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Y’know, our church sang a song from a super-old Hillsong album two Sunday ago: the song “All Things Are Possible”. Then, last Sunday, we sang “Glory To The King” from the same album.

So came Sunday evening, I was in a mood to flip through the old Hillsong songs and listen to them.

Never gets old, really - songs like “Eagle’s Wings”, “All Things Are Possible”, “Glory To The King”, “Power Of Your Love” and, of course, “Shout To The Lord”. But the one that really touched me that evening was “So You Would Come”.

And I thought this post would be a reprise lol, because I thought that I wrote about this song once. I did a search through my blog, to find an unpublished post some time more than a year ago, maybe two years ago. (Unpublished means you wouldn’t be able to see it; it was a work-in-progress.) It’s always interesting to read what your past self wrote.

But for sure one thing remains unchanged about the song and about what I think: the song just so resonates with the simplicity of the gospel. The message is so simple, yet so profound.

“Come to the Father”, as the chorus says.

It takes religious churches to pervert the gospel and adds extra conditions, rules and demands to it.

“If you don’t really, really, really, really, really, really repent, God will not forgive you!”

“God wants nothing short of you giving everything to Him! Jesus said, if you do not give up everything, you cannot be my disciple!” (That’s abusing what He said, by the way. He didn’t mean it to Believers.)

“You’d better keep a short account with God, otherwise if you die while having a list of confessed sins how?”

All those teachings are error.

No wonder people today think that Christianity is yet another religion in which God is demanding from them, when in truth, the gospel is simple: in Jesus, you have everything, relationship with God, protection, acceptance, love, success, prosperity, health, all paid for by His blood.

I like the line that said “nothing that you do, can make Him love you more, and nothing that you’ve done, can make Him close the door”.

There is nothing that you can do to earn God’s love, but God already loves you as you are. And there is nothing that you can do that can make Him give up on you. He will always be here for you =) that’s my God.

God can righteously do that, because at the Cross, Jesus took your place, and God the Father forsook Jesus when He needed His Father most so that today, in your darkest time, He will never forsake you.

This is the gospel.

Been up since 5am this morning. Couldn’t get a good sleep last night, thanks to waking up late yesterday, add that to an afternoon nap, a fan that makes too much noise and an unusually hot weather, it takes a lot to deprive me of a sound sleep, but it did.

But DaddyGod turned it around for good. =) Kindof a “there may be ‘pain’ in the night but joy comes in the morning” experience. (Wasn’t pain of course, only lack of sleep.)

I woke up early to spend some solid time with DaddyGod. Not something I do very often, I admit, have been quite a lazy bum child of God who happens to be lazy, but DaddyGod never shortchanges me. A solid time with Him, and you are overflowing in your heart.

Got to watch the sunrise today. Something I don’t get to do often, either. Yes, I am an early bird, but I don’t wake up at 5 everyday.

The sunrise was really, really beautiful. I mean, I’m sure you can get a better scenery elsewhere, but for staring out of an HDB flat in Singapore, I think it’s comparably beautiful. It was a rainbow hue, caused by the sun coming out against the dark blue sky.

If you have been following me on Facebook or Twitter, you’d know that I tried to use my phone camera to take a picture of it, but it couldn’t capture the subtle difference in hue, and my Samsung camera’s out of battery. Haven’t carried it around for ages since my CG’s got plenty better cameras, and obviously didn’t bother to change it, either.

But it was really beautiful. Caused me to think, why did God make the sky blue?

Because (knowing that blue symbolizes divinity in the Bible) the heavens declare the glory of God. (Psalm 19:1)

But here comes the exciting part: why did God cause the sun to create a rainbow hue in the sky every morning?

Rainbow is a covenant sign from God in the Bible that He will no longer judge the earth.

Because He wants us to remember, every morning, that because of the Son (whose face shines brighter than the sun *hint hint*) and what He did, God is no longer out to judge us (Gen 9:14), but to love us.

What a beautiful thought to take into 2010. =)

I connected to MSN to have a voice chat with my parents. As is typical of our voice chats, my sister came online with her MSN account, and to go along with the season, she put a Christmas greeting on her MSN display name. However, she made a typo by putting “Merry Christman” instead of “Merry Christmas”. I was going to tell her that she spelled the word “Christmas” wrongly, but I stopped in track. At that very moment, I got a revelation, even out of a typo. Lol.

Christman.

Christmas is the occasion that we remember when Christ, our Saviour, became man. It was when He became not only fully God, but fully God, fully man. He came and experienced everything a man can ever experience, tasted human emotions, went through human temptations, yet emerged perfect, without sin.

With all that, He was ready to represent us as our great High Priest before God forevermore, and when the time came, He offer Himself to God as the sin offering, the one offering that avails for all mankind.

Today, Jesus is fully God, with the power to move the heavens and the earth, the power to calm the raging seas and to heal the sick, and fully man, with a passionate and tender love for you, understanding fully what you are going through. (Yes, He understands why you are mulling in disappointment over that exam result of yours too!)

And with His intense, unfailing love for you, beloved child of God, His power will move to work things out for your good.

So we celebrate His becoming one of us - when He became man. So awesome and wonderful in deeds and mighty are His works, yet so humble, coming all the way to where we are, to dwell among us, with us, as the song said: “Please as man with man to dwell, Jesus our Immanuel”.

Meekness and majesty, manhood and deity, the God-man Jesus Christ.

That’s my Jesus. =)

So, Merry Christman and Merry Christmas! =)

Well, it’s time to break the silence. =)

University has been hectic, up to the beginning of November. Thank God that the projects, both CS2103 and CS2105 went well.

For CS2103, I broke the record of my latest day in school: I stayed in school until 10.30pm. (Afterwards, I left for home to continue my work until 2am, and the effect was apparent in the documentation ><) Thank God that it was not overnight just yet. It’s a blessing to be able to delay that off for this semester, and I intend to delay it for as long as possible, by His grace.

The semester has been a grace-filled one for me, and I thank God for that. Wonderful teammates are a blessing, and I have learned a lot, no, not in the sense of the academic things, but in being a grace student.

I have learned that while divine interventions are spectacular, that is not the common way that God works through. God’s grace primarily flows through me is that He gives me the willingness to study, and when I allow that to flow through, He gives me the ability to study, and how much I allow His grace to flow through determines how much of the module is handle by Him. It is supernaturally natural.

And this semester, I have been allowing Him to work through me in my weaker modules and telling God that the grace that He gives me, I won’t block it, I won’t give up, I will walk the journey out with You.

And God has been faithful and true. =)

I am not perfect. I am perfect in Christ, but in terms of execution, of being a channel of His grace, I am learning, but I know that I am learning. =)

My ST2131 and LSM1302 were better than I expected (and ST2131 went particularly well, considering the difficulty of the paper) and CS2103 was a breeze.

Don’t be mistaken. I am not saying that God’s way is the same with the world. If you don’t know Jesus, you have to go the world’s way, and yes, you can get the grades the world’s way. You can labour, study, mug, glass, cup and bucket all you want. God never says earning system doesn’t exist, but that is not His way; it is the world’s way. Israel could choose to earn their standing with God, and they did when they boasted before God that they can do whatever God demands them to do and say in essence “God, bless us according to our merits, give us the results based on how much we study” and for study, you can do that to an extent (in the case of standing with God, cannot be done), but that is not the best way, not God’s way.

The world study to get the grade. The children of God study knowing that Jesus has given you the grade; it is up to you how much of that grade you want.

Oops, I’m preaching again. Must be pent up after weeks with no writing.

So here I am with three papers down, two to go. One tomorrow afternoon, and one Thursday morning.

Study has been restful. I didn’t spend very little time in studying, but it wasn’t a lot either. I didn’t notice that until someone asked me whether I study in the evening. Most of the time, I don’t. Lol. Thank God for Spirit-led studying. He is the best statistician, and the best network engineer.

When His blood gives us the connection to God, man, it is infinitely better than red telephone to Moscow! He sure knows how to frame our prayers and deliver them to the Father, and uses tongues as the unbreakable secured priority communication line! Now that’s real security in communication!

And Jesus doesn’t model probability using binomial, poission, normal, t or exponential distribution, because He works with certainty. He knows everything before it happens, because He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End! =)

It’s 10.55pm. Gonna sign off for tonight. God bless.

Yeah, been listening to a lil’ of Israel Houghton, and this song got me totally hooked up: We Have Overcome. Here’s a YouTube video. [link]

[Verse]
Thanks be to God
Who always causes us
To triumph in His name

Thanks be to God
Who always causes us
To Win (yeah)

Thanks be to God
Who always causes us
To triumph in His name
Thanks be to God
Thanks be to God

[Chorus]
We have Overcome
Hallelujah Hallelujah
We have Overcome
By the power of Your Name
Jesus You’re the One
Hallelujah Hallelujah
The one who made the way for us
To triumph in Your Name
Whoa - oh
Whoa - oh

[Bridge]
We got the victory
Everything will be
Alright Alright
We got the victory
Everything will be
Alright
We’re on the winning side

Love it, the lyrics full of Jesus, so declarative, so full of joy!

It’s great to be on the winning side it’s not because I’ve got it altogether character-wise or life-wise, but because Jesus has overcome for me!