"Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ (Galatians 1:10)."

There is only one purpose of it all: To bring people to Christ. Be it at a small group level, a church level, an assembly level, or even nationwide or worldwide, the goal is still the same. For Jesus told His disciples, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:18-20)." and that is the command which we have to carry out even today.

Naturally, people who plan these things, they'll want to do their very best. Not for men, but for God (Colossians 3:23). sound systems are perfectly wired, music teams produce flawless songs, the main speaker says the right things, and there we hope that people will come to Christ. Indeed. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Why? It is essentially the presence of God's Holy Spirit and the Spirit's will to work things out in peoples' lives. More commonly known as "we bring pre-believers in, and God does the rest". But what happens when we do the things that God specifically doesn't want? True, the programme flow may be great and all, but when it comes to the crunch it is a stench in God's nostrils because it may be going directly against His will. Let's face it, everything can go wrong during a conference but the Spirit of God may flow so powerfully that any pre-believer will come to the realisation that 'he is a sinner and will be judged by all, and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, "God is really among you!" (1 Corinthians 14:24-25)'

As long as something is done in faithful obedience to what God wants, the Spirit will be there lingering, waiting, and proceeding to act upon the cries of His people. "And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love (2 John 1:6)." Obedience to God is love for the Father and what He commands.

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command (John 15:12-14)." He calls us His friends! What a privileged lot we are, though many times we fail to realise this. He's a king, the ruler of the world, and He chooses to lower Himself down to us and call us His friends!

Now Jesus says love one another. When we do have that love for our friends, definitely we cannot bear to see them go to a lost eternity without Christ simply because they have not heard the word of God. The crux of the matter is: Do I bring friends to outreaches because i) I love them so much I'd hate to see them die an eternal death or ii) because other people are bringing friends, so by peer pressure I will try to bring people down so I don't get embarassed by not bringing anyone down? There is a difference! For pre-believers in situation (i), I'd have prayed and agonised over them many times before God, knowing that God wants them to come back to Him (2 Peter 3:9). But for those in situation (ii), where I nonchalantly bring them down, I wouldn't have done much. Seriously. It's about the preparedness of the pre-believer's heart, too. I can take a million scriptural verses and throw it at some non-Christian, for him to still be puzzled and unbelieving, or do nothing and yet the Spirit takes control of that person and he/she comes to Christ.

And praying! The voice of communication with God! Be it wordless or wordy, it still is important to relinquish all reins of control to God, for He's the one running the show. What's the point of a packed auditorium when no one makes the decision to come to Christ? We can fuss over the smallest details of the programme and still miss the big picture.

Or we can choose to be less complicated, and do something simple. Just wait upon God. For waiting upon God instead of rushing any last-minute preparations shows indeed of how much importance you place Him as to your own programme.

Joel.

The splendour of the King
Clothed in majesty
Let all the earth rejoice
Let all the earth rejoice

He wraps Himself in light
Darkness tries to hide
It trembles at His voice
It trembles at His voice

How great is our God
Sing with me, how great is our God
And all will see how great
How great, is our God

Age to age He stands
Time is in His hands
The beginning and the end
The beginning and the end

The Godhead three in one
Father Spirit Son
The Lion and the Lamb
The Lion and the Lamb

How great is our God
Sing with me, how great is our God
And all will see how great
How great, is our God

You're the Name above all names
Worthy of all praise
My heart will sing how great is our God

The greatness of God one can never fathom. "But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding (Jeremiah 10:12; 51:15)." And indeed so many things happen to so many people who love Him around the world daily and yet He still is able to teach us individually why He wants it to happen, and how it works for their good (Romans 8:28).

He could choose not to care about us. For Elihu (one of Job's friends) said, "If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, all mankind would perish together and man would return to the dust (Job 34:14-15)." He could, and we could be dust. But yet He chose not to, instead allowing us to be formed, allowing us to grow up and sin, breaking His heart every time we do so, yet when we come to Him, He will come to us (like the father running toward the prodigal son, Luke 15:11-31), and a belief that Christ died to redeem our sin will instantly cleanse us from all sin and unrighteousness so that we can stand in front of Him and He can love us as a Father would, that He would not turn His face away from us since we are now presented holy and unblemished before Him.

So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven (1 Corinthians 15:45-49)

Christ came to give us life, and it is precisely why He died on that fateful Good Friday more than 2000 years ago, bearing all our sin and shame He went down to the depths of Hell to break the punishment for sin (which is death), that those who believed in Him would not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). If not for Him. Today, we'd still be dying a sin-filled death. As humans we have a tendency to err and sin,but we were born of sin (Adam's break off with God) and hence to reconcile that sin we need Christ to bridge that gap between us and God!

How great is our God.

Joel.

The hustle. But it's here, finally. The pink IC's returned to my hands, and what a difference I see. The end of the journey that every Singaporean male has to go through, despite all the ups and downs of military life.

Now that it's over, I'll see what's next. "No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer (2 Timothy 2:4)." Though not necessarily very applicable now, but still applicable in the future to come ahead. When I get recalled for In Camp Trainings, or cohesions, it still applies. Though in a less sensitive context.

The time to be a civilian again.

Joel.

"You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name (Exodus 20:7, Deuteronomy 5:11)."

Who is man that he does not even look to the One who formed him? As David says, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be (Psalms 139:13-16)." But further down he goes on to add, "They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name (Psalms 139:20)." That was Old Testament stuff. Yet even today, 3000 years later, people still misuse the name of God. They invoke it recklessly, not knowing the repercussions it will have in future. Widely televised American sitcoms invariably have their actors/actresses blasting out an "Oh my God" like it is so common to them, and other people can go "Jesus (&$#@(& Christ" or worse!

If people used your name as an invective, a vulgarity, then surely you would feel insulted and undignified. What more the Sovereign Lord who created this world. Yet people don't seem to see the link, and usually it is the people who do not know him who misuse His name most often because they are ignorant about what actually is going on. That there is a powerful God who created them and who loves them doesn't seem to register in their hearts or in their heads because "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2 Corinthians 4:4)."

What then, should our response be? "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12)." We do not fight flesh with flesh, but we fight agains t the spiritual forces of darkness, knowing that our one God can defeat the entire horde of demonic forces and send them crashing through the gates of hell.

That's precisely what prayer does. Calling upon the name of the Lord, for only He can work things round when we are powerless and can do absolutely nothing. Praise be to His Name!

Joel.