Put Off Your Burden and Get Elevated (27/9/06)

After class, I went to do some workout in the gym. After that I went out for lunch before I went to do some grocery shopping in Woolworths and China Town. After shopping I rushed to the bus stop to catch the Free Connector Bus home. When I reached the bus stop, I felt super tired and so burdened with the backpack that I was carrying. It was extremely heavy today plus the loads of groceries that I need to carry on my hands. As I thought about this burden and the loads, the Lord spoke to me in a whisper into my ear, as if He was showing me how difficult it is to be carrying such burdens in our lives. With that too, God reminded me not to OVER-worry too much about my study that it became a burden to me. I had been worried about my study too much and tried all I can to spend more time into my study when the uni started last 3 weeks. I was so worried about my study that I was also contemplating about not going to the coming Elevation Camp next weekend. With this, I believe the Lord also told me to have a balance of all the activities.
When God spoke to me about this burden, a verse was also put into my mind – Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. With such revelation at this bus stop, I decided to sign up for the camp immediately. God also prompted me to go for the prayer meeting tonight.
I took the step of faith and went for the prayer meeting. Quite surprisingly, the Lord also prepared the right amount of small cash change in my wallet just right for me to pay for the camp tonight.
The prayer meeting for the camp was truly awesome and the presence of the Lord was so strong in the midst of our meeting. The worship session was so awesome that it felt like the unity in our voice of praise and worship and it sounded like the angelic hosts, singing praise to the lord in unity. The Lord also put the thought of the encounter I had with Him in the bus stop to be shared with the group and the Lord made a way for me to share it in the midst of the worship.
During the worship and prayer session too, the Lord also showed more revelation into the group that every words that were spoken and shared among us truly spoke into the core of my heart. With such great revelation, God again assured me that the decision that I made – to go to the Elevation Camp – was the right decision and He also revealed to US that He is going to do great and mighty works and breakthroughs into our lives – elevating us to the higher stage of our growth in Him. I truly believe that this camp will also be a time of REST for those who are weary and burdened.

Are you prepared for the camp?

Have you signed up for Elevation Camp?

“My Words Will Not Return Empty” (24/9/06)

God caught my heart as I read through Isaiah 55 & 56 in my devotion this morning. He spoke to me mightily in Isaiah 55:10-13:
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
And do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish,
So that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
So is My word that goes out from My mouth:
It will not return to Me empty,
But will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace;
The mountains and hills will burst into song before you,
And all the trees of the field will clap their hands.
Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,
And instead of the briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
For an everlasting sign which will not be destroyed.

= The Lord spoken to me that His words and promises that He revealed to me through the years will truly be accomplished in His timing and He is faithful to fulfill the promises. In addition to this, these verses also spoke to me because Pastor Ashley has been preaching about the principle of sowing and reaping and it was like the Lord is encouraging me to keep sowing for and into His Kingdom and I will reap the harvest when the season is ripe or right.

Isaiah 56:1-2
This is what the Lord says:
“Maintain justice and do what is right,
For My salvation is close at hand and My righteousness will soon be revealed.
Blessed is the man who does this,
The man who holds it fast,
Who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it,
And keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

= I felt the Lord encouraging me not to give up on doing good and living right and observing His law. Are you growing weary with living the righteous way? I hope this would be an encouragement to you to keep living the way the Lord delights, as it has been an encouragement to me.

Flames of Fire (18/9/06)

The following words are the words of encouragement spoken to me during my devotion this morning. Hope it will be an encouragement to you as well.

Isaiah 43:2
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned;
The flames will not set you ablaze.”

= Going through rivers of difficulty will either cause you to drown or force you to grow stronger. If you go in your own strength, you are more likely to drown. If you invite the Lord to go with you, He will protect you.

Psalms 42:5,6
“Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
For I will yet praise Him, my Saviour and my God.
My soul is downcast within me;
THEREFORE I WILL REMEMBER YOU.”

= Antidote for depression: meditate on the record of God’s goodness. This will take your mind off the present situation and give hope to improve. It will focus your thoughts on God’s ability to help you rather than on your ability to help yourself. Read the Bible (God’s goodness) and meditate on them. In addition to this, also read Philippians 4:8.

Returning to Your Failure (9/9/06)

In addition to the promises that God revealed to me last night, as I was worrying about finishing my assignment on time, God also spoke to me personally this morning in my devotion.
The following are the spoken words:
No one knows how to help you in times of failure as Jesus does!
He will give victory in the midst of your failure.
Jesus often gets your undivided attention when you fail (or about to fail or give up).
He sometimes takes you back to your place of defeat in order to build something good into your life.
When you try in God’s strength, you may discover that success is indeed within your grasp. If you have recently experienced failure, you may be on the brink of receiving a profound revelation from God!

In addition to these words, the Lord also directed me to these scriptures on my wall above my table:
Philipians 4:13
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Philipians 4:5-7
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

'I will lead you through' (13/9/06)

I was so glad and relieved that at last I've handed in the major assignment yesterday. I felt such a great freedom after that and I had such peace and quite some free time now, after such a struggle with my assignment. I'm so glad that God has brought and sustained me till now.
Last Thursday, as I was struggling to rush and increase the speed of my assignment progress, I was struck with fear and the feeling of giving up and the fear of failure, when I ooked through the materials that I still need to read and summarise on Thursday night. I noticed that I still had a lot to do and I've pushed myself to the max this few days that I was so fed up of such sturggle, and felt like to stop the work and giving up. that would mean to let me fail the assigment (which accounts for one subject itself) and repeat it next year. In the midst of the fear, God spoke forth into my heart and told me to calm down, as He put Philipians 4:4-7 into my heart (the verses were written on a piece of card and was pasted on the wall of my room, just directly in front of my face as I was doing my assignment on the computer) and even PROMISED ME that He would lead me through this.
With this assuring and comforting words, I tried so hard to calm myself down and try to ignore the attack of the fear by the enemy. This may sound easy to you, but I can tell you that it was not as easy as you and I thought. I'm a human being as well and it's easy for us to get caught up with fear and let worries "paralyse" our mind. By the worries in my mind, i can't acheive much things. As revealed to me before, I figured out I need to slw and calm down a bit and then only can I continue with my works and then work through the tasks one by one. It took me approximately more than 1 hour to get the worries out of my mind and to calm down and TO CHANGE MY FOCUS.
I finally manage to gather my focus back at about 11pm and I continued with the work till early in the morning. PTL that He gave me the strength and the alertness to stay awake through the night, as I was never a "night" person. I even just had only 4 hours of sleep that night and continued with the works after that, through the weekend and Monday. Through it it, God has been my Strength and my Motivator. Finally, I managed to finish the assignment on Monday midnight. By Tuesday, before I handed it in, I did some editing and cut down the number of words and manage to pass it up just on time - 4 pm Tuesday.
PTL! Praise the faithful and loving God and Friend, whio is faithful in keeping His promises and has given me the strength to persevere through the hard times.
Now I'm enjoying some breaks from the Lord, as the new subject begins on the Tuesday itself. as it was just the begining, things was a bit slow and I manage to have some time off today. PTL, the Mighty One!
For those who are going through rough times now, stay strong and persevere and don't EVER EVER give up. Cry out to the Lord and He is FAITHFUL and will hear your cry and help you through.
GBU!

Late For Train (29/8/06)

I woke up early this morning & did my QT as usual, before I headed off to placement. As the reading was quite interesting today, I spent more time on it.
Little did I noticed that it was almost 8 am when I finished reading & got ready to leave home, to catch a bus down to the city.
As I waited at the bus stop, worry caught hold of me as two buses just passed by without stopping (T or full bus). I got all the more worried when my watch showed 820 am, as I needed to catch the train down to the placement site at 827 am, which will normally leave at around 830 am. I thought I was going to miss the train, which will cause me to be late for the placement if I catch the next train. My heart cried out to the Lord for help, that He would let me board a bus soon, so that I'll be there on time to catch the train.
As I waited and prayed for the bus to come, a thought crossed through my mind. Instead of me being late for the train, another possiblity would be that the train was late. I prayed to the Lord that He would intervene and delay the train so that I would be able to board it on time.
Finally thank God that the bus came at around 825am and I hopped into it and kept praying. Although I knew that was a word from the Lord, I just couldn't seemed to shake the fear off my mind. I was also thinking about what to do IF I ever miss the train - how I would have to inform Peter White (SMS) and the pharmacy.

Filled with excitement, adventure and worry, my bosy shot the adrenaline store, as I ran towards the train station, after the bus stopped at the stop in King William Street. I managed to dropped by the men's room to empty my bladder first before I ran over to Platform 6. Thank God for the loo, as I really needed that at that moment before I board the 18-minutes train ride.
As it turned out, I was so glad and happy to see Peter and the other passengers still waiting for the train at the platform. It was already 830am by the time I reached there. THe train was late and was not even there yet. This couldn't be another coincidence or accident, but only the work of the hand of the Mighty God who answered my prayer and intervened. Praise the awesome and wonderful God. Indeed everything is under His control. PTL!
Finally, Peter and I reached the pharmacy in Alberton at 9am, just on time.
Thank you, Lord, for speaking to me and for showing me 'what would happen' and for answering my prayer in an awesome way!
PTL!