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. ;-)