2 Peter 1:5-8

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In this passage, Peter speaks about not becoming ineffective and unproductive, by making sure that we have certain qualities in increasing measure. The interesting point to me was the starting point: faith. In other words, we are all to start from the basis of faith before building up the other qualities like knowledge and perseverance.

For some of us however, we seem to be starting from the basis of knowledge: how much we know about God. Make no mistake, knowledge is important. Yet as Peter mentioned in verse 8, we need more than just knowledge, we also need to build up other qualities, starting from faith.

So as we approach the Youth Camp, pray for your faith to be built up. Pray for specific situations in your life that you are facing right now, that you may have the faith to take the correct choice. Pull out your camp booklet or notes from last year's Camp iFaith and read through them again. Prepare your heart and pray that God will be made real in your own life.

Alert:

We have received a new mission that needs to be accomplished by this Sunday. The objective is simple and straightforward - Make sure Jon Wong is able to cycle by the end of the afternoon.

Location: East Coast Park
Time of rendezvous: 130pm - 5pm

Instructions:
1) Lunch will be consumed at East Coast Park
2) Change straight after service and meet inside Hall 2
3) Dinner after the mission is optional
4) Jon Wong will treat ONE lucky person for dinner - if he or she is able to make Jon Wong Cycle
5) Bring extra set of clothes to change in after cycling
6) Bring water
7) Bring about 15 dollars for meals and rental of bikes
8) Remind one another to come!
9) Bring your friends. :)
10) Jon Wong will buy drinks for the friends + those who bring friends.
11) Pray for good weather. Pray!!

Peace Out.

I'm putting up what I shared in Secell last week, for the benefit of those who were not able to join us. I feel that this is an important message for all of our members, and it's also good for those who were there to be able to reference it.

Moving beyond head knowledge and into fullness in Christ

The background to this passage: After wandering the desert for 40 years, Joshua was addressing the Israelites just as they were about to cross the Jordan river into the Promised Land.

Joshua 3:9-11
Joshua said to the Israelites, "Come here and listen to the words of the LORD your God. This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you.

Why did Joshua have to say "This is how you will know that the living God is among you"? Wouldn't the Israelites have known that God is real? After all, they had lived their entire lives up to that point hearing about how God had sent the 10 plagues, parted the Red Sea, came down on Mount Sinai etc etc.

The reason is precisely because these Israelites had only heard about those miracles and events, and had not actually seen one for themselves. The previous generation had passed away in the desert, because they chose to disobey God. God had Joshua say that line because He wanted them to know that whatever they had known about up to that point was not just stories, but that God was really capable of those things. The first generation that left Egypt had crossed the Red Sea on dry ground, but this generation would also cross another body of water on dry ground as well.

The result was emphatic. The Bible continues to say that the people revered Joshua just as they did Moses. Furthermore, it says in this in the Book of Judges:

Judges 2:7
The people served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the LORD had done for Israel.


Up to this point, everything seems to be going well for the Israelites. They had almost finish conquering Canaan, they were prospering and were faithfully serving God. But we all know what happened next in Judges: a repeated cycle of the people sinning and becoming oppressed by a foreign power, a judge coming to rescue them, and the people falling back into sin again. What caused such a dramatic change in the people's behaviour? The answer lies just 3 verses down the same chapter:

Judges 2:10-13
After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.

Subsequent generations of Israelites fell into sin because they knew neither the Lord nor what he had done. Needless to say, they did not experience His great love for themselves.

Many if not all of us in Secell at this point are second-generation Christians, including myself and many of the leaders. Much has been said about second-generation Christians, but first and foremost I want to say that we have been shown amazing grace, to be placed into a Christian family and getting to know the Lord from a young age. Many people will never get the chance to hear the Gospel, let alone come to know Jesus and accept Him as Lord and Saviour.

We second-generation Christians are in many ways similar to the second-generation of Israelites that were about to go into the Promised Land: brought up knowing about what God had done for previous generations, but not necessarily having experienced them for ourselves. We grew up learning about Jesus in sunday school, colouring pictures of Jesus' birth in the manger, memorising bible verses etc. This is perfectly summarised in the familiar sunday school song:

Jesus loves me this I know,
For the Bible tells me so.

We know that Jesus loves us and came to this world to save us, because it is written in the Word. Unfortunately, many Christians continue to remain at this stage of head knowledge about Jesus. When the storms of life do come about, what will happen then? Is your foundation built on only head knowledge? Or is your faith grounded on solid rock?

Isaiah 7:9
...If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.' "

We need so see God real in our lives, both for ourselves and to be able to show the real impact of God’s love in our lives to others!

Ephesians 3:17-19
... And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

The Amplified Bible spells it out more clearly:

Ephesians 3:19
[That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!

We must therefore strive to lead a life in which the love of Christ is more than just head knowledge, but it is something that we have experienced for ourselves, i.e. we have our own testimony to share. Our faith will then be firmly anchored, and we can be more effective in sharing the Good News to others.

As I shared last week in Secell, we can start by asking God to take control of the situations in our lives that we are facing. There may be a problem in our relationships with family or friends, or we could be facing difficulties in our schoolwork. We need to bring it before God and ask Him to take control. We shouldn't pray in a limited manner, e.g. "God, please change that person", since we shouldn't limit what God can do, but instead trust that He will do what is good. This is where the Word is important, because it teaches us what are the right attitudes and responses to have and God's various promises. So for all the talk about experiences, do not look for them without the Word of God to verify it by!

We also need to identify things in our lives that are not pleasing to God, and humbly confess them and offer them to God. This could be our pride, or a particular behaviour that is not good, since these things can hamper our fellowship with God, by making us feel that we are not worthy of approaching God for help. Remember that God is a doctor, and you go to see a doctor when you're sick, not when you're healthy.

Let us all continue to pray for each other as we all strive to fully know God's love that surpasses knowledge and to be filled unto fullness in Christ!

Came across this post while surfing, and I think it's a timely reminder to all of us, since it's on a topic that Daniel shared during the last quarter.

Just a quote from the last part of the post:

"I don’t know what you’ve done. I don’t know how bad or big or recent or how hurtful it was. But regardless of what it was, God's reaction to you is going to be pretty simple.

He’s going to forgive you."

There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It's never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they'll never speak to him again as long as he lives.



The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, "Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I'm dead meat."



He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered.



As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy's lap.



The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, "Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!"



Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful. But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone else - Susie.



She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. You've done enough, you klutz!".



Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?" Susie whispers back, "I wet my pants once too."



May God help us see the opportunities that are always around us to do good…
Remember...Just going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car.



Each and everyone one of us is going through tough times right now, but God is getting ready to bless you in a way that only He can. Keep the faith! Have a blessed week!