Some of us have experienced either good times or bad times (or both) throughout the year.
Some may lose their jobs, get a job and get a pay rise.
Some may failed on their exams some may get high distinction.
Some have come into our lives and gone and some may even leave painful memories or good memories in our heart.  A lot of things happened throughout the year.

At Christmas season, it’s time to be reminded that despite whatever happened in our live throughout the year, one thing remain the same – God’s love for us.
 
People come and people go
Something’s in and then it’s out
One thing that remains the same
Is the love I’ve found in Jesus

Christmas is all about Jesus. It’s about coming to commemorate the birth of Jesus. The very reason he comes on this earth, first and foremost is that because He loves us

Content

God reminded me of this scripture in Romans 8:35-39

1. Be confident in God’s love (

From the scripture – we know that His love is with us in all situations and he loves us though we are not perfect. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us Romans 5:8

God has already loved us. He loved us not only when He died on the cross for my sin. But since the day He came into this world. He has already has your name and my name in his mine.

His love also empowers us to overcome struggles that we are facing

True meaning of blessing is that in order for us to blessed, we  don’t actually have to receive blessings but as long as God is with us, we are already blessed.

Instead of saying God, please bless me, we should say, God let me bless you.  Because we are already blessed. Jesus chose to be with us 2000 years ago and the fact is He is still with us now. . And If He is with us - we are blessed DESPITE how good or how not-so-good your life is

2. Be reminded of God’s love  (who shall separate us from the love of Christ?)

Everyday should be our Christmas. Everyday we should be reminded of Christ’s love for us.

Everyday is my Christmas day because of his birth that is why I am breathing today. We should be reminded of Jesus’ birth and what He done for us everyday.

Once a year only that we can come together to celebrate the birth of our Saviour – Jesus Christ. Every Christmas, I want to make myself count for this special day.

I mean I want to get myself involved in this occassion in somehow. So I have been helping with decor for the Christmas event here in Hope Suratthani.

Do something that will help you to remember the love of Jesus.

I have never seen anyone who as enduring as God. Since the OT, people have sinned against Him again and again and He punished out of His love so that they may choose to turn back to Him. He sent prophets, kings, leaders to instruct them for the hope of them returning back to Him. But they rebelled aginst, sinned against Him again and again! But God will always hear their cry and come to their rescue if they just cry out to Him. How enduring our God is!

At the end of Psalms in the Bible, it often end with something like “Praise be to God” “Praise God for His love endures forever” “Let’s everything praises God!” I understand where the psalmists are coming from, they understand God’s love for their lives. They know His character. They know His attributes. They know that God will always forgive and love them despite how wrong they are.

“God, I am one of them! I will ever choose to praise You for I have sinned against you again and again but when You take note of my distress and always come to my rescue. When I call Your name, You hear me and You will come to forgive and give me a chance to start again with You! God, I am the Israelites, I am Moses’ people who, at times, do not choose You first, I am them for forget what You have done and how You have blessed.

God, that is why now I am praising You for Your love endures forever for my life! I will trust in this love and I will ever praise You! Forgive me God.

Today I also prayed that I will be able to lead D3 guys with anointing and empowerment and wisdom from You. You assured me that this is the fuction that God has given me to do right now and i will do it! I will serve and lead with the best of my ability and never unestimate my role as a leader!

05/06/10
You encouraed me this morning to be Your leader not man’s leader. At times, I feel that I can’t lead well and I don’t know how to lead the guys. I may not know a lot and I may not born to lead. But today You have given me a new statement that I have to remind myself of everyday

“Don’t be man’s leader; Be God’s leader”

This statement gives me so much encouragement that I don’t have to strive to look good and lead well and be fulled of charisma in front of man but all I have to do is living a life that pleases God and have right relationnship with Him and culivate a heart of humility. Though man may think that I don’t have what it takes to be a leader and I may not have all leaders’ qualities in me, that is ok. Because I just want to live a life that pleases You.

Torchie said in prayer meeting a while ago that we are called, first and foremost, to be Your followers and Your leaders. And I pray that I will come to this simple truth everyday and every moment of my life to firstly BE YOUR FOLLOWER!

As a leader, people may have seen me DO MUCH for God and His people. People often view me as a busy person. There are always meetings to attend, shepherding which need to be conducted each week, Bible discussion leading that needs to be prepared and all those sort of things. But after today’s sermon by May Cheung, God really ministered to me to be more radical for Him in how I spend my everyday’s life.

Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”

May invited Brother Puji from morning service to share to us how he and his team have been going to Griffith Uni and Queen Street Mall for street evangelism. But more than that, they believe God for signs and wonders to follow them as they share the Gospel and it did! Puji shared to us that he was unsatisfied at where he is at and he wants to do more for God’s Kingdom that’s why he and his team decided to go out to do what he is doing.

I was very encouraged by Puji’s sharing and I could identify with the holy discontent that Puji has. As I reflected back to my life, I feel that I have not been seriously sharing my faith to the lost around me. I feel that I have not been living radically enough as the one that has been commissioned by God to go and save the lost. I have not seriously been using much of the power of the Holy Spirit that has already been given to me. There is an urgency in my heart now to step out from my confort zone to be more radical for Him.

May challenged us to write down a couple of things that we will do differently to reach out to the lost for God, Below are just small actions that I will take, I wrote:

1. I want to be salt and light in my workplace by setting a godly example in my speech and action so that I may be able to bring Chirst into their life.
2. I will set aside 1 day of a week to pray for nations in the world.
3. …. ”what else can I do God???”
 
God use me! I want to be more radical for You! I don’t know how but I am willing.

This song truly reflects the heart of God towards Thai nation.

God loves and wants to save every Thai people but they just don’t see God. Instead, they worship other man-made idols that can’t save them. They just don’t know that Jesus loved them and died for them on the Cross! If all Thai people would just humble themselves down and turn back to Him – I do believe with all my heart that God will save and restore this nation.

Most of us know that there is a riot going on at the moment in Thailand. The red-shirt mob is protesting again Thai government and many lives have died in this riot. Please continue to pray for Thai King and PM to have wisdom from God in dealing with this situation but most importantly – May God open up the eyes of Thais so they may see Him and believe in the One True God – Jesus:

Translation:

Song Title: I Love These People
V1
“Each day, I wait to create.
Each night, I long to mould a man from the clay…. See More
So I can love and bless them.

V2
Time has passed by, but my heart is still the same.
As night passed by, I am still waiting on that day.
The day that I will see my people reconcile back to me
and they will know that …

Chorus
I love these people that have been lost
I love this Nation that has gone astray
Come back, please come back to my embrace again.
And listen to the voice of my heart.
It’s telling you that I love you”

You spoke to me about giving a true love to others. You reminded me of different kinds of relationship that I had in the past with different ones and all the time, I wanted to TAKE from them rather than be the one that give to them. I want them to satisfy my emotional and physical needs. I give a reason that I love so much and I often initiated a relationship so you have to be the giving party not me. I realise that each time when I initiate a relationship with someone, though I initate it, I initate it because I want to TAKE from that person. It was so selfish when I think about it.

Today though, I have determined in my heart to build a right relationship with others. To give” true love” to them. True love in Your eyes is all about giving and about being self-less and that was what You did for me on the Cross! So, from now on, when I love someone, when I want to initiate different kinds of relationship with someone, may I always choose to GIVE rather than to TAKE from that person. If there is even just a little bit of feeling that I want to take from the person, may You rebuke me God!

You told me that Your grace is always abundant & sufficent for me. You assured me of Your love. But at times, instead of choose to be a little cup and soak myself in the ocean of grace, I choose to be half on the ocean and half on the land! I felt how much I missed out the fullness of your grace! If I would just move myself a little bit, I would just be soaked in His grace.

Maybe, it is because half of me is still in love with the world and yet half of me wants to be in God.

Will I pick where do I want to be, in the ocean of grace or on the dry land.

You spoke to me, God and it was clear!

I just couldn’t believe my eyes when I looked at a calendar this morning that we are now in March!!!! This month, I would like to encourage us to faithfully follow up and pray for your CCM contacts. Especially, If your contacts are non- believer, pray that by God’s grace, they will come to believe in God and want to commit themselves into your respective life groups.

I believe seeds of Gospel have been sowed into their hearts so far through you interacting with them and those seeds will continue to grow as long as you are faithfully watering it with the help of God. All in all. we need God’s intervention in order to for them to grow as it states clearly in the Bible:

 “So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow (1 Corin 3:7)”

This month, I also want to strongly encourage you to start preparing yourself spiritually for Oceania Convention. Please start praying for yourself and set some expectations. This OC, pastors will be teaching and sharing to us about 10 Core Values of our HIM movement:

1. Christ-Centred,
2. HS empowered,
3. Bible-based,
4. Covenantal Relationships,
5. Enriching Community Life,
6. Vision Driven,
7. Disciple Making,
8. Leadership Development,
9. Church Planting,
10. Apostolic Oriented.

Please visit www.byhim.org for more info about our HIM Movement.

Ask yousellf, which ones of these 10 core values that you need to grow in, commit that to God in prayer and see how He will move in your during this coming OC.

All in all, remember that nothing is more important than intimacy with God!! For that is the core of our life!! With Him we can do nothing (John 15:5)

With love,

Jimmie

I just can’t believe that we are now in the middle of February. Time flies like a rocket hey! May I encourage you to live every single your life to the max for God. If there are things that you want to do for God and you haven’t done it yet, may you do it before it is too late. 

This month is indeed a month of harvest as we will be going out to invite people to join CCM and prayfully by God’s grace, they will come to know Jesus. May I encourage you to avail yourself this week to go and help out during the O-week. I will try my best to take a Thursday off so I can be there to help out as well.

These few weeks, God impressed upon my heart with the word “INTIMACY”. May I encourage you to be intimate with your God and really get to KNOW Him despite this peak period of orientation. Knowing God means having an experiential knowledge about God that is you know Him because you have experienced Him.

I want to leave with you a scritupre from John 17:3 – this is a prayer of Jesus just before He got arrested:

“Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God and Jesus whom you have sent” John 17:3

Jesus sates cleary that Eternal Life is all about Knowing God, nothing else, nothing more, nothing less! It is God’s desire to see us seek to be intimate with Him and to know Him more.

Love you all very very very much! God has been using each of you to grow me as a person! Thank you for coming into my life!

Jimmie