Sanctification Weekend (Day 1) Reflections

Scripture Reading: Exodus 33 (Important to read it!)

Which do we want more in our daily living?

Successes in life or The Presence of God?

Many times we struggle, argue, pursue and stubbornly demand from God certain blessings and successes in our lives. When we don't get it, we even dare to blame God. In God's mercy, love and his everlasting covenant to bless His children, He WILL still give us these successes. However, just like what happened to the Israelites, His Presence will not go with us.

We can have the greatest success in every phase of our lives...

As a student, the best results....

In our career, earning the most money with the best job....

And even as a church leader, the largest ministry with many people following....

What do these amount to when even the Presence of God is not with us? NOTHING!

May God break our hearts in realizing and understanding that without His Presence, every successes will amount to nothing! It is coming to realize that without God, we are nothing.

True brokeness is coming back to understanding that what we need more in our lives is more of God and not just more of successes.

Reflection:

Are you sick and tired of living your Christian faith just like Sunday christian? Are you struggling through your Christian walk where it feels like momentary good times and perpetually downfalls?

Maybe it is really because we have not hungered and thirst for the Presence of God in our lives. We have allowed our lives to revolve around successes rather than God!

Realign our hearts today. If there are any false gods or idols in our lives, cast them away and set our hearts right to walk in intimacy with God.

Handling Failures in Life

Problems/stress/challenges in life just seems to be neverending. Just when you seem to have navigated around one, the next bigger one lurks somewhere around waiting to pounce on you. We all would wish that God could just snap his fingers and make all problems disappear and we could have a hinderance-free life... think again.

Life is never all about successes. In fact, the contradiction about life is that we grow and learn through tough times. Not that we crave for bad things to happen, but whenever it does hit us, if we learn to navigate through and rise up above it, we become stronger than before. If we can't, then we will forever be stuck there wallowing in defeat.

Let me share with you the 4 Keys to Victory over Failures:

1. Acknowledge your feelings. It is Ok to feel sad or unhappy whenever a crisis hit us. We are humans and there is a place where we need to acknowledge that feeling. Take note here. Feeling sad is different from eating worms or being depressed. Depression and worm-eating are outward manifested conditions of an unhealthy soul. So acknowledge the sadness. But don't just stop there....

2. Pause and reflect the lesson learnt. Pause and take a big picture snap shot at the whole situation that has happened. What are some areas that I can improve or better prepare on? It is like analyzing and taking stocks on how come you lost the battle. Now that's not all....

3. Decide to pick yourself up. Now this is the hardest part but yet the most critical. This is the tipping point of overcoming adversities, but yet once gone over, you life will br brighter than noonday. Friends and family can give you support and encouragement, but the key still lies from within us. As Christian, we can tap on the greater strength that has been give to us and that is GOD! Draw strength from His Word by claiming His promises and commands!

4. Make plans and move on. Stop standing there licking your sore wounds from the defeat. Having evaluated and risen up, it is time to move on. Strategize, plan and make preparations how you would tackle the next battle that comes along. It can be coming up with a 'realisitic' study schedule, or accountability steps with your leaders...etc Each battle comes with a different battle plan.

This is the promise of God for us:
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. - 2 Corinthians 4:7-9

Are we tapping our strength from it? Are we living out the word of God? Or do we just allow failures and challenges of life to sweep us away?

Cell Retreat Photos !!!!!

hihihihihihii here are the cell retreat photos

Its jasper and the holy spirit =) oh wait or is it "FREN" !!!!!???

!!!!! O.O who is CHong chong messaging late at night!!!! ???!!! WHO IS SHE !!!! OUT WITH IT !!!!! oh chei.... hes setting his alarm....

"I AM SLEEPY AND GREASY GET OUTTA OF MY WAY UNLESS YOU WANNA SEE JESUS!!"......Thats my love language of saying Goodnight bro I love you =)

Have no Idea whats happening.... dun wanna know wahahha

a picture tells a thousand words.....

PIRATES OF CHANGI RISE

THE SABBATH

TITANIC

"FRANS I M FLYING... I M FLYING!!!!!"

POST ENCOUNTER LESSON NO. 456
WHY ONE SHOULDNT MEDITATE

HOT CHRISTIAN CHICK 6 O CLOCK!!!!

WHERE ?? WHERE??!!

Andre fellowshiping with the fellow bros =)

see la see la TAU POK Wayne la !!!

by Jesus blood we have been set free =) ...er.... not bobby's blood though hahaha

Looks Familiar ?? hmmmm

Dearest bros =) if your face is not up there, it does not mean you are insignificant or unworthy for the camera =D its just that our cell is not clicker happy so after the second day no more mood to take pictures =x .... Remember YOU are a Valuable Asset to the EJAO tribe =)

New Perfect Day by Fransy

The Power of a Made-Up Mind

I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. - Psalm 16:8

Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart. My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end. - Psalm 119:112-113

What is it we can do so in our Christian walk so that we will not fall into sin?

What can we do to ensure that we will not waver in our faith in God?

I really want to live my life as a true genuine Christian outside the yellow door of EXPO, but it is so difficult.. how can I do it?

I am sick and tired of falling in and out of my sins and struggle, is there anyway that I can ever overcome them?

I have tried every possible strategy and methodology... what else can I do?

I know what is the right thing to do, but somehow I just can't do it, why is it so?

These are just but some common exasperating question that boggle through our minds when we face struggles in our Christian walk.

Many time, we tend to jump in quickly and give prescriptive solutions to each one of these questions but not touching and working on the underlying root issue.

"The Power of a Made-Up Mind" is a VERY VERY important biblical and life principle that we all must learn. It is not just a preventive measure to ensure that we do not fall into sin, but rather it is an aggressive and offensive measure that we take up against the evil plans of satan.

When I came to know the Lord, I struggled for a year in being committed to God and His ways. I struggled to come for service and cell group many times too. I fall into similar patterns of sin over and over again till a point I feel so sick of myself that I don't think I should even come to church.

Then came a point when my leader shared with me about "The Power of a Made-Up Mind":

1. If you want to be a Christian, don't just be a half-hearted and ding-dong kind. Go for it 100% else don't even be one.

2. Once decided that Jesus is the Lord of my life, I live my life displaying that He IS the Lord of my life.

3. I will fight, resist and wage war against the devil by the power of God till the very day I meet Jesus.

4. (something which I added on my own) I will not whine or wallow in defeat in my walk with God because my God is a victorious God whom has granted me victory in all circumstances!

Sons, have you made up your mind to be serious about God? A man cannot waver between two masters... He has to fix his mind on one and be serious about it.

Burning Sensation

I guess, it is God is "forcing" rest upon me.

Perhaps i have been working too hard. Wahaha.

Saturday, 15th March 2008, 39.2 degrees Celsius,after taking a bath (with warm water, sorry i didn't want to freeze in cold water), 38.8 degrees Celsius, after reading Psalm 76 ,eating a slice of swiss roll ,drinking a cup of milk and playing my keyboard (piano), 38.1 degrees Celsius!

Sunday 16th March 2008, after waking up after a good night's sleep, 38.0 degrees Celsius.

As of 12:35 pm, 38.6 degrees Celsius! Oh no! Don't worry people, God is in control. :P

Do pray for me, as missing one day on Jurong Island would mean losing marks! :(

I'm pray that all of you will have a unique encounter with God today! :)

Encounter camp

Hey bros and dad, Sorry this came late. Encounter camp was good and I really enjoyed myself there.

It's my first time going for the camp as a guide, it's fun but it's not easy, as I have lots of responsibilities and things to do, plus the fact that my back is still aching since donkey months ago.

Though out the camp, I have to remind and force myself to be always in a prayerful mode. Praying for the '4 jokers' I'm taking care of (joking la) and for the Holy Spirit to partner me when I minister.

Take back points:

One thing that I learn is that We all should just trust God and move. Take a Step of Faith. Many times I don't really know what to say, what to do, as I minister, But I just tell God, "I Don't know la! You know! So just move Lord!!" And i just pray and do whatever I sense the Lord told me, and God really moves.

Another take back point is that God uses people who are available for Him to use and not just the talented and experiences people. It's my first time as a guide, I'm one of the youngest guide around. Many a times, when the campers see my tag they will say "Give back to your guide leh." All the other guides seems more experience and initially I few very 'small' and insignificant. But God spoke to me through SMSes and promptings. Most of the smses i received will have the phrase 'God is with you' in it, and it led me to this scripture:

Judges 6:12 When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior."

So I keep telling myself IMMA MIGHTY WARRIOR!!! ROAR!!!

So brothers, Let's always avail ourselves to the Lord, so that we will all move from the ordinary to the extra-ordinary. From the impossible to the possible!!! WE ARE MIGHTY WARRIORS!!! ROAR!!!!

Here are some pictures:

Jonathan: He's very very shy in the beginning, blur like sotong also. haha.. But managed to make him very open by using all sorts of underhand tactics. He came up to me wobbly during the Holy spirit session after i prayed for him, telling me that He cannot walked straight, Only to be slained by Pastor again while he's sitting on the chair. We've concluded, He's easily drunk. By the Holy Spirit of course.

Kong Wai - He's a very bright boy. Love to slouch during sessions especially on my leg and I have to always push him back to a 'sit up straight' position.

Look guys, it's Oswin. Always sms-ing (GRRRR)

It's very tough work you know..

(BTW, no picture of Tian Ci, He always siam the cam)

When everything seemingly goes wrong....

Finally, after 4 peaceful months of using my DELL laptop running on Windows Vista, the inevitable happened..... it CRASHED!!! All because of a simple Windows regular update that I installed, and after that my OS never resurrected!

What happened next was more frustrated. For the next 4 hours, I was calling and getting technical assistance over the phone from DELL. In between, I travelled from office to home, home to collect work stuff, then to Funan and then back to office.

At the end of the 4 frustrating hours, the conclusion was that I had to reinstall my Windows Vista OS. Which also means that I have to reinstall all my drivers and software applications, reconfigure my office email account...and many more things to do. Just as I am typing this blog, I am downloading and installing Adobe Reader.

Seemingly a very eventful and yet frustrating day. Everything that would possibly go wrong, really went wrong! I was caught in the rain while travelling around and the cab corporate charging system was malfunctioning... Grr.... It was seemingly a lousy day.

BUT... God just reminded me again of what is written in Psalms 73 today:

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. - Psalm 73:26

That really encouraged my heart alot. Everything around has the potential to falter and fail, but at the end of the day, God will never fail me. Whatever grivience or injustice I face, I can always come back to Him and take heart in Him.

Some things that I learn today:

1. When everything fails and you are upset, choose to praise God first and not grumble!
2. Reinstalling my OS also reminds us about our walk with God. We need to come back to Him for some housecleaning. Do away with all the nonsense applications!
3. Just like the small little update file that caused my laptop to crash, it is the same way with sin. Just a little bit and the effects are disastrous and long term. So from now on, I will not download any window updates anymore! Be ruthless with sin!