I just want to address everyone who has contributed to my entries with all your comments and replies.

Thank you very much! Thank you even for those who come against me and what i believe in. The fact that you have read my entries prove a fact that God is doing something GREAT in your lives! He will bless you richly and more than abundantly beyond your wildest imagination!

I am here to share His Love, leave you His peace and to speak His Truth. : )

I left an interesting reply to Brother Shah’s comments and i think i’d like to publish my comments here, so that in future if there is anybody else who’d like to comment similarly as Brother Shah, my response is already here.

Here it goes….

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Hi Brother Shah,

I can see your impassionate plee not to persuade Malays who are born Muslims to become Christians.

I would say that this does not happen all the time. In fact rarely.

1. There is always a certain restraint on speaking to Malay-Muslims about Christianity in countries such as Malaysia or even Singapore.
2. Most of the time, the Malays that embrace Christianity are those who have been on their own personal spiritual journey such as mine. Nobody preached to me or evangelized to me. But it was my own personal decision. And this would be the usual course of a Malay embracing Christianity.

I do understand that this is an extremely sensitive topic, but i hope i can clarify and bring to light some misconceptions and misunderstandings that we have.

Being Malay does not mean this… Malay=Muslim.
So for example if i put this logic, then… Chinese=Buddhist, Indians=Hindu, Caucasians=Christians?… What about Africans then?

We also know for a fact that we have friends who are Muslims but they are Indians, Chinese, Caucasians and even Africans.

So would the definition of race equates faith?

So, maybe let me begin first with defining what is it really being Malay as a race, not ethinic group(ethnicity is influenced by culture).

This excerpt from Wikipedia sums it up quite well,

“Malays (Malay: Melayu) are an ethnic group of Austronesian peoples predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula and parts of Sumatra and Borneo. The Malay ethnic group is distinct from the concept of a Malay race, which encompasses a wider group of people, including most of Indonesia and the Philippines. The Malay language is a member of the Austronesian family of languages.”

As we can see, the Malay race are a people of Austronesian descent. Meaning we have Malay brothers and sisters right across the South-East Asian peninsula. In the Philippines, most of the brown-skinned, tanned Filipinos are Malays by race, but what about faith? They are Catholics most of them. We also have our Malay brothers and sisters in Indonesia, and in some islands there, they are Hindu.

So what we have here is basically a minor misconception of the definition of race and faith. But extrapolating this misconception, leads to BIG misunderstanding spanning decades of confusion. Even back home here in SG, we still encounter many non-Malay Singaporeans simply assuming that all Malays are Muslims. Not their fault actually, because like i mentioned this misconception has spanned quite a long while in our history.

As to the definition of what is Islam and what is Christianity, that is widely available in any resource centres, ie, bookshops, libraries, even the internet.

God made the world so beautiful and unique to have so many peoples of colours and creeds and we appreciate that He left His open arms of Grace for anyone, any of His peoples to come back home.

Much love to you Brother Shah.

Shalom and be Greatly Blessed!

Emmanuel.

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I’ve not posted anything here for a long, long while. Again i really thank you all from the bottom of my heart for keeping my blog alive by constantly commenting and replying on it.

Shalom and Be Greatly Blessed, Highly Favoured & Deeply Loved!

Emmanuel.

I just would like to let Singapore know that there is hope for Malays in Singapore to embrace Christ. I Am one of them! Hallelujah! Praise Jesus! Praise God Almighty! Now i can proudly say that i am a Malay Christian! Gloriously saved in year 2003. Yes, I was born a muslim. Yes, i was born and raised in Singapore. Typically my father tried his best to make his 3 sons understand islam and of course to embrace the basic tenets of the religion…

As a teenager i tried my best to know what islam was about. I deeply believed that there is a God. But somehow this god felt very distant and the feeling of constant judgement is always there… I hardly felt loved… 

And so my search began… I embarked on a journey that led me to the Light of Christ.

I was 20 at that point of time. Almost 10 years later, i have come into His Presence. My meanderings into all the other world religions gave me a very broad view of what other faith systems are about. Some aren’t even faith, just merely a way of life, some are rules and laws stacked like jenga blocks waiting to crumble. Others, even, like mystery, occultic belief systems delved very much deeply into self deliverance, being freed into the ALL somewhat. All these seemed very attractive at some point of time but it never did answer the very basis of SALVATION.

Corrupt as we are, man’s ego has taken precedence over who we naturally are. Sin Nature in our flesh is somewhat programmed into our flesh after the fall of Adam. Saintly as we want to be, none of us can come close to the perfection of Christ. But Christ came for us as He is God with us (Emmanuel). How is it possible for man, a fleshly being be able to save himself? Many believe in a spirit; and this spirit is pure, unadulterated love, pure being, pure energy. They believe all mankind have this spirit in them. Now as a Christian i know that this spirit is inaccessible to us until we have the Holy Spirit in us through Christ Jesus after He was crucified on the cross. Only with our salvation and redemption through Christ then can we have this Spirit, this Holy Spirit of God. Other than that it will be the shadow of the truth, the deceiver will use his deceptive spirit and enter into your life. Any form of spiritual entity will give you some form of power or energy, even feelings of bliss and happiness. But all these are temporal, for they are not from the Truth. I am obviously speaking from experience. Delving in forms of meditation, qi exercises, no doubt certainly some have health benefits attached to it but at what risk? We always have to use Christ as our filter and source for the Truth. If not, trouble may brew as the deceiver comes into our mind and body from these seemingly harmless exercises.

I appeal to any of my brothers and sisters out there, if you feel, and deep inside, you know that your are lost… Look for your Shepherd.

Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd; and I know my sheep, and am known by My own. As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.” John 10:14-16

I firmly believe in the Word of God. And John 10:16 speaks volumes of His kind mercy and grace. It will only be a matter of time when more of us will come out saying ,”I am born again in Christ!” How glorious will that day be when i can share this pride and gift with sheep from my own fold!

Hallelujah, Praise God… Thank you Jesus… Oh, how so You have loved me…

Yeshua… YHWH is my Salvation.

PS: Hi everybody, i have another blog site at 1flock1shepherd.blogspot.com(don’t type the www)
I’ll be on that one more regularly. I have a couple more interesting stuff there! Do take a look please and leave your comments there.

HIS Blessings’ Upon Us Always,
Emmanuel

Anyway, the following is taken from an newpaper article 

what, exactly, do atheists believe in, if not in God?

In a nutshell, atheists believe in reason alone, in those things that can be arrived at through intellect and the scientific method. Concrete evidence for God, they argue, simply doesn’t exist. They don’t cotton to leaps of faith or anything that involves a supernatural being reaching into human lives. They believe you can live a happy, respectable life based on human ethics that were derived not from God handing down a tablet but from a code of rules that emerged naturally through an evolutionary process in which humans learned how to live together successfully.

I’ve never fully agreed with the denomination of SDA. But what Faith Toh writes does strike a chord with my heard. I think it’s an issue that’s affecting many churches in Singapore here today.

I think at the end of the day, it’s important to remember who you’re serving, and when in doubt, always go back to the Word of the Lord.

Disclaimer : This is a diatribe against a specific person and one particular outpost of a very huge global organisation. However, as I have not mentioned any names, any inferences you derive are yours and yours alone. Take ownership of them — because I certainly can’t … and won’t.

Firstly, and I cannot emphasise this enough, the Church, the Community where God’s broken people can seek refuge and repair, is a place that can and does exist. It doesn’t need million dollar smart buildings, or successful folks driving SUVs, or megachurches to actualise. Often, all it takes is just one heart that loves and one shoulder to cry on and one arm to hug you and say “God loves you and so do I”. And sometimes, the Church even reveals itself in the imperfect of the church.

Yes, Church versus church. The former is an ideal that I believe in with every fibre of my being. The latter… well, let’s just say that sometimes a group of people can get it right and reveal a glimpse of what Jesus died on the cross for but most times we get it so wrong.

We sneer and find justifications why the evil bad world cannot understand us and our beliefs. While all the while, we are so oblivious that we ever realise our mouths talk a lot of jargon about love and redemption but our actions betray our judgemental hearts.

I’ve refered to myself as a Seventh-day Adventist Christian. Lately, I’ve been taking to saying : I’m a Christian who attends the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The difference is not a subtle at all. It is a wide, gaping maw. It is saying, I am first and foremost a child of God, redeemed and in the process of much needed repair and I choose as my “garage”, the Seventh-day Adventist church.

Note the lowercase “c”. Yes, because the SDA church is flawed. Why? Because a church is merely the sum of its individual members and these members… we are all terribly, disgustingly, pathetically flawed.

But when did this concept of ‘corporate flaw-ness” become a security blanket? When did recognising the reality of our collective brokeness become an excuse for apathy? When did the fact that a church is losing members (and not gaining new ones) signal that it is “pruning” it’s dead weight? And since when has not doing an iota of evangelism with lasting results reflect the imperviousness of the post-modern culture more than the lack of spirituality in the church members?

I am indignant.

I am utterly disgusted that theologically inaccurate and faulty sermons are continuing to be preached because whether a sermon benefits us or not isn’t dependent on the pastor’s spirituality but OURS?!?! If we are spiritual enough, then no matter what crap is dumped on us, we can still find diamonds? So in other words if I fail an exam its not how little I know, but how bad the prof is at marking it!

I am indignant that when a pastor is informed respectfully by 4 young men that they will be attending a different (but still Seventh-day Adventist) church, instead of listening with an open and objective heart to their prayer-backed reasons, he jumps to defensive conclusions.

I am apalled that these young men — whose decision was wrought after a dedicated one month of intense prayer and counsel from their respected elders — should have to be told that they have the wrong perception of God; How they need to stop thinking about how much they should receive and instead depend on God to provide them with the reinforcements they need to keep giving; They need to stop looking for external support and instead discover God even in the midst of adversity and spiritual drought.

On its own, I agree but everything needs a context! “Hit the bat” means two very different things when said during a baseball game and while at a zoo exhibit! And in this instance, I find it offensively judgemental and perpetuating the wrong image of God!

An abused wife, because of her experiences with her abusive husband, can learn patience and forgiveness, her strength can be refined and she can still reflect a Godly countenance . But does that mean she should stay in the relationship? What real values will she instill in her children if she continues to allow herself to be consistently flayed? What sublimal lesson does she teach her husband about his rights to whack her?

Am I saying that this* church is the spiritual equivalent of an abusive husband? Yes. I would cite examples but at the moment I can’t trust myself not to descend into bitch mode. So better not.

*this — referring to only one of many many many Seventh-day Adventist churches avaliable worldwide… not the ENTIRE denomination. Please. And its not the one in the West. That one is my safehaven. The reason why I haven’t turned my back on the entire denomination.

So to draw on the analogy further, what message are we sending about God’s character?

Our God is not a vindictive God. He isn’t a nasty, malicious, prankster who is so unimaginative that trials are the only means through which He makes us grow.

Self-flagellating people, people who go to the First Church of Anything That Brings You Joy Is A Sin and I Only Feel Holy When I Am Suffering want us to believe that it is only through the pain that we can measure how holy we are! “Its not good unless it hurts so bad” is their motto.

I had that shite shoveled to me in truckloads for years … and I swallowed it all. My fault for being so stupid. To absorb their hurtful words, they’re cold shoulders, their gossipy whispers and thinking it was my own fault for not being friendly enough, not being lovable enough, rich enough, smart enough, brown-noser enough to be worthy of being accepted and loved for who I am.

Our God isn’t a evil God that enjoys watching us suffer and hurting us just in the name of “character building”!

Our God is a loving God who LOVES us into a better person. True, sometimes we need the trials to learn, but the very act of his death on the cross underlines the fact that he chooses the LOVE method first!

“Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, … ” (Hebrews 10:24)

The FUNCTION of the Church is best served within the INSTITUTION of the church.

How can a church succeed at increasing its membership if it treats visitors like maharajahs and its members like criminals?

Ofcourse, when all is ranted and done, the question is : what about me? Am I not equally flawed? Have I not dished out my share of pain and judgement? Yes. I have. And you know what? I probably will continue to do so inadvertantly. I’m not proud of it, in fact I’m utterly ashamed but just because I don’t always practise what I preach, doesn’t mean that what I’m preaching isn’t the truth.

Let’s put it this way, if I’m swimming in the ocean and I see a shark, I don’t need a doctorate in marine biology to get the heck out of the water.

Of course, if I’ve offended you, you can always use this verse instead to soothe your ego… Numbers 22:28 “Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth…”

Prepared for : Prayer meeting

• There is the time when he believes in Santa Claus.
• There is the time when he no longer believes in Santa Claus.
• There is the time when he is Santa Claus.
• There is the time when he looks like Santa Claus.

God appoints the times and Seasons

• On one hand this can bring worry, but on the other hand, it should bring you hope because we know that God is in control.
• Sometimes you may wonder about that. I mean, it is easy to doubt that God has it all together when you look at the world. It doesn’t seem to be doing all that well.
• God has a purpose in what He does even if we have a heard time understanding what that purpose is. Romans 8:28

We live in a world of Change

• Those things which seem most contrary the one to the other will, in the revolution of affairs, each take their turn and come into play
• Is it winter? Stay a while, and it will be summer
• Christians go through some of the greatest changes.

• First we are blind, dead sinners. Then we are made alive.
• Then we discover more of our sinfulness and God continues to change our hearts.

• Change stretches you.
  It challenges you by causing you to grow through the trials and tribulations of life.
• Change keeps you from getting bored.
  Boring job cutting foam rubber.

However, God Does not Change

V. 11. God has set everything for its time so enjoy yourself.

• God has made every thing beautiful in his time.
  Even the painful things are set in place by God
• Everything has its purpose, even the cold winter storms that bring rain.
• You must wait with patience for the full revelation of God’s mysterious providence.
  All you can see is the middle of God’s work, not its end. He know the beginning from the end and He has you where He wants you.

Based on : Church Exhortation

Hebrews 12:1-2
We each have a RACE to run.

Acts 20:24
We must PAY the price to finish the race.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27
We must DISCIPLINE our lives to finish the race well.

Revelations 17:14
We must answer the CALL
We must CHOOSE to follow the Lord and serve Him.
We must be FAITHFUL to the end to finish well.

Based on : Basics Revisited Unit 4 Study 1

Jesus Christ always lives to make intercession for us, and is also a guarantor of a better covenant

Hebrews 7-8

The priesthood of Melchizedek is superior to that of the Levites

• Abraham, who is senior to Levi, paid Melchizedek a tithe. Genesis 14:20
• Abraham -> Issac -> Jacob -> Levi
• Psalms 110 :
  Christ would be “of the order of Melchizedek”
• Christ was to be a priest forever, empowered by an endless life
• Christ was to be appointed priest by God with a divine oath. (The Levitical Priesthood never enjoyed the strength or confirmation of such a divine affirmation)
• The Levites were sinners themselves in need of redemption. But Christ was a holy, undefiled high priest that we have, and need only make the one sacrifice, not for himself, but for others.

The New covenant is superior to the Old

• Jesus is the gurantor of the new covenant, and he has a superior ministry to that of Moses
• The New Covenant is established upon promises better that those given to Israel at Mt Sinai

• That given to Israel came with conditions
• The New Covenant deals with our sings
• It also deals with the corruption from within

Man -> New Covenant given by the grace of God -> Guarantor = Jesus -> God

Jesus Christ as Guarantor

• Fully God -> Ensures that we will benefit from everything that God has committed Himself to do for us.
• Fully Man -> Fulfilled all the requirements of the covenant

• Fulfillment for us
• Fulfillment IN us

Promises of

• Informed mind
• Changed heart
• Cleansed Conscience
• Sanctification and Perfection
• New and Living way

• No longer diadetic
• A perfect Sacrifice

The power of sanctification and salvation comes not from any work on our part. And is NOT broken by any of our failures or weaknesses, for it is guaranteed by the perfect guarantor, Jesus Christ. An inviolable relationship between God and us is established by Christ himself.