Hehehe, sorry, everyone. There is no particular post for today.

I wanted to upload videos but the embedding gave me some headache.

I wanted to write a story to illustrate some wisdom but in the end I realized the story did not make sense.

I am not done with the next book review too.

So, please be patient, ok? :P

It was such a wonderful time in the leaders’ meeting at Jurong West church yesterday. I experienced and learned many things. After the Attributes’ meeting, I attended the Attributes meeting. Well, I will first explain the Attributes meeting then the leaders’ meeting.

Attributes is going to have such a fantastic event this month. Just a spoiler for you all: we will turn the whole bookstore into something else :P so make sure you come down there and purchase our products, ok? :) We need to make sales too as to cover the cost of the event :D In fact, there is certain dress code for all the retail assistants. Luckily, last Monday I bought shirt and belt to help myself prepare for this event :D

Dr. Bernard taught us wonderful lessons. Here are some quotes from him:

a.) “There has to be measurable progress in reasonable time. Otherwise, we need to make substantial changes.”

b.) “Don’t confuse movement with progress. Are the activities bringing us closer to the objectives?”

Yeah, the quotes above basically deal with the issue of progress. Indeed, life has to move on, However, it has to move on to a certain goal, can’t be just any direction.

c.) “God does not put His promise in our hands. He sets in within our reach.”

In other words, we still have to stretch our hands and work toward it. So, don’t be lazy, ok?

The praise and worship session was fantastic too. In particular, we sang the song “Forever Reign” from Hillsong Beautiful Exchange album. I wept when we were singing the chorus “I am running to Your arms.” There has been just too much emotional upheaval in me. Thank God, I can always find comfort and consolation in Him. So here, I wanted to paste the video clip of the song. However, it looks like the embedding does not work at all. So, maybe you can view it on youtube? Nevertheless, do purchase the CD/DVD in Attributes too if you don’t have it, ok? :D

 

You are good, You are good
When there’s nothing good in me
You are love, You are love
On display for all to see
You are light, You are light
When the darkness closes in
You are hope, You are hope
You have covered all my sin

You are peace, You are peace
When my fear is crippling
You are true, You are true
Even in my wandering
You are joy, You are joy
You’re the reason that I sing
You are life, You are life,
In You death has lost it’s sting

Oh, I’m running to Your arms,
I’m running to Your arms
The riches of Your love
Will always be enough
Nothing compares to Your embrace
Light of the world forever reign

You are more, You are more
Than my words will ever say
You are Lord, You are Lord
All creation will proclaim
You are here, You are here
In Your presence I’m made whole
You are God, You are God
Of all else I’m letting go

Oh, I’m running to Your arms
I’m running to Your arms
The riches of Your love
Will always be enough
Nothing compares to Your embrace
Light of the world forever reign

My heart will sing
no other Name
Jesus, Jesus

Today Creation Ministries International (CMI) wrote an article about Stephen Hawking, an atheistic scientist. He has come up with a book The Grand Design, trying to explain the universe without God. Dr. Jonathan Sarfati from CMI has written a number of rebuttals to Hawking’s opinion. You can view it here:

http://creation.com/stephen-hawking-god

What attracts me the most is the fact that Hawking was initially married to a Christian wife, Jane. She clearly disobeyed God’s command by marrying an unbeliever. During their marriage and family life, there were plenty conflicts because of the two diametrically opposed worldviews. Despite such situation, she kept trying to hold the family together; she did not want to have any divorce. However, eventually Hawking abandoned her as he fell in love with another woman. Hawking’s terms were he would live with Jane and the family for some days, and for the other days he would live with the other woman.

You can view the story here:

http://creation.com/jane-hawking-music-to-move-the-stars

… It was such a heartbreaking story indeed.

And, it is such a stern warning for me: “Do not unequally yoked with an unbeliever.”… (II Cor 6:14)

Well, it’s continuation from yesterday’s post :) So, here is the conversation which took place.

Friend 1:                I had a relationship in the past. However, we broke up.

Me:                       Are you still friend with her?

Friend 1:                No.

 

That reminds me of certain conversation in Facebook which had taken place a few months ago. Roughly, it was like this.

Friend 2:               Why does a guy no longer befriend a girl who rejects him?

Me:                       I was either ignored or rejected by a lot of girls. Yet, I still befriend them.

Response 1:           That is called male’s pride

Friend 2:                Which a girl does not like.

Response 2:          What if it is the other way round?

 

Well, maybe I do not know the pain of breaking up. I only have experienced the pain of being rejected or ignored. Initially, it hurt a lot. Eventually, I am used to getting to it :P

I remember there was this girl who in the end avoided me no matter how hard I tried to approach her. Partly it was my fault when I approached her. It happened a few years ago. At the end, I decided to just stay away from her and break any contact with her. However, one day, she SMS-ed me as she had a difficulty in certain module in school. Can you guess what I did…? I helped her! :D Yes, I was able to maintain the friendship with her and even now I still befriend her.

In fact, I still befriend all the girls who did not respond to me as I had hoped :)

Well, I am not hoping of experiencing any break up in the future, of course. However, if that happens, I will try my best to still befriend that girl. My Friend 1’ experience is an insightful lesson for me.

:)

Well, if you notice, I hardly post on Saturday because I spend most of the day in the church. I put my laptop in the lab, so when I arrive at the hostel, I can’t access to this blog :P After all, I will be too tired to write anything too.

In the morning, I went to lab to play Facebook for about one hour. By the way, if you happen to play Mafia Wars, Vampire Wars, Castle Age, Egg Breaker or Naruto Shippuden Official, let’s team up and get stronger together, ok? :D Other than these games, I will usually only send gifts to people in other games whenever they send gifts to me.

In the church, I served in the bookstore. My team leader conducted a game “Fastest Finder”. Basically, we were split into several groups and each group had to find certain products in a list. Mine was team one and here was the list:

– Book by Rob Bell

– I Kissed Dating Goodbye

– Renewing the Mind

– The Power of Simple Prayer

– Who You Are When No One’s Looking

– NIRV Kids Study Bible

– NIV Gift and Award Bible

– Life Application Study Bible-NKJV

– CD with song “Happy Day”

– CD with song “You Are My Father”

-Newsboys CD

-Don Moen CD

“-_- My team could not find book by Rob Bell. We also did not know The Power of Simple Prayer was authored by Joyce Meyer. I wrongly thought the author was Stormie Omaritan!! “-_-

Pastor Bernard shared about being successful in the marketplace to attract people to God. "People do wrong because they don’t believe the right works. When you are successful, you prove to them the right works"- Dr. A. R. Bernard. When I am successful, I attract people to myself. I then show them my secret to success: God’s presence in me. Indeed, success is an interesting mean to evangelize people.

After the duty, me and some friends went to Bedok to have some dinner. We had an interesting conversation….

(to be continued. Do look forward to tomorrow’s post, ok? :D)

Hmm, CG meeting last night was super memorable. There are plenty quotes here and there from my leader, both publicly and personally to me.

1.) “Please be punctual. If you can’t make it on time, please SMS me.”

Well, I don’t think I was late. I managed to arrive a few moments before 7.45 pm. In fact, even if I had been late, I would have had the right to blame the bus. I arrived at the bus interchange at 6.55 pm and the bus departed….. at 7.30 pm!!! Anyway, I guess I will leave 15 minutes earlier from lab next time just to be safe. Also, I will SMS my leader as soon as I arrive in the bus interchange just in case the bus takes a loooooong time to depart.

2.) “If you have any important decision to make, please let me know beforehand. At least, I can give you my 2-cents thought. After I give you my thought, it is then up to you to decide.”

Of course, it does not mean the leader is trying to interfere with the members’ lives. He only tries to give a second opinion about the situation. This is because he is responsible over the well-being of the members. After giving his opinion, the responsibility now shifts to the members because they have free-will choice. Who holds the leader responsible? God Himself. God always holds a shepherd responsible over the welfare of his sheep.

3.) “(Jefri)… You move too fast, too furious, too scary…”

Well, this quote is for me personally. So, I shall not tell you the context of this quote and how it applies to me.

(Nevertheless, I am indeed fast and furious and fearsome simply because I master Flying Thunder God technique (Hiraishin no Jutsu) just like the Fourth Hokage/Minato. If he is the Yellow Flash, I am the Black Flash. Like him, I can wipe out the entire army legion in a blink of eye)

  (credit goes to Narutopedia)

 

:D

A neighboring lab was being renovated. As such, the workers painted the wall… with odorous paint!!!

I was seriously choked in the lab. I wonder how those workers would survive in the midst of strong smell of paint. It is seriously harmful for health.

Anyway, a mask saved the day.

I think I look cool in that mask :P 

A cleaning auntie passed me some food the week after Hari Raya holiday. Maybe in her house there was abundance of food on that day and she passed some to me.

 

Last Saturday my CG had fellowship at 313 after church service.

   

A labmate passed me mooncake on Monday.

This morning the same auntie passed me food again. Due to Mid Autumn Festival, maybe? :)

 

 

First conversation:

Friend 1: Jefri, next time don’t forget to get wasabe and soy sauce.

Me:        It is not as if we sit down and eat sushi. We eat it while we are standing.

Friend 1: You really do not know how to enjoy food.

 

Second conversation:

Friend 2: You should not have bought food from this stall. It is not nice. The nice one is from that stall.

Me:        Well, it tastes the same. As long as we are hungry, all food tastes nice.

Friend 2: You really do not know nice food.

 

Third conversation

Friend 3: Everyday you eat from canteen B?

Me:        Yes

Friend 3: I am quite bored with the food here.

Me:        As long as we are hungry, all food tastes nice.

Friend 3: So, you make yourself hungry all the time?

Me:       Well, labwork is stressful.

 

I really mean it. All food tastes nice as long as we are hungry. It is written in the Bible, “He who is full loathes honey, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet.” (Proverb 27:7 NIV, emphasis added). So next time, you feel the food is no longer tastes nice but it is healthy, you should make your tummy empty and eat it :P

:)

One of the heresies which once appeared in the history is Marcionism. Basically, it says that God of the Old Testament is an “evil God” whereas God of the New Testament is the “good God”. Well, if you google it, I am sure you can find many websites with rebuttals to this concept.

Still, many of us who only know a little about the context of the ancient world in Old Testament or Hebrew word may be feeling confused when we read the Old Testament. Me included. Many times I read Old Testament passages and have question marks here and there.

Nowadays, there are plenty skeptics who read the Old Testament and accuse the Bible as being an evil book, especially in the area of human sacrifice, rape, murder and slavery. However, proper understanding of the context of the ancient world and Hebrew word reveal the flaws of these skeptics’ arguments.

Christian Ministries International (CMI, my favorite website! Sorry, Attributes :P :P) has written a wonderful apologetics to answer their arguments. You can view it here:

http://creation.com/evil-bible-fallacies

Have you ever felt confused when you read following passages in the Old Testament?

Human Sacrifice

Genesis 22:1-8:              Isaac as human sacrifice?

Exodus 11: 1-2, 11, 16:   The priest threatened to kill the kids unless they are redeemed with burnt offerings?

Judges 11:29-40:           Did Jepthah really kill his daughter and use her as a burnt offering?

Rape

Judges 21:10-24:           Was it really a “rape”? Or, was it “kidnapping and forced marriage”?

Numbers 31:7-18:          What really happened to those young little virgin girls?

Deuteronomy 21:10-14:  What really happened to the captive women?

Murder

II Kings 2:23-24:            Why were the 42 young men mauled by 2 bears anyway?

II Samuel 6:3-7             Was Uzzah’s death penalty justified?

Acts 5:1-11                  Was Apostle Peter really responsible for the death of Ananias and Saphira?

Slavery

Did the Bible encourage slavery? Was “slavery” in the ancient world the same as the “slavery” we understand in modern day context?

I shall not reproduce here what CMI has written. So, you can check the link above to find the answer.

:)

 

My third book review :) although I planned it to be the fourth one.

Last year I initially bought this book to help a friend. However, at the end, I realized she actually did not need this book “-_- So, effectively I bought this book for myself.

Background of Author

As I mentioned in the second review, Pastor Phil Pringle is the senior minister of Christian City Church Oxford Falls in Sydney, Australia. He is also the founder and president of Christian City Church International (C3i). Pastor Phil is an artist and here in this book, we can see some of his artworks.

Summary

This book is more like book of encouragement. In every bad situation, be it caused by our own mistakes, or by others, or even if the cause is not clear, we can always trust God to provide the solution we need. Pastor Phil listed 38 situations in which God acted and turned trouble into triumph. He explained each difficult situation in photos, drawings and showed from the Scripture how God provided miracle in such an impossible situation.

Here are some snapshots:

         

Self Reflection

“Instead of being a victim and feeling that your past rules your life with negativity, start believing that God the Redeemer has transformed every bad thing in your life into a blessing. Believe this today!” (page 202). To me, at least this point in time, this is the statement God keeps reminding me. I experienced much failure in the past. Thank God I have got over all the feeling of disappointment. No matter how many times I failed in the past, I am sure God will do something about it. Yes, God will do something about it.

Well, what else are you waiting for? Go to Attributes and get a copy of But God today! (http://attributes.com.sg/catalogsearch/result/?q=but+god)

:)