hey ya'll once again.. it has become noted that the number of hits to this site will reach 1000 very soon.. praise God! i think at the end of the day, if you have been blessed by ur coming here and reading stuff that i put up, then i know my work has been fruitful.. ya know, if someone compiled this and wrote a book on it after i leave earth, i just might be a blessing to even more people.. just like the letter of C.S. Lewis.. that kinda thing..anyway..haha i read this on cnn.com earlier today.. here's another issue for you to start thinking about.. read all about it and gimme ur thoughts either on the chatterbox or email me.. this goes for anyone, whether you're Christian or not.. i wanna hear from you! this issue is not as clear cut for most of us as the homosexuality case was - but before i bore you any longer, read the article! The Monument ok then.. peace..

Worship - from a wonderful cousin's reflections

hey all, i received an email a few days ago from my cousin on his own points on worship - it has been a blessing to me, i hope it is a blessing to you as well.. may we continue to worship God through our mouths, instruments and most of all, our lives.. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lately, I have been drawn to the subject of worship. The passion for worship in my life brought me to a desire to find out more on this subject. I looked at the book of Psalms, dived into some books (Tommy Tenney - God Chasers & Rick Warren - The Purpose Driven Life) and did some reflecting to understand more on worship. Here's what I have learnt from this time of searching... May you be blessed by this sharing... 1) Worship is an inbuilt need! Do you know that worship is a universal urge, "hard-wired" by God into every fiber of our being? We have an inbuilt need to connect to God. You see, God made us with this desire because He wants worshippers. (John 4:23) If we fail to worship God, we will find ourselves worshipping the things of this world. Money, fame, role models, and maybe even ourselves. "Worship" in church include singing, praying, dancing, and listening to a sermon. Some see it as a ceremony, lighting up of candles and communion. Others may see it as healing, miracles and ecstatic experiences. Worship can include these elements, but worship is far more than these expressions. Worship is a lifestyle. It is a yearning in our soul to know our Father. 2) Worship is far more than music. If worship were just music, then all who are non-musical can never worship! For many people, worship is just a synonym for music. We say.. "Oh!, At our church worship comes first, and then the teaching". There a big misunderstanding here because every part of a church service is an act of worship: praying, scripture reading, singing, dancing, confession, silence, being still, listening to a sermon, taking notes, giving an offering, baptism, communion, signing a commitment card, and even greeting other worshipers. Worship has nothing to do with the style or volume or speed of a song. I believe that God loves all kinds of music because He invented it all - fast and slow, loud and soft, old and new. You probably don't like it all, but God does! If it is offered to God in spirit and truth, it is an act of worship. Christians often disagree over the style of music used in worship, fervently defending their preferred style as the most biblical or God-honoring. But really, there is no biblical style! Everything is acceptable to God if done in obedience to His word. Frankly, the music style you like best says more about you - your background and personality - than it does about God. There is no such thing as "Christian" music; there are only Christian lyrics. It is the words that make a song sacred, not the tune. If a song is played for you without the words, you'd have no way of knowing if it were a "Christian" song. 3) Worship is not for your benefit. Worship is for God's benefit! When we worship, our goal is to bring pleasure to God, not ourselves. In Isaiah, God complained about worship that was half-hearted and hypocritical. The people were offering God stale prayers, insincere praise, empty words, and man-made rituals without even thinking about their meaning and implications. You can bet that God's heart was not touched by their "worship". When we harmonize, dance, lift our hands or bow before Him, it is with total surrender and reverance to Him. Not for us. It is for Him. If you want to know what worship is NOT, read Isaiah 29:13! 4) Worship is not a part of your life: it IS your life. Its very wrong to think that we only worship God during sunday services. We are reminded to worship Him continually (Psa 105:4) and to praise Him from sunrise to sunset (Psa 113:3). The bible gave numerous examples of people who praised God at work, at home, in battle, in jail and even in bed. David said." I will thank the Lord at all times. My mouth will always praise Him" (Psa 34:1) Every activity can be transformed into an act of worship when you do it for the praise, glory and pleasure of God! Can I hear a loud AMEN to that?!! Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote... "If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well." How is that ever possible, you ask? By doing everything as if you were doing it for Jesus! It is a continual strive to give God the very best in our lives. --- "Father, may our lives be as incense to You; holy and acceptable. We confess with out mouths if we have taken for granted our worship to You. Forgive us if we have compromised in anyway. Lord, if we have put on a different spirit of worship, we ask for your forgiveness today. Renew our mind, Lord! May you continue to teach us to be worshippers! In Jesus Name, Amen ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- continue to worship God, everyone!

On being clean shaven

oh yeah just a short note that I forgot to mention.. four of us guys had our heads shaven (almost) so that we could see our scalps.. have a good look at our heads in "the picture gallery" oh, and do you know that i've never shaven before? like seriously.. played around once but that was it.. shows you how immature i am..hehe

Campamania

yo back from camp and it was a really exciting camp... congrats to all the committee members (jon lee, phooi wah, ee ling, yi ching, kenny, ee lane, albert, charis and justin), to ps. sivin and phek kin and michael as well, the "adults" of camp.. great job, guys! God has been really wonderful... i spoke on sunday and God has really been preparing me for the opportunity 5-6 weeks before camp itself.. He showed me all that He wanted me to say and even made the sunday session open by ensuring the other speakers were unable to attend.. how cool is that? it was God.. i thank the campers who commended me for the sharing and i have been really encouraged by it.. at the end of the day, I believe that the message has only achieved full effect if I see the lives, be it one or two even, changed as a result.. then I know my work has been done and done well.. i'm still having this stigma against watermelons..hehe.. and i won't know when it'll end.. but for all the guys who did not attend camp, remember this: you can use a fork to open a watermelon.. in fact, if you have a strong wrist, go ahead and whack it and it'll break open.. following the example of Joshua Nah..hehe anyway, when all is said and done, i pray that those who have attended CF camp 2003 remain passionate to serve Christ and to Change Hearts and Impact Lives...Lah.. so CHILL, ya'll...

Piracy

hey all, I found this article on the e-mag, Boundless concerning piracy, stealing and theft.. thought you might wanna have a good read about it.. The Pirate just wanted to let you all know that my stand against piracy does not run primarily on the fact that it constitutes stealing.. that comes second.. i came to a decision to go against piracy because i was convicted of my greed for more and more music in a world where music and pirated goods come virtually free.. piracy fed a greed in me for more and more music and this went directly counter to David in saying that "my soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods" in psalms 63.. although the argument of theft and stealing is second in priority to my stand against piracy, i cannot deny that it is a very substantial argument that leaves litle to debate about.. i've also added a picture gallery thingie using webshots. com.. click on the link at the side of the page to access the pictures, the present ones from the CF camp held last weekend may the grace of God be with you...

2As and 2Bs

hey.. results are out!! my a levels results are as follows: Economics: B Government & Politics: B Law: A Maths:A honestly, i do feel quite disappointed... i was aiming for 4 As... but I guess God's got something for me through this period of my life... have a good day...

Updates Galore!

Its been a truly active past week, preparing for so many things that are to come.. cf camp, cell groups, church activities and a host of research on aussie unis.. For your info, I am looking into the option of doing my law degree in Australia, and provided the a-level results are excellent, I hope to get a scholarship as well...:) these are the unis on my mind: Australian National University, Monash, Melbourne, Sydney, New South Wales, Tasmania and Queensland... if you have any comments (aside from the "ghost town" condition of Canberra and Tasmania..hehe) please do let me know... email or you can post up on the tagboard.. thanks! I have been keeping myself busy with bible knowledge material.. been working with a friend and some BK teachers to reproduce a BK textbook.. for those who've done BK for SPM (Malaysian Certificate of Education), we're working on the textbook for Acts and a load of Marshall's notes that had to be reproduced from the original small green and blue books that our "ancestors" were using as their textbooks... so that has kept me pretty busy.. planned to finish it last week, but got postponed due to "unforeseen" circumstances.. technically.. Oh, and I'm working on building a website... I'm using macromedia dreamweaver (plus the tutorials in the software as well..) and trying to make a website and put it up instead of relying on a blogspot page for the rest of my days..haha.. its been going fine so far, and I'm learning the basics of css and html and how to make a website.. I'm still blur but I've got some time to play around with different instruments and sample html stuff.. brian, dreamweaver seems like a really good program.. if you can get it, use it... it works well together with flash too.. so u can put up some happening stuff on your website.. When I get it done and up on a server, I'll let ya'll know.. it'll be loaded with stuff blogspot can't do, like pics and a lot of other articles and stuff on myself.. and whatever else I can think of putting onto a webpage.. what about a forum? Hehe... But please don't start to eagerly anticipate the website, cos it'll take a long while before it gets up.. i'm just learning to do stuff like this at the moment.. if I study in Australia, I might try to do a double degree of IT and Law, which would enable me to learn more html, I think.. and also maybe specialize in cyber law.. cool eh? I was thinking of econs and law, but I've begun to receive some interesting weird looks from my friends since I remember telling them that econs was my most unfavourite a-level subject.. technically true, but as I look back, I realized that econs was pretty interesting, esp. the last few units of it where we learnt to apply all the theory into realtime happenings and now, I can watch the Herald Tribune or Bloomberg and understand what they are talking about!! Not that I've got the time to do so though... hehe here's the last thing I wanna say... and I hope it scares you as it is scaring me now.. ok.. nah, don't get scared.. its just that.. erm...erm.... this friday....erm... a level results are COMING OUT!!!!!! Ok..ok... its not that I'll die if I don't get the results I want.. of course not.. rather, its just that I'm having a pseudo nervous wreck (something like a "sort of" nervous wreck) trying to wait for 3 MORE DAYS!!! My goodness.. its only that far away... deb and brian, are you feeling the same thing too? There are a lot of psychologists here in ... wait.. nvm.. its no wonder why they call it HELP anyway..haha okies.. at least I took some time to get this done before I never do.. haha.. goodnight ya'll!! "runs around in underwear, freakazoid, freakazoid..." - wonder whatever happened to that cartoon about the whiz kid who had an "alter split personality" (whatever you call it)... anyone knows?

Blogging Woes

hey all, i know i need to blog to let you guys in on things happening lately.. please be patient with me.. i'm entering a new phase of internet surfing.. once i've got that settled, i "should" be able to blog more and let you in on the more juicy stuff than just reading that i'm supposed to blog (like this one) anyway, just came back from church and learnt some really important pointers on not compromising our faith (dealt with the whole issue of homosexuality in the church as well) and also on the ways in which satan comes to attack us and how to overcome.. all from Revelations 2:12-17 so that was awesome.. remain passionately pure and uncompromising in your faith!