Heavenly Father
I know that I have sinned against you
my sins have separated me from you
I am truly sorry
I now want to turn away from my past sinful life and turn to you for forgiveness
Please forgive me, and help me avoid sinning again
I believe that your son, Jesus Christ, died for my sins, was resurrected from the dead and is alive
He hears my prayer
I invite Jesus to become the Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart from this day forward
Please send your Holy Spirit to help me obey You
and to do Your will for the rest of my life,
In Jesus' name I pray, Amen
Friday, October 31, 2008
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Sin (Part II)
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Hey Guys... Let's go on to Sin Part (II)
Ok... So for christians who really love God... What does Sin mean to us??? To put it very simply, it damages our relationship with God... But its only indirectly... Noo.. God wouldn't punish us for our sins anymore but God will try to change us... And that may be a very painful process that almost seems like punishment.... Ok.. So what if we sin?? Leaving everyone else out of the picture, how will we be affected? Let's look at a very earthly example... A boy was really really naughty.. He loved to throw tantrum, disturb everyone until it drove them nuts and of course, cry until he gets what he wants.. Even though his parents told him not to, he still insists on doint it.... So one day, the boy and his parents were shopping. And the boy saw a toy he really really wanted.. So he used his sweetest possible voice to ask his parents... His parents thought about it and said.. "No.. You've been misbehaving.. So unless you change, I won't buy the toy for you". The boy begged and cried... He said sorry numerous times... But do you think his parents would give in to him??? No! But subsequently, he changed over the months and became a well-behaved boy.. His parents saw the improvement in behaviour and decided to buy it for him... The boy didnt even have to ask for it that time and the parents willingly got what the boy wanted! Ok.. So how does this relate to God and us? God is the parent, The boy is us, His children.. The naughty deeds are our sins and the toy is our blessings and prayers requests... I believe you can figure the rest out... So do you ever wonder why.. when you pray for something, the prayer doesnt get answered? Its not that God doesnt hear your prayer... But maybe there's something that is stopping God from answering your prayers? I remember my pastor always says, before you pray, confess your sins before you make the prayer request.. Well, i think its not just confessing our sins.. Its confessing our sins and CHANGING to stop doing that sin. Before God really answers... So in conclusion, all im trying to say is.. Sin stops God from pouring all the potential blessing that could be bestowed unto us...
Ok.. But how does it damage our relationship with God? I mean even though God doesnt shower us with as much blessing, we would still love our Father God, right? So what actually damages that relationship? Right! The devil... Sin is the devil's trump card on both christians and non-christians... For non-christians, its well, not going to heaven.... But for christians, its the lies that the devil can conjour up from your sin.. "God doesnt love you anymore" "You're a dirty creature, you don't deserve God's love".... The devil might not tell you that in an audible voise but the minute you feel that you're drifting away from God because of your sins.. SNAP! You've fallen into the devil's trap.. And from there, the devil drags you further and further until you don't know God anymore... Its not that God let you go... But its YOU who chose to let go... You felt inferior and non-deserving of God's love and that's why you left God.. And God doesnt force you to stay if you wanna go...
Ok... So you're trapped in a never ending cycle of sin... how will you change that? Well, you have to believe that God will change you, And don't think that you can change it yourself. Coz you can't. Pray about it... And keep holding on to God... And God will change you. He'll give you time to seek him... But if all else fails and he has to hurt your pride or reputation to stop you from commiting such a sin again... He will... And trust me, it wouldn't be nice... Examples? Pastors who have "fallen from grace". If God can lift you up, he can break you down as well... So turn from you're sins while God's mercy still shine on you... Yup.. That's all... Have a great weekend! Maybe I'll round up the topic of sin on the next post.. :)
Firestorm thanked jesus at11:43 PM
Saturday, October 25, 2008
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Sin (Part 1)
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Hey Everyone!! Today, we're gonna talk about a simple subject.. Sin...
You must be wondering... Hmmm... What can i talk about Sin that can take an entire post?? I mean If you sin, just confess and repent, right?? Well, to summarize things... Yes...
But now, we're going to examine the nature of Sin... And why it is so destructive to a christian in this time if God has already died to cleanse us.... Let's start with its origin...
The Origin is, of course, Lucifer... One of the best angels in his time... Until Sin got to him... Apparently he had too much air in his head and decided he could be better than God(Ezekiel 28:13-19). Yup... Though the first Human that sinned was Eve(Not Adam.. If Genesis was in chronological order), Lucifer was the first "creature" that sinned... And from then on... God put a curse on the Earth... Everyone sins... bla bla bla... You know the drill... But before that... God had a plan... A plan to bring man and God back together... Genesis 3:15..And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.. And who is the woman? Mary!! Her offspring is Jesus! And Jesus will crush Satan.... God planned it in the beginning....
The there was the passover during Moses time and the sacrificing of a lamb for the covering of Sins... All these acts was significant of the coming events... That the Lamb of God was to die for us and to cleanse us from Sin...
Alrighty... Now let's fast-forward to Jesus crucifiction.. That saddest story(yet happiest) story in the whole wide world... When Jesus died for our sins... You know the Easter story... Then God torn the veil between the Holy Place and Holy of Holies(In the tabernacle). This signified that we could come to God anytime we wanted and God had made us clean! Also explained in John 3:16...For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Ok.. That was the introduction.. Get ready for the real thing...
When God died for our sins.. He died for all our Sins, including future ones...When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins (Col 2:13). Some people say that God only cleansed us of our sins we've done so far.. And not our future ones... But think about it... Let's say you were being rude to your parents in the morning.. You were angry of them and you havent asked for forgiveness from God. But then, in ur anger, you forgot to look at the traffic light and got banged down by a car(touchwood). You went to heaven and you still have the sin of disobeying your parents. You love God very much though.. Would you still enter heaven? My answer is yes.. Do you think Papa God will be that unreasonable? I don't think so....
So does that mean we can abuse God's grace and keep sinning when we have become a christian? Well now, let's explicitly look at the term Christian....
Being a christian means being a follower of Christ (to try to be like Him everyday) and accepting God's forgiveness. Both of these come hand in hand. If you are a follower of Christ, you have to accept God's forgiveness, If you have accepted God's forgiveness... You must be a follower of Christ.. If you have accepted God's forgiveness and do not try to be like Jesus(by always sinning), you are not a Christian... And you will NOT receive salvation... Get the idea??
From here on, im going to get a little bit harsh... But i don't want to distort the truth and the realness of the situation.
Whoever came up with the "Once saved, Always saved" theory was crap... Those are lies of the devil which you should reject.. Its completely not found in the Bible! So this is a grave warning for those of you who are Sunday christians. You don't try to imitate Christ! All you do is come to church on Sunday, act like you're all Holy Woly, go back into the world, doing your worldly things! You smoke, you gossip, you have Ungodly sex, you envy, you deny Christ, you tease, you use the most "flowery language" possible. You have no intention of changing and say this is your way of living...You go to church again and say a quick "God, forgive me of everything I've done". Then in all seriousness, im going to tell you this. You are not going to Heaven. God doesn't act like a person who give free tickets into Heaven. It's not like he says "Offer me your Sundays and you will be saved". God says "Follow me in my ways, imitate me, then you will be saved". Basically that sentence is what summarizes "Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me Luke 9:23."
While searching for this verse i've come across so many lies on the internet... "Believe in Christ, Confess your sins and you will be saved!". Everyone is soooo bought into John 3:16 that that seems to be the only verse thay know! Can you see what the devil is doing here?? He's abusing Bible verses! Just like what he did to Jesus while he was in the desert, fasting for 40 days! The only thing that is different is... God knows how to rebuke those verses but man does not! As long as man sees something that he is happy with.. He hugs onto in and that seemed to be the only doctrine they know! We don't see people harping on Matthew 7:21...Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. It is no wonder God says "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!" In verse 22 and 23. The 'many' people that God is referring to here might not be only the well-known false prophets, but also the 'regular' christians who had been deceived into thinking 'just believing is enough to get me into heaven ". Sad thing is, they do not know they are false prophets. They just follow everyone else blindly! And when these christians perform miracles in God's name, Satan was actually performing the miracle. The worser part is they still think they are doing it in the Jesus name and continue to be deceived. The worst part is, its gonna drag more people into their lies after the people watch these miracles! The devil has the most ingeniously evil mind and i bet few people saw this coming.
I hope you see what being a true christian... And being truly forgiven means... Heaven doesn't come cheap...
Next Up: Sin (Part II).
So you really love God but you keep getting tangled in your sins. You want to change. But you just can't seem to do it. Does that mean that God has still forgiven you, since he sees the heart, and there will be no negative effects? Wrong!
Find out why on my next post...
Disclaimer: In my interpretation of Matthew 5:21-23, the interpretation is actually not found in the Bible. But I had a feeling God revealed this to me so I decided to just write it down.
Firestorm thanked jesus at10:03 PM
Friday, October 24, 2008
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Recession Times(Worrying)
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This is post is tailored to adults mostly. But when the teachings of God are the same, I think we can apply it to all ages, amen?
Due to the recent economy drop, the Lehman Brother collapsing, AIG almost collapsing, There's gonna be a recession soon and the future doesn't look so bright, I decided to write something on it, an encouragement. With both christian and world's perspective....
I know probably alot of us are worried.. Oh no.. What's going to happen to us?? What if we get sacked!! Will we still be able to provide for our families? And from there it starts to affect our mood.. We'll always carry that ever-so worried look on our faces. And in everything we do, we can't concentrate. You know what I say, I say heck with worrying. If you think about it, Will worrying do us any good? Imagine... If you were working and you were being so worried you can't concentrate. Your works get affected, Your boss catches you being unproductive in your work... Bang! You're retrenched faster! So i say relax.. Don't panic... Let things go by as it is.. Do a little bit of planning for what might happen.. But don't go worrying all day long.. White is not a good colour on someone's head. :p
If we look at it from a christian point of view, we can see the very obvious signs... The End Times. I mean look at Singapore! Ranked 25 on the HDI(Human Development Index). One of the world's most developed countries going through a recession period like that. Even the government says the future doesn't look very bright so far... Well, I think the bible has something to say about it. It isn't very direct.. But check it out...
One of the heads of the beast seemed to have a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The world was astonished and followed the beast. Revelation 13:3...
Then i was thinking.. What would be so important to the world and watching the healing of this fatal, that it would astonish the world and cause the world to follow it.... Bingo! Money! Thus leading to the conclusion that the economy is going to suffer. I've always heard of pastors and preachers saying the economy is going to be in the pits before Satan comes and rescue it... So that's where they get it from... Anyway, It says that the wound is going to be FATAL. So it really means that the economy is going to be very very very bad. Don't you see it? One of the biggest companies of America(one of the leader of the world) going broke... But you see... God will always provide for his people and you need not worry about the economy crisis. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God Phillipians 4:6. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you 1 Peter 5:7. And the whole of Matthew 6:25-34. All these are superb examples of not to worry! God will provide for everything. He won't let His children suffer... I know these verses of not worrying helped me alot during the 1st week of my 'O' levels. So i hope they would to you too..Pray about it if you really are worried and let God take care of the rest.... God Bless You!
P.S Big Thanks to this video... I got alot of insight from here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBupJR3XY6Y
Firestorm thanked jesus at7:42 PM
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Introductory Post
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Hey Everybody!
I've opened up a new blog again!
But this time, Its not about me... Its about Him!!
My Great and Wonderful Papa Jesus
I thought... Hey... This would be meaningful...
I would do my quiet time while sharing the experience to encourage others here!
Besides, God inspired me to do this when I was asleep on my bed.
And I promised him i would do it if he helped me during my exams...
He helped me a great deal... So here I am!
I'll be posting stuff related to both christians and non-christian...
Probably gonna have alot of inspiration from my Papa up there...
So enjoy the ride!!
(In the near future, I'm probably going to do an online discipleship thingy... With assurance of Salvation etc etc.. So Stay Tuned!!)
Firestorm thanked jesus at7:27 PM