Phil 4:6-7

bible memory verse #2:
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:6-7)

Amen.

Feeling secure

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not
parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek
its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil. (1 Cor 13:4,5)
A wise mom once said, "Take it as a compliment that other girls think
your guy is great, too." Be secure enough to acknowledge their good
taste. If your relationship is about love, then jealousy can't be part
of it. Paul spends this whole chapter defining love. He is clear to
point out that true love is not jealous. Somehow we've confused this
and begun to think that if you love someone, you're supposed to act
jealous and possessive. Love is about serving, selflessness and
caring. Arrogance and jealousy are for the insecure. Have faith in
Jesus. He will bring the perfect mate for you. Learning to love and
trust someone means that you don't have to worry about who he talks
to, or who he's in the same room with. If your guy isn't trustworthy,
then he's definitely not the one for you. Don't even start a romantic
relationship with him. Start making friendships instead of dating.
That way you can spend time with different people until you find one
who lines up with your beliefs and values, the one you can have fun
with, the one you love, the one you trust completely. The possibility
of boyfriends and girlfriends will come and go. Don't give in to the
"gotta have a date" mentality. Commit to having holy courtships and
let God bring the one He has chosen for you. When it's really about
love, jealousy will lose out and trust will win.

Inside my beloved bible, the above spoke to me : )

Prayers work

Prayers do work. God is faithful. Keep praying and meditate on His promises.

(17 june 2005)

He will not let you go. He loves you.

1 Corinthians 10:13

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

Not by chance

This must be told since nothing happens by chance, but that said, it never failed to amaze me still.

On Sunday 19 June, the sermon at my best friend's church was on the perfect will of God. So along that line of thoughts, she was wondering if she should still be as adamant on switching her line of work, cos’ looking back, one can't help but acknowledge that she has been very blessed. All the chances and lessons she received seemed to prepare her for her current job. Though it's never been her dream to be doing what she's doing, let's just say she enjoys her work, and many would die to be in her position. So, she thought maybe this job was God's will, so she shouldn't change it, since it does appear that He's more than led her here..

On Tuesday morning, I was doing my daily bible-reading. That morning's reading was Eph 4.. As I flipped thru the pages, I stopped at Eph 2 to look at the footnotes beneath:

Promise: He Promises To Have A Plan For You.

For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (Eph 2:10)

"Most days just seem to go by like every other day. Same old stuff. Same old everything. Blah blah blah. One day runs into another one. You close your eyes and wake up to do it all over again. Doesn't seem like much of a plan, does it?

Maybe not. But God has an exciting plan for your life - a plan that will give you purpose and fulfillment beyond your wildest dreams. Following God's plan takes what He's planned for you to do. You don't just accidentally fulfil what He's planned for you to do. You've got to seek God and ask Him to reveal His plan to you and to give you understanding about how you can fulfil it. Then, you've got to determine to make every day count for Him and for His plan.

Pay attention to every decision you face - even the ones that seem so insignificant. Take seriously every person you meet - even the ones you don't like. Embrace every situation you find yourself in - even the ones that seem to make no sense at all. They're shaping you, moulding you, preparing you for the next decision, the next person, the next situation.

Lose yourself in doing what God wants with every aspect of your life. Live your life in light of His plan!"

Upon reading the above, I immediately checked my Daily Devotional. Guess what? Sunday morning's bible-reading was EPHESIANS 2. I hadn't read the (above) footnotes earlier cos’ I'd used a different bible that day. But look, God speaks, and I always find it so amazing whenever Q&A situations like that happen. God can speak right to our hearts and answer our questions specifically. Just never stop asking, seeking, knocking. I love God. He is my Only God, my love, my Lord.

A healing miracle!

There is a miracle, so miraculous I didn’t know how to react to it, except to keep thanking Him.

After my prayer that night, I went back to bed to read my bible. My sister was sick and she was coughing the whole night. It was so bad that all the coughing made her start to wheeze, and the inhaler did nothing to help… Just hearing her cough made my heart ache cos I know how terrible she must be feeling since I am asthmatic myself. Halfway thru my bible-reading, I noticed her walk to the living room, so after I finished my quiet time, I went out to the living room to look for her. Mum had asked her to sit instead of lying down hoping it would help in her breathing. I sat down beside my sis, and assisted her with two puffs of the inhaler. After the medication, I asked her to close her eyes and think about God. I then laid hands on her and started praying. The whole time I was praying, I noticed that she had STOPPED coughing. There and then, I really didn’t know what to do, except to keep praying and keep thanking Him for healing. After a while I removed my hands, and asked her to lie down to sleep as I laid opposite her. Soon after, I heard her breathing normally as she fell asleep. In my heart, I was just so amazed, cos it was healing right before my very eyes! I so much wanted to jump up and kneel down to thank God but I didn’t wanna wake my sister up, so I just continued praying where I was. The first thing I did in the morning, was kneel before Him and thank Him. My sister went to the doctor subsequently and now her coughing’s completely stopped. Praise God!

Extraordinary, way beyond the ordinary, EXTRAORDINARY!

Daily encounter

We must have a daily encounter with God.

“Life sometimes get pretty routine and you find yourself feeling stale and soggy on the inside. You find that you can’t spruce up your own heart… He promises to ‘quiet you with His love’. There is nothing that adds zest to life more than the breath wind of the spirit of God blowing thru your heart. It does more for you on the inside than a squirt from the garden hose on a steamy afternoon. It brings you back to life. It gives you passion again. It refuels your energy. And it stokes the fire of God that is inside of you. He does it all without thunder and lightning. He does it with such tenderness – just by His love, which touches all your deepest places. Zeph 3:17 (..He will quiet you with his love, He will rejoice over you with singing.) Never ever forget that you are the one who makes God sing and He is the one who ‘will quiet you with His love’.

I prayed to God to enrol me for bible school next year. As I prayed about it, I was touched by the presence of God. I told God I was hungry for greater understanding of His word and I have a deep desire to be discipled. Although I know there’ll be challenges but I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Towards the end of my prayer, I opened my eyes and looked up into the sky. Staring at me was a face of a goblin formed by the clouds! I was so frightened that my heart started beating very quickly. Staring at the clouds, I kept proclaiming, “There is no fear in Jesus” And I kept repeating that till the facial features of the goblin started blurring to reveal just a plain cloud.

This taught me something. Wherever you are, whatever you do, especially in the face of fear, keep proclaiming Jesus! “Greater is the Spirit of God that is in me than any obstacle that stands before me.” (1 John 4:4) You have all authority! There is no fear in His perfect love. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” (1 John 4:18)

Thank you God, I am just so glad to experience You in my midst.

Indeed we all need a daily encounter with God.

1 John 4:7

Today, I make a decision to memorise 60 bible verses
Lemme start with my favourite verse...

bible memory verse #1:
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God;
and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
1 John 4:7 (NKJV)

Preaching challenge

What I also learnt from EMERGE:
The preaching challenge - "REVIVAL"

-by Crystal
#1 ONE-MAN REVIVAL
Be a revival carrier: Revival can happen thru ONE!
ONE Queen Esther!
ONE Moses!
ONE Nehemiah!
"Don't let anyone think less of you because you are young.
Be an example to all believers in what you teach, in the way you live,
in your love, your faith, and your purity" (1 Timothy 4:12)

-by Wayne
#2 COMPASSION FOR THE LOST
Aaron, who ran to the altar, caught the fire and saved Israel.
He literally stood in the gap between the living and the dead.
Are we gonna stand in the gap?
Are we gonna leave and abandon our parents who are unsaved?
Are we gonna leave and abandon our brothers and sisters who are unsaved?
Are we gonna leave and abandon our friends who are unsaved?
Are we gonna leave and abandon our loved ones who are unsaved?

"I want to run to the altar
And catch the fire
To stand in the gap
Between the living and the dead
Give us a heart of compassion
For a world without vision
We will make a difference
Bringing hope to our land"


I never really understood revival till now.. Indeed, revival CAN happen thru ONE.
There must be a daily encounter with God. An encounter with the Holy Spirit will not quench your thirst, instead it will make you all the more thirsty for God, more hungry for God.

"Like lovers who never met, their hearts pounded."
Does your heart pulsate to the beat of God?

We are made to worship God.

I want to think of Him everyday, miss Him everyday, hunger and thirst for Him every moment, every minute, to love Him and seek Him in all things.

Spiritual hunger

Night service I @ Emerge conference:
I must admit I wasn't as fit as I was in the morning.. I hate it when tired-ness creeps in and I dozed off duing worship. Sheesh I felt so quilty. During the Word, pastor then spoke about spiritual hunger and elaborated on what it meant to lose the hunger and what happens.. (put almost in a rather biological/ medical way)

When you lose your hunger:

1. Weight declines: you lose glory, lose substance
2. Protein in your muscles break down: there is no more strength
3. Lose the desire/ ability to repoduce. You become Impotent. Unfruitful.
4. Temperature drops. You lose your senses
5. Immunity system breaks down. Can no longer say no to temptations
6. Lose your mind: Brain fails. You go towards carnal thinking
7. Heart failure: heart stops beating for God, cannot pulsate. No longer look Vertically up to Him, you stop loving Horizontally across; There is no more cross in your life.
8. Death: Spiritual death
9. Dehydration: no more water. (Jesus says Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." John 7:38)
10. Lose salt: No longer salt of the earth. (You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. Matthew.5:13)
11. Fever, lose spiritual judgement, discernment. No tears when you come before God. You are hot for the wrong reason.
12. Kidney failure: Can't cleanse yourself from impurities. you lose the sanctification.

Perhaps I had lost it a little somehow, but today God reminded me of how I used to come before Him. With hyms of love & intimate fellowship.

I need to renew my love for Him. We need to encounter God DAILY..
Thank you Lord for never giving up on me and I know You will never leave me.

" Draw me, O' draw me away
Messiah today
To Your presence I stay
O' Jesus
Change me
Mould me
That I can be
Evermore true to thee "

Amen.

church

Church is not just church, if anyone will realise that.
It is beyond the singing of hyms, paying our tithes, fulfilling our weekly dues by attending service
It is a life.

I am at the right place

To start this, maybe I need to refer to a previous experience to explain this better. I thought Pst. Phil is such an annointed man. I was in such awe of him. Someone who looked so hip to be so annointed. Anyways, let's fast-forward this to last Sunday. I was in church when they showed us the trailer for the EMERGE (youth) conference. In it, one of the footages was that of Pst. Kong preachin'. Within that few seconds, I was suddenly overcome by a tremendous emotional charge. There was only one thing in my mind:
" I a m i n t h e r i g h t p l a c e . "
That day, I seriously believed that Pst. Kong is such an annointed man of God.

Yesterday was the first day of the EMERGE conference, and like the woman with the issue of blood who pressed in through the crowds believing that if she only touched the garment of Jesus, she will be healed. I thoroughly believed that the annointing of God would flow through to me, when Pastor called us down to be prayed for. Immediately after I came back to my seat, I was in great tears. Shortly before I recovered, Pastor said he wanted to pray for those in the media and the arts, including Mass Comm students. This time, Sun would lay hands on us. With some hesitation tho', I walked down again. As I was worshipping God, Sun walked towards me, I closed my eyes, and as she laid hands on me, my hands were shaking as I fell! (I used to wonder why people tremble when they fall..) Yesterday, I felt it. Pastor Kong and Sun are truly annointed. Indeed the Holy Spirit is right.
" I a m i n t h e r i g h t p l a c e . "

Pastor says, if the economy is flourishing, it doesn't mean that the individal will also flourish, but if the church is moving, its members will be led with the flow. Not just any flow, but with the strong current of God. Thank you God for placing me here. I am in the right place. Amen.

I love my friend

The Bible speaks of a friendship that knows no limits. "A friend loves at all times," said the wise man (Proverbs 17:17). And "there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother" (18:24). Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends" (John 15:13).

Jesus is both our Great Physician and our Friend, and He promised that He would never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). He calls us to stand with our friends and family in His name as their earthly journey nears its end. That's what a true friend would do. —David McCasland

A friend is he who always knows
When the cold wind of trouble blows,
Who comes in dark and stormy night
With friendship's glowing lamp alight. —Mason

A true friend stays true to the end.

From Our Daily Bread: June 5, 2005

... OK, yes Amen

God will never disappoint me

Ps 42:5,6 "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Saviour and my God."

1 Jhn 2:15,16 "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world - the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world."

Matt 21:22 "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."

Yes, Lord.
Thank you for the peace in my heart. I love you Father. I will put my trust in You O' God, and look to You in all things. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

How to pray

"Five-Finger Prayer"

· When you fold your hands, the thumb is nearest you. So begin by praying for those closest to you—your loved ones (Philippians 1:3-5).

· The index finger is the pointer. Pray for those who teach—Bible teachers and preachers, and those who teach children (1 Thessalonians 5:25).

· The next finger is the tallest. It reminds you to pray for those in authority over you—national and local leaders, and your supervisor at work (1 Timothy 2:1-2).

· The fourth finger is usually the weakest. Pray for those who are in trouble or who are suffering (James 5:13-16).

· Then comes your little finger. It reminds you of your smallness in relation to God's greatness. Ask Him to supply your needs (Philippians 4:6,19).

James 5:13-18 (NIV)

The Prayer of Faith

¹³Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. ¹⁴Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. ¹⁶Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. *The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

¹⁷Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. ¹⁸Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

*The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. (NKJV)