August faith

August will be a hard month for me. Deadlines are drawing near. I starting to think there is a reason why deadlines are called deadlines. I hope I won't be dead before reaching that line. Everything is funneling down and the stress is getting more compressed/intense in the process. I realised that stress is more powerful when they are united/compressed. They are more focused and thus have greatly increased ability to destroy its host - the human. My observation of me and my situation tells me that I'm a still a phlegmatic. When stress comes in and instead of meeting it head on I'll choose to hide. From my exprience thus far, I conculded that thinking about stress is more stressful then stress itself.

If you read this please pray for me. I am precieved to be super free on the outside because I want to escape the dying me on the inside. My faith guage is running out. Apologetics and reading the faith expriences of people don't feed me anymore. I'm relying heavyily on my past exprience with the almighty. All hopes now are pinned on what I went through with God in my past 3years. Its THAT hope which I'm holding on tightly now that still keeps me alive admist of my chaos environment that keeps begging for my attention and congesting me with the knowledge of their consequences.

I want out.

Praying

"What we think we need may not be our direct needs" - I know that God will meet my needs and the needs of the people if he sees that its a real need of ours and that his will can never be twarthed or flawed. That means God will never let evil get its way in the end.

Its so sad that people now sees prayer as mainly a "seeking help from God" thing. If I were to take the concept of prayer that everyone is proposing and apply it into my life then I really question the need for praying then. Yeah seriously I sometimes do. Like when i'm praying for people's safety and needs, etc. I keep thinking that since everything will ultimatly flow in line with the will of God and that since we knows our every thoughts, then why pray when God, in his timing will give when He sees that its our needs, even if we don't ask for it. Sometimes I really hate it when I'm asked to lead prayer groups when I myself sees no point in praying.

But I also figured that its only human to cry out (lament) to God. Like how little babies cry out to their parents. I know that prayer means more then a seeking help thing. Prayer at its core, means communication. And communication inculdes lamentations and crying out too.

When I was thinking deep about prayer I realised that there is actually no such thing as prayer. If you haven't realised, worship at its core means communication too. Worship envelops prayer. So then why do people still think that prayer and worship are two seperate things? To frame the question more accurately - why do prayer exist then?!

We see that Jesus himself is a example of what prayer is. Whenever he prayed he submitted himself to his father's will. He also asked knowingly that he will not get. "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." Thus in doing this he also showed that he is also human. He lamented.

So then I concluded that prayer is a term for a prelude to worship. When praying, we will come to a realisation that we can actually do nothing to change anything. Prayer helps us to detrone ourselves and it is only when we are detroned from our own throne then worship can begin. That meaning, if you are still the king of your own world after praying, you haven't prayed. Thus you are not ready and cannot enter into the worship dimension.

So actually now I see no point in praying for anything. But I want to be proven wrong. I don't wanna lead another prayer team because I'm told to lead them in praying for something. Oh someone please correct me. BUT, if I'm not wrong that means the people haven't learnt what is real prayer and true worship. We will then seriously need to educate the church if any of us wants to see revival coming in.

Religion for the christians

(Warning: this post is going to be a long one)

I just read the Straits Times Saturday (July 16) 6 page article on "God and Us". If you haven't read it, please go and dig up those pages and read it! It is the results of a survey done on the religions and their infulance on Singaporeans. Its good not because that is written with a christian bias (it isn't, they can't anyway) but rather it makes us question why we believe in what we believe.

Every "church" of every religion is trying to keep and attract their youth and other youths. All deploy different strategies and use different baits to attract their target audience. All too serve the public. Some even show love better then christians. All love to fellowship with their fellow believers and not want to inter marry with another of the opposing religions. Everyone's display worship to their God fervently and some even far more better then that of the christians to their God. So when our evangelism, service, fellowship, worship and discipling tactics (i'm not talking about Christianity only mind you) are of same fervency. So then whats the big deal about the different religions?

I read and realised that those strong in their faith (like some of us christians) are strong because they had their own spiritual expriences. We need to know that feelings are real and therefore we cannot be too biased as to just sweep away another religion's spiritual exprience as false. They are neither false nor invaild. Feelings are real. Now since a big majority of the population believe in a God or Gods then the question brings itself to the surface and stares at us right in the face. Why Jesus? Why do I believe in my God.

We cannot sweep away the question by saying that "what makes us different is that our logic can be proven". By saying this we are not being fair because they too can use their logic to prove to you what they want to prove. Logic is a tool not the solution. Logic can be used by anyone to prove their point provided if the user is as good as the logic deployed. But then there are limits to logic. Logic cannot guarantee wisdom. It cannot prove or disprove inspiration or love. It cannot replace the intuition gained through experience, the prompting of the Holy Spirit, nor the clear truth of God's word. Above all, logic doesn't save the soul. BUT thats all besides the point. Ok sorry for the long sidetrack.

---
Why I believe in Jesus

I will be citing alot of evidence and facts since truth is buried in evidence and facts. I shall let them become logic themselves.

The Bible is written by eyewitnesses of Jesus life. It is reliable, Being 99.5% textually pure in the New Testament, meaning that it is copied with great accuracy dispite its many copies and is accurate enough to be certified as a history book. They are written accounts, of Jesus' life, deeds and his power over death. And if those were not enough there are also non biblical accounts that says of Jesus as a wise man, lawful, doer of wonderful works and proof of his cruification and much more all recorded in history (not the bible).

Sometimes I really wonder, based on accuracy of scripture alone, why do people still choose not to believe the eyewitnesses? Ok maybe those are still not enough.

There are many religious books in the world that have many good things to say but only the Bible has fulfilled prophecies from the recorded past aka the old testatment scriptures. The Bible has never been wrong in the past. Fulfilled prophecy is strong evidence because when you look at the mathematical odds of prophecy being fulfilled (in this case, its alot of prophecy being fulfilled!) , you quickly see a design, a purpose, and a guiding hand behind the Bible. If just one prophecy failed, the deity of Jesus Christ would become questionable because Jesus cliamed to be the son of God and God being the creator of all things, which includes time, would not be wrong about predicting the future.

Hey, I'm not don't yet! Please read Psalm 22:12-18. This is a detailed description of the crucifixion... and it was written 1000years before Jesus was born. (I guess the concept of crucifixion hadn't even been invented yet.) On top of this there are also alot more other prophecies like his birthplace, His side pierced when still on the cross and that we is to be born of a virgin (just to cite a few). All the prophecies are from way before his time and Jesus became like what was prophesied.

It is Jesus who I look to for the validity of Christianity. If Jesus is false, then Christianity is false. If Jesus is who He claimed to be (son of God), then Christianity is the only correct religion and Jesus, the only way to reach God.

---

The subject of study for the christian should be the proper study of the God head. Its only through knowing the character of God then one can fully understand the purpose of Jesus Christ. If we do it in the reversed manner we will find our faith weak and shallow based.

Frankly speaking, although a christian I never believed in religion. Religion is based on bind following of tradition and is dead. I never believe in blind following and "empty" actions. I never endosed the mindset of doing worship. Its not in my theology that worship is in the form of any action, be it raising of hands, jumping or even singing. Nothing is worship until we understood what we are doing. My God looks at the heart, how about yours? In line with my theology stated pior, I can savely say that any action if done with reverance and tinged with awe is acceptable worship before God.

When Apostle Paul started the church he didn't meant it to be a blind following of religion but rather he meant it as a fellowship of believers. Christianity is named Christianity because the we are supposed to be a fellowship of people believing that Jesus Christ is the saviour of the world, sent by God in his display of love and grace towards our damned world.

In short, religion doesn't save you, only Jesus saves.

Working space

Ok so you see it now, the above is my working area. My 17inch LCD monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, 6x8 Wacom Intuos3 tablet, 1GB ipod thumbdrive and my beefed up customed machine. Everything cost me around 3k. These are what I see everyday since 5 months ago. I still remember the times when I was working on my old computer with 256MB of RAM (just imagine doing graphics on a 256!) and struggling to produce work on time because the com kept hanging and shutting down by itself. Everybody I talked to asked me to just buy a new one and they made it sound as if it was so easy. I had not much money and savings then.

All these changed when for some reason I came in first for a certain competition. Although the money was relatively little but no one knew that to me it was like money floating down from heaven and whats best is that I did nothing extra to get them. I spent them all on these knowing that these are my direct needs. I remember asking God for a new machine back then. Now I can't imagine working without them. I thank God everyday for blessing me with such an arsenal. God does meet needs.

Now I'm eyeing this. I can imagine how fun doing digital art will be when working pen to screen! But yeah, this toy cost around 4k in Singapore, its expensive beyond reach. But anyways I'm more then contented with what God had already blessed me with.

Colourful God

Friday's sunset sky was hot pink, pastel blue and pastel yellow. How nice. Nature has the best colour combination. We can only imitate them, no one can claim his or her colour combination is orginal. How we defined colour is through nature. Even if nobody went around defining what the word "yellow" "green" or "blue" represents, the colour wheel would still be invented the same. So beautiful is the science of colours. I really thank God that I'm not colour blind, because if I were, I would be missing out on alot of things beautiful and my understanding of the creator would be greatly dimmed.

Redemptive suffering

There's something very touching about able bodied young men asking for the prayer and blessing of some elder who is old and frail. And best still that elder may not even speak well. Ever wondered why is this so prevailing in so many different cultures and you see it happening too in the old testament times?

There is value in suffering, there is value in going through the things that you are going through. Some biblical examples shows Joseph's brothers asked him to forgive them and through him asked for God's favour (Gen 47:25). "For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably." Jacob said this to Esau when he met him again and asked for his forgiveness (Gen 33). Job's three friends after being found guilty for wronging him also asked him to interceed in behalf of them for God's mercy to be shown onto them. Jesus who walks the path of the cross and after bearing the weight of the world, now sits at the righthand of God interceeding for us.

So thats why James 5:16 says that "the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective". Note this, righteousness doesn't come overnight. The righteous ones would have gone through the path of struggling to be righteous and therefore know the struggle of those striving to be righteous. Hence, he can pray a more honest thus powerful and effective prayer. Thats the meaning of that verse in its context. Anyways not just prayer, christian ministry is all about honesty. How can anyone pray a honest prayer if we haven't went through the situation, how could we even be constructive in our help? Even if we think that we can, we will be exposed by the weight of our words.

Therefore praying is not about the eloquence of speech but rather the honesty of the words you speak. A simple "Have faith" two words can weight so differently when different people says it the same way. God looks at the heart.

So if you think you are suffering and thought that theres only "bad" in it, think again. There is value in every experience. God turns the works of satan around for the good of those who believe.

Judge not or Discern not ?

I believe judging is often necessary, only if it is based on the Word of God. Usually when people judge, they based it on some standard, such as a morally good and wrong sense of standard, where they themselves fail to comply sometimes. However, judging shd be based on the Word of God, the Word of God provides the standard of which it is an Absolute Truth and Moral, you and I are not an exception to being weighed by it.

As in Corinthians, Apostle Paul judged and urged the church to ex-communicate the christian who sleeps with his father's wife! But there is always an element lacking in all our attempts to judge others, that's love. Rebuke in love, when judging, always remember, do it with Love, for if we have all gifts of prophecy, tongues, words of knowledge, wisdom but no love, we are nothing.

---
The above is taken from Daniel's blog. Thought that this is what we all needed to hear. We mixed up discernment for judging and judging for discernment. Either ways I thought he was sharp on when he wrote this. He revealed the fine line.

Submission equates to purpose fullfillment

Actually the reason why rules are set are because we are of some value to the rule setter. We are created in the image of God. So we are of value to God when created. The moral law (rules) helps us to behave the way we are valued and hence when we behave like we are valued then we are fullfilling our purpose in life.

---
Hahs short and sweet. This is my understanding of my life purpose. Just this Thursday when I was told to do some "lifeskills" presentation. The topic is on "what matters". It talks about purpose and there are some general "canned" purpose for everyones' lives. As I prepared and presented I figured that the "answers" to life sounds very airy and holds little weight when we take God out of the picture.

Believe me when I say I almost preached and started a debate on the exsistance of God. But I realised that I should stick to the lesson plan or risk getting arrested or kicked out of class for disrupting the lesson. Anyways, its not at all surprising that I find people bored in class.

---
This is to argue for the exsistance of God. I shall post this here for the benifit of those who haven't read this before. Wrote this as a comment on Samantha's blog before.

- On Absolute Truth

The question of "absolutes" is the same as believing in God. The question of absolutes is based heavily on the point of reference. The subject of reference MUST be all sovereign, all knowing, holy and immutable (Which the character of God). Therefore we cannot place the point of reference on any man or thing or else we will be forced to ask who/what then is point of measure.

- On Relative Truth

Anyways "relative truth" is just one of the many ways man/satan created to wipe out their guilt of sin.

"relative truth" is the attempt to slience God by making truth irrelevant. That is why the profane celebrate the fall of a professed moralist; because it levels the playing field and stabs the heart of morality rendering in their eyes all moral talk as hypocritical.

Yes, there is no such thing as "relative truth" because even the irreverent find it impossible to live without denunciation. And all denunciation implies a moral framework of some kind.

They speak in anger against those who call for moral reasoning but they are even angrier when they are on the wrong and recieving end of someone's immorality or injustice.

So to sum it up, the shiok-ness of no law/no rules is momentary and short lived. Therefore there is a need for a moral law (and therefore a moral law giver aka God) or else the fact of its absence makes life unlivable.