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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 Holiness and Sanctification A Great Debt, Who Can Pay? Good Friday Prayer Does it please God? 11 Ways to Find Your Idols Reflections on Men Xun 09/04/11 Quietness before God Jesus plus nothing equals everything –The Gospel– When Sin Plays Dead 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.
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Monday, May 2, 2011 ( Why Rules Alone Never Work @ 9:45 PM ) Your eternal salvation isn’t dependent on performance or effort. Well, not your performance anyway... We Christians are a dull bunch. Tie a string around your finger if you have to, but whatever you do, remember this: spiritual performance inventories are futile. Luther knew this, and the Apostle Paul backs him up: For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them." - Gal 3:10. In the last post, we discussed a Theology of the Cross versus a Theology of Glory. A Theology of Glory is dependent on human-made efforts toward salvation. A Theology of the Cross recognizes that the Christian’s only hope lies in the offense and foolishness of the cross. Punishment, Reward and the Surprise of Grace Punishment and reward is intuitive. If you finish your homework, you get a gold star. No homework, no star - or worse - stand in the corner. Law is the default of the human heart; it’s grace that takes us by surprise. God in his grace says, “I make sinners righteous." This just doesn’t compute to our sensibilities. In response, the human heart is always inclined to hold out for just a little bit of God-pleasing spiritual performance. The problem is, God requires perfection but still we try to better ourselves before the face of God. Do your best, God does the rest? So what do we make of spiritual thriving and works? Conventional thinking says we know we’re unable to fulfill the law of God but at least we’ll give it a good try. And when we fail...well...”do your best and God does the rest." Ironically, in all our striving, we only make things worse. For the Christian then, following the law isn’t something we achieve through effort, but in receiving Christ’s perfection credited to our account. This gift though seems too much like a demeaning sort of charity. What this means, of course, is that secretly we find doing it ourselves more flattering to our self-esteem - the current circumlocution for pride. The law, that is, even the law of God, "the most salutary doctrine of life," is used as a defense agains the gift. Thus, the more we "succeed," the worse off we are. Spiritual points-keeping just won’t do. Only in our giving up on the approval-through-works game can we truly rest in the assurance of Christ’s perfection for us and respond appropriately in heart changed obedience. Read the full article here. Labels: Assurance, Bible, Christ, Grace, Jesus, Repentance, Salvation, Sanctification, Sin 0 comments |