[love, life and whatever's left of common sense] updated & edited on 30/7, 0107hrs

1231hrs: This obviously is what that has been swirling in my mine the past whole week.

Life is basically a long wait.
Physically, we are waiting to die.
Emotionally, we are waiting for the right time to fall in love.
Spiritually, we are waiting for Jesus to come back.

Its all about waiting. The good news is, having the characteristic of patience can make life much easier for you. The bad new is its not enough... most of the times.
So, what's in it for us? Well, we have a several approach to this revelation. We all must do something meanwhile waiting...

Firstly, we can take the stone's approach, and i do literally mean the stone approach. Just stone. Be part of the scenery, fail nothing, accomplish nothing.
For these kind of people all i got to say is... i rather Everest.
Otherwise, we can take the animal approach. (most people fall into this unknowingly) They float around, following the flow of life. Eat, sleep, reproduce and die. Hence the name, the animal approach. Frankly, i rather a dog that's loyal at least.
Last but not least, we have the christian approach. Active waiting as shirley calls it. Do something that counts while waiting. Bless people with your presence, grow in person character, bring people to Christ. These will be remembered in eternity, the rest will be forgotten. How much will you be remembered in eternity?


Disclaimer: My dig at complexity. My dig at myself. You don't have to agree.

Introduction
Complexity is the devil's distraction. The world has elevated the pursuit of logic into an art form. Its like chasing the flower's scent instead of chasing the flower. We lost ourselves in the meaningless discussions about theories.
People are more interested about studying about God then doing His work. Perhaps, talking IS already considered work for them. Dont get me wrong, I'm not undermining bible scholars. I'm happy they provide us with better insight into the scriptures, but isnt it time we major on the major?! The fact of life is Christ is lord! Its not how old are the Mosaic books, when is Christ returning or even how is the Holy Trinity possible. Frankly, i doubt the disciples even bothered about that. They just took the Word of God to be T.H.E. WORD OF GOD and did it.

Knowledge
Are we not superior in knowledge to them? Yet it seems like those 12 jokers have done more then the 12,000 knowledgeable scholars we have. The irony is that knowledge was originally meant to equip us for greater works, not for comparsion of brain power. Anyway, I am neither proud of my results nor of whatever extra information which the world might consider to be "knowledge". Not that I claim to be extra humble, but this is just being objective (perhaps its also the rare exercising of common sense). Did the world not conclude the world is flat a few centuries ago? People acknowledged that the sun revolved around the earth and electricity current flowed from positive to negative. Now they say otherwise. If you had aced the exams of the past centuries, regurgitating their script answers may not be the wisest thing to do now. Presently, i may be filled with a wealth of knowledge, in future we might just realize that knowledge is junk. Hence why overly pursuit the knowledge of the world, let's pursue God instead.

Line
Following God is like a line. There is a the straight approach and the curved approach. Straight will be simply trust and obey, for there's no other way. The curved approach is what commonly done by logicalizing God (As though we could be successful in our attempts). We try to seek the easier way to get to him, hoping to avoid more obstacles as we take the curved path out just as the way water follows the route of least resistance. Do do that, and we get surprised at the increased amount of obstacles in our way. Is there any wonder? The shortest route is a straight line...the exercising of common sense once again.

Youths
Even other people may have believed in the wrong gods yet they trusted their lives in it. We have the One true God yet we hesistate to do so? (someone explain to me the logic here) No wonder God wanted child-liked innocence. Its no surprise that statistics showed that 1% of Americans converted above 18 years old. In other words, 99% converted as youths. Not that youths are easier to con, but they are more ready to trust. That is why i believe youth ministry is the way to go. This isnt an issue of biasness because im in youth, this is common sense! You invest into the most productive plant!

About useless knowledge:
always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth
[2 Tim 3:7]

nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work--which is by faith.
[1 Tim 1:4]

Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge
[1 Tim 6:20]

About word games:
Keep reminding them of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen.
[2 Tim 2:14]

P.S:
For those people obsessed with Da Vinci Code and such pursuit of biblical knowledge, here's a thought. Expecting a non-believer to read Da Vinci Code and fall away from Christ even more is equivalent of asking him to read the bible and convert. He doesnt even know whats are the implications of the suggestions in the book! Stop getting overly obsessed with apologetics and start preaching the gospel. Shut up and start working.

0148hrs: Impatience and Complexity is not a good mix.

Hurted people hurt people.

How true.

[Come threaten me]

I thirst for revenge sometimes. The dark side of me of course. And being the extremist I am, i do not only wish to inflict temporal pain, but bring about total despair on the person, striking where it hurts most. (Well, thats actualli a characteristic of Paul, you either put it your utmost to build something, or annihilate it completely.)

So here's the tip. The weakest point of a person is the thing he treasure most. Destroy it, and you will crush the person. Well, for example you can threaten to throw away my medals or tear up my A lvl cert, and I still probably won't do your bidding. Cause those are things I dont even give a chicken feather about.

For a person that treasures reputation, just slander him.
For a person that cherishes achievements, destroy them.
For a person that values people, take them hostage.

So here's a question -- What do you use to threaten a person that doesn't fear death? He has binded everything loosely. Death doesnt fear him, he has a life prepared in eternity. Taking the lives of his friends doesnt scare him, he'll just see them in heaven. Achievements of the earth are useless in heaven, and reputation on earth counts for nothing. Paul was such a man. In fact, he could not wait to die!

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith
[Phi 1:21-25]

So what can hold this person from doing crazy things for God? Nothing.
You cant stop him......

cause you've nothing to stop him with.

[I found the way to pay God back]

(Luke 7:36-50)
Today's sermon set me thinking. So exactly how much denarii do we exactly owe Jesus? 50? 500? 5000? Well.. lets say five million. Its definetely out of most of our reach. According to shirley, that must have been many years' worth of wages. But what about people like Bill Gates? He can surely pay of that amount. Not all are as rich as him, but there are people like that, and if heaven's ticket can be bought, bill gates and donald trump will probably be the first in the queue. So what's the point of me saying this? Well, I am just trying to figure out how exactly to pay God back, and this is just part of my analyse.

First and foremost, to pay back something means you have to first borrow or recieve something from the person causing you be in debt to the person. You do not pay back a beggar a car, you simply give him one. Something must be given to be returned. There was an transaction that was carried out involving you, towards you. So what did God give us? His Son. More specifically, His Son's life.

So, here comes the hard part. You have to return what you owe. You owe him a life. Your life. How are you going to go about doing it? Commit sucide? Martyr for Him? Hang on, its not that easy. ( you people are probably thinking what else can there be after giving your life?!?) He doesn't just want any life! He wants life that is totally devoted to carry out His purpose for 33.5 years. Obeying His every command and instruction in every single breathe. A second of disobedience equates to total rebellion. Wait, there's still somemore. He wants a life that is sinless for 33.5 years. Haha. Most of us struggle to be sinless for ONE day. He wants 12227 SINLESS days. (Take note I have not even included the extra days in the leap years) Finally, it must be returned the way it was paid. You don't return 100 rupiah to a person that you owe 100 sing. Similarly, the life that is going to be returned must be taken back the same way, through the cross. Yup, thats the whole process.
So, any takers?



Double Post



[Forgiveness. Our greatest need?]
As much as I hope that we all get to understand this point, it still holds true that those that make more mistakes in life and are desperate for forgiveness will treasure this gift more then the others.

We are normally able to make amendments on our part for our mistakes. Building destroyed can be reconstructed. Physical injuries can heal. Failure of tasks can be re-evaluated to give success. Cash can fix most things, as long as the amount is sufficient.

What about disappointment? How do we act to redeem ourselves? Have you disappointed your loved ones before? Have you hurted someone so badly you wished you can do anything to turn back the hands of time? Have you failed your best friend before? Have you destroyed someone's life before? It is moments like this we would give anything to correct our mistakes. Yet, wounds to the heart cannot be healed by external means. It is in such times where our guilt overtakes us. No money can buy us out of this, and no action can reverse the irrepairable damage. And the worst thing is that we cannot do anything on our part to aid recovery, we can only stand by and watch. The sense of total helplessness just overwhelms you.

And you know what?
We all disappointed the person that loved us the most. God.

It is in times like these, forgiveness is most valuable to you. Without it, your condemned with guilt. You have to live with the memory of the hurt you inflicted. You can tell Him you're sorry a thousand times, but it won't take away the pain you've caused Him.
You can't pardon yourself, only He can, and He did.
Thank God...

[Influence]
The person you love most will influence you the most. Have you ever realize you become the very person yourself? Taking on the same habits, the same figures of speech and in the advance stages, be able to 'read' their mind and even react the same way they would. Isn't that why couple are always a mirror image of themselves?
The million dollar question here would be then, who do we love?

Perhaps the way of stopping sinful acts is not simply to do the right thing, but to love God. So much that He has the most influence over us, making our thoughts, our habits and our speech like His.
Making us... into Him.

If you love God,

show me through your actions.

If you want to see God's vision come to pass,

do it.

But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds."

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

[James 2:18,26]

[Effects of time/pain & something about love]

Somethings i learnt in the past 2 weeks. Time only numbs our pain, but it never erases it. Popular belief is that time will aid removing the object of hurt, but that cannot be futher from the truth. Time is like the sand of the vast desert, only serving to bury the object of pain, not removing it. Eventually when its hidden deep enough, we all just hope to forget about it and move on. The fact is this method works, but only temporary. For someone, someday or something will come across and unearth it, and then we will have to deal with it all over again. The time frame may be undetermined, but it would surely come to past. By then, we must then decide whether to dispose of the object of pain similarly again or deploy other methods. As for me, I only know one.





Love is everything in Christianity. The truth is that we can find many other substitutes in other religion. (This is with regards to their own religion. Everyone in their own religion believes in what in their gods says.) We may hear of eternal life elsewhere, converting the entire world to a sole religion, peace offered in the hectic world, a chance of redeem themselves though multiple lifes and many more. Yet only Christian offers love. The God who created us has offered to love us. And sending His son to die for us is the ultimate declaration of that love, is that why we boast not in a religion but in a relationship? Without love, we have nothing unique to offer compared to the rest of the religions.

However sometimes as humans we all lose sight of this simple fact so easily. In fact the hardest part of the bible is not to obey the rest of the commandments, but to obey the Greatest commandment of love. All the other commandments in the bible speaks of tangible actions and benchmarks. Do not defile your body, honor your parents, do not bear false testimony against your neighbour... These are all definite commandments. Black or white. You either do it or you don't. The question is, how do you love? How do you even measure it or claim to love a person? Its intangible. There's not system nor format nor template to follow. What may appear to be love to one may not be to another. There's no directions to follow. Its just love. One idea, many ways of putting it across. You can spend your life trying to love a person wholeheartedly, and when you are about to succeed, you realized that life contains more then just one person.

Frankly speaking, i think its easier to be a Pharisee then to love people. In fact, its probably true. At least righteousness of the Pharisees can be measured in some sort of ways, unlike love. Well, its probably human to take the easy way out, just keep yourself obedient and heck the rest of the people and become just like one of the Pharisees. Then again, Jesus never really gave us an easy task to begin with isnt it? He commanded us to love. Do we truly understand what lies behind that "simple" commandment? Yet once we choose not to love, we have already missed out the entire point of Christianity.

[4]

Multitudes
I saw a glimpse of my dream today.



Anyway, something in the sermon hit me today.
Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region
[Matthew 8:34]

He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.
[Mark 3:5-6]

And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, "He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons."
[Mark 3:22]

Well, people always thought you would only be scolded and punish if you were caught doing the wrong things. Breaking law, disobeying etc. Then again, the above passages show that you will get insulted, ostracized even conspired against when you do the right thing! You know what the world wants? It wants people to be reduced to The undefined norm: one that is unspoken yet generally agreed to be the standard mode of operation for everyone. Anything out of the ordinary is considered incorrect and must be kept in control by the remainding majority. To excel is to face opposition. To rise above the rest is considered quirkyness. To be different is asking to be standing out.. alone. Movement is only allowed to be made in "unity".
Then, I guess then you and the world can continue to descend into hell "together".

For those that desire to be safe from opposition, listen to my advice. I found the nugget of wisdom to avoid opposition. Since to do good is to get dragged down to the same standard, while doing bad asking for chiding from the authorities, the answer to all these is to... DO NOTHING. No one can then point a finger or critisize you. After all, its not worth the effort lifting the finger. By then even a donkey can be more useful then you.

But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey--a beast without speech--who spoke with a man's voice and restrained the prophet's madness.
[2 Peter 2:16]

[1]

"Men of prayer must be men of steel, for they will be assaulted by Satan even before they attempt to assault his kingdom."
-Leonard Ravenhill

"Before the great revival in Gallneukirchen broke out, Martin Boos spent hours and days and often nights in lonely agonies of intercession. Afterwards, when he preached, his words were as flame, and the hearts of the people as grass."
- D.M. McIntyre, D.D.


I want to grow in my prayer life.
Let my words be as flame.
Amen.

my relevations overwhelms me faster then i can post.

weekends shall aid my clearing of mind.

[Commencing Operation:Reckless Abandon]

Many want to change the world,
but few actually get started on the job.

I'm super pissed with myself.

Holy discontentment. ARGH.

[Revelations]

How to love and obey God. (this question is the answer in itself)

1) How to show you truly love God
Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.
[John 14:21]
If you love Him, you will obey Him. Simple and direct.

2)How to obey God
Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
[Matt 22:37-39]
See the irony? If you obey Him, you will love Him.

So this brings us to the question.
Loving God: Difficult or Simple?
I believe its both. Loving God is difficult due to our limited abilities and sinful nature. We find it hard to obey thus we find it a struggle to love Him. At the same time, loving Him is very simple due to His natural characteristic. The perfect gentleman. Fully Understanding. Overwhelming love. Unlimited forgiveness.

An unending circle. So where do we begin? It doesnt really matter, we just have to start somewhere, anywhere. Since loving is a choice and a feeling, the feeling must lead to an action. At the same time, the action will lead to a feeling. The former is obvious, but the latter is slightly more hidden. Allow me to explain. This is best illustrated when u try to obey him by loving people (attempted action). When you finally realise how hard people are to love, and at the same time understand how unlovable you are yourself, you will appreciate God's love for you and begin to love Him more (generated feeling).

Saving eternities is my task,

changing lives is my work,

love is my purpose.

Not size of group,

not achievements,

not results.

Remind me if i forget.

[haunted without a chance of escape.]

Guess what revelation did God give me today? Yes. Again. I cant escape. I simply cant. He strikes me so hard that the impact sends me reeling to find my footing.

Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. "Let me kiss my father and mother good-by," he said, "and then I will come with you." "Go back," Elijah replied. "What have I done to you?"
So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his attendant.
[1 Kings 19:20-21]


Then Elijah said to them, "I am the only one of the LORD's prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. Get two bulls for us. Let them choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire -- he is God."
[1 Kings 18:22-24]


These two jokers had something in common.
One barbequed his own livelihood, the other challenged 450 prophets with a self proclaimed handicap (see 1 Kings 18-33:35) where the possibility of failure will equate to almost certain death.

Both are insane, but more significantly, both put themselves in a position of no return.

No turning back.

Need i say more?

What have you done to me God?