Emerge Conference 2006

The Emerge Conference 2006 was definitely the best conference ever. Filled with games and many exciting events. But the most wonderful thing was the strong presence of God.

The session that impacted me the most was session 6, the finale of the Emerge Conference. Pastor Kong was speaking about how Jacob walked with a limp and the apostle Paul having a thorn in the flesh. He even said that Sun, pastor Phil Pringle, Ulf Ekman, Dr Ar Bernard and even pastor Kong himself suffered from some form of weaknesses in their life which God never took out of. These great men and women walked with a limp in their life despite their great success.

As he was preaching, his words pierced straight in to my heart. I identified with a thorn in my life that I had been struggling with for a long time, since I was a kid. I was rejected by my friends and even by people in my family, people that I really love. Even after I gave my heart to Jesus and started to serve Him in the past 2 years, this limp in my life continued to torment me. I prayed and cried out many times to God to beg Him to take away this root of rejection in my life. But it is still here. It hurts very badly from time to time. But recently, it has gotten much worse.

As I thought about this during the service, Pastor Kong asked: "Can you still love God? Will you carry on to do God's will? Can you continue to serve the Lord?"

As I was praying today and asking the Lord to deliver me from this, He led me to the Scriptures in 2 Corinthians 12:9 : And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

As I read that part of the verse again and again, I felt the love of God beginning to wash over me. God uses my weaknesses to make Himself strong in me!

Though it hurts, I will not give up. When I am weak, you are strong. You are the light in the dark days of my life. Youwill never leave me nor forsake me. Your love is sufficient.

Emerge Cybergames

Well, we got knocked out at the quarter finals. Having won 3 games and lost 2... It was totally fun. Our team leader was the only female competitor. And she's a cell group leader!!! And the camera man kept coming back to take videos and pictures of her.. O_o

Somehow the bitterness and disappointment of losing isn't there to torment me as much as it used to in the pass. I feel that I have more power over this area now. Indeed my life was changed by the renewing of my mind through the truth of God's Word.

Tomorrow will be my Word Power Scripture Memory Challenge Semi Finals. Wish me the best of memory =)

Dying to self is a daily decision I have to make. So do you!

Dying To Self

"How can I be even more in love with You? How can I be closer to You?" I asked God.
"Be willing to die to yourself," I felt the Holy Spirit whispered into my heart.

Ok... Die to myself.... But how???? That was all He said, or at least what I could hear. The whole week I was thinking about it. I've heard about dying to self many times. To me, its normally associated with bearing the cross, following Jesus, placing my life on the altar as a sacrifice, submitting to authority above you... So, what really is dying to self?

The results of the final round of the preaching challenge was accounced during service. I did not manage to get into the finals. I was sad... and disappointed. As I shared with my cell leader, she rebuked me and said that I was disappointed because I was too "self-focused" and that I felt bad because the outcome had not met my expectations. It was because of my pride, my attitude, and my fear of failure. I was too concerned about how man will think of me.

Yea, you could imagine that I felt even worse. She had told me many things as well that I should change. She was rebuking me till she started crying. At that moment, I felt so bad that I started to weep as well. From then, the entire atmosphere of the conversation changed. All I said was, "I'm sorry..... Though its.... hard... But.. I will not give up.....I will keep on trying....."

All of a sudden I felt so much love for my leader and I could feel the wall that was between us began to break down. Ah! Thank God so much for a leader like her!

Today, as I was fasting and reading the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit led me to this verse in Philippians 2:3 "let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself." That's right! It was my selfish ambitions, my pride that caused me to drift away from God!

Then He led me to 1 John 4:18 "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment...." My bitterness, disappointments are due to the fears in my life. Fear of failure, fear of rejection by people! But God says that perfect love casts out fear! Where there is the love of God, there is no place for fear!

To die to self, is to live a life that is God-centered, not self-centered. To die to self, is to to love God so much, so much that all you want to do is to please God, and not men. To die to self, is to serve God through His people with a humble attitude.

When you can do that, the devil can no longer use fear to torment you, to break you apart from divine relationships with other people. He will have no hold over you. Because you are already dead to yourself. You are on your way to a glorious future filled with love and power!

A Wonderful Meeting

What an amazing cell group meeting we had today. I teared the moment we started singing the first praise song. Yes, the praise song.

The presence of God was amazing. The words which my leader spoke hit my heart like a waves of rushing water. It was totally amazing. She spoke about prayer, dying to self and how to have a closer relationship with God.

During the offering, I was thinking in my heart that I have been sowing faithfully in my tithes and offerings for more than a year since I joined Church, but why have I not received my hundredfold blessing stated clearly in the Bible?

Then I saw a vision of different trees and plants. Beans tend to mature very quickly and you will reap its fruit in a few weeks. Some of our seed which we sow are like beans, you will receive your blessing very quickly from them, but not very much.

Then there are bigger trees like durian, rambutan, mangosteem which takes a much longer time to mature. I felt that the seeds which I have sowed are like these, and it takes a much longer time to mature, to bear fruit. But they are definitely much tastier and more valuable.

And I was encouraged by God that He will keep His word and will restore to me a hundredfold and that I should be patient and not lose heart in doing good.

Nonetheless, we should love God more than His blessings. If we truely love Jesus, no matter how bad the situation is, we will never blame Him, for we are after His relationship more than His blessings. And when we follow Jesus and His Spirit, we will have no lack in our lives!

City Harvest Church Emerge 2006

Our annual youth revival conference is around the corner! Its my first time going for this conference and I'm very excited about it!

If you need a revival in your spirit and you are below 26 years of age, I welcome you to fly over to Singapore to join us for the most exciting youth event of the year.

Next week I'll be going for the Rock Climbing and Memory Scripture Competitions. Still waiting for the results of the Preaching Challenge. I've not got a team for the cybergames so I'm not very sure if I can join that though I really wish to. :D

Tomorrow morning I'll be training for the speed climbing competition with a really powerful and spiritual climber. I believe that she'll be the women's champion for this year! Go Hwee Teng!

Igniting Your Spiritual Passion

It was 2am. I was walking along the quiet streets, thinking about what my cell group leader said to me the day before in cell group, "Why do look so tired? You are not as focused in worshipping God as before. You are right in saying that promotion comes from the Lord. If God can promote you, he can also demote you. Do not take cell group meetings like a routine, or you will not be able to enjoy the presence of God."

Those words hit straight into my heart. I wasn't defensive. I wasn't finding excuses. I just felt that I had hurt the One who love me the most. Right then I made a decision that I will focus all my heart, all my soul, all my strength in the future when I'm worshipping the Lord.

Where was the passion I had when I just received Christ into my heart? Where did all the fire go? I used to attend multiple services, listened to sermons from anointed preachers, read spiritual books, inviting all my friends to services, worshipped and praised God in my quiet time. Was I burned out? Had my passion for God died?

I began to be angry and frustrated with myself. I was dissatisfied with my walk with God. I need a closer relationship with the Holy Spirit. God promised to speak strongly into my life. I want to hear His voice.

Then I said, "God! I do not want to be weary serving You. I need a fresh touch and anointing! I want to be more on fire for you!"

Suddenly, I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit all over me. I was in the open, in the streets. I knew God was there with me.

Few hours later, I woke up and rushed down for service. I slept rather late. Pastor Mark preached a strong and impactful message about "Igniting Your Spiritual Passion". In my heart was like: "Wow this is what I prayed for the night before! This is what I need!"

At the altar call, Pastor Mark invited everyone who needed to renew their spiritual passion to raise their hands and get prayed for. I was rather afraid initially, but then I thought again, is my own reputation more important or God's anointing?

I raised my hand high up. The people around me began to lay hands and pray for me. At the moment, the anointing of the Holy Spirit began to flow down from my head and touched my entire being. I began to shake and weep. I felt so loved by God.

From now on, I will guard my heart. I will not let the devil steal this passion from me away. I will continue to burn on with a holy fire. Amen!

Stretching Your Faith

As I was praying today, I begin to sit down on the floor and tried to bend down as low as I could. I was feeling a stretch in my hamstrings, and I realized that it had been a long time since I did stretching exercises.

How many of you know that stretching an "old" muscle can be rather painful? Especially if you are not very flexible.

Then I caught a revelation that our faith, our capacity, our spiritual muscles are like natural muscles. The more you stretch your muscles, the further you can reach, the faster you can run the more weight you can carry without feeling as tired.

In the supernatural, the more we pray, the more time and money we use to serve God, the more we step out in cell groups to prophesy and to pray coporately, the more we take the courage to invite friends and relatives to attend services, the greater our faith and capacity will grow.

But again, you may have been very fit physically at once, very flexible, able to put your legs behind your necks, able to do a 180 degrees split. But you have been busy with life, other stuff that caused you to neglect your training, you will not be able to these things you used to do. And when you try to do them now, it can be very painful.

That is the same in the supernatural. If we stop stretching our faith, if we cease to pray, to seek God, to step out to pray, to heal, and to evangelize, our spiritual capacity will begin to drop.

Friend, if you feel that you were not as fervent as you used to be, or that you want to be more on fire for God and what to do great things for Him, I challenge you to push beyond what you did yesterday, or last week, or last year. Begin to build your spiritual muscles.

It may be painful at first. But as your muscles are built up, it becomes easier, it becomes more effective. You can touch more lives, do greater things for God, and see more of your friends and family members coming to Christ. Let the Holy Spirit come into your life, let Him take over, rely on His strength and become the spiritual giant that God wants you to be.

You can also view this at http://www.holy-spirit-led-christian.com/stretching-your-faith.html

This is the third time I have been at my grandma's house since the Lord told me to pray for her. The past 2 times I, I have asked myself this, "What if I fail? What if she doesn't get well. There's so many people here, what would they think of me?"

Now I am standing in my grandma's room, I have just told her that I am leaving. And I have totally forgotten that I should pray for her. My grandmother has been suffering from sugar diabetes which resulted in complications in her intestines and limbs. I love her, I want her to know Jesus, I want her to be healed.

As I was leaving the room, the Holy Spirit reminded me that I should pray for her. I stood there, struggled for a moment and said to my grandma, "Ah ma, I'm leaving, take care." I spoke all these in our dialect, which I am absolutely bad at. I left the room. I have disobeyed Him.

Once again, I have ignored the leading of the Holy Spirit. Before leaving her house, I was reminded of this which the Lord had asked me on a train 2 months ago: "Which is more important? Is it your reputation or My anointing? If you want my power, show me that you are willing to make a fool of yourself."

I stood at the window saying, "God, what should I do? Please help me. Give me the courage and strength to do this. Let your presence and anointing be on me." As if from heaven, the presence of the Holy Spirit began to pour down on me and I was greatly encouraged.

I went to my relatives, telling them that I was going to pray to God to heal my grandmother. They agreed and turned off the TV so that I would not be disturbed. Wow! They were non believers!

I went into my grandmother's bedroom and closed the door, explaining as hard as I could to tell her that I was going to pray for God to heal her. But she did not understand me a single bit till I told her I was going to "niam geng" which means to pray. She gave a weak smile and nodded.

She was lying on her bed, having a painful back, which doesnt allow her to sit for long. I kneeled down on the floor beside her bed, and laid my hand on her shoulder and started to pray. As I prayed, the Holy Spirit was faithful and His presence filled the room. I could feel my words trembling as I prayed, but nonetheless I prayed that God will take away all her diseases and that she would come to receive Christ.

After I finished, I looked at my grandma, and she smiled at me. I didn't know how to ask if she is feeling better. She said that she had to take injections everyday and that it was painful. How I wish that she would be completely healed and would never have to take another injection!

I wonder how she felt as I prayed for her. Did she feel the touch and love of God as I did so strongly in the room?

As I left the house and walked to the bus stop, as I thought about the pain my grandma had been suffering and how I wished that Jesus would heal her, tears began to roll down my cheeks.

Is she healed? Does she have to take another does of insulin? Will she come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior?

Lord help me!

Come Into My Heart


Standing at the door of my heart,
Knocking at it day and night.
I used to ignore Him,
I used to ask Him to go away.
But He never left me,
Because His love for me will never fail.
He is always so patient,
He never gives up.
I have opened the door to Jesus,
I have asked Him to come in.
Dear Lord, come into my heart,
Please enter in and lock the door.
Throw the key away,
That I will never find it.

Your faithfulness is like the sun,

Which never fails to rise.

Your thoughts towards us is like the sand,

Which is too much to count.

Your love for us,

Is like the the endless ocean,

Too deep to comprehend.

How could I not know this earlier?

How could I be so blind until now?

You are all I ever have.

You are all I ever need.

My first blog ever!!!

What a wonderful and packed Easter Celebrations that I just went through. In these 3 days, I saw hundreds and hundreds of people giving their lives to Jesus.

As I saw my cousins rising up their hands to accept Jesus into their hearts, the Lord spoke to my heart saying, "I will begin the salvation of your entire household from your cousins. "

Wow! My two cousins were the first to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior among all my relatives! I will believe God for that!

Do what you can and God will do what you cannot....