I just wanted to share something on this blog before I went to cell tonight.
I managed to wrap up outstanding work in the office around 5pm and I was sitting here thinking how to gear up for tonight. To be honest, I'm completely and utterly exhausted.
It's just been an incredibly tiring, busy and draining month for me at work, in my family, planning for the wedding and even in ministry. And as I typed out a summary of what I want to do at cell tonight, I can truthfully say that I thought to myself whether anything I did really mattered and whether it was worth it.
To take my mind off things, I decided to look at some old cell pictures. So sad, right? I cheer up by looking at cell pictures... =( And I found the picture below.
I don't know why but suddenly, it made me realise that it is all worth it.
I do what I do because there are people that I care for and it doesn't matter that my main purpose in life is to show love to those that are in my life. After all, the commandment from God is first and foremost to love Him, and then to love others.
This is why I'll fight to stay at cell leader level. I shared before that in my workplace I want to get as high as possible in management and for church I want to be as close to the grassroots as possible. I hope that I am able to remain a cell leader for the rest of my life.
I love my cell members and you make it all worthwhile. =)
(OK, sappy moment over. Don't expect it to happen often!)
I can’t believe that it’s already almost the end of the year! It feels like only yesterday when I was doing my beginning of the year resolutions and we’re already less than 1 and a half months away from next year already.
This Christmas we’re going to be doing something very exciting in cell. It will be held on Friday, 19 December at 7:30pm in the multi purpose hall of Kah Fai’s apartment complex. So we’ll be renting a whole multipurpose hall, decorating it and making sure that there will be a lot of delicious food.
There’ll be space for a lot of people so even if we invite 50 people we’ll be able to fit them into the hall! Just give a heads up on how many people are coming so that we can plan out the games and food for the right amount of people.
We’ll be doing something quite different from how previous cell Christmas parties have been and there’s a very special programme planned! Please pray and support along, and start inviting friends and asking them to block off the date on their calendar.
Are you curious yet?
Hehe! I’ll update soon with more information. Please contact me if you want to be involved in the planning and the preparation – I already have around 10 people on the committee that are praying and doing the preparatory work but more hands make the work light! =)
See you guys at cell this Friday!
AAaaaaannndd this wins the prize for the lamest gadget of the year!
OK, this may be something that helps a lot of people if it works but right now...it just doesn't appeal to me. I don't think I'd dare walk around with it strapped on and I'm not too sure it's comfortable.
Too lazy to blog anything serious today. Hehe!
Found here.
There are times when I'm at my lowest points in my life and spiritual walk when I ask myself, "What more will it take? How much more do I have to give? What is the secret to not giving up and finishing the race?"
I've heard many proposed answers and theories on how to last through and finish strong at the end of the day. I've heard that if you never lose your passion for evangelism, you will never lose your passion in your personal walk. I've heard that if you continue to worship God, it will sustain you. I've heard that you need to be in a place where brothers and sisters in Christ can support you and have an intact covering over you.
But when I think about it, all these are important elements but are they the core of what is important to keep going when everything crashes down around you? If you're like Job and everything is completely stripped away from your life, how would you face it? If you have reached a place of complete disillusionment with life and God, without the ability to evangelise, to sing praises or even give a damn about being in church, what is the answer?
Looking back at the examples in the bible such as Job, Jeremiah and Moses, each reached points of complete disillusionment. But what kept them from giving up? The one thing I noticed was that even when everything stopped making sense, they each had an intimate understanding of the character of God.
They understood that God is the one unchanging and constant entity from the beginning of time; past, present and future. They understood His characteristics and that they could trust Him. The understood these things even in the midst of some of the greatest difficulties anyone in the bible has ever had to go through.
And that was enough.
It wasn't their passion and heart for the people and ministry. It wasn't their lives of worship. It wasn't the people around them that managed to lift them out of their disillusionment. It wasn't the sense of urgency of wanting God to move. It wasn't even their relationships with God (in Job's case, God completely hid himself). And I'm not saying these things are not important, but...
It was from a surrender and complete acknowledgement of who God is that was ultimately and fundamentally critical to them not giving up in their disillusioned states.
The Great I Am.
The Alpha and the Omega.
The King of Kings.
The Lord of Lords.
Maker of heaven and Creator of the earth.
Jehovah.
Yahweh.
What do you call a sleeping cow?
A bull-dozer.
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world...Probably earthly pleasures were never made to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage.
~C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity~
Yes, there are temptations in the world and they are hard to resist. Yes, the social pressures, culture and influences are very real and challenging to face, let alone stand against. Yes, there will be times every human in the world will stumble and fall, only to be faced with the decision to pick oneself up again for the millionth time or to throw in the towel.
But along with all these practical realities and difficulties, we have to realise the truth that only a genuine relationship with God will fulfil the core desires of our hearts. Nothing more and nothing less.
As Blaise Pascal describes, "the infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words, by God himself".
"Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.'" (John 6:35)
"Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37:4)
"The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in due time. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing." (Psalm 145:15-16)
I heard something yesterday which I found quite interesting about peer pressure. It's probably something that most people realise but it made me think.
Peer pressure in the past for older generations took a more verbal form, where verbal statements are made to persuade someone to engage in behaviour that is most often understood to be wrong.
Peer pressure in more recent times has taken on a far more potent and influential form. It now often takes on a nonverbal and implied influence that pressures someone to engage in behaviour that a large number or majority of people in the world think is all right.
The world has been moving in a direction of individualism and and relativism, where an individual's perception and experience negates the need for clear standards and truths.
Truth has become relative without any absolutes and I have regularly debated with people who claim that truth can't be absolute because everyone has their own perception and no one can say for sure whether anyone's perception is right or wrong.
The one question they have been unable to answer is why their claim that all truth is relative is an absolute truth. And suddenly their surety in their statement is challenged by the very thing they want to argue for.
There has to be standards and truths that go beyond the bubble of human comprehension and perception. Truth and moral standard cannot be limited to a fallible and imperfect humanity. If it is, then there is no hope for us.
OK, I've gone on a tangent from what I intended to write. I'll end the post with this.
In a world where moral signposts keep moving, what the world propagates does not make it right, even if the majority of people support its stance. There is an unchanging and unmoving standard of morality that can be referred to: the person of Jesus and His word.
Self-regulation according to one's own perception and sense of morality is just not going to cut it. Demonstrated even in the global financial markets, maybe leaving people to their own devices and individualism without clear boundaries is not the best solution.
The law of the bible ultimately liberates rather than restricts humanity. It liberates us to be the people that, at heart, we want to be. It liberates us to achieve the purposes that God has planned for our lives. It liberates us to receive the blessings that come from obedience and living under the covering of the Holy Spirit.
Are we ready to make a stand?
Many times we pray for power and anointing to overcome the world and in our minds, we're seeing obstacles like our bosses, our parents, people who speak against us, etc, that God will give us the breakthrough to overcome.
As I was praying this week, I kept coming back to the impression that the way we define power is the opposite of the definition found in the world. And I wonder if we fully understood, whether we would still be praying for it.
What if praying for power and breakthrough meant a life of brokenness and submission to God in a manner unlike what we perceive?
Power to fully submit to God's will. Prayer to live a life of brokenness and humility, stepped on and humiliated by the world. Power to be a servant...power for a life that pours out like a drink for the sake of the Lord. Power to comprehend the sorrow of God's heartbeat for the people. Power to weep and stand in the gap.
The power to completely surrender to the purpose and calling that God has predestined for your life...to live a life that may be the tougher than anything you ever envisioned, but yet the most fulfilling that could be accomplished. To be at the center of God's will and fully tapped into His power.
Is that really what we want? Are we willing to pay the cost?
The irony is that the power to submit to God and His will brings the breakthrough and overcoming power over our tangible obstacles. The more we are able to submit to Him, the more we will be able to overcome.
Submission brings the breakthrough because we stop relying on our own strength and wisdom, and begin trusting in the One that has already won the victory.
;;
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