But I Don't Feel Like Doing It

"Did you wake up not feeling like reading your Bible and praying? How many times today have you had to battle not feeling like doing things you know would be good for you?" the author of this post says.

An interesting read. Even as we're discovering and learning together about how to glorify God, Jon Bloom shows us that to obtain great joy at the end, we must struggle through difficulties and things that are easy to obtain promise so much but deliver nothing in the end. Some examples...

• Good food requires discipline to prepare and eat while junk food tends to be the most tasty, addictive, and convenient.
• You have to make yourself pick up that nourishing theological book while watching a movie can feel so inviting.
• You frequently have to force yourself to get to devotions and prayer while sleeping, reading the sports, and checking Facebook seems effortless.
• To play beautiful music requires thousands of hours of tedious practice.
• To excel in sports requires monotonous drills ad nauseum.

Click here to read more.

By the way, did you know that Tirza's post was the 365th post in Campus blog? One post for every day of the year! Yay!

He Giveth More Grace

HE GIVETH MORE GRACE
Annie Johnson Flint

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater
He sendeth more strength when the labours increase
To added affliction he addeth His mercy
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace
When we have exhausted our store of endurance
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father’s full giving is only begun
Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision
Our God ever yearns His resources to share
Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing
Thy Father both thee and thy load will upbear
His love has no limit, His grace has no measure
His pow’r has no boundary known to man
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again!

2 Corinthians 12:9
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Right Thinking and Right Knowing

"God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him. But that satisfaction in God does not glorify him unless it is based on right thinking and right knowing. God is all-satisfying because he’s a Father who gives us everything we truly need. And that kind of deep unshakeable satisfaction in our Father causes us to value things differently than the world. Therefore, we will love our neighbors. Right thinking with right feeling changes our behavior."

John Piper, www.desiringgod.org/blog

Prayer Request List 2/10/2009

Hello. This is the prayer request list taken on 2/10/2009.

1. Jon Chong
- test next Friday
- Christmas musical : good preparation
- mission trip : get a concrete plan

2. Wayne
- Extension of visitor pass which is expiring soon

3. Junming
- hopes mission will be a chance for campus to see reality of God
- motivation is to experience joy of serving.
- Sunday's Mid-Autumn festival celebration for Chinese Construction Workers Ministry

4. Geri
- Thank God that project has been submitted and one of the CAs is over

5. Alvin
- pray for interview result that will be out next Monday
- going for another interview next week

6. Andrew
- time management in juggling academics and many CCAs
- thank God for a CA that went unexpectedly well
- holiday away from Singapore next week
- health: have been sleeping very late regularly

7. Nick
- pray for his brother: SPM (O level equivalent)
- pray for his mum: comfort and strength

8. Simon
- pray for zeal to serve in CCWO
- pray for journey mercy to Las Vegas
- Pray for wisdom for project ending this month


In His Love,
Alvin Teo

"I Am Sending You Out as Sheep in the Midst of Wolves"

Hey, posting this on behalf of Alvin Teo :) The following is just an extract. You can read the complete post here

Six Costs of Frontier Missions
This text powerfully speaks for itself. So let me, without too much comment, focus our attention on six costs and ten blessings of being on the frontline of frontier missions. These difficulties are the kind of thing we may expect today even if in God’s forbearance we may be spared some of them. First the costs.

1. The cost of being arrested by authorities. Verses 16-18: “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.”

2. The cost of family betrayal. Verse 21: “Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death.” This is almost unbelievable: Fathers and children will so be so opposed to the Christian faith, they will want each other dead rather than believing.

3. The cost of being hated by all. Verse 22: “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake.” Be careful that you don’t elevate friendship evangelism to the point where this text makes evangelism impossible. You will be hated by all does not mean: You can’t do evangelism.

4. The cost of being persecuted and driven out of town. Verse 23: “When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next.”

5. The cost of being maligned. Verse 25b: “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.” Jesus died in our place so that we might escape the wrath of God, not the wrath of man. He was called to suffer for the sake of propitiation; we are called to suffer for the sake of propagation.

6. The cost of being killed. Verse 28: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” So they can kill the body. And sometimes they do. Don’t ever elevate safety in missions to the point where you assume that if one of our missionaries is killed we have made a mistake. Jesus said plainly in Luke 21:16, “Some of you they will put to death.”

For two thousand years, thousands of missionaries—unnamed people of whom the world is not worthy—have counted this cost and put their lives at risk to reach the lost with the only message of salvation in the world. And the reason they could do this is because the blessings so outweigh the costs.

Bible-schools in Asia are different!

Read this real insightful article on http://www.abigmission.com/. For the full article, please click on the link.

The truth is that if God did not call a person to serve as a pastor and he becomes a pastor just because he has graduated from a Bible-school, then that person is out of the will of God. And if he is out of God’s will, then how can he expect to have the leadership and empowering of the Holy Spirit when he serves, preaches, teaches, counsels and administers the church? If the pastor is spiritually dead, so will be the church. This is probably the main reason why so many churches are spiritually dead. In my travels through different countries in Asia for the past 25 years, I estimate that over 90% of the churches in Asia (excluding China) are spiritually dead. They may have been spiritually alive when they were first started by a Spirit-led man but later died when one of these “uncalled” pastors took over. The situation in China is very different because they do not have such “imported” Bibles-schools that produce career pastors. Chinese “pastors” do not get paid but they often have to pay a heavy price for serving God. Sad to say, the situation in China is also changing rapidly with the establishment of many imported Bible-schools.

Matt 16:25 The Art of Balancing The Equation

If a - b = c,
then a = b + c

That's why,


(Everything You Could Gain) - Jesus = Nothing

therefore,

Jesus + Nothing = Everything You Could Gain

(Matt 16:24-26, Phil 3:7-8)