And
God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always
having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every
good work.
(2 Corinthians 9:8)
When you relate to God
you always deal with abundance, for God does nothing in half measures!
This is true regarding His grace. The Lord is not miserly when it comes
to providing grace to His servants. When you seek to perform a good
work that God has asked you to do, you will always find an ample supply
of God’s grace to sustain you. If you begin to lose heart in the work
you are doing, God’s grace upholds you and gives you the love for God
and His people you require in order to continue. When you face
criticism and are misunderstood, God’s grace enables you to forgive
your accusers and to sense God’s pleasure even when others do not
understand what you are doing. When you make mistakes in the work God
has appointed you to do, God’s grace forgives you, sets you back on
your feet, and gives you strength to continue the work. When you
complete the task God gave you and no one expresses thanks for what you
have done, the Father’s grace surrounds you, and He reminds you that
you have a heavenly reward where everything you have done in the Lord’s
service will be remembered.
God does not promise to provide all you need for your dreams and
projects. He does assure you that, for every good work you attempt, you
will never face a shortfall of His grace in order to successfully
complete the task God has given you.
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So many times, we take upon ourselves so much burden that it weighs us down. When I first became a Christian, everything was fresh and always on my mind, to look to God. But as I grew in my faith, i seem to drift from my dependence on God and end up doing things my way. Some people may beg to differ, but having God in our lives is a very real partnership...it's like, having 24-7 parents that you can call on. Of course, as you grow older, you do not treat your parents the same way you did when you were a child. The same with God, we do not ask Him the same questions or deal with the same uncertainties of our faith as when we were a child in our faith. Nonetheless, we still need SO MUCH of Him in our lives...and basically, we take that for granted the same way we take so many of our relationships in life for granted.
How not to take relationships for granted:
Remember the dynamics of interdependence - Do not be so "strong" or "self-dependent" that we forget that we do need people. It's something that we need to admit to one another..."I need you". Say it to someone that is important in your life..."I need you". Say it to God.
Involve those that are important in your life, who are close to you and will give you an honest opinion in your decision makings. Making decisions on our own can blind us to objectivity, ie. we may not see it in an objective way. Having someone who knows us well bounce off our thoughts and decisions help us to see things we may have missed...Involve God in our decisions makings. Who else sees into eternity besides our God.
I love love love lovelove love love love love love love lovelove love love lovelove lovelove love love love lovelovelove love love love love lovelove love love love love lovelove love love love love love this short animation by Pixar call Boundin' about a Lamb and a Jackalope. You have to have to watch it.
Sue Carpenter and Carolyn Boyd were guest speaking at our church today and I really appreciated what Sue Carpenter shared on the pulpit. Felt that God was speaking to me through her sermon. Hope it encouraged you too.
Rewiring the Think Kink!
1 Corinthians 1:27
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
Introduction:
Whatever happens now will link to the next if God is in it...even if it may not make sense now, if God is in it, it will work itself out.
God chose the FOOLISH to confound the wise; and He chose the WEAK to confound the strong. So it's great news for the foolish and the weak because it means that God is going to use you.
Psalm 16:9
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure,
Rejoice always! If you are feeling exhausted, troubled or worried the key is "THEREFORE"
In the Bible when you see the word "therefore", God is usually pointing to the fact that "Because of what i said, therefore..." So, look at what God said before verse 9.
v 7 - I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.
Whose voice are you listening to? Are you listening to God's voice or are you listening to man's voice? Who is instructing your heart? Who have you set before you? If it God?
Galatians 3:3
Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?
When we seek advise outside of God, we see this verse becoming a reality. When we are not seeking after God's leading and way, we are actually training to attain our own set of goals by our own effort instead of God's way and relying on God's strength.
Within the church, we can sometimes get "religious" - we seek an image of Who we believe God should be instead of allowing God to be exactly Who He is.
Sometimes, we can't do to sleep. We are dead tired but something has us thinking and worrying, and we lie tossing and turning but just can't sleep. Do you know that we can receive instructions from God even in our sleep? (v 8)
When that happens, talk to God...PRAY! Sing songs of God. Play them. Ask yourself...
IS THE LORD YOUR FIRST FOCUS?
It's not something natural / in-born within us to place God as the focus in our life but it is sth we need to consciously do. We begin to fall when we take our eyes off Jesus.
Peter was walking on water until he began to take his eyes off God. What is the greatest challenge you are facing right now? Whatever problem we are facing right now, close your eyes and imagine that challenge Then as you are picturing the challenge, call out "Jesus"...place Him in the situation...When you focus on Jesus, everything changes.
Like the lamb in the Jackalope cartoon Bouncin', all it needed was a fresh look at his situation.
How do we come back / REBOUND?
Share needs in our lives - Be transparent with one another.
Have you ever come to a point we just don't know what to say.
"The Lord is our sure HOPE"
Paul admitted he was weak and fearful. Vulnerability is not weak. Vulnerability is strengthening. Humility is being honest about our weaknesses.
Isaiah 55:9 - "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
God doesn't think the way we think ... God works the way God works, not the way we think God works. When we try to do it our own way, we will not succeed.
Many times, Paul refers to a "thorn" in his flesh that humbles him - This is Paul's weakness.
There was once a man. At the age of 22, Abraham Lincoln completely failed in business. At 23, he ran for a political seat and did not win. Married the woman he loved but at the age of 26, his wife died. At 27, he had a breakdown because he could not cope, but came back to run for political office at the age of 29. He was defeated again. A few times
Any normal person would have given up by this time.
But at the age of 37, ran for office and was finally elected. Then at age 39, at renomination, he was kicked out. Defeated at age 46, 47, 49!
THEN, at the age of 51, he was elected President of the United States. Some of you may already know who this is - it is none other than Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States and the man who changed USA by abolishing slavery.
Jackie Pullinger is a woman who until today has given her life to reaching out to the drug addicts and riff raffs of the slum areas in Hong Kong...At a young age, she ventured to Hong Kong on her own and set camp in the poorest area of Hong Kong without knowing a word of Cantonese. Today, she has touched many lives with her ministry. In her life, she has seen miraculous deliverance of drug addicts who were miraculous able to be cured of drug addiction without any withdrawal symptoms at all! And to see these very same people go back to drugs a few years later.
Quote: "We love our people whatever they turn out well or not. The successes do not vindicate our ministry nor do the failures/disappointments nullify it".
If you are doing what God ask you to do, even if we keep failing, it does not nullify our ministry. The important thing is that we keep doing what we believe God is leading us to do, not giving up!
Strengths create competition but it is weaknesses that create community. When we open up our hearts to reveal our weaknesses, it is amazing how it draws people together...
Do you want to impress or influence?
We can easily impress people by our appearance in the public but it is only through close encounters one to one that will influence people around us.
When we rebound it is to fulfill:
His MINISTRY - to believers thru you His MISSION - to non-believers thru you
Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
Stop thinking your way. Did we seek God and ask what God was up to?
Stop only having 1 way of thinking / doing things. We need to go to God first who will transform the way we think.
How? GIVE YOURSELF AS A GIFT TO GOD.
Give yourself fully to God. Place your life...again and again and again and again...into His hands.
When God changes us, we will find it was not the situation that needed to be change but us, because as God changes us, people will react differently to us.
God is waiting for the person to truly hand over our life to Him. Accept God's agenda.
Pray - "Father, i will do what you bless" not "Bless what I do"
Romans 6:13
Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of
wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been
brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as
instruments of righteousness.
Psalm 44:3
It was not by their sword that they won the land, nor did their arm bring them victory; it was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, for you loved them.
Firstly, a BIG HELLLO FROM MELBOURNE!!!Yes, i'm back in Melbourne..and been working for about 1 month now. I was very blessed to have landed the role of Product Manager with Destra Corporation within 2+ weeks of coming back to Melb. I know..2 weeks is an amazingly short period of time to secure a full time position. My ex boss was great..gave me an amazing reference. Owe him a BIG one. Thank you, Yuka too!!! For telling the recruiter what an "amazing person i am"...hahahahahaha! Yes I know, I am SUCH a 'perasan' (the Malay slang for not shy in a i-think-i'm-great-way). hehehe! I started work on the 1st of Feb. I had only about a week and a half to round up the new house and then it' was the beginning of sleep-at-11-wake-at-6.30 or 6am-to-get-to-work adventure for me. The morning traffic REALLY is CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY!!! The worst one yet was the 2 hour drive from Pt Cook to my workplace at Church St, Richmond. Now, i have resorted to alternating between taking the train and driving only when absolutely neccessary. I guess the time on the train gives me time to think, read, catch up on myself cause it seems it's the one time of the day that i am not busy with "something"...
My name card at work...
Looking back, God's really been amazing to me. Open doors have been there wherever i went..even when I was back in KL. He's really walked with me and sent ppl, unexpected ppl too, into my life to be my guiding lights and encouragement. So here i am..finding myself not knowing how can i thank Him...It's surreal. Everything happening so fast. God has been exceedingly good to me. Again...I've beaten the odds by securing a job within 3 weeks of coming back to Melbourne. First time, I got a job one week after I graduated. God has blessed me SO SO SO much!
As for caregroup, I have "graduated" from the Student Group and now join the YPG (Young Professional Group) for fellowship and yummy dinners every week. On CNY eve, everyone came to my new home and had steamboat to celebrate the coming of another new year together...
That's all from me for now...Just want to leave you with this one verse that is constantly an encouragement to me...
Philippians 4:4-6
In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn." (Isaiah 61:1-2)
God’s timing is perfect! When He speaks, the time to respond in obedience is now. We often act as if we have all the time in the world to obey Him, but history doesn’t wait on our commitments. There is no such thing as postponing a decision with God. Either we obey, or we disobey. It is either faith or unbelief, obedience or disobedience.
When God announces that now is the acceptable time, what you do next is critical. How often people have been unprepared when a word came to them from the LORD. God said, “Now is the time for you to respond to Me” and their response was, “But I’m not ready. I have some things I need to do first. I’m too busy!” (Matt. 8:21). God’s timing is always perfect. He knows you, and He is fully aware of your circumstances. He knows all that He has built into your life until now, and He extends His invitation knowing that His resources are more than adequate for any assignment He gives you.
That is why Scripture tells us God is concerned with our heart. If we do not keep our heart in love with Jesus, our disobedience when God speaks could affect the lives of others. When God speaks it is always out of the context of eternity. We don’t have to know all the implications of what He is asking. We just have to know that it is a word from almighty God. “Now” is always the acceptable time to respond to the Lord!
