|
BPGC-Ehpesians Birthdates! QiQi - March 17th Sherwin - June 8th ShaoNing - July 18th WeiSong - August 2nd Huey - August 27th LiuYi - August 28th Xueyun - September 7th BoHan - September 18th WeiXin - October 14th ZiXin - October 30th Christopher - November 28th JiBing - December 21st previous posts What's more important to you? The Gifts? or the Gi... Rethinking Spiritual Growth Behind the Scenes Automatic ‘A’ from God True & Better Another Day Without the Return of the King Glorifying God in All You Do Do what your hearts says? Nice wallpapers the past July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 January 2010 February 2010 March 2010 April 2010 July 2010 September 2010 October 2010 November 2010 January 2011 February 2011 March 2011 April 2011 May 2011 June 2011 September 2011 People We (should) Know! :x Daune DeZhang Edna Eunice GeokLan HueyFen JieLing Johnson LiangFa Pengs ShaoNing SuLing Group blogs!
We talk... Our Updates & Thanksgivings! HueyFen - ShaoNing -TG:rain stopped aft for so long!! :) -TG:had time to catch up with secsch/jc friend (will share with the girls next time! -PR:final year project! able to ovecome laziness and procrastination, and rly work hard for the project. part 1 due in 2 weeks time and its graded 25%! Chris - Pengs -PR:Good health throughout CNY!! JiBing - WeiSong - Sherwin - LiuYi -PR:Study for God and let Him lead thru this year. YanYi - XueYun -TG:Thank God for new year. -PR:Everyone to have enough rest. QiQi - WeiXin - ZiXin -
Our Prayers requests JiaYan -Know what to do in future. -Work hard in bible study. -Faithful to work in church. Chris -Will meditate on God's Word daily. -Start to memorise verses. Pengs -Time management, as having holidays now. -Continue to stay close to God. JiBing -Able to know whats God's plan in life. WeiSong - Sherwin - BoHan - LiuYi -Art mock exam coming thurs -Wisdom in coping with all the subject -Take good care of own body XueYun - QiQi -Willingness to step out of comfort zone and get to know abt more ppl. WeiXin -Able to serve God with a willing heart. ZiXin -Discipline in not procrastinating. -Wisdom and strength from God for daily stuffs.
Credits Base code:OHsaygoodbye Image: sxc.hu |
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 ( Lost - John Piper @ 9:35 PM ) Lost from AsiaLink HistoryMaker on Vimeo. 0 comments Thursday, September 22, 2011 ( What's more important to you? The Gifts? or the Gifter? @ 10:01 PM ) Hi Guys, hope this video is a good reminder for us! Let's look to the Gifter, not the gifts. 0 comments Sunday, June 12, 2011 ( Rethinking Spiritual Growth @ 8:26 PM )  The gospel has me reconsidering the typical way we think about Christian growth: spiritual measurements and maturity; what it means to change, develop, grow; what the pursuit of holiness and the practice of godliness really entails. Let Grace Kill Your Natural Instinct In his 2008 movie The Happening, writer, producer, and directorM. Night Shyamalan unfolds a freaky plot about a mysterious, invisible toxin that causes anyone exposed to it to commit suicide. One of the first signs that the unaware victim has breathed in this self-destructing toxin is that they begin walking backwards—signaling that every natural instinct to go on living and to fight for survival has been reversed. The victim’s default survival mechanism is turned upside down. This, in a sense, is what needs to happen to us when it comes to the way we think about progress in the Christian life. When breathed in, the radical, unconditional, free grace of God reverses every natural instinct regarding what it means to spiritually “survive and thrive.” Only the “toxin” of God’s grace can reverse the way we typically think about Christian growth. It's What We Do When it comes to measuring spiritual growth and progress, our natural instincts revolve almost exclusively around behavioral improvement. But what’s at the root of this good and bad fruit? What produces both the bad and good behavior Paul addresses here? A Matter of Belief Every temptation to sin is a temptation, in the moment, to disbelieve the gospel–the temptation to secure for ourselves in that moment something we think we need in order to be happy, something we don’t yet have: meaning, freedom, validation, and so on. Bad behavior happens when we fail to believe that everything we need, in Christ we already have; it happens when we fail to believe in the rich provisional resources that are already ours in the gospel. Conversely, good behavior happens when we daily rest in and receive Christ’s, “It is finished,” into new and deeper parts of our being every day. Colossians 3:5-17 provides an illustration of what takes place on the outside when something deeper happens (or doesn’t happen) on the inside. Going Backward for Progress In Philippians 2:12, when Paul tells us to, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” he’s making it clear we’ve got work to do—but what exactly is the work? Get better? Try harder? Clean up your act? Pray more? Get more involved in church? Read the Bible longer? Clearly, it’s not a matter of whether or not effort is needed. The real issue is Where are we focusing our efforts? Are we working hard to perform? Or are we working hard to rest in Christ’s performance for us? He goes on to explain: “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (2:13). God works his work in you—which is the work already accomplished by Christ. Our hard work, therefore, means coming to a greater understanding of his work. In his Lectures on Romans, Martin Luther wrote, “To progress is always to begin again.” Real spiritual progress, in other words, requires a daily going backwards. The Work of Belief Christian growth does not happen by working hard to get something you don’t have. Rather, Christian growth happens by working hard to daily swim in the reality of what you do have. Believing again and again the gospel of God’s free, justifying grace everyday is the hard work we’re called to. This means that real change happens only as we continuously rediscover the gospel. The progress of the Christian life is “not our movement toward the goal; it’s the movement of the goal on us.” Sanctification involves God’s attack on our unbelief—our self-centered refusal to believe that God’s approval of us in Christ is full and final. It happens as we daily receive and rest in our unconditional justification. As G. C. Berkouwer said, “The heart of sanctification is the life which feeds on justification.” Growth in Grace 2 Peter 3:18 succinctly describes growth by saying, “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Growth always happens “in grace". The truest measure of our growth is not our behavior, it’s our grasp of grace–a grasp which involves coming to deeper and deeper terms with the unconditionality of God’s love. It’s also growth in “the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” This doesn’t simply mean learning facts about Jesus. It means growing in our love for Christ because of what he has already earned and secured for us and then living in a more vital awareness of that grace. Our main problem in the Christian life is not that we don’t try hard enough to be good, but that we haven’t believed the gospel and received its finished reality into all parts of our life. Take the Focus Away from You Gerhard Forde insightfully (and transparently) calls into question the ways in which we typically think about sanctification and spiritual progress when he writes: Am I making progress? If I am really honest, it seems to me that the question is odd, even a little ridiculous. As I get older and death draws nearer, I don’t seem to be getting better. I get a little more impatient, a little more anxious about having perhaps missed what this life has to offer, a little slower, harder to move, a little more sedentary and set in my ways. Am I making progress? Well, maybe it seems as though I sin less, but that may only be because I’m getting tired! It’s just too hard to keep indulging the lusts of youth. Is that sanctification? I wouldn’t think so! One should not, I expect, mistake encroaching senility for sanctification! But can it be, perhaps, that it is precisely the unconditional gift of grace that helps me to see and admit all that? I hope so. The grace of God should lead us to see the truth about ourselves, and to gain a certain lucidity, a certain humor, a certain down-to-earthness.The more I focus on my need to get better the worse I actually get. I become neurotic and self-absorbed. Preoccupation with my performance over Christ’s performance for me makes me increasingly self-centered and morbidly introspective. The more I focus on my need to get better the worse I actually get. I become neurotic and self-absorbed. Preoccupation with my performance over Christ’s performance for me makes me increasingly self-centered and morbidly introspective. It Truly Is Finished By all means work! But the hard work is not what you think it is; the hard work is washing your hands of you and resting in Christ’s finished work for you. Progress in obedience happens when our hearts realize God’s love for us does not depend on our progress in obedience. The real question is: What are you going to do now that you don’t have to do anything? What will your life look like lived under the banner which reads, “It is finished"? Answer on Facebook. Labels: Assurance, Change, Forgiveness, Freedom, Gospel, Jesus, Sanctification, Sin, Spiritual health 0 comments Wednesday, June 8, 2011 ( Behind the Scenes @ 12:13 PM )  Most people judge by a person’s exterior. God is more impressed by the unseen. Samuel received a gentle rebuke from God when he was trying to discover which of Jesse’s sons he should anoint as king: “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). People might be impressed by actions, but God is far more interested in what goes on behind them. We read, “The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed” (1 Samuel 2:3) and, “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit” (Proverbs 16:2). God is interested in your motivation When you’ve come to the end of your life, you’ll receive an appraisal based not so much on your achievements as your motivation. God is looking for more than success. He’s interested in the secret motivation of his individual servants: “Each one’s work will become manifest…because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Corinthians 3:13–15). Well done You can have a great career, you can bask in the praise of men, but nothing will ever compare with the “Well done” that comes from God. Imagine being praised by God! That prospect must be one of the most exciting in the entire universe! Surely it is your highest desire: to live to please God and, at the end, to hear his words, “Well done, good and faithful servant … Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21). I have had some exciting days. I remember the day I was saved. I remember the day I got married and the days when our children were born. I remember tremendous, exciting days in my life, days to treasure. But there will never, ever be a day to compare with the day when I hear God say, “Well done.” The final curtain call When the curtain rises for the last time, there will be a great turning around. Jesus said, “So the last will be first, and the first last” (Matthew 20:16). The people who wanted and received their acclamation from men will be disappointed when they meet God; those whose hearts were truly seeking after righteousness will be rewarded. Taken from here. Labels: Gospel, Grace, Heart, Heaven, Jesus, Judgement, Rewards 0 comments Sunday, June 5, 2011 ( Automatic ‘A’ from God @ 10:19 AM )  My friend Steve Brown tells a story about a time his daughter Robin found herself in a very difficult English Literature course that she desperately wanted to get out of. She sat there on her first day and thought, “If I don’t transfer out of this class, I’m going to fail. The other people in this class are much smarter than me. I can’t do this.” She came home, and with tears in her eyes, begged her dad to help her get out of the class so she could take a regular English course. Steve said, “Of course.” No threat of failureSo the next day he took her down to the school and went to the head of the English department. Steve remembers the event in these words:
Jesus guarantees us an AThat’s how God deals with us. Because we are, right now, under the completely sufficient imputed righteousness of Christ, Christians already have an A. The threat of failure, judgment, and condemnation has been removed. We’re in—forever! Nothing we do will make our grade better, and nothing we do will make our grade worse. We’ve been set free.Knowing that God’s love and approval of you will never be determined by your performance for Jesus, only by Jesus’ performance for you, will make you perform more and better, not less and worse. In other words, grace mobilizes performance; performance does not mobilize grace. If you don’t believe me, ask Robin! Taken from here Labels: Assurance, Forgiveness, Freedom, God, Godliness, Gospel, Grace, Guilt, Jesus 0 comments Thursday, June 2, 2011 ( True & Better @ 1:36 PM ) Luke 24:25-27 25And he said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" 27And beginning with Moses andall the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. True & Better from Peter Artemenko on Vimeo. Labels: Bible, Gospel, Jesus, Video 0 comments ( Another Day Without the Return of the King @ 6:25 AM ) A good word in season from Mike Wittmer: Even those who interviewed him didn’t take him seriously. One anchor closed her segment on Camping with a knowing smirk, “Let’s hope he’s wrong.” That’s where all who love Jesus must disagree. We are the first to say that Camping’s aim and method were wrong. No one can predict when Jesus will return, and Camping’s convoluted and implausible argument for May 21, 2011, was not particularly promising. We were right to declare that Camping was wrong, but we also should have wished that he wasn’t. Christians should feel a twinge of sadness every night when we turn in to bed, for we have lived another day without the return of our King. The Lord’s Prayer includes the line, “May your Kingdom come soon” (Luke 11:2). As far-fetched as Camping’s prediction was, his spectacular miss should prompt us to reassess our deepest longings. Will we only scoff at his delusion, or will we also remember that we should want our Lord to return? Perhaps we aren’t excited for Jesus’ return because we’re too easily pleased with the present. As one preacher said, “It’s hard to pray, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ when your kingdom has had a good year.” Thank God for the good life you presently enjoy, but don’t allow his current blessings to distract you from the Christian’s prayer: “Our Lord, come!” (1 Corinthians 16:22). Taken from: here Labels: Questions and Answers, Reflection, Second Coming 0 comments Wednesday, June 1, 2011 ( Glorifying God in All You Do @ 8:13 AM )  “Live to the glory of God!” Christians throw this out because we’re lazy and we love bumper stickers. There’s always that one guy who’s saying, “Glorify God, brother!” But what does that even mean? “Glorify God.” The QuestionPaul says if you want to be a good missionary, if you want to love your city, if you want to see people get saved, if you want to see lives get changed, if you find yourself in friendships and working relationships with people who totally disagree with you and their sexuality and their spirituality and their life is not about Jesus and the Bible, then the one question you have to keep asking is, “Will this or will this not bring the most glory to God? Will this glorify God?” And if you don’t know what the answer is, then you look to Jesus.Without Jesus, we quite frankly wouldn’t have any clue how to glorify God because all we’d have would be abstract principles. We have to look to Jesus, otherwise, we don’t know how to glorify God. This means you gotta read your Bible a lot and really be loving and learning about Jesus to know how to be a good missionary who lives in a culture that isn’t about Jesus. Live in that culture in such a way as to honor and glorify God in all things, including food and sex and drink and work and friendship and power and money and all of it. “Glory” ≠ “Happiness”Some of you, then, will say, “Well, this Christianity just isn’t working. I’m not healthy, wealthy, and wise. It’s not working. How am I supposed to glorify God? How am I supposed to praise God? How am I supposed to thank God for my cancer? My unattractive demeanor, my unemployment, my flat broke life? How am I supposed to be happy, praise God in all circumstances? Are you nuts? ‘Glorify God at all times.’ Broke. Unattractive. Single. Fired. Sick. Dying. Glorify God. Oh yeah, that’s great. That looks great on the bumper sticker. Try doing that. It doesn’t work.”Actually, it does. If your religion is about glorifying God when you’re rich, then when you lose your money, you curse God. If your religion is about glorifying God when you’re healthy, then if you get sick, you curse God. Jesus was murdered, and he glorified God.“Come to Jesus, and he’ll take away all of your suffering,” they say. Are you kidding me? Didn’t you see what they did to the guy? He got beaten. He got executed. They murdered him. It may not go well for us. They may treat you like Jesus. It may not be that great. We worship a guy who died in his early 30s. We may not have a long life. We may not make a ton of money. We may not have a hot spouse. We may not raise some cute kids.It may not go that great. It may be really hard. You may miscarry. You may get divorced. You may get cancer. You may get fired, I don’t know. You say, “Well, how am I supposed to glorify God?” You can, because Jesus did. Now, some of you are saying, “I don’t want to glorify God, I want to be happy. I don’t want to get crucified. I don’t want to be broke. I don’t want to get cancer. I don’t want to be divorced. I don’t want to be a virgin. They make movies about people who are virgins, and they’re comedies. I don’t want that. That’s not what I’m shooting for.” We are far too easily—and cheaply—pleased.When it comes to living for God’s glory or our happiness, we tend to pick happiness and that’s when we sin. Sin is when we look at our options and say, “I can either glorify God or choose what think I need to be happy. I will eat a whole chocolate cake. I will drink light beer and I will get naked. I’ll be happy. I’m not gonna glorify God. I’m gonna be happy with a chocolate cake, the six-pack and the naked person. That will make me happy.” That’s why we choose sin.C .S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory, says it this way, Our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We’re half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition. When infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum, because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. That’s the truth. Jesus Christ takes away sin and gives us God.
This Is Our Deepest JoyI know some of you here are going, “But I want him to give me a car!” It’s not a sin to have a car, and I hope he gives you a car. I hope he gives you a car with rims. But I’ve got something better than a car: Jesus will give you God. Others say, “But I wanted Jesus to give me a spouse.” I hope he does give you a spouse. I’d love to see you get married. But whether or not he gives you a spouse, I got something better than a spouse: God.Jesus gives us God. God is our highest treasure, our greatest delight, our deepest joy. Our most profound happiness is that God loves us, that God knows us, that God cares for us, that God has given himself to us and that we get to live for his glory. Not that we have to, but that we get to. We get to finally do the singular cause for which we were made: to glorify God. Taken from: here Labels: C.S. Lewis, Desires, Godliness, Holiness, Idolary, Jesus, Sanctification 0 comments |