Blessed 2010

A very Happy and Blessed 2010 to everyone!!

New year often marks the beginning of a lot of things. People tend to think of fresh starts, putting behind past mistakes and look forward to newer and better things to come.
Thankfully for me, God has given me a similar hope, but more so because each and every failure I make, I can INSTANTLY wipe clean and start all over because Christ has promised that He would have removed the stains of my mistakes from God. His sacrifice on earth and on the cross has "cleanse" me from all my errors that otherwise would have condemned me in more ways than one.

In retrospect, the year 2009 reflections leads me to think and count the blessings instead of the problems and troubles that has passed. World economy has begun to recover, and I believe so have lives been restored in the year that passed. The iPhone 3G was introduced(although I haven't got one) and Michael Schumacher announced that he will be back in the race next season of F1. That's good news, isn't it?

Life went on with relative good health for me and the people around me. Praise the Lord.

I just pray that in this coming 12 months, churches around the globe will be restored and the spiritual leaders revived to walk with God. It is rather disappointing when church leaders, pastors and such people of God fall. Of course, they are still human. But I can understand how easily one could do God's work, and forget to walk with God.

World peace, environment recovery, end violence...I suppose those are what we would continue to pray for in the year to come.

But we can all certainly look forward to God's promise of a renewed spirit and the working of the Spirit to enable us to serve Him better this year. And I press on to the goal of serving our Lord. Only pray for me that I might persist and have the Word be a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

Extremism or Simply Obeying?

I'm back after a long long long sabbatical. The past months has been of much awakening for me. I've really been challenged to live a life of Christ, die to myself and to take up my cross.

It became clearer to me that if I want to live a life of Christ, with Christ, I cannot linger on to my current self-focused(a gentler word for self-centered) attitude.
I was reminded that I cannot be raised with Christ if I do not participate in the dying with Christ bit. Meaning, a total and complete death to self. As Paul noted, "For me to live is Christ, to die is gain".
I cannot see how I can hang on to somethings with my left hand and do the works of Christ with my right hand accomplishing the dying to self prerequisite.

I use to think and ask God to help me put Christ in my workplace and everywhere else I go. I've even learnt practical examples such as saying a little prayer before I send out an email to clients, as if in partnership with Christ for the daily businesses I go about in the office.

However, I missed the ENTIRE POINT. My focus has always been doing well at my workplace. Perhaps even subconsciously hoping for recognition and a better career in the future.
What's wrong with that, you say?
Well, nothing except that I've not been called into being to pursue a career, accomplish a great task or advance my stature.

I've been CALLED to love God, to build my relationship with Christ. In Rick Warren's acclaimed book "Purpose Driven Life", he noted that man will never find his purpose in life as long as he is looking in the wrong places, such as his personal wishes and dreams. Take special note that in Genesis, God created Adam to have fellowship with Himself. Christ came to die for us also so that we might be restored to have relationship with God. Our purpose IS to return to our ORIGINAL PURPOSE for being and our SOLE INTENDED REASON, which is to fellowship with God.

How does THAT fit into our life on earth? Our workplace? Our church? By working our focus toward the things of heaven. By reminding myself to live in eternity with God.
If I were to put God first in my life, career will not matter anymore. My sense of security from the advancement of my financial state and job in the future dies. My dependency on God for all that I need is realized.

I know that when my mind, heart, soul and strength are focused on God and how He wants me to live with my fellowmen, I will have nothing to worry about (Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you - Matt 6:33).

And so, in knowing better the truth about my life, I struggle. It is next to impossible to live my life 100% to God at work. Each time I meet a client, report to my boss, interact with my colleagues, drive on a busy highway, my human nature tries to take over. But what is impossible with men is possible with God. So we give glory to God. And I struggle on. And more so I come in constant fight against doing what I should not do, and not doing what I should be doing.

I pray that God will constantly hold my hand in my struggles, that I may gladly submit my life and struggles to Him, until the day I come back into His presence.

To God be all glory and honor.

Dave D Saved

Child-like Worship

Simply a blessing...
If we can remember and learn to worship with the same child-like faith...



Kaitlyn Maher, the 5 year old who was the youngest ever Top 10 finalist of the hit TV show "America's Got Talent" when she was only 4, sings an original arrangement of the song "Above All" at Christian Fellowship Church's (CFC) Worship Concert on 5/1/09

Do.Re.Mi...Rejoice always...

Let's do this...really a sunshine out of nowhere...Just to remember that we have lots of things to be joyful over, just a matter of mindset.



Dave D Saved

Paul Washer: Clothed In Christ Jesus

A sermon I found very encouraging. It's a wake-up call and reminder to many of us Christians.
Do take some time out to view this.



Dave D Saved

A Dog Named Mace

An article a friend shared with me....enjoy...

A mechanic who worked out of his home had a dog named Mace.
Mace had a bad habit of eating all the grass on the mechanic's lawn,
so the mechanic had to keep Mace inside. The grass eventually became
overgrown. One day the mechanic was working on a car in the backyard
and dropped his wrench, losing it in the tall grass. He couldn't find
it for
the life of him, so he decided to call it a day.

That night, Mace escaped from the house and ate all the grass in the
backyard.
The next morning the mechanic went outside and saw his wrench glinting
in the sunlight.

Realizing what had happened he looked toward the heavens and proclaimed,
"A grazing Mace, how sweet the hound, that saved a wrench for me"

Gratefulness, Beginning of Wisdom

Hi all, finally I managed to force myself to update the blog a little. I just returned from a 2 week vacation in Australia.
Thanks be to God, the trip was filled with His presence and blessings at every corner.

I've learnt that being sensitive to His presence sometimes means counting your blessings all the time. I mean ALL THE TIME. Good times, bad time...there are blessings all over...And when I realize that the Lord is good ALL THE TIME and also in control ALL THE TIME, I can be grateful to Him and rest in Him ALL THE TIME.

I was at the verge of falling sick the moment we landed in Gold Coast, as the 8 hour plus flight was not too kind on the body. Lack of sleep, dehydrated and "un-climatize", all I felt like doing was to get to a warm bed and sleep, despite being my first trip to beautiful Australia.
But the grace of God was more than sufficient to sustain me, enough even to take care of my fiancee when she fell in. Again, if you will count with my the blessings of Jesus, I did fall ill even through sometimes we share our food and drinks.

God also blessed us with wonderful people. Chronologically, we first shared a 3 bed dorm with a Taiwanese girl, who was kind enough to share information and even provided a place for our luggage when we had to check out of our accomodation early.
Then we also had the most wonderful couple and granduncle/grandaunt in Sydney, who not only welcomed us with open arms into their warm and beautiful house, but also into their warm beautiful home.
Along the way, we also shared another dorm with an Aussie gentleman on his working holiday. The kindly gentleman generously shared with us his travels and advices on travelling across Australia, which was a really good experience for us.

Of course, I must also mentioned that God fulfilled my life-long dream by providing a free upgrade from a Hyundai Getz to a Holden Astra hard-top convertible muscle car. It felt like being in an Autobot when it's top started scrambling open and folding into the boot.
Just a simple comparison of the two cars: -

All in all, I know our God is teaching my lessons in gratitude and counting of blessings in all situations. I'm still learning Lord, be patient with me...

Cheers,
Dave D Saved