[Monday, October 23, 2006 . Honesty]

This verse is about honesty. When a buyer purchases an object and bargains on the honest price by purposely pointing out the negative aspects of the object, he buys it at a dishonest price, because the object bought is not worth the amount of money paid. Therefore, boasting about the object like boasting about your dishonesty.

Being Christians, we have to be honest in everything we do. With buying things, we have to give the money that is worth the object. If we bargain the price and pay less than the actual price, it is as though we are taking away God’s blessings from them. Technically, this is stealing. And in one of the Ten Commandments, it is written to “not steal” (Exodus 20: 15). Furthermore, boasting about something dishonest is evil in the eyes of our Lord (Psalm 52: 1-2). However, bear in mind that honestly does not only apply to financial aspects. As written in Psalm 101: 6, God love people who are “completely honest”.

So, fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, be honest in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ! And if you do become dishonest, do not boast about it, for you are boasting your sins. Instead, repent in His Name Let your tongue speaks only of things that will glorify Him!

andrew, Me-meditating @ 12:46 am ------------
| Passion Glow Burns Bright! |
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[Saturday, October 07, 2006 . Hardworking Servant]

Hardworking Servant

Hey Devoters! Due to some requests, I have decided to revive the Christian devotion blog! Please comment on the devotions I have written. And these devotions are those in the Church bulletins, for End-Time Church of Christ in Melbourne.

Thanks for visiting this site again!!

If you spend your time sleeping, you will be poor. Keep busy and you will have plenty to eat.
[Proverbs 20: 13 (GNB)]

This verse, as commonly heard, speaks of laziness. We need to work to earn money to buy our food. If we just don’t spend your time earning the money, you will be poor and you will be physically starving.

This is the same case with spiritual food. Some people only spend time with our Lord Jesus Christ for the bare three hours in church every Sunday. To make it worse, some people just do not come to church at all. These people are the “sleepers”. Their spirits spent time on Earth sleeping without gaining much spiritual knowledge. On the other hand, some people constantly read and meditate on the Scriptures, and these people have plenty of spiritual “food” to eat. When you eat physical food, you will feel rejoice because you are energized. Similarly, when you consume enough spiritual “food”, you will find joy in the Lord (Psalm 1: 2). The Scripture also says that only when you are diligent spiritually will you flourish (Joshua 1: 8). Also, like food that we need everyday, our spiritual food is also never-ending. His Grace in His Word is new every day, and if we conscientiously seek more of it, He’ll reveal more to us.

So, don’t deprive your spirit off food! Let us be diligent in feeding ourselves with spiritual bread day and night. Let His Word shine in us and let us glorify the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ!

andrew, Me-meditating @ 11:57 pm ------------
| Passion Glow Burns Bright! |
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[Friday, July 28, 2006 . Walking with Christ]

Walking with Christ


Now, when you see Proverbs chapter 20, it is most likely to be the long version of a section of the church's bulletin, "Word of Wisdom".

So, from Proverbs 20: 7, I captured a lot of things to devote. How amazing is God's Word!

Firstly, we believe as Christians that God made us to be His children, Amen? "The godly walks with integrity". What does "integrity" mean? According to the dictionary, it's having a complete moral character. And according to the Holy Scripture, no one else except our Lord Jesus Christ has perfect integrity. We, as God's children, have to walk beside Him in everything that we do. If we (children) are "after" Him, we would be blessed abundantly by Him. So, like a father who wants his child to follow his advice, we have to follow God's advices (His Word = the Bible) closely.

If a child failed to do so, the father will be disappointed in his child, wouldn't him? Again, same case with Jesus Christ! But the only different thing with Christ is that He forgives us. But remember that we have to seek for His forgiveness - repent. And repent SINCERELY! This means that we must not purposely fall into sin, just because God will forgive us if we apologize. In fact, He has limits to our sins too!


Secondly, the verse said, "blessed are the children after them", and not, "blessed are the children after Him". You may ask why since Christians only worship one God. This is because we are supposed to chase after, not only Christ, but also our brothers and sisters in Christ that reflects Christ in their life. We are supposed to be the follower of the elders!

Then what? Stay as followers only? Certainly not!

We have to become a leader and lead the rest of the new Christians to Christ. We need to be the "godly [who] walks with integrity". Share His blessings with the others. Spread His Good News with everyone else!

So, now, follow Christ and all the other devoted followers in searching the Face of Christ! And then, spread them back to the new devoters! Be a follower of Christ. Then be a leader of other Christians!

God bless you!

andrew, Me-meditating @ 10:07 pm ------------
| Passion Glow Burns Bright! |
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[Friday, July 21, 2006 . Being Faithful]

Being Faithful


My cell group discussed about this just now. And I have so many things to say about this topic: Faith.

Firstly, think about what is your definition of "faith in God". For me, faith is a strong belief in something or someone. This belief is seen and heard not by the physical eye and ear, but from the eye and ear of your heart - what does God let you see and tell you.


Well, His Word is very important in maintaining your faith in Him. In Genesis 2: 16-17, God specifically told Adam not to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But because the serpent (devil) told them that they will not die, which is the opposite of what God said, Adam and Eve was tempted to eat the fruit, for it looks so delicious. The temptations let them fall into evil desires: disobeying God. Result? They fell short of God's glory for they sinned against God. They did not follow God's Word, and they "died".

Hmm? Died? Snow-White-and-poisonous-apple died?

No!

There are two concepts of death that are brought up in the cell just now:
1) Death of your spirit: God no longer has full control over your body, soul, heart and mind. Evil has taken part of it, for you have accepted the word of the devil. So, disobidience of God leads to death of the spirit.
2) Death of relationship between you and God: You have sinned to God. You are no longer Holy. God is Holy. He doesn't mix with sins (Ci Maria in my church used the symbolism of God and sins as water and oil - never soluble). Our relationship is broken.

But! Jesus came and took all of our sins! God gave us one more chance to rise up to Him THROUGH HIS SON, OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST! If we have faith in the Trinity, we could gain salvation.

So, ultimately, what is faith?

Just now, we played a game: we are split into 2 groups and one person in each group is blindfolded. The person has to find an item around the room with the guidance of the other people in your group. Trust me: it's hard to figure out which group screams what? The point of the game? There are 3 lessons we learn from this game:

Lesson One: Parts of faith
One part of faith is believing. When the person in the blindfold is led in darkness, he or she will not ask "Why?" to any advice the teammates give. The person just follows the advice. So, we need to follow God's advice just like that.
Lesson Two: Identifying God's Voice
Our thoughts are normally bombarded by decisions from different aspects of our lives: knowledge (of good and evil), personal belief, moral values, instincts, the Bible, etc. So, which is God's voice? Duh~! The Bible! We follow His Word! If the blindfolded person follows the direction of the wrong team because they hear the wrong voice, he or she will be led astray.
Lesson Three: We need God!
Imagine that we play this game alone in the group. We have no voice to lead us to the item. We till wander across the room, just that we wander in darkness, reaching out for things we don't know what it is. But the game has others who is advicing you to where to go. Thank God for that! For He is the One leading you! Well, just think the room as Earth. The Earth is in darkness. Your teammates are One God. And the item is Heaven (ultimate salvation). God is shouting to us, like out teammates. Without Him, we are wandering around the Earth, knowing and seeing nothing! We are blinded by our sins. We need God's voice! We need Him!!!

This is why Adam and Eve sinned against God: they heard and follow the wrong voice! Remember that Satan is not a liar, but a tempter. He tempts people to fall short of God's Glory. This is why it is difficult to hear the voices in our hearts. God and Satan speaking in 2 voices, telling you opposite things. So, how to know which is which?

Pray! When praying, you are communicating with God alone. Satan is not involved! Be focused to your prayer and you'll hear God's Voice telling you what to do. Note that our God tells things in unique ways. Believe me! I experienced it once when God tells me to surrender any problems to Him through my friend. And I have to say that the experience when you do so is SO amazing!

And don't look at faith like a heart. Faith cannot be counted. Doesn't mean if you have "one" faith, that's enough. There's no "one" to faith. "One" is never enough! Neither is "millions". We must have "infinite" faith - i.e. complete faith in our Lord Jesus Christ!


Temptations and problems (and doubts) also shakes our faith if we are not strong. When we are weak in our faith, we tend to be destroyed (collapsed) by evil temptations or problems. In these verses, we can see that Peter has little faith in Jesus, because when he saw the wave, he was afraid and thought that he might sink. He is forgetting one thing: walking on water is God's Will for him! Jesus is by his side! The same thing happens. When we are in trouble, we tend to forget God and follows our own instincts. This is wrong. We have to live, in bad times and good times, in God. How? Through God's Word - The Bible! That's what Romans 10: 17 says.

Now you know what is faith, pray that God will strengthen your faith in Him. Seek Him and His Word every day! Make a strong faith be your strong foundation, so that it will not be destroyed like Peter's in a storm.

God bless you!

andrew, Me-meditating @ 10:35 pm ------------
| Passion Glow Burns Bright! |
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[Thursday, July 20, 2006 . Human Loyalty]

Human Loyalty


Do you think you have a best friend that will has stayed loyal and faithful for your WHOLE life? Yes? Well, believe me and the Holy Scripture, unless your answer is Lord Jesus Christ, you are wrong!

Think of your best friend:
- Do you know him/her from you are born?
- Are you always in good terms with him/her (not in a fight before)?
- Can you tell that he/she will be loyal to you in the future, FOREVER?

Well, if any one of them is "No", then you have just proofed yourself that the Holy Scripture is right.

You may want to be the most loyal person in the world, but the truth is no one has perfect faith. No human is perfect. Perfect loyalty doesn't exist for any human. This is because our hearts are not Holy; our heart contain at least a little portion of the devil. There's no perfect friend.

Or is there?

There is one - only One: Lord Jesus Christ! He knows us from we are born! In fact, He knows us before we are born. He selected each and every characteristics we possess now and formed us Himself, in His hands. Even though sometimes you might sin against Him, He forgives you. He wants your relationship with Him to be continuous and strong! And finally, He dwells in every follower's hearts forever, and His Faith will multiplicatively grow in us, as long as we promise to be faithful to Him forever!

So, how do we grow in Him, so that we can let Him grow in us? Simple! We seek His Strength to burn the passion in us for Him. So, praying is essential in seeking God's Faith. It is obvious that communication with any friend is needed to maintain faith with him or her. This is the same concept with our Lord Jesus Christ. We need to invite the Holy Spirit to enter our body to take over our hearts, for only God's spirit can perfect our faith in Him!

Now, do you think you need a loyal friend? Seek our Lord Jesus Christ today! He's our Savior, our King, and most of all, He's our Best Friend! AMEN!

God bless you!


andrew, Me-meditating @ 8:03 pm ------------
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[Sunday, July 16, 2006 . Your Foundation]

Your Foundation


I just has a sermon today about basics in Christianity. This is important in strengthening yourself in Christ, for the foundation itself determines the condition of the building it holds, as depicted in Jesus' teaching in the verses above. For non-believers, this is where you should start if you want to follow Christ!

Now, for believers, take a minute or two to reflect on your life in Christ.


Well, this verse says it all. Where to start? His Words! The Bible! Now, reflect on your life in Christ again. Have you done what He wants you to do? If not, start with the Bible! One should be prepared to face anything that the evil will unleash upon you, for what the evil will unleash is never stronger than God. Thus, they are never stronger than His Word. Fight them using the Word of God! For in John 1: 4-5, it was told that His Word is a Light that never extinguishes the dark. If we have this "torchlight", we can defeat all darkness (evil).

Truthfully, I have not been reading the Bible ever since school starts. But I try to make it one of my activity. This is what this blog is for. I thought that if I could not meditate on a chapter in a day, I could at least meditate on one verse and apply it on my life somehow. I want to share what I feel with others this way.

Back to foundation: Make His Words be a part of you. How? My church has the blessing of God through Pastor Tim Goh. He thought us how to read the Bible effectively during this year's Bible Camp. And I think I should spread this to the world: SOAP (Scripture - Observation - Application - Prayer). Have a notebook with you.

1) Scripture: When you are reading the Bible, and a verse or a group of verses attracts you, write it down in the notebook and the reference of the verse in the Bible.

2) Observation: What do you make out of this verse that attracts you? What does God want you to know?

3) Application: How could this part from the Word of God be applied in your life? When can it be applied? To whom?

4) Prayer: Say or write down a prayer to God, asking Him for His help in applying His Word to your life. Seek His Strength to continually grow in Him.

This way, the Bible or Word of God is literally alive! Also, don't just write it down: Act it out! For if you don't use it, you'll lose it! Spreading the Word of God is very important. Sharing is love. You should make your daily conversation with others and the actions you do to others be a reflection of God's Word. Let others see the Jesus in you! God will be glorified this way!

God Bless You!

andrew, Me-meditating @ 11:34 pm ------------
| Passion Glow Burns Bright! |
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[Saturday, July 15, 2006 . Respecting Others]

Respecting Others


Well, this just occurred to me a few hours ago. First, when I read this, I thought that the main idea is to not kill a person. But, when I thought about it, it was saying to me another thing: we are created in God's image!

The point? We respect God, right? So, we need to respect others, for other people are created in God's image!

There is another evidence in the Bible that says we are created by God and we are part of God.


God breathed into human and we became alive. We are a part of Him. Thus, all humans that He creates is an image of Him! If we want to respect Him, we have to respect others too! If we want to love Him, we have to love others too!

Genesis 9: 6 literally says that we must not kill anyone because killing anyone symbolically means that we are killing God. This is actually not just for killing others. If you sin against a person, you are sinning against a living being created in God's image, or plainly, sinning to God Himself. So, if we don't want to sin against God, we should not sin against other people!

And I mean everyone! Not just believers or non-believers. We have to have equal respect to everyone, for God's Love is not divided unequally. He is just to everyone. So, we must also be just to anyone and everyone.

So, what can we do to not sin? Respect and love others. For loving others is loving God's Creation and thus respecting God. Now, change the way you look at others. Before disrespecting anyone, remind yourself who they are - they are living beings in God's image!

God Bless You!

andrew, Me-meditating @ 12:13 am ------------
| Passion Glow Burns Bright! |
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[Friday, July 14, 2006 . His Amazing Love]

His Amazing Love


Well, I'm still in the book of Genesis, so I'm going to start here for my first meditation.

To me, this is a powerful verse. The 'sacrifice' the verse is refering to is the sacrifice of animals for the Lord God by Noah, just after he exited the ark after the storm. And God was pleased with his offering. Thus, this shows that Noah loves God and God loves Noah too. Then, God made a promise to himself that he will not destroy living things, EVEN THOUGH WE ARE BENT TO EVIL FROM CHILDHOOD! Why?

Because God loves us! Simple!

God cares for us, even though we don't have a pure heart for Him. Even though one may be blinded from Him by anything, He still loves that person! However, the difference is in salvation - the person who doesn't believe in Christ and does not love Him will not receive salvation.

Still, God loves us - for WHO we are, and NOT WHAT we are! God knows that everyone, except Jesus Christ, was born to this Earth with sins already in us. But His Amazing Love dwells in us despite the sins, for He has chosen to make us Himself. If He doesn't love us, why did He choose us?

There's only one thing to do to repay His love: Love Him! Like Noah, we have to love God like He loves us! We must have the burning passion to be closer and closer to Him day by day. That's the key to relationship - not only with God, but with anyone. How to be close to God? The most basic thing: Pray! Make Him be a part of everything that you do! For He wants you to follow His Way. His Way is Love! And love through whom? Christ Jesus, that's whom! The Holy Son of the Lord God! Love Him, Love His Son! That's why this blog is named: One Way - Jesus!

I really thank God for showing His Love. He opened up my heart. So, let Him open yours!

God Bless You!

andrew, Me-meditating @ 12:12 am ------------
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[Thursday, July 13, 2006 . Devotion Blog]

Devotion Blog

This is me-meditation blog. A blog of passages for Christian devotion. I'm still a very young Christian, so, please correct me if I say anything wrong.

I want to reach out to any non-believers in the world, because I think I should pay back what I have received from Him and His children, my friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ. So, please meditate with me when reading this blog. Wouldn't take long, I promise.

However, this will not be a daily devotion. I promise that I will try to meditate when I'm free.

And since I have not had the chance to read a lot from the Bible, I will only meditate on one verse per entry. However, I will see the different aspects of life and application to life.

So, please devote with me. Comment on the devotions.

Thanks!

God Bless You!!!!

andrew, Me-meditating @ 11:33 pm ------------
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