ch-rocker-ist

Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.

2011-12-16T06:02:00.001-08:00

Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.
-Jean Jacques Rousseau

I remembered reading this quote while studying soci. Of course, the context was that it was against social structure of those days. I reflected and thought that,we were not actually born free,and we are chained by our past,present and future.

Past

imprisoned by the norms,rules and predispositions of our family and living it out,even if the conditions of the past are no longer there.

Present

limited by our present circumstance

Future

contained by future expectations/what is to come

The power of the cross needs to be appropiated to release us from these chains. Allow the power of Him who overcame to allow you to overcome. :)

I will follow

2011-11-07T08:28:00.000-08:00

The words "I will follow you" has took on different contexts,convictions and even responses from me over the years.

It was said in difficult times,it was said in easier times. It was said in times when i don't feel like saying it,it was said in times when i wanted to proclaim it.

It was said without a knowledge of what is to come, it was said with a full view of masterful planning. It was said when i was victorious, it was said when i was in defeat.

It was said in tears, it was said in joy. It was said with pride, it was said with humility.

It was said in desperation, it was said in hope. It was said alone,it was said with others.

Yet I will say it again.

God,help me to follow you wherever You want me to go....

A walk back through time....

2011-10-14T11:31:00.000-07:00

Haaaaa.... This is such an eventful moment... me looking back at a blog that i have abandoned for sometime. Its certain been pleasurable to step into a time machine to have a conversation with my old self, laughing at certain things i have said and done. Glad that i have grown up! Yet i am thankful that i get to re-discover my youthfulness and certain experiences that have shaped me in my walk through university life. Wells, life is definitely so different from any of those circumstance that i have blogged but glad that the same God is still here...Its like suffering amnesia in some sense, being excited about what God can guide you through presently and not amnesia in the sense that you know somewhere,somehow, he has done it before.

Anyways, a note to my future self: don't laugh at this post 2/3 years later! Lol...

something

2011-01-27T07:25:00.001-08:00

Though i don't show it,i have been affected emotionally by lots of things recently- by people,by the state of things,the difficulty of filling in the gap and even my own future. God,please help me to focus on you and pls pls work in people's lives and the circumstance. I see what to do but i know not how on doing it and neither will it happen by me just doing it. God,you need to do your thing.

Tempted thoughts

2010-11-23T08:44:00.000-08:00

Sometimes,looking at certain people/situations, I am carnally inclined to think this way:

-if only you understood what was actually happening in such and such context in my life then,things were not that simple.

-if only you can see things from this perspective

-if only you could understand the amount of sacrifice i gave

-if only you could understand the anguish and unwillingness to be in certain positions but i had to...

-if only,if only... at the end of the day,its all in a pity party.

PITY on me and my chui-ness. But are these really the things to dwell upon? Everything is about me,me and nobody can identify with me,me,me.nobody can be in MY shoes.

When you agreed to serve,isnt everything supposed to be about Him? He understands the context,He can see things from this perspective,He can see what you truly went through. Why is there a need for public recognition of this and that if we are truly living for the audience of one?

¹⁸ so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matt 6:18)

Be secured. Your Father knows so don't go around in speech,thoughts and actions as if he doesn't and you need to find people to recognise it.

3 friends

2010-11-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

Haaa had been wanting to post this for sometime leee...wanted to break my blogging hiatus lol. Recently life had been alittle busy for me hahaa with tests,assignments and ministry aplenty lol. Much had been happening these few weeks in school,in CG,in NUS lol. So exciting!!!

Anyways,this is to the 3 of you. Had been quite amazed at how the friendships progressed. Really didnt know how things would turn out initially but really thought the process was really divine as to seeing how the group came together-something that doesnt always happen. Guess the initial itch was felt when the day came for the 3 of you to leave and everyone else in the CG felt that way too.

Heh,anyways,at the start of this crazy season, guess what I did while I was at the most intense and depressed moment? Normally,i would whip out my ip4 and start playing some games but this time round, I logged onto fb and viewed past photos of the fun times we had. They were certainly memorable and it brought me onto a temporal different dimension before I went back to mugging hell.

Awwww...haha,knowing the 3 of you are settling in well with visitations to each other and supporting each other spiritually has been a good comforting thought. Sorry for not being able to skype as regularly as i wanted to due to all these happenings haa but hope to do more after the exams. Meanwhile, Shi Wei, Kelly, Jeslyn,please take good of yourselves,never lose hope that God can help tide over the difficulties that you face and waiting to hear from you next year! =)

Cant help it

2010-08-27T11:59:00.000-07:00

Seriously,i am no spiritual man.

There are times that I feel so weak and not up to the job.

But looking as things are.

I can't help it, I just can't take it.

I will press on.

Just help me to make sense.

Ponder ponder

2010-03-19T10:45:00.000-07:00

The time is near.

Why do I get this sense of uneasiness.

Illusions? Or a glorious generation?

I dunno.

disputes

2010-02-16T23:05:00.000-08:00

In times of disputes, there have been and always will be people who take it upon themselves to provide "the right voice".Though for themselves or truly for the circumstance,that i do not know.

Thanks to God

2009-12-16T09:08:00.000-08:00

Hm.... its getting a little unbelievable. Somehow somehow.... God always pull me through and somehow somehow things just happen. Its seem normal to me experiencing cycles of pulling hair moments and then a delivery moment and it goes on and on and on and on.... While usually a description of having a divine touch from God usually conjure up an image of something that is super-big and occurring only when you fasted 30 days, the little little things that I have pulled through on a regular basis seem to testify otherwise.

Ok,cut the crap,all I wanna do is to journal down this season and all its stuns(the exam Juggernaut and his side-kicks) and how they are simply no match for God who probably yawned at them. Simple chess moves he made and of which I would want to give thanks for:

The Friday Service Before My First Paper

While there were people complaining about having a friday night service, I was actually very glad that I had something to calm my nerves down before my first paper. I had been studying much harder than previous sem thanks to the absence of certain distractions haa but its been giving me butterflies in my brain and those butterflies were threatening to spread to the rest of my body. So, the wonderful experience of God's assurance really brought me at peace. While its never comforting that there are people reading lines of their textbook while I read the lines of the worship lyrics displayed, I reckon a touch from God beats any mugging attempts and definitely salvage my mental condition which is key for remaining sane and sound before my paper.

The Sat CG After My First Paper

Ok, so the paper was taken but i had certain physical discomforts as I did the paper and it really drained and brought my spirit down alot. The worst thing to do after that probably is to turn up for unit CG and disregard the comforts of my healing bed. I was thinking in my mind that I didn't want to drag the atmosphere down and really wondered if I was able to convey the WOG in the right attitude and conviction. Wellsssss, if its a unit CG,means the unit leader have to be there right? and if there is a big hole in teaching slot,won't it be like super-weird?? Haa but thank God for the decision to pull it through and go cos' it wasn't an attendance thing as God instantly converted my heart to one that trusts in him as I worshipped and won't you have it? A teaching that was based on the right attitude and heart condition. I even told my unit that really thank God for the worship,if not i might not be able to teach at all and God knows how long I would take to settle my heart at home.

The Sunday DMM Before My Second Paper

Its beginning to sound like I want to thank God for every single thing that happens in my life in this limited cyberSPACE but bear with me cos' God really moved so much during this period. What happened for that sunday DMM was also another touch of God through worship. This silly me got caught up in the web of worrying again,seeing how behind time I was on certain modules and how time was taunting a limited human with its constant reminders of what is to come. It was really refreshing to worship God and this really prep. me for a marathon at SMU later.

The JieXun Camera incident

Ok enough about exam Juggernaut! I will have plenty to deal with when his spawn, results release have a showdown with me on 22th Dec. I am going to talk about this particular camera incident that occurred midway through the exam season and cannot be described in any other way but divine.

Ok, during another unit CG, I borrowed jiexun's camera to record my teaching and after that in a sleep-deprived mode, cared only about my duck rice infront of me and left his camera to be taken care by the cleaners in admiralty food court. The amazing part was that I didn't even notice that for 3 whole days and was hypnotized into thinking that it was still in some corner of my room. Well done,smart guy.

Anyways, poor JX was driving down to claim the camera from me as he was hard pressed by his brother to claim it back and it was only at that moment that I realised that it wasn't with me anymore. In a desperate frantic mode, I started calling up eyewitnesses and concurred that it must had been at the food court. Wells,it doesn't take rocket science to figure out that my chances of claiming back a 1k camera being left to the wilderness is very slim. I even pictured in my mind some person eating at the foodcourt table after me,thanking God that idiots like me exist and gleeing at the prospect of having a normally out of reach new 1k camera. Multiply that one person by 3 days' worth of them and man, it got me on my knees praying to God for salvation.

So, the next day I asked my mother to go check ou with the foodcourt cleaners first as I had school and the response was negative. Not that there was much to expect anyway. (Meanwhile I had only told my mum I lost a speaker in the shoebag and haven disclose the 1k camera yet.You see, I will probably take my exams in hospital after that.) Nevertheless, being the ever reluctant person to pay for 1k worth of my life (that is 3mths pay), I still enquired of the cleaner who gave me the same negative response. Somehow, there was a voice that urged me to carry on with the coffee aunty and she pointed me to the manager who brought out the 8th wonder of the world and my salvation as well. Now, I make it a point to trust coffee aunties more than cleaners but anyways, it is pure divine. Nothing other than His interference could have saved me. The manager even state that I was quite lucky as they usually turned over their lost items to the police after 3 days.

The CIP

Ok one last one! As some of you are aware,we are doing a matthew event cum CIP event and I was tasked to link up with this organisation. We prepared hard and discussed about the ideas for coming up for an event but alas, due to certain clash of interests, were not able to pull it off. However, by the time that happened, it is 1 week to our proposed event and also a detriment to our build-up towards Christmas!

Just for your information, lots of homes are actually booked during the Christmas season like 3 months before Christmas in case any of you planning a similar event. So, I spent sometime camping beside the phone, entertaining many rejections and weird responses,reaching the brink of giving up. However,someone interfered again. Not Kanye West but our ever faithful God! We managed to link up with a home and reach an agreement for an event this weekend. Praise God! Please pray for us that as we now face the arduous task of preparing well for the event with only a few days to spare, God will keep interfering and interfering.

I think its really a crime to not blog all these down and leave them to the dust of my memory. Wells, what else can I say? and i shall leave it as that.

What's the point

2009-10-27T23:24:00.000-07:00

What is the point of studying in NUS,learning psychology concepts,learning driving, striving so hard to prepare teachings and shepherding people if I don't bring you Glory?

Encouragement Cards

2009-10-26T23:25:00.001-07:00

If ever I need to smack myself out of complacency for sitting at home looking @ my bible and wondering if I should slowly take my time going about this "Christian thing" ( Typing this christian thing today still makes me feel like huh?I am associated with this christian identity?U'll know why soon...). OK,pardon me for concocting a sentence too long and broken as well but if ever i need to do that, I would just have to look thru' the encouragement cards that people have written to me over the years. Its really massively plenty as its like 7 years worth of them?(OMG I am gg to be a dinosaur soon!!!)

Some interesting observations I made and reminders:

(1) All my shepherds/leaders have written to me,even people who are remotely far and no link to me have also written as well SAVE FOR one particular leader and shepherd! Guess who hahaha,its really quite obvious.

(2) I used to subscribe to the thinking that encouargement and affirmation is redundant. I even wrote on Daniel's birthday banner: Serve God don't need affirmation de. I will win the NS camps for you. Just say it and do it. How wrong I was hahaha not as in I didnt do it but encouragements and affirmations are important as well!

(3) It really has not been easy weathering through all the storms in those life. From PO to pioneering schools to defying my parents to enter SR to attempting to leave behind a CG in SR to surviving NS to struggling to get pple respond to my challenges haha to struggling to lead a Cg to struggling to leading a unit to struggling to overcome certain major blocks in my character to now struggling with nus and many other stuffs haha, its really has not been easy. While I am sitting on my chair now, being in a state where perhaps alot of these events don't bear as much emotional responses to me anymore, i cannot be allowed to be deluded by the status of "having overcome" to be cold towards the grace and love that has sustained me through all these.

(4) In reflections, I can safely and surely thank God for how my life has been changed. There were certain motives that weren't right in current realisation of they mean. There were certain motivations that if my current me meets the past me, I would want to give him a 24 hr shepherding about.

(5) There are certain traits of me that are defining of me. A common phrase in all these encouragement cards is "passionate,always giving his all to God and his people". While I have grow much in wisdom and understanding to not be a persistent mad bull rushing in ministry, I would really want to keep this spirit of giving my all. I would still want to chiong like mad when its God's timing to.

2009-10-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
~Phil 4:8~

period

2009-10-15T11:17:00.001-07:00

Been through a crazy period
Was really bitter about things
It seems like its either one or the other for me
but God, I choose to hold on
Lord,save me
My hope is in you

Character dispositions or flaws?

2009-10-06T10:05:00.000-07:00

To what extent should we accept others' predispositions for who they are as compared to seeing them as character flaws that God would want us to correct?

What been gg on

2009-09-22T11:43:00.000-07:00

For those who haven't been among the privileged (or unlucky) few of those whom i complained my life to ha, here's an exciting peek into the life of junliang post-vision night! Basically it can be summarised into 2 words:

NO LIFE

oh my goodness,just when I started recuperating from my lack of sleep on Sunday, I suddenly recalled that I had a project proposal to type that I must die die send by Sunday night.ZZZ. And so there I was,camping infront of my desktop (my #$%#$% Fujitsu is spoilt again!) for HOURS not knowing what to type. Can you imagine a Biz-noob FASS student trying to type the operations segment of a business proposal that is actually going to be seen by YMCA and the likes of Starbucks, Cafe Cartel AND the social enterprise is actually going to be carried out ?!!? Goodness, I spent hours researching on how to present and what contents to include and I still couldn't stick to the deadline! And so... I had to miss men's conference (initially was thinking of going there w/o sleep, nuts!) and spent the bulk of the next 24 hrs being a techno-savvy zombie trying my best to get more juice out of my brain's winepress as well as halting every single attempt for the upper end eye lid to join the lower end...for more than 5 sec. Frankly, I was very much in a defeated mode, doing stuff like after getting stuck for awhile, I went to find solace in the world of the 3 kingdoms offered by my brother's PSP. God knows how in the world I managed to come up with something and got it sent..but it just happens.

Ok,and so,after that,it really left me in a temporal comatose mode on my bed cos' my brain was freaking fizzled by looking at the com screen for too long and here comes a sms to meet up Jon Lwee's CG for dinner. Thank God I pulled myself out of wanting to slug and decided to face the whole wide world for the 1st time in 2.5 days, interacting in fellowship, something that the cold hard screen of the computer doesn't offer. Oh wells, now comes the time to get back in routine and making sure i balance all my roles well again.

I found my wife!

2009-09-01T23:51:00.000-07:00

I am so happy!!!!!!!!! Cos as i was reading the bible, I found my wife!

Here she is!

Proverbs 31:10-31

¹⁰ A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.

¹¹ Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.

¹² She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.

¹³ She selects wool and flax
and works with eager hands.

¹⁴ She is like the merchant ships,
bringing her food from afar.

¹⁵ She gets up while it is still dark;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her servant girls.

¹⁶ She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.

¹⁷ She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.

¹⁸ She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night.

¹⁹ In her hand she holds the distaff
and grasps the spindle with her fingers.

²⁰ She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy.

²¹ When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet.

²² She makes coverings for her bed;
she is clothed in fine linen and purple.

²³ Her husband is respected at the city gate,
where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.

²⁴ She makes linen garments and sells them,
and supplies the merchants with sashes.

²⁵ She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.

²⁶ She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

²⁷ She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.

²⁸ Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:

²⁹ "Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all."

³⁰ Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

³¹ Give her the reward she has earned,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

Lol,thank God!

Wed And Sun

2009-08-28T08:55:00.001-07:00

I have been noticing recently that actually I live on a different time frame from most people.Wells,you see, my Wednesdays have become my Sundays and my Sundays like any other weekdays! Let me explain further in the following mini chart:

Mon- School

Tue- School

Wed- Free day

Thurs- School

Friday- School

Sat- Ministry

Sun- Ministry

(Its almost impossible to study on weekends heh)

Ok, this is no complain because I am so used to this life now ha.(lest Bruce sees this) but it just much of a disparity to my JC studying life ha. Its weird to sabbath on a weekday but it makes me treasure my free day so much more!

Life is going to peak up a little seeing that I already have a test next week for a module that I haven't even touch the textbook. Yikes! Coupled with that, I have yet to do some research for certain contents for the future shepherds' meet programme heh.Wells,Here We Go! So exciting! Time to witness more miracles! =)

Values

2009-08-24T09:12:00.000-07:00

In a public debate,one pastor argued, 'Unless you first come to church, you will never find the gate to the Kingdom of Heaven."

"No," answered the other. "Until you first look for the gate to the Kingdom of Heaven, you don't belong in church."

Glorious Bride

2009-08-21T12:43:00.000-07:00

Building the glorious bride. Had been and always will be. =)

Hate this

2009-08-12T10:27:00.000-07:00

Some of you might have known that this past week for me had been a struggle with illness. Though my condition wasn't serious enough(<37.5>) to warrant a visit to the doctor, having that drowsy feeling all the time and retardation in mental processing is certainly not enjoyable. Maybe I would have enjoyed this if its was my NS days but right now....I just gotta say that I HATE IT!

I seriously want to hate myself for falling sick ha if its a logically possible hatred cos' I really hate a disruption of my routine and momentum! I had been planning to like start revising certain concepts before school starts and this illness seriously destroyed my plans. Furthermore, I missed my final theory and had to stall on alot of plans to prepare ministry stuff in advance to give my school life an easier time. Arh! There were things that happened that I couldn't do anything about and now when I am "back in business",it seems like an avalance.

Ha guess in part that my frustration is due to my conviction to not be a sluggard anymore,something which God challenged me about in the past months. Think there is no point in complaining but I pray that by God's grace,i can face this avalance along with the volcano of school reopening even as I get back in momentum in my life! Ice and fire huh!so extreme means i cannot be lukewarm in my walk haa. So,as always its my spiritual life first! Lets see if there is anything God wants to speak to me tonight! Its time to crank up this cranky machine!

random

2009-08-01T10:11:00.000-07:00

What i am thinking...

¹⁴ He replied, "I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too."

¹⁵ The LORD said to him, "Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. ¹⁶ Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. ¹⁷ Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. ¹⁸ Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him."

~1 Kings 19:14-18~

2009-07-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

⁵"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
~John 15:5
God's words to me

Jesus,you are the vine and i am but just a small branch attached to you, needing you for support and survival. I don't literally need to rely on you to breathe and the truth is i can live my life and do ministry comfortably,at least for a moment without you. However, I know myself that i am but a wretched soul. Things may look comfortable but I know there are many issues and areas you want to speak to me in my life about.

I can go about each day performing ministry/roles professionally but without the heart of doing all these things as well. My heart is dead without you as its not me as a sinner to want to look out for things that what you as a holy and perfect God would look out for. Therefore, I do things like a human and human's efforts are bound to fail. But,you promised in your words that ²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
but you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Therefore, if I remain in you and I want to and need to remain in you,calling on you for support,humbling myself to seek you daily,setting apart and making deliberate effort to seek you,hearing from you in what I have to do

and you in me,filling me with your grace,mercy and the power of the holy spirit such that the words I say are not my words but rather learning from Jesus that whatever I say is just what You have told me to say

I will bear much fruit in my personal life and ministry. People will recognize your authority and what comes out of your mouth through me as your mouthpiece will never pass away even when the heaven and earth will pass away. I will walk daily in your grace,knowing that each step I made is the right one.

Apart from you I can do nothing.All my efforts will be futile,what I think is success is but a temporial one. People's lives will not be changed. Compared to being in you, what can I do but to choose the wiser choice. Lord, I need your voice, your people need your voice.

God,change me and build in me this attitude from now on. Amen.

~My prayer to him

dunno where to start

2009-07-22T10:49:00.000-07:00

Father,my heart is burdened by many things.

My failures
what needs to be done
what shudn't be happening
why things are turning out this way

My time is limited
My heart is limited
My strength is limited
I am limited
both by myself and my doings

I am but a human
I can't operate outside my capacity
I can't see beyond

Untruths, disappointments
They overwhelm me

So i look to you
In prayer
May I find the path to you Lord
though its beneath me sometimes
Not of your lack of sovereignty
but of my lack of humility
For when I am weak, then I am strong

Crap

2009-06-29T02:15:00.000-07:00

Wow! Do you know that the bible mentions both me and Christiano Ronaldo within the same passage? Lets take a look at Proverbs 6!

This is the part describing me:

⁶ Go to the ant, you sluggard;
consider its ways and be wise!

⁷ It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler,

⁸ yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest.

⁹ How long will you lie there, you sluggard?
When will you get up from your sleep?

¹⁰ A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest-

¹¹ and poverty will come on you like a bandit
and scarcity like an armed man.

This is the part describing Ronaldo:

¹² A scoundrel and villain,
who goes about with a corrupt mouth,

¹³ who winks with his eye,
signals with his feet
and motions with his fingers,

¹⁴ who plots evil with deceit in his heart—
he always stirs up dissension.

Ok,the part about Ronaldo is probably crap and perhaps comes out of a biased heart of a Man Utd Fan but the 1st part was so real that it shook me up while i was reading it ha! I really felt as if God was scolding me face to face for being a sluggard! So, then began the real and true job search of which I am hoping to get a placing in this fantastic offer to work attached to a psychologist conducting behaviourial studies-my field of interest! To top it up, its $10 an hour heh! So God does move after we respond to his word ha!

HM...

2009-06-19T09:09:00.000-07:00

Found a great article about converting our unceasing thought to unceasing prayer. Many times,we look upon what the bible speaks about taking captive of our thoughts and praying continually. An excerpt from the website:

To the Christians in Thessalonica Paul writes: “Pray constantly, and for all things give thanks to God, because this is what God expects you to do in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:17—18). Paul not only demands unceasing prayer but also he practices it. “We constantly thank God for you” (1 Thessalonians 2:13), he says to his community in Greece. “We feel we must be continually thanking God for you” (2 Thessalonians 1:3). “We pray continually that our God will make you worthy of his call” (2 Thessalonians 1:11). To the Romans he writes: “I never fail to mention you in my prayers” (Romans. 1:9). He also comforts his friend Timothy with the words: “Always I remember you in my prayers” (2 Timothy 1:3).

And so we wonder how in the world we are able to pray continuously?? Its really impossible to keep God in our mind all the time and furthermore,we have certain fantasies that perhaps are not so God-glorifying or perhaps have nothing to do with God at all. This article argues that these are in fact self-centered as we are just feeding ourselves with carnal desires that translate into our thoughts. It goes further into proposing how to keep communion with God through all these moments that doesn't seemingly involve him as well. Be careful though, not an easy read and quite long ha. If you are interested,here it goes:

http://www.geocities.com/lauho08/change_unceasing_thought_to_unceasing_prayer.html

Giving thanks for Night Cycling

2009-06-15T02:03:00.000-07:00

Yesteday I woke up at 1800 with a headache and aching all over the body and with this thought: What in the world just happened?

Ok,so after waking up properly and coming to the realisation that I had just concussed after a grueling 58K Over night cycling, I pretty much decided that I should post up certain thanksgiving points to God for this event,especially in consideration of how my memory failed me for a brief moment after attaining consciousness.

Yes,So here it is: Praise God! WE SURVIVED,WE THRUMPED AND WE CONQUERED(thru prayers)!!! There had been blog entries already stating about certain ways that the night cycling event has blessed them in their walk and so I wouldn't be stating about these topics here much. However, I feel a justification to say that if there is one word that I can bring home from this event,it is:MIRACULOUS. Even in the preparation process and evidently in the cycling process, God's fingerprints are everywhere! Let me share to you first about the preparations!

The Preparations

It all started when a divine arrow came from Bruce and landed on me. While its not the first time that I had organised such an event and I can safely save alot of steps like searching for contacts and sticking to a large chunk of the original route, an event of such magnitude (not in terms of size but management requirements) always warrant my anxiety and bankai mode in planning! And so it starts,with the approval of the route,we began our route recce! It was really torturous trying to keep alive at close to midnight and scouring for every single minute details about the route as much as we can. Not to mention that there were moments that we were lost and needed to make detours. Now that the event is over haha, i can mention that actually only 3 pple knew the full route then (hy,justin,me,there were 2 pple zonking out alr in the car). Oh wells,hanyang was sacrificial in his car as well,i won't mention how he came to sacrifice hahhaa. In any ways,would like to extend my thanks to these people: :)

Hanyang-for sacrificing yr car,time,sleep,lorry-driving trauma

Justin-for being the able assistant,being so street-smart and helping me so much in planning. Glad there is someone who is skilled in doing this event. You are now the official F1 Lorry champion ;)

Jon Lwee & Jie xun-for staying away 1/2 the recce journey ha!

GuoFeng,Sida,Shaun,Yinglin-for taking the time to come down to share despite having matric events.Really thank God for yr efforts in wanting to build the next generation of mens' ministry up strong!

Bruce-for helping to think fast on the spot when we needed to make a detour to Bartley Road

Jacob-the caring Medic of the year! Many pple were healed by you that day,i sure would like you to be beside me if we play l4d :P

Er,and if i miss out anyone,thanks as well ha!

Night Cycling

Ok,so the day comes but things didn't go as smooth. The scheduled starting time was 9pm which gives us 2 hrs to fetch 33 bikes from East Coast after service. BAD MISTAKE! Goodness! When i discovered that the journey from East Coast to Tengah at 120km/hr is 45 min at least and at 1 time we can only load 13,14 bikes and East Coast was so uber crowded,i nearly fainted. Haaa,the worrying and scrambling to start asap at the start was so tiring that by the time the lorry was on the final journey to Tengah,i was seriously starting to feel very very sleepy ha and i was wondering at the back on my mind,"How in the world are we going to complete?How in the world am i going to function properly to determine which routes to turn and such?"

Oh wells,so the journey began at 12am,3 hrs behind time! And we were aiming to reach east coast at 0730 to return the bikes! The urgency at that time was so bad that we had to alter the route in hope that it will help shorten the distance. This really turned me into one of the most task oriented mode i have ever shifted my gear to! Haaa,constantly barking at the back pple to keep up at junctions and pushing for things were really crazy. So as usual in any night cycling,there were danger moments,everyone became zombies on bikes towards the end (I admit that i was struggling to keep awake at paya lebar) and as usual,its a miracle that we made it back together safely!

Remembered that on the way, i felt raindrops on my head and I was so worried that it will rain because that will totally derail and delay our already delayed flight! And I prayed to God,"God! You cannot let it rain!Please keep it away!" and God moved! Coupled with the 3 hr delay and yet we managed to complete it by 0730 was utterly amazing! And this is what matters: That no matter how skilled or unskilled everyone were at cycling,how fit or unfit everyone's physique was,we completed it together as one ministry! I will leave the how God moved in the intercession parts to certain blogs. ;)

For me personally, as i cycled pass all these gates,it totally reminds me of the time that i was doing guard duty. All the images of sowing,prowling,twang-ing came into my mind and I really think it was a great way to stay in touch with the exact feelings of burden that i experienced while i was in the surroundings of NS. And so,with this,Night Cycling '09 is concluded but i pray what God challenged/moved in people's hearts for their camps are far from conclusion. ;)

Maths Equation

2009-06-05T02:07:00.000-07:00

Ok!For today lets do some maths!

To prove: Understanding God=Understanding ourselves
Please show your working

Scenario: Sometimes we don't understand ourselves,where to go on for our lives and future plans

Working:

God's understanding has no limit= He understands us fully and perfectly
Therefore by inference,
Learning more and more about God and his ways= increasing understanding of ourselves

Ans:
Don't understand ourselves->Understanding God->God shows us more of ourselves->Understanding ourselves!

Eureka!

Of golden spoons,silver spoons or wooden spoons

2009-06-03T00:26:00.000-07:00

Came across this in my QT:

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

Psalm 139:13-14

This Psalm was a song by David to praise God for his wonderful works in david's life probably after a time of reflection of his life and how much God's grace was upon it. David was declaring that both the seed of his character and the soil that God has placed his life in was wonderfully made. Yes, though David may have had imperfect background and upbringing, God was still able to weave his magic in David's life.

Had been talking to people who were questioning God's plans for them recently. A large bulk has been in trying to come to terms with their backgrounds-why they had to come to terms with a life that is seeing a family fall-out,a life that in comparison with others would seem "short-changed" by God,sometimes even not having the basic covering of a sheltered home. They would wonder if God's molding hands were there from the start if they had to endure such torment in their families. How in the world could God be involved or allow it to happen if the environment was so ungodly?

Now,it does not go just to those whom I had been talking to but i really think that it applies to everyone as well. Personally, I had been restricted in my walk with him by certain mindset stuck in my upbringing that emphasizes on what is right or wrong. Everyone have that mountain of blockage in our lives owing to our backgrounds because we live in an world that has imperfection as its very core.

However, this psalm clearly states that God created our innermost being,knitting us in our mother's womb and his involvement in our lives has been there since day 1. He was knitting our character, looks, predispositions and conducting social environmental factors into place and viola! would you have it,you were born and ready to experience this life. We grow up from young,keenly aware of the haves and have-nots in our lives and others' as well and we realise that it is not exactly a level playing field for everybody. Some were born with silver spoons,some born with golden spoons,some with wooden spoons and some with broken spoons as well. It seems God favours certain people and as the caste system would have it, there were just certain people closer to God and some just meant to be hidden from God's sight.

Now,the blame game starts. While one of the most obvious cause is the imperfection of those humans who had played a part in crafting the environment, is it not obvious as well that God had allowed it to happen as well? There is certainly no way that an all-knowing and all-powerful God is able to absolve of any blame for this.

Well,yes,so the truth is this: That God's rubber-stamp is on your life be it how sucky you might think it is based on this reasoning. But,hey,before the condemnation starts, there needs to be an understanding of what he has exactly been so actively involved in all these while. Yes,you got it right,he had been active all along and it seems that you can start scratching your head on how this activity can be justified when he has been so silent in those ungodly times.

If you are thinking that God crafts our environment in such a way that we can enjoy comfort in life,then nope thats not the answer.If it is so,then it would be very unfair to the early Christians who underwent martyrdom and there won't be so many challenges in the bible to move out of our comfort zone.

If its about making us successful, yes its part of the deal but not the main deal. If its about having a great family, its still not the main deal. The main deal is this: giving us a shot at salvation and a relationship with him. I don't know about you but to me what matters most is having this relationship with God above all the have-nots in life. CS Lewis said that, "God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing." I so totally agree with him! He is the very epitome of what we have been so looking for in what our imperfect backgrounds couldn't provide.

So to put things into perspectives,God puts a rubber stamp on your life when he is satisfied that he would still be able to restore your relationship with him and not only that,when he is certain that he would be able to play the counter melody in your life to reverse all those wrong-doings that has happened in life. He has been active such that he can slowly little by little bring you closer to him. I was talking to a brother on a phone recently and we were discussing about the imperfection of his background. He came to this interesting point that if his situation was made better, he might not have come to know God. It was such that through all these adverse situations, it points to him on how much he needs God in his life. And i believe by faith even as God made ready this situation for his salvation, God will start to make ready the salvation of this situation as well. If we were made any more good-looking,richer,maybe....we might not have seen the need for him. Isn't that what Jesus meant when he said "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God?".In saying so,i am not saying that the rich/good looking (Guys,despair!) cannot come into salvation but that God knows what he is doing when he is giving people golden spoons or wooden spoons and that at the end of it,we know that we have to turn to the spoon-giver to be really fed.

Ok,sorry for making my blog an eyesore but let me end off with this.Knowing God's sovereignty is over our backgrounds,we can declare that we have indeed been wonderfully made to experience this relationship with him! Lets praise God for his wondrous works in our lives!:)

The Word that was given

2009-06-01T08:09:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday during service, was hit hard on the message of repentance. Even as I ministered to people, felt that i needed the prayer myself with regards to a particular area that i am struggling in. Approached my shepherd and the message given was that God wanted me to take a break. Not just in regards to that area but taking a break to evaluate my life,a break to take a stock-check of my own life. I had been running and following God's track but not his pace. There was assurance that God had given all that I need to figure things out as well.

So, if i am doing the disappearing act nowadays,do note that i am not awol-ing or emo-ing away.

Anyways, was struck hard on the need to pray for people too.
A)Plead mercy for your people
I do understand the need to plead for mercy daily on an individual basis but the part where Moses pleaded for the mercy of the Israelites though they were still sinning struck me. Job also helped his children to repent by offering sacrifices for his family daily. Being aware of people's struggles and blindspots certainly gives me the responsibility to need to plead for mercy for these areas as well.

B)Pray for their destiny
Church ministry had often been called the people's ministry. In investing in people's lives with such passion and sacrifices,we deserve the people's developer logo more than any other institution. To bring people from where they are currently to the fullness of the capacity of God's calling for their lives in any particular life stage is certainly one of my beliefs in ministry. As such, their destiny be it now or their future in God's plans have been entrusted to the molding hands of the ministry as well.

C)Pray for their testimony
Hm...Michael really made a point when he said that it will be quite terrible for people around us who are called to be salt and light to ask,"where is their God?" If we lead biblical lives,its natural for people to be attracted to our strong testimonies.

Ok,other than passing me a word, JieHui passed me some germs as well. It really sucks to feel weird and not have the temperature. Arh! I wish to have my brain fully functional again!!!

Psalms 119:33-37

2009-05-14T02:00:00.000-07:00

Psalms 119:33-37

33 Teach me, O LORD, to follow your decrees;then I will keep them to the end.
34 Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart.
35 Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight.
36 Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain.
37 Turn my eyes away from worthless things;preserve my life according to your word.

This is how break-throughts and the implementation of break-throughs occur,;)

Anyway for those wanting the packing list:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=2dd68b33332c5ba3c79b87b207592a1ce04e75f6e8ebb871

Please try to print out the devotions ok?

See ya all there!

No christian nice guy

2009-05-11T10:36:00.000-07:00

I know this may not be easy for alot of people to stomach,
but i am increasingly convinced as I read "No more christian nice guy" that we are not called to be nice as christians(esp. males). The word nice in itself suggest the ever-smiling,compassionate Jesus who didn't dare to offend and is always conforming and accommodating. Very often, we have this misconception owing to the prevalent culture that a typical christian guy should be that of the gentle,ever suffering,endlessly-patient,one who shouldn't shoot barbed ridicule at his opponents,one who shouldnt use exaggeration in his speech to get the point across,the one who is ok with defeats,the one who gives in.

To prove a point, this is UTTER RUBBISH.

When we need to stand up for what is right, do you think its God's calling for us to just stay low and compromise the message,earning a smile on others and being labelled as "nice" in their eyes? When we know people have issues, is it appropiate to keep playing the "safe route" knowing that the safe route has not proven to work?

Jesus wasn't very nice either when he needs to be firm and here are some verses backing it up:

This was what he told a cannanite woman when she was begging him to heal her daughter:
²⁷"First let the children eat all they want," he told her, "for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."
(Mark 7:27)

This effectively called her a dog, then a cultural slur. But what Jesus was doing was empathizing with her cultural predicament in a banter,showing his disapproval for the wrong way society was treating woman.

Further MEAN-ER terms he gave:
⁷But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
~MAtt 3:7~

³³"You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?
~Matt 23:33~

²⁷"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean.
~Matt 23:27~

Arguing that those were just isolated examples and not congruent with his nature is as good as arguing that Jesus was heretical sometimes and so.... why should we trust every word that he said if it is so? Therefore, the point is that the worship of God is not the worship of niceness. When we need to love in ways acceptable,we do so. When we need to love in ways that are not that nice,we do so as well. I wish i can elaborate more, but i would be plagiarizing.

Ok,but i do want to apologise to certain people of whom I overdid it recently. In my conviction of this point,guess i overtipped the balance when i conveyed it. However, I don't take back the principle that I stand for. A smile from you is not always what God wants me to achieve, A life-changed from you is definitely what God wants me to achieve.

2009-05-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

People are searching for leaders that look and sound impressive
People are looking for leaders whom they can give due respect to out of their abilities
But where is the one who seeks for leaders who give the truth in their lives?

Revival

2009-05-03T07:12:00.001-07:00

Revival must start first with the leaders for the entire group to be revived.
God revive me in areas that needs a breakthrough.

God,I'm sorry...

2009-04-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

God,I'm sorry for Eu1101E
God,I'm sorry for SSA2202
God,I'm sorry for Gek 1035
God,I'm sorry for SN1101E
God,I'm sorry for Sc2204
God,I'm sorry for Ph1101E
God,I'm sorry for SC1101E
God,I'm sorry for SW1101E
God,I'm very sorry for PL1101E
God,I'm very sorry for SC2203
But i am not sorry for serving you
I am sorry instead for times that I have failed to serve you to my best
But sorry,I will be no more
Cos its time to repent

The Case for time management

2009-04-12T10:48:00.000-07:00

Recently, I had been exploring this area of my life in that I find that I have sometimes wasted far too much time on things that doesn't matter like L4D,facebook,perhaps some Wikipedia urges and definitely some procrastination. It seems to me at that point of time that there is really nothing that is coming up the next day or I have the available time to do whatever I wanted.

However, I can never be more deluded than that.There is always homework to catch up, more ministry preparation needed,more personal spiritual reflection and growth. The truth is that God gives me just enough everyday for what I need to do in regards to the roles that I have an obligation to play out: A Christian, A leader of his flock, A student, A member of the Lim family. At any time that I wasted my time, I basically compromise and screw up certain aspects of any of these 4 roles in my life. Furthermore, when my overall pool of time is shortened, basically very much sacrifices might have to be made in between the 4 roles causing me perhaps to excel in 1 role temporarily but overall,guess God wouldn't be totally pleased with me.

What is more damaging is that in allowing these short breaks to start, it would likely bloom into a full-fledged trance. Before long,what started out as a self-rationalised 15 mins of break became a 3 hr complete waste of time.

Frustrated with my lack of discipline, I sat down in a quiet park and seek God to gain more insights and wisdom from God to handle this particular area in my life. Reasoning with myself, I listed out how this lack of discipline in allowing these sorts of "harmless breaks" wrecked havoc in my life.
1) It causes me to lose track on my time/discipline
2)It destroys my sense of "freshness" for the day
The bible says that everyday is a day that the Lord has made. In allowing myself to totally wield to such waste of time, it completely took off God's agenda in that day for me! Leaving me seemingly to break off in keeping in step with the spirit.
3) A temporial diversion that doesn't solve any problems but instead take away some of my energy that could have been potentially used to solve the problem.
Sometimes I allow myself to procrastinate or yield to short breaks because of the unsolvable nature of certain problems in my life. So instead of vexing over them which is pretty tiring, I will turn to this avenue to relieve stress.

In saying so, I do want to state that I have nothing against taking short breaks haha. In fact it is half nuts not to take breaks and there has been recent studies that stated that taking short breaks like going on facebook or youtube does indeed boosts performance level overall in the office. However, the line is crossed when short breaks master us completely instead of serving to let us relieve for awhile in order to run the longer journey. In such a state, the entire journey is the breaks. In Christian terms, the object of worship at least for that moment in that trance is no longer God but the youtube sites/games/facebook. Barring from the fact that many of such entertainment avenues has been tainted with unbiblical values in their appeal to the carnal nature of man, the danger is that your faith which needs to be maintained by keeping in step with the spirit and that ever-so-prevailing need to spend time with God can be potentially derailed when we minus the time we worship God by 3-5 hrs everyday through such waste of time.

As such, I decided to explore the biblical concepts involved in each consequences that I have to suffer when wasting time in order to make sense further of this issue.

CASE 1 principles:
-stewardship of time
>We ought to be faithful with whatever God has given us

- The give my best concept
>Not handling my time well will spill over to the weekends when I have to minister to people. It will spill over to my spiritual,physical part as well since a sabotage of time causes a malfunction of my body clock. Just as I don't want to minister to people in a half-dead state, it starts now in my daily usage of time.

-The snowballing effect
>Ever saw the powerful destructive force of an avalance? Such a big scaled catastrophe obviously has its formation in a cumulative fashion way behind hand. All it takes for an avalance to occur is the accumulation of snow on the slope and a trigger like higher temperature.
Have you ever noticed the snowpack on a car windshield after a snowfall? While the temperature is cold, the snow sticks to the surface and doesn't slide off. After temperatures warm up a little, however, the snow will "sluff," or slide, down the front of the windshield, often in small slabs. This is an avalanche on a miniature scale.

Anything done wrong will slowly little by little accumulate into a giant snowball and when it is turned into a major catastrophe by a particular situation like going into a season of rushed project deadlines and ministry events will kill you as these "wrongs" in your life is cleared at one go. Furthermore, the after-effects of taking time off to deal with this catastrophe (like taking more time than usual to recover from physical exhaustion) snowballs into the next one as well. Sometimes the avalance is released by the sheer weight of the snow and in other times, the external condition is favourable enough to effect it. In any way, an estimation of an occurance of avalance is sometimes within our estimation and sometimes not. The intervals between each avalances are likely to be determined by the seasons in our lives but do not be mistaken that in an "easy" season, an avanlance is never going to come. It is just adding on to this snowball in a different form that you do not expect that through wasting time you are nowhere near equipped for what God might use you for/put you through in the future. Therefore,an understanding of such would cause us to daily live in fear of this avalances in our lives and a constant effort to not want to already add to this snowball.

Brudders' night

2009-03-22T23:42:00.000-07:00

As a ministry, we just had our very own brothers' night. It was set in a great environment,a very big chalet with many rooms for the accounting sessions later thanks to hanyang's help. If not for the bus that came late, the atmosphere would have been perfect. It wasn't a typical chatlet, there wasn't a single fellowship activity going on through-out the night,nor was it intended to be anyway but a solemn attitude of examining the sin of sexual impurity.

I got to say that through-out my years as a christian, this area of sexual impurity had not been explored in such a depth as that night's. It is an imperative,i would say, that as an all-guys ministry,we ought to be the one that is the most open and the most comprehensive of understanding of sexual sins and how to overcome it since we owe the church generations of righteous and biblical men,especially in regards with such a critical area as this.

We had some mini-discussions of the various sexual sins such as fantasizing, pornography, masturbation and "physical intimacy". After which, was a teaching delivered by stephen meant to cut deep into hearts about the extent of "dirtiness" that these sexual sins entail and the extent of damage they do in our lives. What was shared was meant to challenge what had been commonly conceived as "the acceptable boundaries" and put in light perhaps some over-complacency of guys in handling this area.

Capping it up was the accounting sessions where I believed many deeply rooted issues was surfaced,much cutting to the heart was done, much warfare against the devil was fought with regards to his enslaving chains in this area. As always, this area is an issue that i would daringly say,every guy struggle with though its not in my nature to make absolute statements unless its out of provocations or hurts. Personally, its not until recently that I see the extent of seriousness of this issue and perhaps have sometimes in shepherding people, been overcomplacent in not seeing how the devil can bond us with such solid chains in this area. Of which, i am glad for the night to right things out.

My take home points for that night is that i am much further convinced about the ministry of transforming people's lives. When I saw tears rolling down a brother's cheeks about how helpless and trapped he is in this area really brought out the urge in me to want to give my best to restoring him and of every life that God has entrusted into my hands. Its a what bill hybels termed it, "I can't stand it no more!" popeye moment. It only sharpens and reaffirms the "so-called sacrifice that I have to pay to serve. (For goodness sake, I had to quickly compile survey results and send it out within that very night that towards the end, i was losing counsciousness.Furthermore, after a 6 hour sleep,it was time for a project meeting,yikes!)

In saying about this "sacrifice", it would seem that meeting people out of "certain time-tight moments" will only cause me to wonder at the back of my mind whether there are others who are mugging away while i am "sacrificing" my time away to people. So, it would seem by theory of classical conditioning that meeting people = being more stressed= being less and less convinced about transforming people's lives. NO! In fact, the more i meet people, the more i am actually convinced about meeting them! In seeing lives being changed, it beats any temporial gratification of scoring that A! At the end of my day where i come before God with honest feelings, I would be thanking God for such moments that he used me to effect such life-transforming moments.

As long as I come from the NS ministry,I will

Invest in lives

Influence camps

Impact the world

Amen.

2009-01-24T05:26:00.000-08:00

Nothing is of us,everything is of God

Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load.

~Gal 6:1-5~

Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him."

~1 kings 19:18~

The way the truth and the light

2009-01-14T09:32:00.000-08:00

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."

~John 14:6-7~

What does it mean when Jesus said that he is the way and the truth and the life? I believe that when he said ,"From now on, you do know him and have seen him.", he didnt mean that because Jesus was physically present then and so by seeing Jesus physically,they see the way and the truth and the life. If so,everyone then could gain salvation simply by seeing him and we know its not true because Jesus did said this about a crowd of people:

He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that," 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding;otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'

~Mark 4:11-12~

These people obvously heard and saw Jesus preaching but they are totally confused and blur about the way the truth and the life. And its a serious matter also because Jesus said,"No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well"

So what is knowing God? So why is he the way the truth and life? Just because he is "labelled" "Son of God,king of jews"? There are many people who know that they need a "God factor" but would you say that they are close to having God in their lives?

If you ask me, he is the way the truth and the life and nobody comes to the father except through him because he is the one who made it possible in the first place. Before Jesus was the LAW,the Dos and Donts which w0uld only serve to judge us,far from giving us salvation. He was the one who atoned for our sins and made it possible for us to repent and overcome. In fact, all the animal sacrifice system was insufficient in itself but it served as a symbolical gesture then for the coming sacrifice of Christ such that people could repent of their sins and overcome them.

Therefore,in recognition of the fact that he is the mercy-giver of our lives, shouldn't we humble ourselves and pray for the repentance of our sins? And thats knowing God, repenting of your sins,growing your spiritual life through the process of coming before God. Knowing that he will show you what you need to grow,knowing that he will give you grace and mercy when you struggle,knowing that there is forgiveness through the blood of the lamb.

So we need to come before God as who we really are-men-dust of the earth-people captive to sins that we may know him. If there is no recognition of sins in your life, then repent what? Why do you need God's grace and mercy for? You see,before this in John 13,Jesus just showed what is humility by washing the disciple's feet and he showed Judas and Peter about who they really are.

After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, "I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me."
His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, "Ask him which one he means."
Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, "Lord, who is it?"
Jesus answered, "It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish." Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, son of Simon.

~John 13:21-26~

Peter asked, "Lord, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you."
Then Jesus answered, "Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!

~John 13:37-38~

Judas was an Apostle in title but Jesus knew that his inner man is a money-lover. Peter was even one step better,he daringly tried to make himself more spiritual than who his inner man really is and he got rebuked straight away. So, who are you really? Whats your inner man like? As long as you belong to this species of homo sapiens, you would know that deep down inside you are nothing but the dust of the earth-sinful people,people undeserving to God's grace.

Therefore,as people who are of such,there are many areas we need to grow in,many areas we need the mercy of the Lord time and again.If you find yourself having nothing to grow in or putting on all those terms that you always put in your personal spiritual goal setting but never seeing any breakthrough and giving cliche answers when your leaders ask you whats next for your spiritual growth,perhaps its time to ask yourself: who are you really? It could be a time of self-evaluation or further probing into your life. Are you rationalising some sins away?Are you making yourself bigger than who you really are before God?When was the last time you can truly say you get to experience God's grace and mercy?

He is the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him.

NOOB!

2009-01-05T23:59:00.000-08:00

JunLiang realises he is a noob and is trying to lay traps for himself. He is thoroughly enjoying the process though!

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

~prov 1:7~

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

~prov 9:10~

Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,for his compassions never fail.They are new every morning;great is your faithfulness.

~Lam 3:22-23~

Missing you

2008-11-26T10:48:00.000-08:00

Where can I go when your love cannot reach me

Where can I hide where you are not there for me

As the deer pants for streams of water,

so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When can I go and meet with God?

The feeling of missing God.

Never having enough of him.

When can I go and meet my maker?

The Cup

2008-11-23T09:25:00.000-08:00

Everlasting-Sonicflood
The sky will fall
The ground will give
Through it all
You will be faithful
Friends may leave
They come and go
This I know
You will be faithful
You will be faithful

You will always be the same
Your love will never change
You are the everlasting
I will put my trust in You
Forever to be true
You are the everlasting
You are the everlasting

When beauty fades
And slips away
For all my days
You will be faithful
When I breathe
My final breath
I find my rest in Your faithfulness

When all around us
Is falling into waste
When the earth is dying
You cannot be erased
And I don't have to be afraid

You're the Alpha and Omega
You're forever, everlasting

Solid Rock-Delirious/ Hillsongs
There’s a rock that doesn’t move
It hasn’t moved, it will never move,
Even though the waves come crashing down.
There’s a tower on a hill its always strong,
It will never shake,
It was standing there before the world began.
There’s a wave that’s coming in,
Washing over this town, it will make or break us, reinvent us,
It’s time to lay me down.
On Christ the solid rock we will stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
On Christ the solid rock we will stand,
We’ll climb on your back, take us to higher ground.
There’s a song that doesn’t fade,
It never fades it was custom made,
To raise the sons and daughters of this earth.
There’s a sound that’s coming in,
Rushing over this town, it will make or break us, reinvent us; it’s time to lay me down.
My hope is built on nothing less,
Than Jesus blood and righteousness.I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus name.
When darkness seems to veil his face,
I rest on his unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.
His oath his covenant and blood,
Support me in the ‘whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
When the last trumpets voice shall sound,
O then I may in him be found,
Clothed in his righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before his throne.

"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

~Luke 22:42~

Father, the truth is that I don't wish to make this prayer.

I can't make this prayer on shaky grounds.

Father, I consider this cup that you want me to drink unreasonable

Why am I seemingly the only one who have to drink it

It tastes so bitter

It is like poison

Father, others are drinking merrily

They drink with much joy

Their cups are so much easier to drink

So why have you given me this?

Am I not like one of them whom you loved?

My hands tremble

My face turn pale

Your goodness is called to doubt

How can the God I love give me such a cup?

Father, how I wish to spill this cup on the floor!

The taste is so disgusting!

O how bitter my soul is!

Answer me, you who are the Everlasting!

The One who was,who is and is to come!

Why do I have to drink this cup!

Silence fills the room

No replies,No whisper

My heart calms down

My thoughts direct towards your faithfulness

My heart searches for it

The song comes

The worship arrives

My mind settle on the truth

Father

to drink this cup,

I need to trust the cup-giver

The One who has guided me from my youth

The solid rock on which I stand

The cup cannot be drunk on any other grounds

The cup has to be drunk on solid ground

This is the only way to drink this cup

Re-positioning my feet,

Staring at the cup in my hands,

Father....

I will drink it

Pieces of my heart

2008-11-12T06:49:00.000-08:00

When I take up sheep or have people entrusted under my care by God or make a covenant with people to serve God together, its like giving a piece of my heart to them. Just as you can't forcibly cut up your heart and throw away pieces that hurt you the most, it is so for every single piece that I give out to people. I can't help but to think of them even in the most busy moments of my exams. Everyday, I can't help drifting into moments of staring into the blank,dreaming and wondering about their situations, how things are and what God want me to do in their lives. Those are pieces that cannot be taken away. Those are pieces that will always remain an intrinsic part of me. That's why sometimes when I know of people who were once under my care or were serving together with me and they are living far from God, my heart still goes out to them.

There are also other parts that keeps your heart so warm. The encouragements they give, the covenant they make with me to serve God till the very end brings immense warmth into my heart. How they supported me when I need help, how they have guided me when I am lost certainly spur me on to want to run the race. I really thank God for their presence in my life.

This is in no way favouritism. For no matter warm or cold, all of these are still my heart. They are all made up of the same cells, same elements and it is foolish to think that there are parts of my heart that are more important than the rest. Removal of any small little part of my heart will definitely result in the non-existence of it. Furthermore, your heart has been given to you by birth, you cannot complain that you don't like the superior vena cava and so want to remove it right? Similarly, everything has been given to me by God and so no matter how warm or cold, I praise God for every part of my heart!

That being said, the truth is that a heart no matter what need to be kept warm. A cold heart is a dead heart right? It is so easy to feel warm where the parts are really warm,no doubt about that. However, the whole heart must be kept warm to provide heat to the cold parts as well. If we keep on focusing on how cold the cold parts are, our hearts will definitely turn cold. Yet, I say that the warm parts are never enough to fill the entire heart with warmth. They will only stay warm within their regions.

So what is needed to keep the heart pumping? We need something that flows through all these places,something that of its own nature is warm or can help regulate warmth from other parts. And this is called...blood. the blood of the lamb. the love of the Lord. Only through the circulation of the blood through-out the heart then can the heart keep on pumping,then can the cold parts be continually kept warm and the warm parts maintained warm as well.

Ok,thats all for my sudden random philosophy. I don't understand why i suddenly want to type all these either.

West V6.10

2008-11-05T23:35:00.000-08:00

West V6.10

To Advance The Kingdom Of God by building 6 faith-filled and righteous communities in the West region by End Jan 2010

1 vision,1 night,2 CG,6 communities,22 people,1 God to back us up

'The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,' says the LORD Almighty."

~Hag 2:9a

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

~Isa 6:8~

15 Months to go, is that what we want to see? Is that what we want to achieve? Will the convictions of 1 night be translated to the conviction of 15 months,much remains to be seen.

15 months of war,15 months of receiving spiritual attacks is guaranteed but 15 months of God's promises, God's providence is guaranteed as well. What is not guaranteed and can only be guaranteed by us is that whether it will be 15 months of victory.

Are you Game for it?

Yes,we can,

do all things through Christ who gives us strength. :)

Of overnight tonning and saving grace

2008-10-21T01:47:00.001-07:00

Hi, as you all can tell from the long absence of blogging here, I had been very much plagued by stuff. Yup,like last week which was by far the most insane i ever had where for most days i would be sleeping 4,5 hours a day. All this thanks to the scary south asia test that I had to study for and WFL that i have to prepare and West Vision night which is looming around so soon ha. And it doesn't look like the situation's getting any better with more essays coming and we are 1 mth away from final exams and its building up to NS camp le. ARH! Though i said during WFL that leaders are not superheroes, i wish i can be one now.zzzz.

Anyway, I discovered another skill of SAF that i can apply to my university life. Its called the ability to sleep anywhere anytime. Yupz,like last time when I spent time outfield,sleeping on benches,tanks,chairs,floor or whatever for my daily sleeping regime. Now,like on last thurs when i missed my last bus in NUS,I just slept on the benches there for 4-5 hours. It comes naturally thanks to trainining from SAF.

Oh,speaking of which I have got a testimony to share on kingdom-mindedness! Well,as what I state above, it was a very tiring week so when the south asia test finished on friday, it was like finally,all that is left is to teach the WFL and after that,rest at last!

Well,imagine the shock when I received an sms from my lect that one of my essays is due on monday! I totally forgot about it and I hadnt wrote a single word for this 2k essay! Oh wells, but all along my ministry philosophy had been that I would set aside my entire weekends for ministry's sake. Besides, I would be so busy that I won't be able to type anything and it was so as usual. So, I decided to go home on sunday after water bapt to sleep for a few hours first (I was a living dead then and walked around like so) before i go NUS overnight to chiong it out.

When I got to NUS,i still got the calmness to whip out my bible to spend QT first haha though doomsday is looming. Afterall, the Israelites after exile chose to build the temple of God first rather than the walls because they know whats important in their lives and have trust in God, I reasoned to myself. Well,apparently,one night is impossible to churn out an essay including research time. So,as i labour through the night,i only managed to complete the research part and really felt very anxious. That essay is worth 40% of my modular marks leh,if they refuse to accept it,that is as good as I have to score full marks in my final year exam to get at least C+. Yah,but thank God for Calyn,a sister from NUS who woke up my sleepy senses to at least send an email asking for time extension.

It would be a great fairy-tale ending that my email was replied,i get time extension blah blah blah but the prof didnt reply me for 3 hours! And so,in an anxious spirit with the rhythm of an impending sense of doom playing out in my head, I took heavy steps of reluctance to the lecture venue. Along the way, I was questioning God like why when I give my best to the ministry,his kingdom,everything was turning out like this. Is this the best way to start my uni. life when i am supposed to balance all my roles well? Rant on and on,but I decided that its no regrets for what I have done. As I see swarms of people submitting their essays, a sense of dejection overwhelmed me but I decided to ask my tutor anyway. Well,as its a testimony,its supposed to end on a good note isnt it? Can you imagine my relief when my dead-line was extended? I really gave thanks to God from the bottom of my heart. Furthermore, there was no penalty attached! Really really really,many many thanks! This entire episode really solidified the notion of if you give God your best, he will never short-change you in my mind. Ha,ok time to complete my essay!

take a look....

2008-10-01T21:28:00.000-07:00

Take a look at this. Its something i have been thinking about for quite some time about his message and tell me what you think.
http://sg.christianpost.com/dbase.php?cat=ministries&id=1154

And while you are at it,this as well:
http://sg.christianpost.com/dbase/society/1395/section/1.htm

Its really a privilege to be able to "do church" unrestrictedly in Singapore. We don't face any threats in our rights to worship or in our very beliefs in God. Imagine,the "what the crap" thought that came to my mind when i saw this article where christians in Laos have to apply for license just to worship and have to seek permission to gather together. We are really blessed to be in a nation where freedom of religion and worship is really guaranteed, where if we want to grow in our faith, we have the best resources available. This is so unlike in Laos where i am sure these people are hungry for spiritual truths but the situation greatly restricts the capacity they can grow spiritually. Whats with having christians books, christian podcasts,services,WFL,CG or even having the most basic,something we have always taken for granted in singapore-Bible when you have the authorities coming hard on you for your faith?

Cherish the privileged position that God has put you in and know what he wants to do in your life by giving all these wonderful resources to you! Never take for granted any fellowship opportunities with communities of brothers,any teachings or meetings that we are free to sit under without being disrupted,any services where you can worship God freely without fearing that the next moment you will be behind bars. In other words.....know why you are placed in Singapore to experience his grace and do something about it!

And another thought... Since its really easy to grow spiritually in Singapore, sometimes it has been the norm to see people getting on fire for God because there are not much strings attached to it,save for some PO and some priorities shifting that we have to make. What if you are placed in countries like Laos,will your spiritual hunger be as much?will you desire God's truth as much? Or will you just give up on your faith totally because you can't get to meet those CG members who can collectively affirm your faith or you don't have those emotionally charging altar calls? Though this question seems alittle improbable to happen in your lives now,it still bears answers to how you perceive your relationship with God.

In Singapore, we struggle with issues of priorities and commitment because there are 1001 things for us to chase in life- friends,BGR,money,studies and doing all these while holding on to our identity as a Christian. This is possible because we are seemingly able to manage and maintain this and still able to put a "I love God!" on our facebook. How about i regroup all these into 2 categories, survival and your identity as a Christian? If we are not able to give God our all in areas that we refuse to give up,how about at times when ALL of your faith is being threatened? The christian tag becomes something of real consequence, either you are going to follow it literally with all of your life at the expense of all of your life's existence or all your life you are not going to give a (in Pastor Jeff's words)chicken feather about what Christianity is about! So, if you decide to come into a relationship with him inspite of all the consequences of the decision, you jolly well make sure that you are going to give everything that you have got to follow him because anything less will contradict your former statement. Its like throwing all your money into a life-time investment project of setting up a new company and then halfway deciding to slacken off in managing it,it is foolish isn't it?

Giving God everything...isn't that what Jesus say to be the cost of following him?

The Cost of Following Jesus
On the road someone asked if he could go along. "I'll go with you, wherever," he said. Jesus was curt: "Are you ready to rough it? We're not staying in the best inns, you know."Jesus said to another, "Follow me." He said, "Certainly, but first excuse me for a couple of days, please. I have to make arrangements for my father's funeral."Jesus refused. "First things first. Your business is life, not death. And life is urgent: Announce God's kingdom!" Then another said, "I'm ready to follow you, Master, but first excuse me while I get things straightened out at home." Jesus said, "No procrastination. No backward looks. You can't put God's kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day."
~Luke 9:57-62(The messsage)

That is a good reason why times of suffering and persecution exist too, that we can know deep within our heart whether God is first in our lives. This is the unchanging principle be it in Laos where its an issue of God above survival or in Singapore where its an issue of God above anything else. Today,if you decide to follow God,if you want to put on the christian tag,put it on knowing what the full consequence is about,follow him wholeheartedly,give him and his kingdom the first priority in whatever you do in your life.

The benefits of being sick

2008-09-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

I need sleep!!!!!

That was my cry for 1 month.Not anymore.why? Because sleeping has been a great unwanted side-effect of this condition called being sick. For once in my life,I sleep until I dun want to sleep or even if i dun want to sleep,I still have to sleep!Cos' even if you are wake awake, yr brain functions at such a slow,intoxicating rate that you can't do anything else but hibernate.zzz. Wait,actually there was another period in my life that I sleep until i dun want to sleep called NS but never mind. Ok,its actually not a bad time to fall sick cos' I am having a free day tml and i have got a recess week next week to catch up on things.Since we are talking about the strategic time of falling sick aka natural chao keng(actually its a contradictory term but nvm),thought it would be a good time to share about my top preferred time to fall sick,1 being the best

1)During NS-private clinic
This one is no fight.

2)During a common test that you didn't study for
I didnt state exams because its actually quite torturous to suddenly fall sick after spending weeks of preparation. Even if u didnt study,its a hassle to do any re-examination and last min. studying won't help much.common tests are quite easy to catch up

3)Below the age of 12
Falling sick below the age of 12 entitles you to a full day of your mum's taking care of you hahas so basically you don't need to move the whole day at all.After that,you are deemed matured enough to take good care of yourself.

4)When I need to attend some boring school functions that require attendance taking

5)When I need just one day to contribute to my long weekends

6) Any time other other than the SARS period.

7) Week days cos weekends are ministry days

8)During days that I have to see Lau hanyang perform his tissue magic tricks.

The 77
Other than falling sick,I have been really looking forward to this week!Cos its the start of the 77 vision!!!If you are from west,you gotta' be really excited because its a sign that things are going to get moving!
7 days - breakthroughs happening
7 weeks- fruits pouring in
These prophecy came during the west's pm on sat and so its really a good time to catch onto God's wave! Whats more,we are going to have a vision night of our own!Ain't that cool!!!!So,i really cant wait to hear about the happenings in our lives,including mine.
So west,prepare to be HAPPENING!!!
To end it off,let me pull off from part of the lyrics of "free" by hillsongs.

Would you believe me if I said
That God can make miracles happen today yeah yeah
Would you believe me if I said
That you don't need to wait for the answers before
You step out in faith
Would you believe me if I said
That nothing is ever impossible for God

West,do you believe...in this 77?

Peace through mere worship?

2008-09-10T23:22:00.000-07:00

Heh.another spiritual post,in fact I think maybe I should divide all my posting into spiritual and personal ha because i don't want to turn my blog into a christian newsletter ha.So here goes:

The spiritual

Many times I would hear these comments after a worship session or service:

"I really felt the peace of God!"
"I felt at peace within me after worship"

"Finally there is some peace in my life"

Is that all to the peace of God? That it is all administered in a weekly dosage of service? It makes church look like a weekly spiritual clinic. Of course, I am in no way trying to discredit or condemn people who made those comments above,in fact I had made them myself. But my point is this: As from what I learnt from the bible recently, we need to move beyond experiential elements and church attendances. Real peace is not secured through doing all these alone.

You see, after King Solomon's reign,the Israelites also had many ceremonies in place for worship but they didn't enjoy peace from their enemies at all. It was not until 2 chr 14:2-6:

Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God. He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He commanded Judah to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, and to obey his laws and commands. He removed the high places and incense altars in every town in Judah, and the kingdom was at peace under him. He built up the fortified cities of Judah, since the land was at peace. No one was at war with him during those years, for the LORD gave him rest.

So the point is this: Becoming more active in church attendance or good deeds will still leave us in turmoil if we fail to eliminate sinful practices in our lives. Real peace= at worship and altar call,we decide to turn away from idols/sins in our lives + turning away in your daily walk with him. As what I can tell from experience,if you ignore the 2nd part,you will turn into a spiritual drug addict. Every weekend, you need "higher dosages of spirituality" to cause you to respond to that situation in your life until one day like how a drug addict fails to find a good enough dosage to keep him "high",you will find that you have become totally hardened to the idols/sins in your lives. This was what happened to the Israelites,that they eventually turned away from God and into exile.Therefore....

Pseudo-spiritual peace drug that is.

The Personal

Ok,other than having spiritual revealations these days, I also had a life-changing revealation of another nature as well. That is :I CAN NEVER COMPLETE MY READINGS! I can mug one full day and still only comprehend 1 chapter a day zzzz. Oh gosh,think next sem. i will try to strategise more that I mix modules with heavy readings with modules with light readings (if such exist in FASS)

Ok,on a happier side, I celebrated yan shao's birthday on sunday in his house that LAU Hanyang found out that he has to enter through a specific entrance.

Entrance A-for family members
Entrance B-for closer friends (me,his sheep,his cg members)
Entrance C-for distant friends (Hanyang)
Entrance D-for aliens (People like DC and jie xun and the balloon guy-you know who you are)

Yup,lots of food and games and crapping and alien visitations (for pics,view my facebook) but most importantly,a declaration that our maths genius is now 20! yeah a number easy to count for him. I hope this year will be a year that you can grow to 20 for south too ha!(divine ah?) Ok,i will leave this normal-length posting as such,see ya all!

My 1st spiritual post?

2008-09-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

Woo!I am taking a break from studying South Asian which is killing my brain cells in a passive way. Ok,think this is my first ever spiritual post,are you ready for it?
Some critic(probably my sheep):WAIT, you mean to say junliang is spiritual?
The spiritual one:Yes,he is.(with an enlightened look)

Ok,sorry,I am going crazy over mugging but as I was spending time reading the bible,something mind-blowing came to me.I was reading the part where after King Solomon finished building the temple of God,the priests consecreated it and glory of the Lord filled the temple.Ok,for the benefit of trying to present all these in the easiest understanding possible,I shall very briefly recount the story.

You see,King David had in his heart to want to build a resting place for God. Before this, the Ark which is symbolical of God's presence has not been housed in a fixed location. So in really layman terms,its like someone who keeps wandering from place to place with no house to his name. Of course,we do know of God's omnipresence but in this context,it is symbolical of his presence among the Israelites. However, God told him that he is not the man to build the house for him but his son,Solomon. So,David accepted his part and after Solomon came to power, he began the arduous task of building this temple which is unprecedented in magnificence,beauty,perfection in Israel's history then(arguably the world's as well). After the building is done up, we have what is called an opening ceremony where the Ark is being placed in the Most Holy Place and we have an equivalent of a SAF band of priests using musical instrutments to praise God. King Solomon gave the opening prayer to consecreate the temple and the bible states that God's glory filled the temple such that no one can enter it.

This seems to be the perfect housewarming party and it seems that being a "house-house dweller", God will be satisfied in taking his place in the temple. But in King Solomon's prayers,he said:

"But will God really dwell on earth with men?The heavens, even the highest heavens cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!" ~2 Chr 6:18~

This verse hit me hard like how my discovery that I am really lagging far behind in my readings did. As much as the temple is build up to as perfect a standard as possible, Solomon was saying that even the perfect example of a perfect place for God cannot contain the perfection of God. Woah! then where else do you want to live,God? Now,we don't know how heaven is consecreated or whether that God's presence himself consecreated it but the bible does state the physical example of it on earth and it was really a very energy and time consuming procedure.Yet,King Solomon after it all said that the temple is far far away from being the perfect place that God will choose to dwell. So guess where God himself views as his perfect house?

As i said just now, the glory of the Lord filled the temple such that no one could enter it. Nobody.No one. Not even the most devoted of priests or King Solomon could enter into God's dwelling. Basically, in terms of holiness, we are far from making the deal as being in the presence of God. But,as we all know through the bible that Jesus came down to Earth,to pay the price of sin and grants us access to his presence 24/7 through his sacrifice. As what is written in the gospels,after the death of Jesus, the curtain of the temple separating the Most Holy Place and the rest of the temple was miraculously torn in two from top to bottom,symbolising that the barrier between God and humanity had been removed completely. From the start to the end of this salvation plan,take note that it is totally God-initiated so it signifies his out-of-the way efforts to make all these happen.

What this entire act that God himself pain-stakingly built up meant is this: In the eyes of the perfect God, the perfect example for a perfect place for him to dwell in is YOU. That through the arduous preperation of Jesus as the sacrificial lamb, he can have a really big house warming party in your heart. This time though, it is 100% sure that he has finally found the perfect place to bear his name. And if the glory of the Lord could fill the temple of Solomon in such a magnificent way,how much more will your life which God view as the perfect place for him be saturated with his glory! Woah this entire revelation really blew my head inside out(what a weird term),it really goes to show how precious we are in God's sight. We better than heaven??? You got to be kidding,God! But its really true and as a sinful person,I really don't know what to say. Thats why Paul said in 1 cor 16:19:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own

In this verse, Paul states that we are the modern day versions of the temple of God. In fact, (I dunno whether this viewpoint is biblically right)we can view the whole episode of all these that i have written as God slowly making his way into the perfect place that he wants. Ha, doesn't it make you happy that God sees so much value in you that he decided to woo you from the start of creation? Anyway, a realisation of this should bring about much changes in the way one ought to live my life.

1)there is no need to feel insecured. YOU are the perfect place that God has chosen for his residence.
2)I should dedicate myself to carry out God's special purpose in my life.
3)A greater sense of joy and thankfulness for God's presence in my life
4) I ought to display much more of the fruits of the spirit.(Love,joy,peace,patience,kindness,goodness,faithfulness,gentleness and self-control)

These are just a few that I can think of,of course there are more and its up to you to apply them into your life ;).As for me, I am really filled with so much more joy and a sense of purpose in whatever i am doing!Ok,realised that I nearly preached a sermon and I have barely read finish about the temples in Hinduism so till the next post!

Rush Hour

2008-08-27T19:42:00.000-07:00

Ok,its a whole day of mugging for me,having come to school at 9am just for 1 lecture!So,here is a little break b4 I dived into no man's land. When I got to school today at such an early timing which I absolutely hate because it is the rush hour,was pretty frustrated and amused at the same time.

The Frustration

oh wells,as usual,the same old issue but its really getting worse! Maybe its because I haven take a train during the rush hour for a long time but it took three trains to go pass before I have the chance to take from Jurong East to Clementi. Yeah,just for 1 station!zzz. Which brings to my mind the Government's policy of increasing birth-rate. I mean like,if today our congestion is already that bad plus forseeable increasing rates of ERP and you will want to increase the pool of people trapped in this situation without creating teleportation devices,we will indeed literally be sardines packed in mrt cans. Very soon,we may have to do the SAF way of packing people into train so as to maximise the space in the train like stacking people horizontally,arranging thin people(like me sianz) to be squeezed among fat people (like XXX XXX). To visualise things, I have come up with a model :

Ok,its quite easy to guess which symbolises what. yup,see how compact the model is? That could be the only way out. ok,coming from another perspective,if the birth-rate is increased,maybe there would be working adults staying at home to take care of them?

The Amusement

I have been learning about this social evolution theory in sociology and man,was my eyes open to this new sociological perspective when I witnessed where evolution takes place the fastest. In the competition for survival to get to the working place/school on time, I saw certain highly evolved individuals who are well-advanced of their times. ok,i love to illustrate things so this is what you see every morning b4 you get onto the train.

Doesnt it look something like this?

Ok,so you see when tadpoles come together and squeeze probably to escape from predators,the one who is able to wriggle and maneuver its way the best is the one who survives(assuming that they are in tight space).So it is in such a way for these highly evolved Singaporeans as well. The way they are able to wriggle from the back of the queue to the front,from door entrance to seat when the rest of the crowd is trapped in the queue is really so amazing!In fact it could be a module that we can study. However,we who are destined to lose out in this survival of the fittest need not bother,the rush hour evolutionary machine has rendered us obselete and in time to come,we will become endangered species,if not extinct.I know some idiots will probably suggest some better model to illustrate this point but sorry, I am a conservative guy. :P

In conclusion, problematic times like this call for creative solutions. Conventional methods will not solve the stagnancy.Maybe,all of us can learn from this guy and help solve the problem. Remember,you have a part to play too!

ok realised i spent too much time on this crap,time to mug!

What happened on the weekends

2008-08-24T11:20:00.000-07:00

Oh wells,I am having a break before I go into my QT so here goes:what happened!

Fri:JUMP
Dont think i want to talk much about this cos' I cant back up with photos yet ha but it was really a great time spend at fort canning green. It was certainly a major break-through for the church to hold a concert at such a scale and it was truly a great experience! The music team played well and the atmosphere was really great. The only problem was when there was altar-call and fireworks started firing off and you can see Pastor Jeff fighting it out the fireworks ha.Kudos to him to still remain so focused! why cant the fireworks be fired off at the right time to boost the effects of the jump concert?for eg:
Everyone singing:How great is our God....
Fireworks:Boom!
Everyone singing:Sing with me how great is our God...
Fireworks:Boom!
Everyone singing:All will see how great,how great is our God!
Fireworks:Boom!Boom!Boom!
Ok,the other thing was I didnt know whose crazy idea it was to do the choo choo train TWICE but it really took the breathe off me. Coupled that with jumping on a SLOPE,being taupoked on slightly muddy grass and being tossed in the air twice,I barely made it alive home.ok,other than those,it was pretty memorable.

Sat:DC's birthday!
After service,we decided to surprise Ding Chuen for his birthday so thanks to Jon Lwee's inspiration we came up with a kidnapping idea.LOL.The moment ss ended,Jon Lwee went with wee keong to meridien back there to arrange the muffins into "DC20" with candles lit on top of each of them. Very hard to visualise until the photos are up but bear with it for the moment. Then the rest was distracting ding chuen along the way ha. We were desperate for a blindfold so we emptied HY's bag and when DC crossed the road at meridien there,we covered his head with the bag LOL. Han Jun and I were originally planning to do a two-man lift,making DC look like some emperor sitting on our hands while we carry him to meridien there. HOWEVER,someone was OVERWEIGHT and we collasped the moment we tried to lift him up!Muahaha!So we tried 4-man carry,piggybacks,all sorts of methods to get him there. Finally,after MUCH hard work not seen since my army sai-gang days,we got him onto an elevated platform so that he can view the words clearly ha. It was really a break-through standard in birthday celebration and I really wanna affirm everyone for doing their parts!

Sun:Social work carnival
Ok,I really wasn't very willing initially to wake up so early in the morning(sun's standard) but since I was there,I decided to give my best.I mean make your time count la,instead of wasting my time away grumbling about my lack of sleep. It was really quite interesting and insightful to talk to the social worker at my booth,understanding how they run their organisation and drawing parallels to the ministry,knowing the issues they deal with and such.
However,one thing that I didnt like was the collecting signature thing. We had to collect 3 different signatures to prove that we had indeed gone around the booths to find out about the functions and issues faced by 3 VWOs. So, you can see people going around to the social workers just so they can collect their signatures. Its not too bad if you talk with the intention of collecting signatures because its human nature. But, at least please be interested (or minimally look so) la! If i am the social worker, I would really be quite pissed to have to entertain some students who are obviously not interested when I can spend that same precious time promoting my cause which is more important. Its really not easy to be a social worker so the least one can do is not to make their day worse! Its a form of basic courtesy and manners also right?Oh wells,dunno how to end this but I am leaving my thoughts here.really need to sleep le.

The first apple drops

2008-08-20T09:11:00.001-07:00

Dear all,What a surprise! JunLiang has finally decided to do up a personal blog after so long!Ok,there is nothing to be excited about this,i won't start out like some attention-warranting superhunk nor am i going to come up with some "change your live" newsletter. This is just a space to express myself and my thoughts. Some moments,it could be crazy as some can testify and certain times,i love to get my mel side across or perhaps it is just as simple as sharing what has been going on in my life. Basically,this is about my life-all aspects of it-my faith,studies,family,friends,just to name a few. So, I will be as politically incorrect as possible because my starting basis is just to share what I think and experienced.

Ok,so,as with the start of every new blog,we get to ask the once in a bloglife question:Why did you start this?So here's a list of the top ten reasons (yupz i've got 10,I'm a rational guy afterall).

1)I can't stand people commenting "junliang very free eh!","wa NS ministry nothing to do eh"
Ladies and Gentlemen,this is totally so NOT TRUE! Perhaps those statements were valid 2 months ago when I was still a lazy bum feeding off Father-Mother Scholarship and our favourite GST offset package,thinking from hour to hour how to spend the next minute but its a totally different story now I assure you. My blog will prove with my colourful life or the lack-of-colour of it that I've got things to do!

2) I've got a Fujitsu lifebook lappie!!!
Yes,this really make blogging so much more convenient and easier. I mean as a normal student faced with the insurmountable task of keeping up with lectures and tutorials,you won't be thinking of what to blog everytime right. Sometimes, we get an inspiration/see an event and at that moment,a ray of enlightening light hit us and temporarily shift us into a state of nirvana. Its during such picture-perfect moments that you have the urge to strangely muster up the strength to resist your tendencies to stone and log onto this website to type an essay though you seriously don't understand why you don't have the same adrenaline rush when you need to hand in assignments. So,the concept of "on-the-go" to capture life's finest moment matters. With a laptop and bluetooth technology enablng photos taken from my SEk800i to be instantly and WIRE-LESS-LY transmitted to my laptop, you will never miss out on opportunities that enable you to look smart for a moment.Furthermore, usually you will feel too lazy to even type anything when you reach home so blogging is really a great thing to do in between your study breaks.

3)I was inspired by the National Day Rally
I can completely without a tinge of guilt assure you that this is really true! What he shared was really true,it the age of IT. No IT=influence not done in its fullest. Now,don't get me wrong,its not that I have political ambitions to advance,but influence is also about getting your ideas across. Everyone influence people everyday be it intentionally or sub-consciously through simple every-day stuff like when people are wondering what to eat and you recommend your canteen's yong tau foo.(but you don't need IT for that,you just need hungry people).The power of the online community is a force to be reckoned with and if you want to communicate your ideas,here's the place. I know this reason might sound similar to a certain blog that just recently started out but i can assure you he ripped his conviction off me!Grrr....

4)I want my CG peeps to keep in touch with my lives though they are locked behind army bars
Erm,as you know I come from the NS ministry and so i have many brothers who are currently stuck in another world with totally no access to this dimension we are living in. As such,for them to know what i've been going through/what I am thinking since my business is their business(muahaha),they need the power of the internet which transcends all camps and stay-outs and surprisingly,even jungles as well. Once again,the concept that no IT=no communication is best exemplified here.

5)If you know me well enough,I am someone who is naturally not expressive by speech but more to expressing in my brain.
What i mean is,i can appear to be someone of few words to you but ,i am actually talking in my mind,oh my goodness,i must be some weird freak!yupz,it seems that i suffer from a lazy mouth syndrome or a sanguine in a brain problem.Sometimes I am just too laid-back to talk rather than being serious so I talk to myself!and God of course to make you convinced that i am not suffering from some psychological disorder. But,i do know where to strike a balance between being a hermit and someone who talks before he thinks. A piece of warning though,this entire nature TOTALLY changes when I am tired or provoked beyond a tolerable level as people in my CG can testify or when i am high after drinking too much coffee/or a random bout of endorphins rush. So,to relieve my brain the tiring task of talking to me too much,I got to have an outlet of expression and online would be a great idea!

6)I want to be faithful with what God has revealed to me
okok.1st and foremost,b4 this person sue me for copyrights infringement,i LEARNT this from Mr Yeo Jie Hui.the no. 1 best selling christian blogger of all times. Ok,that will spare me from rebuked or is it a cause for another?i dunno,God help me!

7)I love blogger!
self-explainatory

8)I love to edit htmls!
This is a lie

9)I did it for fun
self-explainatory

10)
self-explainatory

Further FAQs.
-dont bother asking why i chose a cute fox collecting apple game as my blogskin. Its as complicated as why i chose ch_rocker_ist@hotmail.com to be my email.Anyway, pls do not get addicted to playing that game,its shows that you need to find something better to do!one last note for my NS brothers,doesnt those foxes look like you all doing sai-gang?Ok,that will be my one and only attempt to link this spiritually lalala.

Also,every blog has a cool sign off line right?It could be as spiritual as:

The kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.

or it could be as inspiring as this:

Superhunk gotta go now… saving the world - one food stall at a time.

or it could be as cool as:

cubed 9:31 AM 2 squares

or as plain as:

Luke scribbled @ 8:25 PM
Captured by freedy at 1:49 PM 0 comments

Therefore,faced with such a confluence of factors and choices(I simply love this term after jiehui used it for vision night,makes you sound so chim,dunno if I used it right though),I decided that I wont have a sign off line.Anyway,I realised that I had been spending too much time be it with the fox or the words,so off i am to my nerd avatar. Till my next post,cya!