Btw also want to change the style of the blog, which will be more relevant for readers rather than an outlet to express my inner thoughts, so hope you'll enjoy.. (got this inspiration by my brother and cos of the blog that SK created for NYCA1 to post reflections as we did the daily devotions before the camp. anyway,haha korkor started a blog !the one who once told me blogging is wuliao!lol) just to be clear, what i'm going to share shall be the areas that God has spoken to my life and how i also want to grow. like Cassie says, "I am a work in progress," so am i =) and i want to share 'em because i have grown in knowing God more through these and so that all of us may grow together!
Bcos the matriculation period is coming, we are going to have a few session of teaching mainly to prepare our hearts for this period of harvest! woohoo! the first session was last saturday at Tiomthy's (this was intentionally spelt this way, haha) condo lounge. and the topic was Power of the message of the cross.
Was very refreshed by the teaching at the same time was put to shame as God revealed areas that i aren't fully obedient to Him..But that ain't my focus today...
We were asked to read and meditate on the verse 1 Cor. 1:18
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God."What does this verse mean to me and what power does it have?
To me, the main thing i catch from this verse is to highlight the difference in what the cross means to us and to the non-believers. Slightly swayed in thinking by a book i once read...there are many things that we believers accept by faith. this does not mean that Christians are blind believers but that we believe because we once trusted and God has shown Himself to be faithful therefore we choose to trust again and again. and time to time, non-believers may question us why we believe and accept certain things about God even if we do not know the evidence or the evidence does not even exist. Examples of such question would include: How do know you will go to heaven? Has anyone you know gone to heaven and come back to tell you? or even What makes you so sure that everthing in the bible is true? The bible is all written by men, how do you know what they write is the truth? There is no archaelogical evidence of every single event, even though the existence of Jesus is undenied. Sometimes we get stunned by such questions and even turn defensive. we need to understand that it is our faith that helped us to believe and be truthful about this towards the non-believer.
You may think this would cause the non-believer to think that Christians are irrational or even robots that accept everything written in the bible but i believe that seeing this as an opportunity to share your experience with God would be a good approach. Let them know that in many things we carry out in our lives we exercise faith. A leader once said, "We dare to take the bus because we have faith and trusted that the bus driver has a license; We eat the food from the hawker centre because we have faith that the food is clean." How is this faith built up? cos of the systems and regulations or even through experiences. Similarly our faith in God is built up. It is built upon the consistency of the bible, the evidence we have about certain things in the bible, the experiences and testimonies that others have with God that proved God always has the best plan and also our own experiences with God. These help us to accept that the whole bible is inspired by God. And we can go on to share the areas God has shown His presence and His faithfulness in our lives. Even, ask the person, if that same thing happens to him, would he not praise God and believe Him?
To end off, i would like to talk about the passage in Hebrews 11, By Faith.
Hebrews 11:1
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
This verse is basically the essence of what i had shared above..*pat on my back* (cos what i shared can be proven from the bible!! ensure that it is biblical!haha).. the passaege goes on mainly to talk about the people in the past(old testament) doing many many wonderful works instructed by the Lord out of faith, ie. they carried out their work not knowing what the results will be or even not understanding how will a good outcome come out of whatever they are doing.
Just want to say that as we go about sharing the gospel, do not be discourage that you are unable to answer to these questions or even let your faith waver but be glad, be glad that God has grown in you this faith to believe in Him!
Of course there are much much more that we can pick out from that verse (God's word is ever so powerful! =DD) but shall stop here....
Finally, do tune in for more in the next post! Cos that is not the end...shall discuss that God does not intend for us to understand certain things and also whether we should still look for evidence to support our faith and what heart attitude we should have towards the search for evidence =)
Shall also be faithful with posting in this blog from now on, that i will post at least once on this blog every week, unless i have relevant reasons =))
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