Sunday, August 31, 2008,5:49 PM
Hey guys
this may not be the only post regarding prayer pointers this week.
but anyway, church camp is coming up! woots and poots!
so, the first prayer pointer is for
1) Faithfulness in praying.
speaking from my own experience, praying for something usually ends up as a 1 time thingy. and i think we(we refering to those of us who share my problem) should not dismiss this as something that will be non-existent in the near or far future, but decide to start HERE and NOW. i'm sure there have been many situations where we had to make a decision promptly. so let us not belittle this lack of faithfulness, lest it end up as an insidious problem.
2) for God to be there.
Joe P was sharing that there was a passage in the bible where God told Moses that he and Israel would receive all of his blessings, but God was not going with them. and Moses said that they would not go. simple as that. for Moses, life was like a simple mathematical equation. God is there, Moses'll be there. God doesn't go, Moses doesn't go.
it's not that God will not be there. God is EVERYWHERE. but i think the issue is how much we want Him to be there.
Unless the LORD builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.
Psalm 127:1
ok more bout the camp next week.
see you guys!
>>and i live just for you my lord.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008,11:15 PM
hi guys(and girls)
this is an excerpt from Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz, many thanks to Clara for lending me the book.
I hope this will bless you.
I think the difference in my life came when i realized, after reading those Gospels, that Jesus didn't just love me out of principle; He didn't just love me because it was the right thing to do. Rather, there was something inside me that caused Him to love me. I think I realized that if I walked up to His campfire, He would ask me to sit down, and He would ask me my story. He would take the time to listen to my ramblings or my anger until I could calm down, and then He would look me directly in the eye, and He would speak to me; He would tell me the truth, and I would sense in his voice and in the lines on His face that He liked me. He would rebuke me, too, and he would tell me that I have prejudices against very religious people and that I need to deal with that; He would tell me that there are poor people in the world and I need to feed them and that somehow this will make me more happy. I think He would tell me what my gifts are and why I have them, and He would give me ideas on how to use them. I think He would explain to me why my father left, and He would point out very clearly all the ways God has taken care of me through the years, all the stuff God protected me from
I think it's a very beautiful picture that Donald Miller painted, and somehow it reminds me of the scene where Jesus prepared breakfast for his disciples after the resurrection. while I do not agree with the part about something within us that caused Him to love us(i don't just not believe it, i BELIEVE that we were unworthy of His love), this story managed to make me slow down. i wasn't walking anywhere, rather i was already sitting down, but what i meant was the pace of thoughts in my mind. it started to give me that strange feeling again, where i would be lost for words, while at the same time a vast pool of random words were swirling around in my head. and this time i tried not to arrange the words. instead i tried to embrace the fleeting moment. some part of me either believed this story, or wanted to believe this story.
and another part of me was ashamed at the difference between the love that God gave, and still gives me, contrasted to the love that i offered pathetically. But i guess that's why He died for us.
i know that this post is posted at the risk of turning this blog into my own blog. but to be honest, not only did i not have any pointers for this week's prayer chain, i also felt that this excerpt would benefit us.
so there are not really any prayer pointers for prayer chain this week. but if God puts a prayer pointer in your heart then please share it with your prayer chain group(what else would you do!?).
I really hope this excerpt has blessed each of you.
Chao Yuan
>>and i live just for you my lord.
Sunday, August 17, 2008,5:15 PM
Ministry!
hi guys this week's focus will be on ministry within our cell(wow! so timely!)
well i remember having a train of thought, something like, 'man if i'm so involved in ministry i'm probably not gonna have a life'(not that i really had one in the first place la). ok well, maybe not exactly those words, but definitely something along the lines of wanting to take a break, have fun, go diving, blah blah blah.
so then, i remembered this passage
Matthew 10:39
Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
(NIV translation)
Matthew 10:38-39
38-39"If you don't go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don't deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me.
(The Message translation)
honestly, this is quite a revelation to me. friends have asked me to heck going church and go out more, go diving more, basically do a lot more stuff on sundays that would conveniently clash for that 9.15am - 12pm timeslot. and though the comments usually bounce off my thick skull, i do find myself wondering how fun it would be, for example, do spend most of my weekends diving(if i wasn't a christian i'd probably do that).
my point here is, if we're seen as people with no life cos we spend all our weekends in church, at church, on church, we're doing at least one thing right.
let's not even talk about Jim Eliot(the guy who wrote 'he is no fool who loses what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose'), Stephen, or other martyrs who lost their lives in an obvious way. what Ministry will require is our heart, our love(lots and lots of it) and our time. it will be a sacrifice. it may leave you wondering 'WHY on earth am i in this?', it may leave you disillusioned, broken, angry or hateful.
but does it have to?
This is how we give up our time to the Father. our life(or at least part of it). i count myself more than fortunate that i enjoy being in the ministry i currently am in. but perhaps enjoying our ministry may never have been a prerequisite for joining. what if i get asked to join the dance ministry one day(heaven forbid!)? of course, being asked by mere humans who want to laugh at me hop around in a tutu, and being asked by God, are two entirely different things.
i guess, as many of us know in our heads, that worship is not about gaining anything. and so, it is important that we understand that to enter into a ministry is to sacrifice something. whether or not God gives us anything in His infinite grace and mercy is another matter.
so. finally on to the prayer pointers. just one today.
- that God will help us prepare our hearts and mind, to choose between having no life, or having fun.
- that we will understand that ministry is a sacrifice.
>>and i live just for you my lord.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008,10:07 PM
Prayer Chain
Hi all! sorry i'm back to work haha. anyway this week's prayer pointers are taken from 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12
Now then, brothers, you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God, as in fact you are doing. We ask and encourage you in the Lord to do so even more. You know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For it is God's will that you be sanctified: You must abstain from sexual immorality. Each of you must know how to control his own body in a holy and honorable manner, not with passion and lust like the gentiles who do not know God. Furthermore, you must never take advantage of or exploit a brother in this regard, because the Lord avenges all these things, just as we already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to be holy. Therefore, whoever rejects this instruction is not rejecting human authority but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
Now you do not need anyone to write to you about brotherly love, since you have been taught by God to love each other. In fact, you are showing love to all the brothers throughout Macedonia, but we urge you, brothers, to keep on doing this even more. Also, make it your goal to live quietly, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we instructed you, so that you may win the respect of outsiders, and have need of nothing.
SO.
2 prayer pointers.
1) empowerment for holy living
2)more brotherly love. so we can all start being nice to the guys in pop cell while the girls can go fly kite. KIDDING!
have a great week!
>>and i live just for you my lord.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008,9:33 PM
hi guysok i'll be honest i haven't done my homework. there's no prayer pointers as of yet.
sorry!
>>and i live just for you my lord.
