That one thing that I would surely leave with a heavy heart...

After hibernating for the winter, I'm back blogging! Well, this post wouldn't be a "teaching" one so to speak. But rather a reflective piece, a piece that does not challenge, does not provoke intense thinking, a piece that would say what I feel about the importance of surrounding yourself with people that you can trust.


Well I just came back from dinner with Suyin, Victor, Kenson and Hsien Yew. While driving back, an intense inexplicable feeling just overwhelmed me. These are the people I will need in my walk with God. Everywhere I go, I had to lead, to encourage, to "show the right way", too many eyes looking, I cant afford to slip up. I have been pushing myself for way too long, but missed out on the pit stops that would give me the fuel to carry on racing. After today, God revealed it to me. If we are to achieve His vision, we need to sometimes be at the river and empty ourselves to Him, broken unto Him, to receive from Him.


Cf is the placed that brought me to who I am today. When I said," Mixing with cf ppl is just different!" Victor thought that I was implying it in a negative manner. It wasn't at all!! Haha. In fact, I have been promoting CF eversince in Monash! For me, it is a place where I can just forget about the 'What can I do for God' part and to immerse myself in the 'How great is God' part. It is a place where I find people that I can look up to, to receive from them and to learn their ways of doing things. It is a place where I really feel comfortable, to be just who I am. They may not be always encouraging me to push and carry on to pursue the vision that God has given me, but they are the ones who gives me the water along the way! which to me is equally important to us being the one who is running. Well, whether you like it or not, whether your a Christian or not, you will need people around you who holds the same conviction (whatever it may be) as you do to walk with you in your life!


We had a Korean dinner, and later went to Starbucks only to find that it will be closed at 11, so we proceeded to Brussels. And we sat there, and we talked, about relationships, about CF, about people, about church, about places, laughed, made the waitress mad inadvertently, ejek-ed each other, got to know what's going on with everyone. I felt relaxed, a feeling which I did not feel for a very long time , I felt at an inexplicable peace within which He was pointing me to. In everything we do, we need to someday, somewhere sit down and recuperate, to have a few breather. Or else, we'll find ourselves fighting a battle where victory seemed distant, which in fact is just a stone throw away, because we have forgot to polish our sword and armor. As it gets blunt, the harder it is for us to overcome our enemy, may it be pressure, stress, challenges, emotional upheavels, spiritual wilderness, that comes our way.


CF stands for Christian Fellowship. It is a place and a group of people I will definitely miss, even for only such a short period.

Next Post!

Sorry for being so inactive in blogging! ; p Next post will be up in a few days time. Gonna reply to the question posed by anonymous commenter : )

2010

Woo.. What a year it has been! 2010 looms. For some of us, we wont mind if we lived 2009 yet again. For others, 2009 is a year to forget. Yet for some, 2009 is where they cherished, but leaving no nostalgia and remorse behind, while looking ahead and greatly anticipating greater things to birth out in 2010. Yes, this is how we should look at 2010! Things of the past we could not change, things of the future is right in our hands. Ponder a moment about the power of choice! I wont set out a list of 20 resolutions for this year, only to find myself making the same on 31 Dec 2010, this is what I WILL DO, not what I HOPE FOR:

1) Widen my social network (network=upward mobility)
2) Understand the Cultural Mandate from the inside out
3) Intensify my study on renewable energy and investments(preparing for life after grad)
4) Getting equipped and help grow the church that God has called me to.

Wish you all a very Happy New Year !!! *burrpss... just had seafood lunch*

Born Christian?

Have a sudden inspiration from Him to blog about this, I have been receiving alot lately, and I wish my mind acts like a Blackberry, jotting down and recording every single detail that has been revealed in great efficiency. Wow, I hope you guys are doing great whichever part of the world you are at now : )

I was thinking, in our Christian circle, we don't usually get that kinda bang-your-head-into-the-wall questions like :" Are you really a Christian?" But being a guy who refuse to be stuck in my own comfort zone enjoying life while seeing others being deprived of what they should get, I do venture out to a lot of dangerous territories that is potentially faith destroying, trying to understand how the world looks at us "Christians" and what do we represent in the world. My favorite hunting ground --> the world wide web : ) And certainly, the millions of people commenting on us "Christians" would serve as a good mirror for us to reflect on our spiritual maturity, and mind you, alot of the negative perceptions they have on "Christians" are heartfelt truths and don't brush them away as baseless allegations.

I've put the word CHRISTIAN in between inverted comas to highlight a point. Do you consider yourselve as a Christian? If God were to ever ask for a CV from you to enter the gates of Heaven into His kingdom, what qualification do you have? Is it something like this?

Christian Duties Fulfilled

1) Attended church every sunday
2) Born into a christian family
3) Served in the worship team for 30 years
4) Went into fulltime ministry at age of 45
5) Attended CF faithfully in my campus
6) Volunteered for mission trip once a year
7) Participated in orphanage visits
8) Elected as President of so and so Christian organisation

Hooray! Let me enter the gates!

Lets be frank, none of the above would ever buy us a ticket to heaven, and don't be surprised that many among us think that it will. There is no such thing as a "born christian"

John 1:12 : “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

When you believe in Jesus and confess that he is Lord and Saviour a transformation takes place in your life. And that transformation is called spiritual renewal where we are transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ where we nail our old self onto the cross and pick up His cross. We are born again and our body become the temple of the living Spirit. This is the point I want to make, spiritual renewal is a PROCESS and not an EVENT. In other words, the aftermath of receiving him and believed him is the profound and perpetual transformation of our lifestyle, speech, actions and thoughts to accomplish His work on earth.

However, this aftermath is lacking in most "Christians" that so many in the secular world have met and therefore forming a bad perception about God and aiding the work of the Devil in demonising Jesus.

I have my own experience too. I'm intrigued by certain comments and opinions of certain people who are just closed to the Word of God, and they are "Christians". Comments like :" Hann, i really like what you're saying but I still don't agree with you and I'm sticking to what I've learnt" I said what I've been saying are all biblical reference and if you don't believe what I'm presenting, then?? This is only one example, mail me if you want to know more of myriad of other experiences.

Where is the transformation power of the Word of God ? The aftermath that is should be? There are 2 possibilities:

a) The Word of God is not working
b) People are just listening but not acting

Whether its a) or b), it is obvious. Let us ask ourselves this question and really be truthful about our own spiritual state and walk with God. If we were living in Jesus' time, listening to what He was preaching(esp the Sermon on the Mount) and witnessing His works, will you be like the many who cursed Him and rejected Him? Or one of the few who truly understood His message. Has the transformation power of God ceased in your life? Has the renewing process stopped?

For Paul, his encounter with Christ was so great that he proclaimed: "For me to live is to die and to die is gain." Phil 1:21.

Many people reject the transformation process because it is the toughest to do when we REALLY deny ourselves and let God mold us. The chastening work of God is where most people hate, but the fruit of the chastening is where most people want. People just hate to be corrected and told off for being wrong, but liked the lessons learnt from it. The latter does not happen before the former. If we do not want to be transformed and go through the difficult process of being rebuked and convicted by the Spirit of God, we cannot experience the reality of God's love for us.

Let me assure you it wont be easy when we allow God to change us from the inside out, many of us will stumble, many of us will cry out in despair, many of us will walk away, many of us will blame God, many of us will start to hate God, many of us will falter. But be sure of this, He has promised:

"But he knows the way that I take;
when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold."

Job 23:10

The More I See, The Smaller I Am

Just started intern for one week, my initial feeling was one of excitement and great expectations to learn more, but its just a week, other thoughts have crept into my mind. One that is of discouragement, one that is of ill-equipped-ness and one that is of urgency. So if you were to taste my feelings right now, it would taste something like a banana blended with orange, bitter gourd, chilli and 2 tea spoons of Maggi Tomato sauce added together. Why?

God has placed in me a dream, a dream that He would want me to achieve to bring about a massive revival in Malaysia, that no matter what color of your skin is, what religion you believe in, what language you spoke, that we would see a whole new generation rising to be a blessing to this nation and multitudes of people coming to the Lord. He wanted me to impact the marketplace, and through the marketplace set an example to be His light and salt there. But after preparing the Standard Operating Procedure for a new plant in my industry I'm placed in, I walked towards the production supervisor who is a local Malay, only to find myself struggling to explain to him the SOP in Bahasa Malaysia, my National Language! I stammered, occasionally punctuating my lines with English and I pity him as he tried his best to understand me. I did get the message through, yes i did, but the manner in which I conveyed my message was nothing less than you-have-to-improve. And I walked away, with the Lord beside me, telling me that to impact this great nation of Malaysia, I will need to speak a language where the majority of the people could understand. A fresh revelation from Him!

That is just one of the case. These five days I have been in office, each day I had lunch with different group of people. And on thursday I sat in the pantry and had lunch with a few colleagues. Again, after initiating a conversation, I couldn't follow up. They were rattling away with laughter and at times I find it hard to understand what are they talking due to their accent. I tried desperately to connect with them, but the truth is I cant. Why? God said:" This is because you dont understand their culture, the language they speak and they way of living" I was stunned. And immediately my attention was shifted to myself, thinking how polarized I am, the way i think , the language I spoke, the people I know. Then God flashed His calling in my life, to impact Malaysia?? but not understanding the culture of more than 70% of the entire population and think that I can do it??

These few event did discourage me, but at the same time I was glad this happen when Im 20 years old now and God revealed how ill-equipped I am, really. But............... it added fuel to the fire I had for Malaysia. God used this event to spur me on and His promise was that He will be with me, guiding and ultimately elevating me into the position of influence in the marketplace, where He will use my influence to bring about a change in Malaysia.

Kristos Kai Kosmos, as preached by Rev A.R.Bernard. And the Cultural Mandate, as preached by Rev Kong Hee. To bring about a change in the culture and society we are living in we have to speak the language that people speak, and understand the culture they are immersed in. 2 more years to graduation, I will make it a point to brush up on my Bahasa Malaysia, and learn to come out of polarization in terms of people that I mix with. At the same time continue my study on Renewable Energy. 2 years Lord!! Make it count before i graduate!!!

Relationship That Matters: Part I (Debunking The Myth of 2 Cor 6:14)

Yes, the most perplexing yet important area that concerns every youth and teenagers. So what say you on this? Must marry a Christian? Dating a non-christian is an absolute NO-NO? Never have feelings for a non-believer? These are some of the ideas that have been indoctrinated to most of us, but lets take a closer look at this crucial topic.

Most proponents of the idea that Christians can only date Christians (strictly) base their argument on 2 Cor 6:14 which says:" Do not be yoked together with unbelievers...." Now in a lot of youth groups and hard-hitting relationship sermons we often hear of prohibition of relationship between a Christian and a non-Christian, but a reality check will show that in fact we find many Christians doing the opposite and often conceal their relationships away from the eyes of the church they attend. Now here comes the problem, when youth and young people dare not be open about the relationship and bring about the problems they face in the church in fear of reprimanding from leaders, it does not help in one's spiritual growth and creates an impenetrable wall that segregates them from the very support that they need. If we don't preach and act on truth, then we find people stumbling unnecessarily on their walk with God.

2 Cor 6:14 have been used very narrowly to suggest that God prohibits relationship between a believer and non-believer. Ask the propagators on what do they think of the many people who have come to Christ because of their spouses, and they will find it tough to explain. In order to grasp what 2 Cor 6:14 means, you have to understand the context and situation of the passage in which Paul was addressing to. The believers in Corinth comprises of a small group of Jews believers but many of the new converts were from pagan background. As such, these new believers are finding it difficult to live out a Christ like lifestyle in a pagan culture. They wanted to be a Christian while still practicing the activities that marked the worship of Greek Gods. The passage in 2 Cor 6 was written to address this problem, Paul was exhorting them to embark on a different lifestyle when they accept Christ, and not achieving the PURPOSE of glorifying God with the practices of paganism (sacred prostitution and so on..)

If Paul was indeed referring to a marital context and was adamant that relationship with a non-believers is strictly prohibited, then is he contradicting himself in 1 Cor 7:12-16 and also Peter's word in 1 Peter 3:1-2 where they encourage husbands and wives whose spouses are not believers to continue to have faith that one day they might come to Christ?

In fact, there are no scriptural evidence to suggest 2 Cor 6:14 refers to marital issues

and we have to start learning to input God's truth into young people's lives and uphold the freedom of choice that was given to them. When we start preaching false truth, young people will have no conviction and all they think is that Christianity is all about Do's and Dont's.

Paul was saying that believers cannot achieve the same PURPOSE when they are all scattered in direction and do not have a same mindset. This is exactly why he used the parable of "unequally yoke" which also appears in Deut 22:10. An ox and a donkey yoked together for the PURPOSE of plowing a land will rather make a mess out of it rather then helping the farmer, why? Because they simply have not equal strength and the donkey are not meant for plowing! If you still insist on believing that 2 Cor 6:14 is about prohibiting relationship with non-Chrstians, then continue reading on verses 14-18 which suggests that we cannot even associate with non-believers on social terms (Now this you would surely disagree). A text read without context is a pretext.

Hey Hann, are you trying to justify that marrying/dating a non-Christian is right? you know the consequences of one doing so right... The answer to the question is NO. I'm not trying to do that , but I'm trying to liberate so many young heart hungry for God but impeded by man made rules and tradition. "Hey, but God really says marrying unbeliever is wrong!! Look at Exo 34:16 and Deut. 7:3!" My question to you is this if you are still adamant, what did God emphasize on after he gave the commands, or rather, His purpose of doing so? It's all about the relationship with Him. When the Israelites dint obey and intermarry with the pagan Canaanites, look what happened in Judges 3:6. Yes, they worshipped their gods and forsaken the one God who brought them out of Eygpt. Again, it is not a matter of right and wrong, we have to look at the greater PURPOSE behind it.

Look, if your decision is made out of obligation then the law is your god. When the freedom of choice that is given by God for decisions that is to be made out of love for Him is choked by rules after rules after rules, then people start to blame God when things are not right and they go wayward silently. When we pursue legalism instead of love and purpose, our faith is shrunk to a list of do's and dont's.

The understanding of this text has broader implications in our walk with God, such as in the realm of education, social lifestyle, marketplace, and many more and not confined to the marital area only.

While 2 Cor 6:14 does not refer to marriage, its principle certainly to apply to our dealings with relationships. When getting into a relationship, one may ask him/herself :" Where is this relationship heading to? Is it just to fulfill my desire to have a boyfriend/girlfriend? Or will it compliment both of us to grow closer to God?"

Our relationship with God is not a matter of obeying law but a motivation of love from the heart. This post is not to justify that dating/marriage with a non-believer is right or wrong, if God did not say anything, I wouldn't dare. But God wants us to make our decisions based on love for Him and to see the greater purpose behind doing everything, He doesn't wants us to be robots. This way, we find the true essence and meaning of the cross. And yes, do not put words into Gods mouth, you can see whether your doctrine is right or wrong just by observing the fruits : )

*How to choose a partner in Relationship That Matters: Part II*

BUSY TIME!

Hey peeps! For those of you who are wondering why posts are uploaded so freaking slow, yes, I'm currently busy juggling between my studies and other commitments. Well my sis wedding is just over so Sunday nights are free from practice! Next post will be on relationship and will change lots of pre-conceived mindset out there. Get ready! : )

-The mediocre teacher tells , the good teacher explains, the great teacher demonstrates, the history maker inspires- *a food for your thought*