Friday, October 19, 2007
Standing Firm To The End

What word do you see in the picture? For most of us; we would see the word 'GOOD' in the picture at first glance. However after some time, you would notice that there is also the word 'evil'. What I'm trying to point out is that many of us always judge someone by our first impression. It takes time to understand and know the intentions of the heart of a person.

I was never a real 'christian' even though I was born in a Christian family. I was once caught in whirlwind of confusion by the influence of friends I once hanged out with, that church was boring and stuff like that when I was young. Thus, I developed this perception that church was indeed boring and my spiritual eyes and ears were covered whenever I went to church. There was a time when I decided not to go to church altogether, often feigning illnesses or saying that I'm busy. I was 13 at that time and I guess I was really stubborn in my actions.

But thanks be to God, for He was always reaching out for me, waiting for me patiently to draw back to Him and indeed he brought me back in a rather unique and amusing way I would never forget, His way. Coming from a rather humble family background, my grades were often compared to my younger cousins and I was often pressurised in a competition I did not want to be in. When I was in my secondary 3 class, I became proud as I took things for granted that I have gotten into the top class in the faculty. In fact, I did not like my teachers nor the friends I had in the class due to bad memories and so I totally shut off. I just became a sleeping lion through out the year and had no intentions of graduating with the class I had. I got back my results saying that I will be retaining for that year as well as dropping to the last class.

Initially I did not feel anything, but I realized that I have broken the hearts of my family who love me, whose intentions was for me to be successful and walking right with the Lord. I began to work hard again, humbling myself even when I was the top student in my class as well as getting good grades for my O's. It was this time that I decided to walk this life of mine with God once again, for I realise that God has planned all this to happen with His intentions in breaking and moulding me into a person that he wanted me to be.

Thus, I was brought me back to Him. I'm really touched by how God has always been there for me through times of encouragements as well as times of discouragements. Through those times, I was reminded of standing firm to the faith I have in Him. Each time when I feel burnt out, God is always there to refresh me with His love, and my fire to seek His kingdom first continues to burn for Him . However, standing firm with God to the end is not an easy thing to do. It is really not by our own might nor by our power but by His spirit that we are able to do. I was going through the scripture about the end times and indeed, I have been reminded about the events which are happening around the world. It has come to a time of holding on to our faith in God with perseverance and hope to the race which we have been running with God.

In 2Timothy 3:2-5 about Godlessness in the last days, it has been said that 'People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.' From the scripture, the 'people' whom are referred here are actually the christians. It just goes to show that each one of us have the potential to be a lover of pleasure rather than lovers of God during the last days. If we do not cling on to God's word, we would very well be deceived by the very things this world has to offer.

In fact in Matthew 24:4-14, 'Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.
"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.'

The first sign of the end of the age is deception. Not only that, it is also written that we will be persecuted because of our faith.
In 2Timothy 3:12, it is written 'In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.' The scripture does not say that we "may" be persecuted, rather we "will" be persecuted.

It will definitely not be easy living a christian life, there might be things that we can never do and we will be persecuted by the people around us. But I choose to stand firm to my faith in God for I do not set my eyes on earthly riches but rather the heavenly riches that God will provide me with. Be glory to the Father in heaven as I will run this race He has marked out with perseverance and faith in Him.

I pray that we will stand strong in God, for He is strong in our weaknesses. For God is good all the time. Amen...There is only this one simple important thing for us to stand firm in Him that is to read our bible consistently, the word that is inspired by the almighty God our Saviour. Discerning what is true and false, what are the right and wrong things and what are the good things that please our Father in heaven.

Would you read your bible as of today?

Labels: Devotion

Thursday, October 18, 2007
F-O-C

So what's this post of F-O-C all about? One might think it means free-of-charge. Huh?free-of-charge, why is he blogging about F-O-C? Well actually the real acronym for it is Faith-Obedience-Commitment. It relates to the day of Sabbath. How does it relate to it then?

1.Faith
In Hebrews4:1, 'Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.
The Sabbath is really a time of worship. It is a time where we enter into God's rest, a time where we draw near to Him and He will then draw near to us. It is a time of asking in faith,the faith of asking big.
In Hebrews 4:2, it says 'For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.'
Without faith, we cannot enter into God's rest. Without faith, we can never ask big. Therefore, let us have the faith to ask big even before we enter into the year of Sabbath.

2.Obedience
When we enter into the spirit of the Sabbath, we have to have the obedience to be faithful to what God called us to do.
Hebrews 4:6,'It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience.
Some were unable to enter into God's rest simply because they were disobedient in listening to God's word. It really means this, by disobeying God' word we are actually sinning against God. Hence, let us open the eyes of our hearts to listen to God's message for us as we enter into the year of Sabbath in faith.

3.Commitment
We must be committed to make every effort to enter God's rest. Faith and obedience depend on commitment. If we truly honour God, we will have that faith to believe as well as obey Him.
In Hebrews 4:11, 'Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.
By making every effort to enter God's rest, we can be sure that we will not fall short from our disobedience

Let us prepare ourselves before we enter into the year of Sabbath, be free for God and indeed you will see the marvelous plans that God has intended for us to do.

Labels: Devotion

Saturday, October 13, 2007
Growing Deep...Deeper

Its been days since I last blogged,in fact I haven't been writing songs or sharing my devotions. I was pretty occupied with other things.
I have 2 major school events to plan for and they are approachng nearer and nearer each day. It has really taken a toll on my health and I feel rather burn out from the lack of sleep. I really do need God's inner peace as well as His healing during this period of time. Thankfully, I'm glad that I still spend most of my time with the Lord. I have been growing deep in God's word recently as well as really improving in my guitar skills. Besides that, I have been involved in the SLTC to further build myself as a leader.

Though it has been slightly dull for the past few days, I know that God is there for me and I will definitely grow deeper with God and continue to write my songs and devotions as soon as possible. After all, its in His freedom we are living and I want to offer my devotion to Him.

Saturday, October 6, 2007
Purpose Of The Ten Commandments

Tcube today was just great today as our mini tribe come together for a time of growing deep in the Lord as well as bonding closer to each other. I thank God for my spiritual family; they have brought me much joy since knowing them.

I was one of the I.Cs for ice breaker and i thought it would be good just to break the 'ice' by getting them warm up in the game of musical chairs. I'm glad that they had fun through out the game. Anyways, what I was really looking forward to was listening to God's word. I learnt the importance of being free for God from Pastor Tim's short sermon. Haha, he have to get used to that name. Let us first look at the Ten Commandments.

Below is the summarised list of the Ten Commandments.
1. No other gods before the Lord ^
2. No idols
3. No misusing the name of the Lord ^
4. Observe the Sabbath
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5. Honor dad and mum
6. No murder
7. No adultery
8. No stealing <----------------->
9. No false testimony
10. No coveting

What is interesting about the Ten Commandments is actually how you can divide it into categories.
Basically the first 4 commandments is related between man and God, it is represented by the arrows pointing vertically upwards.
The last 6 commandments is related between man to man, hence horizontal arrows are represented.
If we were to separate the Ten Commandments further, we can observe that it is related to worship.
1)The commandments in red represents 'who' we worship
2)The commandments in blue represents 'when' to worship
3)The commandments in green represents 'how' to worship

If we were to cross-refer bet the NIV and KJV, it is notable that the word worship and serve is used interchangeably. Hence, worshipping God also means that we are serving Him. I will talk about the Sabbath later on in my next post as it is relates to worship.

However, who we worship, when we worship and how we worship must ultimately lead us to love. It is stated in 3 instances in the bible:
1) Mark 12:30-31
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'There is no commandment greater than these."
2) Gal 5:14
"The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
3) Romans 13:9-10
"The commandments, 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not covet,'and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."
Though the Ten Commandments does not give us salvation, it is really a guide on how we should live our lives. Therefore, let us love one another regardless the differences we might have.

Labels: Devotion

Tuesday, October 2, 2007
A Life Story

How many of us have a story to tell about our lives? Those who have lived till a ripe age certainly has one to tell. I was talking to my grandfather this morning and I just sense a prompting that I should ask him about his life. Indeed my grandfather has gone through a lot of sufferings in the past and he just shared one of his many stories to me.

Through his stories, I took the effort to be engaged in the conversation though my chinese wasn't that superb and I found out that we youngsters or so to speak are very blessed and fortunate as of today. You might have never thought much of the transport or the living conditions we have today. In the early years of my grandpa, there wasn't any of these transport and certainly there wasn't any high-rise flats or condominiums.

I thank God for teaching me to appreciate the things I have in my life through my grandpa's stories. In fact, I have asked my grandpa to write down his many interesting life stories in a book and to get it published next time so that his grandchildren would be able to know his very own life story. That way, we can be sure that his story would be passed down to the generations after us.

In all, God is really teaching all of us the meaning of being grateful in our lives. Indeed, God is really creative and each of our life stories has been written by Him before we even came to this world. I give him all the praise for all He has done for me. God has reminded me of my very own life story and I just want to leave a question for us all to ponder about: ‘Do you have a life story to tell?’

Labels: Devotion

Monday, October 1, 2007
A Heart For The Poor

Recently, God just showed me quite a few things about the poor. More importantly, God was asking me what was my heart like for the poor. Was it one that is full of compassion or was it one that makes me shun away from them. I know for myself that I have a heart for the poor,

I was just heading back home in my aunt's car from Funan IT mall. By the way, I have many aunts so the aunt that I'm referring to might not be the same aunt that I mentioned in my posts. Anyways, when we passing by upper serangoon road, there was this old man who was standing at the roadside. His appearance was quite shaggy, he wore tattered clothes and he was holding a garbage bag.

As cars passed by, he tried to signal them to stop as if he wanted a ride or something from them. When my aunt passed by, he repeatedly wave for us to stop but we just moved on. At that point of time, something just struck my heart and the next moment I was just tearing. I was thinking of the life of this man, if nobody helps this man, he is surely going to die.

While i was on my way back, I just kept thinking what I could do for him at that moment. I had thoughts of giving him all the money that I had with me at that moment so that he could make do it for the moment but God just started to speak to me. The money wasn't the main thing that mattered at that moment, it was the heart's condition that mattered. What was my heart for the poor? Was it just to give them the money and just walk off thinking that we have truly help them?

I was reminded of two songs in my heart and I just started worshipping the Lord in my heart. The first song was 'Here I am to worship'
-I remembered the lyrics in verse 2 where it says ' humbly you came to the earth you created, all for love's sake became poor'. Indeed, humbly He came for us. He left the circle of comfort He had in heaven for us. He became poor because He loves us so much. I was reminded again of how then shall I live this life of mine.
The second song was 'Saviour King'
-This song is a very powerful song with powerful lyrics and in one of the verses it says ' And now the poor, stand and confess that my portion is Him and I'm more than blessed'. The poor may seem poor with our physical eyes, but if their portion was in the Lord God Almighty, our spiritual eyes would be opened to see that indeed they are rich in the Lord.

So God reminded me of how then shall I live. My response to Him would be that I will always the poor in my daily prayer, those that I have come across as well as those that I have not. Pray about what then? That they may know the Lord and that their portion is Him, that truly they will be more than bless in the Lord. Through doing deeds like donating or giving them money or doing acts of service, God truly reminds us what is our heart for the poor.

Ask yourself today, 'what is my heart for the poor?'

Labels: Devotion