A lesson from Acts 4:24-28:

 24And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, "O Lord, it is You who MADE THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH AND THE SEA, AND ALL THAT IS IN THEM,

 25who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David Your servant, said,
         'WHY DID THE GENTILES RAGE,
         AND THE PEOPLES DEVISE FUTILE THINGS?
    26'THE KINGS OF THE EARTH TOOK THEIR STAND,
         AND THE RULERS WERE GATHERED TOGETHER
         AGAINST THE LORD AND AGAINST HIS CHRIST.'

 27"For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,

 28to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.

As the disciples faced their very first persecution for being a witness for Christ, they came together in one accord to pray. And as they pray, they began to understand the scriptures more and more clearly.  Turning to Ps 2:1,2, they began to see the scripture has already told of the persecution that Jesus had faced.  And their conclusion is that Herod and Pontius Pilate and the rest are merely used of God to fulfill His predestined purpose.  Nothing has gone out of control.

As a result of recognising this, they also understand that it is God's will for them to preach the Word, therefore, in one accord, they prayed and asked the Lord to enable them to speak boldly.

There are many things that happened in our life, both pleasant and unpleasant.  But know that God is in control will make a lot of different in our attitude and respond towards the event that had happened as well as towards the people who might have caused it to happen.

Let's pray that the Lord will open our eyes daily so that we can see and understand His predestined purpose working in our lives.

Tag: god's purpose control

On Monday,  my national director (of Navigators SIngapore) called to see me in his office.  After asking some questions of concern for my family as well as some concern for my plan to move to China,  he revealed to me that as the Navigators Singapore will be having a new director soon in Nov, there will be some changes.  He told me that I should be prepared for the changes.  Though he didn't specifically said what kind of changes there will be, but from his tone and facial expression, I sense that he is telling me that may be my position in the Navigators Singapore might be changed (or removed).  I might face a lost of job when there is a new ND. (This is my speculation).

Then he start counting with me the number of months left before he step down as the director, and the new director take over.  He adviced me to may be take some upgrading course, and said the Navs will assist me.

Just some short 10 minutes of interaction with him, I realised that I might be out of job pretty soon.  There is no real reason given to the possible change, except the reason that follow a change in leadership, there will follow a change organisationally. How convenient statement to put it.

Well, personally, I believe God has put me in this position 4 years ago (in 2005) when Supra (the administrator of the Navigators Singapore) encourage me to take on the job and promised to help me raised fund in the process, so that when it is time to leave for mission in China, I would have built up a donor base.  I took his advice and took on the Job.  Little did I know that his proposal was not accepted by the management of Navigators.  I then realised I can't depend on men, or put my trust in men's word or promises, as they have limitation they may not know of.  For 4 years, I have been asking God for opportunity to leave the appointment and return to the mission field, but I have not got any positive answer from Him.  However, in these 4 years of waiting and working as Property Executive in the Navigators HQ,God has provided many opportunity to minister to the mainland Chinese. Working with a group of friends, we are able to serve in a few churches to assist them in their mainland Chinese Ministry.  We started  discipleship training class recently. Together with this group of friends, we had started a church. 

Now that the church we had started is in the process of getting registered, we want to develop more ministries.  I have been praying about the possibility of serving full-time under this new church.  It requires much faith to do so, as my church is still pretty young with less than 10 adults worshiping and serving together.

Looks like it is time God is leading me out from my comfort zone.  It is really scary as we are expecting a new born baby  in September, and our flat  is only available in September.  Everything just seems to happen together.  Now only God could do miracle. 

I do believe that if it is God's will for me to leave my comfort zone and take the step of faith to resign from my appoint in the Navigators now, He will make a way for me.  Though my personal welfare and well being may not be a concern for the Navigators Singapore organisationally, I believe it is a concern that God will look into.

In view of this, please pray with me.

1. That the Navigators would be clear in revealling what are the possible plans and changes that concern me as soon as possible so that I can make necessary arrangement.

2. That God will provide a temporary place of accomodation should I have to leave my appointment as the Property Executive with the Navigators before my flat is available.

3. That my wife and children and the soon-to-be new born will not be too affected, especially my wife.

4. That God will provide for us financially especially to cope with the potential medical and hospitalisation fees for my wife delivery in September.

5. That God will provide a clear guidance as to what measures I should take in the coming few weeks.

Thank you for your prayer and support!

David Kou TIn Lur

I like to share with you a story I have read from Root and Wings Ministries:

Hope this will encourage you.

In the Hands of the Artist

"But now, O Lord,
You are our Father;
We are the clay, and You our potter;
And all we are the work of Your hand."
Isaiah 64:8

There is an interesting story about an English artist named William Wolcott who went to New York in 1924 to record his impressions of that great city. One morning he was visiting in the office of a former colleague when the urge to sketch came over him. Seeing some paper on his friend's desk, he asked, "May I have that?"

His friend answered, "That's not sketching paper. That's ordinary wrapping paper."
Not wanting to lose that spark of inspiration, Wolcott took the wrapping paper and said, "Nothing is ordinary if you know how to use it." On that ordinary paper Wolcott made two sketches. Later that same year, one of those sketches sold for $500 and the other for $1,000, quite a sum for 1924.

People under the influence of an empowering person are like paper in the hands of a great artist. No matter what they're made of, they can become treasures.

Tag: potential empower ordinary

There is a website called ChildrensMinistry.net.  It contains a lot of resources for children ministry.  If you are looking for sunday school material, or bible lessons for children, or even learning to evanglize the children, there are resources available for you on the website.

Check it out today.  Visit ChildrensMinistry.Net

Tag: children ministry resources

Dear friends,

Today I read a story and it really touched my heart.  I would like to share it with you.  May the story below gives you great encouragement:

I'll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy, 12, and my older sister Darlene, 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things.

My dad had died 5 years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money. By 1946 my older sisters were married, and my brothers had left home.

A month before Easter, the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially.

When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. When we thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn't listen to the radio, we'd save money on that month's electric bill.

Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us baby sat for everyone we could. For 15 cents, we could buy enough cotton loops to make three pot holders to sell for $1. We make $20 on pot holders.That month was one of the best of our lives.

Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them.

We had about 80 people in church, so we figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much. After all, every Sunday the Pastor had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering.

The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change.

We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before. That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering. We could hardly wait to get to church!

On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn't seem to matter how wet we got.

Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet. But we sat in church proudly.I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses.

I looked at them in their new clothes, and I felt so rich. When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us girls put in a $20.

As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes!

Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand.

We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were the three crisp $20 bills, one $10 and seventeen $1. Mom put the money back in the envelope.

We didn't talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash.

We kids had had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn't have our mom and dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly.

We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the fork or the spoon that night. We had two knives which we passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor.

That Easter Day I found out we were.

The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor family.
I didn't like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed that I didn't want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor!

I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew we were poor. I decided I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required at that time.

We sat in silence for a long time.Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much.

Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn't know. We'd never known we were poor. We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to.

Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk on the way. Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse.

At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun-dried bricks, but they need money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?

We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering.

When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100.

The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering from our small church.

He said, "You must have some rich people in this church."Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100."
We were the rich family in the church!

Hadn't the missionary said so?

From that day on I've never been poor again. ~ As told by Eddie Ogan ~

Today I have discovered a good interesting site while researching for my sermon preparation.  I came across a website owned by Manly Luscombe.  He called it Searcher's Class.  It was a collection of the materials he has developed over 30 years of bible class teaching.  I have yet to fully look through his material yet, but I am encouraged to see his effort to teach the word of God.  He has done what I am attempted to do, to compile a personal commentary of the bible as I read and study it.

I am sharing this so that you can have a look.  May be you can also leave some comments after you have visited the site so that other can know how useful this site is.

Visit Searcher's Class here.

Tag: manly luscombe searcher class commentary

My Church Matheteuo Christian Church will be working with Chinese Christian Fellowship to organise a Disicipleship Training Course for Mainland Chinese Workers.  We are planning to start this course during June, tentatively on first Thursday of June.  I will be one of the teacher.

The Objective of this training is to equip the Chinese Workers who is willing to grow as a disciple, with the skill to lead someone to Christ and start asmall group.  We will be giving them simple materials that they can easily reproduce, and instill in them the vision to reach out to their fellow men.

Please pray with us as we prepare and enrol interested party.  Pray that God will provide us with good people who are matured and committed to personal growth.  Pray also that leaders of various churches will be supportive of our training course.  This course is free.

If you are interested to know more about this course, and know of someone who can benefit from the course, please contact me at 97129963 for details.

Thanks.

Tag: discipleship training chinese

Recently there is an outbreak of swine flu in Mexico.  I received an email from my colleague Wendy with information about SwineFlu.  I thought it might be good to share with you.  However, since the source is unknown, please read with discretion.

 Tag: swine_flu

As I was browsing my friend's blog, I saw one of his blog entry Hebrew Podcast for iPod.  He was sharing that he found this website HebrewPodcasts.com has free legal downloads of podcasts for learning Hebrew!

So I go and Check it out, and you know what? Indeed this site has already has 35 lessons for download.  It is basically a conversational hebrew you will be learning.  Not bad.  I recommend for those of you who want to learn how to speak Hebrew to try this site out. The site has Lesson guide, video and flashcards but these are for members only.  It has different level of membership.  You can have 3 trial lessons notes.  Go have a look and try it out.

Remember, go to HebrewPodcasts.com.

Tag: speak_hebrew

Key Passage : Col 1:1-14

This Sunday, I preached in my Church, Matheteuo Christian Church on the topic, "The Fruit of The Gospel - 福音的果子". I preached about the true gospel and the power of the gospel to turn people from sin to God. I want to help my fellow church members to re-align ourselves back to the basic truth of the gospel so that we can allow the power of God working in our lives, evidence by Love, Faith and Hope.

I want to challenge my fellow church members to consider how we can share the gospel and bring people to Christ.

"All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth." Col 1:6b

You can hear the recording of my message in Mandarin here:

I welcome all your comments.  Here is the powerpoint slide fo my message in Chinese:

The Fruit of the Gospel - 福音的果子

Tag: sermon gospel fruit colossians