God shared this with me today =)

God is love ___ (1)
God knew mankind was separated from Him ___ (2)
God is a giving God ___ (3)
God gave free will ___ (4)

When we add 1 + 2 + 3
we get God pondering the best candidate to reconcile men to Him.
When we add in 4 into the equation
we see God asking Jesus, "Would you do the job?"

Never considered God asking His very own son,
"Son, we have a problem. Would you die for Our lost ones?"
Remember equation 4 said God gave freewill, so He never forced anyone.
He always allowed us to make a choice.

Now consider with me what God has actually asked Jesus to do.

Give up Your right to be in heaven.
Temporarily part away from Your throne and all of heaven's goodness.
Give up Your innocence and dignity to be made a sinner.
Be humiliated in front of hundreds.
Die for a group of people who might never appreciate Your deed.
Be beaten into a pulp by Your own creation.
To be rejected by Your closest (Peter)
To be betrayed by Your close friend (Judas)
To actually minister to murderers, sinners, tax collectors and the like.
To only have a short amount of time with His one and only Daddy everyday.
.
.
.
.
.
The list is never ending.

He gave up all of that.
Jesus did not ever once accused us for making Him go through those sufferings.
He could have chose to die for you but condemn you for making Him go through such a huge sacrifice.
But...
He never, and He never will.

Jesus never once pointed His finger at His father, ( Who by the way, has technically asked His own son to go and die for a cause ) and cursed Him.
Jesus bore NO hatred.
He always loved, even on the cross.

He always loved His father, even though His father gave Him away, lamb to the slaughter.
All for love.


What reasons do you have now for not loving your parents?
They may have not been understanding.
They may have falsely accused you of wrongdoings.
They may have mistreated and abused you.
They may have shown their hatred against you.

But they never
banished you out of your house.
gave you away to be nailed on a cross.
request you to die for a cause.
end your life and your human rights.

Your sufferings and persecutions from your parents,
will never
beat what God asked
Jesus to do.


Love your parents while they still breathe.

I will give You everything, because You gave me everything.

You gave me your closest companion who saw You
Lay the foundations of the earth.
Created every single being.
Placed the stars with Your hands.
He was there with You since the alpha.

He
Saw how sin caused so much pain.
Saw the magnitude of our fallen nature.
Saw how we are denied the abundant life we were made for.
and
Knew He would be the price for redemption.


You gave me Jesus.

--

Ever wonder who God missed the most?
It would most probably be Jesus when He walked on earth.

--

We did thanksgiving for cell today.
We went one round saying what we thanked God for.
As i hear each cell member pouring out their heartfelt gratitude towards one another, extorting each other, i saw how God painted and crafted each of us so uniquely.
I just so wanted to give everyone a hug, for the amount they deposited into my life throughout this year.

I got to learnt how each of our cell members contributed in small ways so selflessly.
How each served the other.
How i would throw out a simple question, "Want to come over to my house later?"
We would look out for one another.
And i am so grateful towards God for answering my prayer, "Let this cell, be a cell of love."

Is that your prayer for your cell group today?
When was the last time you prayed for them?

You dont have to pray the same prayer.
But create space for God to make that difference happen, through prayer.

The problem with most christians is that they are not close enough to God.
They are rather distant and occasionally listen to His voice.

However, the exceptionally close ones are able to hear His heartbeat.
They are close enough to put their ear to His heart, hearing it thump.
Every single heartbeat.

Are you close enough to hear His heartbeat?

God, "I can be quite lonely on Christmas day."

Funny we gather together for this joyous season and miss out on the birthday boy.
Dont miss out Jesus in Jesus parties.

Jesus went missing for 3 days and His parents didnt even know.
What makes you think you dont have a chance of making the same mistake?

Post of the year.

On this lovely day.
On this day my saviour was birthed.
I shall attempt to sum up this year.

God i want to thank You from every corner of my heart.
I am contented.
I am contented because i know You've been holding my hand every single day.

Some days i loosened my grip, and some days i tightened my grip on Your hand.
But Your hand remains as firm, as warm, as assuring.

God i thank You for allowing me to stumble upon the song Control by Mute Math.
It is a personal song from me to You.
And every line in this song speaks of my current heart's desire.

God thank you for teaching me so many things.
And regarding my dreams and desires, I've learnt a great deal, and for that i am deeply grateful.

The changes that happened this year,
the rough periods,
the days where i felt like breaking down and crying,
the days where i felt like i would not get promoted,
the days where nothing could be better than this,
the days where Your grace was so immensely rich,
the days where even though i was physically alone, You sat beside me,
the days where my outstretched arms are not enough to express my gratitude,
those days You were there,
You were faithful.

You are faithful.
For all the little yet assuring incidents i have with You,
I'll keep it to heart.
Especially the day you promised me so assuredly.
Where one year hung in the balance.

God i want to thank You for all the experiences you gave me.
For.
Family trip to thailand.
Orientation group 1.
PAE period.
Trinity - IGNITE ministry.
JAE period.
The day i stepped into YI.
The rest of the Saturdays with my wonderful cell and listening to awesome sermons!
Radical conference.
Amazing race with my cell.
All the times we went through as a cell.
An yu being there to talk to me on the first day.
Elvin making it so smooth for me to come back on the second week.
Sangeek for all the funny bits.
Hui Wen for being so caring.
Xing Yu for his care too.
Shi ping for her care and cute little things.
Edwin for frisbee sessions.
Zhong hwa for teaching me one of the most important lessons ( For the King).
Jing wei for being the first in the cell to write me a card and study sessions.
For mu xin who asks the cell out for dinner.
Xiao ye in pw discussions and note giving.
Verlyn for being the youngest, matured, understanding, and always cheering all of us up.
Phyliss for every single study session at buddies hoaggies!
For the workshops on sundays.
Every single POLITE outing!
The times i went back to megalife.
Pre U sem.
All the badges, the pictures, the movie, the BRIDGE!
For Bryan for being an awesome and interesting roommate.
For all the small experiences i gained along the way.
Making me feel proud to represent my school in Pre U sem.
Pre U sem bbq.
Singout concert.
Adam khoo and pon tang.
PW!!!!!
Every single day in class.
The awesome classmates you've blessed me.
The days where Candice and i got to spend time together, just to keep ourselves sane.
(Candice, know that i treasure this a lot. If not for God blessing you into my life, i guess life in school would suck a lot more.)
The days we stayed back for PW.
(God thank You for answering my prayer that i get a good group. You gave me more, You gave me the best performance group in class.)
The nights we stayed up for PW.
PW OP itself.
Every time we met as a group for PW.
For Wayne, that stupid bugger to always narrate in front of me.
For Khong Sheng that monkey who never fail to irritate and amuse us at the same time.
For family pig. Chem paper day.
For the father, its nice that you share so much with us.
For the nat who always sms back.
The jokers in my class.
The phone calls with Renee.
The dim sum dollies at Esplanade with Jolyn!
THE BIENNALE!!!! (Was one of the best days in the year!)
For MR LIN!
Mr Cho.
Mr Chu.
Mr Lim.
All the other teachs.
For the canteen to be so lovely designed. (The tables!)
The day we spent at beach road / chomp chomp.
The days we spent hanging out at lan shops and the like.
Every single time we play Frisbee as innovians.
Every small flicking session in YI.
Cafe duty.
Chem SPA.
Chem practical lessons.
One sleepless night in PAE period.
Class gathering.
Every track training.
Drama club period.
Every hospital check up.
The Olympics period.
Every school event.
Batam Trip. (Doughnuts!)
YI camp.
Megalife camp crashes.
The police car.
The days i spent bus hopping. (God i really enjoyed this one.)
About to come highlife camp.
About to move into new house.
Every single bus ride.
Every single time i stepped into the airport, You made me smile.
(God You know i love this place!)
The macdonalds near my house.
The day i copied tutorial 11 and felt so much despair.
The times we went out as a group, to rae s place, to ...
The days where i get to eat fried rice.
The days where i get to eat at Bukit Timah food centre with Thia.
The days i ate at Eighteen chefs.
The day spent with nat.
At vivo, at mosiac festival.
The day spent with gerry.
At cold rock and at NUS.
The day spent with car.
Walking down Ann Siang road.
The day spent with chai.
At Katong, at Central, the countless phone calls.
The gym sessions with thia.
The camera from ian.
Occasional outings from Abel.
The stayover s at josh and ian s place.
The day i invested so heavily into josh's life.
The days spent with jill.
Camp comm gatherings.
Those times where i spent with Alex.
The day before term 3 day 1, the day we did spark test.
The phone calls with Cheryl tan.
The simple outings with Audrey.
The first outing with Jolynn.
Adam!!!
NAT'S BIRTHDAY! (One of the best days in my life.)


God, it is more than amazing.

God i am thankful You held my hand every single day.
I am sure You will continue holding my hand next year.

As always.
You are faithful.

I decided to have a look at my current youth ministry videos.
Youth Impact.

Amazing how my brother showed their camp promo videos to me last year and i never knew i would one day sit in front of the computer and recognize those faces.
Today as i watch those videos again, some have became rather close friends, and others i know by name and personality.
Simply Amazing how God works.

Believe me, just click on it.



They actually used a crane to do this video.



Yes they did this video outside west mall.
And people actually stood by to watch these crazy guys.

--

I went over to crash jolynn s surprise birthday party.
I wonder will i get my own surprise version.
All the way in the west.
And chai, Ten miles is absolutely boring.

--

I am enjoying Christmas.
Because its His birthday.

--

In the midst of all these noises,
God be loud.

I am lost for words when i think about how amazing my God is.

--

I went to sauna alone.
Rather physically alone.
God challenged me at 15th minute to stick through to the 30th minute.
It really felt like an hour.
Alone, suffering in heat, bathed in my own sweat, the heat choking my throat.
It was more than bearable.
If not for God talking to me, i would have quit at 18th minute.

He taught me about how to focus on Him and not the heat.
He made me feel a fraction of what Daniel felt in the burning furnace.

--

God keeps revealing to me bit by bit the significance of the cross.

It was not the pain that was unbearable.
It was more than our sins.
It was more than the weight of the world.

Alright, think about every single painful moment in your life,
the rejection,
the hurt,
the wounds,
the past memories,
the failures,
every single one.
Add all of them up.
Now add every single human's pain and affliction together, throughout the existence of this earth.
Now put it on one innocent man.
No one, no matter how noble, or strong, can bear that intense magnitude of burden and pain.

Jesus was the only candidate.
He had all the right to turn it down.
The very reason there is Christmas, is because He chose not to turn down that assignment.
If Jesus refused, He would not have laid foot on earth.

He made a choice, and because of that choice, i breathe today.

--

I spent this year fighting for a dream, the biggest dream that ever came across my path.
But i guess at this point, God convinced me enough.
And His dream is much more secured.

Ever taught that God considered your dream "ten times" more thoroughly than you?
Remember He does not need to sleep, so while you sleep, He held your dream in His palms and looked at it from all angles.
Considered it and made a decision.
His dream is better than ours.

How dumb can we get and still argue with Him about our dream and refuse to let go?

I choose His dream over mine.

--

I breathe because of His choice.
And His string of choices started on December 25th.

I looked at photos, yet it stirred nothing.
Looking through the lens of someone else's perspective.

I was once going to...
And then I've left.

Seasons.

Guilt is self inflicted.
It is a mechanism created by the devil to use against you to stop you from worshiping God with confidence.

The truth of the matter is that we are forgiven just by a decision from God.
It is instantaneous.
When forgiven, we should let go of our guilt.
Yet why do some of us hold on to it so tightly?

--

Impossible.

After some wordplay.

I'm possible.

--

Exponential times.




Do you know why God whispers every so often?
Simply because He wants us to shut up.

Not literally, but when we are still before Him, He has no need to raise His voice.
Thus, we are then able to hear Him whisper.

--

God, "You dont have to care about your other half which was stolen, because you have to die to your entire self anyway."

--

One of the most frightening lesson I've learned in my walk with God is that God wont probe into issues we choose to bury.
Simply because He gave freewill.

Here s the truth, people can die in their deathbed holding grudges, unforgiveness, and the like, because they never dealt with that issue.
They literally built a fortress around it that they allowed no one, not themselves, not even God to deal with it.
They might even moved on and thought they dealt with it.
Question: Who was the one who said you were done with the issue?
God should be the One giving the answer.

--

Worrying is practical atheism.
Why do you worry and deny that everything is in God's hands?

--

I must say i am amazed how many Christians i know are currently stagnant.
They just float.
Its to the point that, i only know of a few who are still growing at a consistent pace.
The rest, are most probably just playing church, or keeping tradition.

--

I hope the recent posts has not gotten too theological.

Inspire.
Scintillate.
Sparkle.
Shine.

Best camp in my life.
Its not about the hype and all, it was just God speaking so much.

I hear myself whispering to God so much more often now.
"God what is Your heartbeat?"

--

Live the new dream.
The dream is to wake up and die to yourself, and say, "God i will live today for you."
Every day you reiterate that line, and it is a constant dream.

--

I realised that even if people wear shorts and slippers to worship, the presence of God is not compromised, simply because our hearts are desperate.

God once told me, "The attire of the heart is what i look at, not the physical attire."
Come on, King David was enthusiastic and went overboard to worship God in public in his underwear.

I am not saying we should do likewise, i am saying, attire actually doesnt count all that much. It only merely helps us to reflect our attitude better.

--

Live the new dream.

YI camp 2008!
RJC.
15 - 18th dec.
Starting at 1300.

Awesome.

Me
"Do you have anything else to tell me?"
"I love it when my children ask me that."
God beamed.

We've always been rushing in our quiet time haven't we?

--

This is interesting.

God said something like this...
There is nothing wrong in having your dreams, but there is when you don't lay it down and surrender it.
And you have to consistently surrender it.
Surrendering does not necessarily mean changing our dream or giving it up, in fact by all means stick to it.
Surrendering means God is in control and He has the final say.
He has the final say because He plans to prosper you and not to harm you.
He would always give the best.
And sometimes your dream might not be the best.
So He makes your dream even better.
That is His dream, God's dream.
Never considered that the dream giver Himself, has dreams too eh?

Every time you think of your dream, you Consistently surrender.
You do that by saying, "God i surrender."
Every single time.
It takes discipline.
But its worth it, if not that dream would be our idol.

A lot of times, we try to squeeze our dream into God's dream for us.
We will do something, we will set things up so God's dream for us will unfold like the way we wish it to be.
Abraham is the perfect example for this.
Ishmael and Isaac.
Surrender your dream at the altar, every single bit.

"Son, did i ever disappoint you?"
He nailed it again.

We live when we learn to take one step at a time.

Jordin sparks.

--

I think Cantonese is an utterly gorgeous language.
I imagined heaven to be a place where there are many services conducting simultaneously, in different languages.
God beamed with pride and said, "I created all the languages."

--

Last night was one of the most interesting and memorable nights of my life =D

I guess i felt the grace of God so simply.
Invited to a dinner and dance at tanglin country club by a cell mate.
I have no relation to the firm, so does car chai and ian.
I had a free buffet, with no time limit.
Food inclusive of salmon, sushi, all kinds of meat, log cake and la la la.

Singing from 3 incredible voices.
Sangeetha's voice was enough to make chai and car 's eyes to pop out.
Oh she pulled off Mariah Carey's When you believe.
Seriously how many people can do that?
According to chai if Sherman sounded good, Gerald, my primary school friend was better.
Superb overtone.
Yin peng who also actually looked like the guy from princess hours was able to pull off Oh Holy Night, which is like uber tough.
And he changed his tone immediately when he dive into the next song by A1.
Stunning performance.
I just had to stop eating to watch them sing.
And they each earned a hundred bucks for just singing at a dinner, with free buffet.

The weirdest thing was that everyone of us got comfortable at a totally foreign environment.
It was literally crashing a dinner and dance, and it was celebrating a never heard before firm's 30th anniversary.
The amazing thing was that the founder / CEO of the firm shifted us up to better seats, and shook our hands firmly with a smile.
Doesn't this sound like some parable?

Guess that is what grace does to us, it gets us comfortable with God.
We had no right to enjoy God's love and mercy, but grace welcomes us.

--

Tag reply to Candice.

Car usually looks cute when she doesn't give this stare.



A break from quality photos.
This was taken by handphone.
Sorry mei for making you so unglam =D



I've been thinking a lot about anger.
I was wondering if most of us are governed by this emotion.
And the answer is yes.
The whole world is.
Every raped victim falls into this trap, and i pray they get out of it.
Every child soldier is infused with rage, and they kill mercilessly because they are filled with anger.
As simply as you are frustrated with your parents for nagging or scolding you, then yes you contain anger.
Its the extent, and magnitude that differs.

The scary bit about anger is that if you fail to forgive, you choose to self destruct.
It is explosive.
When anger is at its worst stage, you will eventually rot off every single relationship, because you are negative, constantly complaining, and no one would like someone like this.
Hitler brought his anger towards Jews to action.
The atrocities are testament.

We harbour anger towards three different parties.
Someone else.
Yourself.
God.

Anger works like this.
"You owe me."
A debt is created, because someone stole something from you.
For example, a father left the family, and the child is left angry.
The father owes the child protection, love ....
But how can the father repay, even if he is repentant?
(This is the bit where our entire year's study on Disgrace comes into play, Truth and Reconciliation, is that ever enough?)
The father cannot turn back time, to undo his mistakes.
So the child has two choices, continue to live on in anger, or forgive the father.


CANCEL THE DEBT.
A lot of us mistake this bit.
Even me.
Moving on in life, doesn't necessarily mean we canceled the debt, we can simply ignore it.
Bury it.
Bury this dark spot, never to be mentioned again.
Banish it, erase it, throw it out of our vision.
But, isn't it still there?
The way to go about this is to face it.
CANCEL THE DEBT.

But how much is the debt?
Who owes you that debt?
Write out a list of names, who has hurt or offended you.
Write out what they stole from you.
Then tell yourself, "You don't owe me anymore."

Angry people are stubborn by nature.
That is why they refuse to forgive.
They have valid reasons not to forgive, they want the opposite party to REPAY every single bit.

Yet Christ called us to forgive.
This is the bit where we focus on the stakes, the ______ that was stolen from us.
The stakes i placed on the table in front of God looked really convincing to me, it always does.

Then God convicted me.
That nailed it.
I was left speechless.
There was no ground to rebutt.
I only heard silence after that statement.
God allowed the silence to hang.
He allowed His son to hang on the tree.

"You stole my son."
"My one and only son."

So that we would find the grace there, to forgive those who had stole from us.

--

Let me be once again reminded.
I am flawed.

"You stole my son."
"My one and only son."

That nailed it.
That was the compelling reason to forgive no matter how big the stakes were.

--

There is a difference ignoring the debt (Whoever who fault you)
AND
Canceling the debt.

"You don't owe me anymore."

--

My camp is arriving in 3 days?
Awesome!
Kinda jittery to know how it is like in another church camp.

--

I will throw in some random photos.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.





Bleh!~
To sam yuan.

.
.
.



Fingers?
Chopsticks?



The hand.




Shot of the day =D




Kiss kiss.
The gay photographer.




The gayer me.




Pearl pearl pearl.
Taken by josh.




Vomit look?
No idea what went through my head then.




ZZZ

My ministry is people.

For the King.

I realised i've washed out the YO! culture in me and adopted the Got it! culture instead.

--

I guess we all critique too much.
Jesus would always look at the positive side.

Remember when the pharisees always said, "Who is this man who blasphemes? Who can forgive sins but God himself?"
Why did not the pharisees praised God like everyone else?
Why criticise?
Learn to bring out the nice bits, and focus on it.

Its the same with your life.
Find things to be thankful for.

--

I gave the following 6 words to 6 individuals.

Depth.
Triumphant.
Presence.
Fresh.
Freedom.
Chosen.

--

In Adam's perspective.

Adam, "My mum is lame. Once when she woke me up and told me, "We are going out for breakfast and will get you food later." Then i said, "Huh i am super hungry now leh." Then my mum replied, "It is okay, i already put super biscuits in the kitchen." Another time when she asked, "What are you looking for?" I said nothing. After a while she pointed to an empty box and said, "Its in there." I opened the box and found it empty and said, "Huh?" "Ya what, there is nothing inside, so it is in there."


I wish my mum was as funny.
But i love my mum anyway.

Four free days.

[Complete forgiveness]

--




Amazing i was able to pull this shot off.
I was sitting in my dad s car.
He was driving away.
So i had half a second to zoom, focus and snap.


Off to a church i attended for nearly a decade.

After service photos.



"So cute!"



Look at Ian s sad face.
He cant sit on the reserved seats.
Yes the focus is supposed to be there.

I have a super cute mei =D



Click on the image.
Realised the focus is on the two white shirts behind?
Oh wells.



YAY!
Finally a shot in focus!



Love the composition.



This too.



Far from the best of lighting.
I dont know about you, but somehow my eyes focused on the grey spot at the background then i look at the objects.



Classic shot of the day.
=)
Thank God it was focused!



I just had a spastic idea thats all.



Jem fell in love with care bear.
And that is his birthday chicken burger.



Overexposed?
But i love the depth of field.
The expression is priceless too.



Nat has that expression because i focused on the plant and dustbin.
Realised the dustbin smallest, followed by the plant and then nat?
This tells us that nat evolved from the rubbish bin.
Okays, that is just rubbish.
Fearfully made by God.



It is kinda sad that i still haven mastered my focusing.
Its a nice expression, forever sealed in a lousy focus photo.
And the photographer is guilty of it.



This is the epiphany of retarded but joyful people.
Noticed i tried to look through the cover of the lens, ian spas face, and nat retarded enough to stand with two retards?


Ian looking gay photo series.



"Yeah i know i am gay!"



Does'nt Ian just look retarded?
I can hear him laughing as i type this.



"Huh retarded?!"



Thats all from me folks.


Now i know why Ian is so excited over film.

--

"Within proximity. Does it hurt?"
I will remember the first two words in that line.
Alex tee said that to me today.

One of the saddest things that can ever happen to a person.
Is that his/her spouse told him/her, i think ___ (another friend) would appreciate me more if he/her was my spouse instead of you.

Appreciate those around you.
Appreciate them to the point they feel your appreciation.
Showing appreciation is a positive reinforcement, and an encouragement.

--

You matter.



The colour tone is amazing.
Sleek.

--

I







That is why we live.



What do you think?

[I cant help but think this shot encapsulates so much emotion.
Simplicity in its innocence.]

--

What is significance?
Where do you place your significance?
There is only one place where your significance will remain constant.
God.
He is a constant.
He would valuate you at the same price every single day.
He is the one who constantly reminds us why we are significant.
Our price: Priceless

He loves all.
Yet He favours some.
Then again the value of significance remains constant.

--

Stubbornness is a way of thinking...that you are right, without any validation or support.
You just want to be right.
You refuse to be in the wrong and learn from it.
And stubborn people are hard to live with.
God loves them all the same.
Thank God.

Persistence is thinking that you are right because you are convince by the evidence you collected, and the experiences you went through is your validation.
Yet persistence cannot prove to be the ultimate truth, you might still be in the wrong.
Because we are susceptible to be clouded in deception, as we are led to believe in various ways.

Perception gives a reason for persistence to exist.
Persistence proves your conviction.
Yet your conviction might not be backed by truth.
So what is truth?
What determines truth?
I guess your conscious be a good indicator.
God created conscious anyway.
Yet we are so easily misled.

--

The two people i want to meet up most before this year ends, is
Alex tee and Joshua sho.
Followed up by Geraldine Chang.
Oddly.

"No one would have thought we were good friends."

I'll remember that.
[Smile]

It was sure defining.

I found out the word, its prevalent.

Men have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less.

Fyodor Dostoyesky



An official with one building company said, "We sell what nobody needs."
That's the world we live in.
But the problem of the human heart is: we need what nobody sells.

Contentment does not come when we acquire enough.
It is a product of the way we think.
"It could have been worse."

The train most people ride on is called more. And the station called satisfaction.
What if,
The train is called contentment, and the station called heaven?

John Ortberg.

I am filled with gratitude.
I thought i lost certain people in my life.
Precious people.
I guess, God preserved those friendships.

--



This is how i choose to live my life.
Because i chose Christ.
He Purchased Freedom for me through his blood.
Blood that soaked the tree.

People matter.
They matter so much he is willing to die for all.

--

I bought an album, after 3 - 4 years?
Near The Parenthesis - Of Soft Construction.

And i am totally in love with it.

--

This photo is silent.
Yet it is so LOUD.



I must say, i am tired of initiating towards certain people.

Human nature would say, if you don't value me, i will not value you.
Jesus nature would say, even if you spit at me, i will not give up on you.

Yet, still show some appreciation by initiating eh?

--

In this world, there are two kinds of Christians.

Those Christians who talk about the lost.
Or
Those Christians who talk to the lost.