Our so called Christian Country… and our self-proclaimed Christians…

Western civilisations all claim to have a Christian heritage. They all have had some connection with the church… Nowadays our society barely recognises who they are and where they come from. Sadly still, many Christians seem to barely know who they are and who they follow. Of course there are a lot of Christians out there and the general rule of which the actions of a few ruin the reputation of many still apply which means that a majority of Christians out there are probably fairing ok. But enough beating around the bush.

So I went to uni today and I went to Koorong after uni to find 2 Toby Mac CDs (which btw are great). While I was in the store for the full 20 minutes I heard this woman who had a child with her and the kid was about 7 years old. Now I dunno if she actually has a mental condition which caused it but she was speaking very loudly and clearly wasn’t thinking through what she was saying. It wasn’t slurred speech or tourettes but more like she couldn’t be selective of what she chooses to say and what not to say… Lacking of social awareness I guess… Now apparently some other lady looked at her oddly perhaps because its an uncommon sight. You don’t see many 35 year old women talking so callously…

Now with a child, the women was married and the husband was in the store somewhere else… while the women was talking really loudly to her kid about how the other women was glaring at her and looked at her weirdly and about how rude she was etc. Meanwhile there were two other men in the store that I saw and overheard talking also very loudly about how annoying this woman was. They were complaining to each other about how much of a nuisance this woman was and how she is telling the whole world about a problem that they didn’t care about and how they which she’d just shut up etc. I was just happily leaning against a computer listening to music samples before I decided to buy the CDs.

Well as I was at the counter paying for the CDs the two men decided to approach this woman and basically they started verbally abusing her. Saying how she should get out of the store and take her problem elsewhere and whatever. The lady starts calling them unchristian and calling them evil and all sorts of weird things and saying how she has the right to speak loudly just as they have the right to drink and smoke (I don’t know but I think that was meant to be an insult…). The men respond by saying something like “Is that how you got your husband? Is that how you treat your husband?” and then the guy walks around the corner saying “I’m her husband” and the 2 men say to him “Well take her out of here!”.

I left before the episode finished… But since all of them were in a KOORONG store… which is a CHRISTIAN store… I’d automatically assume that they were all Christians… And that was the most disgraceful display of public behaviour by Christians I’ve ever seen. Those 2 men… no patience, no kindness, no gentleness, no politeness, no manners and no forgiveness... Luckily they didn’t say where they were from or else that would ruin the reputation of their entire church. These two men could’ve approached nicely and asked her to be a little more quiet because it was distracting… would have avoided the conflict entirely. They also should not request someone be thrown out of the store…

Now the woman (if she was able to… maybe she has some form of mental or speech impediment that prevents her from controlling what she says) should’ve not have verbalised her negative opinions about others so loudly… In fact she shouldn’t have verbalised them at all, not in public and especially not within earshot of the other person. When the two men approached she shouldn’t have replied so smugly to stir up the two men… She didn’t have the “right” to speak loudly and inconsiderately… she is in public and she is sharing the space with other humans and neither was anything she said beneficial and so shouldn’t have said any of it in the first place. Implying that the two men were alcoholics and substance abusers really didn’t help the case.

I was thinking about this on the drive home… and a myriad of bits and pieces of bible verses just flooded into my mind… so these are probably all paraphrased…
Blessed is the woman with a quiet soul… that is, to know what she ought to say and what she shouldn’t say and to say things only when it is appropriate.
Turn the other cheek, if someone takes your tunic offer him your coat as well. If someone forces you to walk a mile, walk another mile for him… Compassion? Grace? Selflessness?
If what you do will cause your brother to sin then it is better that you do not do it. (Something about stumbling blocks)… This verse is pretty self-explanatory…
Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, do not let Satan get a foothold in your heart. And can’t remember where but Jesus said that Hating your brother is as bad as murdering your brother. And so Jesus clearly condemned anger of any form… because as humans we are not capable of righteous fury that God is capable of.
Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things, there is no law.”

I don’t understand how self-respecting Christians would ever allow themselves to degrade to something like that. But yeah I thought the bible was pretty clear on what kind of behaviour God expected from us.

Road of Life…

When one goes through hard times, one’s motivation to keep walking forward feels like a candle flickering in front of a cyclone. I guess when struggles are really tough, some people effectively get doused out… Those people fall, and like a fault shattering through a piece of concrete to release the stress of the weight on the concrete, and they seek out vents for the built up stress, tension and anxieties. Some people fall into drugs, alcohol and all sorts of addictions… work… whatever… in order to break off and vent like an overheated car venting out steam…. I guess as a christian, faith in Jesus is like having the best mechanic in the world with all the parts he could ever need sitting in your passenger seat… But one must still be willing to give him control of the car, and to let him maintain and keep your car in good shape… Although as humans, we tend to be stubborn… We like to take control of our lives even when the direction we take or our methods of doing things or the way we live our lives simply is not good for us or good for those around us. It’s like driving and ignoring all the warning lights, low oil, low coolant, low fuel etc. We have a tendency of being self-sufficient to the point of breaking down… Until we are stranded and have no where to go, with no help in reach… Only then do we realise that the pers0n with the ability to completely fix and top up our car has been sitting beside us the whole time. With Jesus, one is never alone… He will always be there to help you get through whatever your facing… But even in the face of trials, one must still humble oneself and admit one is lost and broken down, unable to move on by ourselves… We still must commit everything to Jesus for him to get us out. You can’t say, can you fill up my car… but don’t touch the radiator, don’t fill the coolant back  up, because you’re bound to get only a few more km’s before your car overheats again.  You must let him fix everything…

It doesn’t matter what kind of car represents your life, perhaps its a sleek supercar or its a rickity antique of a car. I’d gather most of us do not know how to maintain it. You’re life is a God given gift, the manufacturer is God… the chief mechanic is Jesus… and comes with lifetime warrantee… but you still need to let Jesus into your life to let him change and fix things.

If I go back to the candle analogy, we all know that putting tissue paper into a candle will cause it to burn up very quickly… Extremely effective fuel. But not everything burns up that quickly… Some things don’t burn well… they will cause the fire to diminish, like putting sand into the fire. Even as a christian, sometimes it feels like i’m being blown all over the place… You ask god for direction and he answers… but sometimes what he decides for you is hard to swallow… Like he’s putting in some unknown substance into the candle.. you struggle to break it down and burn it up as fuel. It’s sometimes difficult to imagine how God will get me through some situations… But when he does, you  burn so much brighter than you did before…

Back to the car analogy, I guess even if you hand everything over to Jesus, the road you travel with him will still go through some dark and scary places… but you won’t be alone… and you know he will get you through it… You won’t be stranded because he will always find a way to get you out…

I think even as a Christian, I still struggle to give everything to Jesus… when life gets scary I’m still like a petrified idiot that doesn’t know what to do. When the going gets tough, I still feel under the weather… which is natural… But it’s tiring and nerve-racking… But I know that I am in better hands because Jesus is with me through it all.

RICE 2009 Review

Well RICE is over for the year... I guess I haven't documented any of it on here really... but yeah, it was an amazing experience of what God can do and watch Him touch and change the lives of people.

There was this kid wondering the streets outside the church during BDO, and apparently he heard the music and he came in to check it out. And he heard the gospel preached... I'm not sure if this was the kid that said he became a christian that day at BDO but man, it was amazing to see God working. I mean the kid was not with any adults or anything... just this lone kid in a stripey shirt all by himself. I mean only God knows the reasons why he was there that day but it was truly amazing that God did bring him there and intended for him to hear the gospel.

and then at the Rally. It was just amazing to see so many kids, 292 of them gathering there to listen and here the gospel, some of them for te first time. Some 32-40 kids said they wanted to know more about God. That night, something inside them stirred, perhaps we'll see them again next year at RICE 2010. 16 kids that night said they wanted to become christians, that is, to dedicate their lives to Christ. For those who don't know what that means, it means that they have recognised that they are lost in this world and lost to this world and that they wanted Jesus to save them. There is no amount of emphasis at the joy it brings to us to see even just one of those kids there to choose to follow Christ. For those who thinks that this is just silly superstition then I'd have to say, go hear the gospel for yourself before making any bias judgements. But yeah, to see God working and transforming these kids is just truly amazing and a massive blessing for us leaders. Last year I was one of those kids in the seats and yeah, the reality of the gospel hit me harder than a sledgehammer could ever hit me. I'd have to say RICE played a huge part in my own walk back to Christ.

But the God's blessing wasn't just in the events... It was amazing how everything we did just came together, even when things weren't going as we intended or imagined, in the end God was the one in control. This was God working through us, our eyes couldn't see what God could see. In the end I, personally, was stunned by how everything no matter how inadequate it felt just fell together.

Our God is truly amazing... anyways enough of this rant.
Go RICE! and I pray that God will keep working through RICE to win over the city of Brisbane! RICE 2010!

Screwed Up World

You hear it in the news all the time, and you figured that mannn this world is going down the crapper. People getting stabbed and bashed everyday n crap, and I mean it feels distant from us until you see these things with your own two eyes first hand. I mean about 2 or 3 weeks ago I was driving home from uni at night, and I was driving along Hawken drive, and I suddenly noticed that on the sidepath was some guy getting ganged up on by 3 other guys... First thought to pass through my mind was... "Crap, should I help him?"... but I realised that I was but one man, I would not be prepared to fight off 3 other guys, sure I do martial arts, but I ain't no Bruce Lee right, and it's not like I had a weapon handy to bash some skulls in either. So I didn't get off and help him. On the other hand I should have called the cops as well. But I don't understand why I didn't, in fact I guess I was kind of afraid to stop... It was the kind of "What if they came after me?" or some lame silly excuse that comes up when your in unexpected situations like this. In hindsight I wish I was a little braver and at least called the cops... Perhaps getting out to fight them off would have been a silly idea... And pulling a baton or a non-lacerating weapon (blunt) and smacking them probably would get me in trouble as well afterwards. But I dunno ay... It's days like these that makes me train extra hard at kung fu, to ensure things like these don't happen to me or my friends... But yeah... this world is pretty screwed up... But I wonder... for a christian right... in that situation should I just simply resort to violence to (assuming I can) incapacitate the 3 guys ganging up on the other guy? I mean, in this case I would be fighting fire with fire right? I could've like hung around and helped the guy after he got beaten... which is pathetic and sad and just dude wth... or I could go in and Chuck Norris their asses... In the end people are gonna get hurt so would it be so wrong for me to be the one dishing out the pain? It's not like I hate them, I'm just stopping them from hurting the other guy right? by beating the living crap out of them. I mean the bible is probably one of the most violent books you'll ever have the good fortune to read. So I mean... doesn't that mean violence can be done for good? I mean forgiveness is something you do after something has happened... but isn't prevention the best cure? If you can prevent something from happening then why wait until after the damage is done and forgive?

My interpretation is that everything comes down to intentions. I mean the army had chaplains and they have their services and what not... You have christian soldiers on the frontline killing other people... You have christian police officers resorting to lethal force... But what are you doing it for? For me, as long as you are doing it out of "love" so to speak... ie. out of care or concern. I mean whether my actions are justified in the eyes of the law is one thing, but if I did intervene that fight and did "win" I would have been doing so because I was concerned about the situation and what would happen to the other guy... It's not like I'm doing this out of "evil" desires, I'm not there to mug anyone, or to exact revenge or to do anything apart from wanting to help the person in danger so to speak.

But that's all talk anyways, all talk and no walk. I didn't end up doing anything at all. And that makes me just as useless. The good I wanted to do I could not do. By standing on the side and turning a blind eye, I might as well have been the person beating the guy up in the first place. So I'm just as pitiful as they are. This whole ordeal just makes me a bit guilty and a bit tight in the chest... A bit disappointed in my own lack of courage... and sense of justice and urgency... It makes me angry that I was too chicken to get out and help, not necessarily to fight but to even call the police... It frustrates me every time those 10 seconds of the night resurface in my head...

I remember recounting it to some friends and even to my mum... and they all responded with "Did you help him? Did you at least call the police? Why didn't you help him?" etc... Like being poked in the side by a red hot iron rod... Makes me want to turn back time, get out of the car, and just roundhouse kick them in the face...

Neways... I need to sleep... Just had to rant a little to get this off my chest... It is a pity that violence or threats of violence are the only things capable of preventing more violence... Such is the state of the world...

RICE GOES LIVE!!!

Well on Wednesday I talked about something about designing a poster right? RICE has officially gone live and entered its promotional stage so I believe I can stick my design up here now :P

so for those who were wondering what I was talking about here you go! Hope you youth people are interested in coming! The event is aimed at high schoolers, so if thats you then you should probably check out the website or the facebook page! www.ricebrisbane.org is the site to go to haha

anyways... yeah
gtg sleep lol

Wanted: Miracle -> Result

Well... I haven't been on here in almost 3 weeks... and alot has happened during that time. If you read the previous post, I was quite literally drowning in work from both Architecture and RICE. Luckily for me the Archi final review was formative and I got most of it done, I guess I didn't have enough time to finish my model that I was meant to do for it, but all my drawings were completed which meant that I could still get decent feedback. But this was my own pursuit and for my own earthly future, what really amazed me is that, as you guys know I am part of the RICE design team and I had never used photoshop before (sure I've used fireworks heaps but never for this type of work) and I had no access to any software to create the designs. Even though I had such a short time frame to do the tasks and had to learn how to do everything from scratch, I reckon God did some serious blessing here.

At the start I had no idea what I could possibly do for a theme that was significantly more complex than last year's theme, and I was consistently being bombarded by uni work and was running around in circles in anxiety about what to do and all that. God gave me new insights and new perspective on how to interpret the theme. People began offering software and equipment for me to use, I mean I just randomly got a call to go somewhere to get photoshop elements off a friend. I had no idea how to pull off the concept that was in my head, so I hoped online and i just typed in the style and instantly it came up with tutorials to do all the technical stuff required to get all the effects I needed and gave me links to all the free brushes and tools I needed to do everything. I really hardly moved a finger and everything was provided for me to start working.

In my head, the idea looked fantastic and incredibly cool... But I am in reality a REALY CRAP painter. I cannot paint for the life of me. This design was a digital painting, and a REALLY hard one at that. But things just happened, and it actually looks better in real life now than it did in my head. But while I was making it I was really doubtful about whether it could actually happen, and all the other members of the team were quite doubtful of the idea as well. It could of ended up really good or really bad, and I got quite nervous at one stage when we were showing mocks because I wasn't confident in the idea. But, that didn't really matter because clearly God was confident where I was not. I guess I just really stuck with what God gave me and just did it and it worked out well. So praise God for that haha, cos I don't think I could've done it on my own, especially knowing how great (or lack of great) my art skills are.

But yeah... thats my bit for today...

Wanted: Miracle

Apart from emu gully last year, I don't think I have ever been pushed to the limits before. But that time was a physical strain in the sense of exercise and pushing my body to the limit for the sake of the team. But this time, I think I stand in front of a period that requires more mental strain then I've ever faced.

Just a list of stuff I need to do in the next 2-3 weeks.
- An architectural review to a panel of professional architects (ie. working)
= 6 sections
= 4 floor plans
= Site plans
= 1:100 model of the site and 3 buildings
= all the above arranged for a presentation due by June 1

- RICE design team
= Flyer design
= Poster Design
= Gotta meet the design deadline of June 10... but thank God I'm not working by myself on this one... but I have to learn how to use photoshop properly.

- Church Worship team
= Gotta try and practise songs at least once every 2 days lol... cos one of our members have other commitments and I am filling in for guitar.

- Bible study
= I am the bible study leader for this coming week... So I gotta prepare answers and discussions and stuff for the topic so I need time to do that.
= Also we have a memory verse "pop quiz"... and gotta memorise 4 pretty long passages...

Seriously I doubt I will have enough time to do everything. Such a coincidence that everything should collide on this fortnight... I swear I'm gonna need a miracle to do all these things... and although I know God will provide and make things work... but I think I'm getting pretty darn anxious lol... Just gotta pray that I can do everything. Hope those of you who read this will also pray for me lol... I think I'm gonna need it.

Anyways MUST get back to work...

Focus

Some days I find that life as I know it is so distracting. I feel that there are so many petty desires in my life that just bog me down and hinder my every movement and every thought. Just to think of all the things that one doesn't have, material or not, just really puts a hole in the hull. Just thinking about these things causes me to trudge through a day in misery unable to work or be productive, unable to feel joyful. Thinking about me, and the things that I wish I had, that I don't have makes me sad.

I find that I can only really become joyful when my focus becomes fixed on something greater than myself. When I devote my time to conversing with people about God, doing research and doing my best to spread God's word I find that I experience a joy that I cannot normally feel in my life. When I go to be part of worship at church, I feel a joy that I cannot find anywhere else. I just wish that there was no need to do anything than to do these two things in this life. I wish I wanted nothing more than to do these two things and nothing more. Life would be so simple, so joyful. But yeah...

I heard a passage on sunday, went something like this. Philippians 1:21 "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." Some days I just wish that I was able to be an unrelenting disciple, wanting to serve and nothing more. I have prayed that God take my worldly attachments and desires away from me, that I could live solely for Him. But, God has chosen not to do that, though I know not why. But nyeah.... Confusing... When one doesn't know what God wants of him...

Life isn't a walk in the park huh? With the storms and the calms... The highs and lows... Sometimes God feels so close, yet sometimes feels so distant... But hey... Enough of this..

Spritiual Warfare : Online

No this is not the newest MMORPG out on the internet. Instead I am referring to forums online in which christians and non-believers wage spiritual wars upon each other. Youtube is a massive spiritual battlefield and over the last few days I've been posting replies on one song on youtube and have been defending the faith and have been using bible references to "fight" these "battles". But it has come to my attention at just how ill prepared I actually am for these things. Sure I am a staunch christian, and sure I now quite a bit of stuff about what the bible says about certain things. But everytime I was about to make a point, I always realised that I didn't actually know where in the bible it says something and anything. I've heard or read about a verse before about a topic, but I don't ever really remember where in the OT or NT it actually says that. If you go to Youtube and look up any christian song, you wouldn't need to scroll down past about 5 lines to find some heated arguements to and fro between non-christians and christians.

But yeah, I guess most importantly though is that there is probably nowhere in our society that has more open and intense spiritual warfare than there is online. Unless you in Pakistan or something or your getting martyred somewhere for your faith. But in a first world country, you won't find and place with more open spiritual warfare than online. Why is that? well I reckon it's because you have a false identity, noone knows who you are and noone is going to remember you for who you are. People have nothing to lose but perhaps have something to gain. They can safely hurl insults or perhaps share something that's of importance because noone knows who they are and they will never find out. It's probably the same principle as to why people wear ski masks and stuff to perform bank robberies and to mug people. To hide their identity.

But I guess to tackle these things, and doing apologetics related stuff, is to be prayful about it I guess and wear the Armour of God in the most MMORPG sense possible haha.

Read Ephesians 6:10-18 :
The Armor of God
10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

God answers prayers...

I do a little bit of serving at my church, only little jobs here and there really... but one of the things I do is to organise some weekly prayer gatherings. But sometimes uni rears its ugly butt in the way of my organisation and also certain aspects of my own personal life that inhibits my ability to serve. I haven't been doing this role for very long... only like a few months really... during this meeting we talk about the general state of our church and upcoming events and how the different fellowships are going and what kinda of things are being planned and then we pray for the various needs of our church and the fellowships as well as more worldly affairs that affect people in other places of the world etc. \

One thing I noted was that really, people arn't motivated to come together and pray unless it is extremely convenient for them to do so... ie. they already are gonna go to UF so they might just rock up half an hour earlier to come to the prayer meeting... During the holidays, there is no UF and therefore prayer meetings are placed on another day... which means that almost nobody shows up... like... 1 other guy does... and that's it. This made me think about the reasons why that's the case... and I realised that our church and more particularly the younger congregation which we are part of was in desperate need for revival. I remember talking both to a close brother in christ and a pastor about it and it occurred to me that the passion for Christ in our church seems to only fall to a handful of people and that passion seems to have trouble spreading throughout the group. And while we are all mostly christians there, it became apparent that every person had something inhibiting their growth, something that they struggle with yet stand alone and try to fight it off alone and can't win. I find myself standing in that category most of the time as well, but I realised that to keep fighting and winning, you need brothers and sisters to help you fight. God designed His church so that we could have brothers and sisters to help us and for us to help them.

I knew that God had placed this passion into my heart, and so I prayed about it and asked what God wanted me to do about it. I felt that God wanted me to try and talk to my bros' and sis' and to help them share whatever burdens they may have. I dunno what occurred to me but I thought that I should perhaps stop the prayer meetings to try and focus on doing what God wants me to do... And one of my brothers even offered to take over the organisations of the meetings as well.

I was almost about to send a massive spam email to everyone on the prayer meetings mailing list to inform them of the change. I had typed the whole thing up and was about to hit send when I felt as if a voice was telling to not send it. I prayed again to ask for clarification... and withheld from doing anything and to keep running it for just one more week at least before deciding whether to stop it or not. We had the meeting today, and I felt God respond to my prayer and I knew that God wanted me to continue running the prayer meetings. At the same time our old CAG group is gonna try and start up again and hopefully the fellowship will take away some of my more personal anxieties and allow me to serve God better and continue to grow as a christian and maybe even find some answers that I've been praying for.

God brings out the best in us...

Sunday just past was a special day for all christians, when we celebrate Easter and what Jesus had done for us on the cross. For a few people at our church it was even more special because that was the day they got baptised. And a wonderful and joyous day it was. Baptism is a once in a lifetime event in which you acknowledge who Jesus is and how much we need Him and how He has changed our lives for the better. We announce to the world that we love Him and will follow Him for the rest of our lives, as have the 10 people last Sunday. It's awesome to see so many people overflowing with joy about Jesus. So many people, guys or girls struggle to hold back their tears of Joy when they give personal testimonies. Almost everyone gets a shaky voice trying to contain their tears, and a lot of the girls just can't even speak straight through their tears. I think it's awesome that it is such an emotional occasion and such a joyous occasion at that, and all because of what Jesus has done for us.

I volunteered myself to be part of the worship team that day for the baptism service. And during the practises and especially after the service was over. I was really reminded of what God has done for me in my life. I remember that even at the start of 2008 I was a wreck, I was quite literally scared crapless by the prospect of having to communicate with people who were not my closest friends or even to try and communicate without someone I was really good friend around. I would not even think about even touching a microphone let alone even start to think about singing. At my worse I wasn't able to communicate with anyone at all. But when I couldn't carry on anymore, Jesus came into my life and released me from those shackles and lifted my burdens. Before I knew that my miserable state was not what God wanted me to be. But when I was set free, I became almost opposite in every sense of the human character. Those who did go to the Baptism Service and the Sunday Service at BCAC last Sunday would know that I was singing loud and proud with not a drop of fear. Sure I made a few little mistakes, but who God intended me to be standing there on the stage singing His praises and who I was 1 year and 5 months ago are so different in the extreme and I don't think I would want things to be any other way. It is only because of God's grace and love that I am who I am today, and I'm sure every person who has experienced God's grace would say something similar.

God really does bring the best out of us. There is no greater Joy than to be able to become who we were created to be and there is also no greater Joy than to do what we were created to do. And that is to live lives of worship out of freewill.

Healing Wounds

I was discussing with a friend today about relationships and what plans God had for them. Even BGRs between christians can fail, there is no arguing that, sometimes they just don't fit together well, some just undermine a good relationship from the inside. We are still fully human, fully weak and inadequate. That means that we still hurt each other all the time. We make mistakes, and we can make the same mistakes over and over again and in a way end up bringing our own pain upon ourselves by the lack of patience and self-control. God calls out to us (christians) and tells us when things are not right, when things are not pleasing to Him... And when things don't please Him, they are naturally unhealthy for you.

Humans have a habit of walking into beartraps of sin and disobedience even though we KNOW that it WILL hurt, we end up being spirtually emo in a sense where we are inflicting pain upon ourselves by not listening to God yet we feel so tempted into walking into them, you know a relationship isn't going to work, you know if you go out with that person again that it will not be better if they haven't undergone major change... You know your walking into a beartrap and you feel God calling you back and you have a feeling in your heart that God doesn't want you to do it... But... you go for it anyways, hopeful that he has changed but have no proof of it... and guess what? It ends up failing again and you are wounded once more.

These wounds bleed anger and clog up our relationships with other people, they make a mess of our emotions and we flatline our ability to be joyful. We end up hating each other, holding grudges against each other, and we always say things take time to heal. But... I don't believe that... When people say, things take time to heal it is only because they arn't prepared to be healed. They wish they were, but they are afraid of actually going to get healed. All that time it takes to heal these wounds and mend this relationships is basically people trying to build up the courage to step forward and accept the treatment. Its like a fear of needles basically...

I hate it when I see my friends who are in relationships fight over things in their relationships... If you need to be defensive in your relationships... If you need to defend yourself from the other person... Then aren't you basically hastening your relationships demise? Why fight over things that aren't important? Don't we all become absent-minded at some stage? Are you not being a hypocrite by saying "Why don't you do this?" or "How can you forget that?" and then sooner or later you forget to do stuff or say stuff? Of Course you are... Do hypocrites exemplify Godliness? no... Then what makes your relationships Godly if you continually judge each other? Isn't the aim of being Godly, being Christ-like one of the major side effects of knowing and loving our Lord Jesus Christ? Then if you are in a christian relationship, why do you fight? sure u disagree sometimes, different people, different opinions... but there is no need to be angry, to make each other guilty or to make the other feel bad for things that they do that don't agree with us... That is not Love... And Love is what God designed to make the world go round.

The emblem of BCAC is what we know as the Four-Fold Gospel. It exemplifies 4 Major "roles" that Jesus has. The Saviour, The Healer, The Sanctifier, and the Coming King. Jesus is the healer... all through the bible, Jesus healed the people who were faithful INSTANTLY. Those people WANTED to be healed, and they were willing to go whatever lengths they were capable of to get to Jesus. How many times has Jesus said "Your faith has healed you" or something similar or that the text says that the person was healed by faith? More times than I care to remember. So what makes our wounds any different? Whether its a relationship under stress or your in the aftermath of a broken relationship, just come before Jesus willingly without fear and be healed. It will only heal as fast as you are prepared to allow God to heal you. Cos seriously, if you are brave enough to ask someone out, then at least have the courage and humility to attempt to maintain it. Ask God to help you, as we are weak and face it, we are pathetic, good for nothing meatbags. But through God we have strength and power and JOY. Put God as number one priority and everything will fall into place.

Having said all that, and it may seem that I am speaking very aggressively about this. And maybe I am... As I feel somewhat like J.D to a point from scrubs... can't remember the episode but he goes hardcore rant about other people and their relationship problems. And truth is it is quite easy for me to say all this as a third party observer of someone else's relationship. And I respect that when it is actually you who is standing in those shoes that it is hard to see things wholistically... Your so close to the problem, with emotional attachements and all, that it is quite hard to be able to step back and see the bigger picture. And it can all be very overwhelming and it is very easy to become impatient with God and trying to do things in other ways and end up digging a bigger hole for yourself. And again having said all that, all is only my opinion, I have no proof of this and I don't actually know how hard it is because I've never been in a relationship before myself. So this is merely based on a mental construction of relationships that exists in my head, and it could be far from the truth.

Neways... That's my rant for today

There is no Luck...

Today I went to kung fu... but that isn't the topic or reason for the post... I normally go with one of my non-christian friends to it and he studies the same course as me. I've had a few discussions about the spiritual side of life before and although he's been invited to a few church occassions, he classifies himself as atheist... Anyways...

The thing today was that on the way back to the bus station that I normally drop him off at, we were talking about him having not enough money, because of him not getting enough work and stuff... And how he was gonna try and bring his own lunch to uni to save money and stuff, etc. etc. And about a minute later, we drove over a speed bump and I saw something suddenly flutter before my car and disappeared under it. In a split second I recognised it as a $10 note. It was in a very, very small hole in the ground, and was under a few pebbles with one end fluttering in the wind. I stopped immediately and reversed (there were no cars behind me coincidentally) and I told him to get out of the car and grab it. After he retrieved it, he commented on how it was almost as if someone had placed it there, perfectly in the hole... with the number 10 sticking straight up the side of the hole in full view. And it made me think... that there is no such thing as luck or coincidence... and there is only a sovereign God who has a hand in everything... It couldn't have been pure luck and coincidence that 10 bucks was just sitting in a hole waiting for us to pick up at a time when my friend was becoming in need of aid... Of course, 10 bucks isn't very significant but money is still money.

While God cannot act in us unless we allow him to because we have free will... but God will act around us, to reach out to us... To get our attention... I didn't really say anything to him at that moment... but I wonder... I wonder what God has planned for my friend... and I wonder if I am destined/have been chosen to play any role in this plan.

Neways... as a side note, I recieved my first bruise today at kung fu... and ironically it wasn't from sparring... but during the warm up in our little soccer game, some guy pounded the ball into my right eye. And now I have a little bit of a bruise along the edge of the eyesocket.

Anyways, thats my story for today.

Work training day...

Yeah, I had a 9 hour training course today at work... Today as in Sunday... I was whinging for about a week and a half away from it because it killed my whole day, and I would miss out of going to church, miss out on the bible study, and miss out on the church worship team training sessions that I was meant to be at...

But I guess in the end, a part of me missed going to church because I couldn't be with other people... I couldn't be with my friends... And I know that these are wrong reasons to be wanting to go to church. And although I have significant genuine reasons to go to church, I still have this urge to be there just because of friends.

So I had a week of being pissed at work because of these arrangements. Though in hindsight I realise that I probably need to reflect on my priorities for going to church and how it will affect my christian walk. I guess I still have problems at times with letting God be number one in my life... taking priority over everything else... but hey... Nobody is perfect and I'm still "work in progress" I guess...

anyways... 9 hours was pretty crap :P
thats enough for now

BLT!!!!

Yes, I am back from 5 days and 4 nights of the BLT camp! And if you were thinking it, no this was not a subway apprenticeship training camp on how to make the best sandwiches in the world. In fact, it was far from it. BLT is the Brisbane Leadership Training camp, and it is a camp that brings together christians from various local Chinese churches to learn how to lead and teach ourselves and others on the Christian Walk. It is about bringing up leaders within the churches so that Brisbane and Queensland, Australia and all of the world would hear of Jesus and what hope, grace and salvation we can find in him.

The camp was split into 5 strands for people at different years of attendance at BLT, and as this was my first year at BLT I was in Strand 1. We learnt about how to interpret a passage by asking questions about it, about things we might not understand at first glance. By asking these questions, and reading the neighbouring passages and the book in which it is contained, we can find out the context in which the passage speaks from. We learnt that there was 3 types of contexts, Literary, Historical, and Theological Context with theological context being split into two sub-categories, which are Biblical and Systematical theology. Knowing the style in which the passage is written and who the author and audience was influences the way it is written and how the words can be intepreted. Knowing the timeframes and events that were occuring at the time during which the passage was written helps interpret the meaning and purpose of the passage. Knowing how it fits into events of the book as well as how it fits into the rest of the bible allows us to know what the passage's role in the whole bible is. Knowing what topics and issues the passage covers allows us to understand what the passage says and how it links with other sections of the bible that also talk about similar topics. Knowing what the context is allows us then to pull apart the passage into its individual sections of text that flow together to express an idea or concept. Having done that, you will be able to understand exactly what the passage is trying to say, after which you can develop further understanding of the passage and how it is relevant to yourself and others and from there begin to teach others.

The passage that we were learning to do all this was Hebrews 12:18-25. And it was exceptionally hard, which makes me believe that it is a BLT tradition to choose the hardest possible passages for it's studies. Which in turn makes things easier when you read simpler passages or passages with more context. It was a really challenging camp that really expanded my knowledge and changed the way I read the bible. To know how the OT and the NT have such intricate links. It even resurfaced the thoughts I onced had about considering entering full-time ministry one day, and had heaps of questions answered to help me consider whether it was the thing for me.

But the greatest thing about this BLT was the men's and women's workshops in which the guys and the girls were seperated into different workshops to talk about the differences and all sorts of gender related stuff.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed BLT and hope that I can go to BLT+ and next year's BLT as well.

Alive DVD

A week or so ago I bought the Alive DVD by Louie Giglio, who is the same guy that did the Indescribable DVD that I blogged about a few weeks ago. While the Indescribable DVD talked about the greatness and power of God glorified in the stars above, the Alive DVD was about the intricacies of our human body. Again, I encourage people to watch it of course, and although he didn't have as many incredible images like the Indescribable DVD, he talks about some pretty important stuff. There was two parts to the DVD, first part was explaining how there has to be a God, no doubt about that. Watch for yourself. Now if there is a God and there is, then heaven and hell also exists. The second part of the DVD explains eternal life, heaven and hell, and also dispels some myths amongst non-believing populations about how to gain that eternal life. Great stuff. I won't go into any details and stuff which would spoil the DVD should you go get it yourself or ask to borrow it. But yeah... I believe last time in the blog post, I told you guys about that image he showed in the DVD of the Whirlpool Galaxy. Well, this time, go look up laminin. It is a protein compound in your body that adheres and holds every part of your body together. The very glue of your existence. But yer.. go watch it.

Some Observations...

From an observational perspective, there aren't many great outspoken christians in our society. It seems as though the secular culture blanks and muffs out christian values and beliefs on which our social heritage stemmed upon. When you walk through shopping centres, you see nothing Godly, nothing distinctly christian at it's core. I guess society nowadays deem "political correctness" as an absolute necessity, and christianity doesn't quite hit that mark. It's why the fatasses in the big, red suits have invaded and destroyed Christmas. It is a politically correct fantasy of a fat guy in a flying sleigh with magical reindeer that gift gives to little kids by squeezing down chimnney stacks. And it doesn't offend anyone. Christianity definitely offends, no doubt about it, people don't like to relenquish control of their lives until they have no other way to go, and until that point, christianity does offend. Until they realise how weak we really are, until we crash, we don't give the steering wheel to a better driver (Jesus, the best driver this universe has ever seen in fact). Walking down our streets/shopping centres, everyone just looks the same. Christians by no means stand out at all, you rarely hear about them or see them do something that is different from the rest of the world. They don't say anything different. And while I sound critical here, I know well clear that I am exactly what I am saying here, I look no different and don't really speak much different apart from the lack of profanity 99% of the time, and although I do argue with non-christian friends about lifestyle choices and choice of leisure activities, slowly nudging people towards deeper and more spiritual conversations. But on the surface, I don't really sound any different from anyone else. Anyways I've kinda sidetracked from my initial purpose of this blog. What I was really trying to say was that, I went to WORD today. A christian store that sells heaps of books, music, dvd and bibles which are obviously christian at it's roots. And I was actually surprised at the patronage of that place. Cars just keep coming and going with people of all ages there. Which is a fantastic sight, don't get me wrong. It's great to know that there are so many christians out there that would actively visit stores like WORD and Koorong to find new resources to learn more and strengthen their relationships with God. But I guess what kinda saddens the wonderful picture is that it doesn't reflect at all in our society. Even though presumably, Christianity is the world's largest religion standing at some 33% of the world's population, society definitely doesn't reflect that at all. If 1 in every 3 people are christian... Then why doesn't our society show any signs of this spiritual connection? I have great respect for UQ christian groups because they really get out there and showing their allegiance with pride. At the UQ open day there are hundreds of stalls with heaps of Christian groups openly advertising and evangelising, a wonderful sight. Although some activity is better than none, sadly enough, this is only one university and only a minor fraction of our society. If that 33% of society could do stuff like that... well that would be just amazing. I guess that is what some churches do, like RICE Sydney & RICE Brisbane in which heaps of churches in their respective cities come together to hold events.

I believe that sometimes people use prayer as a kind of procrastination tool, people would rather pray about something that picking up their faith and take a step let along a leap and do something. After becoming a believer myself, the underlying impulse to do things that are pleasing to God is great. But it's those second thoughts that hold some of those actions back, the human shell that remains holds back those impulses and in the end nothing is done. While it is true that something are well beyond our human power to perform, like physical treating AIDS or as an average person treat cancer, and there is really nothing you can do but prayer for them. There are many things that normal christians can do in society that are well within their power, but they are just suppressing it. You don't need to do things by yourself, likewise the Salvos don't work as indiviuals but as teams. As a member of the body of christ, as one part works, the rest of the body can't just sit and pray, although prayer is important, prayer (in my opinion) should support actions. Sitting in a corner praying that your friends will get to know Jesus isn't really going to help, if you, who might be the only christian they know, don't find ways of letting it come into their lives. Sure, praying about it is immensely important, but so is getting your hands dirty with the work God has given us to do.

I reckon of the 33% of the people of the world who claim to be christian, I'd say most of them are sunday christians at best, if there is even a regular church attendance. If the whole 33% got really serious about their faith, I reckon there would be alot more than just 33%. But enough speculation from me.

The Weak and The Strong...

From what I have observed of people is that people always want to be self-sufficient. They want to be strong, guiding themselves along their own paths. I'm certain that is true, who wouldn't want to be strong? Who wouldn't want to be able to control their lives and do what they want to do right? This is the way most people seem to think. And although everyone has a conscience and knows (to an extent) right from wrong, we want to be able to do what we like to do, and have what we want to have. We'd all wish we were perfect, or think we are perfect, or try to be perfect. This is what being human is all about. We do what we want, we indulge that innate, inborn, sinful nature of mankind. We want more material, we want hot girls/guys (and the inheritant sex drive that comes with our sex-driven culture), we want to follow and have the latest trends, we want respect and we definitely want "love" or what we may percieve as "love". But, what is the point of these things? Following culture, trends and the like, nothing we gain out of these things will last, or indeed will breakdown and change very quickly, or otherwise we will be dissatisfied with it and want more and more and more. The people who see the above list and think "yeah, I like living like this, this is THE life", the ones that think that they are strong, and self-sufficient and independent, they won't see God. They think the way they are living is good, but yet they are always craving for more, but they can't see the need to reach for something greater than worldly things because they are still standing on their own (limited) strength.

Often people who find God find him when they realise that worldly things mean nothing and will not satisfy them, when they realise that material means nothing, that all the lust means nothing, that money means nothing, and that having the respect and "love" (and "love" in this case is interchangeable with lust to an extent) of others don't mean much either as humans are not perfect and will disappoint us. A lot of people find God for who He really is in the time of their most dire need or in their most depressing and straining times. The ones who realise they can't live like the did anymore and don't want to live like they have been living (I was one of them), it's then that we realise we don't have the strength to stay standing on our own, and we reach out for something greater, and find God's grace and realise that living God's way is JOY in its purest form. Well I reckon this is how it is anyways, cos until you realise you NEED God and reach out for Him, you probably won't take God personally even if you grew up in a christian family.

People who think they are 10 foot tall and bulletproof are probably the least likely to experience God. They probably can't see much of God over their ballooning egos, but when we are weak we realise just how great and powerful God really is and see his grace, mercy and love (true, unconditional love in its purest form that transcends all levels of human affection, this one is NOT interchangeable with lust). They don't see a need for God to be in their lives. Depression is a great thing, without it I would not have experienced the love of God through Jesus. But its also a pity when you realise that there are alot of people who will never be able to experience God and enter into his kingdom into eternity because they were too blinded by the world to realise that there were far greater things to be had beyond secular things.

Amazing Grace

A friend of mine gave me a book by Philip Yancey called "What's So Amazing About Grace?". And as the title implies, the book is about conveying grace, and understanding the very nature of the unconditional love of God towards us, and the unflinching forgiveness and intentional overlooking of our shortcomings by Him. Grace is to recieve what one has in no way deserved, Philip describes that the very nature of our secular world is one of ungrace, where you will never, ever recieve anything that you have not earned. No position, rank, job, promotion, etc. will ever be given to you out of grace. Respect and status is earned, we conform to society (which means you are constantly working to try and fit into the shape society says you should fit), all of these things are ungracious. The book talks about how even many christians, holding so tightly to their doctrines and to their rules and laws to become like the world, ungraceful. This is only the first 4 chapters of the book by the way :P. One of the paragraphs talked about a discussion between C.S. Lewis and some other people about what was so unique about christianity as a religion. The answer, was grace. To recieve the forgiveness we do not deserve, and to gain a relationship with God that came at no cost to us, all we had to do was to accept it. One of the first lines in the book was about a prostitute, wretched, homeless and sick selling of her 2 yr old child to support her drug addiction. When asked about whether she ever considered going to a church for help, her response was "Church! Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They'd just make me feel worse." I guess I'm simply repeating the authors words but I guess it just sheds new light upon old things. I'm becoming less and less coherent... I'm not sure if I'm actually making sense anymore... it's 3:13am... I'm tired... I need sleep...

Indescribable DVD

Well, last night I was up watching Louie Giglio's Indescribable DVD from his Passion series to about almost 4 am (yes, I am crazy and I did actually sleep at 3:45am)... I can say for certain that it was absolutely amazing. The images of space and stuff are just incredible, and like he said, their existence just screams of how huge our God is. Clearly noone can say, all of that could have possibly come about out of pure CHANCE in which trillions upon trillion of stars and bazillion tonnes of mass came out of nothing spontaneously with no stimulus. And that these trillions upon trillions of stars just by pure chance arrange themselves into the most incredible and beautiful celestial collections we know as galaxies. We are so insignificant by size in the scope of God's creation, our pale blue dot of a planet is so miniscule and insignificant, yet God loves us and called each and everyone of us into being and knows each and everyone of us by name and knows everything about us, sending his son to pay for what we deserve and have rightfully earned from our sins, and to invite us to have a relationship with him. I'm sure most christians would say that they have heard of stuff like this before, and before watching it I would have said that too, but that talk just placed things into their true perspective, to really show how big God is compared to us and how great he is. That X-formation in the whirlpool galaxy thing was really something too. Just incredible, a galaxy at exact 90 degrees to us, in its very centre habouring a cross. No way that things like that happen by chance.

But yeah... I'm gonna need to go buy Alive, Hope, and How Great is Our God from Word soon. Great stuff

Which also leads me to taking photographs of the Venus and Jupiter thing next to the moon. So here's a few snaps that I took tonight on my camera.