REVIVAL

HELLO EVERYONE!

Here I am to sweep the dust off our humble blog…

Firstly, we ended the year with our lesson on Mary, and how we can learn to submit to God’s will and be usable by God. We shared about the things we find difficult to sacrifice in order to bring Jesus to others (the way Mary had to do, physically). Memory verse was from Luke 1:38! Hope you all still remember it

³⁸“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.”…

Our next Small Group meeting will be on 8th Jan, 7.30pm – 9pm. For those who did not come, we will be sharing ONE SPIRITUAL RESOLUTION FOR 2010! Remember that the resolution has to be measurable. (e.g. I will show love to my mother by ____ every day, etc. etc.) Please also bring a pen for all future meetings, okay?

Also, hope everyone’s been doing your devotion! If you signed up for the print copy of Our Daily Journey (I know not everyone has done so !) you should have received it by now and should have started already. If not, you can find ODJ online at http://www.ourdailyjourney.org/category/daily-devotional/. Please try to subscribe to the hardcopy version of ODJ at http://www.ourdailyjourney.org/subscribe/. Let me know if you have any problems…and hopefully, by the 8th, everyone will have subscribed!

Lastly, Tess’s farewell! We’ll be going to see her off at the airport on the 5th of January. 6.45pm, terminal 3. Do you want to go together, or meet at the airport? We also need to make her card thingy and split the cost of the gift (thanks for paying first, Jacelyn).  Going is not compulsory since school would have started by then, but it will be nice to go. I’ll be going, so if you need directions or are going, just let me know!

OK if you have read this, comment on this entry to let me know that you have read it yeah? Also, please give input about Tess’s farewell if you can.

Thanks

See you girls tomorrow!

Love in Christ,

Cheryl

Contented!

Hi dear girls

Glad to see you tonight and have the chance to talk about ‘Trusting’ vs. ‘Trying’.

I think most of us know the importance of Trying and the ‘deeds’ that accompany our faith, so I’ll just recap a little about Trust before I go back to work :/

Trusting in our Lord means accepting and loving His will for us, knowing that whatever God gives us in life is for our good. The opposite of loving His will is to be discontented with His will. (e.g. when we don’t receive what we want from Him, or when we find ourselves in situations that we don’t like.)

In such situations, we could grumble/complain, or choose to give thanks.

Tonight, after sg, I got the chance to put our lesson into practice! When I reached home, I found out from my parents that we were going to visit my grandparents tomorrow (when we go, we usually spend the first half of the day there). On top of that, the afternoon will be spend in church, which leaves little time for work. Immediately I began to complain to myself, wishing that we didn’t have to go visit my grandparents every week, spend so long there, etc. when there are so many other things to be done. Then I caught myself – I remembered tonight’s lesson: God’s will for me (obvious though it may be) is to love my grandparents, and He’s given me the task of spending time with them. Whatever God gives me (us) to do,  let me (us) choose to do joyfully, not discontentedly.

Let’s remember 1 Tim 6:6, and be contented with His plan for our lives.

I’ll end with a quote from E.B. Pusey (1800-1882: He’s Ancient haha!) on rules to gain contentment:

(I modernised the language )

1. Allow yourself to complain of nothing, not even the weather

2. Never picture yourself to yourself under any situation that you are not in

3. Never compare your lot with someone else’s

4 Never allow yourself to wish that this or that had happened, other than the way it had. Remember that God Almighty loves you better and more wisely than you know yourself.

5 Never dwell on tomorrow. It is God’s, not yours. The Lord will provide.

Share with us your thoughts on Trying vs Trusting! Post your prayer items so we can support you in prayer! Tell us if you’ve learnt anything, at all, this week – during your QT, or from a book, or from your mum , or through a friend, or from THE WORD OF GOD (remember to read, God will speak to you from it!)

See you all on sunday!

In our Father’s love,

cheryl

God helps Those…

Hi there!

God helps those that help themselves. God helps us we can’t deny but there is something we too must do to attain what we deserve. For example, if you have a history test coming up and instead of studying you went out to play and before the start of the exam you pray ” Dear Lord, help me to get good marks!” God can help you but what about yourself. There is no free lunch in this world but God’s grace is given to us ABUNDANTLY AND FREELY but we cannot take advantage of this privilege by not doing our part. Some people don’t do their parts and when the result comes out not to their expectation, they blame God and not themselves. So, it is very important that we WORK and not take advantage of God’s grace.

-Nicole

God’s love

Dear girls,

Today we talked about God’s love, something that’s so incomprehensible with our human minds! Here’s a recap

Firstly, we looked a little at John 1: We talked about how God wants to initiate a Father-child relationship with us.

“¹²Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”

He loves us (and everyone he created), unconditionally, no matter who we are or what we’ve done. Remember Deuteronomy 7:7-8?

⁷ The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. ⁸ But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

That’s what God’s love for you is like – not on the basis of what you do or how good you are/how much better you are than anyone else. He loves you because of what He is like! God is love – nothing we do can change that

In Psalm 63, we read the words of King David, the man after God’s heart:

¹ O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.

² I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.

³ Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.

⁴ I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.

⁵ My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

Here we talked about how, as humans, we are made such that there is an emptiness inside us that only God can satisfy. Everyone has that empty hole -everyone- it’s just that we fill it with different things. We try to fill it with many other things (love from parents, friends, bgr, etc) but in the end, God’s love alone satisfies. God wants to fill you up and satisfy you with his love!

Finally, God wants us to love him, too. Why did God even bother to create the universe? Why did he send his Only Son to die for us? Sisters, he wants a relationship with us. He longs for intimacy with you! We talked about doing QT out of duty, responsibility vs. doing it because we hunger for God and love Him.

Along the way we also talked about: catholics vs. protestants, homosexuality, feelings, crushes, unanswered prayer, whether God chooses who He wants to save, putting God first in our lives vs. making God everything in our lives….SO MANY THINGS D: I guess we didn’t manage to answer anything in great detail – but we can come back to each of these some other time again

Lastly, for the fortnight ahead before we meet again, here’s a challenge to all of you!

- Check out Psalm 90:14 I encourage you to say it as your prayer to God – ask Him to satisfy you, so that you desire only Him. Let Him fill you up, ask Him to show you his love.

- Keep praying and asking God to give you that hunger and love for Him, knowing that He will answer.

Alright then, twas great meeting tonight. Will keep your exams in prayer!

love in Christ,

cheryl

Are you non-assertive?

I am a person who likes to bother about what people say or think of me. Whenever someone thinks something negative of me, I would not like that person. Not that I would treat her like an enemy, but it’s just that I would be very uncomfortable around her. But from the Bible, I learnt that no one is perfect. You can’t expect everyone to like you every single second. Everyone has flaws no matter how big or small it can be. I learnt not to be so sensertive and bother about what people think of me. What for should I do that? I would just be hurting only myself. As long as I know whatever I am doing is pleasing to God, I will do it.

There is a board in my school which says: “I am who I am for what I stand for”. It encourages me a great deal. Whenever I walk past it I would make a resolution to do what I think is right and not let other people’s opinions of me influence me.

My mother always tells me to have a tunnel vision. That is not to look left or right, not to compare myself with others. Because at the end of the tunnel is God, waiting. I feel that this is what a Christian should feel about. We should not compare ourselves with others, and feel demoralize by that. By not comparing, I realised that it made me a happier person and I feel more at peace with myself. Though it is difficult not to compare with others, I would try, with the help of God.

Cheers
Beverly

This is what I posted on my blog. In case it’s too lengthy, I’ve summarised the main points (in bold).

Why am I a Christian? (List 3 reasons).

1. Introduced to Christian faith because I grew up in a Christian family

The story of every Christian’s journey starts with how he/she met God (sometimes before that though). Once upon a time…XD Kk I grew up in a Christian family, so it was my parents’ influence that led me to church. I grew up in a swirl of Biblical stories, knowing that someone loved me enough to send his beloved son to die for me, even though I wasn’t always a good girl. And this someone was an all-powerful God. He was perfect and so was His Son. Naturally, as a child, I believed it.

2. Christianity makes the most sense

I grew older, and came to know of other faiths. Maybe you think I’m biased because my level of understanding of Christianity is much deeper than that of other religions, but after all these years, I still think Christianity makes the most sense. And there’s proof for it. I remember reading in a book that even the Quran testified that Jesus was born of a virgin. I can’t seem to find the book now, but when I do I can tell you where that verse was found. The author also recorded a conversation between him and several atheist-scientists. They said something about how the world started from Christianity’s POV, which led to the author popinting out that the start of the earth from their POV (ie before the ‘big bang’ ) was ______ (some cheem word_, which is when all the laws of quantum physics break down. Hence their starting point isn’t scientific either. I’ll write down the full conversation once I get hold of that book, lost somewhere in the vast and messy ocean of my house.

3. Not a religion, rather a relationship

Christianity is more than a religion – it’s a relationship with God. Contrary to what many perceive, Christianity isn’t all about the ten commandments. Our God isn’t a hard-hearted, sadistic god who throws laws at us and watch us go bonkers keeping them in thought, word and action when He knows full well that the flesh is sinful. No, the focus of Christianity is on Jesus Christ, who was completely, absolutely, wonderfully perfect, but who willingly be humiliated, tortured and crucified so that we sinners can stand in God’s presence without a shred of shame. Why God gave the ten commandments was to bring humans to the end of themselves, so we would realise the need for a saviour. Plus after listening to the Word, I get this brilliant feeling that is indescribable. Almost like I can do anything in the whole wide world. I believe it’s God’s grave taking effect in me. And I know that God loves me so much that He couldn’t love me any more or any less.

~~

This is a follow-up for Q2.

Jesus Among Other Gods

I found the book at last! It’s titled “Jesus Among Other Gods” by Ravi Zacharias & Kevin Johnson.

The verse where Jesus’ birth was affirmed in the Quran is Surah 19: 19 – 21.

And here is the conversation the author had with the scientists.

- How scientific is science? –

I was having dinner with a few scholars, most of whom were scientists, when our discussion veered into the conflict between science’s starting point – nature alone – and supernaturalism’s starting point, God as the only sufficient explanation for our origin.

I asked them a question that might be useful to you in science class. “If the big bang were indeed where it all began – which one can fairly well grant, at least to this point in science’s thinking – may I ask what preceded the big bang?” Their answer, which I had anticipated, was that the universe was shrunk down to a singularity.

I pursued, “But isn’t it correct that a singularity as defined by science is a point at which all the laws of physics break down?”

“That is correct,” was the answer.

“Then, technically, your starting point is not scientific either,”

There was silence. Their expressions showed their minds were scurrying for an escape hatch.

They didn’t find one.

~~

All the best for the upcoming/ongoing exams!

<3 Vernetta

reflection!

hey guys. i would just like to share with yall some things which i have learnt from the teachings in the bible and daily devotions. firstly, i learnt how to be an assertive person. i have not fully understood the meaning but know the basics so thats fine too.. i think(: haha i learnt that we should put God first in our lives and that we should not replace Him with anyone else (eg friends.) i also hope to learn more about how to be prepared when we are asked a question on christianity or God. i am still unsure about how to answer and will work on it(: during the past two sg sessions, i feel that i have grown in faith with the Lord and will definitely put Him first in my life from today onwards!!(:

Audrey