God knows everything

This devotional is quite fun....Take a box of maybe 6 - 8 crayons and a paper bag or an envelope.  Tell that you know everything, because you have the magic eye.  And get them to empty the box and choose one colour and put it back into the box, ad the rest in the envelope.  All this while you have your back facing them.  When they are ready, you take the box with the one crayon in it and shake it, pretending to guess what colour it is.  You will then bring it with both hands and put it behind you, secretly opening it and scraping a little of it on your nail.  You will then bring it back to the front and you will be able to tell the colour by the little on your finger nail.  They will want you to do it several times, but each time you would guess it.  You can even let them try, and most of the time they would not be able to guess the colour.

You don't reveal the truth to them at this point yet.

Then you can choose a bible story about the omniscience (all-knowing) of God, say Job. God knew throughout all of the sufferings of Job that he will restore everything to him.  The point of the story is that God will take care of us in good or bad times - our job is to trust him.

At the end of the story you reveal your secret to the children.

King David's shipwreck

Many people have explained King David's affair with Bathsheba as a result of his idleness and being away from the battle.  It may be one of the contributing factors, but I think it is too simplistic to think this way.  He probably shipwrecked way before that...by marrying so many wives - six to be exact.  And God did specifically give instructions not to take many wives (Deut 17:14-17).  Is it any wonder he had no self control when it came to women?  Just because the kings of surrounding nations were polygamous didn't mean he could also follow suit, especially when God gave his warning.  And each time he took a new wife, the Holy Spirit probably prompted him not to do it.  But I guess he ignored the warnings....

Titanic's shipwreck was just like that....six warnings in the form of messages from other ships of ice ahead.  And all the messages either did not reach the captain or ignored totally by him and his crew.

So do we just get shipwrecked in our faith out of the blue?  The answer is obviously no.  Slowly but steadily we inch closer to the edge.  And God will send warnings in the form of promptings from the Holy Spirit or advice from people.

And I thought that it is also no surprise that Solomon took even more wives than his father, and his ended up turning away from God in the end.

Talk about not finishing strong....

No Hair Elisha

Just did a simple family devotional with the kids based on 2 Kings 2:33 - 34 where Elisha got taunted by a group of youths.  And a bear came out and mauled 42 of them to death.

We talked about 2 things - one about respecting leaders (including parents, teachers, elders) God put in our lives, another about seemingly "unfair" things in life, or "bad" things that God allowed to happen in our lives.

Edrik was able to give the example of Paul being jailed twice and God only rescued him the first time.  And then I asked why that might be the case.  He couldn't figure it out, and I explained that sometimes God allowed "bad" things to happen first, before something good results.  And in Paul's case, it resulted in the whole palace hearing about the gospel.

We started the whole devo with a riddle about a body part - our hair, of which Elisha had none, and that was the reason why the youths taunted him in the first place.

Kuantan

Here's a pic of the kids having a blast at the Kuantan river...

Satan the gentleman

Something I read today in the book "Finishing strong":

Satan is a gentleman, Bacon told us.  A charming fellow with immense power, subtlety, and thousands of years of experience. His chief aim, of course, is to injure the God against whom he once rebelled.  To accomplish this, Satan misrepresents the Creator to his creatures, always attempting to frustrate his good purposes for them and hopefully - in the process - break the heart of God.  Satan promises us the world, but as Milton said, "All is false and hollow; though his tongue drops manna and makes the worse appear a better reason."

How true...when we start believing that the worse is a better reason, we have fallen into Satan's trap:

• It's ok...God will understand why I did not do my quiet time today...after all, I've already prayed to him yesterday, and read my bible last week...when I am less busy next week, I will pray to him.
• I'm sure God will understand why I'm not tithing...after all, I have to provide for my family, and have got many commitments....
• It's ok...I can just go out once for lunch with this female colleague of mine alone....there's really nothing between us....
  

Before we know it...bang...the trap is sprung, and we're left strangled by the noose Satan has specially custom-made for us.

First post

Hello all,

This is inspired by the success of the communication via email that our group has enjoyed over the last few months, and also to imitate what the campus group has done. I've created this blog even though I've never done blogging in my life...

I'm not going to say that all of us have to write something all the time, but try your best...at least come in regularly to see what the others have to say.

What should we post here?

We can write what we have learnt from sermons, quiet times, family devotional ideas, life's lessons.

I think we can post photos as well...

We can encourage one another....

We can request for prayers, share about prayers answered.

We can share about our struggles...with discretion, of course....

We can also share about inspiring stories from our lives as well as one another's...

plus many many more.

Well...anything true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy....yes, you're right...Philippians 4:8