Pastor Timothy Keller recently launched his new book, "Walking with God through pain and suffering" and here is a short video of his comments on these subjects.
What he says is true we cannot escape suffering and pain in this life but we can be prepared. As Christians we can be better prepared as we have the teaching from the Bible to help us.
Here is another interesting video about God, pain and suffering. Many people argued that if there is a God evil should not exist. Then again.. watch this video for the answer.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Teaching of Giancarlo and Catherine Elia
This morning our Church had the privilege to host Giancarlo and Catherine Elia from the United Kingdom. They had preached in our Church before. Giancarlo is a former lawyer who praticeed law fro about 27 years before leaving his profession to minister to varous churches worldwide. Catherine worked in different industries in North America, Europe and China.The broad messages of both are God's love, God's presence and evangelism. Catherine shared that people our there are crying for God and many do not know Him. We as Christians, having God in us are to reach out to them in love. Many other religions recated with anger against those who do not believe what they do, but for us we reach out in love. She shared how she approached people in public places and how she prayed for them. Many accept her offers.
Giancarlo shared Zephaniah 3:17 "The Lord God is with you, and He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing”. God is with us and in us. We are to reach out in love for the lost. We have power because of the Holy Spirit that is in us. In John 16:7 Jesus said He had to leave otherwise the Counselor cannot come. Once He leaves for the Father, the Holy Spirit came to indwell in us.
The Gospel may be foolish to the world, but to us it is power. We are to share the Good News with others. Many out there are lost and they do not know what to do. In what ever professions we are in, reach out to others in love. It is God's command for us to share the Good News with others.
After both of their sharing, there was a time of prayers and ministering to the congregation. Many went to the front of the sanctuary to be prayed for by Giancarlo and Catherine. Many of them were "slained" by the Holy Spirit. It had been a wonderful work of the Holy Spirit and many were ministered in our congregation.
Praise God and thank Him for Giancarlo and Catherine Elia.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Fellowship of Evangelical Students (FES)
Today there are about 750 higher learning institutions in Malaysia. FES are in 80 of them nationwide. The challenge is manpower to reach these universities. FES is in need of Christians to serve in reaching out to the students. From their experience they found this Christian foundation while students are in colleges most effective. Many students who came through FES in varsities remain committed Christians through out their lives.
Sarawak has only 3 full time workers and they could only reach 20 institutions. There are alot more ground to cover. Our church elders Dr.Tiong and Dr. Chung are the Sarawak committe members, and they are in the forefront of students work here.
The 10th anniversary was well attended by all the top committee members from Peninsula and locally. There were about 400 people attending and our churh sanctiary was full. The evening programs included worship singing and some skips from the stidents from Miri, Bintulu, Sibu and Kuching.
Our church helped by providing the venue as well as the manpower to serve foods to the students and visitors.
All in all a very succesful evening. Praise the Lord!
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Visit To Hell
http://christianitymalaysia.com/wp/trip-hell-crusade-philip-mantofa/
There have been many testimonies of hell and the Bible also talks about it and it is really real. People who are atheists have also experience going to hell. The testimony of Pastor Philip Mantofa which he shared with FGA, Kuala Lumpur recently is very powerful and at the same time very scary. You can read the details at the link above.
There have been many testimonies of hell and the Bible also talks about it and it is really real. People who are atheists have also experience going to hell. The testimony of Pastor Philip Mantofa which he shared with FGA, Kuala Lumpur recently is very powerful and at the same time very scary. You can read the details at the link above.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Julius Suubi at Blessed Church
http://christianitymalaysia.com/wp/prayer-school-ps-julius-suubi/Pastor Julius Suubi is from Kenya although he is an Ugandan. His church is called Highway of Holiness International Ministry based in Kenya. This is not the first time he is in Kuching, he came here last year. His last visit made an impact in Kuching especially in his prayer ministry. His main teaching is about prayers and how all Christians can connect with God with prayers. This time round, he emphasized on corporate prayers for our country. This year is significant for Malaysia because it is the year of Jubilee.
Pastor G T Lim of Blessed Church led worship which ushered people to experience the presence of God during the service. Pastor Lim is an experienced worship leader/recording artist and performer so the people really got into the worship "mode" during the service.
Pastor Julius taught about prayers and he refered to verses in the Bible to support his teaching. (Read more details in the link above written by professional journalist ).
After his sharing and teaching he led the congregation into praying in tongues. This must have lasted more than half and hour. During this prayer I could feel in presence of the Lord. The atmosphere was really charged with fervent prayers by those presence.
It was a wonderful and blessed prayer service. Prayers in corporate setting is also important to the church beside personal prayers. According to Pastor Julius these prayers have tremendous power.
Thank Pastor Julius Suubi for coming here to help us. Thank Pastor G T Lim for allowing this service to be held in his church.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Pilgrimage to Holyland 8 - Prayers
Prayer is very important to us Christians because it is like blood in our bodies. How can we survive if we do not have blood in us? Therefore, one of the aims of our pilgrimage to the Holy Land was pray and worship. Infact, during our visit to the Holy land everyday we prayed. In the morning before we start our journey, we prayed in the bus. Everyday at the end of the day we shared a devotion in the hotel we stayed. Each pilgrim was assigned a day to lead the devotion and pray. During this time, we also shared our experiences and what God had taught us during our visits for that day.
Answered Prayers
I remebered clearly the answer to one of our brothers who was baptiz
ed in the river Jordan. He was scared of cold weather. Therefore everyday he prayed that when he gets baptize in river Jordan, the weather will be warm. He was supposed to be baptized on a cold day, but thanks to God it was postponed by the tour guide. On the day he was baptized, it was the hottest day we experienced while in Israel! In fact it was unbearably hot around 40 degrees centigrade! Hallelujah! God answered his prayers!
Every holy places we went people were praying and some prayed very fervently. I took a picture of a man wearing a usual cap instead of the skull cap praying very fervently devoting all his prayers to God on the Western Wall in Jerusalem. (See this picture on this page). Many of us were praying with all our hearts during our visits to various sites.
God commanded us to pray unceasingly, 1 Thessolonians 5:17. Of course there are many verses about prayers. The challenge to us is to pray unceasingly everyday.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Call To Prayer on the Allah Issue
Tommorow 22nd Aug 2013 is an important date for all Christians in Malaysia. It is very important to East Malaysians Christians because the majority of Christians in the two states of Sarawak and Sabah use Bahasa Malaysia
( Malay language ) in their Bibles and also their worship.
The Malaysian government is appealing against the court decision earlier to allow the Catholic Herald to use the word "Allah" to mean "God" in their publications. The government maintained that only the Muslims have exclusive rights to use "Allah" to mean God and no other religion in Malaysia has the right to use this word to refer to their "Gods". Despite historical and theological evidence against the logic of Malayisan Muslims, they insisted that they have the exclusive rights to the word "Allah".
All Christians in Malaysia do not agree that the word "Allah" is eclusive to the Muslims because this word predate Islam, and have been in used in the Malay Peninsula before the creation of Malaysia. It has not been an issue for decades untill recently. Banning the use of this word will have a great impact to East Malaysian Christians because more than 80% of the Christians use Bahasa Malaysia (Malay language) Bible and also worship in this language. This Bible contains the word "Allah" to mean "God".
On 22nd Aug 2013, between 9 to 12 noon the court of Appeal will be deciding on this case, and all Christians are urged to pray and fast during this period when the court will be in session. We pray for God to grant us favours, and to enable Malaysian Christians to worship freely and to use the word "Allah" in our Bahasa Malaysia Bible without any hindrance from the authority. We pray against parties trying to take away the rights of Malaysian Christians rightfully granted in the Federal Constitution.
Man may has his ways but it is God ways that prevail. Hallelujah!
Proverb 19:21
"Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand" (ESV)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)