Today is a public holiday because Malaysia beat Indonesia in the AFF! To the Malaysian team, Malaysia Boleh!
This will be my last post for this year. Tomorrow is the first day of the new year and also the first day of the next decade. I really believe that the next 10 years (2011 to 2020) will be a decade of power. As world events continue to stun and shock us, weather patterns continue to suffer upheavals, calamaties continue to increase worldwide, the power of God will increase in the church by leaps and bounds!
God is the source of all power in the universe. He lights up the heavens, gives the sun, the stars and the solar systems their lights and cause the planets to move on their axis. Jer 32:17 "Ah Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and earth by Your great power. There is nothing too hard for you".
Ps 147:5 "Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite"
In 2011, I need the power of God to help me in the following 7 areas:
1. to witness for Him. "And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of Jesus" Acts 4:33
2. to share in the sufferings of the gospel. "....do not be ashamed of the testimony of the our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings of the gospel according to the power of God" 2 Tim 1:8
3. to get wealth. "...for it is He who gives you power to get wealth..." Duet 8:18
4. to receive and pray for healing of others "....And the power of the Lord was present to heal them" Luke 5:17
5. to prepare myself for the return of the Lord. "He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord" Luke 1:17
6. to make the impossible possible "Ah Lord God! Behold you have made the heaves and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for you"
Finally in keeping with the church theme for 2011 "Deep, strong, unshakeable" I need God's power to remain strong the Lord and in the power of His might.
If I forget all the prayer requests sent to me by different ones on their expectations/aspirations for next year, I will pray this for them, "Lord grant my brother and sister to always remain strong in You and in the power of Your might"!Eph 6:10
Blessed New Year!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
My spiritual GPS
On Monday team members of the church magazine were invited for dinner with Pastor and Chin Nee. After dinner, we all took turns to share about our walk with the Lord in 2010. During my sharing, I suddenly blurted out that "my morning devotion is my GPS". You see I was sharing about the morning devotion which my husband and I started during our 3-week holiday in England. As we could not make it to church during our holiday in England, we took turns to read aloud chapters of the Bible every morning using the Daily Bread. It suddenly dawned upon me during the sharing that I had been experiencing a kind of spiritual "GPS experience" everytime I begin the day after my morning devotion.
The memory of England is somehow connected with this GPS idea which the Spirit gave me because it was in Newcastle Upon Tyne that we discovered the wonder of this invention called the "GPS". With the rented KIA came a plug-in GPS which enabled us to travel to places we had never been before in our life or even imagine that we could ever go! With it, we even found my sister's house in Staindrop on our own without calling her for help! With the GPS, we found Holy Island on Lindisfarne, Anwick, Bramborough, Seahouses, Darlington, Durham, Edinburgh and a host of beautiful villages or midsummers that I had so longed to visit while watching "Midsummer Murders" (an Agatha Christie-like detective show) back home.
At one time, we tried to do away with the GPS thinking that we could surely find the way to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh. However we completely lost our way and landed way off the landmark!
It is interesting that before a GPS can be used, a little pop-up message will appear asking if we agree to abide by the terms and conditions of use. If we do, we have to tap the "Yes" box and all the manufacturer's guide will appear.
In the same way even before we can start tapping into our spiritual GPS, we need to tap the "Yes" box of the manufacturer's guide i.e the word of God! Without it, we might not be able to pick up the signals of the spiritual GPS that God had already installed in our hearts. He is the Holy Spirit, our friend forever and our everlasting guide.
Click "Yes" every morning/evening when you read the Bible and the Holy Spirit will begin to guide you throughout the day. Remember too that just as the natural gadget needs charging, our spiritual GPS also needs re-charging. So plug-in daily and enjoy Him, the precious precious Holy Spirit!
The memory of England is somehow connected with this GPS idea which the Spirit gave me because it was in Newcastle Upon Tyne that we discovered the wonder of this invention called the "GPS". With the rented KIA came a plug-in GPS which enabled us to travel to places we had never been before in our life or even imagine that we could ever go! With it, we even found my sister's house in Staindrop on our own without calling her for help! With the GPS, we found Holy Island on Lindisfarne, Anwick, Bramborough, Seahouses, Darlington, Durham, Edinburgh and a host of beautiful villages or midsummers that I had so longed to visit while watching "Midsummer Murders" (an Agatha Christie-like detective show) back home.
At one time, we tried to do away with the GPS thinking that we could surely find the way to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh. However we completely lost our way and landed way off the landmark!
It is interesting that before a GPS can be used, a little pop-up message will appear asking if we agree to abide by the terms and conditions of use. If we do, we have to tap the "Yes" box and all the manufacturer's guide will appear.
In the same way even before we can start tapping into our spiritual GPS, we need to tap the "Yes" box of the manufacturer's guide i.e the word of God! Without it, we might not be able to pick up the signals of the spiritual GPS that God had already installed in our hearts. He is the Holy Spirit, our friend forever and our everlasting guide.
Click "Yes" every morning/evening when you read the Bible and the Holy Spirit will begin to guide you throughout the day. Remember too that just as the natural gadget needs charging, our spiritual GPS also needs re-charging. So plug-in daily and enjoy Him, the precious precious Holy Spirit!
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Asking confidently
Yesterday while preparing for the prayer meeting, I went through all the scriptures I could find on the will of God.
The reason was that I had been so moved by this Bible verse that I had read during one of my devotions. 1 John 5:14-15 "Now this is the confidence we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us..." Wow! Just reading this gave me such an assurance that my prayers are being heard. But the condition is: my prayers have to be in accordance with His will. I really wanted to learn how to pray prayers that would be heard by God, with full assurance in my heart!
I searched the scriptures as to what I can ask in prayer that would be in accordance with His will. O the beauty of scriptures, one explains the other so clearly! I like 2 Peter 3:9 which states that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. Asking for souls is certainly according to God's will!
The church has been praying for souls for the past few months in preparation for Christmas. We have written the names of our friends and family members and put them into a transparent vase. During our prayer meetings, we actually took out the names and covered them with prayer over and over again!
The truth is come every Christmas, I feel kind of "pressured" to invite friends for the evangelistic events. I have already exhausted invitations to all my office friends. More often than not they have turned me down. As for my family members, they are either outstation or overseas.
However God is really good to me. He heard my prayers for an opportunity to be able to invite someone for the Christmas events. During one of the public holiday, while exercising with my husband, I got to know a young lady with a small child. She happened to stay in my neighbourhood. I memorized her address and dropped a flyer in her post box later in the day. Praise the Lord, she called me a few weeks later to inform me that she would like to attend the Children's Church party with her daughter!
Truly, if we ask anything according to His will, we know that He hears us and if we know that He hears us, we have the petitions that we have asked of Him!
The reason was that I had been so moved by this Bible verse that I had read during one of my devotions. 1 John 5:14-15 "Now this is the confidence we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us..." Wow! Just reading this gave me such an assurance that my prayers are being heard. But the condition is: my prayers have to be in accordance with His will. I really wanted to learn how to pray prayers that would be heard by God, with full assurance in my heart!
I searched the scriptures as to what I can ask in prayer that would be in accordance with His will. O the beauty of scriptures, one explains the other so clearly! I like 2 Peter 3:9 which states that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. Asking for souls is certainly according to God's will!
The church has been praying for souls for the past few months in preparation for Christmas. We have written the names of our friends and family members and put them into a transparent vase. During our prayer meetings, we actually took out the names and covered them with prayer over and over again!
The truth is come every Christmas, I feel kind of "pressured" to invite friends for the evangelistic events. I have already exhausted invitations to all my office friends. More often than not they have turned me down. As for my family members, they are either outstation or overseas.
However God is really good to me. He heard my prayers for an opportunity to be able to invite someone for the Christmas events. During one of the public holiday, while exercising with my husband, I got to know a young lady with a small child. She happened to stay in my neighbourhood. I memorized her address and dropped a flyer in her post box later in the day. Praise the Lord, she called me a few weeks later to inform me that she would like to attend the Children's Church party with her daughter!
Truly, if we ask anything according to His will, we know that He hears us and if we know that He hears us, we have the petitions that we have asked of Him!
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