Death or Life?

Welcome to the Firebrands weekly blog post again!

Prayer began right at 7.15pm, which was being led by :-

Choong. Jonathan Choong :D

Do come for prayer as well if you're coming for service because if you don't,

Its just like eating a burger without its patty. 

Keep those who are taking their SPM trials in prayer, people :) 

Next up we had :-

Wan. Lester Wan 

With icebreaking in his mind for that night.

Here's what was done in order for the ice to completely shatter :

Remember the watermelon game? Its basically a TAG-You're-It! game where one has to make a slurping sound as he/she tags another. Well, its the same, with the exception of the name and sound effect. Its THE SNEEZING GAME! xD Yes, sneeze as you tag other people. . . . . . . . Its actually because he forgot the name of the game that he came up with this disgusting title

Eulene had better close her mouth in time unless she gets infected...

Sarah's reaction totally fits lol

So as time passed, the 'virus' died.

Moral of the story, cover your mouth when you sneeze... 

Moving on as time waits for no man (and woman), the time came for us to really settle down and come before the One who made all things possible. 

Moving on to the sharing part of the night, we had Uncle Keat Cheong to share with us the word of the Lord.
He started off with Proverbs 13:12 which says
"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."

-What it means is that when a longing of ours if prolonged/ doesn't seem to come, it puts us down. Or in another term - Potong stim.

Imagine two plants, with one being a lone shrub on a desert, and another by the river side with enough water and nutrients in the soil. These two plants represent two very different personalities.
In the first imagery, poeple who are like the shrub in the desert tend to ignore what they really want because they are just so used to disappointments in life.
However, in the second one, people who are like the tree by the riverside knows nothing/ very little about what disappointments are all about because they are never 'dry'

What has this got to do with the Word of God?

Well, here's part two.
Out with your bibles and turn to Ezekiel 37:1-14.
In this part of the Bible, it shows us that God gave Ezekiel a vision of a valley of dried bones. As Ezekiel did as God asked him to say, the bones slowly became humans again. Well, this isn't a horror story. I doubt God encourages horror stories to scare the living daylights out of people for fun.

So you join Part One and Part Two together and you'll see what this message is all about.

-Sometimes, our heart is like the valley of bones - dead, dry and unresponsive.
As you all know, God gave us choices to make, and one of them is the choice to listen to what God has to say to us and do what He wills us to. and by doing so, like what Ezekiel envisioned, the bones will become humans once again - alive, real and breathing.

It ain't over yet.

What about breathing? God breathed the breath of life into these bones. And if you realise as well, it is with Adam, the first human being God created that He breathed the breath of life into as well. What's so special about this breathing? It symbolises intimacy that God chose to have with us. He never did the same with the animals He created. He only did so with us humans. Its what makes us special. Not only did He made us in His image, but He breathed His breath of life into us as well.

It isn't oxygen that is the breath of life. This breath we're talking about is the Holy Spirit. Truth is, we're not real followers of Jesus just by simply agreeing to the "Terms and Conditions" (which I believe all of us don't bother to read :P). We only are when we accept the Holy Spirit into our lives. Once again, the choice is ours to make. We are required to change our old, bad habits for that to happen.

Before service ended, there were two question to ponder upon :-
1. How many times we were afraid of falling into sin?
2. What if we could at least question our act twice before committing it?
Clue: Holy Spirit is the GPS of our lives.