blogpastor – Page 168

Author: blogpastor

Trekking Pulau Ubin

24 March 2014 blogpastor Leave a comment

Boats at Changi ferry point awaiting passengers

A pleasant 15 min boat ride to the island of Pulau Ubin

Trekker friends: Michael, Y.K., Nellie, Jane, Judith

The last time I went to Pulau Ubin, I was a teenager. With a few friends we took a boat across to the island and walked across the small holding farms and orchards and forest to a small beach front. We swam an hour or two and then made our way back. All I remembered was feeling weary from the long hours of walking and taking the public bus from Bukit Timah to Changi.

Now it is so much easier. We drove to the car park next to the Changi Village hawker center. The ferry point is just in front of the car park with electronic meter so there was no need to worry about the number of coupons to use.

When there was a load of 12 people, the boatman brought us aboard a boat and brought us across to the island. The boat ride took about 15 minutes and we paid $2.50 each directly to the boatman. Soon we were on Pulau Ubin and walking on bitumen roads.

We came across many Muslim tombstones and this is one of them

Standing in front of what was once a chief surveyor's colonial house

Looking down at friends from the tower at Chek Jawa

We walked from 9am to about 1pm. At the ferry point on Pulau Ubin was a small village where we had a seafood lunch at one of the restaurants. The highlight of the walk was an encounter with “wild” boars that seem very used to human encounters, and the boardwalk through Chek Jawa, one of Singapore’s conserved ecosystems, a coastal walk, “a unique natural area where six major habitats meet and mix”. It was more an enjoyable excursion than a trek. Cycling would be more fun, and there were many shops with all kinds of bikes for hire. Maybe the next time, that is what I will do.

Kingdom Invasion 2014

blogpastor Leave a comment

Bill Johnson preaching in Kingdom Invasion

I attended Kingdom Invasion from 19-21 March at the Singapore Expo, but mainly the morning and the afternoon sessions. The keynote speaker was Bill Johnson and we missed him the last time round but it was good to have him take more sessions this time. He was full of interesting insights into God’s ways and some of his one-liners stay with you like henna dye. Two of his powerful messages were the ones on culture of honor and the one of the role our desires and faith play in God’s sovereign plan. The basic thesis of the first is that the church needs to recover the key of honor in different aspects of relationships so that what God has gifted and graced the person who we honor may be released to us. Jesus was not honored in Nazareth and thus they were deprived of what He could have done for them. The central truth of the second is that our desires and faith have a way of bringing forward what God may have planned for the future. Jesus said to Mary his mother, My hour has not come (to perform miracles). However due to her persistent faith, that hour seemed to have been brought forward in the miracle of changing water to wine. Thus imagine if the church had the desire and faith to bring forward the promises of the future kingdom to the here and now – bringing the promises of heaven to earth – what kind of glory would the church display to the waiting world. What an inspiring, expansive vision.

James Goll was another proposition altogether. More prophetic and inspirational he spoke, sang and shared some of his encounters with angels and dreams and taught people how to intercede as a privilege, out of the intimacy that the Father offers us.

And as ever the inimitable Heidi Baker facilitate a soaking in the presence of God. We think we need more cognitive content but God knows we ministers need more time allowing the Spirit to fill us and to be inspired by her abandon to the Spirit.

The power of right believing by Joseph Prince: reflection 5

10 March 2014 blogpastor 2 Comments

PART 5: BE FREE FROM SELF OCCUPATION

Part 5 shows how a reader can move from an undesirable position of self-occupation to the desirable one of Christ-occupation. This is a continuation of the whole theme of the renewal of our minds by right believing. Part 5 shows the goal and why it is important and how it can be done.

Chapter 13: Be free from self-occupation

Joseph Prince emphatically states the need to move from self-occupation to Christ-occupation. Too many are self-occupied and as a result suffer from the consequences. They are overly concerned about what others think or say about them. They suffer from an inferiority or a superiority complex. They are often insecure and dwell on negative thoughts about themselves and others. He used the example of how David slayed Goliath as an example of someone whose trust in God, rather than the bigness of the problem occupied his mind. It set him free from fear and anxiety that plagued the other fighters in the battlefield.

Chapter 14: Jesus be the centre of it all

In chapter 14 and 15 Prince moved to the practical steps that help us move from self- to Christ-occupation. Chapter 14 shows that the way to do it is to see Jesus in the scriptures. His main text is the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (“warm baths”). The disciples were discouraged and confused over Jesus’ death. The resurrected Lord, unrecognized by them began to show them how Jesus fulfilled the scriptures. He showed them Jesus in the Old Testament. He reproved them for being slow to understand and to believe. This then is one practical thing to do to move to Christ-occupation. Whenever we read scriptures look for God. Do not see more rules and laws to obey. See more of Jesus and his beauty. Then our hearts will have a warm bath just as the two disciples’ hearts burned with holy fire.

Chapter 15: Worship with the words of David

Joseph Prince uses a story in the life of David. He had fled from Saul who wanted to kill him. He went to Gath and pretended he was mad. They released him and he hid in the caves and Adullam. Prince used Psalms 34 to highlight how David sang and worshipped and prayed and this helped him shift from a self-occupation that discouraged him to a Christ-occupation that inspired him. Prince traced the shift from self to Christ in Psalms 34 thus showing that the act of praising God and praying moves us from self to Christ-occupation.

As a whole this was a practical part. It motivates you to co-operate with God bath yourself in scripture and prayer and praise. It reminds me of the traditional “means of grace”: scripture meditation and prayer. In fact the whole of church community life is meant to revolve around the word and the sacrament, both of which point to the finished work of Christ.