Hungry?

Last night and this morning, i had a few dreams which basically talked about drawing closer to God and having greater intimacy with Him... And God was revealing something to me regarding the 3 keys also...

Couldn't exacltly remember the one i had last night but i could somewhat remember the scenes that i dreamt earlier this morning... I dreamt i was back in sec sch days and i saw my lit teacher there who had assigned us some work to do in class while she went away for a while.. instead of doing my work, however, i went to do my devotionals instead cos i was just filled with so much love for God... as a result she caught me and sent me to the principal's office...

I dreamt that something happened to Gideon.. that he became so filled with the love of God that he was basically "drunk in the Spirit".. like He would pray and seek God every waking moment.. that whenever he wasn't doing anything, he would just automatically enter into this mode of prayer... It was cool.. Lord, i pray that the youth would become a praying youth...

I dreamt that the CC kids were also praying inside Auntie Ivy's room before CC started and there was one girl whom i couldn't identify who was leading them.. she carried with her such an authority and i heard her speaking in tongues with such boldness! In fact, the bunch of them were so given over to prayer and intercession that though CC service was about to start, the leader said "let's stay here for 3 minutes more" or something like that... cos they wanted to linger in the presence of God. I'm believing that God would raise up prophetic intercessors among the children too! :)

Keep on dreaming! ;)
God bless! :)

Update!

Time for another update! I seriously need to think of more interesting names for my posts...

Friday 27 July
Went to meet Nana and Sheela in the afternoon to go to Mass Media at the Yellow pages building... we went to buy tracts cos Nana's LG was going for street-e on Saturday morning. They were quite ex leh.. cost like 80 cents a copy... so we bought around 60 and it costs like 40 plus... den we went to take creative photos at the building (and i think we made a lot of noise too! :X).. too lazy to post them here lah but just go sheela's blog if you want to see them..

We went for dinner at KFC and Serene joined us.. den went for rehearsal.. it was kinda tiring lah but we got a good amount of work done i guess... :) thank God for His grace and wisdom! :)

Saturday 2 July
Had LG outing at Gideon's house.. and i brought along my games.. apparently Sam's LG outing was postponed so she joined us for a while.. (for the photos, go Sam's blog...) was quite fun.. we ordered pizza and played till ard 6 den we went to meet Rayson at AMK Hub for dinner.. but den none of us felt like eating yet so he was the only one who ordered.. haha.. den we went to church for revival meeting... found out from JK that 3 ppl rededicated/gave their lives to Jesus that afternoon! It was so cool lah! Den Lele suggested that we go for street-e on our next LG outing! yeah.. all set.. no problem!

Played flags for a while with the guys in church den joined the intercessors for a moment... and while praying with them, i just sensed that God is doing a hastening work in our midst.. He's moving very quickly... After praying, went to join the rest for the service. After service, went for supper with Timo and Al... ooh and i love the chicken wings! :9

Sunday 29 July
New team in the morning.. since not many vocalists were around, we watched some videos of prophetic evangelism in action. Den went up to CC for worship sunday... and the worship was very good and the anointing was there.. the Holy Spirit was touching me and speaking to me through the songs- No Eye Has Seen, Heart of Worship.. and one more which i forgot... was crying and just experiencing God.. and he was showing me how much he loves me and how much He values me... it was awesome! :) There was one thing that Auntie Ivy Said that caught my attention... She was teaching the children to sing in tongues and she warned the P6s that it would be their last year in CC and that when they joined the youth, "the youth move very fast..." "when God moves, they move..." After CC, Sam Boey was asking Al and I whether we were interested to go and help out the kids at Minds where he was volunteering... like maybe one day get the youth to come over and do something... i'm quite game for it.. ;)we have to be more outward-looking! Den after that Matt approached us asking whether we were interested to do tracting! It was so cool and i'm so excited.. Dee and Nana shared testimony on both services about their experience of street-e the day before... and i believe it encouraged everyone who heard it! :)

Went for choir prac where we finally finished "Mercy Saw Me".. nice song! Den we slacked around for a while and went to Grace's church for her baptism.. i really appreciated the bunch of them there.. they looked so nice and welcoming.. the speaker even walked past me and said "Thanks for coming!" i was kinda surprised by that as well as pai seh cos i was rather restless during the sermon while everyone else was so sober and attentive... probably the speaker could spot me where i was seated.. he seemed really genuine and i admire those ppl in their congregation for their discipline in sitting through the message.. really.. Grace joined us for dinner where all of us took turns making serene laugh before retiring for the day...

Monday 30 July
Serene had nothing to do after she finished her lessons so she called al and i and we ended up going to her house to eat and watch movie... haha.. den in the evening, the both of them played basketball at CCAB while i just stood there and watched.. until by impulse i decided to play too... den spent a long time talking with alvin over supper and went back home...

@TP with Xiaomei

Went to TP yesterday to have a look at that place... and one thing i sensed was there was a kind of heaviness, a sense of oppression in the atmosphere... nothing too hard for the blood of Jesus to cover.. there were many smokers smoking outside the gate and heart just goes out to them.. i wanna see that campus set free and liberated so that we can see more of Jesus everywhere.. Maybe next time i'll get ppl to come along with me and we'll do a prayer walk... this time we need to take authority in the heavenlies and really break open the atmosphere..

Met Pearlyn at her school and she showed me around... it seems that there are a lot of places that we can do a prayer walk at.. i demonstrated how unfamiliar i was with the environment when i got of at the wrong bus stop and had to walk a good distance... den when it was time to return the plates after eating lunch, i din know how to open the repository so i asked pearlyn to help me open it.. den she stepped on something on the floor and it opened.. much like how you would open a dust bin... and the funny thing was there was this huge sign in red instructing me to do just that and it was staring at me in the face just that i didn't notice...

Didn't manage to take a look at the auditoriums though... but spent a good time with pearlyn talking to her about what i have in my heart to do in the school... den i was also giving her some advice.. and i know it wasn't from me but from God as it seemed that His wisdom was just welling up within my spirit... And the Lord revealed to me something in the canteen which helped me understand more about how to function in the Isa 22 mandate...

When Pearlyn had to go off to do her project, Shaun called me cos apparently the bunch of them were bored so i went to church to open the place for them so they could play table tennis.. and Shaun was asking me some math questions so i was kinda helping him around.. and i actually found it fun... i couldn't imagine the day when i would actually miss doing maths... and it turns out that i did after not having touched maths for like 3 and a half years... But i thank God for the opportunity to be able to engage the bunch of them and invest into their lives...

Adios! :)

Relax

Ooh.. today went for Evageline's netball match.. and i think she has the most number of supporters there.. haha.. i saw: Uncle Weng Kin, Auntie Jennifer, Auntie Jenny, Uncle Philip, Auntie Maureen, Auntie Ivy, Auntie D*t, Uncle A*vin, Uncle B*andon and Uncle N*el... Too bad Auntie *manda couldn't go cos of work... :/ they were saying that the other team (TKPS) was better but they had God on their side.. i saw the St Marg's team praying before playing...

And Emmelyn did something cute today.. haha... as she was supporting her school, there was the school flag next to her and she found it kinda irritating so she wanted to put it away.. so she asked her mom if she could put it on the floor.. and she did it twice.. her mom gave her a no.. twice.. den a few minutes later, she asked if she could put it on the bench instead.. and her mom said no again.. den she said "but it's not the floor wad.." haha ok not really funny lah but it was kinda cute...

Went to church after that to slack for a bit before going for prayer meeting where Dr Tan was giving the teaching on Maturing in the Prophetic... and Dr Tan released a word to me which was very interesting... one of the things he said was that i said too high standards for myself and as a result i get frustrated.. so he said "be patient with yourself.. basically God is asking you to relax..." it was nice hearing that... God sees all i'm going through.. :)

i wanna attend next week's teaching too but got dance... nvm.. i shall ask the Lord where He wants me...

I smell revival...

Street Evagelism

Guess wad... Nana and JK's LGs are gonna do street-e on saturday for their LG outing! How exciting! talk about doing something radical.. that's very cool.. :) If you happen to read this, please keep them in prayer... Later i'm going to check out the new Mass Media place at Braddel to look for some street-e material for the mnistry.. haha..

Yesterday had english tuition with Shaun and Jared again... haha... and i thank God that He's working in their lives cos somehow they agreed to come for Sojourners and for LG so that Dot can take them through the foundational material... and it seems that they're also interested in going around sharing with ppl... hopefully i can bring them to go street-e with me one day too...

It's so interesting how God is moving.. cos i happened to come accross a church website the day before and they had photos of their youth group doing street-e at orchard.. so i went in one of my evangelistic daydreams again.. what if we did street-e?? what if we ambushed ppl hanging out at cine, heeren or youth park and shared with them about Christ?? How would it look like... i thought of an idea... we can go to them in pairs and one of us can be holding a video camera while the other interviews the person.. "Hi... we're from Sojourners.. a Christian youth group and we're doing a project.. Could you spare us a minute please?" *they wun usually say no cos it's not cool to say no to nice ppl doing projects* "First question... Jesus- who do you think He is?? ..." one of these days...

Other ideas.. i checked my NUS mail yesterday and i read the new issue of Hooked briefly.. they were advertising this cool cafe at Joo Chiat called Aspire Cafe.. and it looked quite interesting.. apparently ppl would book such cafes for an entire duration for some event or celebration... i thought that was cool... maybe for someone's birthday, we can do some evangelistic event.. like get dat person to share his/her testimony and maybe sing a song.. cos if you're the birthday person, everyone's attention will be on you that evening... so yesterday when i met JK i asked her if she wants one on her birthday.. den she shot the arrow back to me.. but i told her that most of my frens are Christian already and in uni u dun really have "classmates"... And besides, if we have one in late October, it would be more feasible cos 40th Anniversary would be over... ;)

Keep on dreaming... :)

Spirit of Apathy

We're living in a season where God is emphasising prayer.. strong strategic militant prayer.. cos we're contending for our lives, destinies, cities and nations... We're contending for the kingdom of God to be made manifest in the earth.. we're contending for breakthrough in whatever area of our lives.. but the sad reality is that many Christians are still unaware of God's strong call to prayer at this hour... The night before, the Lord was just impressing upon me in a dream on the importance of prayer..

Just finished reading Fire Evangelism and last night i moved on to reading The Last Great Anointing... It's a book on the great end-time Prophetic Prayer Anointing.. Uncle Jem gave it to me in 2003 and though i got started on it, i barely read past the first chapter.. but the Lord just put in my heart for me to read it.. The book talked about identifying the strongholds that we need to demolish and as i was reading the book, the Holy Spirit was impressing upon me one of the areas we need to contend against in Sojourners Ministry- the spirit of apathy... One of the verses that was impressed upon me came from Matthew 24:12 saying that in the last days, the love of many will grow cold... and this happens because of the iniquity that abounds... Now i understand why when i took something from the refrigerator yesterday evening, my spirit was praying to God asking Him to give me an aggressive spirit.. whatever that means.. cos i need it to pray aggressive prayers and to counter the spirit of apathy...

This is a clarion call to you my friends out there who still bother to read my blog... If you're struggling with something.. be it sin or a particular ungodly mindset.. or even a relationship you know you shouldn't be in, get out of it! It will disqualify you from inheriting the great promises that God has for you at this hour! If you continue to harden your heart, your love will grow cold... all the enemy needs is one open door into your life to destroy you and even what you've spent years building until now... Don't settle for second best... Don't compromise.. If you know that you're not walking in the best that God has for you, leave it! Second best just won't do... there is a promise that awaits you but you gotta eagerly contend for it!

Zion awaits! God bless! :)

Weekend in Church

Ok i seriously need to come up with more creative names for my blog posts... anyway, after prayer walk on Sat we went to church and asked William to help me burn this sermon on CD and he asked me who i was burning it for... i told him it was for New team.. den since he wasn't part of new team, he asked me if he could also burn a copy for himself... and that small gesture left an impression in my heart cos he was so hungry for God that he would even want a copy too... :)

Well anyways, had teachers meeting in the afternoon before going for youth service.. Just sensed that during the service, there's still a barrier we needed to breach.. i felt we need to teach our ppl how to come to God with a sense of expectation.. cos i was observing some ppl on Saturday and when the Word was being preached, they were just sitting there with that look on thir faces.. ppl must give God the due respect.. cos service isn't just like any other activity.. it's about meeting God.. and ppl just dun have the fear of God when they're not taking God seriously.. It's a question of why do they even go for service in the first place.. You can tell if their focus is not on God and they're more interested in having fun or perhaps being entertained.. And that's a selfish focus.. when our eyes are not on Him and we don't have a sense of expectation, how can we expect Him to move? No doubt He can move sovereignly but we really need to re-examine our attitudes.. have we really become a passive ppl.. a ppl who are simply just.. not interested??

The Holy Spirit did move nonetheless.. especially among those who were positioned to receive Him...

I'm just sick and tired of God getting less glory than He deserves from His children..

Had the musical rehearsal after that.. actually i didn't want to dismiss ppl cos the Holy Spirit was doing a deep work.. but anyway.. rehearsal was as usual.. we're having another one on Friday and since Auntie Michelle can't make it, i'm supposed to kinda take over.. but i really dunno wad to do... Lord, give me the grace... :)

Before i went to bed on Sat evening, i was asking God how come the youth were like that, referring to what i saw during youth service earlier.. Den the Lord showed me a pair of hands moulding a pot.. den the Holy Spirit said "I am the potter, you are the clay" so case closed.. when He says that, i know that it's not about me or what i think.. not about my timing or my impatience with how He works with ppl.. and it wasn't my place to question Him either...

Wasn't in the right frame of mind on Sunday morning... had new team as usual and it went kinda well... thank God that Dot was around to help the vocalists cos i really didn't know what to do... Servers cell was cancelled and went up for CC, Sheela did a good job leading worship (as usual) while Serene did a good job teaching though it was her first time.. During worship, Auntie Ivy saw a pair of hands as a potter molding a piece of clay and i found that a confirmation of what God shared with me the night before... :) Cassie shared a little after the lesson and she said that you don't have to worry what other ppl think about you.. that left an imprint in my heart too.. cos many times i get involved in awkward situations when i talk to ppl...

After CC had lunch as usual before going for Choir Prac.. since we had time, i decided to teach Lele some moves i learned on the flag and he manged to kinda pick them up easily.. :) I also tried this flag move i saw some ppl do last thursday and at first i couldn't do it but somehow God enabled me to and it became easier after that... Went for choir and we did part of Mercy Saw Me as well as revise some other songs.. den slacked around in church before making our way to JK's house again...

Jk and I went to one of the food centres at Chong Pang to get some food while Alvin and the rest went to rent a movie first... we ordered Black Pepper Beef, Sweet and Sour Pork, Kang Kong, Egg with Prawn, Barbecued Stingray and Barbecued Sotong... Den Auntie Mary cooked the rice... it was a filling meal.. very nice.. :) And Rayson helped us order some tangyuan too... Almost couldn't move after that.. :P The bunch of them couldn't decide which movie to rent so they settled for "catch me if you can" which we didn't end up watching cos Channel 5 was showing National Treasure and we decided to watch that instead.. :P And after yesterday's trip, i guess all of us now know how to activate "surround sound" in our own TV systems.. :)

Till the next time.. ;)

Prayer Walk @ RP

Saturday was fun! :) Met with Rayson and Sam early to do some prayer walking at their school.. and it went quite well though we didn't cover as many of the places that we would have wanted.. William joined us too after his RJ thing... Must do prayer walking more often...

In reading up more on evangelism and seeing what God is doing in the church and in our youth, i've decided that i'm sick and tired of doing the same repetitive things over and over again every week where we come together as a "holy huddle" and do nothing about the sea of humanity out there that still yet needs to know Him.. i've figured that i'll start with prayer cos that's the first place we need to invest in... I wanna take RP, den ransack TP and den whatever else God gives us along the way.. and thank God i'm having hols so i can visit these places...

When we went to RP on sat, one of the first places we visited was the Agora halls.. they were like mini expo halls that were sufficiently big and considerably useful... Rayson told me that Agora meant marketplace in Greek and i was so excited cos the church talks about a marketplace ministry, taking the Word of God to the streets... in fact, you can do a search using Strong's Concordance and find the word "agora" used several times in the New Testament.. :) What is in my heart is to have some sort of an evangelistic carnival, aptly disguised as a fund-raising event for the rehab or something... and den we put up free prayer booths, free prophecy booths, free dream interpretation and free healing booths for anyone who's interested to visit.. this generation needs new strategies and God is using more than just little green booklets to reach the lost and call the world to Himself...

While praying at the Agora halls, the Lord was just impressing upon me to pray for the school to be a place where ppl can love one-another.. cos many times in tertiary institutions, relationships between individuals are more practical based... cos they're having projects or something.. or even in "love" relationships where one party is just using the other.. but i wanna see ppl having unconditional love for one another.. and that's the place where the Holy Spirit brings true transformation upon an entire student body... love is a place of unity..

At RP, we also visited the Lawn where we spelled out Jesus' Name on the grass field using some small stones... we didn't have much time but next time i hope to make the name bigger... as we prayed there and claimed the place for Jesus, i was asking the Lord to cause the Christians there to be like those stones.. like living stones used to display and magnify the Name of Jesus.. We also prayed at the cafe and canteen before heading out to the admin area to look for William... We prayed at the seat of government and administration for the school asking God to give us favour with the school authorities.. we prayed for the teachers at the Faculty Centre.. we prayed at the Cultural centre and also the bus stop before making our way to church...

Hoping that our next Connection 333 will be at the cultural centre... Nothing's impossible with God but it's time we take Him at His Word and start believing Him for greater things.. :)

One feature that the school has is this water droplet monument by the fountain and it has a symbol of a fish upon it... much like the same symbol used by the early church.. apparently it was only added there quite recently.. and water, as we know it, is a symbol of the Holy Spirit.. what we did was at that pond we poured out water from William's "Life" water bottle to symbolise God pouring out His life upon the people...

Over all, we had a fruitful time.. i wanna go back there again to see the people and allow God to speak to me again.. hoping to do a prayer walk there at least once a month with anyone who's willing to join me... maybe we'll even do a few "official" Sojourners ones... I'm going to TP this week to meet xiaomei and also to test the ground.. i'm so excited at what God is doing that i can't wait... May God birth His plans forth as we continue to intercede in prayer...

God bless! :)

Double

Hmmm.. it seems that God has been speaking to me through my phone again and nowadays it seems that a number of times when i look at my phone clock, both sides seem to display the same number... like 22:22 or 17:17 or 21:21... kinda intrigues me.. but i belive it's a sign of the double portion.. i'm even claiming it to be a sign that God is gonna double our youth... :D

Spent most of today in church doing some random stuff... checked out RP website and found that they said that their facilities are open for public booking! That increases my hopes that our next event would be there.. and i dun think that would be our first in RP either... :) I wanna pack the church with youth until everyone has no choice but to get a bigger church building!!! (I'm tired of that ulu place anyway... :P)

Also spent a good time listening to online sermons and reading Che Ahn's book on fire evangelism.. and the Lord was just highlighting to me how much I've neglected prayer and how important prayer is.. and one of the things i believe i need to pray for is for the youth to have a heart of prayer.. yes God can move with just one person's prayer but i wanna see the youth having such a heart for it too.. cos it provides the power generator for us to reap the harvest...

So i was there in the youth room just crying before God and He impressed upon me that verse from Isa 58- "If you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry..." And that's what our youth needs to do.. cos there's a world out there that's lost and hungry for the truth but many times we've not been willing to spend ourselves on behalf of them... we've rather focused on our studies, cca, personal success without placing a premium on the advancement of the Kingdom... and for that we need sacrifice.. the church was birthed through Jesus' sacrifice, the early church advanced through much hardship... yet the modern church has been steeped in compromise... always staying within the comfort zone.. keeping to the status quo.. contented being saved and enjoying their gatherings, parties and hillsongs.. bleah... it's time we move out of our self-centred wineskins and onto having a kingdom mentality...

Blessings and Dealings

Really thankful for how God has blessed me throughout this year... Walking with Him is really one big roller coaster ride but i won't trade it for anything else in the world! :) Was in church yesterday going through english with Jared and Shaun and i'm really glad God gave me the priviledge and opportunity to invest in their lives.. even with them asking me some spiritual questions and all and wanting to find out more.. i'm so excited at what He's doing! :) And God used Shawn to bless me too.. cos a few days back i was kinda craving to eat some tangyuan.. but den yishun was too far away and i didn't know anywhere else to get... den yesterday Shaun got me this bowl of beancurd and i din eat it until i got home in the evening.. den when i got to eat it, it wasn't just beancurd.. there was tangyuan in it too! And i'm so touched at how God provided cos i didn't even pray for it! :)

Yesterday i was just looking at the poster in the church concourse detailing the history of Salem Chapel from it's Big Top tent days and Kalidasa days to where we are now.. and then i started tearing as i was reading it... a good reason for that was because the Holy Spirit was bringing forth the vision and sense of expectation inside of me of what He's going to do.. of the coming revival ahead and the many ppl going to be saved and how He's gonna move in healing, signs and wonders... But another part of me was grieved because of how the church started with such wonderful beginnings but have stagnated along the way.. of how service was marked by sacrifice then, instead of compromise.. I pray that this generation would not miss the coming revival...

Errol was worship leading for Wednesday Prayer Meeting and he said that he found it hard.. like as if there were "ten walls"... i knew what he was talking about cos i've seen it.. i call this phenomena selective worship... when they didn't know a song, most didn't bother to sing.. but when it came to a song they knew, they sang loudly.. and it reflects their heart attitude.. and God is after the heart and this attitude is not going to cut it.. what i sensed among the small crown was that they were there with the wrong mentality and coming expecting to receive and be ministered to by God or the worship team instead of ministering to God... People who came to the temple brought sacrifices with them but having been corrupted by a service-oriented society, the people of God come with this childish mindset of just sitting down there expecting God to do something.. They come with the wrong sense of expectations.. it's totally man-centred worship.. meeting God at your own terms instead of His... It's like coming there, folding your arms and waiting for God to get you instead of engaging Him and bringing Him the sacrifices of praise that He is more than worthy of... it's like expecting to get something but doing nothing to engage or bless Him.. the Bible says that we're not to appear before God empty-handed...

Yes, God is doing something mighty in our midst but it also involves the dealings of God, the casting away of old and demonic mindsets and attitudes that hinder us from experiencing the fulness of what He has in store. God has been dealing with me lately.. been reading Che Ahn's book Fire Evangelism and when i first wanted to read it, i expected to be stimulated and encouraged by stories and sharing of a tremendous move of the Holy Spirit to bring the lost to salvation... but He started off getting first things first... He talked about getting right with our first love, having the right character and about having pure motives for evangelism.. i realised that many times, my motives are not pure.. i want to evangelise cos i wanna see more ppl in youth rather than being concerned for their souls and wanting to see Jesus glorified.

The book also talked about returning to your first love and i've realised that i've lost it... last time i used to wake up early in the morning to worship God on my guitar or just pop in a CD and i'll be crying before Him in His presence.. and those were times when i was really busy with school.. but now i have a lot of time on my hands but i spend a good part of it sleeping and watching TV... instead of spending time with Him in the evening, i'd rather watch some interesting Chinese drama or something.. The Holy Spirit said something scary last night when i was watching TV "You've made your choice"... can you imagine if He says that to you?? And my heart was hardened enough to carry on watching instead of getting right with Him.. So when i read the book this morning, i repented and He was impressing upon me that though i can't change what happened yesterday, i can make a different choice the next time...

I also realised that many times when i worship nowadays, i become so consumed with the worship- how it sounds.. whether it goes well or not.. whether the presence of God is there.. instead of just being consumed with worshipping Jesus.. When the book talked about prayer as a means for God to change us, i remembered that in the past i came humbly before Him each night asking Him to change me but now i don't pray as earnestly as i prayed then...

This morning, i had a dream where i encountered a minister, someone whom i know to be a prophet of God. I can't remember exactly what words he used but he asked me a question saying something like "Do you have pride being a leader in Sojourners?" It was quite true... not only that but I've also held bitterness in my heart and i've been very judgmental upon others. God was just dealing with me as i read the book today and it was His kindness that was leading me to repentance...

Yes God is doing something wonderful and part of it is that He's dealing with our hearts.. our heart attitudes that are keeping us from experiencing Him fully...

God bless! :)

Healing Revival

Went to Cornerstone for the past 2 nights.. Pastor Che Ahn from Harvest International Ministries was preaching and there were lotsa things that i got from the meeting... he also talked about faith and that's what God has been impressing upon me recently..

One of the things i'm gonna believe God for is for the healing gifts to be in operation in Salem and even in Sojourners ministry and Children's Church cos i'm in a place where i'm frustrated already and i dun care anymore for whatsoever religious mindsets that may come and hinder the move of God.. i'm just gonna move with Him and operate in faith.. i wanna see Sojourners lead in healing crusades.. not with some big-shot minister around.. just God using us.. i wanna see my CC kids going around praying and prophesying over ppl.. i wanna see and do something radical that would shake the very foundations of traditionalism that the church has been so steeped in... that kind of "only speacial speakers can do this kinda thing" mentality... I hate it! I wanna build and build and build.. i'm sick and tired of religion.. i'm sick and tired of doctrine without power, doctrine without relationship and more doctrine without practical things being done on the earth.. in fact, we dun need another sermon.. we just need to just get out there and start doing something.. the Lord has promised me stadiums... the Lord has shown me from Isa 58 "Your healing will quickly appear".. this is the day of healing and i wanna contend for it..

Last Saturday, i read one of the "dream" papers that the youth passed to me and one of them wrote about us conducting healing services.. i add my faith to that.. another wrote about going out on the streets and ministering like in the book of acts.. i add my faith to that.. The Lord showed me that an angel has been sent to Sojourners ministry for the area of healing revival.. it's time that we dun waste their time.. it's time that we move out and act upon our faith and start praying for healing... I wanna do things i've never done before...

Two night ago, God spoke to me in a dream reminding me that it is Jesus who' gonna be glorified... cos many times i get caught up in all the activity and implementation of ideas... but God wants to bring us to a place where what we do points back to Him and glorifies Him... That's what i wanna see... when we get to that place, we're gonna see a lasting revival break out and the Holy Spirit moving in our midst like never before..

Hallelujah! :)

Momentum

God is building the momentum for what He is doing in the church and i'm so glad to be a part of it! Let's talk about the weekend and what's been happening...

Had Gatekeepers on friday and the presence of the Lord was awesome in the place.. was telling Ray and Serene that some of the best worship experiences that i had were not in Ignite conference but during Gatekeepers.. something for you all to think about.. I saw my spirit man burning with fire inside and i knew the Lord wanted to do something.. anyway, I saw the cloud of prophecy enter the room... and God spoke to many of us.. there were also angels in the place and the angels were there to ensure that our destiny and the prophetic words that have been released over our lives would come to pass and find their fulfillment.

I sensed that what we were duing during gatekeepers was changing the atmosphere of the church.. it was affecting the church, not just the youth ministry and i felt that the Lord was calling the church to arise... There was like an invitation for us to go into His presence where we've never gone in before... to access His presence.. And during worship i saw the Lord Jesus surrounded by almond blossoms and He was saying "Come, come..." Almond blossoms are quite significant for what they can stand for.. One of the things they represene are people, especially leaders and one of the things that God was highlighting this year is the blossoming of people.. The blossoming also speaks about the fulfillment of words that have been spoken in the past... these are that promises that God has made over the ministry and the blossoming talks about them coming to pass. The interesting thing about what i saw was that these almond blossoms were surrounding Jesus.. this means that for them to come to pass and for the blossoming to take place, Jesus must be at the centre of it.. he must be our focus.. our eys must be on Him cos only in Him will these things come to pass... cos everything is yes and amen in Him...

Another thing i saw was a tractor... and it talks about reaping the harvest with new strategies.. people used to reap by hand but now they use tractors and the tractors speak about us reaping more with the new methods than what people did with the old methods.. i was telling alvin that afternoon that this generation requires new strategies.. not just the 4 spiritual laws.. and i believe these new methods will involve a display of signs and wonders.. of the supernatural.. of the prophetic, of healing and a demonstration fo the power of God... we're living in the last days...

During Gatekeepers, the Lord has also placed upon me a new mandate... i saw an axe on the ground and the Holy Spirit asked me to pick it up so i did and i received it in the Spirit.. and i knew what this axe meant... it's for me to cut down anything opposed to faith.. all the mindsets and attitudes that are opposed to what God wants to do and that are opposed to the nature of Christ... it's gonna stay with me for a while...

Had a plenary meeting with the leadership team on saturday afternoon before youth service which turned out quite well i guess... a good number volunteered to plan this year's youth camp and most were also open to the idea of us having our next connection 333 at RP and most were open also to us having that 24h worship event.. hmmm if ppl can have live earth for the environment, why can't we have something like that for our generation?? :)

Had worship followed by LG... i read some of the dreams that some of the youth wrote down and i'm quite pleased.. hehehe... had musical prac after that den went home...

sunday morning... had to cab to church cos i overslept. joined the teachers for their 730 prayer. Went for 1st service cos there was no new team... Den when he talked about Caleb and the mountains, i was reminded of the word spoken over me that i would go to a hill country which i'm still dunno what... a country came to my mind though... *****a****... but i need confirmation...

Got William and Alex to pray for me... when William prayed, tears started to well up my eyes and honestly, i've never seen a Sojourner pray like that before.. not even some of the leaders... He said "i just sense that God loves you..." and he didn't say it like it was just another statement but it really came from deep down within him... God is really doing something...

Went up to CC where the worship was flat... ppl were not entering in, they were just spectators, not participants.. even auntie ivy din know what to do at a point.. i was supposed to share that sunday but God had other plans.. we challenged the children to engage God on their own and got teachers to go around praying for them.. also got some of the kids to go around praying... and den there was an opening of the heart to some measure.. hope that God would sustain and build up what He's doing in the lives of the children... so since that took up most of the time and there was no sharing, the lesson would have to be postponed one week later.. and since i have servers cell this sunday, someone has to take over... and since most ppl can't, and the lesson was easy enuf, serene would be taking over.. she agreed to do it and it'd be her first time teaching in CC this coming sunday.. :)

After CC went to celebrate David's birthday in the kitchen together with Shaun and company and had our lunch before joining choir. Choir prac was kinda short lah cos lunch was late and we din do "Mercy Saw Me"... den went to join serene and ray to go town... ended up at NYDC where we ate some good food and i was just sharing with them stuff from the book of John.. maybe next time we can do more tissue evangelism... :)

Adios! :)

Blastoff

Havent blogged in a while.. hope i can remember all the things that happened and all that stuff has deposited in my heart the past week...

Went for blastof Camp last Wednesday to Friday morning... hardly slept the night before not cos i was so excited but cos i was busy with the badge press that i bought... i was up late at night addicted to that whole repetitive process as well as the sense of satisfaction of seeing a nicely-made badge... it so happens that i popped in the mp3 from the mpst recent Glory Encounter sessions so that i'd have something to listen to while pressing badges.. it turned out that my mom got irritated with the sound cos it was so late at night and the chinese interpreter was so enthusiastic...

well anyway, one of what Paul Keith Davis said caught my attention.. cant remember how he put it exactly.. but it answered one of the questions that i had for a long time regarding the prophetic movement.. God was then speaking to my heart regarding why it seems that the prophetic was so concerned with heavenly encounters that it seems not to have as much emphasis as reaching the lost... then the Lord showed me from Isaiah chapter 6 that the message and commission direct from the heart of God that came to Isaiah was birthed right out of a prophetic encounter of meeting with God.. with the very person of Jesus.. and being so utterly ravished and undone by His presence.. only then was he an effective witness.. cos many times we evangelise without being first left undone by a revelation of God and His heart.. and that's why many times we're ineffective in reaching out the lost cos our testimonies cos the world doesn't want another doctrine.. they want real, genuine faith encounters... you wanna get fired up with the message of Christ? you first gotta encounter His fiery presence and get ultimately undone by it... then we'll be ready to carry the gospel...

I went for Blastoff camp and there were things that i learned and things that God impressed upon my heart during the camp.. For one, during the first evening session, He was stirring me regarding qt aain.. cos i've slackened in my devotional life after the 40 days thinking with a deceived mind that i "deserve to take a break"... i couldn't be more wrong considering the season of great warfare we are in...

One of the things God was speaking to me during the worship went something like "You think you've seen something? You ain't seen nothing yet." Lately God has been challenging me concerning faith and the removal of mindsets that oppose faith. Cos i've sat under the ministry of some of God's modern-time generals and yet until recently i've discovered that i've limited God in thinking that what they're walking in is not for me... I've seen God move in a considerable measure.. to describe them as "nothing" compared to what God's gonna do in the future is quite exciting don't you think...

During the worship, i saw an angel with a silvery sword... it looked like the moon amidst the blue night sky... then he knelt down and struck the sword into the ground...
not really sure what this could mean but i feel that the ground may represent the barren hearts that the Lord is penetrating with the sword of His Word...

God was also again reminding me of Isa 22:22.. I looked at my phone at that time on tuesday and wednesday nights.. and the sms tracy sent me on thursday night was also marked with that time.. so i really believe God wants me to receive the key of David...

God was also speaking to me through Psalm 42 especially the first two verses about thirsting for Him and longing after Him... I was also reading Hebrews 11 one morning cos God has been teaching me regarding faith lately and i belive God wants to speak to me out of it...

Perhaps one of the most interesting things that God was speaking to me was during the games on the 2nd day of the camp... we played a game called "Landlord" and it was quite fun... the objective of the game was to earn the most money.. and on the first stage of the game we were hunting for property cards all around NUS and my group ended up with 2 semi-Ds and a mansion.. and that was considered a lot for one group to bag... then on the third round of of the game we went around accumulating money through answering questions in certain stations or doing several tasks... and my group also accumulated the most amount of credits and we won the game.. God was using the game as a prophetic sign to me regarding the riches that He would entrust me with in line with His end-time plans and purposes... One of the ways that our group managed to earn so much was cos we met and networked with the right ppl (within the game)... and from that God was showing me the importance of knowing the right people and working with them to reap the benefits... One of the other reasons was also favor... with God and with man... dun think God has spoken to me through a game before... didn't have to wait for sessions for me to gain something...

I didn't attend the last evening of blastoff cos i had to be at Touch Centre at Marine Parade for rehearsals... not easy working with the angel wings and my arms were aching when i got back. :P but it was fun.. auntie ro also got me to wave the extra large "waves of glory" banner instead of just waving the large one... and i found that change significant cos i was telling the Lord that i wanted to wave the XL banner which meant carrying the highest level of His glory.. hmmm.. guess wad He answered my prayer instantly...

God has ben showing me the kind of favour He has over my life.. the other incident was when i headed back to PGP after going for the rehearsal and i got my group to help me get some food for supper... i wanted 3 baos and 2 egg pratas... when they came back, i started eating the buns in my room and after eating the 3, i didn't really feel like eating egg prata anymore.. semmed that cheese prata would be more palatable... but i knew i had to finish it so i took out the prata from the plastic bag and while i thought to myself that i wanted cheese instead.. and guess wad... the packet turned out to contain cheese prata instead of egg!!! hmmm so God knows my mind and my tummy... He knew that i wouldn't wanna eat egg prata after eating the buns so He orchestrated an ordering mistake so that i would end up with cheese pratas rather than egg ones... That's my God.. He knows what's on my mind even before i think it... :D

Here's a brief overview of the activities we had at blastoff:

-got to know a few freshmen and other crusaders
-played dirty games... not really my type lah but God granted me the wisdom to wear dry fit material so the crud would come off my clothes easily...
-signed alliances with the arts groups against the other regions :P
-meals were kinda bad.. except for breakfast...
-attended 2 sessions where Ying Kheng spoke.. she's quite a good speaker
-played "Landlord"
-went out for lunch with some of the guys after the camp
-told a number of ppl the funnie worship stories i heard during wmd camp... (apparently these stories went to Korea and came back cos of the crusaders that i told them to who went to Korea for CM conference and told their frens...)

Adios! :)

Recollections

Hi... it's been a long time since i last blogged... too lazy lah... so i guess i'll write down a few recollections of the days gone by...

Thursday 5 July
Stayed at home most of the day.. went out late in the evening just to walk around the neighbourhood, get some fresh air and spend some time talking to God and God was just remindig me that evening that when Solomon asked Him for a discerning heart, the word discerning in the Bible also meant listening.. Solomon asked God for a listening heart.. God was just reminding me that i dun just need to listen to Him but listen to ppl too...

Friday 6 July
Couldn't sleep the night before so i spent a while reading the Bible and praying on my bed.. And the Lord was just speaking to me from Isaiah 58:12.. it was from a passage that Uncle Jem released last Sunday while the intercessors were praying.. as i read it, i just felt that the Lord wants to establish a ministry in church where there would be a repair of broken families and marriages and to restore the basic family unit...

When i was praying, i was asking the Lord to give Sojourners more passion.. and sometimes, when you think you know how to pray, the Holy Spirit will actually correct your praying.. i felt that He was telling me that we don't need to pray for more passion... the leaders just need to start displaying it...

Couldn't sleep so i went online and slept at ard 7am.. den i woke up at ard 12+ cos i was gonna meet Jon Jr in town for lunch.. had quite a fruitful time and managed to buy some stuff that i was looking for... Den in the evening i went for Prayer Warriors meeting which was quite fruitful too.. enjoyed the service and the preaching.. also spent some time playing with Peter and carrying him around..

Saturday 7 July

Had to be in church at 11am cos Dot wasn't feeling well so i had to help out with the worship for main service.. and it was fun too.. cos after the Lord enabled me to flow with the Roland keyboard during WMD Camp, i got bolder to use it more and more and it was really quite nice and easy to use cos the keys were quite light to the touch and were't so hard...

Took the worship session for youth service and Alvin shared.. it went quite well lah and one of the things that keep coming up was this concept of having a sense of expectation... seems that the youth are just waiting to be challenged.. that they're expectant that something's gonna happen.. Holy Spirit, pls keep this going and intensifying.. :)

Rushed after youth service to katong where Cornerstone hosted the Just Worship event by Integrity Asia... got to see Nigel, Kelvin and Jia Jian(if that's how you spell it) and Andrew too... Andrew said a few interesting things... appearently he was also himself stirred after attending WMD camp and he told us that he's still praying for us even after his speaking engagement... now that's exciting.. seems that he's looking forward to be back again.. and he told me that Dot writes nice songs.. when he heard one of her songs, apparently his hair stood.. he also told me that when they get their studio up, we can come over.. hehe.. that's cool.. :)

Uncle Johnny drove us back.. hehe... now we know where abel gets his genes from.. :P ...

Sunday 8 July

Woke up at 715 and rushed to church cos we were supposed to be there at 730 for service.. ended ap reaching at around 745 in a cab.. :P since Dot was still unwell and couldn't do new team, she asked me to take the keyboardists too but i forgot i was supposed to play for service so i couldn't take them.. instead, i gave them a project to do- they had to compose a song... haha.. when i visited them after playing for 1st service, they were kinda stuck.. i told them that songs are like their memorial stones.. they usually come out of ppl's experiences with God and how God has been faithful in their lives... After 1st service, each of them had a song each lah.. i think it was probably easier to write their own one than to collaborate.. hehe...

Before 2nd service, i was thinking about a couple of things that made me rather disappointed.. so i was asking God a few things and one of the truths that He was highlighting in my heart which i shared with the 2nd liners is that without submission there can be no unity... Cos ppl always wanna do things their own way and if we have ppl doing that and not submitting, then everyone wld be at different directions.. but when we all agree that the ways of God are right and we follow Him where He's leading and when we submit to our leaders too, we'll be moving into the same place at the same pace.. that's how unity is formented.. when we all have one common vision... Nigel did this really funnie ice breaker during 2nd liners cell.. den Noel shared a very appropriate passage from James chapter 4... and i felt the Lord bringing us to the place where we need to lay down certain things in our lives cos without laying them down, there can be no breakthrough..

Went for choir prac where we learned to sing It is Well... i seriously think the guys shouldn't be stuck in that one small room lah cos of lack of oxygen... seriously felt sleepy man.. and it was also afternoon- the graveyard shift for preachers.. oh well.. anyways we went to novena after that, walked around.. found the day especially fruitful cos had a fruitful chat with Ray and JK...

One of the truths that God was depositing in my heart during 2nd liners cell was the role of fatherhood in raising up vision.. The Lord has been speaking to me about fatherhood from Isa 22.. That's the approach we must have when raising up leaders.. it's to raise up ppl with vision and bring them to a place where these visions are fulfilled.. Abraham was a person of faith and vision- he was a typology of God the Father.. and he dared to believe God and move with Him despite the oddities and impossibilities of the situation.. He was a man who saw his descendants before they came to be.. who saw the night sky and believed God for his seed to be just as numerous... It was vision and faith that characterised his fatherhood... As Hebrews puts it, it is only with faith and perseverance that we inherit the promise...

Monday 9 July

Stayed at home most of today and listened to sermons on mp3.. As i was just soaking in the presence of God, He was highlighting to me the hindering mindset of false humility... cos recently the Lord has been teaching me to rise up in faith.. and false humility is a deceptive religious mindset opposed to faith and how God works in our lives.. like when He wasnts to use us mightily in some way or to bless us greatly.. den we come to Him and say "but that doesn't happen to me" "but that only happens for special people" "what are the chances that i'm one of them.." and so on...and we hinder what God wants to do because of our unbelief.. ironically it is this very mindset that keeps us from inheriting the promise, from moving into the potentiality of greatness... one of the most profound phrases that the Lord has deposited in my spirit in recent days is "Why not?" There's nothing that qualifies me for it other than His grace... if He wants to give it, might as well take it rite?? We dun wanna be like the elder bro in the story of the prodigal son to whom the father said "all i have is yours" but failed to appropriate it...

Bless you!!! :D

Prayer Meeting

Ok.. just a quick post.. today during prayer meeting, i felt that the Holy Spirit was saying "I am with you" and "You don't have to do anything. You don't have to weep, wail, mourn or cry. All you have to do is submit." Submission is the key to victory... Jesus has already won the victory and as we submit to Him, we'll receive it. We need His Word to dwell in us richly so that we know what He wants us to walk in.. and as we walk in His Word, His ways, we'll walk in victory! :)

Hallelujah... :)

The Church in Flight

This is probably by far the most interesting dream that i had recently cos it was so vivid and so real and so interesting cos some of the things i saw in this dream were things i've never seen before... so i'm quite excited to share it with you. I had this dream this afternoon at around 1 plus or something??

Apparently it concerns the church.. Salem Chapel was supposed to have some kind of church camp like what we always have once every 2 years which involved the entire church. So this time guess where we held it? In church! But it wasn't so ordinary cos wad happened was that we were all supposed to fly to somewhere.. And how did we fly? Not on a plane. It was like as if the entire row of shophouses at Thomson Hills Drive was ripped from the ground and launched into the air like a big aeroplane... and as the building was in mid-air, that's where we held the camp... Ok for those of you who are reading this and are pondering what all this could mean, i'll explain later..

So as we were flying in mid-air we were having the sessions.. Anyway, something happened which i can't remember very clearly but i got pissed with someone.. pastor ban then said something to me which i can't remember but i was still feeling pissed so i walked out of the building and decided to do some cycling for a bit (which was no problem cos the road and ground around the church was ripped from the earth along with the building and was flying in the sky likewise).. It's interesting to note that i managed to learn to cycle then cos in real life i dunnno how... I also saw some snow-capped mountains in the distance.. it seems that they were not on the ground but part of the plateau that we were travelling on...

But anyway, once i was done, i went back inside the building and they were having worship.. if i'm not mistaken they were singing "When I Look into Your Holiness" at a slightly faster pace than usual. The worship was really intense and high voltage and very different from normal congregational worship that we experience cos there were some guest worship leaders from another country (South Africa?) who took the worship sessions. Found that quite interesting... Then we were supposed to break up into different sessions and i went to join the youth one...

The youth session was very interesting. Cos apparently we had some guest camp speakers. And it wasn't like as if they were some big shot ministers... in fact, they didn't seem that much older than us.. but they were moving in what seemed to be a very unique demostration of God's power. They took some plants and they moved their hands around it and made it grow.. right there before our eyes. There was this dead plant if i remembered correctly and somehow, life was restored within in and as the camp speaker directed it, the branches and stalks grew right there and then before our very eyes.. then the plant even produced flowers and then the speaker caused the flower to die to produce a fruit right there on the spot. Apparently the power that they carried was so strong that even when the plant was blossoming, it affected another plant next to it and caused it to blossom too! I was wondering if they carried anything with them that might have induced the plants to grow.. like some chemical or something.. or maybe even perhaps some anointing oil.. I saw some video beforehand that concerns the speakers' ministry and i saw all the plants growing quickly and i thought it was like the kind you see on television where the whole process is speeded up.. little did i know that it would happen right there before my eyes! Now this kind of demonstration offends my mind and messes with my theology... but is it really of God? We know that only God can give life cos He's the author of Life and all life from the universe comes from Him. Only He can restore life to a piece of dead plant and it is He who causes plants to grow. It was He who caused Aaron's rod to bud, blossom and produce almonds overnight. It was He who caused a plant to grow instantly to shade Jonah and later caused it to wither. I'm believing God for a literal demonstration of such signs and wonders in our midst in time to come.

So while the youth were having such an interesting session, i was wondering what the adults were doing and apparently the youth and adults were only separated by a curtain.. when it was drawn back, i saw the adults having a dance workshop! They were all learning how to dance and they were carrying stuff as i saw them moving around in a circle. I think that some of their dance instructors were even children as i saw some children in their midst. I also saw jesse raj there i think and uncle jem..

What else did i see? Well apparently there was this dark room or theaterette behind the church where some ppl were watching a movie or something. The seats were quite comfortable.. like those bean bags ppl normally slouch in... I dropped by for a while and saw a seat next to this girl whom i knew.. i was talking to her and she was crying because of something.. i'm not gonna post it here cos it's quite a sensitive issue. So i was just listening to her and trying to talk to her... then it seemed as if the movie that everyone was watching ended or stopped and auntie quee eng came out and scolded everyone there for slacking while they should be attending their sessions instead or something like that. When the lights came on i also saw ****** there holding a gameboy which she happened to be playing and she was also wearing a really tacky outfit...

Ok this was one really bizzare dream but i believe that there are certain things we can learn from it.. certain truths that God is revealing:
-God wants to bring the church to the next level.. not just one ministry but everyone.. that's what it means by the church building being launched up into the sky...
-The youth will surpass the adults and move faster than them.. while the adults are only learning about dancing, the youth is already moving onto signs and wonders...
-God is highlighting the idea of blossoming again and bearing of fruit.. the idea of revival when something dead if filled with life and starts bearing fruit again.
-God is again highlighting the dying away of the flower to produce the fruit.. the dying away of the niceness of living in the status quo.. and He's doing a radical change..
-As some flowers blossom, they will influence and affect those next to them and cause them to blossom likewise... This is what passionate ppl do to those around them...
-God is gonna raise up leaders like the camp speakers whom He will use to train ppl and cause them to blossom...
-God is bringing about greater openness amongst the adults regarding the role of dance in worship.
-God is using young people to teach the adults and impart to them.. the youth speakers were quite young, the children were also teaching the adults... This also talks about the pivotal role of young people in spearheading the coming church-wide revival.
-God offends the mind by using young people and starting off with them. God also offends the mind with the radical demonstration of signs and wonders that are considered unconventional and that dun go according to tradition!
-There are a bunch of ppl who are not very serious about God when they go to church.. these are the ones in the dark, in the theaterette.. These ppl go to church for entertainment purposes.. They like to remain comfortable and refuse to get out from their comfort zone.. it's time that they wake up.. God will raise up a few godly ppl to pull the plug on them and turn on the lights and call them to get serious with God.
-that person i saw holding the gameboy has a really huge destiny in God.. and satan wants to come and sell distractions at small packages... if she keeps on allowing herself to get distracted, she might just miss out on her destiny...
-As all this goes on, we know that the church is still in transit- that the fullness of her destiny has not yet come cos she's still flying to a destination. And though she's in flight and gets to experience these things, there's something much greater that awaits her when she gets there!

God bless! :)

Attacks

I slept quite late last night.. more like this morning.. like around 3 plus or something and i had one of those dreams that i felt was a spiritual attack.. Hmmm... i wasn't really afraid lah.. but there was that kind of adrenaline rush that made it kinda.. well... fun??

If you got too much of an active imagination maybe you can skip this dream and read the next paragraph... Ok it was like another of those times when my body was asleep but my spiritual senses were awake and my spiritual eyes were open even though my natural eyes were closed... I saw a dark figure close to me.. i didn't see him clearly.. i only saw him as a shadow and i only remember seeing his head.. it was a silhouette of some guy and i could make out that his hair style was like a crew cut.. and it felt that way cos i grabbed his head and tried to push him away. I kinda remember pushing his head away twice. Thank God for His protection though.. i wasn't afraid cos i knew He would protect me. I dunno what happened next but i remembered having a dream and i was in this room and suddenly a witch entered. Then i told her to go away in Jesus' Name. I think my resolve to tell her that even moved my physical body to speak. She went away but i'm not sure if it was for good.

Sometimes there are experiences i get that i dun understand but God is gracious and i didn't doubt His ability to protect me even while i was asleep. :)

So ok.. i went back to sleep and i started to dream about someone from Sojourners. In the dream she said something which i can't remember. It was only one line but the Lord was showing me through the dream through that one line that she said about the condition of her heart. She was looking to herself and not to God and she was more caught up with the situation at hand than what God can do. Felt that she was full of self-pity and guilt... guilt even to the extent that she would blame herself for something that is not really her fault.

She may not be the only one feeling/thinking this way but this is an attack strategy of the devil to imprison ppl and prevent them from rising up and seeing what God can do. We must learn to recognise this for what it is- a spiritual attack and we must use the truth of God to war against it. We are in the midst of a great battle and we must learn to hear God's voice. The passage that the Holy Spirit gave for this person was, if i remember correctly, John 10... it says that His sheep know His voice. We need to hear His voice to be able to access the abundant life that He has for us. When we hear His voice, the focus is taken off ourselves, off man and what man can do, off from the situation at hand and how overwhelming it may seem and the focus becomes Jesus. When our focus is on God and we see how big He is in comparison to other things, that's how we get the victory over self-pity, over guilt and over discouragement.

Yesterday night, i was contemplating about something and the Lord was just teaching me that how we hear is directly affected by how much we behold Jesus, by how much we focus on Him. And that's why in this war, the enemy wants us to lose our focus cos losing our focus means losing the channel of communication with the Commander. Ephesians 1 talks about the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. The Lord has taught me that if we are to pursue wisdom and revelation, it is in the knowledge of Jesus and Jesus is at the centre of it. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. As we get to know Him and draw closer to Him, then we can find wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. He is like the antenna that transmits wisdom and revelation from the heart of God to His people... The closer we are to the antenna the better the frequency becomes, the better we hear. And we need wisdom and revelation cos we're in a war. The army calls this intelligence and we need not just intelligence but war strategies direct from the heart of God unto His people.

Lessons from the Lift

Oh my oh my... God has really been gracious to me cos He's been giving me lotsa dreams lately and i just can't wait to share them with you... they're not just those dreams that i dream in my heart but dreams that i see when i'm sleeping...

i'm gonna start with what i saw yesterday morning.. since i'm still on holiday, i've been sleeping quite late so that means when i sleep on sunday night, it really means i sleep early on sunday morning, etc.. just wanna clarify the date for easy reference...

Ok... the dream... I was involved in a massive evangelistic youth evangelistic event. It was organised by Sojourners and the interesting thing was that there were other youth ministries present when we held the event. I saw myself welcoming guests from other youth ministries into what at first seemed like a small house.. but later, when i looked it seemed to be a very big stadium.. I think i saw ppl from Generations ministry with Pastor Daniel.. i think Pastor Yang was also there.. There were also ppl from Point Community (CHS).. Rena was my keyboardist i think... can't seem to recall if i saw anyone from THOP. Oh but anyway, got to chat a bit with the Generations youth and there was really something different about them.. they were very supportive of the event and i even saw an intercessor amongst them who was deep in prayer before the event started.

What was i doing? It seemed i was doing a lot of things- besides organising the event and welcoming ppl i was also supposed to worship lead as well and share the message... And i believe God was trying to tell me something. Perhaps He was showing me that i can't do everything by myself. Cos i was so busy going around welcoming ppl that i didn't even have time to get back on the stage when they started the worship- cos the place was quite BIG and it would take something to transport me from one place to another... but i was holding the cordless mic so i could still sing from where i was... and i was singing from a hidden place in the stadium- not onstage.. so God may possibly be showing me something about being in a place of hiddeness. The first song i took was "The One i Long For" by Reggie Smith... the congregation was singing but my mind was in a muddle and i couldn't focus cos i couldn't communicate with the band and i've just stopped from doing lotsa things and din have time to rest in God and quieten myself before Him. Anyway, i went away and stopped singing cos there was something i needed to attend to.

This part of the dream was not very clear.. it seems that a lorry or something had arrived to transport me and the backups to the stage but it drove off without me and i had to do something else... Ok anyway, i had my handphone with me and i could dial a number and someone (perhaps from the worship team) would pick up and through that i could hear what's going on during the worship.. So apparently, JK took over leading i think... i could hear the congregation singing "Hosanna" from Hillsongs United... i still had the cordless mic with me so i was thinking of taking over but when i checked the worship again, they were singing a song i had composed sometime back "Yours is the Glory"... and i just decided to let the worship continue... Den it was here that i woke up i think.

At the beginning of the dream, when i was preparing for the event, the Lord showed me that i was supposed to deliver a message on Isa 53 especially verses 3-5 which talk about healing... Healing as in the restoration of all the things from all that ever resulted from the Fall. Then He showed me that for the altar call, i was supposed to operate in raw faith and call out all those who needed healing and den pray for them...

Another thing that happened in the dream was that someone got stuck inside a lift... So ppl were trying to get him out and for a while i tried to help too.. but then i lost interest and went away... and God was teaching me something about evangelism there and then. Many times, we treat evangelism like an activity and we stop when we dun feel like doing it or when we lose interest.. or maybe when our leaders dun talk about it enuf... We treat evangelism like an activity instead of being concerned in that one soul, that one person needing salvation. Evangelism is about people, not activities.. it's about reaching out to that one person that needs salvation. Many times, our heart is not right, our focus is not right. Many times we try and then lose interest and then we give an excuse that someone else will do it. Like how other ppl were also helping that guy in the elevator and so we decide not to concern ourselves with that responsibility cos we think that we have "other better things to do".

So after going away, i went around welcoming other ppl from other ministries and among them was Generations and as i was talking to them, guess wad.. they asked me for help to get their fren Kelvin out of the lift... and they were like so concerned for him. And it made me think. It's all about the heart... they were concerned about the person.. resulting from a relationship with the person... rather than being concerned with the activity of getting ppl saved. And this was perhaps by far the strongest lesson i could learn from that dream. It's about our motives for evangelism- are we concerned with salvation or the hype of the activity? Are we concerned with the value of the individual more than the manifestations of God's presence or the glory of having a large youth ministry? That's the difference.. we have to get the right motives. Perhaps that's why some youth ministries prosper more than others.

I have come to believe that the getting-someone-out-of-the-lift scene was more important than the idea of having a large stadium-sized gathering or even the spectacle of seeing God move in healing. A large heart and character is more important than large events. And many times God uses the small and insignificant to shame the wise- of how He chose to teach me such an important truth from the small lift instead of the BIG stadium... I also wonder if that lift scene was an allegory of many of today's Christians and even churches and youth ministries who are "stuck in the lift" and can't go to the next level because of wrong mindsets and attitudes...

I spent yesterday morning with Crusade ppl doing some dry run for the games for this year's Blastoff Camp.. It's interesting to note that the crusade mission statement is to build spiritual movements everywhere so that everyone knows someone who truly follows Jesus. And truly following Jesus means knowing God's heartbeat- it's for ppl not for programmes. In evangelism, we need a change in mindset... we need to know the heartbeat of God and be motivated by it and not just the hype of another activity. God's heartbeat is for people. I was kinda tired when i came back from the dry run yesterday afternoon so i went back to sleep again and during my sleep God was speaking to me. It was as if He wanted to confirm what He was telling me in the dream that morning. He was showing me that He is concerned with people... He was showing me that our passion must be converted into people... no point having lotsa "passion" and being so active in church and obsessed about God if it doesn't translate into getting more people into His Kingdom.. God wants more people to know Him. That's what God is passionate about and anyone who claims that they are passionate about God must be passionate about people.

God's glory doesn't come in programmes- it comes on people... Just as how the ark of the covenant rides on Levites, not on oxen carts. Isa 60 talks about the glory of God and the glory of God upon Zion. But John 4 talks about a time that is coming and has now come when ppl wun worship in geographical places like Jerusalem, but God is seeking true worshippers who worship Him in Spirit and in truth. What is Zion? Zion is His people, the new Jerusalem, the Bride of Christ. You want the glory of God? You gotta recognise that it comes through people. In those days, Gentile worshippers would bring soil from the Holy Land back to their countries to worship God on. Yes, the glory of God comes upon places... but we are God's temple..we're supposed to provoke the world to worship. We are made of dust, of soil.. we are the ground. Matt 13 talk about the parable of the sower.. we are that ground. We are holy ground. Ephesians 1 talks about His inheritance in us. We are the ground upon which God has chosen to dwell by His Spirit and to show forth His glory. If we're gonna pursue the glory of God, we need a change in mindset from getting caught up with programme, activities and whatever else have you to focusing on people- God's chosen instruments and vessels to show forth His glory.

God bless! :)

"Acts"

So what has been happening lately?? I admit i have been slacking in my spiritual walk... especially after the 40 days and WMD but now is not the time to slack at all cos we're in the middle of something that God is doing and if we're not careful we might just experience some spiritual abortion... so God was still faithful in teaching me stuff even though i've recently been neglecting my prayer life... but we're in the midst of great warfare...

Passion
The Lord has really been good and He's just dropping practical strategies into me and gets me to start thinking about stuff i wanna do and see amongst the youth and in the church... On thursday i went out for dinner by myself cos they were having a really noisy gathering at my estate and i can't stand noise. So i went to watch transformers on my own (despite the fact that the Lord prompted me not to)... so after that as i was walking home, i was just thinking about some ideas that the Lord had dropped to me the night before regarding passion and certain things to do in the ministry... When i checked out Webster's 1828 dictionary for what passion really means, i found out that it comes from the word patior- to suffer. It means:

1. The impression or effect of an external agent upon a body; that which is suffered or received.

2. Susceptibility of impressions from external agents.

3. Suffering; emphatically the last suffering of the Saviour.

There are other meanings lah... but the top three listed are not ur common definitions. They teach me a lot about what it means to be passionate. From the first one, passion talks about affecting others. It makes me think... many times leaders think that they're passionate just cos they're doing lotsa stuff.. but the real question is have u affected someone? Cos even if we do lotsa stuff but we dun affect someone for the kingdom, den are we really passionate?? The second one talks about our teachability, our ability to be influenced, challenged and ignited for the kingdom... passionate ppl have no problem being infected by other passionate ppl! :) The third one is the one ppl hardly talk about... cos it talks about the laying aside of our own desires to follow God's will and His desires... if we refuse to go through suffering for His sake, can we truly be counted as a passionate ppl?? :)

Gatekeepers
Felt during gatekeepers that God wanted to do a deeper work in our hearts... It's a call to lay aside those things that hinder us, those things that distract us.. so during prayer and intercession, we focused a lot on cleansing for the ministry...

on a side note, i was playing the keyboard and the Lord was teaching me on friday how to handle it... When you take up your instrument, you should do it with a certain sense of dignity and respect.. like when a king draws out his sword for battle.. he doesn't just handle the instrument anyhow... he does it with a certain grace and smoothness. Similarly, i hope that somehow new team members will learn this concept. That theor instruments are instruments of war to serve the Lord Almighty. That the way they handle it should reflect it's use...

Tranformers
Watched it again on Saturday... cos this time, Shaun, David and Jared wanted to watch it so a whole bunch of us watched it together. That's why the Lord din want me to watch it on thursday... cos He knew that i would be wasting my $ watching the movie twice. Oh well.. guess we hafta suffer the consequesnces of disobedience. But there were certain things i caught from the movie:
-no sacrifice, no victory
-God can use a total nobody to save many... it's high time that we cast aside all that self-pity and go for the kingdom of God.

Teacher's Debrief
Went quite well. we got to strategise and think of where to go to facilitate what the Lord has done during the camp. Thank God that the debrief went well too... we really need to pick up pace from here... guess wad.. we're starting with prayer and that's a really good place to start!

Saturday Revival Meeting
Also went quite well... thank God that the youth are rising up... and can you see how interested some of the guys are in playing with flags.. that's just so nice! During the worship, i just felt that a fire flag was being waved across the congregation so i took the "fire in His glory" flag and started waving it around to signify the work of cleansing that God wanted to do in the church...

Pre-Service Prayer
I was honoured enough to join the church intercessors for prayer on Sunday morning and there were certain impressions i received during the time of prayer:

-We need to pray for understanding upon the congregation- That they would have their spiritual eyes and ears and their hearts open to receive the ministry of the Word. The reason why there's no transformation is cos there's no understanding.. just as in the parable of the sower where the birds took away what was sown. This was confirmed by Pastor Ban when he took over the worship and the first thing i heard him pray was for the eyes of our hearts to be open or something liddat.

-I saw a lighthouse... and i just remembered that that's our calling and i believe that's what the Lord was reminding us.

-i felt that God was emphasising the point that we are living stones.. but some of the living stones have been neglected, even as some have neglected their own spiritual lives.. and that's the reason why the church is weak- cos each individual member contributes to the overall state of the church. It's about identity. It talks about us forgetting who we are, neglecting our identity in Christ... It's time that we returned to that.. as we know who we are and our identity in Him. It's about remembering that we are living stones consecrated unto Him for the building of a spiritual temple for Him to dwell. When we have a revelation of our identity, then we take hold of the revelation and run with it, that's how we become a healthy church- that is, if every individual becomes responsible and accountable with his/her own spiritual life.

Da Vinci Code
Watched it on DVD yesterday in the evening... now why would someone like Chris watch such a show liddat that has caused a stir amongst religious communities and Christian groups? Wrong question. The right question is- why would God allow such a potentially faith-destroying book to become so popular and marketed into a movie and cause such a stir amongst religious communities? I finally knew after watching the show.

You see, the word "Acts" has continually been coming back to me the whole of this year. I read the book of Acts earlier this year to see what God was trying to say.. then sometime back, i began to realise- look at how it's called the Acts of the Apostles, not Words of the Apostles. The whole body of Christ needs to grasp this truth if it's gonna enter into what God wants to do from this next season. Cos for the past so and so hundred years, the church has been primarily evangelising using words, not acts... now i have nothing against the Bible. In fact i believe it is the basis of our faith, the sure foundation, the Word of God that lasts forever.. the Word upon which every experience or teachng must fall back on. The thing is, many times, we get stuck on the words and we neglect the idea of a true living relationship with Jesus Christ.. cos that kind of a true living relationship will develop into experiences too. It will develop into acts... ever heard of a love relationship based purely on words? "I love you" says the man. "Prove it" says the woman.

We need to return to that place of faith where the gospel of Jesus Christ is not merely preached but lived, accompanied by signs and wonders. The reason why the Lord allowed ppl to publish things like da Vinci code and gopel of judas and whatever else have you is because we need to get to the place where the Word is lived out in acts. Cos we can argue on matters of faith and tradition for all we want and still not get anywhere.. So He wants the church to move forward and show the world the edge of having a living relationship with Him. Signs and wonders follow those who believe. Greater things than these, Jesus said we would do. So where is the church when doctrine is challenged? The church should always be one step forward. It has to come to a place where we say- "I know that book is nonsense cos i have a living relationship with Jesus and i can prove it!" "You tasted wine b4? You see that glass of water over there..."

For the world out there... which is more powerful? Just words or a demonstration? ;)