Healing Encounter 2008 - Day 1

I was the only one in cell that attended for last night’s Healing Encounter. Rev. Dr. Bernard Blessing delivered a powerful message as usual and I was amazingly touched by the word. Before he started his sermon he made us repeat the word John 6:16 until it got stuck to our thick skull. He is such a joker!

¹⁶When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, ¹⁷where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. ¹⁸A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. ¹⁹When they had rowed three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified. ²⁰But he said to them, "It is I; don't be afraid." ²¹Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading. (John 6:16 -21)

John 6:16-21 was his message. Since you guys did not come I shall try to share with you the powerful message that was preached. First of all, he told us that we must always listen to a message in church attentively and not let our thoughts drift away because that is how the devil tempt us and prevent us from listening to His word and receive it. Meaning, no sleeping during sermons, smsing, thinking about boys/girls, going for toilet breaks five times in a row and etc. I’m not kidding!

The entire verse demonstrated our life problems, whether it may be our health, family, work and etc. While Jesus went up to the mountain and pray, his disciples left him for a cruise. The disciples are just like us when are so comfortable and carefree with our lives that we forgot about Jesus.

Rev. Dr. Bernard Blessing told us that we must not be too comfortable with our lives and neglect Jesus alone to pray. He encouraged us to join Him in prayer whether or not we are having problems. On and off he reminded us that the devil would always be there to tempt us with negativity while we are busy praying.

After his powerful message was shared, he prayed for healing and deliverance for the congregation to rebuke the works of the devil in our lives. He even made us pray non-stop to claim the victory for Christ. When he ended the service, he highlighted to us that we must never be in a hurry to go home after service. We must always stay on to the very end to receive the prayer of blessing from the pastor. He said that it was also the most important part of the service and it will make a huge difference in our lives.

If possible come tonight because according to Rev. Dr. Bernard Blessing it is going to be much better than yesterday. See you in church!

more than conquerors!

Hey all! Cell today was great! I always look forward to every cell group meeting as no cell group meeting is quite the same. We missed Jensen, Samuel and Noel, but I was ecstatic when I saw Gideon after a month-long hiatus! :D Welcome back, Gideon! The cell lesson was on How To Overcome. For some reason, as I was going through the lesson, I felt compelled to exhort all of us to be extraordinary Christians. We are not saved by the Lord just to kick back and relax, waiting for the day we'll enter Heaven. Salvation is only the beginning of our race here on earth. The Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 4:7-8,

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

We have a race to finish here, and to finish well so that we can win the crown of righteousness. God did not save us just to attend cell and church every week - He called us for much greater things than that. Not all of us may have to rise up as leaders, but rise up in whatever way you can! Reach for greater heights in your walk with God. God has granted each of us unique talents. It is our task as cell members to support each other to go up one level in our walk with God, to continuously be transformed from glory to glory.

That is what I want our cell to be - for all of us to mature as Christians. When we love God, we will love His people and be passionate for them. Even a simple sharing of the gospel with a friend or a stranger is a new height to achieve in your walk with God, especially if you rarely share the gospel. In short, the cell lesson can be summed up in Romans 8:37,

In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

After the lesson, there was an interesting debate on why such a loving God would create us, only to know that most of us will fall and go to hell. Some found that very hard to reconcile. God loves us, that's why He created us with a will to choose whether to love Him back or to reject Him. What is love if we are programmed to do so? When we are tested, it is then that we show God whether we truly love Him or not. As Stephanie mentioned, we have equal capacity to do both good and evil. Most of the time though, we choose to do evil. So, although it hurts God very much to know that a lot of us will end up in hell because we choose not to love Him, He still chose to give us free will anyway because us loving Him will mean something.


A little reminder: to all of you who have not yet signed up, sign up for COLLEGE RETREAT! It's from 12 - 14 September (Friday till Sunday). Departure for PD is on Friday evening, so you can go right after class.

Next week, cell will be in church where Rev. Bernard Blessings will conduct a healing rally. This guy is one anointed pastor - he can cast out demons and heal the sick. Truly a miracle worker. Don't miss him out on Friday night! Invite your friends to come! Since we had already discussed about having monthly cell outings, and all of us had decided on bowling, we'll go bowling on September 5th (if the church leaders give the green light, fingers crossed :) To those who wanna play futsal, we'll play that in October as Stephanie will be in Hanoi on September 5th. Gives me more time to decide whether I wanna play or not. Haha.

That's all for now...I'm gonna fall asleep in my meetings tomorrow if I don't sleep now...I will be getting a new Kancil soon. Yay! Will be able to drive to Steph's place for cell and Abigail can rest from sending me and some other guys back home every Friday night. Abigail - really appreciate your sacrifice. ;-)

answered prayers!

I realize that I have not been very frequent in updating this blog. I shall TRY to update it every time after cell meeting. Then, it'll be more regular than my own personal blog-updating. Haha. But anyway, thank God for ANSWERED prayers! We had been praying so hard (me anyways) for someone to host cell, since most people find my place rather too far for them to travel. And, God made a way! Stephanie, our newest cell member, has graciously opened up her place for us cellies to gather! Thanks a lot, Stephanie! You have no idea how much this means to us! :D

Her house is lovely and she is an excellent hostess, making sure we're well-fed. Haha. It's not official yet, but God willing, it seems that we have already found ourselves a nice place to go to every Friday night. And soon, its light (and noise) will shine in the entire neighborhood as a house of God! :-) I am just extremely excited! There have been so many changes happening (and are still happening as I take the cell under my wing). With God's grace, He will see us through right till the very end as we become transformed from glory to glory, winning souls for the Lord and growing stronger and stronger in our faith each day.

Today, I shared the gospel with someone while waiting for my cue to start playing the part of an abused wife. Haha. I thank God for the opportunity to share and I can only pray that God will water the seed that I have planted, and bring another person to harvest that seed.

To all my cell members who are reading this, go on and share the gospel with people you meet - be they friends or strangers! Do something caring for them and they will see the love of Christ reflected in you. Keep on persevering!

Beijing Olympics!

Cell is gonna be soooo exciting tomorrow! It will be held at Stephanie's place (get to see her pretty house). We'll be celebrating the opening of the Beijing Olympics! :D Makan, get to know each other and newcomers, play games.

A tremendously exciting time!

Please pray that God's presence will be at the party, and that the newcomers will enjoy themselves so much that they'll want to keep coming to cell.

Thanks for all your prayers.