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What a world of difference.

God is just, not fair.

God is just not fair.

On Tuesday, April 22, 2008 ; 10:44 AM
Xiangyu wrote:

Inspired by 1 peter 3 :15, which urges us to

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.

So here i am, i am going to challenge you ! yes you reading my post. If you have an online journal, post about YOUR reason for the hope that YOU HAVE. Otherwise, please leave a tag to tell me about it. I’m really very interested to know…seriously!

Tell me, what your convictions are and why are you so sure of Jesus?

I can tell you guys why I’m so sure of Jesus, but I hope I never have to tell you of my convictions again. If it can’t be seen, then it means that I’ve failed to live them out. (See the post on Rhetorical Lives)

My walk with God has came to a point where I can never deny his existence. It’s not yet deep, but its deep enough to confirm that fact. It’s just like a child who is certain that he has a Dad, even though he may not know everything about his dad.

I have studied Him with knowledge and experienced Him with encounters. I would compare his existence to that of the Australia continent; I’ve not only seen it on the atlas, but I have set foot on it.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
-C.S. Lewis

If I ever do backslide, I cannot hope to escape with the plead of ignorance. I cannot say things such as “I’m not sure whether God is real.” or “I’m having doubts about my faith in Him.”

If I ever do backslide, it can only mean I have degenerated to the state of stubborn self denial where I know God, but I just don’t want to serve Him. It doesn’t make him any less real, just like how sticking my head into the ground doesn’t switch off the lights.

Don’t ever perform the ridiculous “Ostrich Maneuver”.

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.
-Abraham Lincoln

If there’s one thing that really blows my fuse instantly, it would be getting hung up by someone just like that. It is just PURE rudeness and disrespect. There was no “byes” or whatsoever, just the click of the phone.

I just had done to me.

It was an accident of course; clarified and dismissed casually. However, this incident really made my head  started to whirl with many thoughts.

How many times did we just hung up on God just like that?

All that overnight prayers that never had an “Amen”; all the silent prayers that were interrupted by friends that were eager to talk to us.

I’m sorry God.

Best-selling author of ‘The Purpose Driven Life’ Pastor Rick Warren speaks at the 19th annual National Conference on Preaching in Woodbridge, Va., on Tuesday, April 8, 2008.
(Christian Today)

Internationally revered Pastor Rick Warren slipped into the conference hall unnoticed Tuesday night, comfortably mingling with the hundreds of pastors gathered at the 19th annual National Conference on Preaching, before stepping on stage to deliver a sermon that reminded the audience why Warren is one of the most popular pastors in the world.

In his sermon entitled “Growing Spiritually,” Warren recounted the runaway success of his book The Purpose Driven Life – the best-selling book in history behind the Bible – to the audience gathered at Woodbridge, Virginia, in the US. The sermon was based on the story in Exodus 4 about the scene where God tells Moses to throw his staff on the ground and it transforms into a snake.

“That question, ‘What is in your hand?’ is one of the most important questions in life. What is in your hand?” Warren asked his audience, citing God’s question to Moses in Exodus 4:2.

Read the complete article here

The trick is to figure out what’s in your hand without bothering about what’s in others’ hands.

No, we are more then just paper drawings of flame.

If God is real, the fire He place in our hearts must also be real. If the fire is real, then something must be burnt, something must be consumed.

I’m going to Auckland tonight for missions. That’s one step closer to fulfilling my dream for God.

I once watched a sermon that was preached by a famous doctor. He mentioned about people having big dreams for God. He attended many evangelistic conferences and movements. Many of the leaders expressed big dreams and lofty ideals without any real and practical means of realizing them. He termed those as useless talks, even if they are from respectable leaders. Those are just hot air balloons.

I think this is the real challenge of dreamer; to be more then just a dreamer.

Real dreaming is mental hard work, but its not because of the efforts to think of the ideal. The ideal is easy, it’s the planning taken to reach the ideal that is hard. It’s the process where we evaluate if the proposal is feasible, the resources sufficient, the effort sustainable and the duration reasonable.

Let’s go behind a dream.

Imagine if we decided to win half of Singapore to Christ in the year 1990.
Sounds good doesn’t it?

We had 3 millions people then, hence half of Singapore would mean 1 500 000 people. Statistically, an average American church size would be about 100. (We aren’t even talking about planting mega churches like City Harvest and the likes…) That means that we would need 15 000 churches. Well, accord to the statistics I had, it was about 500 churches. Hence we would need to plant 14 500 churches.

Now, who was saying that we have enough leaders already?

In Breakthrough Camp, when Pastor David Chen opened a time for sharing, in order to snatch my share of the triple anointing, I shared to the church I wanted to be a youth apostle, planting youth churches around the world. And I have already started taking my steps to accomplish it, however small it may be.

I’m sharing this not as to boast, but I really hope it would inspire some of you to go out there and do likewise. Don’t dream dreams, chase ‘em!

The world as it is, is not the world that it has to be.
-Barack Obama

Disclaimer: I’m not an Obama supporter; I’m a Singaporean for goodness’s sake! However, this guy said something that really stirred the inner recesses of my heart

People often ask why I liked Superman that much. I kept telling them its a symbolic representation of the power I wanted from God, but I never really did explain it thoroughly.

Well, like any other idealistic youngster, I wanted to change the world for the better. It took no doctorate or religious brainwashing for me to realize that the world is screwed up. I am sick of the injustice present in the world. I cannot stand by and permit evil to take its course. My conscience would not allow me to commit inaction. I should not, I will not and I must not. In that aspect, I totally agree with Bonhoeffer.

“If I see a madman driving a car into a group of innocent bystanders,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer explained to his sister, “then I can’t, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe and then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try and wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.”

The German theologian, a pacifist, was attempting to convey why he had joined with others to plot an unsuccessful assassination of Adolf Hitler. The most extreme ambition is to attempt revolution. Bonhoeffer tried and failed and was executed on April 9, 1945, as a result.

Perhaps I might need to start a revolution, create a revival, raise a riot, by any methods, using any means. I do not fear hard work, but I only fear helplessness in stamping out evil.

Hence I came to a conclusion. To have any visible and impressionable impact on this world, we will need power. We will require as much power as possible, as much power as we can get and we cannot be ashamed to ask for it. Without it, there can be no hope of a change. No hope of a significant change.

Therefore I strived for power, or positions of power. I wanted to be a politician; perhaps I can redirect a country. I wanted to be rich businessman; perhaps currency can readjust the world’s trajectory. In that sense, I would love to be an “Obama” - Someone who asked for power so that he can change the world.

“…because good intentions were not enough. We’re not fortified with political power… and political will.“
-Barack Obama’s Speech in Youngstown [1.00-1.08]

However, as I mature in Christ, I have come to understand that secular power is not enough. Policies cannot change our human condition. Legislation cannot stop us. Economy cannot save us. Education cannot mould us. We are still greedy for money, unkind to the minority. We are still committing murders, starting wars. We are still poor in spirit. I have come to realize, what we need exactly is actually the redemptive power of Christ. If you know the history of this term, you would know its irony from its usage by the predecessors. Yet my limited vocabulary can express it in no other forms.

Christ is our “Final Solution“.