The fear of human rather than God.
Perhaps the notion of a God-fearing person could be interpreted in many ways. Many of us are afraid of a great deal. Challenges, taunts, competitions, breaking bad news, exams, and etc. But it occured to me in church today that another underrated form of a fear is the fear to proclaim God, to worship him, to lift your heart and voices to him, to tell other people of the Gospel because you are worried what your friend next to you might think or say about you..
Christians are challenged to be fruitful in all aspects of our lives. So i stood with my friend in church today, about 10 mins late going in, find a spot where both of us are blocking the view of a girl behind us in the pews, while the session of praise and worship was on. And i found myself, being comfortable all my life being in church and sitting alone all the time, even if my family was together we'll all sit in diff areas and talk about it later during lunch, to be slightly vainly aware that my friend of many years here was next to me, lips unable to catch the rhythm of the music.
I sang. I like singing. Praise and worship is the best part of going to church. I normally sing out loud. Mostly, loud enough that i could hear myself some times. And i like it. I like singing very much in fact. I didn't care what people thought of my voice, but i always thought i had some decent ability. But in the midst of being here with my good friend, i found that i couldn't sing as loud or hard as i would normally do.
How many times has that feeling come to haunt you? The fear of people saying some odd stuff about you. I guess it's the mind games of the devil. But being consciously aware that someone is looking and deciphering what exactly are you doing can feel really distressing. By the time i had myself ready to open up and be bold, the worship session was over. Why did i fear what my friend has to say instead of fearing what God might feel about me?
The message today was about God's grace though. His grace is immense, and the reason why i am able to blog about my inabilities, since i know that God will give me the courage the next time i feel this way again.
Churches of the world
It was a divine calling from God for us to keep Sunday idle for him, that we may spend some time communicating or talking to God, praying. We do not go to church to make judgments of how good a speaker the pastor is. Neither do we go there to meet our friends. Church is not the place to enhance reputations. Church is not just a feel good place. Church is not a place you go on the way to somewhere else.
Church is a place where we give thanks to God, worship him, sing praises and let God speak to you. Though i will say that God can speak to you any other day, but this is the day you reserve for him, nevermind the other days if you are busy.
Some people brand other people hypocrites in church, believing they distort the idea of a church-goer, lurking everywhere, and discouraging other church-goers. I have known of people who stopped going to church because they someone they knew who was giving hell on earth to someone they knew was present in church. "How could someone who gives hell to people be in church and profess to be a Christian? No better than a non-Christian," people would think. Do not be shaken. Do not pass judgment lest you be judged as well. Being a Christian simply means 'believing in Christ as in the Bible.' Though you call yourself a Christian and carry Christ's banner on you, does not mean your soul belongs in heaven.
And why would the judging of other people persuade you to leave the church or pass your own judgment of the church?
God will deal with people in his own way, in his own timing. Too many times we want the timing to be our own. But what do we know? We cannot see the future. If Satan sits in church, do we leave? Don't we allow the Devil to control the church when all that's left in the church are the hypocrites?
Do not fall into Satan's lies and deception. He is capable of great many things. He can conceive thoughts of deceit, anger, hate, lust, envy in our minds and we need the Jesus to guide us. The decay of the church is already happening from within we just do not acknowledge it, since it is so subtle. Know that Satan is subtle in his craft, extremely careful, and could overpower any human. Pray and do not procrastinate. God bless.
How long is your church service?
How long is your church service? i remember being asked this question some time ago by a friend of mine. So i said, "2 hours."
"Wah so long one ar!" he yelled.
"2 hours is pretty normal. Half an hour praise & worship, 45 - 60 mins for preaching, last half hour or so, prayer & announcments."
"He speak for so long? what he talk about? Like seminar only."
I didnt react too much to it at the time. But it did strike me later on, the fact that, in our busy lives, we can't even spare 2 hours for God. Even a movie is 2 hours. A meal and a shower could take up half of that time. I wont tell whether that friend of mine is a Christian or not, though i reckon he wouldn't know about me and this blog.
I must say that how long the service is should not be a matter of great concern. But ultimately, we have to clear our conscience and speak to ourselves, as we walk through the door and join the rest of the congregration we must know of our objective of coming to church. Was it to make it a feel good Sunday, signalling all is well, not too much troubles in sight, so i can make time for God? Or a terrible week, signalling i should come here and beg on my knees for something i want?
Sick of Xmas comments
At 4:22 PM,
Dory said...
The X in Xmas is not our letter X. It is the Greek letter Chi (pronounced like key), which looks like our X. It is the letter that Christ begins with in the Greek and it has been used for centuries as an abbreviation or symbol for Christ--not just in English, but in all the languages of Christendom. It was never meant to be disrespectful. It was quite common until fairly recently to abbreviate the word Christian as Xian.
At 1:58 AM, kItttttt said...
perhaps
this may be the source of your comments. while i will not contest the validation of history, i somehow believe that there have been an air of cynicality during which writers/philosophers/linguist decided on abbrevating Christ with an X. Hell must be LOL at the abbrevation of a name of such significance with an X or a Greek letter in the English language, where 1000 years later, when everything is arbitrary and contestable, people would be confused by the significance of the original name and the abbrevation itself.
I still believe in putting the Christ back into Christmas (although i admit the information asymmetry on my part), since the abbrevation has its meaning drowned in history and its significance is belongs to Greek.
My First Post comments
Since i just a little lazy to explore how to recover back the comments section after installing
haloscan comments i'll repost some of the comments that have been made here.
My first post comments:
At 3:11 AM, Kamigoroshi said...
God rants to us on Sunday?
Hehe...:)
I think God talks to us all the time not just in the Books. It's whether or not any of us are open minded enough to pay attention that makes all the difference.
At 3:22 AM, turntable eel said...
I don't want to just come a hate on God but how can anyone follow a story to base your views of the world and moral opinions. How do you feel about abortions?
At 5:09 AM, Vicky, Let The Night Fall said...
I don't think God rants on Sunday/ Saturday...God loves us, He always wants to talk to us, communicate with us ALL THE TIME. But a lot of times, we are the people who did not put God first.
If sorrow or joy comes, who is the first person we connect with?Ourselves? Husband? Wife? Bf? Gf? Friends??? When is God's turn?
I think I'd learn saying, "Praise you, Jesus"...
Something for us to ponder....
At 8:41 AM, kItttttt said...
i must've made a mistake. I did not mean God rants. But God surely wants us to listen. And he listens. sorry bout that.
a side note. i have read stuff on abortions before, about them pro-life and pro-choice, about how the pro-life would burn abortion clinics in the US. How they curse those pro-life advocates like barbarians.
It was ultimately your own decision, something that you did, whether you impulsely decided on it, or thought about having sex very carefully, the fact of the matter is that you made a choice to make/potentially make her pregnant.
Now, it is in my believe/religion however you want to put it, sex is something that should be saved up for marriage. You have sex with someone you love, and married. Legally however, you are permitted otherwise since there is no statute anywhere which governs something like this.
But through our own discernment, through our own wisdom, we acted in a way which we believed, satisfies our physical body. We consciously know of the consequences. What is there to be pro-choice or pro-life about when it was our own mistake?
You screw around, you pay the price. Aborting or keeping the baby is a price to pay. You don't have to google up on abortion i'm sure you know the side effects. Psychology, physical (i.e nausea), emotional issues are needed to be addressed as well thanks to abortion. I'm not sure what empirical evidence is present regarding the subject of future pregnancies but i believe abortion greatly reduces your chances of it.
Knowing all this, we still pretentiously argue of a subject like this when we should know better. You already know prevention is better than cure. But where is the common sense?
As a Christian, we are forewarned of the potential detrimental effects and consequences of sex before marriage and are thus discouraged(for a choice of a less stern word) rebuked from such an action. Hence, there was never a case of abortion for religion to answer to.
Just a thought, don't mean to sound harsh and all;Does abortion remedies the potential detriments of sex before marriage?
how we live life, what we believe in, who do we trust, what do we do is all a matter of choice. I'm just here to share my thoughts.
Sick of X'mas.
Yes, i know Christmas is over about a month now. But i still can't get over the fact that people all around call it X'mas. As if the birth of Christ itself is a sin, or marking him with a variable X. Well he is special, with a virgin birth and all, but X?
Am i an Xtian too? See Christian is derived from Christ, and we replace Christ in Christmas with an X, what do i call myself?
Did you know that Christmas was coined as a politically correct term? X, as in the instance of a mathematical variable was used to denote a single particular deity and risk offending other religions, where any deity can represent X.
Pluralism - The belief that multiple religions or secular world views are all legitimate and valid. Each is "true" when viewed from within its own culture.
Source:
www.religioustolerance.org/gl_p.htm
Yet if each is "true", where's the risk? Where do we run the risk of offending people if all is true? Foolhardy it is, that we should avoid offending people not believing, yet call my saviour (possibly everyone's saviour) X. Buddha didn't receive X. So did Saibaba. Though they are antithetical to the Christian doctrine of monotheism, instead of showing respect to the believers of Christ, we have to settle on our God's birthday and Xday, or Xmas. Let's celebrate Xday/Xmas by selling things nothing related to X at all. (i guess the excessive commercialism wasn't so excessive this year)
Although we preach of a monotheistic God, i don't think we condemned other religions to the point where an X denotes one of their gods. I wouldn't have gods of other religion being codenamed like an endangered species. We do preach of idolatry, but that is up to you to choose. What's so scary about Christ? Is there something that people in this world cannot face, cannot accept that we label him as X? Did Christ come down to haunt you, torture you, cursed you that this world should have his birthday called an xday/Xmas? Do you want to be Mr. X when you send invitations to your friends and family?
He came down in peace, with touches of healing and of miracles, yet this world devoid of any comprehension of what/who he is, simplifies matters by having the believers of Christ acknowledge the notion of Xmas, and other gods have names.
So please, respect us Christians too, by having postcards which bears "Merry/Blessed CHRISTMAS" because 1) he has a name; 2) i am not an Xtian.
My First Post
When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he perspired and stumbled upon 2000 ways how NOT to make a light bulb, but he knew needed only ONE way to make it. He tried hard enough though, worked long enough, and reaped rewards of his perspiration.
Yet based on my book buying pattern i analysed recently, i realised i'm as much a Thomas Edison in my Christian life. I have books, revealing many interesting topics regarding cults, yoga, new age, ancient mysticisms, the 2nd coming, which in the absence of better metaphors, is perhaps few of many ways which describes how not to walk in tandem with the Lord. The fact of the matter is that while we Christians are fully aware of the fact that the Bible is the ultimate resource of living in the light, we fail to recognise the truths, knowledge and wisdom that belies in the Book of books.
As i packed my stuffs, i came across many books which i have accumulated and thought of reading. We're all Thomas Edisons in our walk since many of us aren't clear with the many things presented in this world. We read about how to not sin when we should be reading the Bible, we read about how to control anger when we really should be happy, we seek advice from humans or books, when we can talk directly to God, we discover about Hell when we should set our sights on Heaven, we fear Satan's works and minions when we should be fearing God and pray.
So here we are, everyday learning about how not to live the wrong way, when the right way is already present; the Bible. It is cynical how we often take for granted the things that God wants to speak to us about. We go to church, pray for the pastor to speak what the Lord ought to have him speak, yet hardly pray for ourselves, to anoint us to listen and decipher meanings that the Lord wants us to know.
The Bible is not so hard as it seems. It may speak in riddles, speak in metaphors, in parables but yet the meaning lies between you and God. You pray before you read, during (when you don't understand something ask for guidance to know the difference later) and after you read (to not forget) and i suppose you could grow closer to God. You can informal chats/prayers where u blab and God listens. Driving is a good time to reflect too. Turn off the volume of the music awhile, and just have a chat.
If somebody wants to listen about your days and rants, God does. And on Sunday, YOU do the listening.
