While many people on my Facebook wall are busy dying even before the Mayans predicted the end of the world by 2012 (quoting from one of my friends), how many of us are actually conscious about the Lord's 2nd coming?Luke 21:25-28I admit that often time than not, I'm more concerned about issues yet to be resolved and selfish objectives to be met than consciously reminding myself that He will be returning soon. That includes during my nightly prayers to Him before I close my eyes after beating myself up over the agendas done throughout the day!
There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.
Perhaps, subconsciously after all the drumming and influence from the movies about the countless ways how humanity will be extinct, I might had just allowed it to make me shrug off the idea that any moment, we would all be facing the Lord directly face-to-face and be held accountable for all our actions done on earth.
Now you might be thinking twice whether to continue reading on this post, but I'd like to question - why is this so?Perhaps, we allow a lot of our friends to tell us that what we believe in is a religion. A religion to once in a while remind us that we should love another person and if you fail to do so, it's okay, we still go to Heaven.
Perhaps we allow the media to tell us that it's undeniably cool to make fun of our own religion and since no one's getting angry over it, why not cultivate this lifestyle to join in the bandwagon along with the world? (such as helplessly saying "oh my God" in vanity)
Perhaps we keep telling ourselves that we have a lot more time to seriously sit down and think about repentance and be a goodie boy/girl when we feel like it but until then .. it's better to live life the way we think it's best?
Perhaps, we have not actually believed that the Lord has conquered death and now, we ourselves are fearful of the unknown, and only want to focus on what we can see, touch and smell right now on earth?
As we enter the year 2012, TTDIGC Youth will be introducing a brand new theme, known as -
I am His and He is mine.
I cannot emphasize any further on how crucial we view and understand the faith we believe in. If I ask you that you're on a relationship with the dearest person you could ever love and have been consistently communicating to one another via skype, e-mails and facebook .. wouldn't you long for the day that you can be together, face-to-face, finally?John 14:6But Christ is more than just a lover and that's what makes our faith more beautiful and perfect than anything else in the world can offer! Christianity isn't about restricting your freedom or forcing us to live life against our will, but it's about an intimate relationship with a Heavenly Father who truly empower us to be who we're REALLY made for!
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
So be sure to join us to press on heavenward week by week as to eagerly seek His return as once we've encountered the love of Christ, we can only say -
Through many dangers, toils and snares- daryl 's u n d a e' heng
I have already come;
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far
and Grace will lead me home.
Images taken from:
http://mapawatt.com/2011/12/18/what-will-2012-have-in-store-for-energy-conservation/
http://beafreakgotohollywood.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html
As most of you know, I will be graduating soon. If you have read some of my previous blogposts, you would know that my college years have been relatively bumpy. Well to no surprise the last leg of my journey in college was bumpy as well. So this was the situation, when I returned from Singapore to continue my studies in Kuala Lumpur, I found out during the first day of class that I had to conceptualize and start up my own fashion related brand for my final assignment.
As I worked on my assignment, I was still feeling angry and honestly very worried about how I was going to accomplish creating my own brand and running a business. So I started praying and asking God to really help me with this. I even asked my Bible Study group to pray for me. Today, as I am about to complete my assignment; I can tell you that everything that has happened during these few months of working on my assignment is nothing short of divine intervention.
Besides that, from the design of the website to the buying of the web domain name God sent my friends from other churches to help me. As for the costs and numbers I had to work out for my assignment, a brother in church willingly helped me with that numerous times. Even the video that I needed to create for my assignment was produced by another brother in church. God truly answered my prayers even when I was feeling so negative about the whole situation. I would have never imagined that doing this assignment would bring me the joy of experiencing God in such a way.
In Philippians 1:1 , Paul introduces both he himself as well as Timothy as servants of Christ Jesus and addresses the Philippi Church as saints.
Then again, how often do we think about God and what He wants of us in the first place. We’re often so busy with our earthly lives that we forget what being a Christian actually is all about.
I would like to end by sharing the lyrics to the chorus of the song “Servant King”:
Further to my sharing on 7 Nov 2011 titled, “
As I reflect on my life, I began to think…If only I study hard during my primary and secondary school days, I would have built a strong foundation for my tertiary education and my life. Now my life is in a mess as I have to learn many things from scratch, including managing my time.
After admitting my sins (laziness is a sin too!) before God and seeking advice from spiritually more matured individuals, I felt God is again touching my life and has allowed me to turn a new leaf. It is exactly what 1 John 1:9, New King James Version (NKJV) says:
Allow me to put it this way. If you ever had a super close bestie friend in your life, can you imagine yourself being distant from that person for a stretch of time? Obviously, you'll either miss that person or actually spend some quality time with that person, or just simply be with that person.
There's no other way than being committed to the relationship you have with Him. True love between a relationship may start with a feeling, but never sustained by it. Sincerity is not about getting the mood to do it, true sincerity is doing regardless how you feel, in fact, even when you don't feel like doing it.
So one moment at a time, one thought at a time, one action at a time. Do it all for the love for God, your Saviour.
I pray that whoever is reading this may have such a blessing from God too. Building a relationship with God is pure hard work, that's something definite. But thankfully, if you have always been depending on God to build this relationship, you'll realize that you are strengthen by His grace. No, i don't mean that it becomes suddenly easier, i know a lot of people get the concept of "strengthening by God" as though their burden gets lighter. It normally doesn't. What it means is actually being able to do it, with His strength!
Alright now to the chunky bits. What I mentioned about above is just one of the worldly expectations that many of us are expected to meet. There are many others and it is different for each individual depending on your social surrounding. To what extent are you willing to meet these expectations? Should meeting these expectations even be something important? So most of us grow up spending a lot of time meeting those expectations. All the little left over bits of time that we have or when we are “free”, we slot God in.
To end it all, I would just like to stress the importance of seeking God’s will out in all things. I am NOT implying that we should not study at all nor am I saying education is not important but rather WHY is it important? Would you give up listening to God to fulfill those responsibilities and worldly expectations like Martha? Or would you be like Mary and listen first then work it out?
Being a mass comm graduate myself, it does help me to realize how the media plays such a huge way of affecting the way we understand things. It's not an immediate effect, it's something that slowly drums into your mind - the moment you wake up from your bed, advertisements ARE everywhere around you. Try observing and see, you'll know what I mean!
But the real problem is, life isn't going to come in a period where it tells you "Exams are coming, start studying!" It comes in times where you least expect it and the bigger question would be - "How have you been preparing for times like these?"
As I journey with the Lord, I started to come to a realisation that I am still very much a wretched person. Those who know me personally for some time will know this very well.
Yes, it is indeed now my desire to allow God to take me and mould me as I do not want to continue sinning against Him. “The parable of the talents” does not only talks about we Christians hiding our talents like music / speaking / sharing / writing talent but also in my case, using my brain power rather than limiting it, using my brain and brawns (again, in my case, is my brain and physical strength to do things, hehe ;P).
Of course I've not commit a sin as serious as David, but to God, regardless the degree of sin - it is still sin to Him. And sin is serious business for the wages of sin is death (Separation from God!)
You see, I always try to make sure i wouldn't fall into this trap. Because during bible class, we were already taught and warned that a lot of people feel that they are very self righteous and "holy" just because they were practising the spiritual disciplines. (Just incase you're very puzzled with what are the spiritual disciplines, to name a few would be like fasting, meditation, scripture study etc.)
But God so loving and gracious, He never left me to run astray all on my own, for He knows how much I do not understand and know Him still. Just as I have faith that He always brings me back to Him, up until now, He has always been faithful. And as He brought me back, I looked back and realized how close I was in walking back into that darkness, the darkness where I once belong where light is purely absent. I could only tear and "would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner."! (Luke 18:13) It was then only I realize, now I'm the publican instead of the pharisee.
- Gary Heng
And yet, so many people are still not happy with what they have. Most of us constantly complain about how we had a bad hair day, how boring life is, or even complaining how terrible the food being served is.
It was a cool evening and I decided to take a nap after returning from college. Halfway through my nap, I was awakened by panic stricken shouts calling out my name. The first thing that came to my mind was “ Oh no! The house is burning down! ”. I shouted from my room and asked what is happening. My mum replied and shouted “ Rae Anne is unconscious! ”. I immediately panicked and ran out of my room still wondering in my mind about how my niece who was perfectly fine before I went for my nap could be unconscious.
I only found out that my niece had a bad fall in the bathroom when my sister-in-law explained to the nurses and doctor about what had happened. The doctor immediately called for a CT scan so that we could see if the baby suffered any serious head injury. The CT scan revealed that the baby suffered a hematoma in her brain as a result of the fall. Hematoma can also be explained as a bruise so the doctor said that she had to be admitted to ICU for observation and hopefully her hematoma would heal on its own.
Hi guys!! Yes, I have been missing for a while thus the update! For you guys out there who do not know, I am currently studying in the UK. I shall skip the “how’s UK” part in the post as any of you who are interested to know can always drop me a message on Facebook.
Reaching and settling here was not the easiest of task. I was literally friendless for a few days. Never before have had I felt such a feeling, discounting my first day in primary school that is. Being a people centered guy, that sucked. From time to time, I would ask God why I was sent here. Fast forward to today, I DO have friends now, yaaaaaaay! Almost all of them are non-Christians so their perception of most things are very different from the bunch of friends I use to hang out with back home. I guess another reason I am here too is to be out of the salt shaker. Looking back in hindsight, I spent a wee bit too much time back home with my Christian friends. It is always more comfortable to hang out with like minded people. As our call for us to be salt for the earth, we have to be first sprinkled out of our little salt shaker.
Another thought came to mind as well while sitting there listening to C.L Goh's talk during the youth and parent forum for some time back now, many points that he brought up did make a lot of sense to me when I look back at my life in hindsight.
But that's where I realized that God really wanted me to observe and understand how the mini society in school works and empathize with those who are quietly suffering in the "dark". Remember about the "identity crisis"? I can really agree to that as I've witnessed numerous people who are going through that right now among my circle of people I know of! They can't seem to grasp the do's and don'ts of social graces and they get so confused wondering where they went wrong to have so few friends in their midst.
For,
After going through the session with C.L. Goh last Sunday, the final part of his talk really struck me as he went to share on about how his father had such strong filial piety compared to today's standards:- that he gathered his entire first month's salary job after graduation, traveled all the way back to his hometown, just to offer it as a gratitude offering to his own beloved father - only to know that he just passed away earlier that day due to diabetes.
The visit to Shelter this Saturday actually do speak a lot in many ways and I do hope that I can encourage the Youth to go in the perspective of compassion and empathy - to constantly seek to show them the love of Christ. They did not ask for many things that happened in their lives and it really bothers me, frankly speaking to hear people say - "So sad/ Poor thing/ thankfully it didn't happen to me."
After visiting the Shelter a few times myself, they know whether you're visiting with a sincere heart or not. They know whether you really care or you're just there because you "had" to be there. Without having the idea of parents taking care to the best of their welfare and providing them all the love they deserve as a child, it's not surprising they'd be easily offended when you just go there to fool around and treat the whole thing as a joke. They'd rather not have us around then!
There are times in my life that I’ve prayed to God, made promises and telling Him that I’ll be closer to Him by upping my spiritual standards - be it the duration of time I decided to spend praying to Him, fasting or studying Scripture. Or maybe something different like I once shared before in the blog, to eat simple by spending not more than Rm10 a day on food.
Just so you know, Peter wasn’t lying or exaggerating when he told Jesus he wouldn’t deny Him. If you understand his temperament (he's a sanguine) and the context of it, he really meant it but he was overconfident that he could do it regardless the situation may turn out. Just like how Peter meant when he answered Jesus’ question :
I hope by sharing this, those of you who are reading this who once on a spiritual high has come to a slump due to certain failures may be encouraged. Don’t turn back just because you may think either it’s so tiring to keep failing over or the fight is just not worth it. Even in the darkest moments, keep clinging onto Jesus and never let Him go. 
-Gary Heng
Change is inevitable in our lives. Of course there are changes that we welcome with open arms and changes that we struggle to accept. Why do we struggle to accept change? I think it’s because we are habitual beings. When we become accustomed to our surroundings, we tend to become comfortable and most of the time complacent. Complacency can sometimes be dangerous because we tend to not strive for better things and higher standards in our lives. The same can be said of our Spiritual lives.
When I decided to return, I realize that I had become a lot more matured and that my life is in God’s hands. A spiritual mentor once told me that we must always challenge ourselves to get out of our comfort zone so that we may experience growth in our spiritual lives. On hindsight, I think the stay in Singapore helped me depend on Him more. I found myself praying more regularly and spending more quality time with God. When you are out of the comfort of your home, you will tend to feel very lonely and that is the time you truly learn to depend on God because there is no on else around you that you can depend on. I also learned to be more independent and found that I could do things I thought I could not, with God’s strength.
Once in a while, through the weariness and strenuous Youth work, I'm reminded of how much the previous batch of Youth Committee members put in their effort to build His Youth and that how much I've taken for granted.. although not entirely. Much of the fruition today is partially from their efforts!
So 5 years from now, where do you see yourself in TTDIGC Youth?
I must admit that I could not fully comprehend the will of God in allowing me to be placed in my family / situation but I am sure that one day I shall know just as I also am known (1 Corinthians 13:12, NKJV) and I know who holds my tomorrow.