life that the devil may hold against us and have arguments against us... as i read it, suddenly the Lord reminded me of 2 situations in my life.

The first one
A decade ago, we had a new neighbour who moved in ( and since moved out a year back), and we found out that he has a qi-gong- healer type of job. Fascinated, my family just asked him in, and he started performing a qi-pulling on my daring brother, and he also taught us how to yun-qi (operate the qi literally) and stuff like that. I was a student then and i just practice a little of what he taught. Today, i could still remember roughly how to know one simple stroke of the method and could feel the qi coming out of my finger.

Well, as the Lord reminds me about this, I am convicted that this is not of God and its of the evil one and it seems as if there is a dark spiritual attachment to this that the Lord wants me to renounce and reject of.

The second one
In my army days, I once fall very ill after a very strange incident. My camp is on the hill and the road leading up to it is narrow and often there will be vehicles incidents. And it happened to one of my camp mate who rode his bike and for no reason slipped, fell and landed up a week in hospital. His mum who claimed she has a 3rd eye, said she wants to go back to the original accident site to do a ritual ceremony to appease the spirits or something,... pai-pai..

The brave and compassionate, or foolish me volunteered to go with her as i know the place.. and she drove me there, did whatever she intended, come up to the car and told me that there's a lot of spirits around..

Well, guess what , immediately that night after i reached home, i have severe headache, vomitted, and i landed up in hospital and got the longest MC i ever had - 5 days! Yet, i could not recovered after many series of Western, Chinese, Acupunture clinic visit. I was dazed and having a persistent headache. After a month or so, my dad who worship idols decides to bring me to medium ask their gods to deliver me from my sickness.

I actually went to 2 medium, as the first doesn't seems to be effective. The visitation to the 2nd medium in Yishun i remembered shocked me. he stayed in a normal hdb house, but in it was full of altars and incense offered to countless statute gods. the medium did a prolonged ritual upon me and at the end of it, i was actually given a red chop mark on the back of my shirt. its part of the ritual.

But its like a evil mark on my life. And the Lord tells me that I need to renounce this sin of visitation to the mediums, the deliverance thingy by their gods, and the mark. I need the cleansing power of the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ to be delivered and set free from this 2 incident of spiritual idolatry

I prayed and claim the power of the blood of Jesus upon my life and I know God has set me free from this 2 dark incidents upon my life. I know too, as the author relates that the arguments from the devil against me has been eliminated in this area. and this fog of darkness was lifted, I believe that God is going to bring about a greater work of blessings and victory in my life.

One confirmation of that is that the very first customers came to our store to place a pretty good order and she just say that she's here to bless me. and yes, this is an unusual happening.

All i can say is Hallelujah!

I wrote this to share because i believe many of us comes from families who has a history of worhsipping idols, and some of us probably come across medium like myself. I pray that the Lord will reveal it to you and help set you free, so that the devil will not have a hold over you in this area and that you may experience a greater break through in your walk with God as the fog lifts from the path ahead. God is calling you to the cross this day once again. God bless you.

Banquet of Honor

2009-11-15T23:51:00.009+08:00

As the top national leaders from the Asia Pacific gathered in Singapore for the annual economic forum over the past week, many marginalized, forgotten heros from foreign lands working amongst us were honored at the same period. They are the ones who came to Singapore from countries like India, Bangladesh, Philippines, China, Myanmar.. etc.

The Banquet of honor, as it was called was held over 12-15 Nov 2009 , mainly at a open field in Lavender. Organised by the Love Singapore churches, the banquet was openly invited to foreign workers from job sectors like the building and constructions, marine, cleaning, etc. The main purpose? To honor them and say a big thank you to their contributions to the serving of the country.

My girlfriend and I signed up as servers in this banquet, we chose the Friday night which was the night for the Bangladeshis. I went with an expectation of simply volunteering our services, but the Lord surprised probably all of us with the electrifying atmosphere of the banquet. What better way to describe the experience then by the art of youtube and camera photos?
Enjoy my friends!

Right from the start, the atmosphere was really joyful, clap n clap n clap n clap non-stop! I haven't had such a joyful time for such a long while :)

Awesome isn't it? they were freely allowed to dance and celebrate the occasion, we were so surprised by their spontaneous wild dancing. Super Onzzz la!

I thank God my gf who follow me to serve very very frequently! She's so pretty!

My gf commented that she rarely see me smile the way i smile this night... probably because i really really enjoyed myself : and i must add that i look particularly handsome when i smile the way i smile this night... you sensed this coming rite... :P

We are proud to serve this table of 10 :) who really enjoyed themselves!

Thank God for such an special night. it blew our mind. Everyone of us left with a huge sense of surprise at the overwhelming spontaneous responses of the 900 guests. Our pastors went around the island to their dormitories to invite them not knowing how they might response. But i guess from the minute the idea was conceived one year ago in our leadership, we all know that this from God's heart to bless the foreigners in our midst to recognise them and to honor them. i just so praise God for such a wonderful loving gesture.

God is indeed good! Hallellujah!

(It's simply awesome, i think probably alot of us experience a personal revival right there right then. I actually slept with a smile on my face, knowing that God is on to something that we have never experience as a nation before. )

Finding Satisfaction in life : which road are you on?

2009-10-20T23:39:00.009+08:00

I went out for a supper in the Potong Pasir Area earlier on with my girlfriend and her younger brother.

Over the bowl of delicious 大排骨虾面 in a busy smokey coffeeshop, we eat, drink and talk. My gf's brother, Ry , asked me a question that I once asked myself too when I was just starting out my adult life.

" How do I make more money?" Ry asked.

I replied: " How much is 'more' for you?"

"$5000 passive income" he shot quickly.

"Well, I guess you could buy a few property and rent them out then : ) " I answered rather wishfully.

The question behind the question is generally always: How can I find more satisfaction and meaning to life ??
---

Thousands of years ago, the book of Ecclesiastes informs us that King Solomon, the smartest, richest, have-it-all King of Israel , that he " devoted himself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven" (Ecc 1:13), as he searches for an answer to satisfaction in life. He sought in all his power by doing things which he thought would help him find enlightenment, enrichment and enjoyment. At each end however, he came to the conclusion that everything is meaningless and is just like chasing after the wind. (try using your hand to catch wind, you catch nothing : P)

If you simply summarise Solomon's search, I would say whether we are chasing after riches or pleasure or wisdom, we are merely chasing after the wind, its a futile attempt.

Ps Benny Ho termed this as a Under the Sun perspective, where we will all kinda simply eat , drink and be merry on a daily basis.

My search for satisfaction
When I was just entering into adulthood in my early 20s, I went through the process of :

1. Seeking wealth -I assumed then that the more money I have, the bigger my house, the faster the car I drive, and the more beautiful a girlfriend I may attract . . lolz (but thank God, w/o the pre-requsites, i still have a most beautiful gf : ). And one could see that I am pretty serious about it, a look at the library of books that i owned and most of them teach about financial independence. (At least I attempt to study it!) I too, want to be RICH.

2. Seeking enlightenment , meaning of life- and in all futility, I actually believe that doing noble things such as doing social work will somehow bring satisfaction and meaning to my life.

Looking at my calendar back then, I must have somehow concluded that I will be immensely happy if I do a lot of charity work. Why? Life must be lived helping others, or there would be no meaning! Or so I thought...

My first full time day job was in the social services. Outside work, I involved myself in various volunteering work in children home, grassroot work, youth home, church's nursery. My weekly schedule was always packed to the full! This went on for more than a year or two till God put it to a stop for me.

So if you asked me whether doing charity works or helping the poor and needy helps one find meaning and satisfaction to life. Well, I probably would be a good person to ask.

My answer? Well, I can't help but also concurred with King Solomon that with this under-the-sun, eat drink and be merry mentality, i will indeed find myself chasing after the wind. Yes, everything is meaningless if we see life this way, no matter what noble things we might be involved in...

Like everything under the sun, whether we are millionaires or find ourselves eating air, we all will one day die n pass on from this earth, isn't that true? The road to enlightenment, enjoyment, and enrichment all but leads to the road of futility. Whether its your bones or my bones, it will all turn into ashes one day.

Get on the road to eternity

But thanks be to God, Jesus has come and gives us true satisfaction for He promised us from John 4:13-14 : ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life’”

Eversince I accepted Jesus into my life, I never have to thrist(find satisfaction) again, for I have found my answers and God has been faithful in providing and caring for all my needs.

When I start to see things from an eternal life perspective, I begin to do things with an everlasting purpose , and become more conscious on building on things that will last and not rust.

The conclusion of the matter: The question is not on how much money we have or how many people we have help, the real question is which road are we on?

Are we on a road to find enlightenment, enrichment, and/or enjoyment?

Or are we on the road to eternity?

God promised once we are on the right road and have the right right kingdom atidtude, all these things will be added to us. Read Matthew 6:33 : )

Somebody shout Amen!

Me, Offended?

2009-10-16T13:26:00.006+08:00

As Jesus was sitting on Mount Olives, his disciples asked him what will the signs of the end of ages be, and Jesus went on in Matthew 24 to elaborate on it and from v10-24, the Lord showed us one of them:

In the NKJV version, its says:

"And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved." v 10-13

So who are the 'many' who will be offended?

In his book "The Bait of Satan" , John Bevere explained that in the bible, the Greek word for love in the above passage is agape. another commonly found word will be phileo defines a love found among friends, while agape describe God's unconditional love for His children (think Jesus)

So the "many " Jesus was refering to are beliver's whose agape love has grown cold.

Me, Offended?
Recently, I have an experience of being offended by someone from the body of Christ. Of cos, whether its a factual offence, or its a assumed offence , well it doesn't matter.. because I know I have been offended because I know I am hurt, disappointed, frustrated...etc etc...

It's a"Wah Lao, why do until like this" kind of feeeling.. argggh..

The higher the expectation , the higher the disappointment bah

John Bevere shared that most likely when we are hurt, we are hurt by people who are close to us and who matters to us...

how true isn't it?

i figured, if one were to keep record of the number of times someone caused you to feel offended, and we keep track of who they are. I believer most likley, our family members will rank top, be it parents or sibling or loved ones or the so called best friends that when young, we are seemed to have one best buddy who did something 'offending' and there goes the relationship.

It's process of refining, molding
1 Peter 1:6-7 tells us this (NIV) :

"6In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

It's time where alot of fleshly "fruits" were surfaced in my life: anger, strife, unforgiveness, eetc...

Walls of protection or bars or captivity?
Our ancestors builds walls in their cities to keep out their enemies who had fight wars and hurt them before. Likewise, with my hurting experiences, I build up wall so thick and high, that was unpredented.

Call it isolation. Call it self-defense. Call it a wounded man walking in a offended heart trying to prevent himself being hurt anymore by building up that wall to protect himself.

No crossing pls.

the love. the agape. where is it? its froze up somewhere.

I realised though, i may have suceeded in portecting myself, but i have also make myself a captive behind the walls of bar . how funni

God's way : Sow love, the agape one.
Galatian:6:7-10 :

"7Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers."

John Bevere shared that God once told him that he needs to develop faith in the love of God. As he prayed, God shared that we need to sow in the love of God , and we will reap the love of God. (Re-read God's spiritual law in the above scripture!)

Though the harvest may not come in the field that was sowed, or it may not come quickly. But is God a God who withhold his promises ???

Let's believe by faith that God will honor his promises in this spiritual law:

We will reap a harvest in the agape love of God, when we sow in the agape love of God.

Just think to the time when Jesus was being tortured mercilessily and crucified on the cross, he chose to sow the agape love by forgiving unconditionally the people who did it to him.

And from then, we see the harvest of love were reaped when generation after generation of people came to receive of the Lord's agape love.

This is a the most priceless harvest, just because of what our Lord Jesus chose to do in the face of massive offence:

To sow his agape love to those who don't love him.

And this truth just helps me to be freed to love others the agape way.

Amen!

to be cont'd...

I was reminded

2009-10-13T13:36:00.004+08:00

I was reminded by the Lord the reason I am in the BB - to serve my leader and to plant cell.

My cell leader went on a Sabbathical rest this year and I was tasked to take on a acting role to help administer the coy. And it has been a whirlwind of admin work and management eversince.

Running the coy
Lots of my thought space were occupied with the admin part, and 99% of them are things I have never done before, and thus much of my action in part went towards making sure I learn the ropes well and not falter. The stress of it really adds on as its a Gold awardee company. It means that the running of the coy is tightly scrutinized by the HQ in terms of the various categories it has lay out in assessing a company's performance.

As its a niche area for the school, getting a sustained Gold award for a CCA uniformed group is a crucial Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to meet as it will affect fundings, resource allocation and many other stuffs.

The Personal Journey thus far
Honestly, it has been stressful for me thus far with what I have mentioned above.

But God is good. During all this, He sent experienced brothers who came in to steady the ship and together with a hardworking bunch of teachers, we actually did not a bad job. Nevertheless, much prayers are still needed to maintain the gold award as we head into a crucial last 3 months.
Relationship with the boys
If you ask me for an honest assessment, I think my relationship with the boys did not grow as much as I would have like. Lesser time was spent with them. And for their age, I think its important to spent time regularly with them to be of any influence.

Gone indeed are the days, where I would go down on a weekday to catch them with some after-school activties like drills, games and word-sharing. I missed the days where one of my bros and I regularly did it and relationship with the boys was pretty close. Well, things happened, and as time grow, it became a non-existent event.

What really matters
The other day, while resting, it just kinda dawned on me the things that really matters. I remembered really actively sharing the gospel or just simply doing a personal pray alongside thingy with the boys. I saw how God moved and lives were touched by His love.

Yet over the last half a year, I just kinda stop doing all of these that matters and turn to things that really are important in man's eyes .. And the realization of this just knocks me off .

From my perspective, I thought I probably see more man's hand that God's hand in all this. And yet, by the grace of God, I am still here writing a report on the fact that I have not depend on the Lord as much as I should.

Thank God for His mercy. I just pray that I get out of this pattern and do the things that matter more to the heart of God and depend on Him instead of me.

Thank God for seeing me through this season indeed.

Amen!

Recharged

2009-10-12T19:13:00.004+08:00

Hi everybody,

decided not to shift this site after all. Was mystified by how come the side bar of this site was shifted to the bottom of the page. After much changing of templates, the problem still exists. Thus, I contemplated a site change.

Due to some stubborness, I checked up the blogger help page, and managed to find out that the culprit was one of my posting in August. It has a image that was too wide, thus pushing away the side bar content to the bottom of page.. talk about being IT savvy, phew..

Encouragment
at God has prompt
During my one month sabbatical writing rest, I was encouraged to receive two comment postings from strangers that googled their way into my site. They commented how that particular posting has given them some relevance to their life. I re-read the posts and was kinda amazed in what God has put in my heart to write at that point of my walk in the Lord. Praise God indeed.

I always believe in reading for new knowledge, info, and experiences from others from all sort of sources like books, newspaper, blogs, etc.. mainly to satisfy my curious being i guess.. : P.. I am therefore thankful to God that I have a personal space in this webby world that I can be a voice for Christ in such a way to a wider commumnity.

To my younger readers, I guess I have a responsibilty to write sensible matured stuff in an interesting and encouraging way. Hopefully, all this does not come out from a self -righteous position. But, prayerfully, I continue to write out of a God-given willingness and motivation, with a clear purpose to forcefully advancing His kingdom.

To my friends, I think its a fantastic way to stay in touch in more travelled world.

May the Lord anoint my fingers and thoughts as I make it a point to share more regularly.

The Lord has been good to me in my life, and will continue to be.

Hallelujah!

Keep PUSHing

2009-08-25T19:20:00.002+08:00

A man was sleeping one night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with, and God appeared. The Lord told the man he had work for him to do, and showed him a large rock in front of his cabin. The Lord explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might.

So, this the man did, day after day. For many years, he toiled from sunrise to sundown, his shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing with all his might.

Each night, the man returned to his cabin, sore and worn out feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain. Since the man was showing discouragement, the devil decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into the man’s weary mind by saying, “You have been pushing against that rock for a long time and it hasn’t moved.”

Thus, he gave the man the impression that the task was impossible and that he was a failure. These thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man. Satan said, “Why kill yourself over this? Just put in your time giving just the minimum effort and that will be good enough.”

That’s what the weary man planned to do but decided to make it a matter of prayer and to take his troubled thoughts to the Lord. “Lord,” he said, “I have labored long and hard in Your service, putting all my strength to do that which you have asked. Yet, after all this time, I have not even budged that rock by half a millimeter. What is wrong? Why am I failing?”

The Lord responded compassionately, “My friend, when I asked you to serve Me and you accepted, I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all of your strength, which you have done. Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it.

Your task was to push. And now you come to Me with your strength spent, thinking that you have failed but, it that really so? Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled, your back shiny and brown; your hands are callused from constant pressure, your legs have become massive and hard.

Through opposition you have grown much, and your abilities now surpass that which you used to have. True, you haven’t moved the rock but your calling was to be obedient and to push and to exercise your faith and trust in My wisdom. That you have done. Now I, my friend, will move the rock.”

At times, when we hear a word from God, we tend to use our own intellect to decipher what He wants, when actually what God wants is just simple – obedience and faith in Him. By all means, exercise the faith that moves mountains but know that it is still God who moves the mountains.

When everything seems to go wrong - Just P.U.S.H
When the job gets you down - Just P.U.S.H
When people don’t do as you think they should - Just P.U.S.H
When your money is gone and the bills are due - Just P.U.S.H
When people just don’t understand you - Just P.U.S.H

PUSH is Pray until something happen.

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start,
anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.

---CBD PG weekly encouragement

Hallelujah!

2009-08-24T23:57:00.009+08:00

Last Sat I brought some of my boys for a chinese drama show organised by my church called "Life No Take 2" . Acted by TCS Artistes, it was an interesting gospel play that ends with a altar call.

It was an harvest event and I was pretty excited by it and when the tickets went on sale, I went ahead by faith (not Singaporean Kiasu-ism )to buy 30 tickets in anticipating that my church mates and I will be able to combine and fill the full number.

Well, it didn't happen and I kind of only get slightly more than half the number filled. I wanted to ask my own friends to go, but I decided that I should just focus on the teens this round. So I disappointedly gave back the tickets to the church staff.

Through this , I learnt a really important lesson - don't be OVER-ambitious! haha . I pray that God will mend the holes in my pocket right away! Amen!

Still, I thank God truly for all the boys who attended, along with my gf's girls and friends. I think its probably the first time that we combined outing , and thought its a great start! Praise God and really look forward to more of such activities!

Well, every now and then I will always pray to God for encouragement in terms of harvest. And lo and behold! to my very ultra genuine surprise, during the altar call, one of my boy prayed along with the Pastor, put up his hand and went forward to receive Christ into his life for the first time!

Hallelujah!

Praise God.

I am really surprised! and obviously ENCOURAGED by the Lord! Angels rocking in heaven, can you hear them!?!?

Of cos, experience and history has tell me that this is really the beginning and my prayer for this boy is that God will bless him and show him that there is only one and one true God in Jesus and that God will keep him for eternity, that he will worship Him and Him only. In Jesus name , I pray, Amen!

To end off, I am really thankful for this fruit, because he is someone that God has put unto my heart to pray for and befriend since I started in BB and sometimes, you just feel that he is so close le, yet sometimes he seems to be drifted away, and its seems hopeless and you just feel discouraged.

But from time to time, I believe God has heard my prayer for him and that in His grace, all things are made beautiful in His time.

Let's continue to pray for our love ones, and in His time, God will pour out His love and grace upon our land abundantly from heaven. Fruits will grow where there are none, spring will burst forth, angels will rejoice greatly, and we will marvel together, the glory, the awesome glory of Jehovah God and call upon the name of Jesus.

Picture it.

Praise God!

I don't know how

2009-08-19T23:33:00.003+08:00

I started attending our church's youth ministry leader's meeting some 2 years ago . My youth pastors has always bring across a deeper sharing of the word of God in building up my faith in the Lord.

tonight's certainly one of those time when I come away reflecting and coming away asking myself some serious question.

Qn 1 : What do I see ?
Jeremiah 1:11 "The word of the LORD came to me: "What do you see, Jeremiah?"

Pastor Eugune shared that the question behind this question is :

What do I (want to) see?

To focus, I seek to question myself that in the context of engaging the youth.

What do I want to see in the youths that I spent my time with?

Other than to see them on Saturday mornings for parades, running the program, befriending them, hanging out with them?

What else? I realised how true and important it is to know what I want to see.

And clearly, to admit : I don't clearly know!

Proverbs 11:27 " He who seeks good finds goodwill, but evil comes to him who searches for it

Thus I pray that the Lord's hand be upon me to show me and to lead me into the right path in search of the answer.

And I am excited by the Lord's promise from Jeremiah 33:3 :" Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."

Awesome, isn't it?

And in addition to the question of

1) " What do I (want to ) see ? "

A second question will be:

2) How do I engage the teens of this generation?

From time to time, somehow I forget that I am a leader in a sense to the boys thats the Lord has placed me with. really.. not sure why, but its to my onus that i start to really lead lead like a leader should.

but i will do good to remember the way to lead in the kingdom of God is to serve first, like what our Lord did.

Truthfully, I am at really at a lost of really how to effectively engage the teens and do I continue to do what I have always done, and what new things should I engage in ?

Questions , questions... n I need answer answers!

Awesome!

Praise God!

been

2009-08-12T23:09:00.008+08:00

HALO!

Halo guys and gers, missed me? : P

Apologies that I have not been blogging much this past year. I wonder what I have been busy with :P

Well , why not I take some space to update some happenings in my life.

1) New addition to the family
In march this year, My second brother and sis in law pop up a uber cute baby boy to our family, and shall post his uber yandao pic in near pic!

my bro has been dropping him at my house daily since july for my parent to take care, and i have been saving up on travel fares as he longbang me to and fro work . Praise God!

2) this is a year where a lot of my frens got married , i guess i have reached that stage of my life :

Linge and Wanru, one of the closer couple that i know from church, and they have been a huge blessing to me since i joined FCBC. Thank God for them!

3) At Work
This year, I find myself more involved in the business as compared to before , taking a more active concern over the various matters from production to procurement and to promotion of the business. And through this, the Lord has shown me much of my weakness that I have to one-by-one surrender.

One of the first thing that I readiliy admit is that I am not been as hardworking as I thought I am, don't really have the creative entrepreneurial spirit that seems needful.

But the Lord has called me into this, and has not called my to leave as i explained my gf recently, and its a process that's uncomfortable and difficult at times. And although I don't enjoy it, I think its actually great for chipping away something that God don't like and actually opposes... and that's pride.

Indeed, I pray for God's grace be upon me. Amen!

4) In BB

My cell leader, who happens to be the captain of the BB coy that I serve in, kinda went on a block leave to prepare his marriage in september about half a year ago. And since then , I have been taking on more responsibility in areas like admin and running of the company.

Despite the increased workload, it has been a joy to see God's working in this, as he answered our prayers to send more manpower to share the load, and in the process, help improve the various area of the company.

God is good!

5)In relationship

It has been more than a year of pa-tohing with my gf, and on the one-year anniversary last month, I decided that its time and I asked her to go to our church's MPC (MArriage Preparation Course). it's like the proposal before the official proposal.

Obviously, she accepted it and I am thankful to God for her.

It's trial at times, to admit, that God has to help me go through the lessons of humilty so to chip away the pride in me. I thought the mr-nice-guy-personality in will do no wrong in making a girl happy and contented. How wrong i was. haha! I realized i wasn't so nice after all, and I am just apologetic to her, as she kinda become a receiving end to my sometime-not-so-perfect-character.

But God's grace has been sufficient for us, for me especially - to be strong enough to pull through all the trials, and to be patient enough to wait in love, and to be honest enough to know that I am not perfect and needs God's grace all the time.

One thing that I have been learning this year on all areas of my life --

It not the things that I have done or are doing for God, but its what I have become for God.

God Bless You.

Amen : )

The Death of Ambition

2009-08-04T13:33:00.001+08:00

By Francis Frangipane:

When I first came to Christ, the Lord gave me a dream about my future. I thought that everything the Lord said was supposed to occur immediately; I didn't know of the work of preparation and dying to self, of learning patience and maintaining vision through testing, that would occur before God's promise would find fulfillment. Consequently, I was filled with ambition. Ambition is the first motive that arises in the spiritually immature. I was like the disciples who, a few days after Jesus' resurrection, were already asking, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom?" (Acts 1:6).

Ambition is very deceptive. It can seem just like obedience, yet because we don't truly know the Lord, the voice we find ourselves obeying is not God's, but our own. Our vision can actually be from God, but our motive be self. Consequently, where there is ambition, James tells us there will soon emerge "disorder and every evil thing" (James 3:16). Why? Because we begin thinking we can accomplish the will of God through the strength of man. We are seeking a breakthrough; God wants to give us brokenness.

The spiritually immature do not recognize their immaturity because they are immature. Thus, they become impatient, fearful and demanding. Because pride blinds the ambitious, we presume we are ready for greater assignments in God. In fact, we become a harder assignment for those who work with us, for our actions continually generate strife.

Ambition seeks to put to death what stands between it and spiritual fulfillment. Yet, it is ambition itself that must die to reach fulfillment. Webster's tells us that ambition is "an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as wealth or fame, and the willingness to strive for it." The word translated "ambition" in the NAS is rendered "strife" in the King James. Truly, ambition is a major cause for strife, church splits and conflicts within the church.

I thought having a promise from God was the same thing as receiving a commandment from God. I did not understand what I personally lacked in character or what I needed to attain concerning faithfulness, becoming a bond-servant, and possessing a grateful heart. These things needed to be worked in me before God would truly begin to fulfill His larger promises and opportunities. What I became for God was more important than what I did for Him.

Today, I am living in the spiritual substance of what was just a dream thirty-eight years ago. My ambitions have suffered greatly, yet my dreams are being fulfilled. While I have not yet arrived at the greatest aspects of my calling, I understand the difference between ambition and true leadership and it is this: Ministry is not a call to lead, but to die.

Every advance that I have made spiritually was preceded by an opportunity to die to self. The power in my life comes from where I have died to self and now live unto Christ.

Do you want to advance spiritually? The gateway to resurrection power is crucifixion. God will arrange opportunities for you to die to self. You must discern them. Dying to self and its ambition is the means of reaching true spiritual fulfillment. If you react to the opportunity to die with fleshly anger or resentment, you will fail to reach fulfillment. However, if you can maintain your vision even while your ambition dies, you will succeed.

The Cutting Edge of Life

2009-07-22T22:28:00.004+08:00

Weekly, I will received encouragement from our pastor in charge of the CBD prayer grp. Personally, I am always set into thinking Deep Deep by the weekly mail. And I decided that it will be selfish of me if I don't use this blog to share some of this really awesome word that I believed is form the heart of God, may you be bless as I will continue to post this weekly as I have it:

Have you become so engrossed in doing God’s work that you forgot your focus? We can easily become so busy with activity that we lose our effectiveness. We can become so focused on the quantity of work that we forget about quality.

Read 2 Kings 6:1-7. This passage describes a man who was busy for God, yet lost his effectiveness. He had lost his cutting edge while he was busy working.
When the prophets decided to build a larger meeting place, they began chopping wood near the Jordan River. “As one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water. ‘Oh, my lord,’ he cried out, ‘it was borrowed!’” (2 Kings 6:5).

The ax head represents the cutting edge of life — a life that is being equipped with an anointing by God’s Holy Spirit. The loss and later recovery of the ax head shows us a picture of God’s grace, mercy and willingness to restore our usefulness for His kingdom.

Like the borrowed ax, everything we have is borrowed from God. Nothing we claim actually belongs to us — It all belongs to God — even our very life and breath. But when we think of ourselves as owners, instead of stewards, we can easily fall into the temptation of hoarding our blessings. Yet Jesus warns, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15).

So when we become complacent about our borrowed resources or caught up in our activities, we begin to lose our effectiveness in God’s work. The evidence of God’s blessing upon our lives is not how busy we are with activities and committees, but with our effectiveness for Him. The evidence of God’s blessing upon our lives is His anointing and the changed lives around us.

Like the busy worker in this passage, if we fail to remain on guard we will miss the warning signs of impending trouble. For the worker, he was so consumed with chopping that he did not notice the loosening of the ax blade from the handle until it was too late. For us, we can become so preoccupied with activity that we fail to see our slackening relationship with God until we fall into temptation. Jesus told His disciples, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak” (Matthew 26:41).

How do we recover our effectiveness? First, we must figure out where we have fallen. Elisha asked the worker regarding the ax head, “Where did it fall?” (2 Kings 6:6). In order to retrieve that sharp edge, he first had to learn where it was lost. Likewise, our place of departure is the place of our recovery. We will only find power where we have lost it. It is futile to think we can overlook the past without confessing it to God.

Second, we must reach out for Jesus. Elisha used a branch to save the ax head miraculously. “When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it into the water. Then the ax head rose to the surface and floated. ‘Grab it,’ Elisha said to him. And the man reached out and grabbed it” (2 Kings 6:6,7). Jesus, the Branch of David, will restore us when we are drowning. He is the only One who can liberate us from the currents of the world’s temptation. He is the only One who can cleanse us of the soot and mud when we have hit the bottom of the river.

Have you lost your keen edge in your Christian walk? Have you been spinning your wheels? Do you feel that you have moved away from your effectiveness for God? Commit to Him today to return to the places where you have fallen so that God may restore and renew your effectiveness in your service to Him.

Life @ work

2009-07-07T23:15:00.004+08:00

Recently, to our pleasant surprise, our office rent were lowered about 5 %. Although its not a lot, its still a kind gesture from the management or leaser.

A look at today's Straits time explained the matter as office rental price has been sliding this year due to higher vacancy, business has either closed down or moved away to lower-priced, non- CBD area, etc etc.

Months ago, my brother was taking the office lift, and the office cleaner happened to be in the lift and she commented on the number of office tenants that has left, it was an Exodus.

Anyway, back to my story, I am really thankful to God for the lower rental. Praise God. I am so happy , so I decided to help advertised for my leaser:

http://www.ewiim.com/index.htm

They(Ewiim) are a business center , that offer office spaces in central business locations, great service, if you don't need a big office space like me, and don't want to spend too much or being tied to a office rental contracts in terms of years, this is a good option. Check it out!

I have no idea how my brother managed to find this office space offering back 2 years ago, but he did, and I believe its from God :

As you know, we have a pushcart at the mall, and as we want to offer on-the-spot personalization of our product, we were exploring ideas of how to do that. Should we find a shop in the mall to do it, or should have a office? both are not great idea, because the rental are really high, and for a un-tried idea then, it was too much risks.

So months went on without any progress, then I remember praying to God for help. The story goes that one fine day, my bro saw this fine little ad space on classfied, and lo and behold , we found the perfect solution:

A office space, 3- 5 mins walk to our cart.
Super low and reasonable price
Rolling 3 months contract, very flexible terms, considering the prime location (its in CBD) -- thus a low low risk options for us
its 24-7 access, and no need us to pay utilities, its in the rental : )

As I explained before, this office is a gift from God,( confirm plus chop plus gurantee with life time warranty )because simply, the day that we moved into the office was 13 August 2007.

And that's my birthday !

The office lady told us " Hey your contract says that you are supposed to start on 16th August, but well since 13th August is a Monday, why not you moved in then, no extra charge la"

Of cos we moved in.

And of cos, its God who gave us the office.

And there's a reason why we are still there.

Of Cos.

Hallelujah.

: )

Cost of Disobedience?

2009-07-03T00:05:00.004+08:00

I ever wrote about me finding a marketplace weekly prayer group at suntec city since last November. Nonetheless, due to the nature of my work, my lunch hours differs from the prayer group timing. As a result, I can only really join them on a rather ad-hoc basis.

Nevertheless, I thank God for the precious fellowships that I have found in the marketplace and I am sure God has a purpose for this weekly happening.

At the start of the year, I sensed that the Lord impressed upon me to bring more fellow Christians who are in the area to join in the prayer group. As you know, other than the pushcart, we also rented a small office in one of the hours. And my next door- neighbour in my service office rental suite rooms, Miss Ang, a 60 yr old lawyer, is a Christian.

I know she is a Christian, because . .

a) she always likes to play her Christian music or audio Bible a little loud,
b) she prays in tongue from time to time,
c) and she share Christ with her fren/client loud and clear
d) and of cos, because i asked her about it.

But because due to our work patterns, we hardly communicate much, so i am not that friend with her to talk to her and invite her to the prayer group. Furthermore, I am not a regular attendee myself.

But I just sense that the Lord burden on me to ask her to join since start of the year.

Little did i find out why the burden may possibly be..

Fast forward to March to May period, a certain grp of fervent fellow Christians decided to take over the exco of ERAWA (spell backwards obviously :P keke) , and did some amazing things that make themselves the headlines of our national papers for days and weeks.

And like they say, the rest is History.

And well as u guess it, lo and behold, my next -door neighboour is one of the ousted Exco members.

When I see her face on t.v plus newspaper, I was like SO SURPRISED, so are my brothers!

Anyway, just so that you know, she went for a overseas vacation for a time-out after the whole thing. Also, she is actually very fervent in serving in church, and she is going for a mission trip to Thailand this weekend. On this, I am just very encouraged to see someone of that age being so fired up for the Lord. I Praise God indeed, for what they have set out to fight for, no matter what had happened, the results was there and things are really moving. Praise God!

Back to my point, one of my prayer mate actually bought some chocolate for her after the whole saga, and yes, I finally did asked her to join ask the prayer group yesterday. She was very encouraged by the fellowships. She found out that choco gal was in the group and she was so thankful .

You know what i am thinking.

I am thinking what might have been if I OBEY God to invite her in January.

i wonder. Furthermore, the exco meeting was held on site my workplace area too. So i am just wondering about the what-would-have-been..

Of cos, I share this not to add any condemnation or guilt to my part, or try to say that if she join the prayer grp, the saga would have turn out another way. the Lord is always in control and His ways is always higher than our ways.

but just to share that I sense that sometimes or many a time God just want our simple obedience and God knows why it has to be done that way and at that time. You never know how a simple act of obedience might just be God wanting to bless someone, or the community at large.

I just hope that my sharing makes all of us think more in terms of really ACTING in Faith and in His time, all the time.

May the Lord forgives and have mercy.

For now, i am just so glad that i din wait forever.. :P

God Bless you.

Something about Daniel

2009-06-30T23:39:00.004+08:00

"But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with royal food and wine...." -Daniel 1:8a

" To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature n learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds." -Daniel 1:17

Reading the book of Daniel again refreshes me and encourage me greatly. Part of the reason is that he is a clear example that shows how a child of God can be relevant to the world or marketplace by being able to meet felt needs and yet being consecrated to the Lord.

We know from Daniel 2 and Daniel 4 that the Baylonian King Nebuchadnezzar had some dreams that troubled him greatly and none of his magicians, astrologers nor wise mens could interpret them for him. In Daniel 2, we were informed that the king was so furious that he wanted to kill all the wise men in the land for their failure to interpret. When Daniel heard it, he pleaded for time and he urged his 3 wise Jewish buddies to plead to God for mercy.(Daniel 2:18).

The story goes that God reveal the dreams and interpretation to Daniel, and he was able to explain it to the amazement of the King. This in turn caused the King to praise the Lord God Almighty, and Daniel was promoted to being the ruler of over the entire provincve of Babylonian and the chief of all the wise men (Daniel 2:48)

For a better picture, i do encourage you to read the book Daniel yourself : )

But I just find two things that popped out:

a) Firstly, God loves everyone, Christians or non-Christians, and He wants to have us followers meeting the felt needs of people. In Daniel's case, he met the felt needs of the King, i.e interpreting a dream that has troubled him greatly. And as your read thru Chapter 4:34-37, you see that the King end up being a believer, for you see that he actually exalt our Most High.

I think its a non-complex thing that God wants us to do, sometimes I think when big jargonal words like Transfomation, Revival, etc comes along, it makes me think really complexly because if i pray " Dear God, pls transform Singapore!.. then my question will be "what exactly do I want to see transformed?" Or in the latter case.... what exactly needs to be revived?

So I thank God that He is a God who is simple. When our Lord Jesus came in person, he called his disciples one by one, he healed the lepers one by one too.

So is meeting felt needs, sometime we could bless the community at one shot with a powerful download from the Lord. But most of the times, in my opinion, I think God would rather see us touching person by person, simply by meeting their felt needs at any level.

2) the second thing that intrigues me about Daniel is this: How in the world as a teen did he find the resolve not to defile himself?

And throughout his service under 4 different kings, (think about 80 years) how did he stayed so true to the Lord?

I am just wondering," There's no church service on sunday for him to go to right?" Maybe there is, but I think Daniel and his fellow mates must have continually read their Torah a lot.

I don't read of any mentors or cell leaders or pastors that he had, i wonder who did he depend on for guidance? maybe he had...

But I am at least sure of one thing, he sure depended a lot a lot on the Lord:

" Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened towards Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed , giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before." -Daniel 6:10

Awesome.

Praise the Lord!

Get a ccleaner

2009-06-20T23:20:00.003+08:00

Get a ccleaner, use this software to clean up your computer of all junkies, by the best, and most reliable software i have come across as a every-day comp user.

I give 11 stars out of 5 stara rating : )

Believing in teens

2009-06-18T01:06:00.001+08:00

Since Good Friday this year, God told me from His word from Isaiah 43: 18-19 , to see that He is doing a new thing.

Its definitely a new thing because I witnessed 5 salvations that week, - all teens, boys from our BB company. Since then, God gave us the opportunity to help them in their new journey and its just such a joy to be part of it.

Coupled with that, my involvement and time spent in BB grew and much of my brain cells and spare time are spent in BB -related matters.

One central theme seems to hover around that God doesn't want me to miss:

Engaging our generation of teens for God

For the past couple of months, God really opened up my eyes on the 'new things' that He is doing in terms of how we can engage the teens in a fun , meaningful and challenging ways .. . through things like adventure camp, where we get them to kill frogs and do mid-night jungle trails in forbidden grounds, or through the dance camp, where we see that its actually pretty cool for anyone to do so.

I sensed that God is getting my attention and focus to that of serving the teens, and more importantly to believe in them.

So, I am just glad and excited to be on this path, and God is always using teens to do great exploits for His kingdom from the beginnings, and I just really excited and awaits what God is going to do through these teenage generation of our time.

i just saw a sermon online from CHC, and one of the teens' cell reported on how revival is starting in one secondary school where there are many decisions made for the Lord among the student body. Glory to God !

And i just want to believe that it can happen too at our side and that will continue to be something that God will cause us to pray about.

Can a school in Singapore be transformed by the hand of God? the question is really,why not?

All it takes is just to have someone to believe in God.

But ain't it more exciting to have someone from the student body believing God for transformation from the inside out, and moving out in faith? Ain't it so that no one can boast that its out of his/her strength that its humanly possible, but all glory to God who uses the foolishness of this world to shame the wise?

And because its so impossible , that only our Almighty loving God can do it, that at the end of it, we will stand amazed and Praise Jesus forever and ever. Amen!

For God

2009-06-05T00:22:00.003+08:00

"Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.

This will be for the LORD's renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed."

- Isaiah 55:13

Our God is a good God.

Whether we recognise it or not, we live in a life of blessing because we personally know God and receive his gifts to us daily. Praise God indeed for that.

Been taking time to 're-build' my oikos recently. I have so many pre-believein frens and I guess someone has to go and share with them somehow, and I just pray that God continue to bring in the opportunity and use me to bring His light to my dear friends and family.

I pray to that God continue to root me in His word, back to the fundamnetals and build faith in God as my pastor has shared.

I pray indeed that I will see and be in God's presence daily, consistently.

I pray that God will bless me with Godly mentors around me in different areas of my life, so that i can continue to grow deeper and walker closer with Him.

I pray that out of this, I will continue to go and bless, pray, share, be with people who are in need of God's transformational love.

I pray that no matter how tired my physcial is, I will fight the good fight and finish the race faithfully. I thank God truly for the helper He has send to me, so that I may not be lonely in this.

I pray that from start to end, I will always be reminded of why I do what I do. I do what I do because I am doing it for God.

To God be the Glory!

Amen!

Repent

2009-06-02T23:54:00.004+08:00

" I know your deeds , your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsken your first love. Remember the height from you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place."

Revelation 2:2 -5

Remembering God

2009-05-13T23:45:00.002+08:00

I remember joining and serving in Boys Brigade in the Year of Victory 2 years back. The reason I joined is because I heard God asking me to serve my leader in this area. i heard and I went.

I enjoyed serving the boys, befriending them, encouraging them, teaching them. Yes, the distance's long, but I always enjoyed the process. And I thank God for this process, because it has molded me in terms of the heart.

Jesus modelled to us the form of servant leadership that's different from the worldly models, where we are called to serve first, lead second. And for the past two years, I thank God that He is guiding me through this growing stage - helping to check my heart and mold it to be more like His. Praise God.

I remembered God's goodness in our company. In the year of Victory, we got out first Gold award. In BB, its called the JM Fraser AWard, named after the founder of the BB Singapore. In the MOE system, its a uniformed group gold award. It's our first ever Gold award, and i believe it serve as a encouragement to many of the rest of the GBs and BBs companies sponsored by our church. When I see the list, its pretty huge, some 10-20 of them..

In the following year, Glory to God, our company got the Gold Award again. Glory to God indeed, needless to say, its our prayer and dependence on God this year and beyond to sustain the Gold Award.

Looking back at the history of the company, although I am not there from beginning, i have heard of the hardships in the beginning, and its during the year of Victory, when indeed by God's triumphant procession that believing teachers from the school come be part of the team and making the unity of the comapny be much strengthened. Praise God indeed for sending the right teachers who continued to be a huge blessings to all.

I want to remember God because sometimes when we have what we have, we tend to look too much into it and forget that its God who gave us whatever we have.

May we always remember God's goodness, and continue to depend on him, seek His interests and plans, not ours.

He is never interested in our plans. He is only interested in His plans. somebody said that, and the more i think, the more i think its correct. if u think this statement is not true, i suggest u allow the Holy Spirit to check your heart.

Sometimes, there are just so many human originated plans that we find ourselves in.. finding ourselves striving, weary, frustrated, lost.... i have been feeling quite a fiar of it time to time... and i realised its because i have been relying on my human wisdom n strength...

its time to remember God's goodness, and seek to depend on Him on everything by submitting and surrendering to Him.

Somebody shout Amen!

Amen!

my first 100k blessing

2009-05-12T01:53:00.008+08:00

Last Thurs, while working, someone called me from behind, and as I turned around, I saw Uncle Nelson Lam, whose on his motorised wheelchair.

Uncle Lam, a 60 yr old retiree...friend who is physically challenged with post-polio..

I got to know Uncle Lam two years plus back in Jurong Point, when I rented a pushcart there during Christmas season... He stays in Boon Lay with his elderly parent.. So in order to keep a active lifestyle, he goes out daily to shopping centres and such to hang around. He made friends with retailers and he has become a familiar side to the shop owners in JP... So when i was in JP, i see him so often and I made friend with him.

He was actually one of the 23 founders of Handicaps Welfare Association (HWA) - http://www.hwa.org.sg/ some 40 years ago. this was my first company that i worked at few years back.

Uncle Lam's a friendly old guy who is very easy to chat with and he knows my family members too. When my mum was working alone at JP then, there were times when she needs to go to the loo, so Uncle Lam will help to take care of the pushcart when she is not around. my dad knows him too..

Back to the story, Uncle Lam knows i work in Suntec so he came by to find me, and left a short while later. later, he smsed me soemthing and end off with a " God bless you." I was surprised as i tot he's not a Christian.. So i asked him..

He just simply replied" trying to .."

So i figured he must be interested to find out more about the faih. U can imagined my excitement as its so CRYSTAL CLEAR that he is near, and God is using me and this season to reach out to him.

So the next day, i went to JP to find him at KFC and have a good chat with him. And in the conversation , he mentioned about how he appreciate God for blessing him repeatedly. Yet, its clear that he has not believed in God.

He seems so near, yet i was not convicted that i should just proclaimed God's kingdom upon his life.

I think God used the time to 'return' me to a state of patience and love for ppl, and not just a hit-n-run relationship.

As i go along, there's a natural tendency for me to just share a John 3:16 and push the faith on someone who showed a whiff of hint of being near to God's kingdom. But God showed and impressed on me that that's should not always bethe case... as every situation is unqiue.

It seems to me that God is more interested in teaching me to love someone with a heart, His heart.
Praise God!
So i just showed him the 12 blessings, and he asked for health. and i prayed for him that.

Surprisingly, he is moving house with his parent this june/july... Guess where is he moving to?

Sengkang!

So much nearer and thus easier for me to reach out to him!

This revelation showed me that this meeting is divinely set-up by God.

And i bless him in prayer with a smooth transition too..

And i stopped there with a prayer of blessings. in this case, i think God's more interested in me taking a more patient , loving manner of blessin Uncle Lam instead of just sharing for the sake of sharing.

Something is just different, don't know how to put it.
Anyway, i do think its better this way.

Thank God for this opportunity. its God send... and its has been my prayer for long to reach out to uncle Lam, and God has make it possible. Praise God, i look forward to the day when Uncle Lam come to know the Lord.

Hallelujah!

This is so exciting!

100k blessings Campaign here again

2009-05-12T01:29:00.006+08:00

The 100k Blessings here again this May!

This time, the Love Singapore Churches are also participating in this campaign, where we seek to bless 100k pre-believing persons .

On FCBC side, since we are doing this for the second time, we are encouraged to be more focused on our PERFECT 10 (Persons Engaged REgularly For Effective Community Transformation)... i.e ppl who we see and contact regularly and be a blessings to them.

Personally

On my personal level, so far I have been able to bless one person. And I noticed the increased activity of me meeting friends around. And I know God is always at work..

Somehow, this time round, the mood is different from the excited me 2 years back. Back then, i barely prayed for any pre-believer 1-1. But ever since then, it has become a part of me, a part of the lifestyle - that when someone has a need in their life, and the Lord is leading me to pray for him/her, I will tend to do it more as compared to pre-100k days.

Thus, this time round , the excitement level seems to have lowered significantly to be honest. Nonetheless, I do pray that God will help me to have that excitement level to see His blessings flow into the 10 persons (at least) that He is leading me into..

Dear Lord, i thank you for the 100k blessings. i believe this is from you because its your heart to bless the lost and deepest desires to have them come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that God you grant me and my bro/sis in Christ the excitement and willingness to go out and serve you by being a channel of blessings to their family/frens/colleagues. i pray that you will help us by sending people onto our path, and hlep us to have the courage and willingness to bless them thru the instruments of this campaign..I pray that all of us will depend on the leading and the power of the Holy Spirit and not by our own human strength and understanding. Renew and REfresh us, Lord..

Thank you Lord, in Jesus name, i pray ! Amen!

Hallelujah!

My Baptism

2009-05-09T18:45:00.012+08:00

Hi Everyone,

Sorry to keep you waiting. I've just finished uploading all the photos and videos. For those of you who did not attend the baptism service, have a fun time viewing too. =p

Photo Slideshow on My Baptism:

You may download the photos at this link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/bengbeng13/BaptismPhotos#

God Bless You!

PS: every word and photo was put up by my lovely girlfren, so .. some style of wordings not mine, english not as good and descriptive as her.. Hallelujah! (I was the one who asked her to do it. I authorised her de. Haha..)

I'm getting baptised!

2009-04-16T22:45:00.009+08:00

I am getting baptised!

It's like .... FINALLY!

haha, don't ask me why I took so long, 3 and the half years to be exact. : )

Anyway, if you are free on that day, nothing to do, do come and witness my baptism ! Why? Well, I have a few GREAT Reasons for you!

a) Because u haven't seen me for long, and u shud!

b) because baptism is once in a lifetime, if u miss mine, u won't get a second chance!

c) because I am SHARING my testimony on stage!

this means great view for photo taking, plus video-cameraing, plus.. this..plus that.

d) because you can get have a fabulous reason to ask your papa, mama, gor-gor, di-di, mei mei, jie jie, ah-ma , ah gong to come to church to hear God's word :

just TELL them that MINGCHUN is getting baptised!!!

Woo-hoo.

ok, even if u don't come, i still love you ok. I will post my baptism pics here anyway. keke.

Anyway, this is my prayer list:

a) pray that my parent will accept my baptism news readily.

b) pray that my family members will go witness

c) pray that some pre-believing frens will go

d) pray that my testimony will touch lives and bring ppl into a relation with God

Anyway details as follow :

Date: Friday, 24 April 2009
Time: 7.30pm - 9.00pm
Venue: A map is attached.
*TOUCH Community Theatre @ Bt Merah Central (Bus 14, 147, 196, 197, 855, 961)

See u!!!

Hallelujah!

that plate of fried rice

2009-04-14T01:24:00.003+08:00

Recently, i went makan with my girlfren at this 汤点王 shanghainese style restaurant.

Being first time customers, we chose dishes that are recommended MUST-TRY on the menu. Price List on reasonable dishes range from $7 to $12 , pretty normal for such kind of restaurant.

My girlfren ordered this Double Egg Fried Rice, that's highly recommeneded MUST TRY on the menu. Its seems really mouth-watering and we waited in EAGER Anticipation.

To our Huge surprise and BIG DISAPPOINTMENT:

The plate of fried rice camp with a grand total of 1 unscrambled Egg with fried rice mixed with scrambled egg, completing the dish called Double Egg Fried rice.

No meat, No veggie (just some cong), at a cost of $7.80 !!!!!.

Incredible.

To be fair, its quite edible. the egg looks a little bigger than normal...

But..

BUT...

i think i have to serve my civic responsibility to share with you all and warn that the next time you see a dish called DOUBLE EGG Fried Rice. Please think TWICE, THRICE and many many times, before u even think about ordering.

Who in the world put this in the menu and dare charge so high a price, and somemore put MUST TRY!!?

faint...

Fixed our eyes upon Jesus

2009-04-09T20:08:00.002+08:00

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with persverance the race marked out for us.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at thte right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. "

-Hebrew 12:1-3

It's Easter weekend, and its exciting to see what the Lord is doing for my believing boys and pre-believing ones.

Last weekend, my girlfren suddenly out-of-nowhere proclaimed and thus prophesized that its harvest time for me le, I have planted for a season, and its time for me to gather in the harvest. And a couple of days later, one of them called me and tell me that he want to believe in the Lord.

Hallelujah!

Prayed with him, and the rest is History!

So happy, I am! i jumped around in the office whole nite. : P

Ya, its mine to claim n believe in faith, It's ours to disciple in unity.

Praise Jesus!

I will continue to fix my eyes on Jesus, and behold His glory.

For now, I just thank Jesus for what He has done for us on the cross. The blood of Christ cleanses us and gives us the power to break free from our bondages of sins and past failures and hurts. May we break free from all that's not from God and live a life of freedom and victory.

God don't promise us a life without troubles, but He promised us that He will be there for us all the time to see us through.

May we smile in the storms of life and fix our eyes ever on Jesus' face.

Hallelujah!

Encouraged

2009-04-02T23:54:00.007+08:00

"The LORD reigns forever;

he has established his throne for judgement.

He will judge the world in righteousness;

he will govern the people with justice.

The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed,

a stronghold in times of of trouble.

Those who know your name will trust in you,

for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you. "

- Psalm 9: 7-10

Praise Jesus!

God has not forsaken me nor you indeed. never will He do that.

This past few weeks has been testing for me, both work and bb's work load has been piling, and I have not been organised, efficient and productive. a lot of new things for me to take hold of, they are not like very tough task individually, but put them together, they had kinda blown me off course quite a bit.

having to face expressed disappointments directed at me from different arenas has discouraged me, dis-spirited me and dis-energised me. On my mind, i have tried my best to 'help and serve', so i find it a big struggle trying to juggle all this. i find myself bursting from within.

i acknowledge that its a truth that i could learn to be more organised and efficient and such in my work in different areas. and i am definitely learning and still learning. but, it's just not as easy at times.

It's difficult

It's difficult to talk to God at stretch of time recently, i find myself shutting my mouth and not knowing what to say, and what to express, my feelings and such. i find myself losing heart, turning cold...i don't like to be feeling that way, complaining in my spirit, or feeling frustrated at the things around. but that's how i felt, and i have to face it, and it took me a while, but God has to bring me to a level ground, so that i may find my feet again.

God's there to encourage
Thru it all, I am just so thankful to God, the potter, whom i guess knows how difficult its for me, and at the right time, turn off the the knob of heating and released me before i burst.

God encouraged me in many ways this few days, as i reflect..

He make Bro Andrew called me and talked to, just when i guess, i do need someone to talk to.
He make a brother that i respect to sms me to check how i am n whether i have any prayer requests. there are many ppl who cares for me, and i am thankful to God for them.
He used my girlfren to bear with me with exceedingly great patience and encouragment during this time. To my love, i thank God truly for u : )
He led me to this book in Harris bookstore yesterday, and installed a enouragement word in it. i teared when i read it. God was there to help me find back my self-worth.
He organised a G-kidz farewell party today for me, lots of my good fren and pastors came. and each of them shared a affirmative word of testimony on how i have grown and being a blessing to them over the past few years in G-kidz. God has grown me and He won't forsake me, surely not after He has grown me.. o yes, i am still growing.
He led me to this song on my mp3. and for once a song lyrics make sense to me deep inside..:

The song title is Get up and live by Marc Byrd, could not seems to find the lyrics online. but anyway it basically sings of :

taking one day at time, that when we have failures, disappointment, the could-have-been .... well takes what's left, take hold of what i have... and get up and live .. one day at a time

i guess that's the word in season, word of encouragement for me that though i have many things to juggle with, i just have to take it one task at a time, pick myself up from the disappointments in life, and get up and live.

I am just thankful to God for encouragin me and definitely assuring me of my worth in Him and my position in Him.. to keep going .. to keep pressing on .. and to learn and to grow... and to love... its never about the things that we do, its more of the lives that we are to bless and love...

Get up and live.

One day, at a time . .

O Lord, how amazing your love is.

Encouraged.

i am.

Praise Jesus.

His, not mine

2009-03-25T12:35:00.003+08:00

Of recent, i sensed that i need to surrender my dreams to the Lord. my dreams of 'doing some great work for the poor in the world''.

one reason is because the dream was conceived before i came to know the Lord, and i come to realised its birthed out of human desires, from works and not grace of the Lord. Although it sounds great and noble, but the motivation behind might not be from the Lord , but from human desires.

So, from this moment , i surrender my dreams of being a social entrepreneur and stuff like that to the Lord. i surrender the hopes, the desires, the things that i wanted to do to make this world a better one.

and from this moment on, i pray that i will starting dreaming of the dreams that is Holy-spirit inspired.

Just as the word of God says in Acts 2:16 - 21:
"In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I
will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below.......
......And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. "

I believe that this is the last day that we are living in, and that the Holy Spirit is moving in a way that i can only describe as "exponentially speedier and greater than anytime since the early church" 'What had happened through the Apostles, the miracles n the signs and wonders, are happening and going to happen in greater measures.

But God's power is always accompany in a greater measure with His great love and mercy for all of us. Why then did the Lord have to come in person to redeem us from our sins through His death and blood? because He loves us.

One of my pastors shared on how he wanted to see miracles happening in his ministry to the sick, but he did not experience. One day, the Lord told him this " until I can trust you with my compassion, I cannot trust you with my power"

Sure. by faith in the Lord, we can speak to moutains and move them. yes, without faith we cannot please God, but i also believe that the Lord would rather have us be build up in His love and compassion for people, and accompany it with faith experience the supernatural and His glory for all to see and praise Him.

doing the simple acts of kindness for our neighbours regularly and consistently for God's sake. praying ceaselessly, sharing the gospel to the pre-believing , discipling ppl, these are the simple things, i believe, that are borne out of a love for God, and His children.

I think this pleases the Lord. i think seeing a loving community in action is something that the Lord dream about for us.

God's love endures forever, Amen!

Hallelujah!

it's going to rain part 2

2009-03-10T01:33:00.003+08:00

my girlfriend reminded me about the story of Elijah being fed by the widow in Zarephath. 1 Kings 17: 10 -15:

"So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, "Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?" 11 As she was going to get it, he called, "And bring me, please, a piece of bread."
12 "As surely as the LORD your God lives," she replied, "I don't have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die."
13 Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. 14 For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.' "
15 She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. 16 For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the LORD spoken by Elijah. "

it's going to rain. tot its kind prophetic.

anyway, as i was discussing with my girlfriend on what God might be showing me thru this incident. i just sense that God's working in my heart. Taking care of the poor and needy is always something big in His heart.

In the passage above, Elijah was poor in the sense that he doesn't have anything to eat and such, and when he approached the widow for water and bread, the widow supplied him although she does not have much to offer during that time of drought in the country,,

i find myself asking... what's the widow thinking when she sees this stranger Elijah for the first time and asking her to supply him water and bread?

wasn't it inconvenient?
Surely, the widow must have find it inconvenient? The passage mentioned that she was gathering stick.. so she was at her 'work' , and she must have find this un-welcome.

We were commanded too
A couple of verse earlier, we read in verse 9 that mentioned God has said that she has commanded the widow to take care of Elijah with food.

and i realised that in the same sense, we as believers, are too commanded by God to take care of the poor too, with food too to feed the hungry similarly.

the extras
Elijah's first request, in verse 10 was for a jar of water. Then, as she was getting it for him, in verse 11, we read that Elijah called ( to me, it sounds like demanding) out to her and asked for a bread to bite too.

i am wondering how did the widow feel? was she fed up by the extra demand? give him water very kind aldready still want food.

i felt that way sometimes. honest. i struggled. it's tough. have to admit. i don't like to feel that way. and i realised i don't have the joy in me when i am 'forced' to go the extra 2nd mile that our Lord Jesus talked about on the Sermon on the Mount.

the excuses
i would have said the same thing as the widow explained to ELijah that she did not have enough to provide for his needs. the excuses of 'inadequacies', oh yes, i can identify..

Today, as i went to help David, before i reached him, i really feel that i deserved a rest today...the excuses that i have in mind. but i have to run, and i have to run to reach him fast.. how many times have i seen God used the little that i have to bless others. sometimes, i don't remember. Praise the Lord.

God's providence
so i was really encourged as i read from verse 13 onwards on God's promises. We are really called to used what we have, however little or small, to do what's needed of us.

the rest, God will keep providing. our resources will never run out until the day the Lord gives rain on the land...

hey..
not sure how much u catch from i am writing in this two post. but know that it's God's command for us to take care of the poor and needy, at least it's direct from His heart. know that it delights him greatly when u do that.

know that also, its not about what u think u don't have, its about what little u have that God can used to do something bigger.

when u step out in faith. God will provide for the rest.

u will be amazed.

and yes..

it's going to rain.

it's going to rain

2009-03-10T00:36:00.005+08:00

While i was reading the Bible in the morning, i received an urgent text from David. In the text, he informed that he was in need of urgent help as his motorised wheelchair suddenly could not moved and he was stuck at some back lane of some private houses, so he asked me to go down to help him urgently.

It was my rest day, and I have to run some errant at school for BB matters, and I have not packed the stuff. So, despite the urgent sms, I somehow took my breakfast, and spent time to packed the stuff. At the back of my mind, I knew that if i didn't go down school today (my rest day), then i will have great difficulty gg down any other time this week as it was urgent too. So, I had to pack the stuff to send over, and it took me about half in hour in total.

Then David called me, he said he was concerned it's gg to rain. I look out at the sky from my window, he was right.

It's going to rain.

So, i quickly rushed out with my bag packed for bb stuff. Prayed that God will hold the rain. Rushed to the area, n took a bit of commonsense to find the place.

Earlier, I asked David to ask passerby to push him to a shelter, he said no one passed by there. I couldn't believe it. But when i reached the place, it was really kinda a no man's land somehow.. and it was already raining for a while..

When I found David, he was soaking wet. His wheelchair failed him, and he was stranded for about an hour. He was crying and trembling. iIdid my best to assure him with words that everything to be ok , and pushed the incredibly heavy clumsy wheelchair with one hand, while the other hand holds the umbrella. ( i just thanked God that i was trained in handling of motorised wheelchair before, one has to unlock the mechanism behind it to turn it be a manual wheelchair to be able to push)

God's good. He kept the rain small, He made the road traffic light and He made the road surface back home kind. He even send someone to provide financially for David to transport the wheelchair for repair. Praise God .

After we reached his house, I settled him down, spent almost the whole day with him. and yes, i didn't go down to school.

Before i left the house, i prayed for him. After i prayed for him, he cried again. He cried: " Why so many problems??"

Over the past 3-4 years of me knowing David, he had " problems after problems". From being able to walk till wheelchair bound, from having a stable income till depending on the state's welfare. getting caught by authorities, trouble with police, being framed, mulitple accidents while boarding smrt trains, mutiple repairs of wheelchair. lonely. the list goes on... why so many problems? indeed.

Yet, for me , all is not hopeless, because God is definitely with him and has always been providing and protecting him. God can always turn our mourning into dancing.

Today, i learnt alot about God. and very imptly, God showed my heart condition to me.. i struggled.

I don't th have a problem serving others most of the times. but i always struggled to serve esp when it's out of my inconvenience. Today was really not the best time to do something as this. And i believe God knows it, and my girlfriend said that God probably used this to test me. the wheelchair could have spoilt anytime, and the timing could not have been the most inconvenient.

anyway, i am reflecting as i write.

taking of the poor and needy is something that i am called to do but i guess, its not something that i can always prepared myself to do. i guess when God asked me to go, i have to go.

God's grace

2009-03-04T18:17:00.004+08:00

Over the last weekend, I had a BB camp to welcome in the newbies sec ones, and there were a lot of firsts.

first time that i was overall in charge of a camp, i can't remember if i was one when i was younger.

first time i share in devotion to the boys, twice in fact. Doing this was really quite an experience. it includes:

1) praying for a word to share from God
2) waiting for God to tell me what i should share
3) waking up in the morning, hearing it loud and clear on what to share. which passage and such..
4)a few days late, i got sermon send in on that particular passage, while visiting my girlfren's house. she was packing her room and found this cd, i listen and its exactly the same passage. Praise the Lord.
5) typing out the two devotion, word for word. sending it to my cell leader to review, and edit it again. working all nights in the days leading up to the camp. i never know i can tahan it. God is my strength indeed. but i realise when the night is silent, i hear God very very well. or is because i am desperate?
6) spiritual warfare: a lot of things happened, including girlfren suddenly become very sick, and i have to spend some time taking care of her. and other unexpected things happened. last mins changes. a lot of things, enough to throw me off guard, enough to let me know that all this happened because i am doing all this for the first time, and somebody out there in the 2nd heaven ain't too happy. but God has make us to be more than a conqueror, and God will always come out victorious. Praise the Lord for bringing me thru this.

thru this camp, i have also learn a lot about grace. God's grace was in abundance in the camp, and a lot of things was provided for. but i learn more about God's grace when i actually give it out to the boys. yes i received , but i think this is the first time that i actively gave, and when i do it, the Holy Spirit reminded me about it, and God's presence was very real. there were a number of mistakes, disciplinary problems that i saw in some of the boys. enough to make any human fed up, and there's the tendency to reprimand, but i was able to step back, and wait in patience, and see from a better view.

I sense that God was telling me that sometimes i was fed-up because i have judged, and maybe i have judged ppl from my own standards somemore, so i realised... who am i to judge others? so since i can't get past this, i was able patient with the boys. i would like to say.. ALL boys, but nonetheless, i am not so there yet. but i have learn a valuable lessons in knowing what grace is about after giving out some of it that was passed to me by God.

for now as i reflect, i just thank God for everything that i have experienced.

Do not lose heart

2009-03-01T01:27:00.002+08:00

" Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes on not what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. " 2 Cor 4: 16-18

Its has been an incredible week.

had a BB camp, n there was a lot of things to prepare and organise. i had some newer and "heavier" responsibilty and the workload was seemingly incredible, adding it into my daily routine.

At times, it was really overwhelming for me both physically and emotionally.

Things happened un-expectedly, many last mins stuff here and there. it's really not easy.

But i pray that God may renew me everyday, so that i may not lose heart.

that i may not lose heart in sharing His love and be a vessel of distributing his love in relationships.

that i may not lose heart when i did not fight some battles well, and got beaten up. but i that i may persevere in love, for love always persevere.

i care much, i guess, God caused me to. but there are many things that i need to let go. and when i let go, i believe that's where God can come in, and will come to fill in with His love, His ways, His presence.

but for this day, i pray for a renewal of mind, spirit, soul and body.

that i may not lose heart.

in Jesus name.

Amen!

Sure and Stedfast

2009-02-19T15:20:00.001+08:00

"13For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself,
14Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee.
15And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
16For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.
17Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath:
18That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:
19Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;
20Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. "

-- Hebrews 6: 13-20

Over in the Meadow

2009-02-14T23:39:00.004+08:00

Watch and learn this song below! : )

Teaching this song to our new 18-24 months old kids in children service, its call Over in the Meadow. actions are similar, fun and cute : )

Cute rite, try it out in front of your computer screen and follow the guy! : )

here's the lyrics:

Over in the meadow,

In the sand in the sun

Lived an old mother toadie

And her little toadie one

"Wink!" said the mother;

"I wink!" said the one,

So they winked and they blinked

In the sand in the sun

Over in the meadow,

Where the stream runs blue

Lived an old mother fish

And her little fishes two

"Swim!" said the mother;

"We swim!" said the two,

So they swam and they leaped

Where the stream runs blue

Over in the meadow,

In a hole in a tree

Lived an old mother bluebird

And her little birdies three

"Sing!" said the mother;

"We sing!" said the three

So they sang and were glad

In a hole in the tree

Over in the meadow,

In the reeds on the shore

Lived an old mother muskrat

And her little ratties four

"Dive!" said the mother;

"We dive!" said the four

So they dived and they burrowed

In the reeds on the shore

Over in the meadow,

In a snug beehive

Lived a mother honey bee

And her little bees five

"Buzz!" said the mother;

"We buzz!" said the five

So they buzzed and they hummed

In the snug beehive

It's a counting song actually, enjoying yourself, click replay! : )

God's compassion

2009-02-07T00:08:00.004+08:00

My mum left a note on the table in the morning saying that she might be late coming home. Later when she came back, she informed that one of our block flat neighbour auntie passed away from stomach cancer in the morning.

Just last week, my mum heard about the auntie who stayed below us who was hospitalised. The auntie was actually warded a month plus ago, but her husband kept quiet, until the 'wind' got out. My mum started to share about her, this auntie was on kidney dialysis 18-20 years ago till she did a kidney transplant. my mum was even her gurantor in the financial process. i was too young to know that, and i often saw her and her husband since we stayed so close. they helped to take care of their only daughter's baby daughter. i saw the baby from a small toddler to now a primary school attendin kid i guess.

Every now and then, when i pass by their home or see them in the neighbourhood or in the lift, i will say hi to them. But i never know that the auntie has such sickness.

And in my busyness with life, i did not even notice her MIA in the nieghbourhood.

When my mum heard about her condition, she was shocked too, and when she visited her earlier this week, the auntie had actually told the doctor to not treat her when she warded a month ago, i.e she just waiting for a time to be up.

This morning, the uncle called my mum and informed her that the auntie is in a dangerous stage. so my good hearted mum went witht the uncle via taxi to TTSH. it was rush hour. jam. when they reach the hospital's taxi stand, the auntie has already passed away.

She was not a believer.

not the only
neither was my cousin one, when she passed away last month from a long-period suffering cancer. my cousin suffered many year, was well then came back again. when i visited with my parents on new year's day, i was shocked to see that the cancer has taken away most of her flesh. what i saw left was a skeleton covered with a thin layer of skin.

She told me" very scary hor my looks, its so fast.." she used to be quite prosperous.

i dont even know what to say. i sat that watching my mum massaging her limbs. I sat and i sat. wondering why it took me so long to by visit her.

she din make it to the lunar new year. her daughters are as old as me. every lunar new year, she will give me ang bao, she watch me grow up. she and her husband are very nice people.

i miss her and i miss the auntie in my block.

..

This morning, there was silence in the air when my mum told me that my neighbour has passed away. it all happened so fast. it was a hot topic at home this week.

And i tot i heard God cried.

this song came to mind:

Jesus loves the little children,
all the children of the world,
red and yellow, black and white,
they are precious in His sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

it so happen that that the most recent sermon by my pastor was on the blood of healing. on God's healing of the sick. I believe God can, and will heal the sick. period.

where is the love?
but what Pastor asked about our compassion quotient is the main issue that God wants show me and deal with.

On a scale of 0 to 10. 0 being a stone cold heart, and 10 being a super compassionate Mother Teresa type, where am i on the compassion quotient scale? Pastor say cannot play cheat and choose five, cos its not left or right. i was thinking about it.

as i type this, i realised i am probably on scale 2 or 3 right now. reason being i am too concern about my own agenda right now. and i really thank God for showing me. (if you noticed, my mum is so much more compassionate then me. she is more than wonderful.)

less i grow colder and freeze to death. thank God he offers a way out. its about how you see people: do you see them as trees(part of the landscape) or do you see them as God sees? i.e His children..

From Mark 8:22-25:

22They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. 23He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?"
24He looked up and said, "I see people; they look like trees walking around."
25Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26Jesus sent him home, saying, "Don't go into the village.[a]"

I pray that God open my eyes to see people as He sees. and to love people as He loves. In Jesus name, Amen!

God's Agenda

2009-02-05T21:05:00.002+08:00

Yesterday was wednesday, and its the weekly prayer group meeting day, i was late and when i reach the sky garden, none of my mates are there. i try looking around, but i guess they were really not there.

i wanted to walk away since no one was around, then i decided to stay on the length of time to talk to God and to listen to Him.

The Holy Spirit reminded me that Jesus is the Prince of peace. Where Jesus is, there will be peace.

i needed that peace. For too long, i have been occupied with my own agenda, my work's agenda. Man's agenda that is.

i have not been going to prayer meeting since the 1st time. we have different lunch hours, so have to literally sneak out if have to go.

so yesterday when i managed to sneak out, and end up not finding my mates, i find my self hungry.

hungry for the presence of God, the Bible said that when 2 or 3 gather in His name, His presence will be there. So i hunger. i have not felt this way for such a long time. God is good.

I read a email about a fellow prayer group over at Raffles place this afternoon. For a summary, during this CNY period, the group decided to split into pairs and go around blessing folks with $2 and a bible verse inside the red packet. End up with this initiitaitive, they get to know the folks, most are cleaners, flyers distributor, old folks. some pray and blesss for them:

RAch, Charmanine and I went to Hong Lim complex around the hawker centre. I must confess that I need to take some effort to identify the people that we were hoping to bless as its easy to see them blended into part of the colourful landscape that was shouting at us for attention. Charmaine very quickly spotted an aunty with a cart of cardboards and we went over to her. Then, we learnt that the ability to speak in dialects is very important as none of us knew how to speak Cantonese to the aunty. But, the aunty went to get a friend to translate for her and we learnt quickly to check among ourselves the languages we can speak. Rach spotted the second aunty who was the cleaning lady at Chinatown point. She was very open to share her concern of job security. She was afraid that her employer would find her too old for the job as there were younger people readily available. The third aunty was selling tissue at Hawker centre. She shared about her concern for her children who are not married and dont have a steady job. We prayed a short prayer for her before heading off to grab our lunch.

Note that names of character are changed. The above is just a story of a small grp just this very week. Imagine many of this lovers of neighbours walking around the streets of singapore touching the lives in the name of Jesus.

i will love to see that. won't you?

But first, i figured i have to put aside my Man's agenda and work on God's agenda. that's quite a mountain. : P

May we all be lovers of our neighbours.

cool.

Praise God for His love for us.

Grace of God

2009-02-05T01:01:00.003+08:00

" But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them - yet not I , but the grace of God that was with me. " 1 Cor 15:10

God is good, this few days, I have been seeking Him over certain issues, and He brought me to a book about grace of God by Ps Joseph Prince. I read a few chapters, and as the sharing of grace is pretty new to me, i was still absorbing it in and need some more firmer teachings and perspective on it.

And then i went to attend a church meeting this evenin, and one of the pastor just started sharing on the grace of God, so i was so thankful. one thing is that the book has been with me almost two years and i have never get reading it. and i just picked it up and God starts teaching me new things.

So its really about timing.

i always believe that our God is a living God. This means to me that God is someone who will speak constantly to us. He is real and He is living and He does not stop there in the Bible.

Bang!
The other day, i was in the car with my family members going for new year visits, and my eldest brother was driving. And we had a mini accident, the driver in front cut into our lane and did a e-brake as the car infront of her did a e-brake too. it was too late for my bro to react and our car banged into the lady's car.

It was my first car accident experience.

Besides the 'troubles' over the cost of paying for the car repairs of the other party. and some bruises on my gf and mum's limb. I really thank God, because i saw the greater grace of God at work.

First, there was no serious injuries on either parties, and that no one banged us from behind, cos its really sudden on a busy road. Second, the lady admitted she was in the wrong too, so she talked nicely , and dealt with it in graceful attitude. and the matter was dealt with maturely. so thank God for that.

And God probably delayed us into something not- so- pleasant ahead.

By the grace of God, we are ok as a family, not much harm none, and it probably had bring us closer as a family. but i m just seriously thankful that we are ok.

You add up all this little things in life, and then you point it all to Jesus, then you realise that

the grace of God flows in every area of our life, big or small, we just need to receive it and in turn release it others, so that this grace will not flow in vain. so that God be glorified.

If God is graceful to us, can't we be graceful to others?

Spiritual Crossroad

2009-02-03T12:32:00.005+08:00

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- his good, pleasing and perfect will. " Romans 12:2

Often in life, we will find ourselves in crossroads. when we have to make decisions to turn left or right, or to go straight. many times though, we might find ourselves Hentak Kaki (to borrow a drill command) - meaning to stay marching in same position..

I find myself in this very position, not on terms of career or serving or relationships ( although this all could be true too), but on " spiritual terms" .

I find myself at the cross road of following Jesus with all my heart .

It's true.

It's true that I have prayed the sinner's prayer and invited Jesus into my heart. It's true that I attend church services, cell group, serve and called myself a Christian, I pray and I have a relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. It's true.

But it's also true that I am not walking 100% with the Lord. I read the bible, i listen to sermons and teaching, i understand. But yet i do not always follow His word. Yes, sometimes, i do, but sometimes i don't too.

And its really frustrating when i find myself not always yielding to His will.

i just sense that God is questioning my committment level to Him and His kingdom. right to the heart level. When we talk about the kingdom of God, it means that there is a king, and that king is our Lord God Almighty, who is loving and compassionate wants to enjoy a deep intimate relationship with us. God is good. But He requires us to submit or surrender fully to Him so that we may really have a eternal life with Him. (and its starts today, don't have to wait till we get to heaven)

i think i will not play hide and seek no more with the Lord, but i will really face the truths about me and allow God to work. but its a decision on my part. I have decided to repent of my past, and allow of the Holy Spirit to renew my mind (read Roman 12:2 above) and follow Christ 101% from this day on.

May the Lord help us.

Amen.

2008, a year of Gs

2009-01-21T00:07:00.005+08:00

2008 was a year of Gs. it was a year that i understand much more about God. so just want to give thanks to our loving God.

1. Grace of God.
they say u don't know what's grace until u realise u was/are a sinner. i realise that when the sin is bigger, the grace of God is much bigger. Praise God for His mercy.

2. Girlfren
Every straight thinking young man wants, desires, yearns, and prays earnestly, if not desperately (lolz) for a the girl of his life to come into his life, so that he can have a beautiful princess that he can love and care for ..(actually its so that he can be a prince charming on a white horse, keke..)

and thank God for answering that. its more than 6 months already, and counting. the Bible tell us that God intend for woman to be the helper of man. and what a wonderful helper i have in her : ) i am blessed : )

3. Greed un-earthed.
I come from a family that invest in stocks, and that would mean my parent too. and last year is really a bad year to invest in, if u read the newspaper or watch the news. and yes, i was involved.

After the storm past, God spoke thru sermons, and His spirit and i realised i was greedy. and that i did not trust in the providence of God.

but its also thru this time of seeking God, that i understand a lot on God's kingdom and really having the faith on trusting Him as the only source of provision.

contented.

4. G-kidz.
Due to a rotational shift work for worship leading, i was given the opportunity to lead our cute 4 yrs old children for about half a year. Thru this time of being thrusted with the main responsibility, God raised me to become a more mature vessel for Him. i am always amazed by the times that he used me to release his words for the little children that were sometimes pretty aligned with what he is saying to the adults also.

but more importantly, thru leading worship, i have grown to be more excited and passionate about worship him. and what it means to be a true worshipper, in spirit and in truth.

5. Growing seedlings.

Serving in Boys Bridgade means planting seeds of God's love n redemption plan in the heart of the boys and its God's grace that i have witness salvation and re-dedications of lifes to the Lord. I thank God for letting me to witness it and i look forward for more in the days to come.

i am excited.

6. Galatian 2:10
"All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing i was eager to do"

Significantly, thru the year of Sabbath, the Lord has shown me what it really mean by taking care of the poor.

Isaiah 58 is rhema word for me in terms of taking care of the poor and needy. the passage clearly signifies and lay out God's expectation and heart and hopes for us in this area.

will share more in length in the future.

suffice to say, i realised that, (from experience), there are many poors and needy in Singapore, unloved and oppressed to a certain extent. and i think they are oppressed not so much by the so-called ' bad ppl', but the are 'oppressed' by people who have, but did not share.

v7.."is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter, when you see the naked to clothe him and not to turn away from your flesh and blood. "

i recommend Isaiah 58 if you hear God calling you to the poor..

7. Grudge -free
I praise God for freeing me from the grudge of having to work in my current line. i prefer social service to business. But the Lord wants to teach me other things, skills that i never will learn in social services. the Lord also wants me to build relationship with my brothers that i would otherwise not have the able to without working with them

saying the you love your family is one thing, working with them is another. .. when conflicts come, and when i am called to act in love, everytime , all the time, takes a mountain-moving God to do it.

i can truly shout, Hallelujah!

8. Growing intimacy with God.
If there is just ONE thing about 2008, its about seeking God, hungering for His presence, His word..

at the beginning of the year, we were led to read one Psalms a day. the journey brought me to closer walk with God, which in terms reveals the boundless grace of God to me..

God is good, all the time.

His love and righteousness endures forever.

To God be the power and glory forever and ever.

Amen!

many stories

2009-01-10T23:19:00.002+08:00

our very own BB band. : )
open house today, demostration of drills

the last parade of 2008. some of my level boys, that's Gavin who covers His face, (the more u siam the more i will mention u!!) : )

Gavin on the right who finally got caught on camera after some 374 shots, this is the countdown party at TC

this is shawn from gkidz, it was the last time he was serving. he is father of 3 at 32 years old, so decided to quit to spend more time to be with his family. wise bro, good husband, excellent father, great fren.

some of our boys who help in BB leadership 1 camp in 2008.

more pics to come hopefully, lazy to take. : P

Love Your Neighbour

2009-01-08T19:18:00.006+08:00

The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." -Galatian 5:14 , NIV

Hallelujah.

Blessed new year everybody ! : )

Praise God indeed for the year that has just passed which is awesome in so many ways. Through the year , God brought me to places that reveals my heart condition. i realised how worldly i still am, and how much more i have to surrender to be at a place nearer to His dwelling place, a place where i will be closer to His heart.

i will share my thanksgiving and reflection in the next post.

For this year, its the Love Your Neighbour theme. When we say we love God, the surest way to qualify our conviction is to love our own neighbour.

Love by itself encompasses many aspects. And it requires ownership on our part, we all have a different group of neighbours to love and to share Christ's love.

the Signs of things to come

Evangelising
A week of the year 2009 has just passed, and God has sent quite a number of male friends from differnt group of frens unto my path. My prayer at the beginning of the year is asking God to send ppl who needs Him unto my path.

And the signs are that these ppl are either curious about the faith, beginning in the faith, away from the Lord, and also rather lonely ppl. i pray that the Lord will help me to keep up in my prayer for these ppl that He has sent. best thing is that they are all guys. : ) no worries about gender issues. haha

I know and God knows that i have not been actively sharing about Him last year, and at the turn of the year, i just the sensing that the Holy Spirit is putting in me a fresh heart to move towards a more active lifestyle of sharing God's love.
share with you a salvation story ..

Just want to Praise God that one of our boys accepted Christ just before the year end last year! He is someone that i have been sent to reach out to, and pray for since 2007, and seeing this fruit that bore forth, its just awesome feelin`` Halellujah !

As i write this, i was encouraged by the fact that he is one of the few few persons that i share the Gospel 101 with last year. and its just within a couple of months that he accepted Christ.

If you can remember, the other person that i share Gospel 101 with, results in immediate re-deciation after the sharing.

so basically, the moral of my story is that the more i share, the more salvation i will see. quite fool-proof : P

but seriously, sharing the gospel is exciting, pumps you up, and bless you more, becuase its more blessed to give than to receive! somebody shout Amen! : )

back to my point : P, i realise that God is definitely willing to extend His grace to those who believes in Him, but God really needs His ppl to share the gospel with those who still has yet to believe.

And i pray that my above sharing can just somehow encourage you to share the gospel with your neighbour, and may the Holy Spirit teaches you and guide you, and brings ppl unto your path, for there are many ppl who are waiting to be ushered into the kingdom . May we be willing vessels of the Lord. In Jesus name, Amen !

God Bless You.

writing more

2008-12-22T01:13:00.003+08:00

just reached home from work.

i think i am extremely blessed at work.

other than having fantastic sales, God has supplied enough manpower for the this Christmas seasons. Other than my brothers, my dad and my sister in law, and most imptly, my gf also chipped in their time to help out. really thank God for the manpower, or else we really cannot cope.

the longer hours at work, constant alertness, lack of healthy eating can really take a toll on the body and mind. so really Thank God for providing the strength.

About God
spending time with God has also taken a 'hit'. i tried my best to do my prayer in the morning, at work find space and time to read the bible. i have to, or really feel so distance away from the Lord.

Psalm 15 tells us something about intimacy with the Lord :

"Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?

He whose walk is blameless

and who does what is righteous,

who speaks the truth from his heart

and has no slander on his tongue,

who does his neighbour no wrong

and casts no slur on his fellowman,

who despises a vile man

but honors those who fear the Lord,

who keeps his oath

even when it hurts,

who lends his money without usury

and does not accept a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things will never be shaken."

The pslamist informs us thru the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that he whose walk is blameless and does what is rightwous will be able to dwell in the sanctuary of the Lord. and he will never be shaken.

This year of Sabbath a year of stepping into a the next level of maturity. i remembered a conversation with youth pastor sometime back. i told him this year was different from the previous two. previously, Christianity to me is pretty RA RA, sia -onz, ppl chiong, i also follow chiong, its about doing things.

but this year different, becos the focus is shifted from doing Christian things to focusing on drawing close to God.

to know who God is better.

to deliberately set aside time and seek God.

to reflect and contemplate more abot God.

and its just so different this year.

becos its not about me , its abt God.

-
So as to learn obedience
Thru this season of my life, i also see how much of my flesh life i am still living in, the many times that i failed and sinned against the Lord, and how much more i have to die as a fact. but , i looked to the Lord and realised that its a process of understanding, revelation and that hope is something that i keep up to. i was encouraged when i read this following too:

"During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could saved him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek." - Hebrew 5: 7 - 10

what words jumped out? loud cries and tears.. reverent submission, learned obedience? that's why i can't help but wan to praise God, can't but make to think that we have a really really Awesome God. He is so real.

for this entry's purpose, I was amazed as i read this because, (in italic) Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered..

You know, the thing about Christianity is that its not a religion but its a personal relationship with God. God is our friend, our brother, and the thing about Jesus is that He came down to earth in a human flesh to live and go thru what we go thru everyday, and He understands the struggles, the tears, and of the joys we have as human. this is something that we can respect God for.

so when i looked at this verse and i look at my personal walk, i realised many times, i suffered because of my disobedience, because of my fleshly desires, because of my pride, fears, and everytime that i failed, i asked that the Lord to forgive, and of cos being the merciful God that He is, God always forgives me and cleanse me.

but then i realise from this Hebrew Chapter 7 verse that God can only be merciful and understanding to me becuase He himself has gone thru all the sufferings that we can possibly imagined even unto unjust, unfair & un-reasonable death.

and there is even a place for Him to learn the obedience that God wants us to learn too. when i look to the cross again, i realise :

that is what i need to learn too, thru the things, the pains, the circumstances, the hurts, the critisicsm n the failings, that i may learned obedience in Christ.

and i realised that i need to build up my character in Christ that i may stand up and stand firm and be more than a conqueror that He created me to be.

Praise the Lord and may you be extremely blessed this Christmas season.

God bless you.

A call for repentance

2008-12-13T01:48:00.009+08:00

Remember David N? my HWA fren who is physically challenged. Months ago, he was caught and put in a home for a month. He was released back to stay in his own house, and is under probation for a year.

Ever since then, the Lord has kept me visiting him monthly alongside my girl-fren. All has been well with him, and he has been going for physiotherapist at SPD. Pls keep in prayer for David to be willing and able to keepgoing for the therapy. according to my knowledge. though it rarely improves a severely disabled person 's condition, it helps to maintain where he is right now. only long ansd sustained treatment helps to improve gradually. Of cos there's a a greater element of God's healing hand that we need to believe and pray for too.

Pray also that the Lord send financial help to maintain his living expenses and to go for therapy. each session cost him $8.60 . and this is after heavy subsidies. this includes 2 way transportation and the therapy session.

he has no income, except some fiancial help from his local constituent and some charity, and those contributions are good for his meals and living expenses only.

with lack of therapy, his condition will only deteroriate. pray for strength in his bones and heart.
We thank God for his determination to live on.

--
Something happened
Today, i received an SMS from David N. in it, he mentioned that he got beaten up by someone.

Sensing the urgency, i went to find him after work with my gf.

1) apparently, due to some conflict with someone at a mrt station, he was wrestled down from his wheelchair, being punched repeatedly.

2) station master came and intervene but claim that he was not being assaulted, and David N thinks that station master is siding with the assaulter..

3) police came, but have no video footage of incident and cannot substantiate his claims

4) David went to see doctor and has medical evidence of being assaulted with the brusises on his face.

5) DAvid was upset, with the injustice, and the unfairness. confronted the assaulter, call the police again. police suggest mediation today.

Investigation is on-going, results awaits.

David was bullied by someone who is stronger than him. David was angry. David was hurt.

this is the situation revealed to us.

----
There are a lot of hurts in David's life. He's angry about how things just did not fall right for him , that ppl insulted him for his disability, for his lack.

He's hurt deep.

God knows and God cares.

God uses my girlfren in an awesome way, when He uses her to release the word of God. God wants to heal David heart, to ask him to release forgiveness to the people who has hurt him, and mistreated him.

A Call for Repentance
But it seems that God also call for repentance.. under the Holy Spirit's leading, my gf was impressed to seek repentance n forgiveness from DAvid:

that we abled-bodied man need to repent of how we treat our fellow bros and sisters who are physically challenged. and that we ask for forgiveness. we need also to repent for the social service agencies and the gar-men whom has somehow neglected their needs and not look after their needs well.

(in the future, probably someone will do it on a coporate level ba)

the stories that i heard from DAvid over the past few months on how he has been treated unjustly, unfairly, in the public really shows the magnitude of the lack of graciousness and public education to living and integrating with the people who are challenged physically/mentally/socially..

yes, i agree that there's a place where God wants to work on the individual level, there's something that God wants to change in David's live, some character flaws, some heart transformation yes.. and we praise God for his work.

But on the public level, i really pray that God's transfomation will continue to work, and may the government really look into the welfare of its ppl, esp those who are down and out, who are helpless and hapless. law is impt.

but there can be law with compassion.

and love.

Dear Lord, i repent, i repent for not always treating my fellow brothers and sisters who are physically/mentally/intellectually challenged well. i have not treat them on the same level as that of an abled-bodied persons. i am short-sighted, i am insensitive, i am careless, i am inconsiderate. i am so sorry. Lord, forgive me for i have not been loving towards them. Dear Lord, you are a good God, you created each of us, fearfully and wonderfully, each of us is precious in your sight. and all of us are equal before you. who am i to think i am better than any of them in any way.. O Lord, help me to see as you see, feel as you feel. continue to work your will thru me Lord. Thank you in Jesus name. Amen!

this is an awesome day. Hallelujah!

Soar on wings like eagle

2008-12-07T23:11:00.010+08:00

This past week has been emotionally trying for me.

i faced a fair bit of criticisms rather consecutively. i did sense that the Lord might be 'breaking' me in order to mould me. so i pray that He continue to break me up.

well, this kind of prayer, is like telling the potter to feel free to do what ever you like to the clay in his hands.

Press it, mould it, heat it. no matter the pain.

Trust the Potter's Hand

Pastor in his sermon teaches me that the most assuring thing to know about God the potter, is that He knows exactly:

1) the right temperature to create the desired pot shape and durability.not 1 degree hotter, or colder. just right. and

2) the right amount of time - not a second longer, not a second shorter.

i.e God is always in perfect control.

how true.

---
i was sad, i cried.

becos i was hurt. at first i could take it with humilty. then after a while, i couldn't. it was just a bit too much. and i broke. from within.

it's different.

ouch. it hurts.

criticisms, it ain't easy to take, esp if it came flooding over from diff sources.
-- - -
i thank God though. have to .

earlier on, i pray for whatever He does, i pray that He keep me. that He bless me.

In the middle of it all, i pray then for a revelation of the cross. a deeper one.

--
Revelation of the Cross
God brought me to a 5 mins of wide space, a few days back. to a windy, solitude-able place, enough to hear His quiet still voice.

Enough to tell him, that i am hurt, that my self-respect was stamped on,enough to tell him that i feel really really bad. try hard to smile, but it was too hard

then the Holy Spirit impressed and relates to me abou what Jesus went thru during His time on earth. About how Jesus has to set asides His place on the highest of places in Heaven to come down to earth. His self-respect was stamped on so many times by dis-respectful ppl, how the Lord must have feel really bad and down by all the scorning, accusations, dis-respectfulness, comfortness, from all over, and being beaten up, to be despised of, to be that humble man who takes all criticisms without any sense of reasonings. nonsense, they say.

i tried to imagine the hurt that the Lord must have felt, i couldn't. But this day, He shared in my pain, because He understand it, becos He has went through as a human just like me.

and our Lord went thru all that simply because He wants to save us.

and He wants to save us becos He loves us.

How wonderful our God is.
--
i only got a brief glimpse of this as God brought me to a space to show me. You can imagined How thankful i am, how i relieved i was. how comfort i am. God shows me that He can stand with me and understand how i was feeling. How i need a friend like Him then. what i have experience probably din come close to 0.0001 per cent of what Jesus must have felt on earth.

This day, i chose to give God my rights to feel respected, to feel dignity, to feel worthy, to feel good, etc, my rights i give to God fully, my privileges i have to give God. i have to die.

My hope is in the Lord.

i have hope. i have a hope in the Lord. The Lord tells me that

"Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint." - Isaiah 40:30-31

in the Bible, there quite a few mentions of the eagle. and i believe its the Lord's desires for us to be like the eagles. The eagles has huge wings span and they can fly excellently faster and higher than most birds.

In life, like the eagles, who might face crows, who come by to make life difficult for the eagles, flapping or calling nosily, irritating the eagles, disrupting its flight patterns, causing upsets. but eagles has larger wings, and the sligtest change of wind flow, it can glide above and higher in altitude into the sky, away from the crows. the eagles don't have to keep flying at the same 'level' as the crows who has to flap hard(yet can't as high). or the eagles cannot fly the distance.

this also means that during times of storms, we can choose to be like the eagles to soar above the storm into higher altitude, above the stormy clouds, and not being caught in the stormy situations and being injured unnecessarily.

and God promised us in His word that we will soar on wings like eagles, by trusting and hoping in Him. this means that although there will always be crows, and storms in our life, we can soar above it all, look at it with clearer perpective, and not be wounded.

that we may run and not grow weary, that we may walk and not be faint (Isaiah 40: 31b , paraphrased)

May you soar on wings like eagles, as you hope in the Lord.

Praise God and may the Lord bless you.

Amen.

halo

2008-12-04T11:58:00.003+08:00

halo there,

haven't been blogging for a long while.

been busy par-tohing and also much more focus on work. Christmas is here, so have to be working almost every day in Dec.

What has God been doing in my life?

Through teachings from church sermons, I understand that this is the era of the Kingdom Age, where God is building up His kingdom on earth through His people in the marketplace, and not only within the 4 walls of our Sunday Church, to make it more simply, its bringing the church to our society, workplace, our schools, our home.

The vision of our church is to serve the nations by effecting community transformation in Singapore and gateway cities in Asia.

The key to transformation is through God's love.

The strategy is basicially to operate by God's kingdom principles which we can find throughout the Bible.

On my current ''level'', i am impressed to be excellent in everything that i do for God's glory, and that includes, being excellent in my workplace, being an excellent family member, being an excellent servant of the Lord, etc.

its in God's word to be excellent anyway, 1 Cor 8:7 " But just as you excel in everything - in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in love for us- see that you also excel in this grace of giving.

this is excellent, though i pray that i don't become perfomance-driven.

with this word from the Lord, i realise i have not been excellent in many ways, not as detailed, not as discipline. i am quite an Anyhow, Anything goes person. but i am sure God knows, and God wants to build in me an excellent spirit. i think i will rejoice in that.

Yesterday, God impressed on me the following.

I come to realise that i have to surrender fully to the Lord in this area. to die to my perceived cleverness, good performance, bad performance, good or bad attidude, creativity, discipline, , and whatever qualities that i may have. there is a need to die, and let the Lord come in to work a new self, build a new foundation of excellence.

i hope i can really say this like Paul said : " I have been crucified with Christ and i no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." - Galatian 2:20

But at least it's a prayer now. In Jesus name, Amen!

To God be the Glory!

The Lord is our God

2008-12-04T11:51:00.003+08:00

"Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.
Rescue me from my enemies, O Lord,
for I hide myself in you.
Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God;
may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.

For your name sake, O Lord,
preserve my life;
in your righteouness, bring me out of trouble.
In your unfailing love, silence my enemies;
destroy all my foes,
for I am your servant. "

Psalm 143 :8-12

BB Vesper

2008-11-17T18:17:00.004+08:00

Great God who knowest all our needs,
Bless Thee our watch, and guard our sleep
Forgive our sins of thoughts and deeds
And in Thy peace Thy servants keep.

We thank Thee for the day that's done
We trust Thee for the days to be,
Thy Love we learn in Christ Thy Son,
O may we all Thy glory see!

Amen.

- The Boys' Brigade Vesper

.thank God

2008-11-13T00:34:00.005+08:00

one thing that i really thank God for is that He answered my prayer on sending a helper/partner to share my joys in serving the poor and needy.

he send my gf!

Hallelujah.

went to visit mdm oh yest.

my gf is really steady, she speaks dialect very very very very well. and due to this, i was able to know in a deeper level of some of mdm oh's worries.

u see, being a traditional chinese and all that, she and her siblings actually bought a 'place' at guang ming hill, so that when she passed on, her ashes will have a place. and it cost thousands of dollars.. talking about planning for one's death.. tis is the first time i hear about anything like that. my gf tot i am a moutain turtle. keke.

and this seems to be a barrier/obstacles for mdm oh to believe in Jesus.

we asked her if she did not buy this 'place', would she believe in Jesus? she says she just might.

well, as we sense that its not time we did not press on forcefully.

but anyway, i thank God for this revelation. i m sure she is not the only one who is trapped in this 'spiritual blindness' and its something to be aware of and prayer fight about.

thru-out the meeting, i asked God what his heart is about for mdm oh.

then a heard it.

He loves mdm oh. we are not the first christians to go to her, she used to has a neighbour who bring her to church for years.. and becos she was married ff, she moved away or something.. so no more. and then, God send us in..

well, it does says something about God's heart for her. if one day, we decided that we have no time for her. i am sure God will send someone else to her to reach her.

God just doesn't give up.

why should we?

Mdm Oh is 63 tis year.

never been to a school.

never work for a company her entire life.

stays at home all her life to help in chores.

can't speak english, barely any mandarin.

don't have 10 fingers. not have 10 toes, don have 2 legs,

can't sleep at night. insomia. high blood , high cholestrols.

stay alone. one room flat. rely on $30o plus every month to live on.

the only form of communication with the world is a phone that rings once in a while. a void deck to hang around with neighbours. and some ad hoc volunteer who comes once in a blue moon.

and of a cos a God that loves her and does not wan to give up on her.

why shud we.

Hallelujah.

the Fall of Babylon

2008-11-11T13:42:00.004+08:00

i was reading Revelation 18 this morning: 18:2-3 :

"Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She become as home for demons and haunt for every unclean and detestable spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird. For all the nations have durnk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The king of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries."

i have lived and took part in tis babylonian system too of unfair wealth distribution, greed for more, living in the excessive luxury of life, etc.. and i do recognise the need to repent before the Lord for this.

about IRs

indeed, its interesting to see that during this major shake-up of the financial systems, that the builder of the IRs in Singapore are facing huge financial headaches. i confessed that i did not really think much about the IRs, but now i am impressed and am convicted to pray that the IRs won't happen towards the way of casinos. the other day, my gf was just telling me all the possible social ills that can results from gambling -->broken families, huge debts, sucides case.. etc.. Really, why should we invite more of these pains in? having a church, shopping centre, recreations space as a replacement really sounds like an awesome idea. :P

Demise of the Babylonian system

indeed, like what the word of God in Revelation tell us, the Babylonian system is going to be shaken and it will fall in its due time. what will be shaken will be shaken. and even as its happening, i am sure the Lord is going to bring us to the revelation of felt needs of people that are aorund us. be it financial, relationship or other personal needs,

more on the babylonian systems from a biblical standpoint and pratical things that we can do and fight for in the spirtual realms in some later posts.

Answering felt needs - the true Revival

for now, i pray that we will follow the model of the believers in the Early Church as accordance to Acts 4:32-35 :

" All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions were his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There was no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or house sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need."

I think the time has come when we really open our eyes and serve and love the people around us.

one of my brother suggests that even as recession is here, revival is here too. what's need to be revive? i think, Revival is not merely the salvation of souls, but its the transformation of hearts that out of the love for God, we love our neighbour as ourselves.

Praise God for a time such as this.

Prayer Group @ Suntec

2008-11-06T00:11:00.004+08:00

Praise God.

God has been calling His people to raise up prayer points all over the marketplace. And since i got the call earlier this year, i have been praying that God will help me start one .

in the end, i din managed to start one but instead i found one at Suntec. my Pastor's fiance saw me the other day at church and told me there's one going on at suntec.

so story is , i contacted the leader. she happened to be my nanjing qqs leader that i get to know earlier this year. trip was postpned due to olympics. but anyway, i attended the my first prayer grp in Suntec today. and its awesome. relieft that i am finally joining hands with God's people in the marketplace after so long. when i was at HWA, we do have a prayer grp. but eversince i got into the pushcart biz, there is none.

althought the grp is a mixture of different job professionals, it really doesn't matter for now, as we are praying for individual needs, or the area that we work in, and of cos for Singapore.

the first thing that i realise is the spiritual awareness that i got after it. more aware of what's happening around, and more alert. can't explain detaily for now.

but God did send a former pushcart neighbour my way today, and she has some needs that i can keep in prayer or help bless her in.. so in a way, i am really excited about what God is doing in the area.

But my main prayer is still to find retail line Christians in my work area, so that we can intercede more specifically for the retail biz. i believer that's where God has place me and that's my promised land to conquer for God. at least this is how i see it.

May the Lord shows the way.

it's exciting.

"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. "

- 2 Chronicles 7: 13-15

I am sure even as we gather at our own places, humble ourselves and seek the Lord during a time such as this, God will hear and heal our land. May He show us the needs of the people around us , so that we can be a blessings to them.

my pastor is helping to co-ordinate the prayer points around, and areas like City Hall (Suntec), Raffles Place, Tanjong Pagar, Orchard / Somerset, HarbourFront and Toa Payoh North already have on-goings prayer grp on Wednesdays lunchtime. if u do know of any bros or sisters interested to participate, i can pass them the info. i pray that God will help you to start/find a prayer point in your workplace too.

Amen and God Bless you!

Community living

2008-11-05T00:06:00.003+08:00

Bro Melvin came by to teach our boys on the life skills topic on community service living. i tot he is really a steady speaker. learnt much from him over the times that i have the opportunity to see him in action. Thank God for a brother like him. Anyway, i did learn something new and simple, and easy to remmeber, and good be aware of.

We all live in the community of:

1) Family : the people who are the MOST important in my life.

2) Friends: the people who i spent the most Time with.

3) Fraternity( a group of people): People who needs the most Help e.g those in Homes, the physically challenged, orphans.. poor and needy.. etc..

Looking at the above list, it helps me to understand the special uniqueness of each group and thus, helps me to understand how i can better serve them. how i can allocate my priorities and attidtude towards them.. how i can live my life with more awareness. how i can be an better instrument for God to use in the relationships that i am involved in.

my sister's b-day celeb @ my house recently!

Praise God for my family.

not been taking much pictures recently. opps, will take more ok.

Dear friend, i thank God that you are reading my blog. first it means you care about me. second it means, you must have nothing much else to do, that's why you are reading my blog. so at least, i make your life a bit more interesting. HA HA

anyway, if you are reading this blog, it also means that you are special in my heart. cos not everybody knows i have a blog ok.

So, know that you are SPECIAL.

and finally,

God Bless you! : )

My Heart , Your Home

2008-10-27T13:13:00.005+08:00

Was bathing ytd evening, back from church service.

been a long weekend, served in Gkids and choir duty. been a long time since i have been really tired. long week.

So was surprised that the Lord spoke to me clearly about life @ work.

this year has been pretty quiet at my workplace unlike the first year. quiet in terms of relationship with neighbours, at my 3 previous workplace, i have pretty chatty and kind neighbours, so always have a easier day to go through. but in my current workplace, the atmosphere is lesser. and it doesn't help that my neighbours kept changing, i lost count of how many came and go..(somehow, having the same location doesn't mean the similar sales, tok about God's hand on the biz. we are blessed).. so point of story i talked lesser. and it can get quite bored for periods. even more bored when your neighbours don't open for the day..

think King David.

he was a shepherd boy, he takes care of sheeps.. think 'meh-meh' sheep, not 'blah-blah' human.

God knows how many years , months, weeks, days, moments, he spent out alone in the wilderness with the sheep along. granted there might be shepherd or traders that he passed by once in a while, the marketplace that he goes to, to sell sheep wools.. other than that, he is pretty much alone. lonely.

that's the point. and no, he is not the lonely after all..

the bible, the pslams show us that he communicates a lot with God during this time. oh yes, of cos, he can't joke much with the sheeps rite?

God is probably putting through me the same periods of life as David too. He probably is 'training' me to seek after him during this quiet periods too. i can't talk to my merchandise right? haha.

oh yes, i really have to admit that my walk with God has been much closer this couple of years becos of the many conversations during my quiet moments on job...

so i just want to thank God that he spoke to me for perspective sake ba during bathing time ytd.. Praise God!

was leading the children in this song My Heart, Your Home: tot its a really good prayer for to pray about too .

Come and make my heart Your home
Come and be everything I am and all I know
Search me through and through
‘Til my heart becomes a home for You (Repeat)

Chorus
A home for You Lord
A home for You Lord
Let everything I do
Open up a door for You to come through
And that my heart would be
A place where You want to be

May you be bless. : )

Praise God

2008-10-24T23:18:00.005+08:00

Praise God indeed.

Last month, my cell leader led us brothers to prayer walk the school that we served in. We prayed using the Lord's prayer as a guide as we walk the perimeter of the school. it was my first real prayer walk with fellow brothers, so its cool and its exciting.

someone suggested that we should walk it seven times, and one the seventh time , we should encircled it seven times. and well, the prayer is that whatever stronghold of our enemies will fall under the power of God. (think Joshua and Jericho : ))

Anyway, before that comes to pass, God is already working. at least on evidence of what i have been witnessing over the pass week.

Last sunday, praise God indeed that i led one of the boys to re-dedicate his life to the Lord . it's has been sometime since i led someone thru the sinner's prayer , so it's really an encouragement from the Lord to keep going again.

"strangely enough', before meeting the boy, the Lord asked me to prepare to share the gospel 101, so i did 'rehearse' thru, so by the time i met the boy, i was kinda surprised as the conversation deepens, that he actually attended church sometime last year, but stopped going. mum encouraged him to come, he wants to come, and its a matter of helping him to really understand who Jesus is and why he comes. once he knows it, its simply a simple invitation for the Lord to come into his life , for real this time.

it's really ABC.

it's joy unspeakable. : )

Praise God.

somewhere along the line, things clicked and come into pieces. knowledges and revelations come in the timing of the Lord. i know this boy so long, but its till last sunday that i find out so much about him.. Praise God indeed. i pray that he will grow strong, firm and healthily in the Lord and to know Him and to hunger for Him all the days of his life.

--
guess what, a few days after this, i actually have another opportunity to share the gospel freely with another boy. met him up due to some personal issues that i tot its good to guide him along, and i took the chance to share.

once again, its sharing without hindrance, and really feel like Paul in ACTS 28:31 " Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ."

Awesome.

though he finds it hard to believe about Jesus, well what's impossible with the Lord right? nothing too hard. my job is to share and pray, the rest God will settle.

Amen and Hallelujah!

I am loving it! : ) it = this kind of lifestyle!

Serving as a lifestyle

2008-10-23T23:36:00.003+08:00

i finally got it. Praise God.

After much struggling of wanting to go back to social services to work full-time, i finally understand that's not God's will, at least for a good time. God is working on it being a life style of mine instead of it being a full-time job for myself.

--------

Last week's sermon by Pastor Patrick is long-due. there's this part that i agreed alot on :

"what's a life style of a Christian like?"

it's obvious that, most likely we will follow that life-style of our cell leader, which is a familiar story for most Christians:

1) Go church service on sunday
2) attend cell meeting on a weekday night, sometimes pontan(skip)
3) and occasionally attend sunday school classes.

and most likely when we lead someone to Christ, that fren of ours, will most likely have the following lifestyle too:

1) Go service on sunday
2) attend cell meeting on a weekday night, sometimes pontan(skip)
3) occasionally attend sunday school classes.

and on it goes from generation to generation of attendind meetings after meetings. doesn't sound too promising .

Personally, i kinda don't like this kind of attending meetings lifestyle, if its just for the sake of attending. i don't like to attend becos its the norm, its the way it is. after a while, it can get meaningless especially when one become too full and bloated.

there should be more to the Christian life right? i mean, we know God, we have God in our life. i mean, we should be doing more than just attending meetings.

More than that, personally i thinking leading a cell, discipling people, which is fantastic by itself, is still not adequate. becos end of the day, its still attending meetings.

i think the key is to serve others outside our meetings. regularly.

and that's where i realise that serving the poor and needy should be a lifestyle and not a job.

you see i am gifted by God to serve the poor and needy. but if i am paid to do the job then its not a lifestyle but an obligation for me. and its hard to see the heart and motivation.. etc behind it. but if i am doing it as a life style. then its a different ball game.

Pastor suggested this:

" hey, this tuesday free or not? want to go visit this old lady at hougang or not?"

" huh? you mean Christian do that meh?"

" ya, we do, let's go man?

compared this to

" hey , what you doing this friday?

" oh i got cell group?

" This sat?

"oh i got church conference.

this sunday?

" i going service..

"orh.. "

---

this is so cool, thank God for the much-needed message from Pastor.

it's about our lifestyle.

at home, at work, at church, and in the community.

May God be glorified thru our lifestyle ba.

Amen and Hallelujah!

Fool things i have done

2008-10-14T12:47:00.002+08:00

i have done quite a lot of foolish things in life and i actually tot i am a smart guy . haha

Ps Ed Silvoso said that marriage is a revealer of problems in life, and i figured that's the truth of being in a relationship too.

i learn more about myself over the last 3 months more than(in proportion) anytime of my life. and i truly thank God that He has used my girlfriend to show my foolishness, and when i do reflect on it, i can really smile at it.

A simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thought to his steps. - Proverbs 14:15

my simplicity approach to life means that i don't give too much tots to things that i do. and thats ok if i am alone, but not so if there are ppl involved. i live in a community, so i need to start giving more tots on my actions in everything.

The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice - Proverbs 12:15
and yes, i need to seek counsel and opinions also. : )

A fool's mouth is his undoing, and his lips are a snare to his soul. - Proverbs 18:7
i always know that my lips can be a bit too quick and foolish, so its hightime that i start praying and acting upon it. : D

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." Proverbs 9:10

The Lord is the source of my wisdom, my best bet is to hang around Him all the time. Praise God that i have access to Him all the time and anywhere. imagine, God says you must go temple then can find him, and temple opening hours is from 8am to 6pm only.... Alamak! siao liao...

so cannot take from granted ok.. our God is good.

The fear of the Lord teaches a man wisdom, and humility comes before honor. Proverbs 15:33
i also realise, when critizism comes my way, i always want to retaliate, hey i am ok wah, i think i m right, i think its you.. blah blah..

well if i m right, why would anyone be upset with me. so the Lord has me teaching me, to re-act is not from him but from the evil one. The Lord teaches self-control not out-bursting, so His ways is always humilty, and He gives grace to the humble ya. read James 4:6 : )

"the opinions of our enemies," said La Rochefoucauld, "come nearer to the truth about us than do our own opinions."

how true! We must thank God that ppl bother to critisize us, of cos we must identify how much of it are truths and how much are lies.

End of day, we must be humble enough to realise that we are not as smart as we think we are. Even Albert Einstein, the most profound thinker of the last century, confessed that his conclusions were wrong 99% of the time!

Elbert Hubbard said: "Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes everyday. Wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit. "

Dale Carnegie suggest the following to keep us from worrying about other's criticism : "

"Let's keep a record of the fool things we have done and criticize ourselves. Since we can't hope to be perfect, let's do what E.H. Little did: let's ask for unbiased, helpful, constructive criticism."

in others words, let's find out where we can improve on with postivie feedbacks from others. For me, the best person to ask is always God, since He created me and is the only one who can love me unconditionally. though sometimes He will used your love ones to tell u too.

Grace be with you. Amen

where have the seed been sown on?

2008-10-05T01:08:00.002+08:00

"Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: 19When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.

20The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.

22The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.

23But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown."

- Matthew 13:18-23

Personally i think verse 22 applies to me more in this stage, somehow one way or the other, the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth has slowly creep up into my life, and choke me, and thus making me not so fruitful.

therefore. since now i know it, therefore,

i pray that God will un-choke me of the worries and deceitfulness of this worldly world. somethings are good. but well, God is not just good, His tots are excellent, His deeds are excellent.

Rather than just thinking good tots, we should think His excellent tots!

I pray that i will be that man in verse 23 who hears and understands God's word and be very very very fruitful all the days of my life. In Jesus Name, Amen!

3 years and counting Part 1

2008-10-01T11:02:00.004+08:00

It's children day , yippie!

It's also been 3 years that since i come to know the Lord. and i just feel like boasting that i actually know God. haha.

"This is what the LORD says:

"Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom

or the strong man boast of his strength

or the rich man boast of his riches,
v 24 but let him who boasts boast about this:

that he understands and knows me,

that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness,

justice and righteousness on earth,

for in these I delight,"

declares the LORD. " -- Jeremiah 9 23-24

Our God is a kind God

Rember that story in Mark 10:13-16, when Jesus' disciples rebuked little children who came and wants to touch Jesus? Remember Jesus' response? He said to them, " Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these...... " And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and bless them.

In his book, Christ in You, author Dr Les Carter suggests the possibility that Jesus couldn't have just bless them briefly and end of story. It is more likely that Jesus has decided to hang around with the little children, playing with them, carrying them around his arms all the way till sunset maybe, i.e spending quality time with them.

It's possible becuase God is a kind and loving God who unlike us man, sometimes do feel irritated by those little ones who climbed over our heads when we are doing 'something important', just like what the disciples might have felt.

it's possible because, otherwise the author Mark, wouldn't have wrote down this espisode in the Gospels. Jesus must have spent enough quality time playing with th children, teaching them, so much so that Mark is compelled in his memory to write this down many many years later after Jesus left for heaven.

Can you imagine Jesus playing with children? the kind words and touch that he exercised. the sincerity of a big Nice Uncle hugging you and imparting some wise words?

i am sure out of this kindness encounter with the Lord, this bunch of children and parents would have been part of the great evangelistic team of the Early Church.

point in mind : Our God is a kind God who will not hesitate to spend time with you, so long you go to him. DRAW nearer to him and , he will draw nearer to you. it's a given.

And His kindness, compells me to want to be kind too, to others. : )

Somebody shout "Hallelujah!" : )

Back in Camp

2008-09-24T00:26:00.002+08:00

I am currently back in the army camp serving my annual ICT (In Camp Training) or Reservist.

Thank God that i am posted back to my old camp, so things are more less familiar and 'comfortably comfortable'. More importantly, i am grouped together with the same batch of people, so i can build on the friendship with them through the leading of God.

My OC (Officer Commanding) mentioned that we will most likely always come back to this camp together, so there will be consistency.

God is good.

I mean, depending on how you view it, Reservist can be a dreadful, meaningless or fun , enjoyable fruitful experience. on my side, i do thank God i am in the service unit, so bascially i don have to hold the rifle and run up some hills and dig trenches. i get to travel around to deep parts of the island so that's a once a in while refreshing experience, get-out-of-urban-cool-thingy.

God loves the army .

On the 1st day back, God asks me to forgive army. forgive army for taking away a good 2.5 years of my life from civilian life. forgive it for taking a couple of weeks off work every year. forgive it for all the not-so-pleasant-experience, the politics, the bad leadership and organization, the culture, etc etc etc.. so many things.

after i did so, i realised its then i can be an instrument used by God to love the army. God loves the army. and He wants me to love the army too the way He loves it.

i probably can't save the army now. but at least i can start loving it first. the situation probably will be slow to change, but at least i am transformed from within. that's God. That's how He do things ba.. one step at a time. sometimes its just a small sep, sometimes its a leap forward.

How wonderful..

i got to know a fellow Christian in my reservist batch today.. its like finally found a fellow brother. you can feel my gladness. He is a worship musician, a drummer from Hope Singapore. cool. i seems to meet a lot of Hope Singapore members : ) Praise God.

Last year, i prayed for the camp to be better in terms of leadership. This year, thank God, the OC was changed. and the new OC is so much better. has very good testimony and very nice guy compared to the last one. So thank God for a change in the climate there. some of the regulars there are my old time camp mates, so do hear from them about it. Thank God for answering prayers.

I actually start to look forward to reservist. haha. thank God for an transformation of heart.

Amen.

Hallelujah!

We should not accept it.

2008-09-17T21:01:00.005+08:00

i think the recent news on the collapse/turmoils of major US banks/financial institutions, and the credit downgrades of AIG which results in it facing bankruptcy possibility sets the world sitting up looking, especially the man on the street. Thank God that the US government has the reserves to dig into to rescue it and others.

Yes, i mean , if you study economy cycles, there will also be great economy growth thats always follow by recession, and although its not yet an offical term use in the world economy yet currently. We look into the papers and find that there are job losses and other economy woes so to speak of daily.

Some experts say that the current fiancial turmoils are the greatest woes that the US are facing since the Great depresion in the late 1920s to 1930s.

Depending on your financial investment involvement or income situation, you are either affected in some ways or you could be indifferent about it.

But i suggest we should not accept it.

We should not accept it because we are children of God. Banks in the US are breaking apart, it may means people's money are loss, vanished. it also means that more and more people are unemployed as their employer cut costs or go bust. and these people are our fellow brothers and sisters.

and end of the day, we talk about real livelihood issues of real people. and far off in Singapore, we may not really be that affected yet, but this is a global issues, it will come to us if it were to spiral out of control.

i can't say more, but its common sense that if the world's economy turns really bad, everyone will be affected.

So we cannot and should not accept it.

We have to intercede, we have to pray for the world economy, we have to pray for that bank, that financial insititution that's falling.

if we just read the newspaper and listen to the news, and be indifferent about it. well, tat does not delight God. no i don't think so. cos we are accepting the bad news as it is. and that's wrong.

we should not accept it. the devil is trying to destroy the good works, and we need to stop him.

thus we should start praying. seriously.

We are talking about distressed CEOs who needs God's wisdom to help them steered out of this sub-prime mess. We are talking about Government officials who needs God's grace and mercy.

God loves Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns, and i am sure He got really upset when they collapsed.

God loves Merill Lynch, AIG.. and He doesn't want them to fall.

God loves UOB, DBS, OCBC too, just in case you didn't know.

God loves everyone who works there, the customers, the Yous and the Mes..

God love every nation and their economy. You think He likes it when they fall apart? No, i don't think so.

Let's pray and intercede.

Praise God!

God loves my family, my brothers

2008-09-12T01:02:00.005+08:00

For the 2 years that i have spent or invested working in the family business. i struggled.

i struggled because i am not really sure why i do it

i struggled because doing business , well, i don't think its my gifting. i am one of those weirdo who just ain't too attracted to $$$,. my brain just ain't wired that way.

i always believe that my gifting is in social services, i enjoy helping ppl. i am designed that way, more i guess.

when i left social services, my chief personal reason is that i want to help my family, my brothers. i tot by doing so, they will be saved. that when i do that i am showing that i love them and support them. i am there for them.

of cos, i can' tell them this, and they won't understand also. so it's a struggle.

because i don't see myself doing this for long term. so if i am not doing this 4 long term, its a struggle to wan to stay on.

so you ask, why didn't i pray and listen to God, well i was about a 1 year Christian then, i din really know that i should pray and wait for God's answer and discern and seek Godly counsel from the ppl around me. Was it a harsh decision? maybe? did i think it through seriously? yes i did. God knows my spiritual infancy condition then, so I am sure He won't fault me for not praying enough or whatever. i am sure He has guided me in His unique way then.

Sorry, this is probably the ten thousand times that you have heard me sharing this. but recently i finally finally realise why i am struggling over doing business with my family.

i struggled because of me. because i have been doing it for myself. for my personal reasons, for my family. and when my own desires does not come forth quickly, i naturally struggled.

then i realised i over look something important. If its God will for me to be in this line in this stage of my life(which obviously is the case, because His blessings and presence in the stages of this business), then what's God's reason and purpose for me in this?

Because.
God actually don't have to tell me as its His soverign choice. But he did anyway, he told me this recently:

He loves my brothers. He loves my family. especially my second bro.

Yes, that's it. God loves my family.

and for the past 2 years, He showed me that i have not been really loving them. and it's only through this 2 years of closely daily workings that it's revealed that i have not really love them the way God will .

And God said to me that just in case, in this whole world, if no Christian loves them, at least i have been sent to love them.

simply because God loves them.

This is not rocket science. but it took 2 full years for me to realise that. And all this time i struggled big time, because i have been looking at the wrong place. Yes, i have always asked God. Why ? Why ? put me here? and then i turned inward again and try to argue that my reasons is because i love my family so i wan to help them, etc etc.. i figured when man look to themselves for answers, it will always end in frustrations, like in my case. But when we look to the Lord, all things clear.

Life is all about God, not us.

so so sorry, Lord. I have looked at the wrong places time and again. But thank you God, that i at last heard you. It's because you love my family, you love me.

2 years . yes, i look back now, with this new found revelation, i don't think i will trade a single second back to social services. never.

Thank God it ain't any longer. Thank God for setting me free.

Hallelujah!

Love East Timor

2008-09-12T00:35:00.003+08:00

No, I have not been to East Timor yet, but i feel like going. it's compelling from within. Gotta hear from God, when.

not been bloggin much of late. can't find time to properly sit down and write.

guess it's good to leave the screen for a while every now and then.

God has been good and guiding me both in seeing what He has been seeing, and what He wants to see. Yes, its important, in case you haven't ask God about it, i think its good tat you should take time to ask. He will show you.

Went to Timor Nite today with my girlfriend. just want to see what the Love Singapore Churches has been doing for one of our neighbouring country East Timor.

I started to be more interested in East Timor when i was led to pray for it during church wide prayer meetings since early 08. and been reading much and keepin it in prayer.

Timor -Leste, born in 20 May 2002, is one of the world youngest nation, and poorest Asian's country, her people live on less than one US dollar a day. It was set free after 400 years of Portuguese colonial rule and 25 years of Indonesian occupation.Violences were widespread during the struggle for freedom from the occupation. I will write more about it in detail in the future.

Timor needs help, needs are pressing, such as trauma, poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, social instability, and so much more.

Jesus commanded us to love our neighbour as ourselves, East Timor is our neighbour, we are really near it, so we are to love it.

it's a beautiful country. God created it.

Do you know? God loves East Timor.

He really does.

Grace

2008-08-27T19:12:00.003+08:00

Grace.

The word Grace means ''unmerited favor''.

Grace is an essential part of being a believer of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.

we all need grace when we failed/sinned against the Lord. when we were dis-obedient. when we don't measure up to God's standards for our life.

there will be times when we simply can't make it.

that's where God's Grace come in for us. that's what's makes God an amazing loving God.

cos we don't deserve His grace, yet He gave.

When he was whipped 39 times on the back, we were not there see the blood splash.

when he carried the cross to calvary, we were not there to carry for the heavy wood for him.

when he was nailed to the cross, pierced for our transgression, we were not on it, to ever experienced the excruciating pain he has to suffer.

yet he pray for those for did that to him, Jesus said "Father, forgive them , for they do not know what they are doing" Luke 23: 34

when he hung on the cross, waiting for that dying minute to come faster, we were not there to pray for him, pray that Father will stop all this, and ends his suffering immeidately.

we were not there.

Yet Jesus did go through all that for us. so that when we choose to believe in him. we will experienced and have his love. his forgiveness. his grace.

the point is not so much about we not deserving it. the point is that God loves us.

Thank you Lord Jesus for your grace, you died for my sins, my disobedience. i am sorry Lord for my sinful nature. Thank you for your forgiveness. Thank you for your love for me. You are Awesome. i don't know what to say anymore, but to acknowledge you and your love, and accept it. I take your grace Lord. I need it. everyone of us needs it. Lord, I love you because you first love me. i receive it , i receive your love. Thank you Lord, Thank you Lord. In Jesus Name. Amen!

Why do we Exclude?

2008-08-26T22:29:00.002+08:00

We exclude because we don't understand...

We don't understand because of limited contact...

We lack contact because we exclude...

~ adapted from anonymous

free write zone

2008-08-26T00:22:00.003+08:00

this is the free write zone.

part of the reasons why i have not been blogging as much is because i seemed to have writer block, i.e don't know what to write. so i remembered that when i was in seconday 4, my english teacher, mr macdonald, yes that's his name, mr macdonald, introduced to the class this concept of a free write zone.

a free write zone is where in the space and time of 60 full seconds, a student is encouraged to write anything that come straight into his mind and put it down on paper without any care about whether it is making sense or not. it helps to un-leash the writing capabilities of the student. let him/her express his/her tots freely and without any 'restrictions'.

so i will do just this, to un-block my write block.

here goes.

praise God. life is a test, God puts us through test so that our character can grow, our talents and gift can be used. life is a trust. God trusts us with ur possession, our talents, our skills, resources, so that we can use it to bless others.

life is a temporary assignment on earth. we are but living in a body that is temporary. like a tent on earth. we are only staying in this tent temporary. our eternal home is in heaven with our Daddy in Heaven.

so why did God put us here on earth. what's His purpose for our life? we stay in tents only when we go outfiled like for an adventure journey. so if we are on a 80 years adventure jouney on earth, then what is the mission of this adventure. other getting excited about this adventurous journey. what is our goal. what is the end in mind? where are we heading too. this are life big questions. who are we?

As Christians, we are saved when we confess that Jesus is Lord and accept and believe Jesus to be our Lord and Saviour. But the Gospel is not only the Gospel of Salvation, its also the Gospel of God's kingdom. because in between the fact that we have been saved till we leave our body(tent), what are we to do. sit there and wait in the tent? go church, attend service. read our bible. pray . worship. and wait for the Lord to come first, or wait for our passing on first.

what's happen in between salvation and leaving our earthly tent?

i believe its to 'establish' God's kingdom on earth. we often pray "His Kingdom come, His will be done'. Personally, i think, His kingdom has already come, we should claim it. after more than 2000 years of Christians praying His kingdom come, i believe it has long come. we just need to lay hold of it and claim it in Jesus name, believing that Godly principles and values will established in every fabric of our society.

being in church for the past few years, i realised they always talk about Singapore as the Antioch of Asia. meaning that Singapore is the HQ, the place where God will set His base to sent forth Christian to move and transform and reached Asia for Christ ba. more than people that we could be sending, i think as a nation, as a society, as a people, we need to be discipled in Christ.

we need to have the mind of Christ.

to think and act like Christ as a nation in the moutains that God has called us to conquere. Business, Government, Family, Education, Arts and Entertainment, Media and Communications, Science and Technology.

God has moved. it's time for us to start moving along and be part of this nation transformation act.

God loves Singapore.

hmm, the free write zone is actually quite effective. i din miss much of a beat. haha

ciao.

Praise the Lord, O my Soul!

Good Morning Jesus!

2008-08-23T23:10:00.004+08:00

神啊，我心坚定！我口要唱诗歌颂！。。我自己要极早醒起。- 诗篇108:1-2
"... i will awaken the dawn." Psalm 108:2

This whole week, i have been fighting to wake up earlier by 1-2 hours to spend more time with the Lord. so far the score has been : Awake 2 Sleep 3

haha . but its a good start anyway. Due to the nature of my work, i can sleep till late late everyday, but it takes away a good beautiful part of the morning that i can used to spend time with the Lord. even if it is just sitting there to wait upon the Lord, its quality time spent too. better than sleeping right? my sleeping pattern has been a bit off, considering i sleep late and wake up late. have been trying to kick it out unsuccessfully until now.

i am resoluted to awaken the dawn. :)

i must.

i should.

i can!

ok, anyway, God has been showing me that He is doing some pruning work in my life and there are things that i need to allow Him to prune, especially that of activities. i realised after all this years of running around or wanting to run around, that i realy like to run around. i am 25 le, i probabaly can do that for quite sometime more, but its will send me to my deathbed earlier than planned i guess.

i was sick, down with some stomache and having a headache that is slow to go away. gave me plenty of time to reest my body and rest my mind from the activities around. it's good.
it's wonderful. i need it.

i need rest.

the activties that i engaged in, they are good. but i am not focus. i said this before, but i think i am still not doing it. so God is stepping to intervenve. at least, i am now listening to my body.

Pray with me, i am stepping away to give myself sometime to take a good look at the things that i am doing.

Giving myself a review on the fruits that i am bearing for the Lord. ( i am assuming that i have). and on the next leg, probably focusing on the things that really matters as according to the purposes the Lord has for me.

been doing too much, my body is not taking it well. a break, a rest, is good. taking it slower now.

one life, one body. there are only so much one can do.

i guess waking up earlier in the morning does has its 'special effects'

time to rest le. : )

We have the mind of Christ

2008-08-15T10:35:00.004+08:00

" ..In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us...

...."For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?"

But we have the mind of Christ. "

- 1 Corinthians 2 : 11b- 12 , 16

Everything beautiful in His time

2008-08-14T23:08:00.005+08:00

Just want to thank God for His presence in my life and that all things are pointing to His purposes and will.

1) Thank God for my relationship with my girlfriend, it has been a beautiful first month. We went to each other house's to visit parent n families. a thousand things could go wrong, especially when she is my first and (hopefully, only) girlfriend to bring home, and i am hers too (and hopefully, only) Really thank God all things went well and smooth. Her mum likes me lots and always make sure i get to eat alot when i visit. so i thank God for a wonderful time thus far with each others family. :)

Getting to know my girlfriend better only affirms that she is God's best for me. the way we communicate, and the characteristics that we have points to a more or less harmonious 2 way-er.

where there are upsets, we talk n teared it thru in wonderous love.

where there are joys, we share it thru with a thankful (child-like) faith.

where there are doubts, we look to the Lord in greater hope.

Walking thru the good times, bad times together, i realised that they are all beautiful time. because ..

it's always in God's time.

2) thank God also, through my girlfriend, i got to know two of her male pupil (oh, she is a primary school teacher) and they recently accepted Christ in church. they moved in to FCBC with their dad as they moved from West side to East side, so FCBC is nearer to their house. so will be helping to take care of the 2 boys. personally, looking at it, its so beautiful. yes its responsibity, but its humbling to realise sometime even as we seek to go out to find disciples, there will be times when the Lord bring disciples to you too.

this also come at a time when i had just decided to step down from my much of my duties from children ministry to focus on reaching out to the PNS group (poor, needy and strangers) n also to disciple the boys. So i just tot its the Lord's way of affirming my decision to step down my duties.

So whatever the future may behold, i believe in great great faith that all thing will come to pass by beautifully, in His timing. and meanwhile i can be trained up in patience. a fruit of the Spirit.

Awesome. : ) Praise the Lord!

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. " Ecclesiastes 3:11

EGO- Edging God Out

2008-08-11T23:37:00.004+08:00

For a long long while, i have been struggling here and there over certain issues in life, chiefly in terms of performance at work, ministry, and having fears of the future also. there are lots of details that i shan't bored you with. but I thank God that through the inner witnessing of the Holy Spirit that i realised i have pride and fears within me. As the Lord leads, i realised the bigger issue is that of an EGO problem- Edging God out.

Edging God Out

Pride need not only be about arrogance. Take for example, when somebody gives me feedbacks or ask me to do something, and somehow i don't like it. Or when i met somebody and i don't feel like being with him/her, then there's actually a greater pride issue. i have been looking at myself - being self-centered, it is like worshipping myself. Romans 12: 3 said i accurately about my heard condition " Thinking more of and about yourself that you should."

Same goes with fears, i have fears about tmr, about the lack of financial provisions, like lack of this and that, my inadequacy in leading for e.g, etc etc, there are fears and worries. Proverbs 29:25 " the Fear of Man will prove to be a snare(trap), but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe. "

Basically, i am Edging out God as the only One that's worthy of my worship; my source of security and self-worth; and my only audience, authority, and judge.

The results of Pride and Fears -

In his book, Lead like Jesus, Co-Author Ken Blanchard informed us that Pride and Fear always separate us from God, from each other, and us from ourself, for example:

Separation from God:
- Too ashamed about failure to talk to GOd
- Too afraid of the answer to ask God the question
-Too full of our own agenda to wait for GOd to reveal His agenda

Separation from other people
-Too prideful to say we need help or we don't understand
- Too fearful of rejection to take a stand
-too fearful to say no when no is the right answer
-too convinced of our own opinion to consider conflicting information

Separation from ourselves
- too sensitive to others' opinion to listen to our own heart
- too busy fixing other's problem to look at the mess inside
- too much making excuses and too little repenting
-too full of our own agenda

Looking at the list of separation issues above i realised they are very real in my daily life in the workplace, in the family, relationship with others, etc. And it confirms that i do have pride and fears in my life.

Really , pride and fears comes from the fact that i have edge God out, and there is a need to pray for the Holy Spirit to take away both pride and fears from our life so that we may Exalt God Only.

With fears and pride, it hinders our walk with God. Not that God is not working, but its that we will find solutions to the problems that we have in our life.

As the old Yiddish saying goes, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans."

Thank God for His love for me

I thank God for His love for me, that He didn't let me go too far away from His loving presence all this while, that i have the opportunity to draw nearer to Him . part of this process thus makes me more desperate to find out why am i not so effective, why am i so unhappy, why am so i unserving and unloving, why is there no breakthrough in things esp in workplace. then i realised as all this comes from the Lord and in His timing. Success comes from God and God only.

To love others as yourself. well that love has to come from receiving from God first before we can give. without receiving God's love, what love do we have to give to others?

So today, i gladly receive His love for me. And may i say, i love you Jesus. : )

to be continued for the EGO issue...

the way to life

2008-08-05T01:02:00.008+08:00

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." - Matthew 19: 13- 14

1. Following God or the Idols of the world - it's a decision.
In Daniel 3 , we read that King Nebuchadnezzar, ruler of Babylon, built an image of gold and decreed his people to bow down to this image or idol, whoever does not fall down and worship the idol will be thrown into a blazing furnace to be burnt to death.

it was discovered that 3 of the King's servants, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego did not worship the idol, thus disobeying the decree of the king. (these 3 friends are actually Israelites together with Daniel who are brought into captivity under King Nebu, and was serving under the King as they are wise men who has found favour with both God and king.)

2. To die to ourselves - It's God's calling
Shadrach , Meschach and Adenego worship our Lord God ALmighty. Thus, when they are being challenged by King Nebu on their defiance and being threatened to be thrown into the burning furnace, this is how they replied:

"O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." -Daniel 3 :16-18

The king got upset and throw the 3 friends into the furnace. Daniel 3 told of a famous, amazing story of how the 3 friends did not got burn in the furnance, but instead a fourth person (either Jesus or An Angel) came to be with them . God is faithful! As we read on, we find out that the king was astounded by the fact that they are not burned to death, thus asking them to come out, he thus acknowledged our God:

"Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king's command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. ..." Daniel 3:28a

with a side bonus :

"Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the province of Babylon. " Daniel 3:29

3. Jesus is the gate for the sheep (us) - It's who He is
From here, i think we can see that, when we honor and worship God only, we will get our due rewards. But the rewards is the not the main issue here. because what's more important is that we do not conform to this world of image , following the world's standard, which will lead to a life of destruction. The challenge to is to choose good, living with integrity when everyone else is not doing it.

For me, the image of $$ is a particlar challenge, because it can easily consume a person. the greed of wanting more, or the fear of lack of it, will often cause worries over it. we know that worrying means mediating on the devil's thoughts. so both greed and fears over $$ issues can make it an idol if we are not careful, because the tendency to chase after it will be great.

That's why, in John 10:

"Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. " John 10 : 7-10

4. Enter through the narrow gate - It's God's commandment
We need to simply accept the designated blessings and truths of the fact that when we choose the way Jesus wants us to walk i.e a life that is guided by Godly values and with full obedience, we will have a full life. i.e rich satisfying, abundant life. that could include $$ to provide for every material need in our life, joy and peace within our hearts, harmonious relationship, good health, etc etc. that's the will of God.

Besides claiming the blessings, we need to undertand that first, we have to walk the way through this narrow gate of following Jesus and not conforming to the ways of the world. the gate is narrow because it's going against the flow of the world. everyone wants an easy life (the broad road) , but Jesus informs us that's the way to destruction.

May we all be like the 3 friends who, in the face of death, would rather die than to worship idols. let's learn their example of
1. finding strength in unity of standing together,
2. choosing to worship God only,
3. deciding to be courageous instead of being fearful and blindly following the world in image/idol chasing.,
4. and leaving and submitting their life to the Lord's will i.e whether they will die or not in the 'blazing furnace' of this world - read Daniel 3:18

Amen.