Reflection of Sunday Message: Prayer

“Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:10

This past Sunday, we had the privileged of having Pastor Mike Kingsley come all the way from Uganda and preached of the goodness of God: as he shared about how a nation went through total reformation even though, through the eyes of the world, it seemed impossible. Pastor Kingsley emphasized upon the power of unified prayer and how it changed the nation’s perspective to God-first, and God leads, which consequently, brought prosperity to the people of Uganda.

Prayer has been the very core of people’s spiritual walk with God. It’s what allows a channel to take place so we can relate to the Holy One and be changed of our ways. When our hearts open to meet with God’s, His will is abundantly revealed to us. And as we were reminded from the message, His will is the bEst!

So this rises the question, if prayer is so good for us, and it connects us with God, why don’t more people do it more often.

The truth is, we live in a world that encourages everything can be accomplished if WE, ourselves put our minds to it. With the technologies we have today and the knowledge that has brought us so far, to the people of the ancient days would think that we are like gods. And dangerously, that has become the way we think.

It is true that if we do put our minds to it, we can accomplish anything! However, the issue with this picture is that if we just leave it at that, only depending upon the humanly ways, and not on God’s, we start short sighting His will, and we become subject to selfish ambitions, which we know it as the sin that brought Lucifer down from Heaven. We start missing out on what God has in store for his people as a whole as well as for each and everyone of us. Our accomplishments and its rewards will only be limited by the perception of the world and what we ourselves think is good.

But if we were to include God into the picture, into the big and small things of our lives, Heaven becomes evident to us. Jesus prayed, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The desire of God is to prosper us and give us lasting peace so the question comes down to do we want it? Do we want His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven?

The power of unified prayer is what will bring us to such nirvana, the  heavenly realm.

Mike Kingsley – Prayer

4/12 A Faith that Steers without Fear

To start off, here’s a few questions for you… Questions that hopefully doesn’t only seek out simple answers, but rather asks questions to question the question to understand the core of the questions. hahaha Confusing? good! I hope so cause that’s life as we continue on our spiritual journey.

What is Faith? What does it mean to have Faith? 
What does it mean to have the Easter Faith?

Pastor David shared a characteristic of faith that helps us understand and live a more fulfilled Christian life. He started off with recognizing the signs of the time -the issues and struggles of our current state of mind. We are at the age of Anxiety, and fear has imprinted it’s existence heavily into our lives. In some ways, it has become a virus that’s taken over the way we think, controlling our every action and decisions, leaving us without experiencing the fullness of God’s grace.

Jesus stress the importance of having this kind of faith in his ministry: ”your faith has healed you” (Mark 5), “your faith has saved you” (Luke 7) . If we have the faith as little as a mustard seed, we can move mountains! (Matt. 17) In other words, we could overcome any struggles that would comes our way.

This kind of faith is explained when Jesus invited the Children to his side: ”Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”(Luke 18). Having a childlike faith is something that has been lost over the years as people grow older and developed fear from hurtful experiences. Our trust in God weakens, where fear of this world becomes our god. However, with childlike faith, we approach life as if nothing has been corrupted. Our trust in God is innocent. The attitude of come what may is adapted! As if they’re nothing to lose, but only everything gain!

However, aside from what may seem to be blind faith in approaching fear, it’s actually not blind at all. When we overcome our fear, it is not about forgetting it all together, but it’s about realizing that we do have fear and embracing it, then approaching it with a joyful heart knowing that God is in control. (David Tsai, ppt.) This can be examplified in baptism. Part of going through a baptism is sharing a public confession of faith, testifying and dedicating one’s life to Jesus Christ, knowing nothing of what the future holds, but knowing that God will be in it. The purity of this kind of faith is what allows Christians to move forward and grow in the understanding of God and his desires. It is important to know where our struggles comes from because they become a testimony of our lives. They become a light for those who are in darkness.

“We were born to make and manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love

Although this quote explains a different context, it applies to how we as Christians are to live our lives.
Fear, as scary as the world may portray, could be interpreted as a gift from God (Prov. 9:10), for it gives us a chance to rise above our problems and become something more than we could ever imagine! Where we then can Shine for Jesus!

Easter-Hope Rising – Pastor David Tsai

*ADOPT 40 THINGS IN LIFE:*

*Health:
*
1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.
5. Make time to practice prayer, meditation and yoga..
6. Play more games.
7. Read more books than you did in 2008.
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
9. Sleep for 7 hours.
10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk every day. And while you walk, smile.

*PERSONALITY :
*
11. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12. Don't have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don't over do. Keep your limits.
14. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake.
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
18. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

*SOCIETY :
*
25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything.
28. Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

*L I F E :
*
32. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. GOD heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37. The best is yet to come.
38. When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for it.
39. Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy.

Last but not the least ….
40. Please share this with everyone you care about.

3/22 Message Recap

Ok guys, i really suck with updating this page, so what i’m gonna do from now on copy and paste my wednesday emails lol but occassionally, i’ll do more indepth updates. xD

btw: I’ll note it too. *Wednesday Email* or *Updated*
Sunday Message Recap: The Royal Law

Pastor David shared about love, and specifically, Volitional Love, a type of love that is not composed of emotions, but of the will. When someone loves through willingness, in spite of difficulties and struggles, the love can overcome any misunderstandings because it transcends beyond reasonings and earthly logic. This kind of love almost translates into the unconditional love God has for us -the mercy that we do not deserve and the grace that is freely given. Volitional Love is the human-to-human version of it.

As human beings, this love teaches us to rise above our selfishness or even religious self-righteousness to love those who are broken, and messed up, and lost, even if they are people we dislike and see no hope for. By choosing to love, the hopeless becomes hopeful.

Pastor David also preached upon a spiritual cancer that develops in us more often than not. This spiritual cancer boils in us when we’re full of ourselves. Judgment is something that everyone struggles with; especially when someone wrongs us, this Spiritual Cancer tends to create a barrier from God’s loving character that we’re call to imitate. However, with the Volitional Love, this spiritual cancer can be treated. It can be healed because mercy triumph over judgment!

I made a little poem to start the week. =]

A new week has begun,

with life, beautiful and fun!

Cuz we’re God’s daughter and son,

and His grace weighs a ton! 

(His grace weighs more! lol yea…)

3/1 Sermon Reflection

Ok, so here’s a little recap on the Sunday’s Message, Pastor David spoke upon the Greatest Commandment. As we know, the greatest commandment (singular) is Love the Lord your God with all your Heart, Mind, Soul and Strength and in Matthew, it says “the second is like it,” Love your neighbor as yourself.
I find it very interesting that Matthew would say the second part is similar because that means there’s a direct correlation between Loving God and Loving your neighbor(plus loving ourselves). As we learned from the sermon, the two parts is actually one. Why is this? Why is the commandment only one? Well, do you know that we, who are children of God, are created in God’s image? Every  one of us carries a bit of God’s essence. So this means, our neighbors (or aka, everyone created) also carries an essence of God -an image of God that has been imprinted into our very being. So, when we love one another, it pretty much means we would we would be loving God. (Matthew 25:45)That’s why it is one commandment.

Now, the focus of the message was upon the last part of the verse. Love your neighbor as “yourself.” hmm, love ourselves? This isn’t the usual type of message we hear, but I find this to be very appropriate, especially for this generation and for our church. The question of “Do I love myself?” we don’t ask that enough. Of course, I don’t think David meant this from a narcissistic point of view, but rather looking from God’s point of view, we can identify more detailed questions like ”do we take care of ourselves?” ”do we respect ourselves?” “do we have high expectations for ourselves?”  Or summing it up, ”Do we live a life satisfied with confidence under the care of God?”

I can tell you that when I got seriously sick last week, it was the result of not respecting my body. I confess that on the day i started feeling sick, I ate a lot of junk food. I consumed food not only with decrease quality, but also an increase in quantity. This is Not GOOD! the worst sort of combination. hahaha So, because of that, it  affected my health and as a result, put me out of commission. It also affected my showing love to others. (I mean, i couldn’t show any love because i was out cold and unable to leave my house.) This is one example. Of course, there are many if you think about it.

Recently, I’ve been learning about self-esteem from my Communication class. Having self-esteem can be translated to having confidence. So, when we don’t have self-esteem, we find ourselves lost. My teacher was saying that “those with lower self-esteem are less likely to enjoy their life because they shy away from opportunities that would allow them to enjoy life.” I can attest to that because In the past, I had low self-esteem issues. It was so low to the point that it practically limited me from living life and experiencing many things. Things like, not making friends in high school, or not experiencing the world, or not living the most out of my younger days -like, not going to prom because i had no guts to ask anyone. lol Well, there were actually other reasons, but It was always because of shying away from what was foreign to me that kepted from experiencing life (God’s grace).

Self-esteem! I dono about you, but I feel like this is something we all struggle with at some point in time in different circumstances. However, there is hope because God has called us to trust in Him. To not be afraid, but to live confidently under the care of God. To live knowing that we are his children! and we will inherit his kingdom. But for that to happen, we need first to show that we’re up for the task. We need to show that we can handle the responsibility. Which means, loving ourselves and loving what God has implanted within us. (Himself)

The message goes more into detail about how to love oneself: By emotionally living healthly, which means being real so that we can look beneath the surface of our lives. This then allows us to carefully explore our identity. Where in all, the purpose is to seek out God within ourselves. To love oneself so we, in return, would know how to love one another. That’s the great commandment.

Sunday Message – What Lies Beneath: A Lesson from an Iceberg

2/25 My Sickness

Condition:
For those who don’t know, I’ve been having crazy pain in my stomach. They’re pains that would put me out of commission for more than 3 days, not sleeping, not being able to go to school or work or do anything for that matter. I’ve these experienced for a while, but was never ever really able to pin point a resolution for the problem.

Backgrounds:

The possible diagnosis were stomach flu, stomach acid, indigestion, and the newest, stomach infection. Every time i went to the doctor, it was something different. I figured my case is one of those rare ones. I did stayed in a hospital for a week in Taiwan when i was really small, diagnosed with a rare disease so that was also place into consideration. Odd thing was, through blood, urine, stool tests, and even CT scan, ultrasound, mini-camera scan, everything was normal conditioned. Doctor says, I’m as healthy as a buck! But to me, the pain was not normal at all. =[ 

It is because of this condition that I was prompted to get the jaw surgery last year, hoping that this would fix and help my chewing. And now, as we have learned and see, the surgery is not what my stomach pain needs. Sure, it may be a part of a solution, but there is more.

Resolution:

As i was down with this illness, I had a lot of time to think. I thought about the problem. I thought of possible triggers and solutions. I thought about what God had to say about this. What the purpose of my circumstance. Every time it was something different, but all had an underlying message: ”Renew.” 

My jaw surgery didn’t work out because there was something else needed fixing. Something that is not of theexternal, but of the internal. My old habits of being too lazy to chew was not completely rid of. Not a new lesson, but as we know it, old habits are haaard to change. I did think about changing it after the surgery, but that only lasted for a week… I know, I know, It takes weeks to change a habit. yea… so much for that… lol i’m very forgetful ok? hahhaa

Formula:

My dad told me this. To change oneself one must start with his spirit, then to his mind, and then to his body in that order. What does he mean? Well, I’m glad you asked. First, focus your attitude to actually want to change. This is the beginning. Then plan your changes to go about keeping yourself accountable. And lastly, go actively change! Simple! Make logical sense doesn’t it!? yeah, he so smart… haha

Now of course, we can’t do any of these this without God so asking him for wisdom and strength is the first thing to go.

Ending:

So… originally, i was just going to tell you how i was doing, but i ended up sharing a testimony lol! 

Well, just to let you know, i’m a bit better now. After letting out my dookie, my stomach gave a big sigh of relief. It took a while, but God is faithful as he has engineered our body to always “renew” as a natural process.  

Encouragement:

Btw: I was just reminded that our church is doing a 40 day fast. (If you remember, the papers on the left wall at HLA) 

I encourage you all, if there’s anything in need of changing (like my old habit =), take this opportunity as we are joining hands and fasting to pray. Pray for not only your desire, but for the church, the fellowships, community, His Kingdom.

1/18 Hearing God’s Voice

Have you ever question what God’s voice sounds like? Whether his voice sounds like a man or a woman? or an all powerful roar or a faint whisper. This question, I believe is one of the most “asked” question in a religious lifestyle, yet many people have heard his voice.

When I was in college, I became interested in the in-depth version of a righteous life. From as long as I could remember, I’ve heard number of messages saying that God is constantly speaking to us. However, this claim didn’t really registered. I’ve constantly questioned what his voice sounds like, and how i would be able to differentiate his between what’s not his. If he’s everywhere, and speaks all the time, how do i identify it?

This question got me started studying more about God’s character from the bible.  I looked for definitions of God, but when i started, i realize that God cannot be limited in to definitions. If God is all powerful, all knowing, everywhere, and beyond He cannot be limited within my head. Therefore, i had to open my eyes and see God from other people’s perspective. 

(Incomplete)

The absoluteness of God is that he is perfect, and all loving, who desires peace and joy to the world with Justice. With this starting mentality, I can imagine God saying certain thinking being constant with those belief.

Hello world!

Sharing is caring, that’s my mentality. I want to share with the world my life and the things that i think about, expressing myself of all that are dear to me, the wisdom that I’m learning and the life I’m experiencing.

In the pursuit of love, joy, hope and peace, I am striving to uncover the secrets of life as I enter a journey with God. And so, with this blog, I invite you to join me.

well, then… until next post =]