The coolest man that ever lived on earth

Jesus is the coolest man that ever lived on earth.

John 11: 3 - So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick."

John 11:6 - Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.

Jesus was so calm despite being told the one he loved was sick (v. 3) and the pressure he might have faced from his disciples and love ones. People might have expected him to go and heal Lazarus as quickly as possible.

Yet, Jesus waited and followed God's timing by staying where he was two more days. He didn't act out of impulse. Jesus gave more glory to God after Lazarus was raised from the dead.

Cool and amazing Jesus.

Are you cool when you are facing pressure? Perhaps you can learn from Jesus on how to handle pressure in life.

Struggling with sins

Hebrews 12:4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

Romans 6:11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Matthew 5:29-30 If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Sins bring us spiritual death. When we are spiritually dead, our physical body also decays faster and the feeling of "death" is very real. We must resist sins fiercely even to the point of death. The price for walking in righteousness may be high as we have to give up temporary pleasures. The price for walking in darkness and evil is much higher. We yield to Satan's rule and it leads us to death.

We must obey God all the time as nothing can beat our eternal security in Christ. Is there something if I do (or don't do) will cause our eternity to be at stake? If not, just do it / don't do it. The devil cannot harm us when we obey God's will unless our time is up in God's sovereign plan. God also promised rewards in Hebrews 12:11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Measuring Pride

Do we know when we are proud?

I found some ways we can measure our pride.

When we are recognized by people for our work performance, do we feel over-excited until we cannot keep our feet on the ground and move on to do the next important thing? If yes, we are proud.

When we are criticized or commented for our poor work performance, do we feel so affected until we cannot keep our feet on the ground and move on to do the next important thing? If yes, we are proud.

When we are worried and decided to dwell in it, refusing to act on something concrete and constructive, we are proud. We do not let go and trust in God's sovereignty over our situations.

James 4:6 God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. How true it is.

Surrendering my life

When pride crippled into our lives, we are blinded and we don't recognize sins in our lives. When he breaks our pride until we become honest with ourselves and with God, we start to see many sins and unrighteousness in us.

How do we respond to him when we recognize our sins? Often time we are tempted to rectify the unrighteousness through our own strength. We try to take control but we still fail to meet God's standard. We feel depressed and stressed. Because it is motivated by self-consciousness rather than God-consciousness.

When we are God-conscious, we surrender our sins and unrighteousness into the hand of God. We let him take control and reign through our weaknesses. In this way, we can overcome our struggle with God's grace and strength.

He will bring us to his destination victoriously.

Lord, help me surrender my life and weaknesses unto you!!! For you are with me. No evil can harm me. Amen!!!

The Cost of Being a Disciple

Luke 14:28-33 "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'
"Or suppose a king is about to go war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

If our end goal is to become his disciple, we have to prepare to give up everything of our lives to him. It is very easy for us to lose our focus when the worries of life, pleasure and riches tempt us along the way. It is very important that we make daily decision to surrender everything to Him, even our time and our future.

One-day Durian Tour in J.B. on 25 Jul

My PKI colleagues: ZhangYu, Yuko, Alin and Jasmine

Chocolate Shop

Durian and fruits farm

Seafood Restaurant

Praying for my family...

My 1st sister is pregnant with a baby boy. She is scheduled to give birth latest by 4 Nov. I am still finding an English and a Chinese name for my very first nephew. I will travel back to see her in Nov.

My 2nd sister still could not rent a furnished eating shop to start her business. Shop owners do not rent out their furnished shop because they are still doing well in their business. So she is still continuing to look out for a suitable shop through asking people and reading newspaper advertisement.

My dad is taking care of my grandma at home. He still needs financial support to pay for business tax and to maintain the new car.

My mum is working in KL now. She is well. She has three more assignments this year after finishing the present one.

Dear God, please protect my family. Please provide for all their needs. Use me to love and support them.

Loving self is right

The second greatest commandment reads "Love your neighbor as yourself". Jesus seemed to assume loving oneself is so basic that he does not even have to command us to do so. How do we love our neighbor if we do not even know how to take care of ourselves? Therefore, loving oneself is not wrong, it is natural and healthy. More importantly, it is the right thing to do.

To me, loving ourselves is

• Eat healthy food and exercise regularly to maintain our physical health
• Prioritize our life, our resource, and select our activities wisely. There is time for everything, a time to say YES and a time to say NO.
• Purify our minds, hearts and motives to grow our relationship with God
• Don't intentionally sin against God for temporary pleasure. We don't love ourselves enough as we allow temporary things to master us and damage our relationship with our eternal God.
• Feed and enrich our mind with spiritual nourishment, knowledge & understanding
• Don't be unnecessary burdened by things of the world. Cast away our burdens to God and let him do life with us. He would not ask us to do something that his grace can't reach us. Matt 11:28-30
• Don't look down on ourselves and feel low self-esteem. We are all unique and equally loved by God.

Loving God is...

Loving God is...

Choose spending money on oversea mission trip over an oversea holiday
Choose spending money on a brother in need over beers
Choose giving to God over eating an expensive meal
Choose loving people unconditionally when our feelings say otherwise
Choose respecting and honoring our leaders, praying for them and supporting them when they are stressed rather than being disappointed with them
Choose doing the right thing in our job when no one is seeing

I am ready!

What had happened in the past 6-week of my journey with God is a miracle. I have never felt so complete in my life before. I have tremendous peace and joy in my heart amidst the up-and-down of life.

Yesterday God whispered to me on my way to church corporate prayer meeting. He said that He is a God of miracle. God healed and restored me completely. What had happened in my life is already a miracle. He is going to perform more miracles in the second half of this year in all areas of my life. People will be amazed by God's work in me. They will praise God for what he is going to do.

Pastor Jeff mentioned that the devil will seek to destroy, deceive and distract. I sensed that all of us can flee from the devil's scheme if we allowed Jesus to reside in our hearts. He is powerful and has authority over the devil. In the gospel we knew that Jesus cast out demons. The devil don't dare to touch us or go near to us at Jesus' presense. Therefore, we don't have to fear the devil. We can call on Jesus.

Another thing I sensed very strongly is the love of God especially his equal love. God's love for all human is the same - it is so vast and immeasurable. He loves the guy who is robbing a bank as same as the pastor who is preaching at a church now. He loves the strong as equally as the weak. He loves the rich and the poor. He loves the righteous and the unrighteous. We can never outlove God. The door of God's love is open to all. And it is up to us how much we want to know His love.

More than a friend

Opposite attracts. This is true in the law of physics as well as the law of boy-girl-relationships. Certain individual of opposite gender may captivate us with their particular personality, physical appearance, character, interest, and life vision. It would be a perfect if the person make good friend with us and compliments us to make a power team, i.e. 1+1>2.

Alone and lonely

We can be alone yet not lonely, we can be lonely yet not alone...The key lies in whether we have Jesus in our heart...

How to stop loving people

1. Pride - When we have pride or think more superior than others, we are ugly at its most. Pride is really the ugly side of human. Pride is an anti-love. We can't love when we are prideful.

2. Lack of prayer - When we stop praying for someone, we stop loving the person. How can we love when he/she is not constantly in our mind or prayer? Humanly we can't give what is best for the person. When we pray, we are hoping God the mighty provider would give the best to the person.

Starting a F&B business in Singapore?

My two younger sisters are quite blessed.

The first one is married to a family who is doing food business. Her mother-in-law cherished her very much. Recently their noodle shop at Cheras became famous after they were interviewed for a TV program. Their noodle is special because they use their own recipe. The number of customers is increasing day by day.

This mother-in-law wants my 2nd sister to look for a shop house in Banting to franchise her noodle food business. The plan is to teach my sister how to make the special noodle and share the profit from the business. According to my sister, they will need to hire at least 5 person to run the eating shop. Now she is looking for a fully furnished shop house with affordable rental price.

I am thinking: If the franchised food business is successful, I may be interested to franchise the business in Singapore. F&B franchise brands like Secret Recipe, Yat Kun, Breadtalk, Pontian wantan noodle, etc. also expanded their business in this way.

Reaching the marketplace for Jesus

I asked God to guide me in my career during adult camp 2009 and my objective was met. God taught me a couple of things about the right perspectives I should have on serving God in marketplace.

1. Work is a spiritual activity. We need to draw close to God to do our work. God is the originator of work and he wants us to enjoy our work. He is the creator of all things in the universe and he created human in his own image. We can be as creative as God if we have the spirit of God. So it is important that we know him and are close to him.

2. We influence people for Christ through doing the right things at the right time, in the right place and right situation. Having higher position does not mean having higher influence on people for Christ if we don't have a heart for God and people. We solely serve ourselves and our selfish desire. This should not be the case. We serve God fully in the marketplace by reaching out to people. This should be our heartbeat and ultimate aim of our career. Career is only a mean to serve God and not an end in itself.

3. We should never get a job that would always make us feel stressed. If we can be more effective for God by being in a lower position, then we are okay with it. I don't mind to be a road sweeper than being a CoE if that makes me more influential for God.

4. A lot of times we struggle with God because we hold on to our career very dearly. We try hard to climb up corporate ladder by our own strength and selfish ambition. We can achieve it one day but we lose the grace and favour of God. Many times God withhold his blessing in our career such as higher income, position and power because God does not want to let these things destroy us.

Col 1:16,17 All things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.