9) Living Sacrifices II

How do you define worship? - sing praises, sermon, Sunday ?

I was reminded again that offering ourselves as living sacrifices is an act of worship while i was reading Surrendering Your Life for God's Pleasure Purpose Driven Life Series small group guide:

"Paul envisions worship as an all-day-long surrender (sacrifice) to the will of a merciful God (See Romans 12:1-2). The acts we normally think of as worship – singing, celebrating and so on – are meant to train our hearts for this all-day-long surrender. Praise prepares us for surrender.

Praise is acknowledging a good quality in something…we can praise someone for his talent..etc. Similarly we can praise God for his good qualities-faithfulness, justice, power or wisdom. Worship goes beyond praise. Worship is acknowledging someone or something as the ultimate source of good, of life itself. Therefore, only God deserves worship.

Another difference is that praise is a 1-way compliment, while worship is a two-way interaction. Worship happens when we let God catch us up in the marvel of who he is, and we taste the intimacy of eternal life together with God. "

Don't know why we often focus on the Sunday's praising and teaching part and forgot about our day to day sacrifices we need to offer to God. One of the most important sacrifices i see is the time we spent interacting with God each day and we do this not for our own sake but for God's pleasure.

~cC

8) Consistent, Confident Faith

It's not the first time people telling R & I have low self-confidence. I still recall part of the exhortation from R's father in our wedding was about this. Today, God reveals this problem to me again as one of the reason why R & I are feeling low when i was reading a sample of The Everyday Life Bible, Amplified Edition by Joyce Meyer.

The following 3 points (shared by Joyce) were similar to what R & I are going through:

"Romans 1:17 teaches us people who are just and upright "shall live by faith". Faith is confidence in God. It is important that we learn to be consistently confident, not occasionally confident."

"I had to grow in confidence to the place where people's opinions and their acceptance or rejection did not alter my confidence level. My confidence had to be in God, not in people."

"When the growth and progress of my ministry seemed panifully slow, i had to practice being consistently confident. It is easier to remain confident when we see progress, but during times of waiting the devil attacks our confidence and attempts to destroy it."

May the Lord help us to have consistent faith & confidence in all things.

~cC

7) Breathe In ... Breathe Out

With what do you associate "Breathe In ... Breathe Out"?

R: It's a pregnant women doing exercise.

C: It's a healthy therapy. According to the article from AssociatedContent, "Breath therapy efficiently generates oxygen to the tissues and energizes the body, calms and balances the nervous system. It also helps massage and cleanses internal organs, improves lymphatic circulation, removes wastes from the body's cells, and helps release negative emotions and experiences"...ultimately releasing stress & tension!

What about the Bible? the word "Breathe" is used many times and i was very excited to find the following from passage 2 Timothy 3:16-17....

NIV version:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

King James translation:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God [theopneustos], and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

According to Wilkipedia, theopneustos comes from the Greek word θεοπνευστος and it literally means "God-breathed" or "breathed out by God" and I immediately associate this with God giving life to Adam by breathing air into Adam's nostrils (See Genesis 2). Also the word "inspiration" comes by way of the the Latin and the same Greek word θεοπνευστος.

R & I feel heavy ladened lately coz of our stress dealing with our growing pain. Our head keeps spinning, resulting lack of sleep (plus Roy's nose is stuffy for a long time). I feel like we're dying even though we are clinging close to God through prayers. We've shared this with some brothers & sisters and they've cheered us up in moments but the feeling is still strong until I saw Rosamond's msn note: "Breath in....Breath Out...Breath In...Breath Out"

Surprisingly, R had a reflection last night...he sees the reason why he's failing because he's been relying on his limited reserve of God's words, so the most critical thing he needs to work on is enrichment in Biblical knowledge.

All i can say is we need to engage in more oxygen-intake exercises plus the intake of God's words.

R: please go to the doctor soon and fix your stuffy nose problem!


~cC

6) Adding Spice & Colors to life

I had opportunities to see 3 beautiful moments the past 2 days:

1) Hearing Louise (a christian song writer who currently is a housewife) sharing her songs live at JJ959. It's amazing how she adds colors to words and melody. There was a song she composed out of the Book of Proverbs. Like Drew said, Proverbs are like wise words from an old serious man but Louise made it sound so light & enegertic (which really encourages one to see "reading bible can be a lot of fun"). There's also a lovely mandarin song she composed which is a work of art because her lyrics are so beautiful.

2) Hearing how Drew arrange Louise's old 80 songs to bossa nova. The song originally sounds quite "Lo Tao" (traditional) but Drew changed a few chords and beautifies it. The music was so pleasing in sound. Must listen to the broadcast at JJ959 when it comes out in a week or so.

3) Hearing relatives sharing stories about Mr. Yip during his funeral. Mr. Yip believed in Christ just a few days before he died but his whole life had impact a lot of people through his great attitude & work. He was an engineer that built many influentical landmarks in HK, he was magician, broadcaster and also M.C. for Chinese Opera. He loves entertaining his guests & friends by sharing a lot of interesting stories (often quite humuorous). He's also a peace maker who wouldn't do things for the benefit of his own.

These are beautiful moments to me because i see these 3 people giving a positive influence to others by adding spices & colors to life.

It reminds me of what Jesus said in Matthew 5:13-14 "You are the salt of the earth...You are the light of the world". In the Message version, this bible verse is translated as
"You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You've lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage. Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven."

~ cC

5) Striving for Excellence

I often give myself a harsh time and asking myself to do things without error since i'm the type of person that strives for excellence through perfection (just like Cynthia Heald said in her book of Becoming a Woman of Excellence). Also, I never use the word "excellence" to praise someone because i cannot see anyone perfect in my world of reference.

Until I read parts of Cynthia's book, i came to realize what the bible says about excellence.

1) In Ruth 3:11 (American Standard Version) , Boaz said to Ruth: "...for all my people in the city know that you are a woman of excellence". Ruth being a widow left her own country to live with her bittered mother-in-law in Bethlehem and she maintained their lives by gathering leftover grains in Boax's field. Despite her unfortunateness, people in town still praised her that she has a strong, worthy and noble character.

2) If we look at the original meaning in Hebrew or Greek for bible verses that describes excellence (i.e. Proverbs 31:29 or 1 Corinthians 14:12), we'll see that in Greek for the New Testament bible verses, the word excellent comes from diaphero, which literally means "transport" or "differ." In Hebrew for old testamanet comes from alah, which means "to ascend." Both these words encourage us to be different than the norm through the qualities of virtue and goodness.

I immediately realized in God's perspective, being excellence means to trust HIM and not allowing any circumstances to dictate our behaviour and responses (just like Ruth). Also, "do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will" Romans 12:2

~ cC