Stop blogging lif! Ok, but i've got good stuff to share so must blog and testify right.

Lately, I've had the privilege of bringing a couple of prebelievers to a seeker/beginner BS started by some friends. I didnt actively seek out to bring these people, they just happen to be my friends. So it's not my effort or great heart in evangelism that resulted in me bringing them, it was just sheer convenience i.e. God arranged for it.

I wrote in a previous blog post about how faithless I am. I can sms someone and think this person ain't gonna come, I can do everything you shouldn't do and yet the person can come. And that's true. But i'd say that the truth is, it's easy for the human heart to want to take some credit. At least I msged right, nobody else did. I mean surely I must've played a part in it. That's how evil and depraved our hearts are, that we should even seek to take even a morsel of glory from God.

And today I was so humbled, amazed yet again by how good and amazing God is and how really, really, really, absolutely, nobody can boast before God. Noone. Noone is righteous. Not one. If even the prophet Isaiah cried out woe to me before God, what more all of us.

So prebelieving/Christian/I don't know but not impt i'd say coz God's at work friend emails me in respone to me saying, i'm so sad, i'm so sad, my electives are so unsettled. i.e. my heart today was horrible, i was feeling lousy, crappy, didnt quite want to pray until just now, not at all trusting that God will provide and that God is in control. I mean I know He is obviously, but it's so incredibly annoying and hard to wait for electives to be settled given that I dutifully submitted my applications months ago!!! Months. And God totally used her to show me that true prayer is made from the humble and contrite heart, precisely the prayer that says, my faith is so weak, God who am I that You would even listen to my entreaty. And God showed me how great my friend's faith is compared to mine, me who's walked quite some years with God already. I just wanted to dig a hole and hide myself in it and never come out. Sometimes it's so easy to think i've walked with God for quite a while, I've been thru this and that and done this and that for God, i'm quite a decent Christian. I'm not saying we shouldn't be discerning about where we are in our walks, it's a mighty scary thing if we mistake darkness for light and mistake ourselves to be in the light when we are actually in darkness. But really, I just thought, if I stand right next to my preblelieving/don't know but God's at work friend, I would not dare say at all that my faith measures up, worse of all that I might think it does out of pride rather than anchor myself soley upon the blood and grace of Christ. I'd say that perhaps before God my friend is held in even greater and higher esteem for her simple and trusting faith, for her contriteness and humility, as opposed to my self-righteousness, my pride that says, hello God look at what I've done, hello God haven't I stuck it in all these years, haven't I served You and born all the crap and suffering along the way, hello God, look at how deep and intense my prayer is, hello God, I think I deserve to be heard by You (gasp! but it's true:( ). How God has to break down our pride continuously, every second of the day. I feel like laughing though, laughing at how good and amazing God is, how He shows His people that truly, really, noone shall boast before God, noone can claim to have any righteousness of his own before God because we can't ever do that. I am not a good person, I am not a good person, I am wretched, evil and depraved, saved only by grace, only by grace and the only good thing about me is that my God is good and my God is loving. No man can boast before God, and we'd better make sure we aren't caught doing just that. wow.

Stop writing lif! study O&G. study study study.

Ok anyway, I'm so joyful and happy now. So happy with Christ and His love and grace. I was just thinking to myself how honestly, honestly, and if you know me you know this is veritably true about me, I often live my life based on a checklist. Walking with God? check. How do you know that? talking to God, not just perfunctorily, but earnestly, deeply, with true sincerity and contrition? check. witnessing to others? check. desire for holiness? check. growing in the Word? check. Reading good Christian literature? Check. confessed outstanding sins. check. were u nice to your mother today? check. were you nice to your siblings? check. have you been faithful in ministry? are you keeping the ministry in prayer? praying for your dad's salvation daily? and on and on the list goes. oh and just so i'm not legalistic, remember that you're only saved by grace and only enter into God's Presence by His blood and not your own righteouness? check. evidence of not being legalistic - joy? check. Yes, i'm sorry, i'm like that. I have checklists in life. Is so and so happy/has their needs met? task 1 to whatever. is life is nice happy balance that stems from the overflow of your heart? Checklists aren't bad.

But really, really, really, at the end of it all, we are saved only by grace. period. forever and ever amen, we are saved by grace. by none other. That's why i love songs like that mandarin song zhe yi sheng zui mei de zu fu (the gift of knowing You) because it simply and yet profound encapsulates the truth of Christianity. The greatest blessing is knowing Christ. The first day you knew deep in your heart that Christ died for you and how He redeemed us from the grave, the tears that welled up in my eyes when i first savoured in my soul the goodness and trueness of grace. It's like honey to your soul. The tears of thankfulness, of gratefulness of knowing in your heart how Christ has done so much for you and done what you don't deserve and will never ever deserve. So here's the conclusion to be learnt as quickly as possible though i think we'll never stop learning it:  we are saved by grace and grace alone, so stop trying to earn it or merit it or do stuff to justify yourself (speaking to myself here). Mandarin rocks. maybe I should switch to mandarin service. hahaha. I'm always amazed how the smallest, the humblest, those who esteem themselves not are the ones who experience God's grace and love most. Not us uppity, think we can earn God's love, think God is found in humongous ministries, in the complex structures and theories we try to build and construct (i'm not saying these aren't impt!). All I know is that Jesus loves me and He's my friend and that's all I need.

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