Perseverance

It has been 4 months I have not blog. I have married a wonderful wife on 2nd June 2007. I am planning to buy a house. Though my budget is very tight, I would like to buy the house to prepare for a family.

I would like to continue my daily spiritual journal here. I am on half day leave now and I am alone at home so this is the best moment for me to concentrate on Jesus.

People keep forwarding email, I just receive an email from one of my church fellow. This email remind me of being persevere. I knew that Christian need to be persevere but not very sure of the purpose. This email share of (James 1:2-4) Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of any kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. The mathematical formula is:

perseverance = mature + complete + not lacking anything

From my understand, if I persevere on all testing, I will be mature, complete and not lacking anything. Is this worth for me to persevere all the time? I have not choice because of the following mathematical formula

not perseverance = immature + incomplete + lacking everything

The Daily Bread

(John 6:35-40) Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

Jesus said something bold again. He is the bread of life, whoever comes to him will never go hungry or thirsty. The way I comes to him is through bible reading, listen to sermon, praying (this is the least often), and fellow shipping with brothers and sisters in Christ. My experience is the often I did all these, the more energetic am I. On the other hand, whenever I focus on something else for a long period of time I felt weary and tired physically and spiritually.

Jesus said he will never drive anyone away whoever come to him. This is so good that at least we can able to draw energy from him. And he too want to raise whoever comes to him at the last day, and give eternal life. Is Jesus saying, whoever comes to him will not be driven away but will be refresh everyday and given eternal life at the end of the day? I think so. How to come to Jesus, then? For me, I join church, believe Jesus as what Jesus himself claim, trying to know more about him, and trying to follow whatever he said. It is seriously different

The foundation of My Little Faith

All the while, I thought I am the one who allowed God to give me salvation. What a pride man am I? What a wrong concept. And I thought I will have eternal life being a superficial Christian without serving God.

All these thought have been wronged. In fact I do not even deserve any forgiveness not to say salvation. It is not I allowed God to give me salvation, it should be God allowed me to accept his salvation when I was not deserved.

Another thing is after I believe in Jesus, I should live my life following Jesus teaching. Or I am merely superficial Christian talking or acting as a Christian instead of truly living as a Christian. My dear reader, living as a Christian is not easy in fact it is very hard. The standard is so high that give me picture which is unreachable. If Jesus set a rule that whoever reach his standard only eligible for heaven, I am definitely out of the list. That is why Jesus said, "Just try your best I will not evaluate your performance, I will evaluate your motive. Please live to glorify me instead of for your own salvation."

God so Love the World

Some interesting discussion has been taking place in my Christian group recently. We discuss about predestination which means God choose saved people before hand.

Initially I cannot accept this as God is so bias. But eventually I found I am not in the position to doubt God and questioning him. God is always in control. He love all the people more than I did. I should not doubt at all. I am a little pride thinking I am saved because I choose to be saved. However the fact is Jesus die for my sin at the very first only then I have the option to choose to believe in him. If Jesus did not have the initiative to die for my sin, I have no choice to be saved.

Back to the question, are God bias to certain people? Do not ask or doubt, that is not my concern as God love all people much more than I did. What a busy body am I asking for human kind. ^_^

Escaping Judgment

My faith on God is fading away, but I still reading Bible. Deep in my heart, I still want to become a Christian. My situation is a bit worrying. I do not like to attend church activity and do not like to pray or read Bible. I complain about life all the time. It seems that it is time for me to forsake God.

Even in this critical condition of mine, God harshly question me, “What is your motivation to be a Christian?” All the while, I thought being a Christian is getting salvation from God. I am wrong from today Bible reading. Christianity is not only about salvation of after death, it is about life changing now on earth too. Expecting to just go to heaven after death is wrong. I have to change my way of living. There are 3 key points here from John The Baptist, sharing what I have, do not cheat, and be content.

Haha, I thought I can just go to heaven for sure. Sad.

(Luke 3:7-9) John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."

Renewed Spirit

I am pretty down couple of day before this. My church just organize a bible conference titled "Renewed Church". The conference is targeted city working adult as most of us feel exhausted working in such fast pace environment. I went to the first 2 sessions of the conference after work and fall asleep because too tired working. The voice of the preacher is strong and loud but that did not wake me up. During the praise and worship session, I was just grabbing my hand for the sake of don't stumble people around me. My heart is not focus on God at all.

After all, God still able to touch me. The experience is hard to describe. I pick up my girlfriend bible and continue my bible reading plan after pause for almost a month. There is no magic. I still feel down and frustrated. The content of the bible I was reading did no magic too, it is about the birth of Christ.

Belief it or not, I felt a bit better and relief now. There is a small voice (without volume) that telling me, no worry, nothing is too bad. For your information, I just have a 20 minutes cry couple of day before. That is the longest since the death of my grandfather in 1988. Ha ha, I feel relief and comfort after reading bible here and there. ^_^

Can I Stop?

Life is really boring, discouraging and frustrating. How can I loss my passion on my life? I have no motivation to do anything. Just minute before, I got to know someone is reading my blog, so I log in and try to write something.

Life has been boring for me. Live everyday the same without my own control. I am told to do everything I need to do. Actually, I think I am a creative and spontaneous person but my environment just do not allow me on this. I am running my life based on schedule. My life schedule is so full, hardly can stop and take a break. Can I stop? I really tire of living like this. I am tried of blogging too.

Valentine Day

Carmen and I went to a shopping mall called Sunway Pyramid near my office to celebrate Valentine Day. Due to limited resources, we wander around for a while for the best deal. We are satisfied in a restaurant called Jack's Place. Carmen has a spaghetti while I have a gilled chicken. We spend RM50 here.

Then we when around looking for wedding band. There are couple of jewellery shop in the shopping mall. One of the shop sell only high end jewellery, one of the shop sell very cheap. Even though Carmen and I are first time jewellery buyer, we can see some minor defeat on the ring. The funny moment is when we want to get off, we have another 10% discount. We doubt, and we get off. Then we settle with one of the shop, we left out contact because the ring we prefer do not suit our finger size. They need to make order for that.

Wish you Happy Valentine Day.

Life Goes On

I am trying out Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0, Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition, and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition with my 2.0 mHz, 512 MB RAM, Windows XP Home edition laptop. It is running slow. I have no resources to upgrade my device.

I am getting marriage 2nd June 2007. I want to buy a memorable ring for my wife. I want to take memorable photography for our marriage. I want to have a nice and affordable honeymoon. I want to spend a memorable wedding ceremony for my wife as well as for our friends and relatives. I can only use credit card and pay back later.

I am trying to budget everything but it does seem to work too well. Anyway, life goes on. I learned that zero saving happen to most of the people even after thirty. This surprise me. I guess my life is not the worst though. Anyhow, life goes on. Choices become lesser and lesser when time goes on. I suddenly realize that human being does not actually have freedom. We are allowed to do certain things constrained by our environment. I haven't really make a choice for a long time already. Life just goes on its way like a film and I am the actor.

A Leader and A Follower

(1 Samuel 14:6-14) Jonathan said to his young armor-bearer, "Come, let's go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised fellows. Perhaps the LORD will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the LORD from saving, whether by many or by few."

"Do all that you have in mind," his armor-bearer said. "Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul."

Jonathan said, "Come, then; we will cross over toward the men and let them see us. If they say to us, 'Wait there until we come to you,' we will stay where we are and not go up to them. But if they say, 'Come up to us,' we will climb up, because that will be our sign that the LORD has given them into our hands."

So both of them showed themselves to the Philistine outpost. "Look!" said the Philistines. "The Hebrews are crawling out of the holes they were hiding in." The men of the outpost shouted to Jonathan and his armor-bearer, "Come up to us and we'll teach you a lesson." So Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, "Climb up after me; the LORD has given them into the hand of Israel."

Jonathan climbed up, using his hands and feet, with his armor-bearer right behind him. The Philistines fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer followed and killed behind him. In that first attack Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed some twenty men in an area of about half an acre.

My new boss is very open-minded. He will ask his staff opinion before he makes some decision. I am happy with his character on this. He did share, some of his staff have different opinion against his. He did asked my opinion on this.

I think bible teach us to follow our appointed leader whatever he want to do as long as not against God's will. Like Jonathan and his armor bearer, Jonathan asked his armor bearer to fight against 20 people with him. The armor bearer definitely know that is not funny to fight 20 people together with his leader alone. But he choose to follow. And they killed all of them.

I think we must follow our leader instruction even though we don't think that is a good idea at all. I believe leader appointed with some reason not by chance. Am I right?

Flood hit my home

Last Sunday night, my sister told me flood hit our hometown as I am away working in Kuala Lumpur. I was so nervous and start pray a short prayer to God after a long period of prayerless life.

Then I called my boss and apply 2 days of no pay leave. I rush back next morning. The normal road back to my hometown was block due to flooded. Luckily there is an alternative route going through jungle and small villages. A lot of flooded area along the route. Though I know my father's shop hasn't affected.

My father's shop is more than 40 years old. The wooden shop went through fire and flood. In short, it can collapse anytime. In addition, the land below the shop can slide anytime too.

I arrive home in the next morning and start to move goods from the shop. Thanks God that the sky is clear for 2 days. There are only 3 males moving the goods, my father, my uncle and myself. The work is hard but it is not stressful and in fact we are so happy to gather together as a family and work together - my father, my mother, my uncle, my girlfriend, three of my sister and myself.

My parents are so happy having us come back to help. They feel grateful and release after 17 years in fear working in the old wooden shop. God really turn bad thing into good.

New Job

It is one month working for a new job. I think this is a right time to review of the new job. In my previous job, I go in to office and start my work as doing programming and deploy to the server. That's it. Without meeting, without talking sometime or most of the time. In this new job, suddenly a lot of new job functions come in:

1. Schedule meeting
2. Prepare documentation
3. Plan project schedule
4. Review project
5. Study project requirement
6. Brainstorming
7. Conduct training
8. Doing programming

So many new stuff need to be done rightly suddenly. I need to schedule my weekly or even monthly time to prioritize my task compare to day in and day out of my previous job. I think it is good and hope to success in doing all this too.

Corporate Ladder

I have a talk with my boss. He present me a corporate ladder. I am required to commit. I think this happen to most of the corporate worker. In Christian philosophy, partly committed equivalent to not committed. I am a bit confused. I seem confused on most of the matter of my life.

My spiritual walk is not strong and I feel dry out. Anyway, I am going to church tomorrow and hope to refresh myself. I am not praying at all to be honest. My mind is full of work related matter. I am reading technical book instead of spiritual book most of the time. However, daily bible reading do remind me of Jesus. I am reading Mark at this moment and Peter is denying Jesus. I hope I will not deny Jesus but I am pulled away from him time by time.

People around seldom talk about Jesus unless they are ordered to do so. The atmosphere is blocking people from talking about Jesus. People interprets as hypocrite when other talk about Jesus. I am not sure but I feel this way. So I talk about my faith here and remind myself as Jesus is my Lord here.

I am out of topic, but I think it is okay since this blog means to be my spiritual journal rather than christian article publishing. God bless you, my fellow reader.

The difference between Christian and non-Christian

How to differentiate a person as a Christian or non-Christian? You should ask a single question. What you be after you die? Some will answer, "“Heaven"”. Some say, "“Don't know."” Some say, "“Doesn't matter."” Some say, "“No such thing. Life will cease after death."” Some say, "“Hell is not bad." Some answered, "This doesn't bother me at all."”

I found this is the foundation of the purpose of life. If you do not know what you be after you die, you will neither know what are you actually doing with your life. But anyhow, you life just molded by your environment. If you doesn't bother this at all, you will not bother what you does with your life too. If you think life will cease after death, you will live your life on your own "“wonderful"” way. If you think hell is not too bad, after all there are lot of friends going together, then that is really too bad.

What if you say, "“Jesus is going to bring me to heaven."”? Then you will be bombarded with some amount of questions like "“Are you sure heaven is good? Are you sure Jesus can bring you to heaven? Are you sure there is a heaven? Are you sure about this idea? What if this is false? What if I want to kill you right now if you continue to declare this idea?"

Haha, since all of us not sure about what will happen after death, why not belief this Jesus, after all we all going to die soon after. For me, the contract is I belief Jesus can bring me to heaven, then he will bring me to heaven. This is valid without any terms and conditions. Though there are extra bonus come after certain terms and conditions. You will be under constant exposure to gain these extra bonus after you sign the basic contract. Which is good I think.