count on Jesus. count on us.

2008-08-05T22:26:00.000+08:00

http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/2008/07/333-john-mayer-secular-chris-tomlin.html

please, read John Wesley.

2008-07-12T21:01:00.007+08:00

boy, long posts sure are hard to read. i'll say.

first. i make no apologies. i will be zealous for what i believe in.

the Word needs no defending. i believe that the Truth as it is written is perfect, holy, complete, etc., yet also in the sense that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is perfectly explained and completely understandable from the Word. God's character is mysterious, but the Word is a guide to our paths.

Mark 10:15 - "I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."

we must talk about the idea of 'context', and to do so here is as good as at any other place. we use the word 'context' to identify what parts of the Word apply or do not apply in different environments. this is biblical, inasmuch as the new covenant renders the old covenant obsolete.

Hebrews 8:8-9 - "... The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers..."

Hebrews 8:13 - "By calling this covenant 'new,' he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear."

a good rule of thumb is, inevitably, whether the adoption or dismissal of a particular piece of Word glorifies God. however,

Matthew 5:17 - "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."

it is unbiblical to dismiss any part of the Word as having been decontextualised, or having been deconstructed, etc, for the fact that God breathed the Word to us, and it is perfect for us. it is incomplete to quote single verses with single points, but it is utterly wrong to pick out verses that do not apply to us in the belief that they are not in our context.

moving on. i believe that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit can be understood by a little child; no other wisdom will suffice. theologians may have been debating about stuff for as long as they have, the point is that there is only one Truth, just as God only has one eternal character. in heaven, we will all know the one Truth, therefore some must be right, and some must be wrong.

the key to what is right before God is surely to seek after him. and there is only one Truth.

i wiki-ed John Piper and Calvinism and predestination. let me truthfully summarise what i found. he is Reformed (aka Calvinist) and believes in double predestination. It is called double predestination because it holds that God chose both whom to save and whom to damn, as opposed to single predestination which contends that though he chose whom to save, he did not choose whom to damn.

Calvinists often quote Romans 8-9 for their belief in double predestination. please read them. Romans 9 says that God chose to hate Esau but love Jacob, God will have mercy on whom he has mercy, it does not depend on men's desire or effort, but God's mercy, God hardened Pharaoh's heart, God bore with patience the objects of his destruction to show his wrath and make his power known, and to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy.

to begin with, (and this is rather long), read this:

http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/58/. it is a sermon by John Wesley against predestination. and it is exactly right.

and after reading this, i must admit to being ashamed of myself for not being more humble and gentle... the Word does not need to be defended.

http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/128/ this follows. it completely denounces predestination.

though these are long, yet in them is every answer for every thing we have discussed on friday.

please. as Christians, we all have to read this.

My Thoughts & Extra Reading

2008-07-12T12:44:00.004+08:00

Hey everyone, below's something I read in one of John Piper's sermons about what we talked about yesterday.

I know each of us prob have alot of questions after what we discussed yesterday but I hope we have an open mind about these things. The fact that many theologians have been debating about this issue for so many years shows that it's just something hard to grasp and accept. And so we shouldn't insist that this person is wrong and I am right kinda thing.

What I feel is most important is that we are assured of our salvation and faith in a God who is never changing. One thing I surely know is that God's Word NEVER contradicts itself and all the more it will NEVER contradict who God is Himself. So if some things we read or think seem to contradict the very fundamental characteristics of God - gracious, all-loving, compassionate, fair, it is us humans who haven't got it figured out.

Yup let's continue to reflect and keep an open mind and ask that the Holy Spirit will be our teacher and guidance in these matters :-)

Romans 8:28-30
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according go his purpose. 29) For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren; 30) and whom he predestined, these he also called; and whom he called, these he also justified; and whom he justified, these he also glorified.

2. The Meaning of God's Foreknowledge.

Verse 29a: "Those whom he foreknew."

2.1. Two Possibilities

God foreknows all things and ALL PEOPLE in one sense (Isaiah 46:10). But not all are predestined to be conformed to his Son. Therefore, the "foreknowing" must be qualified in some sense, because Paul says, "Whom he foreknew, he predestined." There are two ways to qualify or limit the idea of God's foreknowing:

2.1.1. Add a phrase like, "would believe on Jesus," so that it reads: "Whom he foreknew would believe on Jesus, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son." In other words, in order to preserve the self-determining power of man in his own salvation, God predestines people only on the basis of faith which he foresees that certain people will produce by their self-determining power.

2.1.2. Make no additions, but construe the word "foreknew" to refer to that special kind of knowing in Scripture which signifies choice and acknowledgement and favor. In other words, interpret this foreknowledge of God as virtually synonymous with his election.

2.2. Arguments for the Second View (2.1.2)

2.2.1. While it is not impossible that Paul might want us to supply extra words to make sense out of his sentence, it would seem better not to insist on adding a whole phrase if the meaning of the verse is plain and coherent with the context without adding any extra words. The text simply says, "WHOM HE FOREKNEW, HE PREDESTINED," as though the idea of foreknowing contained its own limitation. If we find elsewhere in the Bible and especially in Paul that "knowing" can carry its own limited sense, then the addition other phrases would be unnecessary (see 2.2.3).

2.2.2. The hope of preserving man's power of self determination in salvation is futile in view of verse 30, where it says, "Those whom he called he also justified." See this morning's sermon: if all the called are justified, and if justification is only by faith, then the call must secure the faith because it secures the justification. But if the call of God brings about faith, then it is not the self-determining power of man that brings him to salvation.

Therefore, even if God did base his predestination on faith which he foresaw, it was a faith which he himself intended to create. So the whole motive for the idea of foreknown faith collapses. It still leaves us with the freedom and right of God to elect or choose whom he will call effectually into faith. For God to predestine someone on the basis of faith which he himself creates is the same as basing predestination on the basis of election.

2.2.3. The words "know" and "foreknow" commonly mean "choose" or "set favor upon" or "acknowledge." Therefore we do not need to add any phrase to limit whom God foreknows, because the word itself limits the group—it is those whom he chose or set his favor upon. Here are some texts to show this meaning of "knowing."

2.2.3.1. Romans 11:1–2:

I ASK, THEN, HAS GOD REJECTED HIS PEOPLE? BY NO MEANS! I MYSELF AM AN ISRAELITE, A DESCENDANT OF ABRAHAM, A MEMBER OF THE TRIBE OF BENJAMIN. GOD HAS NOT REJECTED HIS PEOPLE WHOM HE FOREKNEW.

2.2.3.2. Amos 3:1–2:

Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel . . . You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.

2.2.3.3. Genesis 18:17–19:

The Lord said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do . . . ? No, for I have chosen [literally: "known"] him, that he may charge his children . . . to keep the way of the Lord . . . so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised.

2.2.3.4. Hosea 13:4–5:

I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior. It was I who knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought.

2.2.3.5. Psalm 1:6:

FOR THE LORD KNOWS THE WAY OF THE RIGHTEOUS, BUT THE WAY OF THE WICKED WILL PERISH.

2.2.3.6. Matthew 7:23:

AND THEN I WILL DECLARE TO THEM, I NEVER KNEW YOU; DEPART FROM ME, YOU EVILDOERS.

2.2.3.7. 1 Corinthians 8:3:

If one loves God, one is known by God.

2.2.3.8. Galatians 4:8–9:

FORMERLY, WHEN YOU DID NOT KNOW GOD, YOU WERE IN BONDAGE TO BEINGS THAT BY NATURE ARE NO GODS; BUT NOW THAT YOU HAVE KNOWN GOD, OR RATHER BEEN KNOWN BY GOD, HOW CAN YOU TURN BACK AGAIN TO THE WEAK AND BEGGARLY ELEMENTAL SPIRITS?

2.2.3.9. 2 Timothy 2:16–19:

AVOID SUCH GODLESS CHATTER, FOR IT WILL LEAD PEOPLE INTO MORE AND MORE UNGODLINESS . . . AMONG THEM ARE HYMENAEUS AND PHILETUS, WHO HAVE SWERVED FROM THE TRUTH BY HOLDING THAT THE RESURRECTION IS PAST ALREADY. THEY ARE UPSETTING THE FAITH OF SOME. BUT GOD'S FIRM FOUNDATION STANDS, BEARING THIS SEAL: "THE LORD KNOWS THOSE WHO ARE HIS," AND, "LET EVERYONE WHO NAMES THE NAME OF THE LORD DEPART FROM INIQUITY."

Conclusion: "Whom he foreknew, he also predestined" means that God's appointment of the destiny of his people is based on his prior election, and this election is not based on any foreseen faith that we could produce by some power of self-determination. The plan of redemption was never conceived to include the saving power of human self-determination.

3. What Is the Aim of Predestination for Our Good?

Predestination does not refer here to the choice of who will be saved. It refers to the destiny appointed for those who are chosen. First, God chooses, that is, he unconditionally sets his favor on whom he will, THEN, he destines them for their glorious role in eternity.

Paul mentions two parts to this destiny for the "foreknown" or the "chosen." One relates to our good. The other relates to Christ's glory. First, look at the aim of predestination as it relates to our good.

FOR THOSE WHOM HE FOREKNEW HE PREDESTINED TO BE CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF HIS SON.

Other texts that deal with our conformity to Christ show that it probably includes both the final glorious state of the resurrection as well as the process of moral transformation on the way to that glory.

Philippians 3:20–21

BUT OUR COMMONWEALTH IS IN HEAVEN, AND FROM IT WE AWAIT A SAVIOR, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, WHO WILL CHANGE OUR LOWLY BODY TO BE LIKE HIS GLORIOUS BODY, BY THE POWER WHICH ENABLES HIM EVEN TO SUBJECT ALL THINGS TO HIMSELF. (This is the only other place in the NT where the word summorphous occurs besides Romans 8:29.)

1 Corinthians 15:42–49

SO IS IT WITH THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. WHAT IS SOWN IS PERISHABLE, WHAT IS RAISE IS IMPERISHABLE. IT IS SOWN IN DISHONOR, IT IS RAISED IN GLORY . . . JUST AS WE HAVE BORNE THE IMAGE OF THE MAN OF DUST, WE SHALL ALSO BEAR THE IMAGE OF THE MAN OF HEAVEN.

Philippians 3:10

THAT I MAY KNOW HIM AND THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION, AND MAY SHARE HIS SUFFERINGS, BECOMING LIKE HIM IN HIS DEATH . . .

2 Corinthians 3:18

AND WE ALL, WITH UNVEILED FACE, BEHOLDING THE GLORY OF THE LORD, ARE BEING CHANGED INTO HIS LIKENESS FROM ONE DEGREE OF GLORY TO ANOTHER; FOR THIS COMES FROM THE LORD WHO IS THE SPIRIT.

Conclusion: The aim of predestination as it relates to our good is that we are appointed to share the very glory of the risen Christ both morally in blameless righteousness and physically in a resurrection body of glory like his. This destiny is the "glorification" of verse 30 ("those whom he justified he glorified") and it is under way right now in all the children of God as we look into the face of Christ in the gospel and are changed from one degree of glory to another by the power of the Spirit.

4. What Is the Aim of Predestination for Christ's Glory?

God's ultimate goal in the eternally predestined plan of salvation does not terminate on humans. It terminates on the Son of God. His glory has precedence over our glory. The glory of the preeminence Christ is the ultimate goal of predestination.

FOR THOSE WHOM HE FOREKNEW HE ALSO PREDESTINED TO BE CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF HIS SON, IN ORDER THAT HE MIGHT BE THE FIRST-BORN AMONG MANY BRETHREN.

God appointed us to share the greatness of the Son so that the Son might be exalted as the greatest among the great.

God destined us to share Christ's glory in order that the glory of the Son might be magnified in the countless mirrors of those who are conformed to his image.

God created a second-born and a third-born and a millionth-born so that Christ might be exalted and praised and honored in the midst of a redeemed people.

Conclusion: The unspeakable wonder of predestination is that it aims at and secures the end which God must have in order to be God and the end which we must have in order to be happy—namely, the preeminent glorification of Christ in the glorification of his people.

unimaginable

2008-07-09T21:49:00.006+08:00

what if tonight you went to sleep, and tomorrow you wake up and you're not You?

what if tomorrow morning you wake up, and you forget everything about yourself that you've ever known. you forget all the lessons you've learnt, memories you've kept, values you've upheld, secrets you've protected, treasures you've cherished, friends you've held dear, every last thing that made you yourself. you forget every experience that has shaped you into the person you are. you forget the sins you've committed. you're not _______, that name means nothing to you.

you have no obligations to keep, no reputation to preserve, no identity to adhere to, nothing to tie you down, to hold you back.

you see the world as if for the first time. as when a baby opens his eyes.

and you remember only one thing: that you are a perfect Christian; you are a perfect child of God.

and you live it, by His grace.

what do you think?

losing my wallet

2008-07-02T22:35:00.002+08:00

i was supposed to meet my friend at mambo tonight. dressed up and all, i put my keys and phone in my left pocket and my camera in my right pocket. and if you'd asked me at that time, i'd be one hundred percent confident that i'd put my wallet in my right back pocket.

so i went downstairs to my bike, started it, and with my stuff still in my pockets, i rode off to zouk. when i reached there, i realised my right back pocket was empty. full of despair, i came to the conclusion that my wallet had slipped out along the way. i rode home to see if i'd dropped it downstairs.

along the way, i was totally fed-up. i hate losing things, and losing my wallet and all the stuff inside it sucked. i went through an erp without a cashcard. i thought, Lord, why does it have to be like that? if you don't want me to go, why make me lose my wallet?

God is the God of all the small things and all the big things.

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

God, if i don't find my wallet, i guess i'm not going. but if i find it, then what?

why do i want to go clubbing? to dance and drink? no. to meet up with friends? yeah. but clubs are such bad places to get to know people better. what if my friend, who's a girl, starts getting interested in me? should i, supposedly seeking after God, be in a club?

i reached home and i didn't find my wallet where i usually park my bike. i thought, ah, faggots and bombs. haven't felt so pissed off in awhile. i thought, just so you know, that one hurt. that was painful. i sure hope the guy who finds it needs it more than i do.

if losing one wallet hurt so badly, how much did it hurt Jesus to think of those persons who would die without salvation.

and i went upstairs and looked in my room for my wallet. and i found it in my bag. my gosh i left home without it.

(God is good.)

personal relationships with God

2008-06-09T14:00:00.004+08:00

fellas,

i went to visit rentze and zhenghui not so long ago (as you know, we're neighbours), and rentze asked me how i was spiritually. i said i was good, fine, praying, talking, waiting on God, etc. she asked how i talked to God and i said well, i have a conversation, sort of, i ask questions and he answers. and she asked how'd you know the answers are from God, and i said, i trust them.

and she said when i'm waiting on God, in the time i'm listening to him there's a lot of distractions and random thoughts, so it's hard to concentrate.

hmm i can't remember if there's anything else about this that we talked about.

so let's share. how do we seek after God? what's in our approach, what's in the exchange?

ian

Is there anything wrong with gambling?

2008-05-08T14:01:00.003+08:00

hi, this is to elaborate on what was discussed during cg time at the previous TF, where calvin brought up the topic of betting

the following answer is taken from a study bible i have:
"In the Bible, the sacred lot was cast as a means of determining the mind of God (Lev. 16:7-10); Jon. 1:7; Acts 1:24-26). In ancient Israel it was assumed that God in control of the dice and that He would speak to His people this way. Although there is no such thing as luck and God is in control of everything, when somebody takes money that belongs to God (because everything we have belongs to God) and bets it on the turn of a roulette wheel, or a turn of a card, he is asking for trouble. He is saying by his actions, 'God, I am risking Your money and my faith on the hope that You'll "make it happen!"' When you act like that, you are putting to Lord to the test. You are tempting God, and that is a sin (Deut. 6:16; Luke 4:10-12).
"Gambling can destroy a person, becoming an obsession and a compulsion just like alcoholism. The habitual gambler ruins his family and his life, and some have stolen to get money for gambling. It can become a disease that has destroyed literally tens of thousands of people.
"The pervasiveness of gambling in our society teaches people that fame, success, and fortune are available without work or struggle. The virtues of industry, thrift, careful investment, and patience are all undermined by this vice. In their place come human greed, lust, avarice, sloth, and a live-for-the-moment mentality. How tragic to see legislatures link their budgetary futures to legalised gambling and lotteries that will undermine the very virtues their citizens need for true long-range growth and prosperity!"

the following are some email that were forwarded among cg leaders in my previous church, in light of the government announcing it was gonna go ahead with building the IRs. one of them is a mail from a cg leaer, and the first response to it is a mail from another cg leader, and the 2nd response is from the then-youth pastor. it's all very long so, if nothing else, just read the response from the youth pastor:

Mail 1:

hmm I'm not entirely sure how this goes down with you guys, but I think as an act, gambling is an activity motivated (generally speaking) by greed and self gain, materialistically speaking.

Tackling it based on a few concepts:1)Focus, 2) Love, 3)Prudence

To me, what comes to mind as 'wrong' about gambling is the fact that in general, the objective of gambling is the monetary gain itself. Gambling, then, would reflect the priorities in our hearts: Money is the most important.

Even if the idea is to 'get enough money to provide for some need', the focus is still on money--which is the wrong focus. It is indeed true that even in the workplace, this can happen, for people that do 'honest' work are sometimes as (or even more) concerned with hoarding up wealth and providing for financial needs. As Christians, however, I believe we are called to a different standard. Based on Matt 6:19 and Luke 12:16-21, I should say that Scripture warns fairly explicitly against storing up wealth for its own sake. Coupled with Matt 6:25-34 (Jesus' promise that the Lord will provide) I think Scripture urges us to release ourselves from concern about our daily needs.

I believe the difference between 'honest' work and gambling (inclusive of playing around in the stock market) is that at the workplace, you actually render a certain service to others. As Christians, this service/attitude is what our focus should be on, because that is the thing that is counted towards the 'treasures in heaven moths and rust do not destroy and thieves do not break in and steal'. At the workplace, the focus on money can be replaced by a focus on people and relationships with people, thus fulfilling the 2 greatest commandments: Loving God by loving your neighbour.

In contrast, gambling is highly individualistic; your gain comes at the expense of another's loss--there is no such thing as a win-win situation, unless both people get a winning bet (which, if I'm not mistaken, implies that the reward is shared. I imagine neither party will be too happy about that). The focus of gambling is exclusively the self, not others, as we ought to be focused on.

With regards to risk taking; I imagine that the idea of prudence is raised. Gambling leaves everything in the hands of chance--I don't think God favours the idea of tweaking the odds in our favour. While this chancy nature of gambling is part of the thrill and the high of it(and the thing that makes it so addictive), it is firstly a focus on gratifying the flesh with adrenaline charges etc, and secondly It is bad stewardship because of the extreme risk involved. It was mentioned that we would then need to define what is a 'reasonable' level of risk: I have no idea, but I know gambling falls way short of the mark. Even investing in chancy property and stock is bad stewardship. A prudent investment involves research, analysis of the market in question and taking calculated risks. Certainly there is no such thing as a 100% certainty in investments, but the element of preparation is crucial for a good (and thus prudent) investment. If there is good preparation and foresight, even if the investment fails, I think it can be considered good stewardship... I think God doesn't look at our material result, but at the heart we put into it. The preparation and thought that goes into a good investment also shows the attitude we serve God with; Reckless with what we are given materially, means reckless with what we are given in every other way.

Mail 2:

" I believe... Loving God by loving your neighbour." In contrast...The focus of gambling is exclusively the self, not others, as we ought to be focused on."

I believe that for most people - Christians, even - in the labour force, the primary motivation for waking up each morning and going to work is to earn his keep. We're called to be others-centred, yes, but whether that means we should be making our inter-personal relationships in the workplace as the focus of our careers is highly questionable.

Gambling, for many, is entertainment. Along with watching soccer, having good meals and taking long strolls along the beach, gambling is an indulgence that gratifies, admittedly, the individual. My question is: do we, as Christians, need to plan our existence around activities that focus on other people? Is it a sin to, every now and then, engage in activities that satisfy us (and only us)? I doubt it.

With regards to risk taking...Reckless with what we are given materially, means
reckless with what we are given in every other way"

As much as we'd like to believe that capital investments can be "prepared" for, the fact of the matter is that stock market fluctuations are almost entirely unpredictable. This is why people invest in mutual funds - by trading in hundreds of different companies, you lower the risk you take. My main problem with the "good stewardship" argument is this: if this is true, then it would justify a gambler that painstakingly reads up on the myriads skills and strategies of Texas Hold 'Em before going to the casino. Did he prepare extensively? Most certainly. Did he take calculated risks? Yes he did. Is it then okay for him to gamble? Just to extend this a bit further, it's interesting to note also how the top players in the annual World Poker tournament tend to be the same people though thousands take part each year, proving that poker is as much about skill, if not more, as it is luck.

Next, the problem with the "bad stewardship" argument is that it makes the assumption that people are going to wage entire fortunes and life savings on the roulette table. If I had $10,000 in the bank, and I took $10 and recklessly splurged it all in a round of poker, knowing full well before I played that chances are, I was going to lose - does this make me a bad steward of my money, considering I still have $9,990 in savings?

I admit that I'm struggling very much with this issue, because I'm not convinced that a casino is necessarily a hotbed of sin. The Anglican diocese has made a very strong stand against this, one which I'd like to support as a cell leader, but until arguments that are backed strongly by the word are made, this will continue to be a struggle for me.

Mail 3 (by the youth pastor):

hmm I'm not entirely sure how this goes down with you guys, but I think as an act, gambling is an activity motivated (generally speaking) by greed and self gain, materialistically speaking.

Good work Han Min. At least some are thinking about this. My comments about your reply though, and this in some way reflects my own thoughts, is that while most people can demonstrate that:-

1. Gambling is a stupid thing to do (per risks)
2. Gambling tends to be motivated by greed
3. Gambling can have bad consequences (directly or indirectly)
4. Gambling promotes bad character

etc. but no one has demonstrated how this is a sin. There are many stupid
things in the bible, but they are not tantamount to sin.

Take the following few verses and think about it a little:-

Deut 14:26:- "You may spend the money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or whatever your heart desires. ...."

There seems to be a sense in which if you have fulfilled your responsibilities and have some extra money (read disposable income), it's really up to you how you want to spend it, even if on some risky exercise such as gambling, or risky investment.

Deut 23:20:- "You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your countrymen you shall not charge interest, ...."

Here we can see that monetary gain is not intrinsically bad, except when it oppresses (in this case God's people).

Matt 25:27 (and also Luke 19:23) ".... you ought to have put my money in the bank .... I would have received my money back with interest."

It appears that the master in this parable is looking for a return on his investment, one way or another.

And just for fun, Ecc 10:19:- ".... and money is the answer to everything."

Of course, it should be pointed out that greed cannot be confined to money alone, for money is afterall just a symbolic representation for work or effort. (Marx and Adam Smith has more to say on this subject).

You may consider all those circus games where you spend 20 cents and try to win something, or the UFO picker game. Silly? Yes, but are they sins?

Concerning the issue of gain at the loss of another. I'm not sure this is such a clear issue. After all, ALL gain comes at the loss of another except in perfectly fair exchanges. For example, if the shopkeeper marks up his product by 20%, he gains 20% at the loss of another when he sells it. Is this a sin? Now suppose he decides to employ a random markup as a marketing scheme, ie. you pick the product and the computer will randomly assign a markup (or down) from -40% to 40%. If you get lucky you gain 40% at the expense of the shopkeeper. On the other hand, the shopkeeper could gain 40% at your loss. A very chancy proposition, and a gamble. Is this a sin? What about those closeout sales? The consumers are buying things below cost, ie. they gain at the loss of the shop owner. Is this sin? What about "lucky draws" where if you spend an amount, you are entitled to win something big?

To give a direction to this thought, you cannot say if something is a sin based simply on the idea of gain or loss. There are several reasons to this:-
1. You need to consider what is called fair value, which is not a fixed thing.
2. You need to consider the free choice of both parties involved in the exchange.

In a sense, this is the basis for what we call the free-market or the capitalistic system. Both parties exercise their freedom of choice in an exchange. If both agree to the risks and the value involved, then it's fair for them. When people go to the gambling table, well aware of the potential risks involved, even if the actual price is not a fixed point, but a range (from loss to gain), then they are exercising their free choice. In this case, it would be hard-pressed to argue that exploitation is involved because no one forced them to go there. The exceptions to this would be if:-
1. The odds are secretly altered (ie. cheating)
2. The person is an addict and his weakness is being exploited

So, to reiterate, I agree strongly that gambling is a stupid thing to do, but what I am looking for is what makes this stupid thing a sin.

For the record, I've never been in a casino, ever. I personally avoid all lucky draws, have never bought a lottery ticket in all my life, and never even tried the UFO picker game! I think, with Paul in 1 Tim 6:10 that "the love of money is a root or all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." (NASB)

"Stupid is as stupid does" (but does that make it a sin?)

three random musings

2008-05-06T13:47:00.002+08:00

1. do the righteous really get angry that the unrighteous are saved?

Jonah 3:10 - 4:4:
"When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.
But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the LORD, 'O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.
But the LORD replied, 'Have you any right to be angry?'"

Matthew 20:9-15:
"The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.'
But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'"

would it be strange to be upset that someone else receives grace? do you feel this way?

2. the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (totkogae)

if eating from the totkogae grants knowledge of good and evil, and wisdom, then is it the act of eating the fruit that imparts wisdom, or the act and experience of sinning that imparts wisdom? can wisdom come from sin?

what is wisdom? is it the knowledge of good and evil? can you really know evil without committing sin?

finally, if the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then wouldn't it be funny that eating from the tokogae also imparts wisdom?

3. i was running around my eunos area last night, and i was wondering what it'd be like to stop next to a bunch of foreign workers and evangelise to them. where does a ministry begin? with a calling? can someone describe a calling?

re: about Judas

2008-04-15T23:35:00.003+08:00

i was looking through my mum's study bible coz i was trying to find something and it happened to be the nearest bible to me, and as i was flipping through, i somehow landed at a commentary on Judas, so i thought i might as well just replicate it here. it's taken from the "life application bible":

It is easy to overlook the fact that Jesus chose Judas to be his disciple. We may also forget that while Judas betrayed Jesus, all the disciples abandoned him. With the other disciples, Judas shared a persistent misunderstanding of Jesus' mission. They all expected Jesus to make the right political moves. When he kept talking about dying, they all felt varying degrees of anger, fear, and disappointment. They didn't understand why they had been chosen if Jesus' mission was doomed to fail.

We do not know the exact motivation behind Judas' betrayal. What is clear is that Judas allowed his desires to place him in a position where Satan could manipulate him. Judas accepted payment to set Jesus up for the religious leaders. He identified Jesus for the guards in the dimly lit Garden of Gethsemane. It is possible that he was trying to force Jesus' hand - would Jesus or would Jesus not rebel against Rome and set up a new political government?
Whatever his plan, though, at some point Judas realised he didn't like the way things were turning out. He tried to undo the evil he had done by returning the money to the priests, but it was too late. The wheels of God's sovereign plan had been set into motion. How sad that Judas ended his life in despair without ever experiencing the gift of reconciliation God could give even to him through Jesus Christ.

Human feelings toward Judas have always been mixed. Some have fervently hated him for his betrayal. Others have pitied him for not realising what he was doing. A few have tried to make him a hero for his part in ending Jesus' earthly mission. Some have questioned God's fairness in allowing one man to bear such guilt. While there are many feelings about Judas, there are some facts to consider as well. He, by his own choice, betrayed God's Son into the hands of soldiers (Luke 22:48). He was a thief (John 12:6). Jesus knew that Judas' life of evil would not change (John 6:70). Judas' betrayal of Jesus was part of God's sovereign plan (Psalm 41:9; Zechariah 11:12, 13; Matthew 20:18; 26: 20-25; Acts 1:16, 20).

In betraying Jesus, Judas made the greatest mistake in history. But the fact that Jesus knew Judas would betray him doesn't mean that Judas was a puppet of God's will. Judas made the choice. God knew what the choice would be and confirmed it. Judas didn't lose his relationship with Jesus; rather, he never found Jesus in the first place. He is called "doomed to destruction" (John 17:12) because he was never saved.

Judas does us a favour if he makes us think a second time about our commitment to God and the presence of God's Spirit within us. Are we true disciples and followers, or uncommitted pretenders? We can choose despair and death, or we can choose repentance, forgiveness, hope, and eternal life. Judas' betrayal sent Jesus to the cross to guarantee that second choice, our only chance. Will we accept Jesus' free gift, or, like Judas, betray him?

about Judas

2008-04-09T16:17:00.011+08:00

phwww. where do i start...

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okay. a long long time ago, i was mortified and saddened when i realised that Judas had betrayed Jesus for thirty silver pieces. i wondered if i would have done so too, or at what price, or if my sins made me a Judas as well (they do, don't they?). or at least, i have as much responsibility for Christ's betrayal and death as Judas did.

--------------------------------------------------

the next thing i wondered was, why did Judas not get a pardon when everyone else did? that doesn't sound very fair, but hey, grace is given by God. so okay, the old testament speaks about Christ's betrayer, so God says Judas is condemned, then Christ himself says that his betrayer is condemned, hmm, that's kinda tough. and then in that same chapter of Mark, chapter 26, Jesus says that Peter will disown him, which is surely in the same spirit as Judas' betrayal, yet Peter is pardoned, and Jesus himself goes to reinstate him in John 21. so why one and not the other? so there are two unpardonable sins for a Christian, which are: blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and the actual betrayal of the Christ.

--------------------------------------------------

and then, a few months ago, i was wondering about this again. if Judas, who had been a disciple of Christ, heard his words, listened to the private explanation of his parables, seen his miracles, seen the crowds gather to Jesus, had himself been sent out to preach the kingdom of God, had performed healings and driven out demons, had grown in fellowship with the first disciples of Christ, and had lived this life of discipleship, and had lived for the kingdom of God and his chosen Son for so long that he knew everything about Christ, and had surely been groomed as the other disciples to be church builders and evangelists and missionaries, etc., full of the Spirit, accustomed to hardship and persecution for the joy of the kingdom... what else did i miss... if Judas, even Judas, had failed, had turned away from it all, then who can blame him? if in his heart he remained hardened in spite of all of Christ's glory and grace on display before him, then... then what? if our hearts had seen all these things and were not moved, could you or i have stood in his place and resisted the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, the chief priests, or the devil, when they tempted him to betray Jesus?

what if Judas had seen all this and hated Christianity as a result? what if he simply wanted nothing more to do with this epic struggle between good and evil? what if he felt this way, "God, why me? i don't wanna do all these things. i want to live a quiet life. let me go! give me back my life and my freedom. i'm tired. i'm hungry. i'm old. i've lost my dreams, and my self. let me go, please."

the next thing i thought was, did Jesus make any moves to correct his one errant disciple? hmm. perhaps his hands were 'tied', but i don't think Jesus would have purposely gave up on Judas. if for example, you had one student who was failing, you'd at least try to talk to him to see if he cared about his grades, ask about his family situation, and so on. even if God told you that your student was doomed to fail, you'd certainly try, at least to give him any chance. Jesus must have been sad to let Judas go. i believe that.

so if Jesus couldn't bring Judas to love him, then maybe the other disciples could sense that Judas wasn't in on the program. they might have tried to talk to him. i think it would be fairly obvious in their 'hyper-disciple' state to notice someone who wasn't talking or walking the talk and walk, respectively. did they fail in their fellowship? were they leaving out someone in their group who was spiritually down? did we at present have a situation like that ourselves?

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lately, what i was thinking about Judas, was that Judas made a miscalculation. he took a gamble, and lost. for up to that point, in every encounter that Jesus had had with the authorities, the teachers of the law, the pharisees and the chief priests, Jesus had been able to defend himself with wisdom that no one could refute. Jesus had spoken courageously against the pharisees and the teachers of the law, and had even scathingly criticised them, yet they could neither fault him in return, nor absolve themselves of his accusations. up to that point, everybody knew that Jesus burned with righteous anger against the Jewish and Roman authorities. so if Jesus was the Messiah, then what harm could possibly befall Jesus even if he were to be arrested and charged by these authorities? would not Jesus, as he always did, stand up and defend himself, with words and wisdom from the Spirit that none could refute? would Jesus not tear down the very legitimacy and mandate and power that these authorities had? would God not send his angels to set Jesus free? would Jesus surrender to wicked, scheming men? would God leave his only Son helpless?

if we didn't know better, we'd probably have said, okay, sure, Jesus versus the authorities, bang bang bang, we win. so i (Judas) will go and take these people's money (haha) and set them up to get owned by my rabbi, Jesus. a brilliant plan, a real double cross.

this could be plausible because in Matthew 27:1-4, Judas realises that Jesus does not reply to the accusations levelled at him, or attempt to save himself.

'Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people came to the decision to put Jesus to death. They bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate, the governor. When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. "I have sinned," he said, "for I have betrayed innocent blood."'

his shocking realisation here is that Jesus had already warned him that all this would happen. Judas realises here that he is the one who would betray Jesus, even if it was a mistake.

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so as i was trying to organise my thoughts, i drew a sort of mind map, because there were a lot of angles to cover.

it started with this line: Judas -> chose to betray Christ -> became guilty, hanged himself

and i simply tacked the rest on.

the top half is the reasons why he may have done so, the bottom left side is the mentality he did it with, and the bottom right side is why he hanged himself. i think that this is important, because if Judas had felt that he was right to betray Christ, then he would not have hanged himself. unless, for instance, he witnessed Jesus' sufferings and felt guilty as a result, or something like that.

i won't describe in detail the rest of the other possibilities listed, but there certainly is some food for thought there.

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in a book recently published, titled, "The Gospel of Judas", and the same dvd production by National Geographic, there appears to be found a 2nd/3rd century copy of a manuscript that highlights the existence of the numerous (controversial, unbiblical) texts related to the founding of Christianity of that time, and a hitherto unknown story of Judas, that he willingly took the blame for betraying Christ, as an extension of his duty for God.

http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Judas-Bart-D-Ehrman/dp/1426200420/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207808697&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Gospel-Judas/dp/B000FC2HRC/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1207808697&sr=8-3

i think it's nonsense, though.

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finally, in Luke and in John, the bible says that Satan entered Judas. that seems fair enough. Satan wants to kill Jesus to prevent him from saving the Jews, and the world, from eternal condemnation. but Satan doesn't know that Jesus will be resurrected.

"The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness had not understood (overcome) it."

or doesn't Satan know? in Acts 2:24-31, which is written after Jesus' resurrection, Peter writes about David, who was before Jesus' resurrection,

"But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. David said about him:

'I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will live in hope,
because you will not abandon me to the grave,
nor will you let your Holy One see decay.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.'

Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay."

so wouldn't Satan have listened to David and have realised that Jesus would be resurrected? would Satan still then have been the one to cause Judas to betray Jesus to be killed? wouldn't all of Satan's work and efforts have come to naught, wouldn't Satan ultimately doom himself by trying to get Christ killed? think about it. i first ran into this line of reasoning in the book, "I, Lucifer", by author Glen Duncan. i honestly don't know why this is not true.

however, the bible is the truth upon which all things stand. so Satan entered Judas, plain and simple. and then he left Judas, and Judas realised that he had betrayed Christ, and then he felt guilty, and hanged himself.

that about wraps it up. if you have anything to add, please do.

Good Friday Video.

2008-03-22T17:53:00.002+08:00

Dear CG,
Here is a link to a fantastic local foodblog (www.ieatishootipost.blogspot.com) that I check out every other day. But that is not the point. Do check out his posting on 21st March 2008 , and watch the Youtube video link.
Just spreading good things in life
Cheers :)

J Low

Easter at CY's 21st March 2008

2008-03-22T16:12:00.005+08:00

wish you were here! :)

Luke 5: The Calling of the First Disciples

2008-03-18T21:29:00.004+08:00

i was thinking recently, that whatever thing it is that i'm engaged in, i get bored with it quite fast. i guess it's the same with most people, if it's school, studies, work, or anything... anything that you have to do over and over, for the sake of doing. it depends mightily on a person's character, of course, but in general, as the novelty of something wears off, as the reasons for doing it seem less compelling, and as a person's drive and desire for doing something start to dissipate... it gets harder and harder for a wandering mind to convince practised fingers to daily resume a task at hand. and i was thinking hard about this lately.

Luke 5:

One day, as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, he saw at the water's edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."

Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets."

When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signalled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners.

Then Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men." So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

(end of Luke 5)

sometimes, it takes quite a bit of imagination to appreciate the finer itty-bitties of Bible stories. for example, Jesus might be a little curious as to why a handful of fishermen would be self-absorbed enough to ignore the crowd and the presence that he carried, not stopping what they were doing in spite of the unusual scene around them, enough so that he wanted to reach out to them. i imagine that it would be difficult to wash a large fishing net and still be within hearing distance of Jesus, granted as it were that Jesus would later go on to speak to thousands.

so Jesus went to some of them, and asked to be paddled out a small distance, to have a prettier platform to speak from. the poor guys on the boat then had to listen to whatever Jesus was teaching, probably while trimming the boat to counter any oratorical gestures Jesus might have made. they might have been a little embarrassed at the fixed gaze they received from Jesus' audience, or the smell of their boat, or their fishermen's appearance, but it's almost certain that they paid attention to Jesus' words, enough that they had a profound impact on them. this is wisdom, God's Word, and it was sitting next to them in their fishing boat, not all airs like the teachers of the law or the Pharisees. sure makes you think.

next thing you know, they'd become a little spellbound by the teachings of Jesus. repentance, salvation, promises, the Messiah, God's glory, all these grandiose things swelled in their spirits and minds. and then Jesus stopped, as he did, and cut right across the grain, telling the fishermen to go fish. Simon must have been pretty stunned, pretty flabbergasted, but with a marked show of respect, his answer as recorded in the Bible reads decently as, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets."

and this is the pivotal moment, when they're given a bounteous catch of fish, but also when they're given the all-important choice (choice being all-important) to follow Jesus. the ending verse summarises their decision a tad lightly, i think. they could take their catch and the small fortune to be made from it, and go back to fishing, praising God for their blessing, living honestly, humbly and happily, or they could recognise that the true blessing came from Jesus, of following him. and they would have to forsake everything, and follow him.

which would be wiser? which would be foolhardy? which would be compulsive? which would fulfil their needs better? which would be a better security, which would be a more responsible path to take in terms of providing for themselves and their family? which would be their life's calling? and were they ready to take such a decision?

i think that we can all faithfully await such a moment in our lives, with some awareness that when the time comes, it's ultimately a personal, spiritually-mature and self-convinced decision in faith. (additional comments are welcome.)

having said all that, back at the start, as i've mentioned, i've been thinking a lot about why i was still doing the things i didn't really want to be doing anymore. it was the same back in school, back in army, and now at work. it seems that now i have a choice, but before long i'll be back in school again, so... is my attitude supposed to change? i don't think it could.

Simon had been fishing all his life, maybe enough that he had all the time in the world to ponder such things, and to get... i dunno, mature enough to choose when the time came. maybe he also got sick of fishing... maybe he always sensed that there were better, higher things in life to devote himself to. maybe it's like Moses spending forty years in the desert. maybe it's a vital, vital, time.

2nd Corinthians 5:1-10:

Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

2008-03-17T15:24:00.002+08:00

hello everybody, i was surfing around for info coz i read a verse in the bible (Deut 29:29) which reads: "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law." (NIV), and there's another verse in the bible (1 Cor 4:1) which reads: "So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God." (NIV)
so i was like, "huh?" because the two verses confuse me (but then again i havent finished reading Deut 30:1 - 1 Cor 3:23 entirely, which means i might have missed out on something), so i went to look for some clarification

i havent found anything that explains the 1 cor verse yet, but i found this link:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/us/newsletters/0803lead.asp

and within this article is a link to another article which i found very interesting:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2003/0620atheist.asp

which is basically a story abt some pastor in denmark who became an atheist, and how he got suspended, and how his church members complained. related to this story is an article (http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i1/editorial.asp) about this guy called charles templeton, who used to serve with billy graham but ended up thinking too much and ended up rejecting christianity.

i recommend exploring the articles and the related links; they're quite interesting and have some apologetics-related stuff, but more importantly, i think that, having read a bit abt this charles templeton guy's history, there is a real danger when we abandon our faith and trust in God and His word, and replace it with a desire to sate our own intellect, which is nowhere near adequate enough to understand all of His ways.

oh and i also think that the denmark example is a strong reminder that sometimes while we're busy praying for the underprivileged and oppressed ppl of the world, there's also another large group of ppl that need to be prayed for as well

Jackie Pullinger - Chasing the Dragon

2008-03-06T20:23:00.006+08:00

this is a response to question three from 'group discussion'. Well it's not really a response because i had this in mind when i wrote question three. but here goes anyway.

(quoted from the above-mentioned book, first published in 1980, about Jackie Pullinger, an english missionary working in Hongkong from 1965 to date, according to the Society of Stephen website.)

Whatever was going to happen next was obviously meant to be a very emotional experience. My heart began to bump a bit because I was not at all sure what was going to happen next. Then I sat down and they laid their hands on my head saying over and over again in pidgin English, "Now you begin speaking, now you begin speaking, now you begin speaking."

But nothing happened; they thought I was going to burst into "the gift of tongues" and it had not worked.

... The idea of a new language in which you could speak fluently and express all the thoughts of your heart to God was wonderful. But I thought that it was something that you had to be rather advanced and spiritual to get. I shut my mouth firmly. If God was going to give me this gift - then He was going to do it, not me.

"Now you begin speaking, now you begin speaking."

I was acutely embarrassed and began to get cross with them. I felt hotter and hotter and more and more uncomfortable; here I was not speaking in tongues and they were going to be so disappointed that nothing had happened... Eventually I could not stand it any longer, so I opened my mouth to say, "Help me God," and it happened.

As soon as I made the conscious effort to open my mouth I found that I could speak freely in a language I had never learned. It was a beautiful articulate tongue, soft and coherent in that there was a clear speech pattern with modulated rise and fall. I was never in any doubt that I had received the sign that I had asked for.

(some time after)

Then to my horror they suggested we pray together in tongues... I could not get out of it. We prayed and I felt silly saying words I did not understand. I felt hot. And then to my consternation they stopped praying while I felt impelled to continue. I knew already that this gift, although holy, is under our control; I could stop or start at will. I would have done anything not to be praying out loud in a strange language in front of strange Americans, but just as I thought I would die of self-consciousness God said to me, "Are you willing to be a fool for My sake?"

I gave in. " All right, Lord - this doesn't make sense to me, but since You invented it, it must be a good gift, so I'll go ahead in obedience and You teach me how to pray."

After we finished praying Jean said she understood what I had said, God had given her the gift of interpretation. She translated. But it was beautiful; my heart was yearning for the Lord and calling as from the depths of a valley stream to the mountain tops for Him. I loved Him and worshipped Him and longed for Him to use me.

It was a language so much more explicit and glorious than any I could have formulated. I decided that if God helped me to pray like that when I was praying in tongues, then I would never despise this gift again. I accepted that He was helping me to pray perfectly.

Everyday - as I had promised the Willans - I prayed in the language of the Spirit. Fifteen minutes by the clock... I said, "Lord - I don't know how to pray, or whom to pray for. Will You pray through me - and will You lead me to the people who want You." And I would begin my fifteen-minute stint.

After about six weeks I noticed something remarkable. Those I talked to about Christ believed. I could not understand it at first and wondered how my Chinese had so suddenly improved, or if I had stumbled on a splendid new evangelistic technique. But I was saying the same things as before. It was some time before I realized what had changed. This time I was talking about Jesus to people who wanted to hear. I had let God have a hand in my prayers and it produced a different result. Instead of my deciding what I wanted to do for God and asking for His blessing I was asking Him to do His will through me as I prayed in the language He gave me.

Now I found that person after person wanted to receive Jesus. I could not be proud - I could only wonder that God let me be a small part of His work. And so the emotion came. It never came while I prayed, but when I saw the results of these prayers I was literally delighted.

... At my conversion I had accepted that Jesus had died for me; now I began to see what miracles He was doing in the world today.

huh

2008-03-05T03:03:00.004+08:00

Ever had a day where you didn't want to sleep because you didn't want to wake up the next day? What am i waking up for? What does it mean when people say "God used me" or "God has a plan for me".
It's just something that hit me some time ago and its been in the back of my mind ever since. You know, the more i thought about it, the more i found myself unable to pray. I tried to forget about God. He would not let me forget. Where could i run to, that i may hide from His presence? All the books that i have read, all the knowledge that i had; could not prepare me for what i am experiencing.
One of the things that i just cannot get my mind around, is the Grace Of God. Man's sins are forgiven, even those committed in the future. All paid for. But we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.Now i understand. God's response to man's increasing sin, is increasing grace? Foolishness. Offensive to my sense of justice. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.
Nonetheless, i take heart that the Word calls me blessed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. My faith is slippery. It is at odds with itself. But. God always has the last word. Thank God for faith. I believe, and i am blessed. Praise Him.

Hours after i typed this out, after reading it over again, it does sound quite emo. But i choose not to edit it, because it reflects what i felt as i was penning my thoughts. Cheers guys.
-Beh

Would I...

2008-02-28T16:34:00.003+08:00

Hello CG-lites,
I wrote some stuff and here it is.It's a little boy asking the world about his future.
---Kash

Would I...

Would I be a doctor, a lawyer, an astronaut?
a teacher, a preacher or prince of thought?
Would I wear Daddy's important blue tie,
have hairy feet or grow very high?
Would my tongue grow long enough to lick my elbow,
my muscles grow big enough so I am Rambo?
Would I still have animal biscuits for tea,
Mommy buys one box, why can't I have three?
Would Jenny's granny still be alive
bake fantastic meatloaves or large apple pies?
Would I grow up to know 86 timestables,
sing noisy songs or recite Aesop's fables?
Would I still put a thumbtack on Mr Green's chair,
and make fun of such people who do not have hair?
Would I still be the king of my castle,
and win Robin Thomas in tiring arm wrestles?

Would I still remember to fold paper planes,
shoot red rubber bands,or play shadow games?
Would I still climb Uncle Ben's big tree
watch sunset up there,just Jenny and me?

Would I grow up to be a very big boy,
but not forget the smell of wet grass or
squelch of warm soil?

And when I grow up ,
Ill what Ill be,
who am I then,
would I be me?

lovelove,
Kash

Max Lucado - When God Whispers Your Name

2008-02-25T14:40:00.003+08:00

i love this. i can't believe it's so simple and so good... it's single-handedly changing my week. see if you guys like it.

------------------------------

Each day. . .
It's quiet. It's early. My coffee is hot. The sky is still black. The world is still asleep. The day is coming.
In a few moments the day will arrive. It will roar down the track with the rising of the sun. The stillness of the dawn will be exchanged for the noise of the day. The calm of solitude will be replaced by the pounding pace of the human race. The refuge of the early morning will be invaded by decisions to be made and deadlines to be met.
For the next twelve hours I will be exposed to the day's demands. It is now that I must make a choice.
Because of Calvary, I'm free to choose. And so I choose.

I choose love. . .
No occasion justifies hatred; no injustice warrants bitterness. I choose love. Today I will love God and what God loves.

I choose joy. . .
I will invite my God to be the God of circumstance. I will refuse the temptation to be cynical. . . the tool of the lazy thinker. I will refuse to see people as anything less than human beings, created by God. I will refuse to see any problem as anything less than an opportunity to see God.

I choose peace. . .
I will live forgiven. I will forgive so that I may live.

I choose patience. . .
I will overlook the inconveniences of the world. Instead of cursing the one who takes my place, I'll invite him to do so. Rather than complain that the wait is too long, I will thank God for a moment to pray. Instead of clinching my fist at new assignments, I will face them with joy and courage.

I choose kindness. . .
I will be kind to the poor, for they are alone. Kind to the rich, for they are afraid. And kind to the unkind, for such is how God has treated me.

I choose goodness. . .
I will go without a dollar before I take a dishonest one. I will be overlooked before I will boast. I will confess before I will accuse. I choose goodness.

I choose faithfulness. . .
Today I will keep my promises. My debtors will not regret their trust. My associates will not question my word. My wife will not question my love. And my children will never fear that their father will not come home.

I choose gentleness. . .
Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle. If I raise my voice may it be only in praise. If I clench my fist, may it be only in prayer. If I make a demand, may it be only of myself.

I choose self-control. . .
I am a spiritual being. . . After this body is dead, my spirit will soar. I refuse to let what will rot, rule the eternal. I choose self-control. I will be drunk only by joy. I will be impassioned only by my faith. I will be influenced only by God. I will be taught only by Christ. I choose self-control.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. To these I commit my day. If I succeed, I will give thanks. In fail, I will seek his grace. And then, when this day is done, I will place my head on my pillow and rest.

j lo's 21st video

2008-02-24T20:46:00.001+08:00

Globalisation and Christianity

2008-02-19T04:44:00.002+08:00

I'm here to share an article from one of my seminar readings which I found rather interesting:

The Christian nations of North America and Western Europe are well developed. Many have identified the Protestant work ethic and frugal lifestyles as key factors in capitalism's development. Nevertheless, globalisation and capitalist principles clash with some Christian ideals. For example:

The "love thy neighbour as yourself" principle dovetails better with collectivist ideals that stress community orientations (communism) than with the individualistic orientations of Western societies.
"Thou shalt not covet they neighbour's goods" (the Tenth Commandment) is at odds with the materialistic, acquisitive nature of capitalist societies. In economic theory, Duesenberry's permanent income hypothesis (1949) posits that emulation of social superiors is a motivational force driving consumption in advanced societies. In developing countries, Nurkse's Demonstration Effect (1952) and Hill and Still's Emulation Cycle (1980) all attest to the power of "coveting thy neighbour's goods" in stimulating consumption in emerging markets. In popular parlance, the rat race also signals the use of material possessions in determining individuals' postions in modern economic societies.
The profit maximization principle can be equated with greed.
Sunday (the Christian Sabbath - Lord's day) is not a day of rest for most retailers - Third Commandment - "Keep holy the Sabbath").
The kingdom of God is not a democracy.

Question: Is Christianity incompatible with democratic and capitalistic principles? If so, why have democracies and market forces societies flourished in Western Europe and North America?

Aspiring economists out there might like to think about this. In the meantime I will dutifully attend my seminar and hopefully get some answers :)

Reflections on Prayer

2008-02-18T00:44:00.003+08:00

Dear CG, just to share a portion of what I journal-ed on 12th Feb. Its on prayer.

Prayer

I was just thinking about prayer yesterday after reading a book on it. There is this rather well known story (Dr. Robert Munger's My Heart Christ's Home) that illustrates the picture of us spending time with God and its simple concept.
So it goes that this guy has yielded his life to Christ, and realized that he really desired fellowship with God. The illustration here is that God is always in this beautiful room with a fireplace and nice sofas for the both of them to sit and fellowship. God is always in that room, waiting every morning for this man to come into the room and spend time with Him. God truly desired to talk to and listen to this man and for the first few months, they had great fellowship. But slowly, life’s responsibilities and workload began to overwhelm him. He skipped a day spending time with God in that special room, then two days, then a week, which turned to months and years. One day, the man walked past the room and peeked into it. He saw God sitting there near the fireplace, waiting for him, just like every morning. The man felt guilty, since he invited God in, but was not spending time with Him.
“The trouble with you is this. You have been thinking of the quiet time as a factor in your own spiritual progress but have forgotten that this hour means something to Me also. Remember, I love you.”

Prayer is about relationship, abiding in Christ, and sweet fellowship with God.

P- Process. Prayer is not a one off thing you do. From the mental and physical preparation the day or night before, to the focus required during actually praying, to the end of it where you follow up and end with a testimony no matter what the answer. It also includes prayer lists.

R- Regularity. More than a discipline, we talk to God daily because He is in our hearts, in our ‘special’ room, waiting for us, desiring to hear and talk to us. Since He was invited, let us treat Him with our best hospitality we can give.

A- Atonement. Let us remember that Jesus died for us so that we can talk to God. Only through Jesus Christ can we go to the Father. That is why we pray in Jesus’ name.

Y- Yielding. Prayer is an act of dependence, and often desperation, but supremely it is an act of faith. Prayer is a major evidence of true faith. We pray because we believe in God. We pray simply of the fact that the God we trust in is All powerful and All knowing. If we do not believe that, why pray? We pray because unless the Lord builds the house, the laborers work in vain.

Prayer is not so much about our own spiritual growth. It is also not so much about our own requests. Rather, let us pray because of God. Let us pray because we know that when we do, we are actually entering the special room and making time to have sweet fellowship with Him. Despite of all our commitments, schedules, meetings and work, we must learn to make time to come into the special room with God. He is always there waiting for us. Let us not disappoint Him. Pray.

‘Prayer is a process of regularity, remembering the grace we receive through the atonement of sin, and yielding to the ultimate nature of the Almighty.’

- Jonathan Low, 2008

Chris Tomlin - Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone)

2008-02-16T21:40:00.001+08:00

Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I'm found
Was blind, but now I see
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed
My chains are gone
I've been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love, Amazing grace

The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow
The sun forbear to shine
But God, Who called me here below
Will be forever mine
Will be forever mine
You are forever mine

This song has been in my mind for a few days. It reminds me of the salvation I have received so freely, so undeserved. There is indeed no greater love than this that He would hang on the cross for me.

I was reading my past journal entries. And last year on 6 April 2007, Good Friday, I was reading a devotional or sth and I wrote this in my journal...

"The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God."

As I listen to this song, I remembered my friend singing it when she heard me humming it in school. But the thing is that she didn't even know what the song meant. "I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see" My heart just sunk. I prayed that indeed she'll be found, that she'll see. I felt this 'pain' in my heart as I thought about people around me who don't know God. And all the more I thought how much more it breaks God's heart than mine to see His people spending eternity without Christ! "For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord." - Ezekiel 18:32.

God's heart is for the lost. I believe the main reason why the return of Christ is delayed is so that more will be saved. We have great worship, great fellowship here on earth. And we will continue to have that till eternity in heaven. But evangelism is the only thing we can't do in heaven.

Jesus always prayed for the people He came to save, to heal. Even till the end, he said "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing". If we love God, we'll pray for the people He loves, the people on His heart. Let's keep praying for the souls of our family, relatives and friends. When we pray, heaven is moved, the Holy Spirit works a deep work in hardened hearts beyond what we expect. Let us be prepared to witness the amazing power of prayer :)

2008-02-03T23:11:00.000+08:00

phwww.

i'd like to talk about the issue we have with prayer, again. but it's not because it's that important, it's not because it's that fundamental, it's not because it's one of the few issues we seriously ever talk about, it's not because of what i feel, it's not because everybody has a view to share and wants to be heard, it's not because i want to convince anybody with my convictions, it's not because i'm doing what i think is right, it's not because i want to raise this issue so people read the blog, it's not because i want to keep bringing this issue to the attention of you guys, it's not because some people want to take it easy and i don't, it's not because i'm long winded and i think you guys are missing the point, it's not because everybody likes to be neutral to each other for the sake of peace, even if they have genuinely strong feelings about the subject, it's not because i want to have this cg discuss this properly like we never have the chance to during cg time and we have this opportunity to which is being neglected, it's not because i like to keep on a thread that nobody wants to continue, it's not because i want to redefine anybody else's faith, it's not because i want to argue about this with my human reasoning and perspectives, it's not because i think i'm very clever or wise or spiritually mature or Spirit-led, ... it's not because a lot of things, it's not because of whatever.

it's because we still don't have a common agreement and stand on this, whatever you may think, and ignoring it won't make it go away. it's because there's a thorn in our side and it's here to help us grow but we can't seem to divest ourselves of it.

do i have to do this? - no. do i have to make myself look bad when i become frustrated trying to talk about this, when i become passionate about it? - no. do i have to risk what influence and soft power i've developed over these years with each person present, by having been a nice guy and having been quiet and yielding, and now being difficult and unsympathetic? - no. do i have to give up my image and persona of being cool and non-committal to look as if i'm hard on about an issue we can try and ignore for the sake of uneasy peace? - no. do i, do you, ever have to do a single thing about anything to simply be a member of this cg? - ... no.

hahahaha...

has trying become so difficult/ i dunno anymore what to do/ so look what we've become. look, look. what would Jesus say? what would give God the most glory? that we agree to disagree? (sorry, i know we don't, i just quote it, as a possibility). that we agree to accept each brother's or sister's convictions as their own personal level of faith? isn't it very convenient for us then, subsisting independently, or in groups we feel comfortable sharing with, minding our own businesses till kingdom come?

where is our cg heart? and where is our cg soul? can you put a finger on it? or does it feel empty to you?

or do i still sound stupid to you for being this annoyed, this angsty, this aberrant?

please. just one more time, just listen to what i have to say, and respond. don't ignore this, don't disregard this, don't overlook this, don't think you can get away without committing something of yourself to this anymore. i don't want a cg like that, and i know you don't want a cg like that either. we can do something about this, even if it's ugly at first, but maybe we can find a way to make it a beautiful thing as well. spread the word, let's talk about it, let's fix this, let's fix us. let us dig deep and let us stand up and say, enough of this, let's come together and choose to grow, like we did before.

---------------------------------------------------

i haven't got jx's permission for this, but it's been nine days past, so... anyway we should see this. *note that added words are in black.

Yeah, my two cents take on a very tricky issue. Sorry but I really tried to keep it as short as possible. Could you spare twenty minutes of your time to read it?

Jian Xin -

Dear Ian, my new response

Does God change his mind in response to prayer if he can foresee the future?

All along in our discussions, we have argued over two assumptions. First, God exists outside time and foresees the future. Secondly, He changes his mind in response to prayer. I feel that this presents a paradox. The paradox is best illustrated with an example.

Suppose Peter were to pray for his dying father. God, however, being omni potent and present, already knows that Peter will pray for his dad before the prayer is even made. More than that, he even knows His own decision over Peter’s prayer way in advance. (i.e.: since The Beginning) Assume that Peter’s father is an asshole and the wise Lord wanted him dead before the prayer event. If God were to change His mind after the prayer event, than he will be in effect, questioning His own will and wisdom when He made the initial decision to terminate the father. But since God can foresee the future, He can also foresee that He will change his mind. This brings His earlier decision into disrepute- How can God pre-prayer event decide that Peter’s father must die, knowing full well that he will change his mind post prayer? That would be akin to me saying: “I want chocolate ice cream tomorrow but I will change my mind by tomorrow and choose vanilla instead”- Did I really want chocolate in the first place?

I propose that either one of our assumptions is wrong. Either a) God cannot foresee the future or b) God does not change his mind, ever. I feel that choice A inhibits God’s true powers to an earthly view of time and violates His sovereign will. God would have no way of knowing what would happen to His creation if he cannot foresee the future. Furthermore, choice a) conflicts with biblical accounts of God and prophesy. If God cannot foresee the future, then how can mere John foresee it for the matter then? I plump for choice b) instead. I admit that my biblical knowledge is not up to scratch, but I believe that there is no verse in the bible that indicates that God changes his mind in regards to prayer. To me, this is the only weak link in the proposition that I am advancing from which you must attack to answer yes to the question highlighted above. Biblical proof that God changes his mind will change my mind and make me reconsider.

Does prayer even have an effect on the future then? Of course! The fact that God doesn’t change his mind does not preclude the fact that Prayer has a direct effect on the future. I stand firm on two points, 1) God hears our prayers; 2) God answers them. I suspect that God has already heard our prayers and has already decided and acted upon them since the beginning of time. Whether the answers take the form of the supernatural (For example if an angel were to appear and cure Peter’s dying father) or the natural (Doctors eventually manage to bring Peter’s father back to life) is outside the scope of the argument. However, I stress that both views are consistent with an unchanging God.

I feel that it is also appropriate to discuss the concept of Change. To many, change is an ordinary occurrence which is difficult to define. Try coming up with a definition which does not involve the word “difference”! However, change is a scientific concept, irregardless of where it occurs. It is thus interesting to note that from a Physicist’s perspective, Change can only occur over time, that is, Change implies the existence of time. Change cannot exist outside time by any definition. (Try to define change w/o implying time’s existence!) If God were to be unbounded by time, he probably would have to exist outside it. (More on this later) Change then by definition cannot occur with God. To me, this is further evidence of the inconsistency between a) and b): the changing and omnipresent features commonly ascribed to God are inconsistent with each other.

Without wishing to bore you any further, (you’re still with me right?) recent advances in Physics have also indicated that Space and Time are mere properties of our universe. In fact, they change as they lengthen and dilate in the presence of energy and velocity. If we assume the very elegant theories of relativity to be true, then God will probably have to reside outside space and time, whatever that sentence means. For if God created the universe, than ergo he created space-time as well. To me, it is inconceivable for the Creator to exist in Space-time “before” it was even created. He could however, choose to inhabit it for some time as Jesus.

I would also like to clarify my position on the relationship between Logic, Mathematics, and Physics. First, Logic is universal and transcendent. I am of the opinion that it is not a human construct. However, I cannot say that it predates God for that would imply the existence of time in God’s domain, outside space-time. One plus one will always equal two, even if the human race were to be extinguished. Mathematics however, is a human construct. The study of Math is a study of the most formal, precise language in which to explain logical relationships. These relationships cover a lot of ground and the Mathematics required to express or proof all of them may have yet to be created. Maybe they never will. However, I strongly believe that Logic itself does not break down anywhere.

Because the universe exhibits logical properties- since self-consistency is a requirement for existence- Mathematics is used as a shorthand language to describe it. However, just because our understanding of double slit experiments and black holes break down does not mean that logic does. It merely reflects our ignorance of certain properties of the universe, not the fallibility of logic. If we do not interpret the universe correctly, naturally the Math will never work out. Spurious results such as 0=infinity will then occur! New physical interpretation is then required, along with new Mathematics.

FINALLY, If God were to change his mind with regards to Prayer, than what would prevent such a God from changing His mind in the absence of Prayer as well? Furthermore, I would doubt the wisdom of a God who does not make the optimal decision initially, and has to rely on the prayer of others to change His mind and make the wisest choice later. The somewhat whimsical nature of such a God does not tally with the unchanging character of strength, will and sovereignty of His that I know of. The God that I envision is unchanging, both in his love for humanity and in his hatred of sin. Such a God would not be bounded by the constraints of space and time. He could do anything he pleased. He would probably not be bounded to logic as well, although he would not be independent of it- My God is a God of Logic as well. Loving us so much, God gave humanity a gift so precious its very concept would be debated endlessly for ages and yet anchor humanity throughout all of time: Choice. The fact ‘God knows our future’ does not endanger our Free Will. He merely knows the choices we will make, He does not determine them. Our fates are only known by the heavens. They are not preordained by it. The future is ours to make, but God can foresee what a glorious future it will be.

“Free will is right of all sentient beings” - Optimus Prime 2007

i replied to him,

okay. now that you've read that (referring to the email about prayer started by john), and i've read your two cents too, surely you can see that we agree on almost everything, except that i made the mistake of saying that logic fails us. i acknowledge this mistake, and i acknowledge my mistake in saying and believing that logic cannot define faith during cg time on friday. i hold faith as absolute, and thus disregarded logic in the same way i disregarded reason, because faith cannot be bounded by reason, yet it is perfectly and absolutely logical for us to have faith, because we believe in God Almighty. and that is the truest form of logic there is, whereas reason and mathematics are only (as you describe) interpretations, human constructs, etc. used to understand logic. therefore, where faith, and the belief in prayer, is unreasonable, irrational, unscientific and impossible to prove, it is not illogical.

i also think that we disagreed because we jumped at different wordings of what we individually believed in. from your two cents, you say that God cannot change his mind. And that is also what i said in my email, and what i believe in completely. what i wanted to tell you during cg time was that God responds to prayer, prayer has power, and prayer changes things. and from what you say, you completely agree with me as well. therefore on the fundamentals of this, we agree, and in no way contradict each other. i was of the (incorrect) opinion that you did not believe prayer to God to be useful or necessary, whereas you might have been of the opinion that i felt that prayer could make God change his mind, which i have never thought possible, logical, sound, or correct.

i really really admire your writing, and your grasp of logic, it has definitely enlightened me on what logic is and how it is in God. i respect your very mathematical reasoning of God and his precluding of change. the bible states that God is everlasting, unchanging, eternal and forever the same.

jx, in terms of the power of prayer, and God's promises for us, i also want to refer you to these verses:

John 14:13-14: "And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."

Matthew 17:20-21: "He replied, 'Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.'"

Luke 11:9-13: "'So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!'"

now i know that it is foolish and senseless to insist that all these promises do come true in our time, in our world, and in our lives. but these promises hold true, and they will come true when Jesus Christ returns to redeem us.

1st Corinthians 15:20, 23-26: "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep... Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death."

the preceding passage doesn't directly mention the fulfilment of prayer, but i believe it encompasses this, as well as the end of all the things in this world that separate us from Christ, when Christ returns.

please, tell me what you think of all this, and whether you feel that prayer is essential, effective, or whatever. basically, share with me what your faith leads you to believe. also, refer to the email for our views on this, and reflect as you wish. one cg member to another.

oh! and please keep an eye on the blog! cgdaily.blogspot.com

ian

---------------------------------------------------

and i also told shermaine about this before i told you guys. here's what she said. (also taken without permission {sorry; omgoodness you can't walk in a straight line!? boy that's wind})

hey ian

i'm going to liverpool this weekend! maybe i'll see torres!OKAY, probably not. haha. think i wont even go to Anfield because its not exactly near the city. Neither is old trafford actually. but man u match tickets are actually within sight! not as expensive as i thought it'd be. keeping my fingers crossed! anyway, yeah most people are giant sized.. but they are not fat, just big. i'll be eating their food everyday since my hall is catered so maybe by the end of 6 months you'll see a plus sized me too.

so how has cell been? looking forward to reading about chiaying's views. yes, i do have microsoft word, because my laptop is here with me. and yeah i read the piece jianxin wrote already. and john's blog entry too.

i think the fact that we have differing views on prayer - whether it changes things etc, is because of the different reasons and expectations we have for and of prayer. since we cant possibly do a perfect "control" experiment (excluding the case you brought up in your previous email regarding prayer which i think does have loopholes), we wont be able to find a conclusive answer to this, although speculation and logical thinking might clear the air a bit. so i do think having different convictions about prayer is acceptable, just as we have different reasons for going to church. ultimately prayer is the foundation of our relationship with God, because as in every relationship, the need for communication is undeniable. so i feel that the key here is that prayer is being seen as our form of communication with God.

i got a bit lost with jianxin's mathematics and physics but here's my take on the issue anyway.does God change His mind? i don't think so. i believe that He already has a plan for everything and our prayers are part of that plan. whether or not we pray, He already knows.

"Suppose Peter were to pray for his dying father ... and so on ... Did I really want chocolate in the first place?"

From this, if we consider the fact that God transcends time and space, He wouldn't have had the thought of wanting Peter's father dead before the prayer event. God would have known that 1)Peter's father is dying and 2)on this day and at this time Peter will pray for His father to be saved, both events at the same time. so His decision on whether or not Peter's father dies take into account all factors already, including all prayers for him. so in a sense we cant really say that prayers "changes" God's mind, when it is possible that instead, prayers help make up God's mind.

now, assuming our prayers can change God's mind. but wait. in the first place, why would we even think of changing God's mind when we know that God is all-knowing and He would have the best plan among us all? obviously i wouldn't want my imperfect desires to have a negative implication on the thing i'm praying for. i wouldn't want God to change His perfect plan to suit my imperfect desires (because i cant see into the bigger picture of things and so what i want might not be what is good). but that doesn't mean i don't expect God to listen to my prayers and answer them as i have prayed, since in the perfect world, i am supposed to have grown to have the desires of Christ and so my prayers would be in line with God's good, pleasing and perfect plan. so in a sense what i pray for would be affirming God's will, asking for it to "be done on earth" as in the Lord's prayer. therefore i am praying not because i want to change God's mind but because i am communicating with Him and acknowledging His plan in my life.

not sure i've made myself clear and if what i've said makes sense to you. its getting quite late and i haven't been using much of my brain ever since my exams ended last november, so this is all i can come up with for now. do correct me if my thinking is warped. hah

have a great cny! :)

sherm

and my reply was,

hi shermaine

haha. i told you on msn that you could take it easy on replying to this email. but okay it's still rather appreciated that you did.

anyway i read your blog so haha okay wow going to liverpool! man u tickets within reach! oh you better grab them!!! RONALDO ROONEY GIGGS SCHOLES! OMGOSH.

haha. okay. ... (edited out) ... haha you brought your laptop eh. so you really lugged 30 plus kg there huh. nail clippers and all. lol. about the blog, i decided of myself that i will stop babying it, and let others grow it if they want to, so i resolved to read it once every sunday. so i dunno what's happened to it for awhile. what do you think?

okay i agree with everything you say, except this.

personally, i feel it is unacceptable that we have different takes on prayer. i feel that even though we have a personal relationship with God, and hence our interaction with God is tailor-made for us, our needs and our strengths and our faith, etc., we must still acknowledge that we are worshipping and listening and talking to an ultimate God, almighty and eternal, etc. and for this specific issue of the effectiveness and usefulness of prayer, i think that we must all surely adopt a mentality that God will ALWAYS a) listen to our prayer, b) respond to our faith, c) know what's best for us, and d) bless us accordingly. can God do any less than this? will God do any less than this? surely not. these are self-evident convictions (if you will) about a 'correct' relationship with God. whereas the end-product of prayer and of how God works is questionable and debatable, according to each person's take, given his situation, and given our lack of complete wisdom and understanding, the faith and trust a person has in God can never be questioned, whether it be in trusting God, or trusting him/herself to trust God.

i think this is a key issue. people have always been told to trust God, but they must also trust themselves to trust God, which is to say, to trust God in Spirit, and in truth. a simple example follows:

1) do i trust that God is all-powerful? why, yes, certainly.

2) do i trust that God listens to me when i call on him? urh... sometimes i don't hear/feel a response, but yes, i would believe in that, because the bible says that God is a loving God. but i would like some proof.

3) do i trust that God will do what's best for me? huh, that's a tough one, as far as i've known. well, the church always says so, so i guess i'll trust in him until i have proof that what's happened was never the best for me.

now. i assume (please correct me if i'm wrong) that it is perfectly acceptable to you if other cg people feel this way about prayer, and that it is also acceptable to most members of our cell... but why's there a difference between these three questions? what's the difference? our experiences, knowledge, emotions and faculties?? huh!? (and) aren't we called, aren't we compelled to believe that to all these questions the answer is and must be a sure and resounding yes? or else how else are we supposed to be in God's presence (when praying)?

when Peter asked Jesus to call him to walk on the water, did he go with a doubtful mentality? perhaps. were the others in the boat sceptical? surely.

but now that we know that Christ has risen, that he has given us the Holy Spirit, and that Christ will surely return to bring us to heaven, can we still respond to God's promises as if we didn't know all of these things? can we still, as Peter, be afraid to walk on the water even knowing that God has called us to do so? can we still, as others in the boat, think Peter is crazy and Jesus is joking when he asks us to walk on the water?

how dare we say this verse: "i can do all things through Him who gives me strength." ? isn't there something fundamentally wrong about claiming to be a Christian, (and believe the bible, trust in God, etc.), and yet not have this 'more than conquerors' mentality?

Romans 8:35-39:

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
'For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.'
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

are we really convinced, or are we not?

if we aren't, then at least we must know that this is what we are called to grow to. So there can be no other convictions about prayer, nor about any of the other promises of God. we cannot deceive ourselves into thinking that this or that conviction is okay in our personal relationship with God (sorry the original words used here are perhaps a touch forceful). but if we do, then we must do so to God.

Romans 14:3-13:

"... for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand."
"For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written,
'AS I LIVE, SAYS THE LORD, EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW TO ME,
AND EVERY TONGUE SHALL GIVE PRAISE TO GOD.'
So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.
Therefore, let us not judge one another anymore. Instead, make up your mind not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way."

okay. that's it. remember that you don't have to work on replying to this email. i apologised to you before about dropping this partnership in your lap then and i still do, given the distance and whatnot to think of. having said that, how're you doing? how's the walking with God been? what's in your daily worship / quiet time routine? haha.

take care!

p.s. oh also have a good cny. haha but without bak kwa and mahjong.

ian :)

---------------------------------------------------

that's quite a bit to digest, innit? alright, for making it this far, pat yourself on the back. now, the least, the very least you have to do, is think about it, and say something. no more keeping quiet on the sidelines, please. the only way we can get closure on this is if we all put our foot in and see if there's anything we can agree on.

the first thing i said about this blog was that it wasn't gonna be forced on anyone or anything, because no amount of forcing can accomplish anything in this endeavour, unless people choose to participate. but i am imploring you guys to do something, for our sake.

God bless,

ian

2008-01-28T17:45:00.000+08:00

ANNOUNCEMENT!
hello everybody, especially those who weren't at cell, i am doing some publicity work. my dad will be conducting some seminar entitled "life stewardship: a biblical and practical approach to time management" at wesley methodist church. in case the title of the seminar isnt self-explanatory enough, you can get a brochure from myself to find out more. it's being held on 20/21 feb frm 7.30pm-10pm and it costs $4 for materials. can pay on the day itself. if anyone's interested in going, pls let me know.

and since i have your attention, i might as well post some thoughts about friday's cg.

For those who weren't at cell last fri, we were watching some dvd regarding prayer and answering questions related to what was shown. The idea of "why we pray" was touched upon once again, and i feel led to say some stuff (which may or may not overlap with the email i typed out previously concering the concept of whether prayer works. If you want it, i still have it, or you can scroll down, or you can click here).

I think that, first of all, we all have to admit that we have different comprehensions and different convictions about prayer. But more importantly, i feel that we all need to come to the consensus that prayer is an act of faith. In realising, and reflecting upon, this, i believe that all of us will be reminded that faith plays a very large part of Christianity, and that it is also the most illogical part of Christianity (to put it very crudely and bluntly).

It is faith, or more precisely the concept of faith, that prevents us from bringing others to Christ on our own strength alone (because these people have to ultimately make their own steps of faith to come to Christ), and it is also faith that gives us hope to believe that the people we are reaching out to will eventually come to Christ. Different levels of faith in different people will determine how they react to the scenarios mentioned here, and prayer could very well be a reflection of the level of a person's faith. On the other hand, people convicted differently might not believe so, possibly because their personal experiences have not led them to believe in such a way.

Our faith is strengthened when these people are brought to Christ, and it is our faith that strengthens us when these people reject Christ or are lost before they accept Christ. Faith is necessary in accepting these losses and trusting that God will use the experience for good, no matter in what way (from experience, God works in mysterious ways; this applies to how He does good as well). More often than not, such faith is manifested in the form of prayer. Other times, faith could be manifested in a form of stoicism; a general acceptance of the way things are going and refusing to despair over them. Once again, the level of our relationship with God comes into action here.

Having said all this, i feel that, in addition, it is necessary to remember that we are all only human; it is impossible for us to fully comprehend how God works or the rationale behind His actions. The application of faith in order to accept this is very necessary. Some might argue then that it seems slightly absurd or contrived to just attribute everything to "God's mysterious ways" as an escape clause, which is something that i doubt i could adequately contend on my own knowledge, but to which i would suggest that whoever is in doubt try to find some other way to explain their own question and see whether it suitably solves their doubt. At the same time, it is important to distinguish between child-like faith and blind faith, but this isn't the point of this entry.

How does this then relate to the idea of "why we pray"? As i mentioned before, 1) prayer is an act of faith, and 2) we probably have our own convictions about prayer. At the end of the day, prayer is also a very personal thing, and so are the reasons for why one prays. Each person has his/her own level of conviction toward prayer and the reasons for praying, in the same way that each person has his/her own level of faith. The convictions of a person who prays as a form of communion with God are as equally legitimate as the convictions of a person who prays to God in order to intercede for others, or as a form of supplication. It takes faith to believe that when you pray, there is actually a God listening to you, and that you aren't merely talking to yourself.

In conclusion, i'd like to reiterate that, just as how people have different levels of faith, people have different convictions toward the purpose of praying. In the same way that people's faiths are shaped by their experiences, people's convictions toward the idea of prayer and the reason for praying are also very personal. While we might sometimes not view other people's convictions toward prayer as sound or agreeable, i think that it is necessary to respect their level of conviction, because things like these ultimately cannot be intellectually articulated for people.

ok ironically, i left out any bible references in this post, as it's meant to be food for thought more than something theologically foolproof. if anyone would like to point out things from what i said that should be clarified based on biblical reference, pls let me know and ill try to find relevant passages

from our past email (on prayer)

2008-01-27T19:03:00.000+08:00

From: Jessica Quek (jessica_quek87@hotmail.com)
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 8:49:21 PM
RE: my 2cents worth for cg discussion on 16/11/07‏

hi cg, i thought i should say something, since well, i was part of the 'heated discussion' tt u all described.
i don't enjoy being in such discussions and sometimes, when dragged out, they can be a waste of everybody's time;
but i felt tt there was a need to this time because i felt that it was something that needed to be ironed out. sorry about it.
like kash said, thanks john and ian for sending such long emails; not very used to it, but they're much appreciated. see you all on fri.

blessings,jessica.

From: itadakimasu27@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: my 2cents worth for cg discussion on 16/11/07
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:10:49 +0000

HELLO guys, well i agree with mostly what is said. Ian and thanks for the case study.Especially poignant to me.My dad always asks me:You Chrisitians believe in your God right?But if you are sick,will God cure you?Will He send medicine or money from heaven?OR he says" Christians are not any better people--they are just as self-centered. When they pray they pray for themselves,they don't pray for God." (though praying FOR God is an ironic thought)

To these I haven't found the answers,I cower away and just keep praying for him in my own time.

In response to the debate at hand,I would say whether prayer changes things or not, was never an important question for me.I still pray because God is really like a friend,an intimate other to me and I cannot help but tell Him all my hopes and desires,ask Him about my life and future,about friends that I care for(intercession).I must say Im a dangerously Spirit-led person,lacking in knowledge or theology which i will try to brush up on in the near future.

My question to this debate is DESIRES.Because desires are the things which take faith to pray for.So what does it mean to be surrendered to the Lord?Does it mean that we do not pray for desires because we are surrendered and we trust in the plans that God have for us,to prosper us and not to harm us?How can we distinguish a desire that God puts on our heart?Are out hopes and dreams desires that God puts on our heart that He seriously intends for us to pursue? can/will He crush them along the way?When do we stop praying for something and start surrendering,at which point do we let it go or do we see it as a test of faith to pray even harder?

Sorry I have to do this but let's take "FACING THE GIANTS" for example,a mini case-study,hopefully everyone can relate to:

Coach had a bad time with his job.Wasnt one bad thing that came along the way,but many,logically directing him away from the job.How does he know it is not God signallinghim to change jobs,because when windows of opportunities are closed,it could be God directing you elsewhere.If took it in stride,had an accepting attitude to things under the guise of "surrendering to God's will"(the way things turn out, God is just not leading me there), then he very well would have quit the job prematurely.

But he took these things that were against him as a challenge of faith, bashing through the odds with God.He desired to coach the team to victory a lot:perhaps a God-given desire.

So is it true that if you have a strong desire at heart,a hope, a dream, it must be from God and you pursue it relentlessly as a faith journey?or is hope for miracles something that is strictly to be kept within movies?Or perhaps is there a time that comes where we weigh out the opportunity costs and surrender "God,I want this a lot but maybe it's not what You have in mind for me afterall."

My two cents worth is that: in prayer we must DARE TO.It is growing in courage in asking boldly from God,not like you are his boss,but like a son asking his father for candy,acknowledging Hissovereignity in it all,yet asking.It is true that there is a bigger picture that we cannot see,we wont know how God fits in all the pieces,because we are ultimately only a small piece ourselves. we've I'm sure we've discovered new things when we walk unexpected paths that weren't our original desires but God's will.

Then should we then back down,give it all up and float as fate or just make logical decisions according to tangible outcomes that God has allowed to happen?Life might be easier that way but I believe that praying against the odds and asking for what is not humanly possible,is quite the essence of faith.of course we are not talking about the "God let me strike toto tomorrow" kind of miracles here.

A sense of expectancy and believing it is possible,guides one's hand,though it is God who paves the way and gives us hope.Part of prayer is asking for peace to accept what we can't change,but that shouldn't stop us from asking from God boldly the next time round(as long as the request is Godly.)Ultimately I believe prayer really trains a man to look above himself and look to God for a miracle.Hey I know we're 20 and all,but isnt part of faith, still, about miracles?

It is also a growth journey of overcoming your faithlessness:But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.-James 1:6For if we ONLY ask for what is foreseable and humanly possible, what then are we saying about our trust in God?

A man shouldnt be stubborn but he should be of conviction and faith.(sounds good but the line is really quite thin and hard to draw)

Another way to look at prayer is not whether it changes things or not, but the value it brings to our spiritual lives and our relationship with God.

Sometimes I think CG discussion gets hindered by words.We all have our views I believe,but being spiritual matters,these are complex and hard to put into words.I have a lot of trouble finding the right words,I dont think Im a very good communicator at all.In this sense,writing helps better,gives time to better express.

Keep this alive guys.ian and john,lotsa valuable stuff in your writing! to the rest, God bless for your exams yall.dont worry,they're really quite a small part in life.:) ,just a really small but impt part.

:)kash

From: rejuvenate03@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: my 2cents worth for cg discussion on 16/11/07
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:56:47 +0000

heh i'm in the midst of doing some silly differentiation stuff and guess i prob wont do anything n forget abt this if i dont reply now..so short one just in response to the first part..

well of course when the grp's too big, not everyone gets to share and some dominate the discussion. but i'd say that oppportunities are given to everyone to speak or at least most of the time when i facilitate, i try to ask everyone at least once. then its up to whether the person wants to share coz of coz i do believe even though they may appear quiet, they have opinions to share which i feel is a good time n place to be encouraged!

with regards to intense discussion, well diff pple have diff views abt it..some love it. they think it helps us to stimulate our knowledge of God and in some way unite us more through 'rubbing shoulders' but having said that, some dont like it. they see the tension. feel uncomfortable abt it n see it as tension n unhealthy for CG. so there must be a balance i wld say.

and also CG time besides a time for discussion about issues, the bible which is what we're doing - great!, is also a time for us to care for one another. i wld say btw growing in the knowledge of God as a CG and caring for ppl, caring for someone who might be gg through some things affecting him or her overrides our time to discuss and learn from one another in terms of understanding the Word tog. that is why small grp time is impt.

i think praying more as a CG is impt. and we need to invest more time in that. i mean we got so much talking abt prayer and how it moves God's heart and all right, so all the more shldnt we be praying more esp as a CG. together we pray, we seek, we commit events, ppl unto God, together we see God's answers to our prayers, we see His glory and sovereignity and that He in turn blesses us coz we're stronger in unity in Him :)

some, including me saw that Fri when we spent considerably more time praying for one another as q a huge growth for our cg. just seeing how we show concern for one another, praying and committing one another to the Lord is really cool.

so yea got to balance and its good that we have ppl who hv diff perspectives so it keeps things more balanced, if u know what i mean...haha coz i dont really know what i'm talking abt now..back to differentiation and integration!

love, chia ying

From: the_invisible_mirage@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: my 2cents worth for cg discussion on 16/11/07
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:32:08 +0800

Good man.

i kinda felt that we glossed over this again, as we tend to do during cg. but here and now is a better time to discuss it, eh.

firstly, this appeal is not an original one, but let me echo the sentiments of others here, in an encouragement for us not to get too fixated on a topic, such that we take away the opportunity for others to speak as well. you know what i'm getting at here lah... if we're to grow, then we have to hear from everyone. it's not that the people who are quiet are un-opinionated on the subject, they're just waiting their turn.

but let's have good discussions as well. think carefully about what we have that adds to the discussion, and so to speak, pick your spots. sadly, cg discussion isn't buddy buddy time; our three hours has to be carefully protected so that everyone's in on the program. personally, i wish that we'd not be afraid of having intense discussions, and also that we'd take out a little time from announcements, prayer for events, etc. =P, to extend a discussion that is Spirit-led and that a few people would find crucial to their Christian approach. although i more than understand that sometimes we just have to move on and the post-discussion stuff is important too.

ok. i generally dislike using case examples to prove anything, it feels too much like GP, and GP is bullshit. but here's an interesting one. this is taken from the bestseller, 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins, an atheist biologist. this is dangerous literature.

'An amusing, if rather pathetic, case study in miracles is the Great Prayer Experiment: does praying for patients help them recover? ... Francis Galton was the first to analyse scientifically ... he noted that ... in Britain ... entire congregations prayed ... for the health of the royal family. Shouldn't they, therefore, be unusually fit? ... Galton ... found no statistical difference. His intention may have been satirical, as also when he prayed over randomized plots of land to see if the plants would grow any faster (they didn't.)

More recently, the physicist Russell Stannard (one of Britain's three well-known religious scientists) ... an initiative ... to test experimentally the proposition that praying for sick patients improves their health.

... care was taken to tell them (the people praying) only the first name and initial letter of the surname (of patients being prayed for. but the patients didn't know if they were being prayed for or not.) Apparently that would be enough to enable God to pinpoint the right hospital bed.

... the idea of doing such experiments is open to a generous measure of ridicule, and the project duly received it...

... a Dr. Benson and his team monitored 1,802 patients at six hospitals, all of whom received coronary bypass surgery... divided into three groups, Group 1 received prayers and didn't know it, Group 2 ... received no prayers and didn't know it... Group 3 received prayers and did know it.

... they (the praying people) were told to (pray) ... "for a successful surgery with quick, healthy recovery and no complications." The results, reported in the American Heart Journal of April 2006, were clear-cut. There was no difference between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not... There was a difference between those who knew they had been prayed for and those who did not know one way or the other; but it went in the wrong direction. Those who knew they had been the beneficiaries of prayer suffered significantly more complications that those who did not.

... it was no surprise that this study was opposed by theologians... the Oxford theologian Richard Swinburne ... objected to it on the grounds that God answers prayers only if they are offered up for good reasons.

... Needless to say, the negative results of the experiment will not shake the faithful. Bob Barth, the spiritual director of the Missouri prayer ministry which supplied some of the experimental prayers, said: "A person of faith would say that this study is interesting, but we've been praying for a long time and we've seem prayer work, we know it works, and the research on prayer and spirituality is just getting started." Yeah, right: we know from our faith that prayer works, so if evidence fails to show it we'll just soldier on until finally we get the result we want.'

okay. let's be sensible and ignore this case. that was just an interesting aside.

if everyone were to speak personally, we can all surely say that we believe prayer to God changes things, for the Bible truth that God responds to faith, and God listens to prayer. if not, i don't see how we can be Christian. but what changes? logic dictates that God knows all, time, non-time, concepts built for man that do not apply to God. logic dictates that God already knows He's going to do what, so He doesn't ever have to 'change His mind.' so because God knows everything that ever happens, nothing we say or do can change what is going to happen by His will (everything, actually.) expanding on that, no prayer we have can really persuade God to do anything else/ convince Him of the necessitude of having something happen, that He knows is already going to happen. Doesn't it mean that the personal choices we make as Christians are pointless as God already knows if we ultimately chose to go to heaven or to hell? of course not. but i wouldn't tell you why.

so maybe we pray for things that are less clear cut, so that we can claim subjective victories in things that happen. for example, we pray that the bus comes, we pray that people will be saved at a certain event, we pray that God will take care of us tomorrow. we pray that God will speak to us some way or other. we pray for things in the future, we remind ourselves that we cannot demand of God, that we cannot set a time for these things to happen, we cannot be disappointed when prayer fails now. these are simple steps to faith-building, faith-perpetuating, safe, prayers. lo and behold, prayer works.

on the other hand, we also say that prayer opens and aligns our hearts and our minds to the will of God, it brings us to God's heart, it uplifts us, it gives us peace, it gives us humility, it gives us wisdom. it encourages brothers and sisters in Christ to know they are being prayed for, it brings congregations together in fellowship under the wise ministrations of a pastor. prayer in a group allows us to share and sympathise with the perspectives of other believers. prayer keeps us on our toes, we acknowledge our sins before God when we pray, we pray for others before ourselves, we check our consciences before we pray for blessings. we give praise to God in prayer for things that work well, in ways that we can and cannot imagine. we look at people who pray, and they seem externally to be happier, more contented and more spiritually complete. finally, we know that God desires our worship and our relationship with Him, and He alone knows what pleases Him, and He alone knows why He wants us to pray to Him. so all this leads us to believe in prayer.

these are all well and good, but it takes a personal faith to believe in prayer. a personal faith that is self-convinced, and as such, undeniable. let me go on to say personally that i am a firm believer that prayer changes things. God responds to faithful prayer. imagine if tomorrow He said that he wanted to rain fire and brimstone on Singapore. would you not step up and say, 'Lord, if there are five good men in Singapore, would You not spare Singapore?' or would you stand by and think, 'it's up to you, Lord. You know best. You always decide what happens.' i have also had amazing things happen to me after a prayer, though not necessarily after qt. some things have happened that i thought i would be truly blessed to have happen to me, and i am thankful to God that they have happened, and i am also thankful that i can pray to Him for them. we are blessed if God 'visits' us emotionally when we seek Him, and we should not consider a lack of emotional confirmation or circumstantial evidence as the non-presence or uncaring side of God. but why not? because we fail to understand a lot of things. because God works in mysterious ways. non-answers, essentially, but by these too there can be answers.

we can be logical as much as we like. but there are answers in faith that defy logic. and logic cannot defy faith because logic fails us.

well haha that's that. respond respond respond! but of course study hard first.

ian

> From: johnnyworm007@hotmail.com>
Subject: my 2cents worth for cg discussion on 16/11/07>
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:54:08 +0800> > >

hello everybody,> >

im very upset right now because i typed out the following mail and then pressed the 'refresh' button by accident so i lost everything. sigh. anyway, i realised that i didnt really say anything during discussion time during cell last friday, but there were some things that came to mind after spending time in bed with chris chia and also during sunday service that i thought id share:

> > About interceding, my reply (or at least the only one i could think of) is that we intercede because the Bible tells us to. It was one of the verses that we read out at the start of cell (Ephesians 6:18, which is apparently our memory verse for this week). It might sound like a cop-out to give an answer like this, but at the same time, it's also the most basic and fundamental answer one can give (i admit i didn't notice whether this got mentioned during discussion time coz i wasn't really paying attention; ironically, i was looking through my Bible for answers). We follow what the Bible says out of our love for God and so that we may express love to others, and as Chris Chia said to me (i'm paraphrasing), it's best to adopt a child-like faith when it comes to doing what the Bible says.> >

As for the matter of whether our prayers have an effect on events and their outcomes, i think that a large part of this depends on one's personal conviction regarding the matter. For me, i feel that prayer does have an effect on outcomes, in part because i desire them to. The problem with our discussion was that we focussed on a very linear progression of events, generally divided into two schools of thought which, very simplistically speaking, are: 1) that we pray because we believe it has an influence on events, and (2) that even though we believe events and their outcomes are set in stone, it is only human to desire that events turn out in a certain way, and so our prayers are an expression of this desire. The problem with thinking in either way is that both are based on the concept of time.> >

God has the luxury of being able to grasp the concepts of time and non-time, so to speak. I would have liked to give an example to illustrate this point, but it's kinda hard to. The closest i can get is the example of "Schrodinger's Cat", which even then isn't that good an illustration. I don't want to risk getting too confusing so i could attempt to explain this in person instead.> >

But what i'm really trying to say is that for us to conclusively decide the effects of prayer and whether they affect the outcomes of events is impossible because we are only human, and cannot understand what all of God's plans are. Whether our prayers affect outcomes or not shouldn't be our main concern (like the saying goes, "In faith we pray..." i donno what the rest of the saying is). There are definitely verses that suggest prayers do have an effect (e.g. James 5:16-18, Matthew 7:7), but to see the promises in these verses as your basis/motivation for praying shouldn't be the case. If prayers always had an effect, then people wouldn't keep saying that God's answer to prayers is either 'yes', 'no' or 'maybe'; the answer would always be 'yes' (once again, this is a very simplistic way of looking at things -- refer to James 4:3 as well as your own common sense).

hmm maybe it's not such a bad thing that i didnt manage to think of all this during discussion time. i'm not going to suggest what our motivation for praying should be or why we should even pray at all because different people have different styles of and reasons for praying, and im sure that a lot of us definitely pray with faith as our basis (with the hope that our prayers have an effect on events being a by-product of this faith). plus my brain's kinda tired, especially with having had to type all this out twice. anyway, you might want to refer to the following link:

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/190/story_19034_1.html

as well as the other featured articles that are listed at the end of the interview for some perspectives on prayer, and also:

http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/message_list.asp?pageID=1&discussionID=581923&messages_per_page=4

which is a forum that features a person who became greatly disillusioned with the concept of prayer. as far as his/her question on predestination and free will goes, it coincides with my thought earlier on that God enjoys the benefit of understanding time and non-time, and so i shall be intrusive and say that i think predestination and free will can co-exist

anyway, have a good week ahead. cheryl, i can now personally relate to your analogy of speaking to someone for 3hours, although it's not really something id like to repeat anytime soon

-john

the incredulity of saint thomas

2008-01-25T22:14:00.001+08:00

This painting is entitled "The Incredulity of Saint Thomas" by Baroque artist, Caravaggio.It illustrates the famous doubting Thomas,putting his finger into Christ's wounds before he would believe that it is the very same man that was crucified and rose again.

John 20:25-29
But he (Thomas) said to them, "Unless I put my finger where his nails were,and put my hand into his side,I will not believe it."....

...Then Jesus said to Thomas "Put your finger here,see my hands.Reach out your hand and put it into my side.Stop doubting and believe."

Thomas said to him, "My Lord,my God!"

Then Jesus told him, " Because you have seen me,you have believed,blessed are those who have not seen but have yet believed."

I do wish at times,the answers to large and complex questions can be as lucid as touching Jesus' wounds,but walking by faith embodies a beauty and fragility which is far more precious.

--kash

RE: i'm a Christian. Ask me why!

2008-01-25T16:25:00.000+08:00

yeah. you're right. no one really stops and asks themselves why they believe in Jesus. either they're living the faith day by day, or they don't care, day by day. either way, they get through, until someone asks them to think about it all over again. and then there's a pause, a slight dry-mouthed hesitation, and then it's called a crisis. haha.

it's not that believers don't know why they're believers, or find it difficult to remember why they believe or when they first started. it's just that belief is an intangible thing, it exists beyond explanation, substantiation or evidential description, because these by definition can cause belief in the sound and reasonable mind of any person. now if you tried to pass on your personal beliefs to someone else in much the same way as you'd pass a piece of knowledge, you'd certainly try to do so by explaining in terms of derivatives and principles, or by experiment and analysis. logic can certainly be convincing if applied reasonably and epistemologically. however, it is impossible to do so for things that aren't based on rules, laws or undeniable facts. personal and self-convinced, as belief, faith and spiritual truths are, they exist beyond logic and sensibility, and hence also the subsequent acts of elucidation and explanatory enunciation.

and hence you're essentially trying to reach out and circumscribe a slippery and elusive mental image, in terms of being able to do so in a manner that can coax a similar belief in someone who's listening to such an explanation.

that's why we're called believers, not know-ers, even though we're obviously the latter.

saying, "i'm a Christian. Ask me why!" has the metaphysical equivalence of saying, " I'm a post-modernist! Ask me why!" try answering that. "well, i'm a po-mo because i think that the act of defining something gives it restrictions. for example, calling a person a woman confines her to... only the female things in the world." haha! can you imagine laughing in the face of someone like that? in the same way, religion, taken objectively, is akin to a rather more 'sacred' preference of things, whether in terms of lifestyle, beliefs, values, hopes, views, etc.

perhaps we should have the mentality in our heads that although we know exactly what we hold on to, and what we want to share to someone else (all of kb's points here, in your personal favourite blend), to actually physically pass them on is somewhat of a fallacy.

1st Corinthians 1:18, 22-24: "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."; "Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."

so in effect, we open ourselves to derision and scorn, we make ourselves vulnerable and assailable, by exposing and disclosing our closest held and most treasured beliefs, remembering how it was written that this is exactly what is supposed to happen.

2nd Corinthians 12:9b: "Therefore i will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

so, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us be all the more encouraged to share, personal testimonies notwithstanding. i remember Pastor Dave saying that personal testimony is all the more powerful because it is irrefutable. well, technically speaking, we know that it is, but we certainly won't be swayed. haha.

honker (but please, call me ian. it's freaky to be called honker)

hellooo!!

2008-01-24T19:36:00.000+08:00

Hey guys, it's the time of the year when im MIA again. So here's a little update on how im doing! Hope you guys miss me? I know Sarah doesn't after reading her email saying im only 0.01%. So hurt you know! Haha. I'm trying my best to miss you all but i keep getting distracted by the shiok life here. Nahh just kidding, i miss you all and don't worry i'll bring krispy kremes back with me. any other requests? i'll consider it on a case by case basis. haha. (Chiaying i cannot find your pine nuts, you want macademia nuts?)

If you guys are wondering what i've been up to, i've been flying about 1 flight every week, to get back my flying sense. It's like if you dont drive a manual car for a long time and you suddenly start, you'll most likely stall. But luckily there arent gears in the plane. so it's been great so far. haha. when im not flying i'll be working on some project for the instructors here. I end work everyday around 3pm and after that it's just my own free time. Aniwae here are some pics for you guys. I'll be posting more on facebook. haha

The shit hot piece of machinery i want to fly
The pok plane i actually fly

Aniwae it's super relaxed here. i really dunno how im going to adjust back to life in Singapore. It's sooo sooo much better than when i last came here cuz im not being assessed when flying. So flying is super enjoyable! stress free! yup aniwae i've flown the 5 flights that i came here to fly and now im just waiting to go back. Oh and my flight has been confirmed- reaching SG next wed at night. Till then, take care and God bless!

Cheers,
Shaun

I'm a Christian. Ask me why!

2008-01-23T12:45:00.000+08:00

Have you ever asked yourself why you believe in Jesus?

I know what you’re thinking... You’re thinking, “How could we NOT, right? I mean he – GOD - DIED so we could live, right?” Right. But be honest. Why do YOU believe? It could be because:

1. I believe that He is an all-powerful, benevolent creator and therefore is deserving of our worship.
2. I believe that God loves all of us unconditionally, as demonstrated by Jesus Christ’s sacrifice. This act of love can only be repaid with our undying devotion.
3. Christianity makes the most sense to me. Other religions have fundamental flaws in logic (eg. The idea of god taking the shape of an elephant, jackal or wolf seems ludicrous, the improbability of enlightenment being attained through meditation, etc).
4. I have actually encountered God, thus proving (at least to me) that He is real and thus should be worshipped.

Or is it some other reason?

I’m writing this entry because I wanted to start a discussion about the reason behind our choice. I also wanted to get people to think about it, if they never have before. I think loads of people don’t give much thought to why they believe in God. It’s usually more about what I can do for God or what He can do for me. I think it’s important to know why we believe in something in order for it to have any meaning at all. If not, it’s just blind faith, which is ok at the start, but doesn’t last.

I believe that knowing this reason will strengthen your personal testimony and your ability to share with others and bring them to Christ as well. If someone asks you why you believe in Jesus, it’s a great opportunity to show them how strong you are in your faith and how aware you are of what you believe in. Hopefully, you won’t be at a loss for words. ;)

I believe that the rationale behind Christianity’s popularity is the fact that it’s not so much a religion as it is a relationship. That means it’s different for everyone. Your reason is unique. It’s between you and God. There could be a thousand reasons. 2.2 billion reasons (sorry, no statistical substantiation here. lol).

Care to share what yours is? You could write a comment or a related entry =)

the brain gives up.

2008-01-23T00:53:00.000+08:00

2008-01-22T12:10:00.000+08:00

I’m 98% packed and 95% ready to go.

Beh msged me yesterday morning and asked me what I’ll miss when I’m gone. I told him it’d be the comfort and familiarity in general of life in Singapore. It was just something I thought of at that moment. But as I thought about it more and more through the day, I realized that its no more going to be the familiar ceiling I wake up to each morning, or the familiar faces I meet each week.

I’ll only be able to figure out how exactly to get to my university from the airport when I’m there. And that is step 1. No t knowing what to expect behind the next turn makes me kind of insecure. But I guess that’s why its going to be exciting. Haha. I’m just thankful there is a God watching over me, who knows what my next step will be, who is in control of it all.

Anyway, I’m sure six months will pass by very quickly and soon I’ll be back to see army boys entering uni and uni girls, erm, still stuck in uni. But in the meantime if you’d like to contact me and ask if I’ve met cristiano ronaldo and gang, my Singapore hp line will still be running so you could sms me. It’ll probably cost you 15cents if I got it right, though there are also other FREE options, such as through good old email, msn, or if you have a webcam and would like to check out my matching pipes, you could try skype. I’m still resisting facebook FYI. hahaha

Do keep reminding me of home and everything else I’m missing, like BAK KWA... and the cell, of course. :(

2008-01-21T22:51:00.000+08:00

Dear yall!

I had a five day holiday so I took a trip with Nuria, up to Mount Abu and Udaipur,five hours away from base camp at Ahmedabad.Saw some thought-provoking sights and recorded them down.Excuse the flow if it doesnt turn out right,cos I was asked to go for dinner in the middle of writing this.:))))

Miss yall,
Kash
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I sit on a bus, looking out on the busy,honking Gujarat street.The heat of the sun seeps through blackened curtains,warming these passengers in a tin can called a bus.Outside,I do not see sunlight, but dust, lots and lots of it.

Overhead, faded kites cling onto trees, power lines, most of them reduced to torn wisps fluttering in the afternoon wind.These are the remnants of January 14's "Utturayan", Gujarat's annual kite festival. The state spends two whole months or more preparing for this colourful day; making kites with paper and rattan sticks, sharpening reels of pink string with glass so one kite might easily cut the other.Utturayan was a happy holiday, a day off when young boys, teenagers and fathers gathered on rooftops to set their kites free.

But by night, the city streets were strewn with fallen kites,the cows and stray dogs gnawing at left-over bits of string or kite.There was much "overhead litter", kites caught in trees and powerlines,left only for the rain to wash away.It has been two weeks now, and the kites are still left hanging:they are nobody's business.

This is the India that you do not see on tourism brochures.More than sedaned elephants, Rajastani Tigers or the magnificent Taj Mahal, this is what the real India looks like.It is a comfortable place, where you can get your essentials and more, but it isn't a very pretty place to live in at all.

If I leave my "city eyes" behind and be a less self centered urbanite, I see these sad sights and invisible people, the people not worth taking notice of,call out loudest to me.

Up in Mount Abu,for example, children welcomed us when we got off the bus.These were working children, ten, fifteen year-old boys pushing boxcarts, offering luggage laden tourists a ride.These boxcarts were slightly larger than supermarket trolleys, with seats;they were pushed manually by these boys,up hilly roads, down steep slopes.The blue metal boxcars looked so rickety rackety, so lousy, an urbanite could hardly believe it was a mode of transport. Part of me felt the boys' hassling/ offers to tourists for that boxcar ride,to be plainly futile, even ridiculous: who would, afterall, believe a thin young boy could handle the weight of two fat tourists and their packed luggages? Science wouldnt allow it, even if a boy's determination would.

A few metres away from these boxcar rides, there was a bazaar,one of sad proportions. "Annyohasayo!", "Konnichiwa!", "Come come madaam, look only, no buy!look only..." said the hasslers, mostly middle-aged moustached men.It was however,not them who caught my attention, for there were too many of these irritating people.

In a corner,under a tree, sat a young teenage girl, sixteen at tops, with her bazaar ware laid out in front of her.Unlike other women sellers, accompanied by their fathers, sons or husbands,this young female seller tended to her ware alone. She did not tout, she looked too afraid to.

She only stared straight at me from under her red purdah and sat, curled up in the cold.Her stare had a piercing quality to it, as if it would make a man start,or make a war stop.It made me shudder and turn my head back, back to the task of helping my travel mate Nuria, choose wooden souveneirs at the neighbouring stall.But the pleading mystique in her eyes called out to me,I turned over my shoulder to look at her, and she at me.Freakishly,I realised she was looking at me all this while.I glanced at her ware: marble/ stone pounders(your mother uses that to make belachan)of different sizes, and decided I had no use for them.Furthermore, these would be far too heavy to carry around as a backpacker, I won't buy them.

Were it heavy gold and treasure I found,I thought,would I have decided the same,would weight be of the matter?If I had seen THIS as the one chance, to buy something from that lonely girl and give her a meal, would I have bought it, knowing I had no use for it?Forget that,would I have even given her money freely,knowing surrounding beggars were waiting for their chance to pounce on me once I showed sympathy?

Maybe gold is more precious than noble endeavours, I would lug treasure home if found it,but I left the girl and her marble pounders behind without buying a single thing.I'd rather wish she sold something of tourist interest,keychains or dolls, postcards or wooden elephants,for this would at least ensure some basic business.I pray that she'd be fine in the big picture of things,though I cannot conceive how she might get by selling marble pounders at this small touristy bazaar.

Down at another town,Udaipur,I saw a family of three, father, mother and five year old child, pushing a wheelbarrow of hot, smoking tar through streets.Udaipur is known for being the Venice of India...and so it is, with its countless rooftop restaurants,palaces and scenic lake views,except sights of these tar people,who will never be recorded into any memory of "Venice".I felt much sympathy for this family of blackened hands and faces.They had to push the heavy wheelbarrow of tar UPHILL most of the time.People who came close to them felt the tar's heat, smelled its pungent burning and moved away as if darting from cockroaches.

Like lepers or toilet cleaners in India, these tar people were "the untouchables", they were considered the dirty ones because they had to deal with what they had to deal with.And they had to deal with these dirty things, because they ARE the untouchables.

Because you are born into it,you will be it for the next generation, and so too for your generations to come.The five year old child will push this tar barrow when he is twenty-five.Even if he goes to school,he is expected to wash the toilet, it is an unsaid obligation when you are an untouchable,you do these things without being asked to, only because you are resigned to your fate,your label, your caste.(one of my classmates told me this.)

And how do they know you are an untouchable?
"By your surname," so I was told.And like many other things in India,I felt powerless to do anything about it.

On our second day at Udaipur,I had just eaten lunch and was waiting for Nuria to get a power adaptor at the provision store.
I was full, but still bought that bar of chocolate lying in the glass display cabinet, mainly for want to munch on something because I was bored of waiting.

Then I stepped out onto the street and saw a boy bringing a blind man around, asking, begging for money.Chocolate bar in hand,I knew I was full, I knew I had been eating so much these days,I didnt need these calories.A voice in my head, said to give this last bit of chocolate to the poor boy, even that little would make him happy,but another force held me back and reasoned,"If you start being sympathetic to beggars, there will be no end."

In contemplation,I munched and hesitated, hesitated and munched, and by the time the young boy and the blind man came up to me, I had finished the chocolate bar, which tasted worse than it should because of what just happened.

After these encounters with the poor, I cant help but think: there is much wishing to be done in India.

I wished I wasnt so rich, because I feel guilty everytime I eat, I feel guilty every time I spend.I wish I could do something about it, to heal this dirt, grime, dust, poverty, but where comes the courage to even begin such a massive dream?This suffering seems too vast for the taking.

I wish I had made better use of my educational opportunities,instead of being so distracted by temporary trivialities in my youth, because these are opportunities beggars could only DREAM of.Even then,I doubt they dream of these things, for the wealth of opportunity us city kids have, is I guess,beyond far beyond what they can conceive.What if they even knew such opportunities exist,would they hate us city people for treating opportunities so lightly?Would they spare the hard work of working an opportunity and go on begging anyway?

Most of all,in my wishing,I wished, I wished I hadnt bought my iPod.Because in my heart of hearts, and in the scheme of things, I don't need it, I can live happily without it.I have too much,I can live happily and comfortably without.

In this five day holiday to Mt Abu and Udaipur,I have come to hate the word "tourist", it seems loathsome, uncaring, temporary and commercial.I have done enough buying at bazaars across the years,in Thailand,in Cambodia.Everything is starting to look the same now,they are all starting to look like things I don't need.

Backpackers I've met come to India for one month, two months, six months, a year, and how,how does one stay a "tourist" for so long?How would anyone have the will to stay a spectator to poverty for so long?

Maybe that's why they say India changes you and you will do more than you intend to here.You start from being a tourist, to someone who actually cares for the country,just because some sights are just too hard to ignore.

I have a twenty day break in March,which is the longest break I know of by far,on my timetable. After my five day trip to Mount Abu and Udaipur, I doubt I want to be just a "tourist" again.My travel mates may go to Rajastan:Jaipur,Jodhpur,Agra(the taj),typical touristy must-sees in India, and another of my Indian friends is offering to take me to Nepal for her relatives' wedding.Then again, after seeing what I saw, the idea of a mission trip during this twenty day break, has started working itself in my head.

I would need to link up with Christian organisations in India,I would need to leave all my travel mates behind and venture out with the organisation all alone.Travelling alone is hardly fearful to me (don't ask me why but Im made that way), but the opportunity cost of giving up sight-seeing is still... quite high. Im not sure if Im fully willing to forego that.

Ah I need to start praying for God's direction in all this:Pls join me if you will in asking Him if I should even uptake this missions task.

just another random example of what this blog is for...

2008-01-21T12:08:00.000+08:00

hi all. good monday morning to you.

i was reading Time online and i got to this article.

The Girl Gap: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1704654-1,00.html

it's about the education in Afghanistan for girls, and culture. i must admit to becoming a bit teary-eyed when i read the part about the shooting of schoolgirls.

alright peace out.

breakthroughs

2008-01-20T15:46:00.000+08:00

today was certainly one of the better sundays in church that i recall in recent history. it had, everything. well, enough of everything, anyway.

i set the alarm at 745 to get up today for first service. now i still must admit to flip-flopping a lot on which service i go for, chiefly for the fact that most of our cg people do so as well, and service is quite boring without people to talk to in the row. so it's usually that we'd sorta poll on friday nights and then settle on first or second. there's even so many agendas involved just for something like choosing which service to go to. haha. that's amusing.

anyway, having managed to be there on time, i talked to edwin and andrew wong abit. also auntie wong. haha. i'm very good with older women, frankly. it's really, really easy, too. the most important thing is to be polite, and to be funny. older women are very very easy to charm. but it's sort of a compliment as well that you talk to them properly, like a gentleman, and charmingly. i don't really know why guys complain about mothers-in-law. haha unless of course you're so charming that they don't trust you with their daughter. which is... fair enough.

so anyway i went in with edwin, and i was telling him that like, i was waiting for people my age. and i mentioned that just as i wasn't quite his height, he wasn't quite my age. haha. (he'll never be my age. get it?) so anyway chia was there and i went to sit there.

i felt like sleeping through the sermon but there was ony of the littler guys sitting next to me so i thought i'd better not. and i went through the motions of taking notes, which is exceptional. i don't like to take notes for sermon outlines because i'd rather listen, pay attention and remember. and the sermon outlines are very non-specific so it's hard to remember the context of the speaker, or you'd have to refer to the verses, and besides i don't ever refer to the notes. it's in the bible, anyway, right? a sermon is just an interpretation and a reminder, if you look at it that way. unless it's something that nobody's ever said before, and makes all sorts of Spiritual sense, it's just gonna be like writing down a reminder. yeah.

so during the announcements they say the global missions watch will feature a doctor working in china, and i thought hey that's cool. so i went with chia and joanne and john to the thing. okay wait. for those of us who aren't aware (c'mon guys), global missions watch is this sorta talk run by Pastor Alvin and crew who kinda give the church updates on missions happenings, and the recent m.o.b., and so on. so we're sitting there listening to stuff and then we get a handout with the usual sort of lists of things that missionaries update the church about, what they're thankful for, need prayer for, etc. and then, we got to pray for them, which was a bit of a surprise to me. well, as first times go. anyway, john wanted us to pray together, as we were supposed to, to which i replied that i had no feelings for this, and so he bravely prayed aloud for the both of us.

right. having finished that, we went back to listening to more stuff, oh no, wait, the room was separated to pray for different regions, and we had cambodia. once again, i was slightly apprehensive about praying in a group for something i hadn't really thought about, and had no real heart for. thankfully, (haha), we were broken up to our own people (jess jo chia john and i), and we started praying. and then i got to thinking about why i was always afraid to pray with people. and i thought, there's never a problem nowadays when i pray to God on my own, in fact it's great. so, what's up!

i struggled with this for quite a long time, to be honest. and in the long time that i've been dealing with this, i've come to quite a few conclusions, leading up to today's sorta breakthrough. haha. one is that when it's one audience, who is God, it's very easy to be honest, and to be humble, and to speak forthrightly, and to be random. when there're people listening, prayer becomes sort of an encouragement and/or warning to this second audience. and it's funny to say the same thing to two audiences who are different in so many ways, like for instance when talking about the problems you wanna pray about, it's so vastly different how much God understands your point of view and how much anybody else does. two is that i usually am sceptical or suspicious of people who pray aloud and pander more to the people listening, than as they would simply presenting their heart to God, and that scares me, to be honest. three, which struck me today, is that i make use of a lot of expressions and worded peculiarities in my accounting of things, especially when i want to describe the things that are close to my heart, and so my english becomes quite fanciful and pretty. i love to talk to God like that, because it's His gift to me, and He understands before i compose my thoughts and words. but i'm afraid that people listening might think i'm showing off, or whatever.

a useful verse for this is:

Matthew 6:5-8 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men... But when you pray, go to your room and pray to your Father, who is unseen... And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."

anyway, what i always do, (stupidly, wrongly), is to dumb down my english, but i'm not any good at it, and i can't pray well. haha. so today as i closed my eyes with the group i thought, oh whatever, at least these people have known me long enough and have suffered enough halting and uninspired spoken prayers from me, that they know i'm not the show off kind when praying. and i thought that God would always understand, and i thought that, whatever happens, i'm going to believe that the people listening would understand as well. and so it went well, better than i've ever remembered when praying aloud. also being able to speak from personal experience when i was in cambodia (and vietnam), i prayed that the people who were still getting to their feet from the oppression of their government (the economic policy of the communist government was what i was referring to, it was quite draconian, actually), the genocide, and these same people who were eking out a survival in their struggling economy, who had to care for their families, would be able to at least attain some level of living standard. and when they searched for the deeper things in life, that God would reveal himself to them, and there would be people to show them the way to Christ. the second thing i prayed for was that the people being reached out to and being saved in prison would be powerful, fearless testimones for Christ, because they would have little left to fear from life. Just like the apostles, and also like Paul.

right. that was a breakthrough, a small, important one. like the first turn of a closed jar of goopers. haha.

and then after that we had lunch and went home. and i got caught in the rain. but it was quite a nice experience to sit underneath a flyover while cars whizzed by, as the rain poured on. seriously, it's very peaceful. it's funny to find it there, too.

i sure hope we get through more stuff like this as a cg, or even part of it. i mean we all have different things we have hearts for, right. like for instance john and i have never even ever been conceivably interested in going for missions global watch right after first service. but we just went, for my being interested in the doc (who was really fantastic. quite, quite an inspiration. quite a hero), for john i dunno, and look what we ended up with. time together, sharing, hearts connecting, and so on.

we could try caring about what others care about. we could, really, we could. and then, we could invite them back to what we're interested in.

right that's all. work hard, study hard, love hard, and faith hard.

lot's of love,

ian :)

2008-01-17T23:23:00.000+08:00

woo. this place sure looks like it could use a little traffic. nuff' said! :P

okay. it's been five days since i told you guys about the idea of having a blog, and sent out the email to the twenty seven (omgoodness twenty seven really!?) people who do or have once belonged to our cg. the email was sent as an invitation, although obviously i wish it were more forcefully presented so that the responses would be that much quicker. but i also thought it would be important to stress how much of an effort something like this would certainly demand, and i thought you guys deserved not to have anything tossed into your laps. and this was certainly supposed to be more than just a random blog of a group of people, so the buildup to this, i would think, would certainly serve to cause people to reconsider happily volunteering to join up in this enterprise without having given it much thought.

anyway despite that, we've had a decent showing, and at least people have stepped up to become authors of this blog. of the rest, there have been the odd email or two in a postive response, without the actual taking up of the offer to write, which is of course, acceptable either way, and besides, it's early days yet. i've tried to talk to some less represented members of our cg on msn, and will continue to do so in the hopes that they will at least keep an eye on this blog. i must admit i am slightly puzzled by the turnout in general, but i will certainly follow up on this, be sure of it. :) oh and thanks to kash, for our first two posts! haha. i am working on something else at the moment, something also for our cg, which i will reveal when complete. in any case, if inspiration should strike, please, vandalise our blog! better than empty like it is now.

and now, because i admittedly attest to a certain lack of blogging inspiration, i have decided to post some of the earlier threads that we ran through in our emails. whereas this should be the prerogative of their original authors and composers, i have nonetheless taken the liberty of copying them onto this blog, at least in the attempt to trace the foundations of our online fellowship system (OFS). lol.

first, that of j.lo. way back, way back then.

On 8/27/06, J. Low <jono11287@gmail.com> wrote:
To Ian, Kim Pong, Chris and John,
whose faith lies in my God, our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom all honour and praise is due:

My dear brothers in Christ, I come to you with the deepest desire to start a small support group among the 5 of us after much procastination on my part.
I pray that we will share, encourage, and be humbled in this support group. My friends, it is not only because of the army of which why this is starting, but because of the
age phase which we are going through. It doesnt matter whether its the army or the poly, our main goal is to PRAY, SHARE and ENCOURAGE.

Due to our highly busy and extensive life, I believe E-MAIL and SMS are the best mediums to fulfill our Goal.

1. PRAY

This is YOUR responsibility. Enough said.

2. SHARE

Brothers in Christ, in this new dawn and age, many are not sharing freely and from their heart. It is my desire that WE will open up ourselves so that we
can be accountable to one another.
What to share:

Dudes, Im a guy too. Dont hold back your sharing, for i think like you too.

Sex(porn, Geylang, etc.), BGR, Girls
Vulgarities
Pride
Christian Walk
Evangelism
Army/Studies
Church
Bondages

Just some ideas for sharing :)

3. ENCOURAGE

Share with us what you learnt in QT, in school, in army, in life.
Share a verse or a testimony.
You know what I mean.

Brothers, I need to have all of your co-operation and comittment on this so that it makes me disciplined to keep this going and also that WE will all be lifted in Christ.
All it takes minimum is to check AND reply your email every weekend. (if you are home that is). Additional would be sms-ing one another during the week.

Guys, WHAT SAY YOU?

Yours dearly in Christ,
J Low :-D

and the next,

Dear Warriors in Christ,

Just a little update on this small group.
So far, Chris and Kim Pong have not replied, but Ian and John did. We shall not wait for them, for i believe they will check their e-mails soon. :P
It is time to kick start this E-mail, where E stands for encourage, edify, sharE and prE(a)y. haha...:-D

A psalm I read which I felt was rather cool:

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever.
The ordinances of the Lord are sure and altogether righteous.
They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.
By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.

Psalms 19: 7-11

Don really get what it means, but it just sounds so beautiful :)

The Lord has really helped me in adapting for the past week, and I thank Him for that.
He is my peace and comfort.
Please pray for :
Continued discipline in doing QT
Forging good and healthy relationships with course mates, so as to help in evangelism and being a good testimony.
Wisdom and comittment in helping out in Sunday School. (I've just joined them)

Guys, i don ask for much. Just need all of us to CHECK & REPLY our mails at least once a week.
Let us get this going, for I do not believe the army or school should hinder us from edifying our peers in Christ.

May the peace of God be with us all,
j LOW

and my subsequent reply

On 9/15/06, Ian Ho <the_invisible_mirage@hotmail.com> wrote:

hey man

what a good bit of Word that is...

anyway lately... i realise that army life is changing me. i dunno why, i've lost sight of a lot of things i once held close. i'm becoming a bad person.a pretty bad person. maybe it's the system, and the people in this system,and then the people i'm with in this system, but nowadays, i don't care about a lot of things anymore. i can't see the need to be a good person, a holy and Christlike person, and it'sjust the little things like swearing and making stupid jokes, but after awhile i do a lot of mean and wrong things and stuff like that and i don't care if i do. it helps me fit in,it helps me get along, it helps make the bloody week go by faster. i know we always talk a lot about grand things like getting people to know Christ and being goodtestimonies,but it seems so much like nobody really needs God in their lives, and me being such a horrible testimony isn't going to help anybody see what a Christian life is. life nowadaysis so sian... and trying to be a nice person without all the usual nonsense seems soboring. i've become so short-sighted lately... it's like i'm looking only to the end of the day, the exercise, the week... and i'm blinded to the long term aim...of being a Christlike buddy to my mates past army life, of serving God with my life, of going to heaven with people i wanna help. i can't see it anymore, i'm losing hope of seeing Christ's plan here in the army. i know i should spend more time with God, and ... i wish it were easier. but i'm the onlyperson making it harder, and that's no excuse. it's not about the hours, and it's not about other people, it's about how much i want to do stuff like qt, and the rotten side of me always suggests that i don't need it. God's there when i go back to Him, because He shows Himself when i open my eyes, but i'm so stubborn and arrogant i think i can be an asshole and get away with it because of His mercy.there are so many things i know to be true and i used to hold on to, but now i neglect and ignore. like... trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. But now i just don't care, and i just do whatever i think needs to be done that works, i've forgotten what it means to lean on God's strength. I just can't see God working in physical direct actions, that i forget He's there and i don't really put my trust in Him to see me through my trials and my days. I wish i could see, i want to see. i don't wanna grow cold and hard-hearted, and blind to His will and His purpose.
well that's it so thanks for listening. pray for me and i'll try my best to qt every day so yeah i will. urhm until next time. haha.

ian
who is honker in camp
(honker is a bad person)

and jlo's reply

Dear Ian,

thanks for the honest sharing bro. that's what i'm talking about man, it's what i want to see happening in this E- mail, among the 5 of us.

Bro, i understand what you're going through man.
I've started swearing as well and it definitely does not help in our testimony of Christ.
The stuff guys talk about and the vulgarities really gets into my head. The monotony( is that how it is spelt?) and the bored-ness really leaves us with nothing much to look forward too eh?
So that emptiness is filled with many stupid and undesirable things that are born in the army.

bro, dont worry about others, worry about yourself first!
I'm glad you've thought this through and..
Did you realise that your email contains the problems AND its solutions? haha...
Its definitely not easy to be a good testimony AND evangelise, so let US take one thing at a time.
Dude, hold on to what you believe, for that determines your words and actions. examine yourself continuously and continue to change to the likeness of Christ .
At this point of time, I am struggling to be a good testimony, all for one reason: so that i can share Jesus with others.
If it wasn't for this 1 reason, I will be smoking and swearing my life away !

Ian, you are NOT a honker. please change this mindset of yours.
We are children of God, an instrument of righteousness, the apple of His eye. and that includes YOU.

"Return to me, and I will return to you," says the Lord God Almighty.

-Malachi 2:7

Guys, let us keep one another in prayer, especially in our spiritual lives.
It is so easy to lose it to the world, to conform to the patterns of this world.
For those who are happy with their spiritual lives, let us not be complacent, and continue to be disciplined
in doing qt and spending time with our Lord God.
Come to Church if you all can, for it is by fellowship that we are able to keep one another in check, at the same time to edify and pray for one another.

Just a side question for the army guys:
do you get sexually deprived because of the army? haha

Keep pressing on in Christ and remember to PRAY!!!!!!!!!!

yours faithfully,
j LOW

and another from j.lo

Hey guys,

How's the week been?
Just want to encourage you all to start/continue to post updates and encouragements on this E-mail. (pls remember wad the E stands for)
Ian, how is it going? Do let us know your progress so WE CAN keep you in prayer.
Ian turns 19 TODAY. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Especially for Kim Pong, the church is starting 40 days of community ( something like 40 days of purpose)
Want to encourage you to join us. I know it would be tough to be committed for those weeks, but something is better than nothing eh bro?
Make this an 'excuse' to come back down to church !

John, are exams coming up anytime? do let us know yr timetable if so.

I had a very tiring week, but let us continue to strive on for the Lord is our strength.=)
Have a great week guys.
God Bless.

j LOW

there's more where that came from, but that's quite enough to read. haha. i also revealed so much that even if i suddenly get protests to stop this it's probably too late. sorry! haha. right we'll have more in a while.

we actually have quite a lot of this kind of stuff, you know. feel free to pre-empt me in posting it here. until then,

take care, guys. weekend's coming!

honker

2008-01-14T01:54:00.000+08:00

So I'll do the honours and be the first to get the ball rolling. Privilege eh?

Yall should really check out the link in the shoutbox, Rob Bell's "rain" video, incidentally reminded me of Chris Martin 's(Coldplay) "Fix You", with all that walking.I really love the way it's made, because I've had some of the best conversations just walking and talking to people,like that. It feels as if Rob Bell was walking me to the bus stop telling me a casual story that really impacted his life...very noice that.

Since I've started journalism,I've had many such conversations with people that I meet:not talking about God per se, but talking about something deeper, the things that really concern them, the things on their heart and in their lives.Many of these conversations have blessed me, challenged my faith, and shown me the world through a different perspective.The more I talk to people, the more I realise the less I know: there are so many perspectives on an issue and each have their own justifications, it is almost impossible,I feel, to figure out truth based on intellect/cerebral matter alone.

Travel, be away, talk to someone unfamiliar/different without pre-judgements, and you'll know what I mean.

Rob Bell says in his video, that Jesus came for the sick and not for the well, and God says "cry out to me and I will listen".Im not trying to extol my own virtue, but I think there is an in-built sense of me liking to talk to melancholic, slightly troubled people to find out what's up with their lives,to just be a companion in their loneliness.Of course,effervescent and socially healthy people are equally attractive, but I believe life is much more than what looks like on the surface.

Recently, Ive dealt with a spate of friends confiding in me.I must say it really IS a privelige to be needed, to be trusted as such.I would listen over five hour conversations, talk over coffee, supper, drinks, MSN about breakups, the problem of "the ex", but mostly breakups.It feels like someone has let you in the exclusive abt their lives.

Nooma says in his video that God cannot not help you when you cry out (help in the sense of both the larger and the smaller plan) and I guess Im made part that way as well, it's hard for me to leave someone when I know they are in pain.I believe most problems stem from emptiness which only God's love can answer.

I think for the longest time, Ive invested a lot of emotions in friends, feeling for their problems, spending time being their outlet, trying to be an encouragement.It is quite a thankless job actually.

Finally, that day one of my guy friends came to tell me about his problems and I felt SO fucking frustrated,treated as an outlet and last but not least, TIRED. Very very tired of listening, even angry at myself for investing so much time and energy in these people knowing I won't get much in return.

That moment forced me to take a look :

1) I cant be noble or try to be. Despite the amount of time spent comforting a person,being good companionship, I can't save. I am not the Saviour, Jesus is. I cannot try to fill their distance from God with my friendship, what is emotional release in a friend compared to knowing God who brings Salvation?

2) I cannot solve their problems, only God can.I say it and I say it again, I ain't no Saviour.I am human, I tire, I cannot take another person's burdens upon my shoulders. Whereas God says "Come to me all you weary and burdened for I will give you rest" and it is only He that can give the soul rest.

3) Despite the superficiality of the phrase "seek God in your troubled times"(it's something we all KNOW we shld do), I think it's still the most meaningful advice. Sure I can give advice from my POV, but it is not the answer,only God holds the key, He knows your past present and future.

Anw, so much so for these reflections.Im real sleepy now, going to concuss on my bed.

top of the first, none out. here comes the pitch...

2008-01-13T22:31:00.000+08:00

hi fellas. this will be a sort of re-statement of what this blog is about, and why we want to have it for this cell.

reasons why we see this as a good idea:

one way or another, the time we spend together at cg is limited, and so we aren't able to really talk to one another.
there's dicussions we have that we don't get to say what we want, because we don't want to disagree sharply with each other, and we don't want to interrupt the cg leader.
it is a good testimony of what we are. we imagine it would really help people introduced to our cell to read our blog to know about us.
we can say as much as we want whenever we want, in whatever detail and expression and tone.
we can talk about things we are interested in that others might not be. we can talk about things that are totally not related to the topic in our weekly cg.
we can stay in touch with people overseas, and they with us.
we can pray 'out loud' for one another

fringe benefits:

cgls can post things, announcements, etc.

reasons why it should work for us:

as the de facto blog ic, i have much blogging experience to draw from, and am quite critically acclaimed (pardon me). and i promise above all else to not do very much of what i think, or what i want, as the blog ic. other than blog, of course. and i promise to seek the Spirit on this blog, every time i think about it.
various groups of people have been sounded out on whether or not they'd be interested in actively writing, and the response has been positive all the way around. this blog can be a place for people who don't speak up much on things, both spiritual and otherwise, to gradually and willingly reveal their thoughts and themselves. we can choose to tune out when people speak up in cell, but we can also choose to really digest what they have to say, when it's not their faces talking to you.
the people overseas will be dying, Dying, to blog.
inspiration might strike at any time, during cell, after cell, the week in between cells. and there's nothing worse for inspiration then not being able to tell people about it, whether because it's not appropriate in cell, or because it's meaningless when it's not cell.
we are all clever people, and use english well. there is no reason that we cannot have a proper blog.
if we take this blog seriously, and blog meaningfully, there's a chance we're really gonna get a peek into each other's worlds.
there is no regulation of how casual or how serious we need to be in this blog. well, duh, for all blogs. but here and now is the place where we can really get a feel for each other's personal voice, the things that egg us on, and float our boats. and more importantly, where or where not our hearts are.
what better thing is there to do at work, and at lectures? haha.

As partners in this, we need to really think about whether or not we are willing to be individually devoted and passionate about this. if we do, or decide not to be, it doesn't mean that we do or do not love this cell as much as anyone, it only means that this isn't the avenue we want to express it in. and we as a people can totally, comprehensively and lovingly understand that. to continue a blog takes a lot of effort and constant 'blogger-mentality'. we shouldn't start things to watch them fail. it becomes ugly, and it sticks with us. and if this blog doesn't pick up momentum, and sustain it, it will fail, and it will become ugly, until we eventually decide to euthanise it.

okay. i've really given it a lot of thought, and i really humbly invite us all to do this together. of myself, i have devoted this enterprise to the glory of God in us, and to this cg.

so when you've decided to get your blogger accounts and want to begin posting, we'll all be here waiting for you.

God bless to the max.

honker

how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news

2008-01-13T21:14:00.000+08:00

hello, friends. and welcome to our cg blog.

and who are, 'we'? what are we, do we have a 'we'? do we really think so?

haha. and so, perhaps just like you, we are here to find out.

so, please, come in, take off your shoes. can i get you a glass of water? no? a small aperitif? fortune cookie? very well. please, make yourself at home.

and read. read on, our dear readers. hear our words, feel our hands, touch our faces, and love our dreams. tread softly as you may, ever so softly. and when you have known every last thing that you'd ever want about what we stand for, then come to us, and embrace us, and join us.