Sinners and Saints

Finally finished the book What's So Amazing About Grace. Left the book on Holy Saturday for a while got to pick it up later... but the book is really difficult to read... tho it's a really good one.

This paragraph is from the last chapter of Yancey's book...

Strangely, God is closer to sinners than to "saints". (By saints I mean those people renowned for their piety-- true saints never lose sight of their sinfulness.) As one lecturer in spirituality explains it, "God in heaven holds each person by a string. When you sin, you cut the string. Then God ties it up again, making a loose knot-- and thereby bringing you a little closer to him. Again and again your sins cut the string-- and with each further knot God keeps drawing you closer and closer."

And how can you hate the sin but not the sinner? C.S. Lewis had this problem, he never could understand the hairsplitting difference between the two.

But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life-- namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man.

Just when you think your condition is bad...

you realise you're not that bad actually...

Got to talk to a few of my friends who's got different problems yesterday, try to offer comfort/advice/listening...

God always talks to me. Even when I don't want to listen. By action. People often say they cannot see God's works in their life. (When I was a teenager, I used to think that way.) God always showed me in one way or another that He did not forget about me.

And God also told me all sorts of stuff He wants me to do for Him.

Kind of like Elijah I supposed (the experience, not me, so don't go crazy saying I'm saying I'm as good as Elijah.) At the caves after God told Elijah there were many more prophets other than him. He just told him to go and do all sorts of stuff for Him.

Just when I wanted to shut myself in a closet and never got out, He told me to go out and give me all sorts of things to do...

ok, I'll get the job done. =)

......

Don't know if you've been wondering why there's been no posts on this blog for like 2 week??

The truth is I've been trying to evade from God... just trying to shut Him in a closet and then when I'm mad, get Him out and shout at Him and then shut Him right back into the closet... (More like He's allowing me time to get off with my temper tantrum... haha, to be honest.) It's not like I don't talk to Him, just that I don't want Him to talk back... unhappy AND mad...

sigh... finally let Him out...

what you know in your mind, and what you feel in your heart... why can't they be the same?

Spring CGST course list available!

For those of you who are interested in joining CGST TEE courses, (and I'm not talking about transesophageal echo, in case anyone misunderstand... don't worry if you don't know what that is...) the spring course list is available!

You can check it out here.

I'm interested in a few courses myself... still thinking which of the courses I should join... hmm...

Environmental protection

I think we Christians have a responsibility for environmental protection, it's the world created by God. However, I don't see many of us being concerned about environmental issues.

Last week, Ms S could not stand the state of our fellowship cupboard anymore, so she decided to tidy it up. Lots of paper had to be thrown away. I was thinking if our church office got some sort of recycling box. (My office and my home do.) There is none!

And when I told some other people that our church should start to recycle stuff, one said it'd be a problem to get people to come and collect it...

...

Old people are searching for paper every day even in rubbish bins! If you tell them you can come here and get paper for free, they'll come and get it. Then I had this idea, maybe when they come and get the recycled stuff, we can tell them about Jesus. I wonder if this is possible. This way we can help poor people and tell them about the Gospel...

Snow story continues... and more...

What is the snow story all about?

After the Israelites defeated the Canaanites, they thought the Lord is a god of wars. And they started to worship gods like Baal (god of rain) for agricultural purposes.

We often do the same thing, we work hard, we got our promotion, it's OUR OWN WORK. And when we lost our job, we want to find a new one, that's God's work. We often compartmentalize our lives into areas where God is responsible and others where God is not.

For me, I think God can control every single part of my life, but He can choose to do so, or not. Like whether I should drink coke or water today, He probably won't do anything about this. And I often choose not to ask for stuff for myself. If I want it, but it's bad for me, no matter how hard I try, God still won't give it to me, if it's good for me, even if I don't ask, He'll give it to me. Most often, God knows what is best, but God occasionally do indulge us. haha!!

However, I do think I want to ignore God's commandments in certain aspects of my life, even offer excuses. I don't think my sins are any less than those of, say, homosexuals.

Humans often offer excuses for their sins (e.g. I'm born like that.), maybe that's why I don't think it's a good idea for us to kick homosexuals or divorcees out of churches, hey we're just the same, possibly even worse (with our own self-righteousness, just like the Pharisees...)

Snow

I heard this story during worship service today.

The pastor met a young man who planned to do some traveling around the Middle East & Europe. After this young man arrived at Israel, he found out that the church needed a lot of help, so he stayed and helped out. And he lived there for 1 year.

He told the pastor that it would snow that night. The pastor asked if he knew this from the weather forecast. He said no, he knew because he had asked God to give him snow that night as his birthday present. According to his original plan, he would have been in Europe by that time and got to see snow on his birthday, but because he stayed in Israel, he couldn't see snow, so he asked God for it.

The pastor thought he was an idiot. And told him so. If one prayed for sunny weather, another prayed for rain and yet another prayed for snow, what would God do?

That night, the pastor saw some ash like stuff floating outside the window, he thought something was burning. When he stuck his hand out, he found out it was actually snowing. And he felt tears running down from his eyes.

Later, the pastor discussed this with his wife, they suspected if they had not actually doubted whether God would answer the young man's prayers, maybe the prayer would remained unanswered. haha!

Thanksgiving

I have never wanted to go to New Zealand for examination course UNTIL I knew last year my colleagues managed to get $15000 for the course+ accommodation+ plane ticket... PLUS I can get ~2 weeks of STUDY LEAVE (No need to use my annual leave!!)

SO I applied... Only 5 places are available for overseas candidates, so they need to draw lots from the applicants, I don't even know if I can get leave from the department (it's also decided by drawing lots)

One of my friends told me to pray for it, I told her if God wanted me to go, then I'll get it, if not, it's okay.

Last week, I knew I was one of the five overseas applicants who managed to get a place.

And I was the first on the leave application draw...

The only thing I can say is a thanksgiving prayer.

P.S. I don't know if I can get the reimbursement until March/April after the board meeting... Now you know why you should NOT donate money to Tung Wah Group, HAHA!!

What's so Amazing about Evangelicals?

If you are following this blog, you probably know I'm reading Philip Yancey's "What's so Amazing about Grace?". I was deeply touched by the chapter "Grace-Healed Eyes".

He talked about his friend Mel White (a teacher at Fuller Seminary until he came out of the closet) who is now a homosexual Christian. And how the church failed to show them love and grace. Yancey went to a gay parade with White. And he saw some Christians shouting "AIDS, AIDS it's coming your way" and the homosexual Christians responded by singing "Jesus loves us this we know, for the Bible tells us so"...

I don't know anyone who's homosexual at all. Or maybe they just don't tell me.

I don't think homosexuality is right. (Better say this first before you stop reading while being disgusted by what I'm saying.) I don't think homosexuality is any more sinful than other sins.

What's so amazing about Evangelicals? They never even realise what their problem is (I'm an evangelical too in case you think I'm dangerous/weird), not just with homosexuals, with Catholics, other religions as well, Jesus frequently befriended sinners. (I'm not saying Catholics are sinners.) What's so wrong about this??

I don't know why people can be so biased that they don't even realise this... I was browsing on the web and found this... I don't think there's anything wrong in what Yancey said... obviously someone did...

PHILIP YANCEY SUPPORTS HOMOSEXUAL CHRISTIANS. Friday Church News Notes, July 16, 2004 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org, http://www.wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Philip Yancey, a popular Christian writer and speaker, has an unscriptural view of homosexuality and a dangerously perverted view of biblical grace. In an interview with lesbian Candace Chellew-Hodge, Yancey spoke of his continued close friendship with homosexual Mel White and said that love compels him to “show love and grace” (“Amazed by Grace: An Interview with author Philip Yancey,” http://www.whosoever.org/v8i6/yancey.shtml). What Yancey fails to say is that love for sinners requires exposing their sin and the true grace of God results in a changed life (Mat. 3:7-8; Acts 26:20; 1 Cor. 6:9-11; Eph. 2:8-10; 5:11; Titus 2:11-15; 1 John 5:3). Yancey goes on to say: “As I’ve attended gay and lesbian churches, I’m also saddened that the evangelical church by and large finds no place for homosexuals. I’ve met wonderful, committed Christians who attend MCC [Metropolitan Community] churches, and I wish that the larger church had the benefit of their faith.” When asked what he would say to homosexuals who “have been harmed by the church’s attitude toward them,” Yancey is a dangerous teacher, and it is very sad, but also very telling, that his books are so popular.

This is just so sad...

I still remembered that I attended a course at CGST on Romans last year. Dr. Wong introduced to us how homosexuals interpreted the scripture on homosexuality differently. He said we need to understand them more and it doesn't mean that he agrees with them.

If only more people in the church act like this...

Love

"I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least."
- Dorothy Day

Most of the time we like to work with people similar to us. There are much less conflicts this way. Is it God's way though? God said we're like different body parts, responsible for different tasks...

sigh... we're all supposed to be working together for God, how come it's so hard to work together? Maybe we don't love God enough??

Forgiveness again...

When I sat down in my church this morning after reading "What's So Amazing About Grace" on the MTR, I had this sudden realisation that I was really annoyed by someone. And I remembered what I read before about the Lord's Supper.

I thought about every person I disliked/hated, and then forgave them. Is it as easy as it sounds? Yes and No.

Yes, because when I told God I forgave every single one of them, I felt this huge sense of relief and peace that I have never experienced before.

No, some of these people I have tried to forgive before, but as time goes by, when you're not aware, anger and bitterness silently creep back.

That's why forgiveness is a matter of constant practice...

One of the colleagues whom I really hate is leaving soon... Even though I prayed for him long ago, it's a pity we never got to help him... sigh...