Shout Out - How Great Thou Art

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.


Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

Sunday Service - The Promise

Galatians 3:16

Jesus' coming to save the world was foretold and as promised, He came. He is the Messianic seed that came so that man may have Salvation. God has kept His promise as stated on the Bible, even in Genesis 3:15, the first Gospel given to Adam and Eve. This promise was subsequently fulfilled via the Abraham line. By faith, Abraham believed in this seed that came only two thousand years later, and he looked forward to Christ's first coming. By this faith, he was saved.

Contrasting this with promises made by man, it is common for promises to be made easily and broken quickly, regardless of how sacred the promises may be. A good example is the marriage vows where "till death do us part". How quickly is this promise forgotten and broken with divorces? How lightly do people let go of marriage without making the fullest effort to reconcile. Have they forgotten the sacred vow and the promise of a lifetime together?

God's answer is always yea is yea and nay is nay. May we follow closely God's example and keep our promises, regardless of how small the promise could be. Always remember that we are held accountable to God and not man.

The Knots Prayer

Dear God,
please untie the knots
that are in my mind,
my heart and my life.
Remove the have nots,
the can nots and the do nots
that I have in my mind.

Erase the will nots,
may nots, and
might nots that find
a home in my heart.

Release me from the could nots,
would nots and
should nots that obstruct my life.

And most of all, dear God,
I ask that you remove from my mind
my heart and my life all of the am nots
that I have allowed to hold me back,
especially the thought
that I am not good enough.

Amen.

(author known to God)

Shout Out - Great is Thy Faithfulness!

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

Sunday Service - In The Beginning

John 1:1-14

The "Word" means "logos" in Greek, the revealer of God. The son of God is the revealer of the nature of God. God's perfect representation. In the beginning - Genesis, Jesus existed, He is the creator of all things. He is the uncaused first cause. He has no beginning for He is the beginning, the eternal.

This passage demonstrated the doctrine of trinity; one God yet three persons; three persons yet one God. 1 John 5:7 is the proof text for the trinity nature of God. In this passage, we focus on the second person of the trinity - The Word. Verse 1 - The Word was with God; The Word was God. He is the eternally begotten Son of God. Westminster Confession of Faith - where begotten implies not born of the flesh, and not just 'only' as used in other versions of the Bible, These versions do not have the proof text for the doctrine of Trinity.

Question: Was Jesus the Son of God before He came to earth? Is the Sonship of God eternal or did it only begin when He came to earth through the virgin birth? So if there is no Son, is there therefore a Father to start with? This is dangerous and erroneous view. John 3:16 states very plainly that for God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son of God, so it showed the Jesus was the Son from eternity, ever in the bosom of God. (John 1:18)

Therefore, know and learn the truth of this doctrine. If we love God, then be clear of the true nature of this God that we believed.

Excerpts from Spurgeon (2) - The Trial of Your Faith

“The trial of your faith.” 1 Peter 1:7

Tried faith brings experience. You could not have believed your own weakness had you not been compelled to pass through the rivers; and you would never have known God’s strength had you not been supported amid the water-floods. Faith increases in solidity, assurance, and intensity, the more it is exercised with tribulation. Faith is precious, and its trial is precious too.

Thank God for what grace you have; praise him for that degree of holy confidence whereunto you have attained: walk according to that rule, and you shall yet have more and more of the blessing of God, till your faith shall remove mountains and conquer impossibilities.

Taken from Spurgeon's daily devotion, Nov 12.

Thought: We all hated trials and blamed God for them as we inevitably fail them so badly each time. Little do we know, such trails and the corresponding failures strengthened us and made us stronger in our faith. God knows we needed this, for without faith, it is impossible to please God.

Asking God for Help…Unceasingly

“Pray without ceasing” I Thess 5:17

Satan’s attack is unceasing, what’s your counter attack? Ask God for help… unceasingly! Every actiosn, words, thoughts are more than just ‘dealing with the situation’. It is a spiritual warfare! So long as you are tempted to sin by 1 wrong thought, word or action, Satan wins! How weak we are, when facing such attacks? How sinful we can be, trying to deal with it by ourselves!

Praying is to ask God for help. He listens, he cares, he is in control. The realisation of having sinned is like a pail of cold water splashing unto your soul. You instantly wake up to the fact that you failed God, yet again! Why do we allow ourselves to reach that stage, when we could have prayed the minute we need to make a decision to react? Why do we not rely on God for strength, wisdom and ability? Truly, we are sinners.

Pray! Pray unceasingly, pray without stopping, ask God for help. He listens, He answers, He protects. This is His promise to us. Such blessed assurance!

Taken from an old post dated December 27, 2009

Christmas Eve - Lesson for Scrooge

“Christianity is not something you take up, it is something that takes you up… and consume you totally.”

How great is this message given to all the “Scrooges” of the world. Most Christians are what we called Sunday Christians where they spend 2 hours in church on nice Sunday mornings and hoped that will fulfill there obligations as Christians. It is a past-time for Sunday morning… and it is back to the ‘real’ stuff for the rest of the week. Truly, they can be the nicest, most generous and charitable person at work or at home, but they are also the ‘Scrooge’ for spiritual life!

Do we need the Spirits of the “Christmas Past”, “Christmas Present” and “Christmas Yet-To-Come” to wake us up to our spiritual well-being? Did we do justice to the Lord Jesus Christ who came on this earth to die for our sins so that we may live forever? Have we any ounce of gratitude for the love, mercy and compassion that our Lord God gave us so abundantly in our lives? We only need one spirit - the Holy Spirit, to tell us how wrong we can be, how disappointed God must have been seeing the way we spend our lives.

Truly, it is time to look Christianity straight in the eye and ask yourself – “Is Christianity just a past-time, or it is something serious?” It is time to stand-up to the faith that is given so graciously to you and do something about it! The salvation that is so richly given to you is going to take you up and consume your whole life! The old has passed away and the new has been given to you to start your life right, and to walk the narrow path to leads to the Kingdom of God.

A wonderful message to rekindle the fire for the Lord!

Taken from an old post on December 26, 2009