God Is God And I Am Not

Not only through preaching of the Word and reading the Bible can only bring the 'rhema' word of God, well inspired by God song compositions are able to do the same. Each rhema word can be specific to each individual or people and when we receive it, we are changed. Spiritually we are challenged, mindset has been altered, God does something in our spiritual being. Subtle or not, something good happens inside.

The simple words of the chorus can suddenly bring so much meaning to me and a reality of something sets in for me.  These words:

God is God and I am not 

I can only see a part of the picture He’s painting 

God is God and I am man 

So I’ll never understand it all 

For only God is God

The complete lyrics. God is God by Steven Curtis Chapman

The music arrangement is profoundly appropriate with the music video and song.

1 Corinthian 2:9 GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
But as Scripture says: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined the things that God has prepared for those who love him."

Don't limit God, His vastness of miracles is infinite, His wisdom we can only understand a portion but just embrace and welcome His ways. 

10 Steps to Know God

Pastor Gillean Levick, our anointed, bright and colourful woman of God spoke in one of the churches at Butterworth one evening. The message was practical, profound and prophetic in the way that she spoke about knowing God. Her life testimonies tells it all, and you know when the glory of God is upon someone,they shine. It was an eventful night with laughters over dinner, prayer for a cancer patient and the Word of God delivered. I took my friend's notes on the preaching that night to share it with my readers here. It may not have the same impact as to hear it live but I hope these notes will somehow encourage your walk with God.

10 steps to know God (with some paraphrasing - mine)

1) Grateful heart

- be grateful with everything we have as we are already blessed, reach out and receive it. Gratefulness takes you away from worrying and opens the way for God to bless us. 

2) Be thankful

- in all things give thanks. There is no need to ask God, thank Him for what He's given and for the things He is going to give. Remember God works all things good for those who loves Him. God in His agape love wants to kiss our wounds to heal us. 

3) Praise God

- a merry heart is like a medicine, bringing health to our bones and mind.

- when our emotions are bossy taking the leader role, we become double minded, don't know the arthur from the martha. God gave us the spirit ability to be leaders, to lead over our emotions, to tell our emotions to behave when they are not. Praising God puts our focus on Him and not on our difficult situations.

4) Trusting God

God is the only one who is 100% trustable. He will never leave us nor forsake us.

Prov 3:5-6, James 1:2-4 - there are 2 roads to choose, which will you choose.

A)When difficult things happen in our life, throw a party and rejoice - God will make you laugh. If we are full of joy, it will bring change to our situation.

B) road of despair.distraction, arrested development, depression, destruction and this is where the devil wants us to be.

If you want to trust God, you must take risk in taking that 1st step to cross the river, and take the journey He has prepared for us. Our inheritance is a spirit of boldness, love, and if sound mind. 

When we are different, we will make a difference. It doesn't matter how people look at us, it matters how God look at us. 

5) Worship

When we learn to trust, we begin to worship. Our whole life is an act of worship. 

6) Obedience

-When we worship, we move into obedience... God is pleased when we obey

- Isaiah 1:19 when we are obedient, we will eat the fat of the land (we'll be blessed)

-Let's come into the Lords presence and not be afraid of our disobedience but repent and continuing on this journey with God. As we surrender unto Him, He will help us with our shortcomings and weaknesses.
A true story of this lady in the bus. Daily she takes the bus to work and one day, a voice told her to go to the Coke machine and do a headstand. She thought that was the devil and it must be crazy to do such a thing. Day after day, she kept hearing the same thing and finally she gave in and got out of the bus and did a headstand at the Coke machine and this man came down from the bus and asked her, "Why are you doing a headstand here?". She answered (probably in embarrassment) " Because God asked me to". He told her that He had asked if there is a God, let someone do a headstand at this machine. She was appalled but I believe she is so grateful a soul got saved because of her obedience to God. She asked God why did He picked her to do that and He said many had turned Him down and she was the only one who obeyed.

7) Intimacy

- intimacy with God brings freedom to be who we are. When the Son sets u free, you are free indeed

- Profess : I promise myself to be kind to myself , to forgive myself, to bless myself ,to make mistake so I can grow and develop true intimacy with God.. Amen

8) Authority

-When there's intimacy, we begin to know who we are and when we receive God's love, we can love ourselves, then loving others becomes easy.

-we hold the glory of God (ie the attributes and character of God)

-Rom 3:23 we hv fallen short of God's glory.  But we should not focus about our behavior, but God's glory

-Phil 1:20 even though Paul is in prison, and others think bad of him, as long as he bring glory to God, other things don't matter

- We have the authority, and when we pray, declare, and speak forth, things will happen

- Gen 1:20 Abraham left the land, sees Abimelech and lied about Sarah... He was looking at the king rather than God. Though Abimelech is innocent, God gave him a 'spanking' but Abraham got lifted off (Read more on the story at Genesis)

- Abraham was considered righteous because he believed God, not because of his behavior. Because he's righteous, God backed him up. God also gave us the same authority and will back us up.

9) The Power of God for us

- When we connect to the Source, miracles, healings, blessings comes into our life and through us we  are able to uplift another.

10) Dominion

-It does not mean lording over others but have victory over areas of our life, then we can be useful to others and help them to have victory. Remember that Christ lives in us, through us and for us.

There are 10 steps but they are not in anyway in sequence because each of us have different issues in life that needs alot of work on. Some of the steps for some might have already come to a certain level of maturity. So work on the areas that need working by the grace of God.

Women Conference 2012 - Ps. Sandra Chin

The time has come for another year with Ps. Sandra Chin at our church for Women Conference. EPCC gave out goodie bag filled with magazines, vouchers, beauty samples and a very nice scarf  on the very first night. I told myself I will be taking more pictures this year however that didn't come pass.
The night started with an icebreaker, human bingo game and praise and worship. We also had workshops the next day, women 'thingy'.

In the conference, Ps. Sandra  shared with us about ( I will briefly say:
Person of Christ(who Redeemed us)
Just as with the Jewish culture, their arrangement of matchmaking and preparing for the bride, Jesus does it similar preparing the mansion for His bride (you and I) when He returns to sweep us off our feet. This is all besides the fact that Jesus has died for us on the Cross to be able to have us in this glorious position even while on earth. To have this relationship with Him.

Power of Christ (that Resurrect us)
John 10:10

¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

God resurrect what was ours, what He has intended for us. The life of a Christian is to have a life of abundance and we have the resurrected Power to speak over anything in our life. We do not need to be succumbed by the pressures of this society or the negative vibes anyone puts on us but to have a grip and hold on who we are in Him.

and the Provision of Christ (that Releases us)

Parable of The Talents in Matt 25 speaks about how each individual used the talents(money) that was given. 
Christ provides that He might release us, releasing us to do great things and things that pleases God.
Some of us misused what God has given us or became laid-back and not activate the purpose of God in our lives. We need to come back to that place of connecting with God and allowing His power to resurrect us,back on track. Similarly to skills that we do not practice, we loose the hang of it, we might not lose the gifting God gave us, but it can become less productive or effective. 

We are stewards of our body, money and talents God gives us, it is our responsibility to use them to please Him. As we please Him, we please ourselves, His desires become our desires and as we all know, God's purposes is intended for good in all of us.

From her sharing, a lot of reminders came to mind and it settles on my heart to work on pleasing My Father. Glad we all had a little chat with Ps. Sandra, she is down to earth and approachable, a minister that can connect to people.

God's Word , My Shield

The rugged worn out blue notebook holds many writings and teachings I learned from reading God's Word, preaching, books, prophecies, my own preparations for sharing and I felt grounded whenever I go through this book. It was like a start of my spiritual journey and though I stopped at three quarter of the notebook, my journey did go on without the notebook Now it seems like one of my new notebook is a virtual one. :)

I decided to write what I shared many years ago when I was in the youth group. I was given an opportunity to give an exhortation of any bible verse. I picked Psalms 119:11 " I have hidden Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against you"

What spoke to me then was the intent of the psalmist that seems so pure. David the psalmist reveals his love for God and not wanting to hurt Him by sinning against Him, he hides His Word. Hidden means to treasure, to conceal. When you treasure something till you want to hide it, it means a lot to you. And you do anything to keep it there, for his case, he wants to keep it in his heart. 

This reminded me of the song A Pure Heart which one lines says " A heart that hides Your Word, so that sin may not come in" The Word of God is like a shield, keeping us from sinning and protecting sin from coming in. We all sin and fall short of His glory but Jesus righteousness make us right with God. But as long as we are on this earth, the roaring lion will try to devour us, making us as far away from God as possible. Our part is living the way God wants us to and our guide is His Word, and His Spirit convicts and teaches us.

I went to look for the old song in youtube and I found another version but its great and just as the song has ministered to him, it has also ministered to me then and also now. May it minister to you too and draw you closer to Him.