Hi guyz and girlz. Greetings from Dwellingup (I’m camping down here for a couple of days). Well... this is it... we’ve reached the last day and the last sharing from the 40 DOL series. I trust everyone has been challenged and encouraged by the words and the life of Jesus as we’ve explored them over the last 6 weeks. Anyway, todays sharing is gonna be really long... this is what I was planning to share at combined cell...
Maybe I’ll start with a story about two people I know. I knew the girl first so let’s start with her. She came to Australia to study but while she was here she was invited to a Christian conference and had an awesome experience with God and decided to give her life to God. She started going to a church and served with heaps of energy and passion. One day when she was in her final year of studies she was at uni having lunch in a café and reading her Bible when this guy came up to her and asked her if she was a Christian. He had recently become a Christian as well. He told her about how he used to play at a really high level of sport then how he got involved in drug use and getting drunk and started getting into fights. He told her how he’d got to his lowest point before deciding to start reading the Bible and going to church to see if Jesus could change his life.
This girl and this guy got to know each other a bit better and met up together a few times and pretty quickly feelings started to grow between them. Not too long later they met up with her pastor and told him that they were going to start dating. Then she got some really bad news. One of her close family members had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and was slowly dying. She was broken. How could this God of love allow this to happen? Why did it have to happen to her? Why not someone else?
The guy tried to be there for her during this time. He would drive her to uni and then asked her if she wanted to move in with him and his parents. By this stage she had given up on God, after all, how could a God of love allow this to happen to her family member, so she decided to move in with the guy. They soon stopped going to church and gradually he started going back to his old ways. He started drinking and they would have terrible arguments in the house. When her close relative finally died things got worse. When they were arguing she started slapping and punching him and eventually he started pushing and even hitting her too. They moved out of the parents house so they could have some more space but they continued arguing most days and she would sometimes get a knife from the kitchen and threaten to stab him or kill herself.
Of course her friends tried to help. Sometimes they even confronted the guy and told him how bad he was to be treating her like that. She even decided to leave a few times but then he would start crying and telling her how much he loved her and that she couldn’t leave. And then she would realise that she really loved him too and remembered all the good times they’d had together. She was hurting inside and so was he.
Then her mum came to Australia determined to take her home. The guy really wanted to get on well with the girls mum so he arranged a holiday for them all and they had a great time together spending heaps of time at the beach enjoying the sunny weather. But the cost of the holiday just added to the big credit card bills that had accrued and when they arrived back in the city another argument broke out and this time the mum was involved and was pushed into a wall during the yelling. After the mum left the house she hatched a plan with the girls friends to go to her house and take her to the airport to fly straight back home so she could finally escape this situation.
I was asked by the friends to be one of the people who went to the house with another of the friends to get the girl and take her to the airport. When we go there everything was normal and peaceful and after talking for 15 minutes the girl finally agreed to at least come out and have coffee with us. During the next couple of hours told us that she knew that they were not in a good relationship, she knew that she was not good for him and he wasn’t good for her, she knew that the best thing was to leave BUT she didn’t know who she was anymore and wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. She ended up deciding to stay with the guy so at 1am we finally took her back to their house.
So this is how I end up at outside her house at 1am in the morning after giving her the option of leaving. While she had been gone the guys parents had found out what was happening and were waiting outside the house furious about what was happening. There was a big argument during which the dad said:
“I know they’ve got problems but when you see them together it’s obvious that they are in love.”
“To me, that’s not love.”
“What right do you have to stand here and tell me what love is? I’ve lived more that twice your lifetime and experienced marriage. I’ll tell you what love is!”
*** Pause story ***
Hmmm. He had a good point. What right did I have to tell him or anyone about love? Clearly we had different views about what love is...
So then the question is What is Love???
Scholars and song-writers and poets and philosophers and relgious people have tried to answer that question for thousands of years resulting in many different views on what love is. But they’ve all been asking the wrong question. If you just focus on the love, you miss the point. Love is the symptom, not the disease (but this is one disease we should all want to catch hehe). Love is about people, thoughts, actions, decisions, desires, feelings... to know love you need to know someone...
The right question is not ‘What is Love?’ but ‘Who is Love?’
The Bible clearly tell us the answer in 1st John 4:8:
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
God demonstrates what love is because of His character. God defines what love is because of His being. Every choice that God makes is a choice of love. A scale of love should start at zero and finish with God because there is no greater example of love than Him. He is the yardstick that we can measure all other examples of love against.
One of the problems Josh and I have as your zone sups is that we aren’t as perfect as God. Actually, as I think a bit more about it, that’s the only real problem we have. If it wasn’t that we aren’t as perfect as God we would be perfect. Right??? If only we could live up to Gods definition of love:
1st Corinthians 13:4-8
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."
Fortunately, God lives up to His definition of love. I want to focus on the “always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” for a bit. God “trusts” us with the ability to make the right decisions now that we are Christians. God “hopes” that we will make the right one in every step of our walk with Him. And God “perseveres” when we fail and continues to “trust” and “hope” that we will turn back to Him. That’s why God hasn’t given up on the girl in the story because He is a God of love. He lives up to His definition of love in the way that He treats us and our decisions.
But wait, there’s more... God’s definition of love is evident in every one of His choices, decisions and actions... even His plan of salvation...
Everybody who was at baptism would have heard me share the exhortation. I said something about how amazing God’s love for us is:
“There we were, separated from the perfect God we now know because even the slightest stain of our smallest sin was too horrendous to be near His Holy presence. Nothing we could ever do would bridge the gap between our imperfection and God’s perfection. So what did He do? He sent His son Jesus to earth to live and demonstrate a perfect sinless life for 30 years and then He allowed Him to die a painful death on the cross. And then He offered to swap our life with Jesus’. He takes our sin, we take his perfect life. His death on the cross pays the atonement for our sin and now we can carry Jesus’ perfect life to God and say “here is a life without flaw so that now I also am perfect and I can come into Your presence.”
Afterwards I realised that I’d left something out. That God’s love is actually much bigger than what I had said. I realised that God’s love doesn’t just stop with our salvation but is even more amazing in what He asks us to do next... He gives us the gift of sharing and displaying His love to the lost... He entrusts us with the responsibility of their salvation!!! Crazy hey! But can you see the love in this??? Can you see the “always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres?" I think it’s amazing that our God who has seen humanity fail so many times, who has seen me fail so many times, decides to display this love by “trusting” us with other peoples salvation, “hoping” that we don’t fail in our task and “persevering” in His plan even when we do fail. God trusts us. God trusts Christians all around the world. God trusts YOU!
God trusts you to live in the way that He created you to live and to be a discipler of nations through your life and actions. I don't know about you but to me this is an amazing encouragement. If God trusts us to do it, if He trust us to live in this way then surely it is possible. If God believes in me, maybe I can believe in myself too... not to achieve things in my own strength but through Christ who strengthens me! If God trusts that I can be a light to reflect His glory and salt flavours that taste of His majesty and a person set aside for Him in holiness, maybe I can believe that my life can be turned around. Maybe I can believe that I am who He says I am.
So let’s go back to the story...
Earlier I said that the girl no longer knew who she was anymore, that she was hurting inside, that she had given up on God. Well, that night she decided to stay. She went back to the same old situation even with the option in front of her of freely leaving the guy and making a new start in her home country. So after talking to both the guy and the girl for another two hours we left and at 3am had to explain to the mum why she didn’t come back with us.
But the story doesn’t end here...
The night before combined cell I got another phone call from the girls friends saying that she had finally decided to leave and asking for my help to take her to the airport. They wanted me to come just in case the guy found out and things became violent again. So we took her to the airport with her mum. We waited with her while they bought tickets and saw them off into the departure gate. I went to combined cell the next day with the plan of sharing how God had “always hoped, always trusted and always perservered” in her life until she made the right decision.
But the story doesn’t end here either...
Two days later I found out that before the plane left she had got off and gone back to the guy again. I think I got a little taste of what God feels like when He “always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” but we break His trust, fail and continue to fail. I can only imagine what the girls mum feels like at the moment. She had this amazing plan for her daughter, to free her from the bondage of the situation she was in, to give her the chance of a new life if only her daughter would take it. She was there when her daughter checked in her baggage and walked through the security check into the depature lounge waiting to board the plane to her new life. She was there when her daughter turned her back and went back to the same old life, same old problems. Remind you of anyone?
But the story still hasn't finished...
And the truth is that I don't know what the ending will hold. I wish that I could tell you that it ends with flowers and roses and a happily-ever-after. But only time will tell. What I do know is that God hasn't changed. He is still the God of love and He isn't going to change any time soon. He is still there for the girl and the guy ''trusting, hoping and persevering," waiting for them to come back to Him. And here's the cool thing: He's still there for you and He's still there for me and He will continue be there for you and me.
But let's not wait and continue to live in our old life of old mistakes. God believes in you and trusts you to live in His ways. Let's live in His new life NOW. Let's live in His promises NOW. Let's decide to live according to His plan and not our plan NOW. Let's not stop with 40 days of love but let's continue to grow in God's love AND in love with God for the rest of our lives. Times may come when we stumble or fall or lose energy or feel emo, but God wont change and we can continue knowing that our Father in Heaven loves us, trusts us, hopes for us and isn't going to change.
Much love :-)
Maybe I’ll start with a story about two people I know. I knew the girl first so let’s start with her. She came to Australia to study but while she was here she was invited to a Christian conference and had an awesome experience with God and decided to give her life to God. She started going to a church and served with heaps of energy and passion. One day when she was in her final year of studies she was at uni having lunch in a café and reading her Bible when this guy came up to her and asked her if she was a Christian. He had recently become a Christian as well. He told her about how he used to play at a really high level of sport then how he got involved in drug use and getting drunk and started getting into fights. He told her how he’d got to his lowest point before deciding to start reading the Bible and going to church to see if Jesus could change his life.
This girl and this guy got to know each other a bit better and met up together a few times and pretty quickly feelings started to grow between them. Not too long later they met up with her pastor and told him that they were going to start dating. Then she got some really bad news. One of her close family members had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and was slowly dying. She was broken. How could this God of love allow this to happen? Why did it have to happen to her? Why not someone else?
The guy tried to be there for her during this time. He would drive her to uni and then asked her if she wanted to move in with him and his parents. By this stage she had given up on God, after all, how could a God of love allow this to happen to her family member, so she decided to move in with the guy. They soon stopped going to church and gradually he started going back to his old ways. He started drinking and they would have terrible arguments in the house. When her close relative finally died things got worse. When they were arguing she started slapping and punching him and eventually he started pushing and even hitting her too. They moved out of the parents house so they could have some more space but they continued arguing most days and she would sometimes get a knife from the kitchen and threaten to stab him or kill herself.
Of course her friends tried to help. Sometimes they even confronted the guy and told him how bad he was to be treating her like that. She even decided to leave a few times but then he would start crying and telling her how much he loved her and that she couldn’t leave. And then she would realise that she really loved him too and remembered all the good times they’d had together. She was hurting inside and so was he.
Then her mum came to Australia determined to take her home. The guy really wanted to get on well with the girls mum so he arranged a holiday for them all and they had a great time together spending heaps of time at the beach enjoying the sunny weather. But the cost of the holiday just added to the big credit card bills that had accrued and when they arrived back in the city another argument broke out and this time the mum was involved and was pushed into a wall during the yelling. After the mum left the house she hatched a plan with the girls friends to go to her house and take her to the airport to fly straight back home so she could finally escape this situation.
I was asked by the friends to be one of the people who went to the house with another of the friends to get the girl and take her to the airport. When we go there everything was normal and peaceful and after talking for 15 minutes the girl finally agreed to at least come out and have coffee with us. During the next couple of hours told us that she knew that they were not in a good relationship, she knew that she was not good for him and he wasn’t good for her, she knew that the best thing was to leave BUT she didn’t know who she was anymore and wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. She ended up deciding to stay with the guy so at 1am we finally took her back to their house.
So this is how I end up at outside her house at 1am in the morning after giving her the option of leaving. While she had been gone the guys parents had found out what was happening and were waiting outside the house furious about what was happening. There was a big argument during which the dad said:
“I know they’ve got problems but when you see them together it’s obvious that they are in love.”
“To me, that’s not love.”
“What right do you have to stand here and tell me what love is? I’ve lived more that twice your lifetime and experienced marriage. I’ll tell you what love is!”
*** Pause story ***
Hmmm. He had a good point. What right did I have to tell him or anyone about love? Clearly we had different views about what love is...
So then the question is What is Love???
Scholars and song-writers and poets and philosophers and relgious people have tried to answer that question for thousands of years resulting in many different views on what love is. But they’ve all been asking the wrong question. If you just focus on the love, you miss the point. Love is the symptom, not the disease (but this is one disease we should all want to catch hehe). Love is about people, thoughts, actions, decisions, desires, feelings... to know love you need to know someone...
The right question is not ‘What is Love?’ but ‘Who is Love?’
The Bible clearly tell us the answer in 1st John 4:8:
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
God demonstrates what love is because of His character. God defines what love is because of His being. Every choice that God makes is a choice of love. A scale of love should start at zero and finish with God because there is no greater example of love than Him. He is the yardstick that we can measure all other examples of love against.
One of the problems Josh and I have as your zone sups is that we aren’t as perfect as God. Actually, as I think a bit more about it, that’s the only real problem we have. If it wasn’t that we aren’t as perfect as God we would be perfect. Right??? If only we could live up to Gods definition of love:
1st Corinthians 13:4-8
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."
Fortunately, God lives up to His definition of love. I want to focus on the “always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” for a bit. God “trusts” us with the ability to make the right decisions now that we are Christians. God “hopes” that we will make the right one in every step of our walk with Him. And God “perseveres” when we fail and continues to “trust” and “hope” that we will turn back to Him. That’s why God hasn’t given up on the girl in the story because He is a God of love. He lives up to His definition of love in the way that He treats us and our decisions.
But wait, there’s more... God’s definition of love is evident in every one of His choices, decisions and actions... even His plan of salvation...
Everybody who was at baptism would have heard me share the exhortation. I said something about how amazing God’s love for us is:
“There we were, separated from the perfect God we now know because even the slightest stain of our smallest sin was too horrendous to be near His Holy presence. Nothing we could ever do would bridge the gap between our imperfection and God’s perfection. So what did He do? He sent His son Jesus to earth to live and demonstrate a perfect sinless life for 30 years and then He allowed Him to die a painful death on the cross. And then He offered to swap our life with Jesus’. He takes our sin, we take his perfect life. His death on the cross pays the atonement for our sin and now we can carry Jesus’ perfect life to God and say “here is a life without flaw so that now I also am perfect and I can come into Your presence.”
Afterwards I realised that I’d left something out. That God’s love is actually much bigger than what I had said. I realised that God’s love doesn’t just stop with our salvation but is even more amazing in what He asks us to do next... He gives us the gift of sharing and displaying His love to the lost... He entrusts us with the responsibility of their salvation!!! Crazy hey! But can you see the love in this??? Can you see the “always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres?" I think it’s amazing that our God who has seen humanity fail so many times, who has seen me fail so many times, decides to display this love by “trusting” us with other peoples salvation, “hoping” that we don’t fail in our task and “persevering” in His plan even when we do fail. God trusts us. God trusts Christians all around the world. God trusts YOU!
God trusts you to live in the way that He created you to live and to be a discipler of nations through your life and actions. I don't know about you but to me this is an amazing encouragement. If God trusts us to do it, if He trust us to live in this way then surely it is possible. If God believes in me, maybe I can believe in myself too... not to achieve things in my own strength but through Christ who strengthens me! If God trusts that I can be a light to reflect His glory and salt flavours that taste of His majesty and a person set aside for Him in holiness, maybe I can believe that my life can be turned around. Maybe I can believe that I am who He says I am.
So let’s go back to the story...
Earlier I said that the girl no longer knew who she was anymore, that she was hurting inside, that she had given up on God. Well, that night she decided to stay. She went back to the same old situation even with the option in front of her of freely leaving the guy and making a new start in her home country. So after talking to both the guy and the girl for another two hours we left and at 3am had to explain to the mum why she didn’t come back with us.
But the story doesn’t end here...
The night before combined cell I got another phone call from the girls friends saying that she had finally decided to leave and asking for my help to take her to the airport. They wanted me to come just in case the guy found out and things became violent again. So we took her to the airport with her mum. We waited with her while they bought tickets and saw them off into the departure gate. I went to combined cell the next day with the plan of sharing how God had “always hoped, always trusted and always perservered” in her life until she made the right decision.
But the story doesn’t end here either...
Two days later I found out that before the plane left she had got off and gone back to the guy again. I think I got a little taste of what God feels like when He “always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” but we break His trust, fail and continue to fail. I can only imagine what the girls mum feels like at the moment. She had this amazing plan for her daughter, to free her from the bondage of the situation she was in, to give her the chance of a new life if only her daughter would take it. She was there when her daughter checked in her baggage and walked through the security check into the depature lounge waiting to board the plane to her new life. She was there when her daughter turned her back and went back to the same old life, same old problems. Remind you of anyone?
But the story still hasn't finished...
And the truth is that I don't know what the ending will hold. I wish that I could tell you that it ends with flowers and roses and a happily-ever-after. But only time will tell. What I do know is that God hasn't changed. He is still the God of love and He isn't going to change any time soon. He is still there for the girl and the guy ''trusting, hoping and persevering," waiting for them to come back to Him. And here's the cool thing: He's still there for you and He's still there for me and He will continue be there for you and me.
But let's not wait and continue to live in our old life of old mistakes. God believes in you and trusts you to live in His ways. Let's live in His new life NOW. Let's live in His promises NOW. Let's decide to live according to His plan and not our plan NOW. Let's not stop with 40 days of love but let's continue to grow in God's love AND in love with God for the rest of our lives. Times may come when we stumble or fall or lose energy or feel emo, but God wont change and we can continue knowing that our Father in Heaven loves us, trusts us, hopes for us and isn't going to change.
Much love :-)
Hi guyz and girlz. Greetings from Dwellingup (I’m camping down here for a couple of days). Well... this is it... we’ve reached the last day and the last sharing from the 40 DOL series. I trust everyone has been challenged and encouraged by the words and the life of Jesus as we’ve explored them over the last 6 weeks. Anyway, todays sharing is gonna be really long... this is what I was planning to share at combined cell...
Maybe I’ll start with a story about two people I know. I knew the girl first so let’s start with her. She came to Australia to study but while she was here she was invited to a Christian conference and had an awesome experience with God and decided to give her life to God. She started going to a church and served with heaps of energy and passion. One day when she was in her final year of studies she was at uni having lunch in a café and reading her Bible when this guy came up to her and asked her if she was a Christian. He had recently become a Christian as well. He told her about how he used to play at a really high level of sport then how he got involved in drug use and getting drunk and started getting into fights. He told her how he’d got to his lowest point before deciding to start reading the Bible and going to church to see if Jesus could change his life.
This girl and this guy got to know each other a bit better and met up together a few times and pretty quickly feelings started to grow between them. Not too long later they met up with her pastor and told him that they were going to start dating. Then she got some really bad news. One of her close family members had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and was slowly dying. She was broken. How could this God of love allow this to happen? Why did it have to happen to her? Why not someone else?
The guy tried to be there for her during this time. He would drive her to uni and then asked her if she wanted to move in with him and his parents. By this stage she had given up on God, after all, how could a God of love allow this to happen to her family member, so she decided to move in with the guy. They soon stopped going to church and gradually he started going back to his old ways. He started drinking and they would have terrible arguments in the house. When her close relative finally died things got worse. When they were arguing she started slapping and punching him and eventually he started pushing and even hitting her too. They moved out of the parents house so they could have some more space but they continued arguing most days and she would sometimes get a knife from the kitchen and threaten to stab him or kill herself.
Of course her friends tried to help. Sometimes they even confronted the guy and told him how bad he was to be treating her like that. She even decided to leave a few times but then he would start crying and telling her how much he loved her and that she couldn’t leave. And then she would realise that she really loved him too and remembered all the good times they’d had together. She was hurting inside and so was he.
Then her mum came to Australia determined to take her home. The guy really wanted to get on well with the girls mum so he arranged a holiday for them all and they had a great time together spending heaps of time at the beach enjoying the sunny weather. But the cost of the holiday just added to the big credit card bills that had accrued and when they arrived back in the city another argument broke out and this time the mum was involved and was pushed into a wall during the yelling. After the mum left the house she hatched a plan with the girls friends to go to her house and take her to the airport to fly straight back home so she could finally escape this situation.
I was asked by the friends to be one of the people who went to the house with another of the friends to get the girl and take her to the airport. When we go there everything was normal and peaceful and after talking for 15 minutes the girl finally agreed to at least come out and have coffee with us. During the next couple of hours told us that she knew that they were not in a good relationship, she knew that she was not good for him and he wasn’t good for her, she knew that the best thing was to leave BUT she didn’t know who she was anymore and wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. She ended up deciding to stay with the guy so at 1am we finally took her back to their house.
So this is how I end up at outside her house at 1am in the morning after giving her the option of leaving. While she had been gone the guys parents had found out what was happening and were waiting outside the house furious about what was happening. There was a big argument during which the dad said:
“I know they’ve got problems but when you see them together it’s obvious that they are in love.”
“To me, that’s not love.”
“What right do you have to stand here and tell me what love is? I’ve lived more that twice your lifetime and experienced marriage. I’ll tell you what love is!”
*** Pause story ***
Hmmm. He had a good point. What right did I have to tell him or anyone about love? Clearly we had different views about what love is...
So then the question is What is Love???
Scholars and song-writers and poets and philosophers and relgious people have tried to answer that question for thousands of years resulting in many different views on what love is. But they’ve all been asking the wrong question. If you just focus on the love, you miss the point. Love is the symptom, not the disease (but this is one disease we should all want to catch hehe). Love is about people, thoughts, actions, decisions, desires, feelings... to know love you need to know someone...
The right question is not ‘What is Love?’ but ‘Who is Love?’
The Bible clearly tell us the answer in 1st John 4:8:
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
God demonstrates what love is because of His character. God defines what love is because of His being. Every choice that God makes is a choice of love. A scale of love should start at zero and finish with God because there is no greater example of love than Him. He is the yardstick that we can measure all other examples of love against.
One of the problems Josh and I have as your zone sups is that we aren’t as perfect as God. Actually, as I think a bit more about it, that’s the only real problem we have. If it wasn’t that we aren’t as perfect as God we would be perfect. Right??? If only we could live up to Gods definition of love:
1st Corinthians 13:4-8
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."
Fortunately, God lives up to His definition of love. I want to focus on the “always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” for a bit. God “trusts” us with the ability to make the right decisions now that we are Christians. God “hopes” that we will make the right one in every step of our walk with Him. And God “perseveres” when we fail and continues to “trust” and “hope” that we will turn back to Him. That’s why God hasn’t given up on the girl in the story because He is a God of love. He lives up to His definition of love in the way that He treats us and our decisions.
But wait, there’s more... God’s definition of love is evident in every one of His choices, decisions and actions... even His plan of salvation...
Everybody who was at baptism would have heard me share the exhortation. I said something about how amazing God’s love for us is:
“There we were, separated from the perfect God we now know because even the slightest stain of our smallest sin was too horrendous to be near His Holy presence. Nothing we could ever do would bridge the gap between our imperfection and God’s perfection. So what did He do? He sent His son Jesus to earth to live and demonstrate a perfect sinless life for 30 years and then He allowed Him to die a painful death on the cross. And then He offered to swap our life with Jesus’. He takes our sin, we take his perfect life. His death on the cross pays the atonement for our sin and now we can carry Jesus’ perfect life to God and say “here is a life without flaw so that now I also am perfect and I can come into Your presence.”
Afterwards I realised that I’d left something out. That God’s love is actually much bigger than what I had said. I realised that God’s love doesn’t just stop with our salvation but is even more amazing in what He asks us to do next... He gives us the gift of sharing and displaying His love to the lost... He entrusts us with the responsibility of their salvation!!! Crazy hey! But can you see the love in this??? Can you see the “always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres?" I think it’s amazing that our God who has seen humanity fail so many times, who has seen me fail so many times, decides to display this love by “trusting” us with other peoples salvation, “hoping” that we don’t fail in our task and “persevering” in His plan even when we do fail. God trusts us. God trusts Christians all around the world. God trusts YOU!
God trusts you to live in the way that He created you to live and to be a discipler of nations through your life and actions. I don't know about you but to me this is an amazing encouragement. If God trusts us to do it, if He trust us to live in this way then surely it is possible. If God believes in me, maybe I can believe in myself too... not to achieve things in my own strength but through Christ who strengthens me! If God trusts that I can be a light to reflect His glory and salt flavours that taste of His majesty and a person set aside for Him in holiness, maybe I can believe that my life can be turned around. Maybe I can believe that I am who He says I am.
So let’s go back to the story...
Earlier I said that the girl no longer knew who she was anymore, that she was hurting inside, that she had given up on God. Well, that night she decided to stay. She went back to the same old situation even with the option in front of her of freely leaving the guy and making a new start in her home country. So after talking to both the guy and the girl for another two hours we left and at 3am had to explain to the mum why she didn’t come back with us.
But the story doesn’t end here...
The night before combined cell I got another phone call from the girls friends saying that she had finally decided to leave and asking for my help to take her to the airport. They wanted me to come just in case the guy found out and things became violent again. So we took her to the airport with her mum. We waited with her while they bought tickets and saw them off into the departure gate. I went to combined cell the next day with the plan of sharing how God had “always hoped, always trusted and always perservered” in her life until she made the right decision.
But the story doesn’t end here either...
Two days later I found out that before the plane left she had got off and gone back to the guy again. I think I got a little taste of what God feels like when He “always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” but we break His trust, fail and continue to fail. I can only imagine what the girls mum feels like at the moment. She had this amazing plan for her daughter, to free her from the bondage of the situation she was in, to give her the chance of a new life if only her daughter would take it. She was there when her daughter checked in her baggage and walked through the security check into the depature lounge waiting to board the plane to her new life. She was there when her daughter turned her back and went back to the same old life, same old problems. Remind you of anyone?
But the story still hasn't finished...
And the truth is that I don't know what the ending will hold. I wish that I could tell you that it ends with flowers and roses and a happily-ever-after. But only time will tell. What I do know is that God hasn't changed. He is still the God of love and He isn't going to change any time soon. He is still there for the girl and the guy ''trusting, hoping and persevering," waiting for them to come back to Him. And here's the cool thing: He's still there for you and He's still there for me and He will continue be there for you and me.
But let's not wait and continue to live in our old life of old mistakes. God believes in you and trusts you to live in His ways. Let's live in His new life NOW. Let's live in His promises NOW. Let's decide to live according to His plan and not our plan NOW. Let's not stop with 40 days of love but let's continue to grow in God's love AND in love with God for the rest of our lives. Times may come when we stumble or fall or lose energy or feel emo, but God wont change and we can continue knowing that our Father in Heaven loves us, trusts us, hopes for us and isn't going to change.
Much love :-)
Maybe I’ll start with a story about two people I know. I knew the girl first so let’s start with her. She came to Australia to study but while she was here she was invited to a Christian conference and had an awesome experience with God and decided to give her life to God. She started going to a church and served with heaps of energy and passion. One day when she was in her final year of studies she was at uni having lunch in a café and reading her Bible when this guy came up to her and asked her if she was a Christian. He had recently become a Christian as well. He told her about how he used to play at a really high level of sport then how he got involved in drug use and getting drunk and started getting into fights. He told her how he’d got to his lowest point before deciding to start reading the Bible and going to church to see if Jesus could change his life.
This girl and this guy got to know each other a bit better and met up together a few times and pretty quickly feelings started to grow between them. Not too long later they met up with her pastor and told him that they were going to start dating. Then she got some really bad news. One of her close family members had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and was slowly dying. She was broken. How could this God of love allow this to happen? Why did it have to happen to her? Why not someone else?
The guy tried to be there for her during this time. He would drive her to uni and then asked her if she wanted to move in with him and his parents. By this stage she had given up on God, after all, how could a God of love allow this to happen to her family member, so she decided to move in with the guy. They soon stopped going to church and gradually he started going back to his old ways. He started drinking and they would have terrible arguments in the house. When her close relative finally died things got worse. When they were arguing she started slapping and punching him and eventually he started pushing and even hitting her too. They moved out of the parents house so they could have some more space but they continued arguing most days and she would sometimes get a knife from the kitchen and threaten to stab him or kill herself.
Of course her friends tried to help. Sometimes they even confronted the guy and told him how bad he was to be treating her like that. She even decided to leave a few times but then he would start crying and telling her how much he loved her and that she couldn’t leave. And then she would realise that she really loved him too and remembered all the good times they’d had together. She was hurting inside and so was he.
Then her mum came to Australia determined to take her home. The guy really wanted to get on well with the girls mum so he arranged a holiday for them all and they had a great time together spending heaps of time at the beach enjoying the sunny weather. But the cost of the holiday just added to the big credit card bills that had accrued and when they arrived back in the city another argument broke out and this time the mum was involved and was pushed into a wall during the yelling. After the mum left the house she hatched a plan with the girls friends to go to her house and take her to the airport to fly straight back home so she could finally escape this situation.
I was asked by the friends to be one of the people who went to the house with another of the friends to get the girl and take her to the airport. When we go there everything was normal and peaceful and after talking for 15 minutes the girl finally agreed to at least come out and have coffee with us. During the next couple of hours told us that she knew that they were not in a good relationship, she knew that she was not good for him and he wasn’t good for her, she knew that the best thing was to leave BUT she didn’t know who she was anymore and wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. She ended up deciding to stay with the guy so at 1am we finally took her back to their house.
So this is how I end up at outside her house at 1am in the morning after giving her the option of leaving. While she had been gone the guys parents had found out what was happening and were waiting outside the house furious about what was happening. There was a big argument during which the dad said:
“I know they’ve got problems but when you see them together it’s obvious that they are in love.”
“To me, that’s not love.”
“What right do you have to stand here and tell me what love is? I’ve lived more that twice your lifetime and experienced marriage. I’ll tell you what love is!”
*** Pause story ***
Hmmm. He had a good point. What right did I have to tell him or anyone about love? Clearly we had different views about what love is...
So then the question is What is Love???
Scholars and song-writers and poets and philosophers and relgious people have tried to answer that question for thousands of years resulting in many different views on what love is. But they’ve all been asking the wrong question. If you just focus on the love, you miss the point. Love is the symptom, not the disease (but this is one disease we should all want to catch hehe). Love is about people, thoughts, actions, decisions, desires, feelings... to know love you need to know someone...
The right question is not ‘What is Love?’ but ‘Who is Love?’
The Bible clearly tell us the answer in 1st John 4:8:
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
God demonstrates what love is because of His character. God defines what love is because of His being. Every choice that God makes is a choice of love. A scale of love should start at zero and finish with God because there is no greater example of love than Him. He is the yardstick that we can measure all other examples of love against.
One of the problems Josh and I have as your zone sups is that we aren’t as perfect as God. Actually, as I think a bit more about it, that’s the only real problem we have. If it wasn’t that we aren’t as perfect as God we would be perfect. Right??? If only we could live up to Gods definition of love:
1st Corinthians 13:4-8
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."
Fortunately, God lives up to His definition of love. I want to focus on the “always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” for a bit. God “trusts” us with the ability to make the right decisions now that we are Christians. God “hopes” that we will make the right one in every step of our walk with Him. And God “perseveres” when we fail and continues to “trust” and “hope” that we will turn back to Him. That’s why God hasn’t given up on the girl in the story because He is a God of love. He lives up to His definition of love in the way that He treats us and our decisions.
But wait, there’s more... God’s definition of love is evident in every one of His choices, decisions and actions... even His plan of salvation...
Everybody who was at baptism would have heard me share the exhortation. I said something about how amazing God’s love for us is:
“There we were, separated from the perfect God we now know because even the slightest stain of our smallest sin was too horrendous to be near His Holy presence. Nothing we could ever do would bridge the gap between our imperfection and God’s perfection. So what did He do? He sent His son Jesus to earth to live and demonstrate a perfect sinless life for 30 years and then He allowed Him to die a painful death on the cross. And then He offered to swap our life with Jesus’. He takes our sin, we take his perfect life. His death on the cross pays the atonement for our sin and now we can carry Jesus’ perfect life to God and say “here is a life without flaw so that now I also am perfect and I can come into Your presence.”
Afterwards I realised that I’d left something out. That God’s love is actually much bigger than what I had said. I realised that God’s love doesn’t just stop with our salvation but is even more amazing in what He asks us to do next... He gives us the gift of sharing and displaying His love to the lost... He entrusts us with the responsibility of their salvation!!! Crazy hey! But can you see the love in this??? Can you see the “always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres?" I think it’s amazing that our God who has seen humanity fail so many times, who has seen me fail so many times, decides to display this love by “trusting” us with other peoples salvation, “hoping” that we don’t fail in our task and “persevering” in His plan even when we do fail. God trusts us. God trusts Christians all around the world. God trusts YOU!
God trusts you to live in the way that He created you to live and to be a discipler of nations through your life and actions. I don't know about you but to me this is an amazing encouragement. If God trusts us to do it, if He trust us to live in this way then surely it is possible. If God believes in me, maybe I can believe in myself too... not to achieve things in my own strength but through Christ who strengthens me! If God trusts that I can be a light to reflect His glory and salt flavours that taste of His majesty and a person set aside for Him in holiness, maybe I can believe that my life can be turned around. Maybe I can believe that I am who He says I am.
So let’s go back to the story...
Earlier I said that the girl no longer knew who she was anymore, that she was hurting inside, that she had given up on God. Well, that night she decided to stay. She went back to the same old situation even with the option in front of her of freely leaving the guy and making a new start in her home country. So after talking to both the guy and the girl for another two hours we left and at 3am had to explain to the mum why she didn’t come back with us.
But the story doesn’t end here...
The night before combined cell I got another phone call from the girls friends saying that she had finally decided to leave and asking for my help to take her to the airport. They wanted me to come just in case the guy found out and things became violent again. So we took her to the airport with her mum. We waited with her while they bought tickets and saw them off into the departure gate. I went to combined cell the next day with the plan of sharing how God had “always hoped, always trusted and always perservered” in her life until she made the right decision.
But the story doesn’t end here either...
Two days later I found out that before the plane left she had got off and gone back to the guy again. I think I got a little taste of what God feels like when He “always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” but we break His trust, fail and continue to fail. I can only imagine what the girls mum feels like at the moment. She had this amazing plan for her daughter, to free her from the bondage of the situation she was in, to give her the chance of a new life if only her daughter would take it. She was there when her daughter checked in her baggage and walked through the security check into the depature lounge waiting to board the plane to her new life. She was there when her daughter turned her back and went back to the same old life, same old problems. Remind you of anyone?
But the story still hasn't finished...
And the truth is that I don't know what the ending will hold. I wish that I could tell you that it ends with flowers and roses and a happily-ever-after. But only time will tell. What I do know is that God hasn't changed. He is still the God of love and He isn't going to change any time soon. He is still there for the girl and the guy ''trusting, hoping and persevering," waiting for them to come back to Him. And here's the cool thing: He's still there for you and He's still there for me and He will continue be there for you and me.
But let's not wait and continue to live in our old life of old mistakes. God believes in you and trusts you to live in His ways. Let's live in His new life NOW. Let's live in His promises NOW. Let's decide to live according to His plan and not our plan NOW. Let's not stop with 40 days of love but let's continue to grow in God's love AND in love with God for the rest of our lives. Times may come when we stumble or fall or lose energy or feel emo, but God wont change and we can continue knowing that our Father in Heaven loves us, trusts us, hopes for us and isn't going to change.
Much love :-)
Second last day! Woo!
For you UWA Leaders, isn't this a familiar topic? We just had a conversation about this last Saturday. Ironic, huh? haha. I know I said this on Saturday, but it is something I really believe in and something we have to be aware of. It goes like this: We do not live in a world of reality, we live in a world of perceptions. The sooner we realize this, the better our lives would be, because we would start being real with God, and being real with people.
We live in a world where people accept what they want to accept, believe what they want to believe rather than accepting and believing the reality. We have let other people, or the 'world' determine on our behalf, what is good, what is not, which is better, and which sucks. In saying that, we can also conclude that most of us do not lead our lives, we just accept them. Most of the time, if we are honest with ourselves, it is because we feel when things go wrong, we won't have to take up the responsibility of the failure and we can play the blame game. But God did not intend our lives to be led like this. The only one person that should determine the course of our lives is our Lord Jesus Christ. The opinion of everyone else falls short. This goes back to my previous sharing that as Christians, "The word of God is our sole source of faith and our absolute rule of conduct". (Ref: Day 12)
Jesus was never an idealist. He was a realist. He says things as they were and he never made assumptions or let people determine his position or who he is. This society can't stand realists. People who would go up to them and tell them that they way they are living is not right and tell/show them how life should be lived. It was the same in Jesus's day where Jesus told the Pharisees that their teachings and ways were wrong, they decided that they had to get rid of Jesus to maintain their little world of 'zen' and order. hehe. Not much has changed today, has it? We are so caught up in our little world that when someone or something comes to rock our world (Woo! MJ!), it is easier for us to quickly dismiss or get rid of whatever it is that is rocking our world rather than to check what foundation our 'world' is based on.
That is just one aspect of living in our ideal or perception. What about those ideals that we have created for ourselves? hmm? Starting to feel the thorn in your side, eh. hehe. Best illustration for this would be BGR! hahaha. Don't we believe we know who the BEST person is for us? I mean, we know ourselves best, and therefore we definitely know what we need or rather, who we need. Right... (sarcasm) hahaha. We believe that this 'person' would complete us, or fulfil all our needs. Ideal, huh? But reality is this: What do you think YOU can do that would fill the other person's needs or what makes YOU think YOU complete them? *Ouch!*
But, of course as your dear and nice Zone Sup (yay!), I can't just spot the problems we have and not at least help us realize which side of life we have been living. Here's how:
When we live in a world of ideals, we are always focusing on ourselves, and that is the perfect situation for pride and everything else to come in, especially for Satan to take a foothold in our life. When we live in a world of reality, your focus is on others. Simple. What can I do to meet their needs? How can I be a better person for him/her? What can I do to make life easier for them? What can I do to see his/her God-intended purposes fulfilled? =) Just a couple of questions to kick-start us into reality. God bless!
P.S I would love to have a conversation with anyone about this, as I was unable to go into much detail by simply putting up some thoughts on the blog. =)
Second last day! Woo!
For you UWA Leaders, isn't this a familiar topic? We just had a conversation about this last Saturday. Ironic, huh? haha. I know I said this on Saturday, but it is something I really believe in and something we have to be aware of. It goes like this: We do not live in a world of reality, we live in a world of perceptions. The sooner we realize this, the better our lives would be, because we would start being real with God, and being real with people.
We live in a world where people accept what they want to accept, believe what they want to believe rather than accepting and believing the reality. We have let other people, or the 'world' determine on our behalf, what is good, what is not, which is better, and which sucks. In saying that, we can also conclude that most of us do not lead our lives, we just accept them. Most of the time, if we are honest with ourselves, it is because we feel when things go wrong, we won't have to take up the responsibility of the failure and we can play the blame game. But God did not intend our lives to be led like this. The only one person that should determine the course of our lives is our Lord Jesus Christ. The opinion of everyone else falls short. This goes back to my previous sharing that as Christians, "The word of God is our sole source of faith and our absolute rule of conduct". (Ref: Day 12)
Jesus was never an idealist. He was a realist. He says things as they were and he never made assumptions or let people determine his position or who he is. This society can't stand realists. People who would go up to them and tell them that they way they are living is not right and tell/show them how life should be lived. It was the same in Jesus's day where Jesus told the Pharisees that their teachings and ways were wrong, they decided that they had to get rid of Jesus to maintain their little world of 'zen' and order. hehe. Not much has changed today, has it? We are so caught up in our little world that when someone or something comes to rock our world (Woo! MJ!), it is easier for us to quickly dismiss or get rid of whatever it is that is rocking our world rather than to check what foundation our 'world' is based on.
That is just one aspect of living in our ideal or perception. What about those ideals that we have created for ourselves? hmm? Starting to feel the thorn in your side, eh. hehe. Best illustration for this would be BGR! hahaha. Don't we believe we know who the BEST person is for us? I mean, we know ourselves best, and therefore we definitely know what we need or rather, who we need. Right... (sarcasm) hahaha. We believe that this 'person' would complete us, or fulfil all our needs. Ideal, huh? But reality is this: What do you think YOU can do that would fill the other person's needs or what makes YOU think YOU complete them? *Ouch!*
But, of course as your dear and nice Zone Sup (yay!), I can't just spot the problems we have and not at least help us realize which side of life we have been living. Here's how:
When we live in a world of ideals, we are always focusing on ourselves, and that is the perfect situation for pride and everything else to come in, especially for Satan to take a foothold in our life. When we live in a world of reality, your focus is on others. Simple. What can I do to meet their needs? How can I be a better person for him/her? What can I do to make life easier for them? What can I do to see his/her God-intended purposes fulfilled? =) Just a couple of questions to kick-start us into reality. God bless!
P.S I would love to have a conversation with anyone about this, as I was unable to go into much detail by simply putting up some thoughts on the blog. =)
Loving thy enemies.
Tough Call there Pastor Hollday, i though to myself as i read today's reading. I have a hard time loving my family, my friends and beautiful people in the way Jesus loved me let alone my enemies.
Honestly, I say its quite hard to wrap our minds around it. Can you imagine members of the KKK having a beer with Chris Rock, can you imagine Sir Alex playing Wii with Rafa whats his face, can you imagine Al Gore having a cup of tea with Carbon Dioxide?
Jokes aside, can we imagine one day living a world where Israelites start loving their Palestinian "neighbours". I mean, thats the bottom line aint it? Loving the hardest people to love, our enemies.
But its not even about arch enemy type relationships cause i mean, how many of us have a Batman vs The Joker relationship. This comes down to even people who hurt us, who intentionally harm us, people who for no reason what so ever try to destroy us. ( See examples given in the book i.e Slap in the face, law suit etc)
How many of us can face that sort of situation and say, Im going to love you brother, come here and let me give you a egg mayo sandwich. I find it hard man. Its tough loving the dude whos just tried to knock you out, its tough trying to love the dude whos just backstabbed you in a million places, its tough loving that FACE thats so rude (jokes jokes).
And i guess thats it. its so tough that we find it impossible on our own strength. I know its really becoming such a cliche; Depend on God, Depend on Jesus, he will give you the strength required to love.
But man its really the truth. Why else did He die on the cross for us? If we could do it on our own and follow the commands, follow all the laws just by wanting to do it, then the grace of God would not be required, then Jesus's death and resurrection would not be required.
This is the bottom line, its not just enough to desire to change, to desire to love our enemies. We need his power, we need the Holy Spirit indwelling in us daily. That power comes from God and we need to ask for it. Jesus's death has given us a definite hope of a life in Heaven, eternal life. But his life, his resurrection, that has given us a hope of abundant life, here on Earth. That means his life enables us to live that abundant life here now, to live transformed lives.
Lastly, why Love our Enemies? Because putting love into action, especially a tough assignment like loving our Enemies really tests our character, and when we learn to depend on His power for this tough tough impossible thing, we know we are moving to that next level, where we can be truly like Jesus, slowly transformed into his likeness. For me, it beings by praying for my enemies, and i know like Jesus, thats how we start to love. Ps Hollday says it on Pg314, when we choose to love in this slightest way, we choose to be like God.
Friends, Lets Choose to be like God today.
Shalom,
Jems
Loving thy enemies.
Tough Call there Pastor Hollday, i though to myself as i read today's reading. I have a hard time loving my family, my friends and beautiful people in the way Jesus loved me let alone my enemies.
Honestly, I say its quite hard to wrap our minds around it. Can you imagine members of the KKK having a beer with Chris Rock, can you imagine Sir Alex playing Wii with Rafa whats his face, can you imagine Al Gore having a cup of tea with Carbon Dioxide?
Jokes aside, can we imagine one day living a world where Israelites start loving their Palestinian "neighbours". I mean, thats the bottom line aint it? Loving the hardest people to love, our enemies.
But its not even about arch enemy type relationships cause i mean, how many of us have a Batman vs The Joker relationship. This comes down to even people who hurt us, who intentionally harm us, people who for no reason what so ever try to destroy us. ( See examples given in the book i.e Slap in the face, law suit etc)
How many of us can face that sort of situation and say, Im going to love you brother, come here and let me give you a egg mayo sandwich. I find it hard man. Its tough loving the dude whos just tried to knock you out, its tough trying to love the dude whos just backstabbed you in a million places, its tough loving that FACE thats so rude (jokes jokes).
And i guess thats it. its so tough that we find it impossible on our own strength. I know its really becoming such a cliche; Depend on God, Depend on Jesus, he will give you the strength required to love.
But man its really the truth. Why else did He die on the cross for us? If we could do it on our own and follow the commands, follow all the laws just by wanting to do it, then the grace of God would not be required, then Jesus's death and resurrection would not be required.
This is the bottom line, its not just enough to desire to change, to desire to love our enemies. We need his power, we need the Holy Spirit indwelling in us daily. That power comes from God and we need to ask for it. Jesus's death has given us a definite hope of a life in Heaven, eternal life. But his life, his resurrection, that has given us a hope of abundant life, here on Earth. That means his life enables us to live that abundant life here now, to live transformed lives.
Lastly, why Love our Enemies? Because putting love into action, especially a tough assignment like loving our Enemies really tests our character, and when we learn to depend on His power for this tough tough impossible thing, we know we are moving to that next level, where we can be truly like Jesus, slowly transformed into his likeness. For me, it beings by praying for my enemies, and i know like Jesus, thats how we start to love. Ps Hollday says it on Pg314, when we choose to love in this slightest way, we choose to be like God.
Friends, Lets Choose to be like God today.
Shalom,
Jems
Now, take a look at that cross, and look at those words. What does it say? "For you". It says "for you".Jesus died, for you,
He edured the pain, for you
He was spat in the face, for you
He was pushed, mock, flogged, for you
He was whipped, slashed, for you,
He bore the bitter piercing crown of thorns, for you,
He did it,
He did it all,
all for you....
What do you have to say about that? Sometimes, we just forget what He did for us on the cross. Sometimes, we don't really appreciate what He did for us. Sometimes, we even end up doubting Him, His death, that cross.
We should all be ashamed, including myself, if we had that.
BUT, but but but...look at what Jesus did while He was hung on the cross, as his final breath were numbered...Jesus uttered these words while struggling to catch His breath..
"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" Luke 23:34.
Do you think you will even utter those words when we are in Jesus' shoes? I don't think so. I think we will be wishing in our thought that all of those who had done this to me will pay pay pay!! But, hey, that's not what Jesus did. He prayed for them, begging His Father in Heaven to forgive them. Knowing full well our human nature, Jesus still chose forgave them.
Sacrificial love. Love sacrificially.
Jesus told us to love people just like He Himself loved us. "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another" John 13:34. We learned that a couple of days ago ya? Now, sacrificial love. It costs you. Take for example, Jesus. For us, for our sake, for our salvation, He paid it with His life. Now, reiterating on what the bible say "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another" John 13:34. We were commanded to do so!! but you might say "i'm just nothing, i'm too weak, too shy, too afraid".
Golden rule : "Do for others what you would like them to do for you(Matt 7:12).
So, how do you implement this Golden rule into your life?
1. You need to know that only Jesus can give the power to do what he taught us to do. The Golden rule that he introduced and taught us, he will definitely give us the power to do it. No such thing as He tells us to do something and don't give us the power to do so. It's like telling someone to help us drive our car to some place but you gave his a car with no petrol in it...how on earth will the car ever get to the destination? Jesus had given you the power, He already had. So, what are you waiting for?
2. We've got to make a decision and take the first step. Again, the car analogy. You can never reach a place or a destination, unless you move your legs and feet, and get yourself into that car and drive it. Wow, that's a lot of first steps. Hm..if you're not satisfied with that, take the escalators for example. If you don't take the first step, you will never reach the top!!
The Golden rule is something that we hear quite often but do we ever implement it into our own lives? Sometimes, we do bad to others, and expect them to do good unto us. It might be selfish ambition. We manipulated people for the sake of our own gain. We are humans, we are not perfect, that's why, it's mentioned so so so many times, that we must always depend on God's power. Sacrificial love. God showed us the ultimate example of it when He sent His son to die on the cross. God did it so that we will do it. I'm not saying that He expects us to hang ourselves on the cross, but to take home the message that love is sacrificial.
I know that today's devotion doesn't seem to be long, but , take a look again at the cross, think of what Jesus did for you, and think about His sacrificial love for you.
God bless
jim
Now, take a look at that cross, and look at those words. What does it say? "For you". It says "for you".Jesus died, for you,
He edured the pain, for you
He was spat in the face, for you
He was pushed, mock, flogged, for you
He was whipped, slashed, for you,
He bore the bitter piercing crown of thorns, for you,
He did it,
He did it all,
all for you....
What do you have to say about that? Sometimes, we just forget what He did for us on the cross. Sometimes, we don't really appreciate what He did for us. Sometimes, we even end up doubting Him, His death, that cross.
We should all be ashamed, including myself, if we had that.
BUT, but but but...look at what Jesus did while He was hung on the cross, as his final breath were numbered...Jesus uttered these words while struggling to catch His breath..
"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" Luke 23:34.
Do you think you will even utter those words when we are in Jesus' shoes? I don't think so. I think we will be wishing in our thought that all of those who had done this to me will pay pay pay!! But, hey, that's not what Jesus did. He prayed for them, begging His Father in Heaven to forgive them. Knowing full well our human nature, Jesus still chose forgave them.
Sacrificial love. Love sacrificially.
Jesus told us to love people just like He Himself loved us. "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another" John 13:34. We learned that a couple of days ago ya? Now, sacrificial love. It costs you. Take for example, Jesus. For us, for our sake, for our salvation, He paid it with His life. Now, reiterating on what the bible say "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another" John 13:34. We were commanded to do so!! but you might say "i'm just nothing, i'm too weak, too shy, too afraid".
Golden rule : "Do for others what you would like them to do for you(Matt 7:12).
So, how do you implement this Golden rule into your life?
1. You need to know that only Jesus can give the power to do what he taught us to do. The Golden rule that he introduced and taught us, he will definitely give us the power to do it. No such thing as He tells us to do something and don't give us the power to do so. It's like telling someone to help us drive our car to some place but you gave his a car with no petrol in it...how on earth will the car ever get to the destination? Jesus had given you the power, He already had. So, what are you waiting for?
2. We've got to make a decision and take the first step. Again, the car analogy. You can never reach a place or a destination, unless you move your legs and feet, and get yourself into that car and drive it. Wow, that's a lot of first steps. Hm..if you're not satisfied with that, take the escalators for example. If you don't take the first step, you will never reach the top!!
The Golden rule is something that we hear quite often but do we ever implement it into our own lives? Sometimes, we do bad to others, and expect them to do good unto us. It might be selfish ambition. We manipulated people for the sake of our own gain. We are humans, we are not perfect, that's why, it's mentioned so so so many times, that we must always depend on God's power. Sacrificial love. God showed us the ultimate example of it when He sent His son to die on the cross. God did it so that we will do it. I'm not saying that He expects us to hang ourselves on the cross, but to take home the message that love is sacrificial.
I know that today's devotion doesn't seem to be long, but , take a look again at the cross, think of what Jesus did for you, and think about His sacrificial love for you.
God bless
jim
HEELLLLLOOOOO!!!!!
We have finally come to the last principle of 40 days of love. Frankly speaking, there's way too much for my brain to absorb and I can almost feel my brain cells dying up there. Like Rachel said in Day 34, loving like Jesus is hard! No, I think it's impossible. But there you have it, that only proves that God was, and is always right. John 15:5 says: "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." But it also points to Matthew 19:26, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." and Philippians 4:13 "I can do everything through him who gives me strength."
Now down to my main point! I remembered an incident not too long ago that happened to (some of us) at Fast Ed's in the city. We were eating peacefully and was suddenly interrupted by a drunk lady that started taking food from our table! As we were leaving the premises after paying, the cashier said something that went like this: "You should have stood up and told her to leave! You know... do unto others what they do unto you." Well I thought about it, and obviously that statement was politically (or biblically) wrong! And I think to myself, how much society has distorted the truth, and some of us were just discussing the topic of perception during saturday morning meetings! The world tells me that's just how it is, and so I just accept it, and go with the flow. The truth is, there are a great many bad people out there, and if you're not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Which side of the fence do you stand?
Are we all inherently selfish then? But let's look at the Big Question for us in this chapter: "How do I get my needs met in this relationship?" And it's true, as unselfish as we may become, we still have needs. And right after that we have the answer: I must give myself to meeting others' needs if I'm to get my needs met!" I know what you're thinking right now. "If I keep giving but no one reciprocates, won't I be losing out?" That is a selfish question my friend!
I just watched Batman - Dark Knight, and man was it a good show! One scene in the movie that really made an impact was the part on the 2 ferries. One ferry was full of convicts, and the other, full of civillians. Both were rigged with explosives, and each ferry was given a detonator for the opposite ferry. Instructions were to blow each other up before midnight, or both blow up! Being human, and selfish, both sides were in an uproar over their survival. It came down to the decision to be made, and the captain of one ferry says: "We're still here. It means they have not pulled the trigger." All it takes is just ONE act of selfishness, just ONE, and there would have been an insurmountable number of casualties. The little selfish actions we execute, have consequences none of us would like to know.
Matthew 7:12 "Do for others what you would like them to do for you." Some of us have heard that rules are made to be broken. But we are too smart to break them. We bend them. Just like law, or claiming your tax returns; there's always some way to squeeze or wiggle our way through. Thank God the bible isn't full of loopholes!
The Reciprocal Rule: "Whatever you do for me, that's what I'll do for you; you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours." We do something for someone because we expect something to be done in return. And more often then not, we end up waiting for one another to make the first move. Even when the favour is returned, we get disappointed because it's not we perceived our expectations to be.
Then there is the comparison part. The Ricochet Rule: "Do to someone based on what some other person has done to you." We treat one another based on how we see others treat each other. We give each other "standards" God never intended for us.
Then there is the fine print. The Hidden Motive Rule: "I act like I'm doing it for you, but it's really to get what I want." The ultimate seed of selfishness in the heart!
Let us remember that Love is not selfish. That's it. Let us not wait for one another to act, or compare what we do for each other, or manipulate each other to get what we want. As selfish as we may be, God still believes in us to make the right choices. It's the only reason why we're still here.
Lauzy
HEELLLLLOOOOO!!!!!
We have finally come to the last principle of 40 days of love. Frankly speaking, there's way too much for my brain to absorb and I can almost feel my brain cells dying up there. Like Rachel said in Day 34, loving like Jesus is hard! No, I think it's impossible. But there you have it, that only proves that God was, and is always right. John 15:5 says: "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." But it also points to Matthew 19:26, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." and Philippians 4:13 "I can do everything through him who gives me strength."
Now down to my main point! I remembered an incident not too long ago that happened to (some of us) at Fast Ed's in the city. We were eating peacefully and was suddenly interrupted by a drunk lady that started taking food from our table! As we were leaving the premises after paying, the cashier said something that went like this: "You should have stood up and told her to leave! You know... do unto others what they do unto you." Well I thought about it, and obviously that statement was politically (or biblically) wrong! And I think to myself, how much society has distorted the truth, and some of us were just discussing the topic of perception during saturday morning meetings! The world tells me that's just how it is, and so I just accept it, and go with the flow. The truth is, there are a great many bad people out there, and if you're not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Which side of the fence do you stand?
Are we all inherently selfish then? But let's look at the Big Question for us in this chapter: "How do I get my needs met in this relationship?" And it's true, as unselfish as we may become, we still have needs. And right after that we have the answer: I must give myself to meeting others' needs if I'm to get my needs met!" I know what you're thinking right now. "If I keep giving but no one reciprocates, won't I be losing out?" That is a selfish question my friend!
I just watched Batman - Dark Knight, and man was it a good show! One scene in the movie that really made an impact was the part on the 2 ferries. One ferry was full of convicts, and the other, full of civillians. Both were rigged with explosives, and each ferry was given a detonator for the opposite ferry. Instructions were to blow each other up before midnight, or both blow up! Being human, and selfish, both sides were in an uproar over their survival. It came down to the decision to be made, and the captain of one ferry says: "We're still here. It means they have not pulled the trigger." All it takes is just ONE act of selfishness, just ONE, and there would have been an insurmountable number of casualties. The little selfish actions we execute, have consequences none of us would like to know.
Matthew 7:12 "Do for others what you would like them to do for you." Some of us have heard that rules are made to be broken. But we are too smart to break them. We bend them. Just like law, or claiming your tax returns; there's always some way to squeeze or wiggle our way through. Thank God the bible isn't full of loopholes!
The Reciprocal Rule: "Whatever you do for me, that's what I'll do for you; you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours." We do something for someone because we expect something to be done in return. And more often then not, we end up waiting for one another to make the first move. Even when the favour is returned, we get disappointed because it's not we perceived our expectations to be.
Then there is the comparison part. The Ricochet Rule: "Do to someone based on what some other person has done to you." We treat one another based on how we see others treat each other. We give each other "standards" God never intended for us.
Then there is the fine print. The Hidden Motive Rule: "I act like I'm doing it for you, but it's really to get what I want." The ultimate seed of selfishness in the heart!
Let us remember that Love is not selfish. That's it. Let us not wait for one another to act, or compare what we do for each other, or manipulate each other to get what we want. As selfish as we may be, God still believes in us to make the right choices. It's the only reason why we're still here.
Lauzy
Yeah~The cell leader appreciation was so great, but suling is transfer to YA, I even don’t have chance to have same cell with suling. Ok la~, I can go to YA cell with pass all units.
I just handed in two assignments! I only have one assignment left~ Praise God! Thank you God for powerful strength to encouraging me all the way! When I see content of assignment is so big that seem impossible to finish at one night. God is so gentleman; he doesn’t blame me that I left assignment so last minute. He just so encourage and believe that I can do it. That is exactly where peace comes from. Because I saw my classmate just gave up his assignment, all he has just worries and afraid. I think what he really need is not time, it is our God.
So I really want to encourage every sisters and brothers in Christ: Have a nice small talk with God before you start your study and exam to have peace and confident!
When I read this chapter, I want to share about the old jiali. When the old Jiali wasn’t a Christian, She always be a good student for teachers, a good daughter for parents, a good person for society and a good resident for recycle rubbish. =) But until she knows Jesus Christ, she just realized how arrogance and selfish she was. The reason I using “Third person” point of view. Because every time I look back my old time which I hadn’t met Jesus. I feel the old Jiali is so far away from me like ages ago. By God’s mercy, I realize I change so much just in these two years’ time with God’s love and forgiveness. Jesus just kindly pointed out the differences between “Act like loving” and “the Truly Loving”.
Same as Jesus pointed out the differences between “Act like Humility” and “Act with Humility”. I think the most difference is Heart for God, then automatic heart for his people as well. “Act like Humility” is like focusing on yourself. But “Act of humility” is to do with how you think about others and how you think about God. Without the heart, how do I accept other people’s opinion? Without the heart, how much free spaces do I left in my world for other people? Without the heart, how much percentages of you are welcoming God?
Self-focused conceit is equally destructive to relationship. From week 1, we all know that we need to place the highest value on relationships. So, one of high value on relationship we can add in, its humility. The way you talk to people, the way you act, the way you respond, the way you think of other people….all these are reflect what is your attitude to treat people. So can see the importance of humility for building up relationships? Just simply act with humility to shine God’s light~!
Humility is about respect each other, serve each other, to think of others as more important than yourself. When we compare other people with ourselves. Some people might think “I am better than this guy so much in result, why he can get scholarship, he just win at community service. then why I can’t? “Once people come out these questions. It proved how little understanding of humility we have. The true humility is we can’t tell what we good at, from God’s mighty. Then we decided say goodbye to old self, accept God be the only one in our life. When we keep up-holding God among our daily life, we won’t compare with other people anymore. Because our eyes keep focusing on God. Nothing else.
A servant might smarter than his master, but he still keeps his servant’s attitudes to serve his master. A humble servant always do the same for God’s children, no matter how arrogance, how selfish, how mean the children are, the humble servant still respect God’s children. Even treat God’s children as his master, his king. That’s what humility is: put our need last, put others’ need first.
And I really want to share about act with humility for our parents. As we learn so much from 40 days of love. Does anyone of us actually apply what we learn into action on our parents? I hope lots of us do, I hope every daughters and sons of God do, I hope every Christians do. I really hope that. Parents always act with patient, forgiveness, understanding and the most important- LOVE. When we keeping growing up, the world we see is getting bigger, but at same time, our parents getting older, their views or their habits are not updated. Then some of us might think our parents’ thoughts are so old. Sometimes, we just choose to ignore what parents say. Guys, can I just ask same thing what our parents do for us, do it for our parents with patient, humility and LOVE
Lots of LOVE
Jiali
I just handed in two assignments! I only have one assignment left~ Praise God! Thank you God for powerful strength to encouraging me all the way! When I see content of assignment is so big that seem impossible to finish at one night. God is so gentleman; he doesn’t blame me that I left assignment so last minute. He just so encourage and believe that I can do it. That is exactly where peace comes from. Because I saw my classmate just gave up his assignment, all he has just worries and afraid. I think what he really need is not time, it is our God.
So I really want to encourage every sisters and brothers in Christ: Have a nice small talk with God before you start your study and exam to have peace and confident!
When I read this chapter, I want to share about the old jiali. When the old Jiali wasn’t a Christian, She always be a good student for teachers, a good daughter for parents, a good person for society and a good resident for recycle rubbish. =) But until she knows Jesus Christ, she just realized how arrogance and selfish she was. The reason I using “Third person” point of view. Because every time I look back my old time which I hadn’t met Jesus. I feel the old Jiali is so far away from me like ages ago. By God’s mercy, I realize I change so much just in these two years’ time with God’s love and forgiveness. Jesus just kindly pointed out the differences between “Act like loving” and “the Truly Loving”.
Same as Jesus pointed out the differences between “Act like Humility” and “Act with Humility”. I think the most difference is Heart for God, then automatic heart for his people as well. “Act like Humility” is like focusing on yourself. But “Act of humility” is to do with how you think about others and how you think about God. Without the heart, how do I accept other people’s opinion? Without the heart, how much free spaces do I left in my world for other people? Without the heart, how much percentages of you are welcoming God?
Self-focused conceit is equally destructive to relationship. From week 1, we all know that we need to place the highest value on relationships. So, one of high value on relationship we can add in, its humility. The way you talk to people, the way you act, the way you respond, the way you think of other people….all these are reflect what is your attitude to treat people. So can see the importance of humility for building up relationships? Just simply act with humility to shine God’s light~!
Humility is about respect each other, serve each other, to think of others as more important than yourself. When we compare other people with ourselves. Some people might think “I am better than this guy so much in result, why he can get scholarship, he just win at community service. then why I can’t? “Once people come out these questions. It proved how little understanding of humility we have. The true humility is we can’t tell what we good at, from God’s mighty. Then we decided say goodbye to old self, accept God be the only one in our life. When we keep up-holding God among our daily life, we won’t compare with other people anymore. Because our eyes keep focusing on God. Nothing else.
A servant might smarter than his master, but he still keeps his servant’s attitudes to serve his master. A humble servant always do the same for God’s children, no matter how arrogance, how selfish, how mean the children are, the humble servant still respect God’s children. Even treat God’s children as his master, his king. That’s what humility is: put our need last, put others’ need first.
And I really want to share about act with humility for our parents. As we learn so much from 40 days of love. Does anyone of us actually apply what we learn into action on our parents? I hope lots of us do, I hope every daughters and sons of God do, I hope every Christians do. I really hope that. Parents always act with patient, forgiveness, understanding and the most important- LOVE. When we keeping growing up, the world we see is getting bigger, but at same time, our parents getting older, their views or their habits are not updated. Then some of us might think our parents’ thoughts are so old. Sometimes, we just choose to ignore what parents say. Guys, can I just ask same thing what our parents do for us, do it for our parents with patient, humility and LOVE
Lots of LOVE
Jiali
Yeah~The cell leader appreciation was so great, but suling is transfer to YA, I even don’t have chance to have same cell with suling. Ok la~, I can go to YA cell with pass all units.
I just handed in two assignments! I only have one assignment left~ Praise God! Thank you God for powerful strength to encouraging me all the way! When I see content of assignment is so big that seem impossible to finish at one night. God is so gentleman; he doesn’t blame me that I left assignment so last minute. He just so encourage and believe that I can do it. That is exactly where peace comes from. Because I saw my classmate just gave up his assignment, all he has just worries and afraid. I think what he really need is not time, it is our God.
So I really want to encourage every sisters and brothers in Christ: Have a nice small talk with God before you start your study and exam to have peace and confident!
When I read this chapter, I want to share about the old jiali. When the old Jiali wasn’t a Christian, She always be a good student for teachers, a good daughter for parents, a good person for society and a good resident for recycle rubbish. =) But until she knows Jesus Christ, she just realized how arrogance and selfish she was. The reason I using “Third person” point of view. Because every time I look back my old time which I hadn’t met Jesus. I feel the old Jiali is so far away from me like ages ago. By God’s mercy, I realize I change so much just in these two years’ time with God’s love and forgiveness. Jesus just kindly pointed out the differences between “Act like loving” and “the Truly Loving”.
Same as Jesus pointed out the differences between “Act like Humility” and “Act with Humility”. I think the most difference is Heart for God, then automatic heart for his people as well. “Act like Humility” is like focusing on yourself. But “Act of humility” is to do with how you think about others and how you think about God. Without the heart, how do I accept other people’s opinion? Without the heart, how much free spaces do I left in my world for other people? Without the heart, how much percentages of you are welcoming God?
Self-focused conceit is equally destructive to relationship. From week 1, we all know that we need to place the highest value on relationships. So, one of high value on relationship we can add in, its humility. The way you talk to people, the way you act, the way you respond, the way you think of other people….all these are reflect what is your attitude to treat people. So can see the importance of humility for building up relationships? Just simply act with humility to shine God’s light~!
Humility is about respect each other, serve each other, to think of others as more important than yourself. When we compare other people with ourselves. Some people might think “I am better than this guy so much in result, why he can get scholarship, he just win at community service. then why I can’t? “Once people come out these questions. It proved how little understanding of humility we have. The true humility is we can’t tell what we good at, from God’s mighty. Then we decided say goodbye to old self, accept God be the only one in our life. When we keep up-holding God among our daily life, we won’t compare with other people anymore. Because our eyes keep focusing on God. Nothing else.
A servant might smarter than his master, but he still keeps his servant’s attitudes to serve his master. A humble servant always do the same for God’s children, no matter how arrogance, how selfish, how mean the children are, the humble servant still respect God’s children. Even treat God’s children as his master, his king. That’s what humility is: put our need last, put others’ need first.
And I really want to share about act with humility for our parents. As we learn so much from 40 days of love. Does anyone of us actually apply what we learn into action on our parents? I hope lots of us do, I hope every daughters and sons of God do, I hope every Christians do. I really hope that. Parents always act with patient, forgiveness, understanding and the most important- LOVE. When we keeping growing up, the world we see is getting bigger, but at same time, our parents getting older, their views or their habits are not updated. Then some of us might think our parents’ thoughts are so old. Sometimes, we just choose to ignore what parents say. Guys, can I just ask same thing what our parents do for us, do it for our parents with patient, humility and LOVE
Lots of LOVE
Jiali
I just handed in two assignments! I only have one assignment left~ Praise God! Thank you God for powerful strength to encouraging me all the way! When I see content of assignment is so big that seem impossible to finish at one night. God is so gentleman; he doesn’t blame me that I left assignment so last minute. He just so encourage and believe that I can do it. That is exactly where peace comes from. Because I saw my classmate just gave up his assignment, all he has just worries and afraid. I think what he really need is not time, it is our God.
So I really want to encourage every sisters and brothers in Christ: Have a nice small talk with God before you start your study and exam to have peace and confident!
When I read this chapter, I want to share about the old jiali. When the old Jiali wasn’t a Christian, She always be a good student for teachers, a good daughter for parents, a good person for society and a good resident for recycle rubbish. =) But until she knows Jesus Christ, she just realized how arrogance and selfish she was. The reason I using “Third person” point of view. Because every time I look back my old time which I hadn’t met Jesus. I feel the old Jiali is so far away from me like ages ago. By God’s mercy, I realize I change so much just in these two years’ time with God’s love and forgiveness. Jesus just kindly pointed out the differences between “Act like loving” and “the Truly Loving”.
Same as Jesus pointed out the differences between “Act like Humility” and “Act with Humility”. I think the most difference is Heart for God, then automatic heart for his people as well. “Act like Humility” is like focusing on yourself. But “Act of humility” is to do with how you think about others and how you think about God. Without the heart, how do I accept other people’s opinion? Without the heart, how much free spaces do I left in my world for other people? Without the heart, how much percentages of you are welcoming God?
Self-focused conceit is equally destructive to relationship. From week 1, we all know that we need to place the highest value on relationships. So, one of high value on relationship we can add in, its humility. The way you talk to people, the way you act, the way you respond, the way you think of other people….all these are reflect what is your attitude to treat people. So can see the importance of humility for building up relationships? Just simply act with humility to shine God’s light~!
Humility is about respect each other, serve each other, to think of others as more important than yourself. When we compare other people with ourselves. Some people might think “I am better than this guy so much in result, why he can get scholarship, he just win at community service. then why I can’t? “Once people come out these questions. It proved how little understanding of humility we have. The true humility is we can’t tell what we good at, from God’s mighty. Then we decided say goodbye to old self, accept God be the only one in our life. When we keep up-holding God among our daily life, we won’t compare with other people anymore. Because our eyes keep focusing on God. Nothing else.
A servant might smarter than his master, but he still keeps his servant’s attitudes to serve his master. A humble servant always do the same for God’s children, no matter how arrogance, how selfish, how mean the children are, the humble servant still respect God’s children. Even treat God’s children as his master, his king. That’s what humility is: put our need last, put others’ need first.
And I really want to share about act with humility for our parents. As we learn so much from 40 days of love. Does anyone of us actually apply what we learn into action on our parents? I hope lots of us do, I hope every daughters and sons of God do, I hope every Christians do. I really hope that. Parents always act with patient, forgiveness, understanding and the most important- LOVE. When we keeping growing up, the world we see is getting bigger, but at same time, our parents getting older, their views or their habits are not updated. Then some of us might think our parents’ thoughts are so old. Sometimes, we just choose to ignore what parents say. Guys, can I just ask same thing what our parents do for us, do it for our parents with patient, humility and LOVE
Lots of LOVE
Jiali
Since we began the 40 days of love, what struck me time and time again as the days went by was that loving like Jesus loves is HARD. We can't possibly begin to love the way that He does. That is why we need to depend on God and let Him love through us.
In John 15:1-8, Jesus teaches that He is the vine, we are the branches and God is the gardener. Jesus is the vine. Sometimes we try to do things, try to love based on our own strength and abilities and we may be able to succeed... for a while. But as humans, we grow weary, we want a break from having to keep giving and giving. The reason this happens is that we're depending on our own strength to love but instead we should shift our source to Jesus, who demonstrates perfect, unconditional, unlimited love and allow His love to fill us and flow through us to the people around us.
We are the branches and as branches we need the vine to grow and get nutrients. If we are separated from the vine at any time, we will only wither and die away. Again, this is why we need to always depend on Jesus or else we will just get tired as we go along. When a branch draws its nutrients from the vine, it will bear fruit according to the vine which it is attached to. So check your source. Is your source the expectation of being appreciated and recognized? Is your source the desire to please others with acts of love? Or is Jesus your source and you want His will to be done in your life? Your fruits will reflect what type of vine you are attached to so let your source be in Jesus so you are made more and more like Him.
God is our gardener. He is the one who tends to us to ensure that we grow as much as we can. Unfortunately, the time when growth is more effective is the time when we are put under pressure, when the situation forces us to grow. So sometimes, God prunes us in order to encourage us to grow. Pruning will be painful and usually at that time we won't know the reason God decided to chop off this part of our life, or bring in circumstances that are challenging to us. Don't freak out because after that period of pruning and pain, there is growth and the bearing of fruit. Most of the time, we actually need the pain and the extrication out of our comfort zone so that we would be able to grow. So don't look at painful situations negatively but look at it as an opportunity to learn something and to grow.
Let us stop depending on our own strength in loving others but to put Jesus as our source and to let God prune us to be more and more like Him =)
In John 15:1-8, Jesus teaches that He is the vine, we are the branches and God is the gardener. Jesus is the vine. Sometimes we try to do things, try to love based on our own strength and abilities and we may be able to succeed... for a while. But as humans, we grow weary, we want a break from having to keep giving and giving. The reason this happens is that we're depending on our own strength to love but instead we should shift our source to Jesus, who demonstrates perfect, unconditional, unlimited love and allow His love to fill us and flow through us to the people around us.
We are the branches and as branches we need the vine to grow and get nutrients. If we are separated from the vine at any time, we will only wither and die away. Again, this is why we need to always depend on Jesus or else we will just get tired as we go along. When a branch draws its nutrients from the vine, it will bear fruit according to the vine which it is attached to. So check your source. Is your source the expectation of being appreciated and recognized? Is your source the desire to please others with acts of love? Or is Jesus your source and you want His will to be done in your life? Your fruits will reflect what type of vine you are attached to so let your source be in Jesus so you are made more and more like Him.
God is our gardener. He is the one who tends to us to ensure that we grow as much as we can. Unfortunately, the time when growth is more effective is the time when we are put under pressure, when the situation forces us to grow. So sometimes, God prunes us in order to encourage us to grow. Pruning will be painful and usually at that time we won't know the reason God decided to chop off this part of our life, or bring in circumstances that are challenging to us. Don't freak out because after that period of pruning and pain, there is growth and the bearing of fruit. Most of the time, we actually need the pain and the extrication out of our comfort zone so that we would be able to grow. So don't look at painful situations negatively but look at it as an opportunity to learn something and to grow.
Let us stop depending on our own strength in loving others but to put Jesus as our source and to let God prune us to be more and more like Him =)
Since we began the 40 days of love, what struck me time and time again as the days went by was that loving like Jesus loves is HARD. We can't possibly begin to love the way that He does. That is why we need to depend on God and let Him love through us.
In John 15:1-8, Jesus teaches that He is the vine, we are the branches and God is the gardener. Jesus is the vine. Sometimes we try to do things, try to love based on our own strength and abilities and we may be able to succeed... for a while. But as humans, we grow weary, we want a break from having to keep giving and giving. The reason this happens is that we're depending on our own strength to love but instead we should shift our source to Jesus, who demonstrates perfect, unconditional, unlimited love and allow His love to fill us and flow through us to the people around us.
We are the branches and as branches we need the vine to grow and get nutrients. If we are separated from the vine at any time, we will only wither and die away. Again, this is why we need to always depend on Jesus or else we will just get tired as we go along. When a branch draws its nutrients from the vine, it will bear fruit according to the vine which it is attached to. So check your source. Is your source the expectation of being appreciated and recognized? Is your source the desire to please others with acts of love? Or is Jesus your source and you want His will to be done in your life? Your fruits will reflect what type of vine you are attached to so let your source be in Jesus so you are made more and more like Him.
God is our gardener. He is the one who tends to us to ensure that we grow as much as we can. Unfortunately, the time when growth is more effective is the time when we are put under pressure, when the situation forces us to grow. So sometimes, God prunes us in order to encourage us to grow. Pruning will be painful and usually at that time we won't know the reason God decided to chop off this part of our life, or bring in circumstances that are challenging to us. Don't freak out because after that period of pruning and pain, there is growth and the bearing of fruit. Most of the time, we actually need the pain and the extrication out of our comfort zone so that we would be able to grow. So don't look at painful situations negatively but look at it as an opportunity to learn something and to grow.
Let us stop depending on our own strength in loving others but to put Jesus as our source and to let God prune us to be more and more like Him =)
In John 15:1-8, Jesus teaches that He is the vine, we are the branches and God is the gardener. Jesus is the vine. Sometimes we try to do things, try to love based on our own strength and abilities and we may be able to succeed... for a while. But as humans, we grow weary, we want a break from having to keep giving and giving. The reason this happens is that we're depending on our own strength to love but instead we should shift our source to Jesus, who demonstrates perfect, unconditional, unlimited love and allow His love to fill us and flow through us to the people around us.
We are the branches and as branches we need the vine to grow and get nutrients. If we are separated from the vine at any time, we will only wither and die away. Again, this is why we need to always depend on Jesus or else we will just get tired as we go along. When a branch draws its nutrients from the vine, it will bear fruit according to the vine which it is attached to. So check your source. Is your source the expectation of being appreciated and recognized? Is your source the desire to please others with acts of love? Or is Jesus your source and you want His will to be done in your life? Your fruits will reflect what type of vine you are attached to so let your source be in Jesus so you are made more and more like Him.
God is our gardener. He is the one who tends to us to ensure that we grow as much as we can. Unfortunately, the time when growth is more effective is the time when we are put under pressure, when the situation forces us to grow. So sometimes, God prunes us in order to encourage us to grow. Pruning will be painful and usually at that time we won't know the reason God decided to chop off this part of our life, or bring in circumstances that are challenging to us. Don't freak out because after that period of pruning and pain, there is growth and the bearing of fruit. Most of the time, we actually need the pain and the extrication out of our comfort zone so that we would be able to grow. So don't look at painful situations negatively but look at it as an opportunity to learn something and to grow.
Let us stop depending on our own strength in loving others but to put Jesus as our source and to let God prune us to be more and more like Him =)
Hey guys!!
This chapter really speaks to my heart. 1 Corinthians 13 of the Good Book states that if we do not love, we become a "resounding gong or a clanging cymbal", we are "nothing" and sadly "gain nothing". And in the same way, ( or at least to me) if we go out loving others whilst not managing our relationship with God, we really missed the point!
What Pastor Holladay spoke about the Pharisee really hit me. No good Christian ever intends to distance themselves from the Father, especially after being touched by His sweet presence and feeling His all empowering love, peace and joy. But what scares me is that we can become like the Pharisee, sliding away from God and into sin step by step, rule by rule, condemnation of others after condemnation of others.
And before we know it, we become one of those holier than thou hypocrites. So how do we stop ourselves from heading down that dark dark alley? Easy. When you find yourselves standing in your own personal greatness, whether it is topping the class in the exams or coming up with the solution to a multi-billion dollar headache or managing to tie your shoelaces, ask yourself ... Will I exalt myself, or will I humble myself?
Here's a trade secret friends, if you could think this thought while experiencing your personal greatness then half the battle is already won and you're on the right path ... now just leaves choosing to being humble! But if you didn't think of it (or if you know someone who has this problem) then the ONLY solution is to spend more time on our knees praying, there's no two ways around it!
Diamonds are the of the hardest materials on this earth, (which is probably why women become hard-hearted after getting their diamond?) but even the diamond can be eroded away little by little by digging on raw dirt at the hands of a drill. And that can be us as we eroding away little by little by sliding little by little away from God towards self-efficiency.
So friends, let us not be like the house built on sand that is easily swept away, but be the one that is built on the firm foundation of Christ. Let's stop sliding around with the world and start standing up for what we believe, let's stop thinking so highly of ourselves but start humbling ourselves in front of THE high King.
We are nothing without God my friends, so let's make it a lifestyle depending on God and let the floodgates of love and blessings start rolling out the goods!
Be blessed!
Max
This chapter really speaks to my heart. 1 Corinthians 13 of the Good Book states that if we do not love, we become a "resounding gong or a clanging cymbal", we are "nothing" and sadly "gain nothing". And in the same way, ( or at least to me) if we go out loving others whilst not managing our relationship with God, we really missed the point!
What Pastor Holladay spoke about the Pharisee really hit me. No good Christian ever intends to distance themselves from the Father, especially after being touched by His sweet presence and feeling His all empowering love, peace and joy. But what scares me is that we can become like the Pharisee, sliding away from God and into sin step by step, rule by rule, condemnation of others after condemnation of others.
And before we know it, we become one of those holier than thou hypocrites. So how do we stop ourselves from heading down that dark dark alley? Easy. When you find yourselves standing in your own personal greatness, whether it is topping the class in the exams or coming up with the solution to a multi-billion dollar headache or managing to tie your shoelaces, ask yourself ... Will I exalt myself, or will I humble myself?
Here's a trade secret friends, if you could think this thought while experiencing your personal greatness then half the battle is already won and you're on the right path ... now just leaves choosing to being humble! But if you didn't think of it (or if you know someone who has this problem) then the ONLY solution is to spend more time on our knees praying, there's no two ways around it!
Diamonds are the of the hardest materials on this earth, (which is probably why women become hard-hearted after getting their diamond?) but even the diamond can be eroded away little by little by digging on raw dirt at the hands of a drill. And that can be us as we eroding away little by little by sliding little by little away from God towards self-efficiency.
So friends, let us not be like the house built on sand that is easily swept away, but be the one that is built on the firm foundation of Christ. Let's stop sliding around with the world and start standing up for what we believe, let's stop thinking so highly of ourselves but start humbling ourselves in front of THE high King.
We are nothing without God my friends, so let's make it a lifestyle depending on God and let the floodgates of love and blessings start rolling out the goods!
Be blessed!
Max
Hey guys!!
This chapter really speaks to my heart. 1 Corinthians 13 of the Good Book states that if we do not love, we become a "resounding gong or a clanging cymbal", we are "nothing" and sadly "gain nothing". And in the same way, ( or at least to me) if we go out loving others whilst not managing our relationship with God, we really missed the point!
What Pastor Holladay spoke about the Pharisee really hit me. No good Christian ever intends to distance themselves from the Father, especially after being touched by His sweet presence and feeling His all empowering love, peace and joy. But what scares me is that we can become like the Pharisee, sliding away from God and into sin step by step, rule by rule, condemnation of others after condemnation of others.
And before we know it, we become one of those holier than thou hypocrites. So how do we stop ourselves from heading down that dark dark alley? Easy. When you find yourselves standing in your own personal greatness, whether it is topping the class in the exams or coming up with the solution to a multi-billion dollar headache or managing to tie your shoelaces, ask yourself ... Will I exalt myself, or will I humble myself?
Here's a trade secret friends, if you could think this thought while experiencing your personal greatness then half the battle is already won and you're on the right path ... now just leaves choosing to being humble! But if you didn't think of it (or if you know someone who has this problem) then the ONLY solution is to spend more time on our knees praying, there's no two ways around it!
Diamonds are the of the hardest materials on this earth, (which is probably why women become hard-hearted after getting their diamond?) but even the diamond can be eroded away little by little by digging on raw dirt at the hands of a drill. And that can be us as we eroding away little by little by sliding little by little away from God towards self-efficiency.
So friends, let us not be like the house built on sand that is easily swept away, but be the one that is built on the firm foundation of Christ. Let's stop sliding around with the world and start standing up for what we believe, let's stop thinking so highly of ourselves but start humbling ourselves in front of THE high King.
We are nothing without God my friends, so let's make it a lifestyle depending on God and let the floodgates of love and blessings start rolling out the goods!
Be blessed!
Max
This chapter really speaks to my heart. 1 Corinthians 13 of the Good Book states that if we do not love, we become a "resounding gong or a clanging cymbal", we are "nothing" and sadly "gain nothing". And in the same way, ( or at least to me) if we go out loving others whilst not managing our relationship with God, we really missed the point!
What Pastor Holladay spoke about the Pharisee really hit me. No good Christian ever intends to distance themselves from the Father, especially after being touched by His sweet presence and feeling His all empowering love, peace and joy. But what scares me is that we can become like the Pharisee, sliding away from God and into sin step by step, rule by rule, condemnation of others after condemnation of others.
And before we know it, we become one of those holier than thou hypocrites. So how do we stop ourselves from heading down that dark dark alley? Easy. When you find yourselves standing in your own personal greatness, whether it is topping the class in the exams or coming up with the solution to a multi-billion dollar headache or managing to tie your shoelaces, ask yourself ... Will I exalt myself, or will I humble myself?
Here's a trade secret friends, if you could think this thought while experiencing your personal greatness then half the battle is already won and you're on the right path ... now just leaves choosing to being humble! But if you didn't think of it (or if you know someone who has this problem) then the ONLY solution is to spend more time on our knees praying, there's no two ways around it!
Diamonds are the of the hardest materials on this earth, (which is probably why women become hard-hearted after getting their diamond?) but even the diamond can be eroded away little by little by digging on raw dirt at the hands of a drill. And that can be us as we eroding away little by little by sliding little by little away from God towards self-efficiency.
So friends, let us not be like the house built on sand that is easily swept away, but be the one that is built on the firm foundation of Christ. Let's stop sliding around with the world and start standing up for what we believe, let's stop thinking so highly of ourselves but start humbling ourselves in front of THE high King.
We are nothing without God my friends, so let's make it a lifestyle depending on God and let the floodgates of love and blessings start rolling out the goods!
Be blessed!
Max
Hey Guys!!!
Combined Cell is here!! Are we excited?! I know I am!! Although, not so much that the exams are drawing closer, but heck ... all the more we should go out and have every bit of fun before the books consume our lives!!
Here are the details!
Place: Mount Claremont Community Centre (not to be mistaken for Claremont)
Room: Banksia Room (not to be mistaken for bad english "bank - siaaaa")
Time: 720pm for 730pm start
Directions are below, click on the map or HERE.
View Larger Map
See you guys there!!! God bless and get ready for an awesome/amazing/crazy/out-of-the-world/one-and-only UWA experience!!
Laters!
Max
Combined Cell Coordinator
on behalf of
Leonel Cheong
Combined Cell Scapegoat for-anything-that-can-possibly-go-wrong
Combined Cell is here!! Are we excited?! I know I am!! Although, not so much that the exams are drawing closer, but heck ... all the more we should go out and have every bit of fun before the books consume our lives!!
Here are the details!
Place: Mount Claremont Community Centre (not to be mistaken for Claremont)
Room: Banksia Room (not to be mistaken for bad english "bank - siaaaa")
Time: 720pm for 730pm start
Directions are below, click on the map or HERE.
View Larger Map
See you guys there!!! God bless and get ready for an awesome/amazing/crazy/out-of-the-world/one-and-only UWA experience!!
Laters!
Max
Combined Cell Coordinator
on behalf of
Leonel Cheong
Combined Cell Scapegoat for-anything-that-can-possibly-go-wrong
Hey Guys!!!
Combined Cell is here!! Are we excited?! I know I am!! Although, not so much that the exams are drawing closer, but heck ... all the more we should go out and have every bit of fun before the books consume our lives!!
Here are the details!
Place: Mount Claremont Community Centre (not to be mistaken for Claremont)
Room: Banksia Room (not to be mistaken for bad english "bank - siaaaa")
Time: 720pm for 730pm start
Directions are below, click on the map or HERE.
View Larger Map
See you guys there!!! God bless and get ready for an awesome/amazing/crazy/out-of-the-world/one-and-only UWA experience!!
Laters!
Max
Combined Cell Coordinator
on behalf of
Leonel Cheong
Combined Cell Scapegoat for-anything-that-can-possibly-go-wrong
Combined Cell is here!! Are we excited?! I know I am!! Although, not so much that the exams are drawing closer, but heck ... all the more we should go out and have every bit of fun before the books consume our lives!!
Here are the details!
Place: Mount Claremont Community Centre (not to be mistaken for Claremont)
Room: Banksia Room (not to be mistaken for bad english "bank - siaaaa")
Time: 720pm for 730pm start
Directions are below, click on the map or HERE.
View Larger Map
See you guys there!!! God bless and get ready for an awesome/amazing/crazy/out-of-the-world/one-and-only UWA experience!!
Laters!
Max
Combined Cell Coordinator
on behalf of
Leonel Cheong
Combined Cell Scapegoat for-anything-that-can-possibly-go-wrong
The very first thing that caught my attention was about being immersed in oneself. The get-yourself-to-heaven-recipe. Loathing very much to admit it, at times, we get too caught up with this whole let there be more fruits lifestyle.
Not gonna be place side by side with slowpokes, I drown my tree with the daily readings of God, with an overflow of prayer and tithed a lil more for extra growth, my tree is bound to be very much fruitful! c'mon tree, i command you to bear fruits!! maybe I should add a touch of fasting, that might be the magic.
but with nothing to do with my roots in Jesus, to be fruitful is somewhat a distinct dream come true. yet i yearn and i burn for that #1 most fruitful acknowledgment and i'll do all it takes. i'll uproot weeds around me, lil pwuuny slow growing plants. shooo!! don't take my sunshine!
i kept making sure no one would grow pass me but as much as i dislike the forces of nature, i have to realise that the once tiny plants around me are starting to ctach up and as i kept fighting to stay atop, to grow when my roots are cut from the Source, i grow weak and don't have the energy to push myself upwards.
i revert to my own zone while secretly still lusting for the top place. maybe, i'm not tithing enough, maybe i should increase my daily readings, maybe fasting a lil longer would help. i questioned myself as to how could they being as noob as they are be able to catch up with me when i have everything at the back of my head. am i missing something?
when all this time, it's my roots that had been cut off from the Source because my focus was wrong. i kept focusing on the fruits not knowing that it's the roots that matter most. i kept focusing on ho wmuch fruits i have to produce when i should be focusing on my roots drawing on the right resources. now if i were to get my roots in the right place, my fruits will grow!
and when my roots are in the right place, i will be humble! i will help those lil pwunny plants along the way. one thing that was really spoke to me. it's not how useful i can be to God, it' how much i'm allowing God to show forth His power through me. so even if i'm remain a tiny plant when my brothers and sisters are making their way to the top and all i see is their bottom, i believe i can make a difference! i shall make shelter for my fellow ants to shy away the sorching heat and gaints raindrops. with the little i have, i use it to the fullest. thus my ants friends will know that it's really because my roots are strong, that's why i can give shelter.
i'm sure that we not only compare ourselves to earthly standards but to 'holy' standards. why is God blessing him more when I prayed and fasted more. Why am i not having as many revelations? Why am do i still fail after countless of effort and immeasurable faith in Christ while the slackers gets away with it slacking!
It's time we stop comparing, stop focusing on how fruitful we should be but how our roots should be in the right place to absorbed all that God is, to allow His POWER to flow through us.
God Bless U
Not gonna be place side by side with slowpokes, I drown my tree with the daily readings of God, with an overflow of prayer and tithed a lil more for extra growth, my tree is bound to be very much fruitful! c'mon tree, i command you to bear fruits!! maybe I should add a touch of fasting, that might be the magic.
but with nothing to do with my roots in Jesus, to be fruitful is somewhat a distinct dream come true. yet i yearn and i burn for that #1 most fruitful acknowledgment and i'll do all it takes. i'll uproot weeds around me, lil pwuuny slow growing plants. shooo!! don't take my sunshine!
i kept making sure no one would grow pass me but as much as i dislike the forces of nature, i have to realise that the once tiny plants around me are starting to ctach up and as i kept fighting to stay atop, to grow when my roots are cut from the Source, i grow weak and don't have the energy to push myself upwards.
i revert to my own zone while secretly still lusting for the top place. maybe, i'm not tithing enough, maybe i should increase my daily readings, maybe fasting a lil longer would help. i questioned myself as to how could they being as noob as they are be able to catch up with me when i have everything at the back of my head. am i missing something?
when all this time, it's my roots that had been cut off from the Source because my focus was wrong. i kept focusing on the fruits not knowing that it's the roots that matter most. i kept focusing on ho wmuch fruits i have to produce when i should be focusing on my roots drawing on the right resources. now if i were to get my roots in the right place, my fruits will grow!
and when my roots are in the right place, i will be humble! i will help those lil pwunny plants along the way. one thing that was really spoke to me. it's not how useful i can be to God, it' how much i'm allowing God to show forth His power through me. so even if i'm remain a tiny plant when my brothers and sisters are making their way to the top and all i see is their bottom, i believe i can make a difference! i shall make shelter for my fellow ants to shy away the sorching heat and gaints raindrops. with the little i have, i use it to the fullest. thus my ants friends will know that it's really because my roots are strong, that's why i can give shelter.
i'm sure that we not only compare ourselves to earthly standards but to 'holy' standards. why is God blessing him more when I prayed and fasted more. Why am i not having as many revelations? Why am do i still fail after countless of effort and immeasurable faith in Christ while the slackers gets away with it slacking!
It's time we stop comparing, stop focusing on how fruitful we should be but how our roots should be in the right place to absorbed all that God is, to allow His POWER to flow through us.
God Bless U
The very first thing that caught my attention was about being immersed in oneself. The get-yourself-to-heaven-recipe. Loathing very much to admit it, at times, we get too caught up with this whole let there be more fruits lifestyle.
Not gonna be place side by side with slowpokes, I drown my tree with the daily readings of God, with an overflow of prayer and tithed a lil more for extra growth, my tree is bound to be very much fruitful! c'mon tree, i command you to bear fruits!! maybe I should add a touch of fasting, that might be the magic.
but with nothing to do with my roots in Jesus, to be fruitful is somewhat a distinct dream come true. yet i yearn and i burn for that #1 most fruitful acknowledgment and i'll do all it takes. i'll uproot weeds around me, lil pwuuny slow growing plants. shooo!! don't take my sunshine!
i kept making sure no one would grow pass me but as much as i dislike the forces of nature, i have to realise that the once tiny plants around me are starting to ctach up and as i kept fighting to stay atop, to grow when my roots are cut from the Source, i grow weak and don't have the energy to push myself upwards.
i revert to my own zone while secretly still lusting for the top place. maybe, i'm not tithing enough, maybe i should increase my daily readings, maybe fasting a lil longer would help. i questioned myself as to how could they being as noob as they are be able to catch up with me when i have everything at the back of my head. am i missing something?
when all this time, it's my roots that had been cut off from the Source because my focus was wrong. i kept focusing on the fruits not knowing that it's the roots that matter most. i kept focusing on ho wmuch fruits i have to produce when i should be focusing on my roots drawing on the right resources. now if i were to get my roots in the right place, my fruits will grow!
and when my roots are in the right place, i will be humble! i will help those lil pwunny plants along the way. one thing that was really spoke to me. it's not how useful i can be to God, it' how much i'm allowing God to show forth His power through me. so even if i'm remain a tiny plant when my brothers and sisters are making their way to the top and all i see is their bottom, i believe i can make a difference! i shall make shelter for my fellow ants to shy away the sorching heat and gaints raindrops. with the little i have, i use it to the fullest. thus my ants friends will know that it's really because my roots are strong, that's why i can give shelter.
i'm sure that we not only compare ourselves to earthly standards but to 'holy' standards. why is God blessing him more when I prayed and fasted more. Why am i not having as many revelations? Why am do i still fail after countless of effort and immeasurable faith in Christ while the slackers gets away with it slacking!
It's time we stop comparing, stop focusing on how fruitful we should be but how our roots should be in the right place to absorbed all that God is, to allow His POWER to flow through us.
God Bless U
Not gonna be place side by side with slowpokes, I drown my tree with the daily readings of God, with an overflow of prayer and tithed a lil more for extra growth, my tree is bound to be very much fruitful! c'mon tree, i command you to bear fruits!! maybe I should add a touch of fasting, that might be the magic.
but with nothing to do with my roots in Jesus, to be fruitful is somewhat a distinct dream come true. yet i yearn and i burn for that #1 most fruitful acknowledgment and i'll do all it takes. i'll uproot weeds around me, lil pwuuny slow growing plants. shooo!! don't take my sunshine!
i kept making sure no one would grow pass me but as much as i dislike the forces of nature, i have to realise that the once tiny plants around me are starting to ctach up and as i kept fighting to stay atop, to grow when my roots are cut from the Source, i grow weak and don't have the energy to push myself upwards.
i revert to my own zone while secretly still lusting for the top place. maybe, i'm not tithing enough, maybe i should increase my daily readings, maybe fasting a lil longer would help. i questioned myself as to how could they being as noob as they are be able to catch up with me when i have everything at the back of my head. am i missing something?
when all this time, it's my roots that had been cut off from the Source because my focus was wrong. i kept focusing on the fruits not knowing that it's the roots that matter most. i kept focusing on ho wmuch fruits i have to produce when i should be focusing on my roots drawing on the right resources. now if i were to get my roots in the right place, my fruits will grow!
and when my roots are in the right place, i will be humble! i will help those lil pwunny plants along the way. one thing that was really spoke to me. it's not how useful i can be to God, it' how much i'm allowing God to show forth His power through me. so even if i'm remain a tiny plant when my brothers and sisters are making their way to the top and all i see is their bottom, i believe i can make a difference! i shall make shelter for my fellow ants to shy away the sorching heat and gaints raindrops. with the little i have, i use it to the fullest. thus my ants friends will know that it's really because my roots are strong, that's why i can give shelter.
i'm sure that we not only compare ourselves to earthly standards but to 'holy' standards. why is God blessing him more when I prayed and fasted more. Why am i not having as many revelations? Why am do i still fail after countless of effort and immeasurable faith in Christ while the slackers gets away with it slacking!
It's time we stop comparing, stop focusing on how fruitful we should be but how our roots should be in the right place to absorbed all that God is, to allow His POWER to flow through us.
God Bless U
To be honest, at first I thought this is just another random joker talking on YouTube about what he thinks after reading the book. But, I was very soon put to shame as the message that he shares contains some profound insights that I think we all would need to learn from.
I would like to start with this verse. Matthew 23:5-7 "Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi.'
They Make Their Phylacteries Wide (Materials)
Oh yeah! I can still remember the days when i yearn for a Kikilala t-shirt when I was young and mum gave it to me. Then, when I grew older, I start to yearn for brands such as, Addidas, Nike, Converse, etc and I went out to get it too. And now, goodness...I am starting to set my eyes on stuff such as Fossil, Armani, Jack London...gg.
The point is I will never be satisfied with what I want! Once I got something, I will yearn for something more! All these flashy brands are not for me to see as I am wearing it. Obviously, it is to attract attention.
God knows that we need all the attention in the world that's why He gave us all the attention in the world! Deuteronomy 31:8 "The Lord will never leave you nor forsake you". Are you humble enough to trust Him and forgo your earthly desires?
They Love the Place of Honour at Banquets (Events)
We all enjoy big flashy gala events. The more important you are the more prestigious events you will attend. The way the world paint it makes the people who are not invited to those events feel less important.
Do you still remember the aching feeling when you are not invited to a friend's birthday party when the whole class is invited? Do you still remember the feeling of loneliness when most of your friends are busy visiting houses during Chinese New Year and you are not invited? Do you still remember the time when a bunch of friends are happily talking in a group but the moment you join in they all disperse? Yes, we all have the need to feel involved either directly or indirectly in certain events or activities if not we will feel less important, lonely and even rejected.
However, once we have all these. We yearn for more events. Bigger, grander, more prestigious ones! Nothing can satisfy our ever growing yearnings. How to handle this ever growing need to be noticed? The Parable of the Great Banquet. Luke 13:16 "Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the Kingdom of God". The true banquet lies in the Kingdom of Heaven where the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind will be invited.
They Love to Have Men Call Them "Rabbi" (Title)
Titles! Who does not yearn for titles? Everyone does! Don't believe me? Just try taking away the surname of the title Mrs xxx from any wife and see whether the husband will come hunting for you.
Similarly, the importance of title is greatly magnified in Malaysia. Just put a simple Datuk (Sir) in front of your name. I guarantee that your applications will be approved faster, your land lease will be longer, queuing up will be something of a past and even getting out of trouble with police will be easier! With all these, who does not yearn to have a big flashy title in front of their name?
And what happen when we got the title? We want more control, more power! And with every power added to us, we yearn for even more! In the end, we become so power crazed that we become irrational, greedy and even resort to blackmail, murder, arson, etc just to gain more power! However, Jesus Christ taught us how to handle this need. Luke 18:14 " For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted".
Noticing the Needs of Others
Let me end this with a few verses from the bible.
Matthew 6:25-27 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. 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? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
Stop worrying now!
Matthew 22:39 "Love your neighbour as yourself".
Have you seen anyone that has a need that you can fulfill lately?
