Unity in the church

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Time to listen

I came home after a very long bus ride following a very long corporate prayer session in church on Friday. Sat next to an elderly lady who asked me if I had attended the prayer session. It turned out that we lived in the same HDB estate. She shared with me parts of her life. How she used to be a teacher. How she is now helping out as a mentor at The Helping Hand, a halfway house for drug addicts. I shared parts of my life with her. Which ministry I was serving in. What service I usually went to. Through the hour-long journey, she talked and I listened. I found it wonderfully nice to be able to have a stranger share with me about her life, what God is doing through her, and where God is leading her to serve. When it came her time to alight, she passed me a Helping Hand card with her name and handphone number on it and asked me to drop in when I am free. I'm keeping the card. :-)

The bigger picture

Life is a precious gift from God. But it has only meaning when we give it back to God; when we place all that we have and all that we are at His disposal for the sake of neighbour, nation and nations. Life is a mission. Live it up. Live it well. For Jesus. 
(from the LoveSingapore 40-day prayer booklet)

All things Egyptian

Today, leave "Egypt". Draw the line.

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Bear fruit that lasts

You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. 
John 15:16

8.30am

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Victor Hugo in his own words

A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing.

A great artist is a great man in a great child.

A library implies an act of faith.

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.

As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled.

Because one doesn't like the way things are is no reason to be unjust towards God.

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.

Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.

Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education.

Conscience is God present in man. 

Do not let it be your aim to be something, but to be someone.

Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet.

Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.

Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man.

How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said.

I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, - and the stars through his soul.

I'm religiously opposed to religion. 

Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.

It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life.

It is most pleasant to commit a just action which is disagreeable to someone whom one does not like.

It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.

Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.

Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise.

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil, to think is to do. The crossed arms work, the clasped hands act. The eyes upturned to Heaven are an act of creation.

Peace is the virtue of civilization. War is its crime.

People do not lack strength; they lack will.

Perseverance, secret of all triumphs. 

Prayer is an august avowal of ignorance.

Rhyme, that enslaved queen, that supreme charm of our poetry, that creator of our meter.

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

The learned man knows that he is ignorant.

The omnipotence of evil has never resulted in anything but fruitless efforts. Our thoughts always escape from whoever tries to smother them.

To contemplate is to look at shadows.

To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do.

To love another person is to see the face of God.

To love beauty is to see light.

To love is to act. 

When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.

Wisdom is a sacred communion.

Source: www.brainyquote.com

Purity is a personal choice

Temptation is an inevitable part of our fallen world. We can't escape the bait. The sin is not in the bait. The sin is in the bite.
- Charles Swindoll

God with us

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Live and let live

On rain

I reposted something on rain just on Facebook and decided to look up some quotes containing the word "rain". How random. How lovely. 

A wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand. I think, I too, have known autumn too long.

e. e. cummings

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.

Rabindranath Tagore

Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man's growth without destroying his roots.

Frank Howard Clark

For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain and the noise of battle. It has the power to give grief or universality that lends it a youthful beauty.

John Cheever

I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.

Pablo Neruda

I love the rain. I want the feeling of it on my face.

Katherine Mansfield

If I were running the world I would have it rain only between 2 and 5 a.m. Anyone who was out then ought to get wet.

William Lyon Phelps

Into each life some rain must fall.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

Langston Hughes

Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.

Ashley Smith

My sorrow, when she's here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.

Robert Frost

No person has the right to rain on your dreams.

Marian Wright Edelman

Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.

John Updike

Tears of joy are like the summer rain drops pierced by sunbeams.

Hosea Ballou

That's what I love. Not being interrupted, sitting in a car by myself and listening to music in the rain. There are so many great songs yet to sing.

Alison Krauss

The rain began again. It fell heavily, easily, with no meaning or intention but the fulfilment of its own nature, which was to fall and fall.

Helen Garner

The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.

Henry Beston

When I'm writing, I am concentrating almost wholly on concrete detail: the color a room is painted, the way a drop of water rolls off a wet leaf after a rain.

Donna Tartt

You should not see the desert simply as some faraway place of little rain. There are many forms of thirst.

William Langewiesche

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

- Matthew 5:43-45 (ESV)

Source: www.brainyquote.com

Are you game?

Godly character is not formed in a day. It is a journey through trials and testings.

No eye has seen, no ear has heard

Fall silent before God. Let Him cross-examine you. Ask Him to forgive you and set you free today.

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A dream so big

Pray specifically. Be still. Listen deeply.

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Live the dream

‎"You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream."
- C.S.Lewis

Addition, not subtraction

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How to give

The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life.
- Mother Teresa

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For everyone and for every need

I had a most fulfilling weekend. First, it was a very happy occasion for two of the most important people in my life (my auntie and her daughter) as my cousin held her Singapore wedding. Glory to God and may they fulfill all that God has purposed for them in their lives. Oh what a glorious day; what a glorious Name that we serve. Jesus shall take the highest honour. 


Second, it was community outreach showcase in my church today. The pastor leading that ministry was sharing about how the Lord led him in 2006 to reach out to the ex-offenders among many groups. This was followed by a group of them singing a Cantonese gospel song and a hymn in Hokkien, and one of them giving his testimony in Hokkien. He shared about how he joined gangs, recruited prostitutes, worked as a temple medium, got involved with drugs and was addicted to gambling. His breakthrough came when he and his wife attended a service and his wife responded to the altar call. He shared that he felt something burning in him and pushing him to raise his hand. So he also accepted Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. My church pastors also prayed for his deliverance and healing. And since then, he has not looked back. 


Following his testimony, my pastor went up to the stage and said: "This is what a church should be." For everyone and for every need. 

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup

If one goes looking for acceptance, recognition and fulfillment from people or things in this world, there is always the possibility of disappointment followed by bitterness and perhaps unforgiveness and a feeling that we were denied something or not given credit sufficiently. And we lose sight of what God regards as important. If we turn our eyes towards Jesus and rest in Him, then there is true contentment and joy because He is the giver of all things. All of us cannot do everything but we can each do something for God, and that is what the global church/fellowship of God is all about. The humility to remember that we are all a small part of God's tapestry and we do not see the full piece that God is weaving. It is interesting in Matthew 24 and 25 that a servant of God is "good, wise and faithful".