~*Queen Victoria*~: April 2007

Royal Hearing

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(Proverbs 31:25-26)
"She is clothed with strength and dignity; She can laugh at the days to come.
She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue."

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Monday, April 23, 2007

royal ramblings

Today I was reading through 1 Peter 1:13 and I was very humbled as I meditate on the verse. "Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed." "Prepare my mind for action"... what kind of action? How to prepare my mind? As I read the message version of this verse, the answers were clearer. "So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that's coming when Jesus arrives. Don't lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn't know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, "I am holy; you be holy." (1 Peter 1:13-16, MSG Version) Roll up my sleeves eh? When we roll up our sleeves, we are often preparing ourselves to undertake some actions or to react to some actions. Basically we are going to go in the mud and get ourselves 'dirty'. Thus... is my mind ready for that? Is my mind sufficiently prepped to do God's work or prepped enough to react to what Life throws at me? But aint this sounding very abstract? So what exactly do I prepare? Ah... the next part of the verse states it pretty clearly. I need to just be self-controlled aka to fill my mind with the positive thots aka to pray and read the bible when i am so very tempted to just indulge in sinful thots e.g. critical/judgemental thots. I cant prevent them totally from popping in my brain but i can prevent them from flooding my mind. I cant exactly control the immediate emotional affect(yes it's spelt this way) caused by the negative thots will have on me but i can control how i react to the emotions. I cannot be lazy!

Appreciate what some bros and sistas advised me yesterday... I think I am still hanging on to some shred of wanting justice for the wrongs and hurts I feel tht has wrought on my family. Basically... there is no justice in the world... Jesus has unjustly died for sins he never committed... and God has no reason to forgive me and my sins as well... yet He forgave me and want me to be in the kingdom with him. :) So... i just need to forgive them even tho it doesnt make sense.

Labels: my time with Him

ranted by Jerraine @ 7:08 AM 0 comments

Monday, April 09, 2007

some words...

was just reflecting how 'worldly' my recent posts have been. it's either abt materialism (aka shoes), self-focus (my extremely 'self-centred' pics!! hehe), idol-ism (aka the songs and MVs), etc. so decided to share my quiet time.

i must admit tho... i find myself turning to these for some ready comfort quite easily especially after i come back to the office after a particularly difficult class. i currently teach 2 normal (technical) classes English and 2 normal (academic) English Literature. adding to these are some relief classes and it's a mix of express, na, nt. express classes doesnt mean an easy time though... they are just LESS defiant. i find myself easily getting jaded by these students. i can see how teaching such students who are so unwilling to learn and disruptive in classes can make a teacher lose the passion and just teach mechanically. i have to keep saying quick prayers to myself not to lose my temper in front of these students cos that's what they want. fortunately, i am a christian. i think if i'm a teacher and i'm not a christian... i might have given up teaching or be a very 'mechanical' teacher.

I was thinking abt the theme of 'trust and obey' which is what the campus are doing for our quiet time. we as sisters are also trying to do Ephesians and Philippians. so i was researching on ephesians 1 when i came across this piece of information about ephesians 1:3-14 :
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

In him we were also chosen,having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.

Interestingly, Eph 1:3-14 is ONE long long sentence in Greek, with three major parts. Each parts ends with a note of praise for God (vv. 6, 12, 14), focusing on a different member of the Trinity. After an opening summary of all the spiritual blessings (v. 3), the first section (vv. 4-6) offers up praise that the Father has chosen us in eternity past; the second section (vv. 7-12) offers up praise that the Son has redeemed us in the historical past (i.e., at the cross); the third section (vv. 13-14) offers up praise that the Holy Spirit has sealed us in our personal past, at the point of conversion.
A bit more research reveals that this letter is most probably written when Paul was in prison. This was also a general letter to tje churches in Ephesus as it lacked the personal and specific greetings which characterised Paul's letter. The letter was most likely written from prison (3:1). Out of all of his missionary trips, he spent the most time in Ephesus thus he would have been very familiar and aware of the needs there. It's also interesting to note how many times the phrase 'in christ' is repeated from verses 3-14: 12 times. wow. why is it so?
I believe that it is done so to remind us that we are in one union with Christ - that we have been chosen to become holy and blameless in God's sight. We have been chosen to share the Word. God chose to give us free will. And because He already knew what free will will bring, he also chose to give us a way to be free from our sins so that for those who choose to believe, those people can find their way back to God. Sometimes, when I am teaching, I find myself very tempted to be very strict and restrictive in my discipline of the students. Yet I try to refrain from this. Why? I do not wish my students to purely memorize whatever I teach them and forget it all once examinations end. I wish strongly for them to learn and to really enjoy this learning process as much as possible. I know that if I gave them a choice to choose whether they want, I am going to get students who are plain going to not learn. I don't know whether my approach is correct but what I do now is that I punish students who disrupt my lessons but I do not really punish students who do not do my assigned homework. My motto now is : If you don't want to learn, don't disrupt others from learning. Do I say I'm giving them up? Not really... I'm just not going to hound and force-feed them to learn and in the end make myself so tired that I can't properly teach the others who want to learn. The old adage of how you can lead a horse to water but you can't make a horse drink is very true. What's the point of me sharing this? I am just trying to say that it's truly amazing how God has planned and expected and anticipated and reacted accordingly to every decision He has done in respect to us. He knew our nature so well that He set in motion a process so intricate and complex just so that we can find our way back to Him!! (Read the OT to see how God prepared the people for Jesus's coming.)
All that God has done for us has been done for a purpose. Not for us to sit around, or to abuse his mercy & love but to spring into action with the knowledge that he has been with us and will continue to do so. This does not just apply to our work/studies but also how we should continue to strive to work in the vineyard of God without reservations. I know that all this can sound very abstract and a bit too much to digest but for me, I realise that one way to continually remind myself God's will for me is to build up the desire to pray.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:16, we are asked to be joyful and to pray continually for that is God's will for us in Christ Jesus.
I don't know for you all, but sometimes, my prayers are done because I need to pray. Not because I want to pray. Nor because I have to pray to God because of what I am struggling with. But that I need to clock in this amount of praying time just so that I will still be spiritual and just so that I can rest easy and know that I have done my duty as a Christian. Do I desire like how I crave for oxygen to pray? The answer is negative. Why is it so? Because I do not long for God as much I long for oxygen. How much we want to pray is equal to how much we long for God in our lives.

I shall end this sharing with an anecdote I found.
A little boy was sitting next to an elderly Christian man beside a river. “Will you teach me to pray?” the boy asked. “Are you sure that you want to learn?” The Christian saint asked. “Yes, of course.” With that the holy man grabbed the boy’s neck and plunged his head into the water. He held his head under the water while the boy kicked and screamed and tried to get away. Finally, after a few minutes the elderly man let the boy out of the water. “What was that?” the boy asked spitting and fuming, “I could have drowned.” The Christian man said, “That was your first lesson in prayer. When you long for God the way that you longed to breathe, then you will be able to pray.”

Hope this will make you think~.

Labels: my time with Him