Thursday, April 30, 2009
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Majesty King
Glorious One
We bring You honour and praise
As the ones You have saved
Majesty King
So righteous and just
You're our rock on which
We will stand upon
haha i realised that nothing is worse than having no hope, except for false hope!! The idea of just something that you want so badly with it being right in front of your face, but yet at the same time not being able to have, is worse than not having it all. But we know for sure that Jesus is our hope, and in Him, we are satisfied. So i guess sticking to Him is the safest option after all.
something i got from devotion today, Gal 1:11-12
11 But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. 12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Like what Paul said, everything that we preach, which i would catagorize as telling others about Christ, should not be according to man, received from man, nor taught. But everything that we preach to others about should be based on revelation!
It's the same as bringing someone to a palce you've never been before, or teaching them something that you yourself do not know! The difference between being taught something compared to a revelation is that when you learn something, it goes into your head. You know it. However when u get a revelation, it goes pass your head and into your heart, which is where really everything will flow out from. Preaching from the head would never be as effective as preaching from the heart. You can only truly preach a message to someone else when you yourself truly have not just heard the message and memorized it, but experienced it first hand. The reality and experience that you get from a revelation has much much more impact, then mere words out from our mouth.
That's why we need a close relationship with God, for all the revelations that He wants to reveal to us! :)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
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hmm u know its not a good thing when u can't remember what you read for devotion in the morning before you sleep. I guess i was still half awake when i did my devotion this morning, and was busy at uni the whole day trying to finish off my assignment. My ability to remember things is indeed pretty shocking haha.. But still i want to thank God for a good day that's He's given me, and for just blessing me, and protecting me. There's still a few things that i need to seek God for because i don't even know what to do or think, because i really just want His will to be done and not mine. I learnt that every action that i do, not only i get affected by it, but those around me as well. So if i want to avoid harming or hurting those around me, i want to make sure that the decisions and choices i make will be the best possible one, and ones that are from God.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
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i've decided that from now on im just gonna go for it. no point living a life of regret just because i was too scared or afraid or worried to do this or do that. it really sux when u look back at your past, and you suddenly realise that you could have done so much more, and you always end up saying "if only this happened.. or if only i did this..". Once our time has past, the same chance in most probably never gonna come back again. What we can do in our church now, will only be possible now, because the church and the circumstances surrounding it will most likely not be the same in 1 year's time, let alone 1 month! The same goes for our life, what we can do now will be based on whatever season we are in, and if we miss our chance, the exact same opening will never return again. So why live in regret? What's there to loose if we actually attempt to dare to step out and go for it? Pride..? Humiliation..? Embarrasment..? For me personally, there are only things that i can do while i am a youth who is still in uni..5 years down the track, everything is going to be different. So if i don't do the things that i should be doing now, i will not get that chance again in the future and will definitely regret it. Same goes for the lost souls that God has placed around us...there are certain people around us that will only remain in our lives for a fixed amount of time. If we fail to reach out to them within that short amount of time, we will never get another chance to save them.
It's time to put myself aside since i really am just nothing and a nobody, and to be daring and bold to do things that i wouldn't normally do!
2 Cor 13:5
5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.
Read this verse during my devotion today, and it really spoke to me. In this verse, it tells us to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith.. lots of things that we do, and don't do for God is all based on our faith. Do we truly really deeply believe(with our heart and not just mind)??Something i always ask myself. And the next thing it tells us is to test ourselves!! wow..i don't think i've ever tested myself.. even if we don't test ourselves, God will test us. So i think it is a good idea for us to really start testing ourselves to see where we personally are at.
Lastly, the fact that Jesus Christ is in us, is still such a big revelation and shock to me.. its something so perplexing that my mind can never comprehend why.
a looong and cold day at church today..but obviously it was great time nevertheless. What i found really cool was the 2 sermons that we watched at aunty janet's and uncle alex's house after the bilingual service. The first one by Ps Chris Hill which was on releasing the anointing, the three main points being expectations, obedience, and sacrifice. The whole sermon being very nicely structured and easy to understand, also amazing how everything just came together right at the end of his message. The second sermon by John Bevere, who preached from his drawing near series. What really caught my attention was that God does not treat everyone as friends, only those who fear Him will He treat as friends. Our salvation is worked from the fear of the Lord, not just by loving Him. Many Christians love God, but not many fear Him as the King! The 2 ditches on the road of life is legalism and lawlessness. We mustn't get too caught up in doing religion and be all legalistic, and on the other hand we can't treat God's grace with contempt and think that what we're doing is alright.
These 2 sermons both spoke to me soo much, and just showed me once more how much i still don't know about the Bible, and about God. I want to be a friend of God, not just a servant! John Bevere gave a very good example of 2 born again men both living in the same time period, but one was a friend of God, while the other wasn't. They were Abrahma and Lot, both righteous people, but Abraham was a friend of God because he feared God. Lot, even though was deemed righteous, was like the other citizens of Sodom and Gommorah(?) and had no idea that they're town was gonna get destroyed by God. The stark difference of 2 righteous men of God here is shown, 1 with the fear of the Lord, the other without.
Draw near to God, and He WILL draw near to you.
men's nite 2 was another succes i would say! there were lots of new faces, and lots of fun going around. Im sure that those who went thouroughly enjoyed themselves, and know for a fact that new relationships were established! Praise God for such a wonderful night, and im glad that i didn't miss out!
2 Cor 12:20
20 For I fear lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I wish, and that I shall be found by you such as you do not wish; lest there be contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, backbitings, whisperings, conceits, tumults;
what spoke to me was the first part of the verse. 'when I come, I shall not find you such as I wish, and that I shall be found by you such as you do not wish' this made me think, how will Jesus find me when He comes again? Will i be the able to stand before Him with nothing to fear? Will i be able to become what He has planned for me to be? How will i be found and seen by God as?
so messed up :'(
2 Cor 12:9-10
9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
His grace IS sufficient for me, and His strength IS made perfect in my weakness. For when i am weak, then i am strong..but who would let themselves be in a state of weakness in the first place? God can You turn my weakness into strengths? Am i willing to let myself be in a state of vulnerability?
to tear down the walls that hold me down
and break down the pride inside my heart
to let Jesus wear His rightful crown
and follow Him with all my heart
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
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its time for us and for me to start making my own 'history'..but how? We all want to impact this world for Jesus, but what do we have to do? I was reading up on hillsong united's history and checking out their blog(as instructed by aaron), and realised that they are just a bunch of really normal guys. They have fun and joke around, not like all super spiritual and holy sort of people.. the one thing that i realised is that the relationships they have with one another are really close, and that they all love God really passionately as well.. I guess thats all it really takes, a bunch of guys who love God and are passionate about Him, and also love one another.
How much do we each individually love God? Do we each have the same hunger, desire, and fire for Jesus? Do we love and trust each other, and are we open to one another?
there was a short blackout in my house today, i think everyone in my area was affected by it too.. it lasted for about 10 secs? nothing really uncommon since its happened before.. It seemed pretty short, yet at the same time it felt like forever.. i still remember that i was on the computer when the blackout occured, all the power was cut, and all the lights, tv, and computer just went all quiet all of a sudden. I being a person who absolutely dislikes the dark got freaked out :( I think my heart stopped beating and i stopped breathing altogether in that 10secs, and when the lights came back on i found myself literally gasping for air, totally freaked out.. haha.. but seriously the feeling of being surrounded by total darkness, all alone, in a pitch black room where i couldn't see anything at all, and not hearing anything at all just got me sooo scared..normally when a blackout occurs you would tend to have some light from either the moon, or the street lights outside your house, but in my case i had none. The feeling of loneliness, desperation, despair and helplessness was just so overwhelming..in the midst of the darkness i just felt so lost..Right after the lights came on i was reminded of Affabel, and how it described one part of hell that is just total darkness and silence and you would just be living in constant fear and terror of what was going on around you. The feeling of just being alone, in total darkness is too hard to even explain, and even worse to experience. I mean when you read about hell from the Bible, or books of people past experience, you would feel a little bit scared or frightened maybe..but for me this one experience of a blackout really freaked me out, and probably spoke to me about the fear of hell so much more then i've ever known.
The need of having Jesus in our lives is so important. To have Him as our light in the darkness, and for salvation from sin and hell. It's just scary to imagine people living like this everyday in total darkness all alone in deep fear..all they need is the light of Jesus to shine in their lives. I believe that only Jesus can help them. The burden of sin is just so strong that even 1 small sin can drag us all the way down.
Thank You God for teaching me and reminding me, You are indeed the only way to life. May i hold on to You dearly, never letting go..not even once.
Spirit of God we cry out for You now
we cry out
where would we be without You Jesus
where would we be without You Lord
just wanna write down something that God revealed to me today during our prayer before worship. God showed me this picture of a heart that was really tough, as in like it was a rock heart.. it was rough and dull in colour and was as solid as a rock. But then amidst the uneveness of the rocky heart, in one part of the heart there was this small crack/hole, a really tiny one..and because of that small hole, a little beam of light was able to enter the rock hard heart.
And i felt that God was telling me that, no matter how hard other people's heart may be.. all we have to do is to create that small tiny little crack in their heart, which would enable God to shine His light through. All we have to do is to create or make that tiny opening, and it isn't much..So i'm sure that there are lots of ways where we can touch someone's heart even a little bit, especially for me may i not be discouraged but realise all i have to do is to make a tiny crack in someone's heart to let God's light in.
To keep on keeping on..
aah assignment due tmr plus my need for more sleep isnt going well together haha.. oh well, i'll get over it!
2 cor 10:3-6
3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 6And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.
Rawr!! mustn't get too caught up with the things of this world, i gotta keep reminding myself that. We are of a higher realm and the war that we fight is of a higher level! Some great verses there, but i really like v6, where it says that we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once our obedience is complete! Something i never knew..our obedience.. can be complete? I always saw obedience as something that weas either black or white, no grey spots. You either have obedience or you dont't have obedience.. but then again i guess that there will always be people who say that they were 90% obedient to God's word, when God wants our complete obedience. Anyway the fact being that we can only punish every act of disobedience once our obedience is complete. And i see this for my own life, that i will be able to punish every act of disobedience in my life once my obedience to God is complete. Definitely not going to be an easy thing to do because the devil is constantly on the prowl never giving up, where we on the other hand tend to give up much faster..but is definitely something worth striving towards for knowing the benefit found in our obedience being complete.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
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managed to wake up early today, gonna keep going at it till it becomes a habit! Just one thing that God did for me today which i wish to thank Him for is that, during one of the sessions of my field trip that i had today, i become really drowsy and tired and could feel my eyes closing slowly..but i couldn't afford to fall asleep because i was sitting right in the front row in front of the speaker! haha.. so i asked God to wake me up, to strengthen me, and to remove the weariness that was in me. Immediately i just felt God's presence all around me, and it was like a jolt of lightning which *bang!* just woke me up. For some weird reason instead of listening to the talk and making notes, i started writing down praises to God saying how awesome He was, and also wrote down things like rededicating my life to Him again. I mean God just took control of me and i was just praising Him through my writings because of His great presence that was in that place, all this while i was in the middle of some boring talk i had to attend someplace in port adelaide! hahas.. He's truly amazing!
Read a familiar passage this morning. 2 cor 9:6-11
6 But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. 9 As it is written:
“ He has dispersed abroad,
He has given to the poor;
His righteousness endures forever.”
10 Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness, 11 while you are enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
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it's time for me to kick my spiritual walk up another gear.. gonna try to aim for super early and consistent morning devotions from now on. I've tried doing it before, but always for some reason ended up stopping after a few days. I'm planning to do it till it becomes a habit..hopefully at the same time be able to find and create my own chamber. I want to have my own chamber where death and sickness isn't present, and where i'm in total control. A place where its always just God and i, and is in a realm that is just higher than everything else.
There was something about Ps Nathaniel's preaching, that whenever he preached i would be able to just sense the presence of God so strongly in the room. And not only that, God would always be revealing stuff to me or convicting me of areas in my life thats needs to be changed.. it made me just want to melt there because of the warm fuzzy feeling that would come all over me!! Power of the Holy Spirit is so amazing.
Just a few things that really spoke to me. Jesus is here with us, so sin no more!! lest worse things happen to us. We should see and accept anyone as though it was Jesus, to see the Jesus in others. (really spoke to me because i would literally go out of my way and do ANYTHING for Him, but not sure if i will do the same for everyone else) We must be determined to not lose our King, and to not lose His presence. Many times we only see God and His angels until we are IN the lions den(e.g Daniel). If the church was alive hundreds of years ago, there wouldn't be the religion of Islam.
woo easter camp was a blast! I definitely had a great time there. Food was good, fellowship was good, worship was good and the sermons were really good. Really glad to see so many new faces and talk to so many new people. I know that everyone who went for the camp was genuinely touched by God one way or another.
I personally really enjoyed Ps Nathaniel's preaching. I found it really short but concise and to the point. Whenever he preached, the presence of God would always fall so heavily into the room and i would always be so caught up in it. I definitely learnt a few things from him, e.g the whole chamber sermon, which i found really good and useful for me, and the point he made about running with the staff can get you so far. I'll most probably go through my notes again tomorrow to refresh my memory.. but for now i have to catch up on some sleep!
Looking forward to next year's easter camp!
love expects nothing in return.
but are we expecting something in return?
why are we doing the things we do, and not doing the things that we're meant to be doing? isit because of the gain or profit that is behind it..
true love is just, so sacrificial. And God is the ultimate love.
love gives, people equate giving to decreasing.. and no one wants to decrease, everyone wants increase. God, the ultimate giver, never decreased..because He just doesn't work according to people's logic. Then where's the benefit/upside in giving?
sowing and reaping is a very good principle, but i don't think that our motivation for sowing is that because we will be able to reap a 100 hold. Instead i think that we sow, because we love. We're not in it for the gains, but we're in it because we have God's ultimate perfect love in us.
ssiiigghhh.. been soo tired lately. too much stuff going on. can't wait for the easter weekend! easter camp's gonna be great!
2 Cor 7:1,10
1 Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
10 For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.
Just 2 verses that i've read in the past few days that have spoken to me. I've still got a loong way to go. It always feels that when i take 2 or 3 steps forward, i always end up taking a step back. so weird. gotta stop taking that step backwards. Time is running out!!
Thursday, April 2, 2009
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hehe im really glad that im taking part in this year's easter presentation because i know it's just gonna be awesome!! the practices and preperations for have been extremely tiring, especially since the role im playing requires lots of running and movements..but at the end of the day we all still end up having lots of fun, laughs, and fellowship! It will definitely be a memorable event, and one that we can look back on and have no regrets but lots of great feelings :D
The harvest is here! Lets us the workers be sent out to bring the harvest in! Thank You God for answered prayers!
Was reading 2 Cor 6, where it was telling us to not be unequally yoked..why? because God is light, and He has nothing to do with darkness. not only that, but the same God lives in us, we are His holy temple, therefore we should not have anything to do with darkness too! it says in v17 to be aware to not touch anything unclean.. not only that but i feel that we should be aware of what we are doing at all times. what we see, hear, speak, touch, or even think. May everything we do reflect the pure and holy nature of our living God that dwells inside of us.
The living God living inside of us..still a very big revelation to me.
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