This was sent in an email to me from one of my sisters in church,cheryl wong:)
enjoy!
-lilin
...adapted from The Daily Chase, Tommy Tenney.
Empty yourself, be filled with God's power
And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many
( Matt 20:27-28 NKJV)
Disciples are expected to live with a deeper level of relinquishment than new believers. In the same way, as disciples, those who would lead and feed must relinquish more than they did as disciples.
Moses was educated, trained in all the ways of Egypt, which took him to a high level of accomplishment in the Egyptian society, but it was counted for almost nothing in God's kingdom. (Acts 7:22-23)
Moses was "mighty in speech" until he turned 40 and tried to fulfil his destiny on his own. Then he had an intimate encounter with God that apparently left him a stutterer! Sometimes what we consider " religious eloquence" is really " spiritual stutter", an impediment to true communication with and for the Almighty.
Exaltation at one level is abasement at a higher. That is the power of relinquishment. We cannot pray," Thy kingdom come..." unless first, we are willing to pray," My kingdom go..." (Matt 6:10) We have a tendency to hold onto our kingdom with a death grip, but we need to learn there is a power that comes through relinquishment.
God told His reluctant deliverer,Moses, " When i get through using you, the children of Israel are going to give Me glory. It will not be because of your education, your intelligence, or your ability to speak.. Your leadership ability will not get all the praise for what happens." Give man honor, but glory belongs to God alone.
God performed astounding miracles through Moses, yet as far as we know, God never healed him of his stutter. Sometimes God will leave a mark somewhere on your life as a permanent reminder of the time and place He touched you and changed you forever. It will be a place where He can always get a hold on you.
Moses could tell you about it, if you would be patient with his stuttering delivery. Jacob could tell you about his limp, but you would be able to see that for yourself. So ti was with Paul's "thorn in the flesh". (Imagine meeting these people when we reach Heaven!! Haha..Fabulously cool!) Regardless of the strength of his belief in the healing and delivering power of God, we have no record that Paul was healed or delivered of his thorn. It may have been God's means of getting Paul's attention. Paul put it in this way:
And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee:for My strength(God's) is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities,that the power of Christ may rest upon me (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)
Moses was at the height of his career. He had power, prestige, wealth and influence with the royal house of Pharaoh.However, he had a prior commitment and divine commission from the royal house of the Most High God of Israel. He was called of God to deliver the children of Israel from their Egyptian bondage, buthe first had to be freed of every shadow of his former house and changed from the heart outward. It took 40 years of shepherding in the wilderness to prepare him for the next 40 years in the place as a deliverer.
Test of Faith If cast on enemy, will deal variable damage based on the unit's faith. If cast on allied Hero, it will teleport the hero to safety. Instantly teleports Chen's persuaded units to safety.
Kay sorry random XD! Not the title though. How strong is your faith? That's the question. We have heard of FireAC's goal for revival in ACS(I). Their basis of that? Faith. There are many souls around us who aren't saved. Have you tried evangelising to them? Honestly, I have zero experience in that. I have never tried, nor have I stepped out of my comfort zone. Why? I lacked faith. I did not know what would happen if I tried simply because I did not have faith in Christ that he would help me succeed.
We have all heard of the parable of the sower. The seeds were scattered but only some grew. Let's look at the same parable, but from the sower's perspective. An adult farmer scatters the seed in the field with precision. Every seed falls on good soil and grows to bear fruit. The farmer's child attempts to sow the seeds. However, the seeds scattered fell all over the place, some on the road, some on the rocks and some in the thorns. Only a few fell on good soil.
The key point is: Only a few fell on good soil. None of us can scatter seed with precision. We are all like the young farmer who is trying to sow the seeds as best as we can. The thing is, even as inexperienced sowers, some seed that we sow will bear fruit even though others may go to waste. All we need to have is faith in the LORD that he would follow up from our efforts. If the first seed we sow falls on the rock, try again. If the next falls on the road, try again. Eventually, a seed that we sow will fall on good soil. With faith, we will succeed.
How strong is your faith?
-Jack
dillon doing his pole dance!
vignette putting on her sunblock-moustache
tada!
after more games, those of us present (me, dillon, vignette, jeremy, sharyl and jack) had lunch specially prepared by sharyl! (and it was really yummy!) thanks sharyl! (isaac and mel came after their chinese oral)
unfortunately i didn't get to take many pictures. i know sharyl and vignette have some though! hope you enjoyed the photos, sorry there's so little!
Love, Liz
So back to the impactful sermon: I just felt that something like this ought to have a place in this blog! Well it was a sermon about chairs.. I'll try to type out the whole sermon as closely as I remember it to be... without putting in the countless "everybody say (insert word here)"s XD
Well the speaker started off with telling us about chairs and how important chairs are in some situations, including an incident in the bible. If Jesus appeared in front of you now and told you that you could ask Him for ANYTHING in the world, what would you ask for? Well James and John had an opportunity close enough. And they asked for chairs. Chairs to sit at the left and right hand of Jesus Himself in heaven.
Now, in our lives, there exists four different chairs. A red one, a green one, a grey one and a black one. And everybody, Christian or not, sit in one of the chairs. So what do the chairs represent?
The red chair
The colour of this chair represents fire. It represents Christians who have the burning passion and fire for God (FireAC anyone? haha). These kind of people enjoy worship sessions and can never get enough of it. They have a burning desire for an intimate relationship with Him and will maintain it.
The green chair
Or also the chair of growth. Christians who are sitting in this chair are seeking to grow closer to God everyday. They do their QT, read the bible and pray consistently to grow closer to Him. These people are in the stage where they only want to see their faith grow with each passing day.
The grey chair
Neither hot nor cold aka lukewarm. Sadly, the chair in which many Christians sit in. These Christians neither have the sustained passion for God nor do they deny His existance. Yes, these people are Christians. But what are they doing? They are content with their current relationship with God and do not do anything to improve it. They sit in their comfort zones everyday and do not outreach to others. The speaker pointed out that this is the only chair with the 'eject' button. God will push that button when He comes again.
The black chair
Those who have sinned and have not repented, those who have heard the word but have not accepted it, those who have know ABOUT Jesus but do not actually KNOW Him. These are the people sitting in the black chair. I prefer to call them pre-believers. When Christ's kingdom returns, judgement will fall upon them if they are not saved in time and they will be condemned for eternity.
Everybody is sitting in one of these chairs. Those in the red and green chair will have access to heaven, while those in the grey and black chair will not. The question now is not which chair you want to sit in, but which chair you ARE sitting in.
Ok.. so that's more or less the whole sermon. After that sermon, the pastor called for everyone to close their eyes, and take a moment to think about which chair they are sitting in. He then called for those people in the black chair who want to be saved, followed by those in the grey chair to raise their hands. When he called them out to the front, virtually the whole auditorium moved up! The number of souls saved... it was tremendous. Praise God!
Well I just pray that majority if not all of us are in the red or green chair! But regarding the red chair.. XunLiang and I had a short sms chat after the event.. and so I'll want to add this too. Part of the red chair is taking the extra mile for God. So what is this extra mile? To be ushers. Yes. Ushers. We can be all on fire for God, preach to everybody we know and plan worship sessions in our available time. The thing is, can we do better? Preaching to pre-believers is one thing. Ushering them to the red seat is another.
The next time you see an opportunity, usher the person to the red seat. Not just to Christianity because that may mean the grey seat or the green seat. Not that the green seat is bad, but as soon as you see progress, usher the person to the red seat!
God bless (:
-Jack