Remember all His goodness!

The message for this year in my life is easily summed up in the last two weeks of my life, from faith to walking in an attitude of heart felt gratitude to God always.

I am Shallow!!!!!

This piece of devotion from Spurgeon totally convicted me……

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God

Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow concerns of
life are not ordained of God; they are as much of God as the
profound. It is not your devotion to God that makes you refuse to be
shallow, but your wish to impress other people with the fact that you
are not shallow, which is a sure sign that you are a spiritual prig.
Be careful of the production of contempt in yourself, it always comes
along this line, and causes you to go about as a walking rebuke to
other people because they are more shallow than you are. Beware of
posing as a profound person; God became a Baby.

To be shallow is not a sign of being wicked, nor is shallowness a
sign that there are no deeps: the ocean has a shore. The shallow
amenities of life, eating and drinking, walking and talking, are all
ordained by God. These are the things in which Our Lord lived. He
lived in them as the Son of God, and He said that “the disciple is
not above his Master.”

Our safeguard is in the shallow things. We have to live the surface
common-sense life in a common-sense way; when the deeper things come,
God gives them to us apart from the shallow concerns. Never show the
deeps to anyone but God. We are so abominably serious, so desperately
interested in our own characters, that we refuse to behave like
Christians in the shallow concerns of life.

Determinedly take no one seriously but God, and the first person you
find you have to leave severely alone as being the greatest fraud you
have ever known, is yourself.

Who am i to walk around with rebuke of others? Who am i to be higher than the master? This was a profound reminder yet again on the aftermath of Benny Hinn’s service i attended yesterday. While i might not agree with him on many things, I deeply respect his walk with God and his service. Who am i to rebuke a man and produce a contempt in myself, that am i above the Judge? I remain convicted.

A childhood dream

I have a childhood dream, that I’ve always wanted to play a violin. I am now selling off my guitar – ibanez gio electric guitar with a hardcase and zoom g2.1u to finance my pursuit of learning to play a violin! So if anyone wants to buy my electric guitar, drop me an email at Daniel.ho@gmail.com!

Mercy and I were at meridien yesterday and saw a tag outside of a music store that there is a sale going on. We went in and saw the violins, that goes for 310 and had a chat with the owner, and his encouragement of learning violin fired me up and I’ve always wanted to play the violin and to worship him. I would love to play hosanna on a violin and be lost in my worship of my God! Now since I am broke, I am giving up my guitar in order to learn to play the violin which is my childhood dream and passion. WOW I am excited! 🙂

I wrote this on my iPhone note on 27 march.

“I could dance to the sound of the violin. The leaping of legs to the masterful playing of the violinist reminds me of the coming of spring where everyone celebrates life.

The sound of violin is the one of those instruments that could brought tears to me other than the guitar of course.

Mirror mirror on the wall

As the evil queen to look into mirror and asked who is the fairest of them all, I wonder how many of us actually do that? Not in asking who is the fairest but to truly see ourselves in reflection. As I’m on the bus right now to meet mercy at borders, I reflected on my week – oh mediocre time management, getting abit lazy with my pursuit of God and that says it all, my week was a total failure when I am not putting God first even in my daily walk and not to mention the whole list of things I have not live up to.

I remember that incident about my comments on this Indian lady who is hairy and call her name and that sums it up – I’m at self righteous and insecure. Only people who is not secured makes snide remarks about how other people looks! Who knows, she might be an angel or mother Theresa! I got to tame that monster of self righteousness and really put on a sack cloth of humility.

I am a man of flaws! No wonder the message this week rings around this – God’s strength is made perfect in my weaknesses! Who am I to boast of myself? What abilities have I to sing about? Ah wretched Man I am! Father help me to guard my heart that I may not puff up arrogance and pride that I will see others through your eyes and through your heart.

A letter from Shultz.

From the desk of Steve Shultz:

I’ve never seen less clarity than during this season over who would be the next President. This, I believe, was a tactic of God. And I’ve always said God can change a man or a nation in a moment. I’ve also said God is NOT a Republican nor a Democrat. HE is in charge of the universe.

Jesus had ample opportunity to criticize the government of HIS day. Yet HE chose to correct the People of God instead. Both parties have things they have done right and have also done wrong.

Earlier this morning, our editor Julie Smith and I were praying and talking about the election outcome. She shared with me that last night after Barack Obama was announced the winner, God simply told her to “Pray for him like he is a son.” I believe this is the heart of God over our new President-elect – because he is a son and we are to pray for him as one.

Please keep the current and the next President in your prayers. This is a both-and situation. I TRULY believe that for most prophetic voices, God HID who would be the next President. And add to the fact that we are the most righteous nation on the earth, giving generously and praying fervently in this last season. We are a people that need to stand and not allow the rift of this nation to get any wider than what it already is.

I could go on, but this is simple and irrefutable. We often ask why a given prayer is not answered. Well, it is. God always answers the prayer of agreement. God knows our prayers even before we pray them. It says so in the Word. Nothing is without the will and purpose of God. Nothing!

I leave you with this Scripture – this applies to every creature on earth and every man, woman and child:

Psalm 139:16, “Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.”

When i read this email, i am shocked, actually not shocked by their arrogance. Generally there are others who said Barack Obama’s victory is a defeat for the Christian and Evangelical Community, and the world around, not that he is the first Afro American to win the presidency of the United States, but because he stands for every thing contradicting the Christian faith, and first his secrecy of his faith is a subject of question, second, he is pro abortion, is that what Steve Shultz says, God’s heart is with this man who supports abortion, an act of murder of millions of babies????

How about when Steve’s arrogance to say America is the MOST righteous nation on earth? I am shocked that the extent of his false doctrines cometh with pride, pride that is an evidence of his wickedness. America is far from being the most righteous nation on earth, with millions of babies murdered each year, with the immoral weak leadership of the nation that sells on greed that led to the collapse of the economy of a nation, with corruption, sexual immorality that only an apt description of the Ancient Babylon befitting of the nation of America. Unless Steve Shultz and his group of wicked ‘false prophets’ and ‘false teachers’ of Elijah List repent, they too will perish together with their flock of apostates.

I grieve to learn Obama is the new president of the United States. In hearing his speech at Chicago, he will go on to create a common economic market that will set the stage of the end times, a muslim in ‘christian’ clothing will shift United States’ stand in the world affairs, especially in the area of Israel’s conflicts in the Middle East. Now thousands if not Millions of babies will be legally murdered and supported by Obama administration, and directly Steve Shultz.

The Sovereignty of God and Prayer – John Piper

I am often asked, “If you believe God works all things according to the counsel of his will (Ephesians 1:11) and that his knowledge of all things past, present, and future is infallible, then what is the point of praying that anything happen?” Usually this question is asked in relation to human decision: “If God has predestined some to be his sons and chosen them before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4,5), then what’s the point in praying for anyone’s conversion?”
The implicit argument here is that if prayer is to be possible at all man must have the power of self-determination. That is, all man’s decisions must ultimately belong to himself, not God. For otherwise he is determined by God and all his decisions are really fixed in God’s eternal counsel. Let’s examine the reasonableness of this argument by reflecting on the example cited above.

1. “Why pray for anyone’s conversion if God has chosen before the foundation of the world who will be his sons?” A person in need of conversion is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1); he is “enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:17; John 8:34); “the god of this world has blinded his mind that he might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (II Corinthians. 4:4); his heart is hardened against God (Ephesians 4:18) so that he is hostile to God and in rebellion against God’s will (Romans 8:7).

Now I would like to turn the question back to my questioner: If you insist that this man must have the power of ultimate self-determination, what is the point of praying for him? What do you want God to do for Him? You can’t ask that God overcome the man’s rebellion, for rebellion is precisely what the man is now choosing, so that would mean God overcame his choice and took away his power of self-determination. But how can God save this man unless he act so as to change the man’s heart from hard hostility to tender trust?

Will you pray that God enlighten his mind so that he truly see the beauty of Christ and believe? If you pray this, you are in effect asking God no longer to leave the determination of the man’s will in his own power. You are asking God to do something within the man’s mind (or heart) so that he will surely see and believe. That is, you are conceding that the ultimate determination of the man’s decision to trust Christ is God’s, not merely his.

What I am saying is that it is not the doctrine of God’s sovereignty which thwarts prayer for the conversion of sinners. On the contrary, it is the unbiblical notion of self-determination which would consistently put an end to all prayers for the lost. Prayer is a request that God do something. But the only thing God can do to save a lost sinner is to overcome his resistance to God. If you insist that he retain his self-determination, then you are insisting that he remain without Christ. For “no one can come to Christ unless it is given him from the Father” (John 6:65,44).

Only the person who rejects human self-determination can consistently pray for God to save the lost. My prayer for unbelievers is that God will do for them what He did for Lydia: He opened her heart so that she gave heed to what Paul said (Acts 16:14). I will pray that God, who once said, “Let there be light!”, will by that same creative power “shine in their hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (II Corinthians 4:6). I will pray that He will “take out their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). I will pray that they be born not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God (John 1:13). And with all my praying I will try to “be kind and to teach and correct with gentleness and patience, if perhaps God may grant them repentance and freedom from Satan’s snare” (II Timothy 2:24-26).

In short, I do not ask God to sit back and wait for my neighbor to decide to change. I do not suggest to God that He keep his distance lest his beauty become irresistible and violate my neighbor’s power of self-determination. No! I pray that he ravish my unbelieving neighbor with his beauty, that he unshackle the enslaved will, that he make the dead alive and that he suffer no resistance to stop him lest my neighbor perish.

2. If someone now says, “O.K., granted that a person’s conversion is ultimately determined by God’ I still don’t see the point of your prayer. If God chose before the foundation of the world who would be converted, what function does your prayer have?” My answer is that it has a function like that of preaching: How shall the lost believe in whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach unless they are sent (Romans 10:14f.)? Belief in Christ is a gift of God (John 6:65; II Timothy 2:25; Ephesians 2:8), but God has ordained that the means by which men believe on Jesus is through the preaching of men. It is simply naive to say that if no one spread the gospel all those predestined to be sons of God (Ephesians 1:5) would be converted anyway. The reason this is naive is because it overlooks the fact that the preaching of the gospel is just as predestined as is the believing of the gospel: Paul was set apart for his preaching ministry before he was born (Galatians 1:15), as was Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5). Therefore, to ask, “If we don’t evangelize, will the elect be saved?” is like asking, “If there is no predestination, will the predestined be saved?” God knows those who are his and he will raise up messengers to win them. If someone refuses to be a part of that plan, because he dislikes the idea of being tampered with before he was born, then he will be the loser, not God and not the elect. “You will certainly carry out God’s purpose however you act but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John.” (Problem of Pain chapter 7, Anthology, p 910, cf. p 80)

Prayer is like preaching in that it is a human act also. It is a human act that God has ordained and which he delights in because it reflects the dependence of his creatures upon Him. He has promised to respond to prayer, and his response is just as contingent upon our prayer as our prayer is in accordance with his will. “And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (I John 5:14). When we don’t know how to pray according to God’s will but desire it earnestly, “the Spirit of God intercedes for us according to the will of God” (Romans 8:27).

In other words, just as God will see to it that His Word is proclaimed as a means to saving the elect, so He will see to it that all those prayers are prayed which He has promised to respond to. I think Paul’s words in Romans 15:18 would apply equally well to his preaching and his praying ministry: “I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles.” Even our prayers are a gift from the one who “works in us that which is pleasing in his sight” (Hebrews 13:21). Oh, how grateful we should be that He has chosen us to be employed in this high service! How eager we should be to spend much time in prayer!

By John Piper