Maybe my being conscious of readership causes me to write differently.

I have been told that I am extremely Chinese, and it is only after I think about it that I realize that I am an awkward splice of the Occidental and the Oriental. But this is something that is precious and not about to change. My grandfather though is very pleased my sisters and I are bilingual this way.

*

Today, I attended the final session of the Baptism Course at my church, and my friends at cell Terence and Hui Leng were surprised to realize that 5 weeks had passed just like this. If I were to lean back and cruise some more, I would be well into November and into a right state of panic.

I cannot be so proud as to say that I had learnt everything I heard through the course. They brought us, over the course of 5 weeks, from the Character of God, to the Person of Christ, to the Work of Christ, and on the necessity of Missions, and the Last Things at the End.

What I knew before was refined and sharpened, and I now also may be able to guide young believers and new believers into the fundamentals of faith.

It took some humility that was not there to begin with to sit under the powerpoint slides and be treated as if my I had no idea what my faith was about. I reminded myself to submit and not to stumble newer believers who were new to the Word.

I also had to resist flashing my heavily annotated Bible which Agnes Lee had said it looked like it was "dipped in highlighter". It would have so easy to let others see that hey, this young man sitting over here knows the Scriptures very well. This would be spiritual intimidation, which I am guilty of often, likely even at this very moment.

But going through the structured and formal lessons also showed me how good the Lord was to me, having built my understanding and knowledge of His Word without the benefit of formal instruction like others who had a home church.

It also showed me that there were plenty of gaps in my Theology that I had not tended to. What is my position on the sequence of events leading to the end of the Church Age, the "Rapture" and the Millennial Reign of Christ? I have not studied this and I also cannot say it will not matter to me. It details my hope of what is to come. But the Spirit will give understanding when we study the Scriptures.

We may not understand the Word of God without His Spirit. His Spirit is a Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, of counsel and of might, and of the knowledge and fear of the Lord. Isaiah 11: 2.

*

Sometimes I find myself thinking that I have already matured and sin minimally now. If I believe this, I believe a lie. I walk and live among people who do not know and have not known the Light of the World. I think and talk as one who loves darkness.

I am often charmed by the world and what she offers-vain things that have no reverence for a holy God. What desires and habits do they encourage? Vanity, Pride, Promiscuity, Lust and varying standards of immorality.

Do these ventures and things and activities honour God, or celebrate the individual who seems to stand 'strong' on his own apart from God?

We are guilty of minimizing Christ and exalting our self-interests above His purposes. We only chime in with the plans that serve/please us best.

There is 1 John 1:8 to remember, that "if we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us". God is holy and He is coming for a holy people who have kept themselves in purity. It is presumptuous of me to think that I have reached His standards.
Thankfully, He has promised to cleanse us.

*

Sermon today was on Caleb's 45 year long wait for God to fulfill the promise of given to him the land that was pledged to him by Moses in Numbers. He received his allotment in Joshua 14.

He was commended as a man who followed after God wholeheartedly, even while he waited a long time.

Compared to him, we have no capacity or tolerance for waiting.

"Waiting is one of God's most powerful tools of grace. It's important to realize in your ministry that God doesn't just give us grace for the wait. The wait itself is a gift of grace. You see, waiting is not only about what you will receive at the end of the wait. Waiting is about what you will become as you wait.


In calling us to wait, God is even rescuing those of us in ministry from our bondage to our own plan, our own wisdom, our own power, our own control. In calling us to wait, God is freeing us from the claustrophobic confines of our own little kingdoms of one and drawing us into a greater allegiance to his kingdom of glory and grace. Waiting is more than being patient as situations and other people change. Waiting is about understanding that you and I desperately need to change, and that waiting is a powerful tool of personal change. God is using the grace of waiting to change us at the causal core of our personhood: the heart. Now, in ministry, that's a good thing!"

- Paul Tripp.

Waiting has a transforming effect on our hearts.

I need to gather my whole heart to seek the Lord and thereby I may find Him.
My whole human life ahead of me must be lived for His glory and not my own.

"One life will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last"- I think it was Leonard Ravenhill who said this.

I had been reading A.W. Tozer, who happens to be Ravenhill's good friend.
This is an excerpt from a book by him:

"I once read of a great sculptor whose sculptures were prized by everyone. Someone once asked him the secret of his masterpieces. He said something to the effect, "I just chip away at everything that doesn't belong there." The sculptor looked at the lump of granite or whatever and saw something in it nobody else saw. The genius of his masterpiece was to eliminate everything that did not belong there and allow the vision of that image to appear." Pg 71, A Disruptive Faith

This image we are to reveal is that of Christ.