Later :P

Ok yes I said I would elaborate about YAF... Well basically the point was that to be an "overcomer" for God, we have to surrender to Him everyday and even more than once a day, even. And what that means is to let the Holy Spirit come to the fore whenever we face anything doubtful like temptation, and let Jesus affirm His authority of having already overcome even the potential to sin with the forgiveness that He has already paid for with His blood. Or something like that... I know it sounds rather complicated :P

My main take-away point in YAF: God Sees Our Heart.

Today was a day that I was struck with many little thoughts. I list them down here (so as not to kill my LJ friends' pages, again :P).

In DK Worship, we sang this song and it's one of my favourites because it always, always echoes the cry of me heart and reminds me to let myself be drawn to Him...
Draw me nearer to You
Nearer to You
Fill my life with Your presence
The way You want to
'Til my soul is ablaze
Each and every day
Draw me nearer
Nearer to You

There was an announcement about the Dolous (did I spell that right?) ship coming to Singapore next two weekends and the kids seemed pretty excited about visiting. I myself am rather interested, but gahhh schedules. At any rate it's amazing, because this ship is a travelling Christian bookstore whose crew sometimes does inland missions as well. Dawny has been on Logos, the sister ship, before. But this one was apparently built two years before the Titanic and is still in running condition... Making it like the oldest surviving ship ever built, I believe. All the kids were asking how it could possibly last so long, and the adults were giggling about it being due to GPS -- God's Protection System :P I do love DK service.

We did the Holy Communion ritual before going down to the sanctuary, and there were a couple of phrases that caught my mind then -- and I was reminded of them again later when I took Holy Communion in Contemporary Service too. (Ever since young, I've been very aware of the possibility of confusing "Contemp" with "contempt", and so I never really like to say "Contemp Service"... :P)

"Free us for joyful obedience" reminds me alot of my friend Cheryl from New Creation, and how she quoted the verse about "there is now no condemnation" at just the right time I needed to hear it. Yes, we need to be reminded that we are sinners and need God's grace... but God also means for us to be "freed for joyful obedience", not grudging work. Joyful obedience! I'll have to try to apply that to my studies, Lord... :S

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" reminds me of Shu May :) I'm sure it reminds me of a few other people as well, but she comes to mind most easily because she recently commented on my blog about how it's so much easier to connect with people when you know they are Christians as well. And I find it to be so true... "blessed are those who come in the name of the Lord".

Instead of class today, we had prayer... The cynical bit of me expected the usual "bless my parents" kinda prayers as usual, and was considering bringing a bigger mat next time to kneel on, but quite quickly that bit was overcome (See? It works! :P) by God showing me how He is working even in these young children, such that they can pray with sincerity even when you think they aren't approaching God with the right amount of solemnity. Two or three prayers particularly caught me:

"Please cure my grandma from diabetes."

"Please cure my brother from his asthma, and help it not to be long-term."

"Thank You for protecting my sister when she was in Japan because I know it's cold there now."

Dear Lord... Forgive me for looking down on these Your children. I know they are Primary Four and likely to be more aware of things going on around them, but like many other adults I have discounted their ability to trust in You, to have strong and fervent faith in You. And now You have proven me wrong. Lord, help me continue to treat them like partners in this marathon of faith, not as beings who need to be coddled and spoon-fed and treated like spiritual blank slates. They need guidance Lord, but so do I and in fact I think I might need more guidance than them... And there is so much I can learn from them. Forgive me for not seeing this before Lord (or at least seeing it, but not really absorbing it into my attitude towards them).

Sometimes I find it amazing how much deeper God touches me in DK Worship than in Contemporary Service :P Thank You God for using Edmond wisely in drawing us to You.

Robin (or was it? I think it was Robin) was the Prayer Leader today, and he asked us to turn to two passages. I found these verses particularly insightful:

Ephesians 4

v29: Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.

v30: And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

v31: Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.

Ephesians 5

v1: Therefore be followers of God as dear children.

v2: And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

Actually the verses immediately after that were very good reminders too. But I decided to stop here because if I went on I would be listing all the verses in Ephesians :P

I quite like it when Reverend Kang preaches :) I pray that God will continue to give us good stewards of the Word like him.

The main point of the Bible passage (Matthew 18:21-35) was that we need mercy from God, and we need to show mercy to one another. I won't go into the details of the analogy used to signify the unpayable debt we owe, because that information is probably easily available :P But one point struck me: the fellow slaves saw that the slave who had been shown mercy did not show mercy to his fellow slave, and they were distressed and reported to their lord. This reminded me that if we see any similar injustice, it is probably also our duty to report to our Lord... He already knows it because He knows everything, but in praying and lifting up to Him injustices that "distress" us, we will be comforted that God is both just and merciful, all at once, and He will punish and save according to what He deems right.

Rev Kang's main point was that there are two faces of mercy we can use to ask if we are showing mercy: forgiveness and kindness. What struck me was when he said "Kindness in your judgement on others", because often when we think of kindness we think of acts of charity like giving money to poor people etc. But there are so many other ways to be kind, too. And judging others is most certainly one way that people are usually least kind. I must really be on the lookout for this myself.

(His story of the boy's tears was rather sad. I almost teared myself. Sounds like something one could write into a song... [Kinda like Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Old Oak Tree eh? :P])

Interesting story he shared about William Gladstone too. Not going to reproduce it here because I'm not sure of all the details, but it is a very inspiring example of how one can be warm and forgiving even in the midst of public embarrassment, which is something rather hard for me to imagine -- public embarrassment is one of my greatest fears. (I had a rather bad nightmare this morning about me going back to MGS and experiencing quite a bit of bad public embarrassment. Gahhh not to think about it.)

Two things Rev Kang said before Holy Communion also caught me:

"This is not a table for those who are righteous. If you think you don't deserve to come, then the table is for you." -->Highlighting, of course, how much we need God's mercy.

"Put God's gift of mercy into your mouth and in your life." -->I ALWAYS wondered what eating the bread and wine had to do with receiving God's forgiveness in the form of Jesus Christ. Now it makes much more sense to me. :)

So much, so much to think about. Hope that I will be able to be thinking about these insights God brings into my life as I go about my everyday activities... Perhaps this is what it means to "meditate on the word" at all times, after all. As in, not the words themselves, but the meaning and the lessons behind them.

How could You have given me
Such sweet and steadfast love?
More than what the world could see
Much more than I deserve.