Normalcy

Even after 2/3 days of R&R, I still woke up this morning too tired to bother going to church. Maybe it's due to me not getting enough sleep kekekeke....

But, since I woke up already, I decided to take a nice walk down. Save 70p plus get some exercise. All in all it wasn't too bad. I actually reach slightly before the tram pulled in.

Today's sermon was about living to the fullest in the present but at the same time, planning and preparing for the destiny that God has prepared for us. First off, Jeremiah 12:1 relates something very true today

You are always righteous, O LORD, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would
speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why
do all the faithless live at ease?

God's answer is found a few verses away in Jeremiah 12:9 -

If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you
compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the
thickets by the Jordan?

This basically means if we cannot be satisfied with what we have, how then can God lead us on to other, more exciting things? This is something so true in our lives. Everyone constantly thinks that their own life is hard while others seem to have it easy. We also constantly wonder why God is being so unfair; that we are not blessed as others. God is replying, be contented with what you have and do the best you can. Once you have success where you are, God will lead us on to better things. God continues to move our boundary lines. If we believe we can only influence one person and we do, God will lead us on to influencing a crowd. Once we reach that, God will then lead us to influencing a city. God IS Almighty. With Him, there is no boundary. Anything is possible with Him.

Though all things are possible through Him, we must first have the right attitude to achieve that. As it was said in today's sermon, the attitude you carry now is the attitude you carry onward. If we cannot be trusted with what little we have now, there is no way God can trust us with what He has planned for us. For we would fall flat. In a way, the only thing stopping us from reaching our destiny is ourselves. We have to love the journey.

In order to do that, here are some tips in today's sermon:

1. Remember what you are living for.
We have to keep reminding ourselves that we are not here to gain worldly gains. Instead, we are living for things in Heaven. God has promise that once we start living for Him, He will bless us with all the worldly things such as wealth creation, peace, status etc.

2. Renew every area of our life.
One thing I have come to realise is there is no such thing as normal. How does one define normality? Boring? Stagnant? Life was never meant to be normal. A proverb I once read said "the only constant thing in life is change" In fact, that's a good thing! Once our lives tend to repeat themselves, we start to switch off. We settle to a routine. We effectively stop living and start just surviving. To avoid a coma-like life, we have to constantly change our environment, our thinking, our everything. Do something spontaneous every week!

3. Make a Decision, Live with Discipline and Do it.
When we make a decision to change, we must have the discipline to follow that decision. Then, we will make that change a permanent thing in our lives. Many a times, we decide to give our lives to God/follow His words/etc. only to back out later. We tend to say things like it's too hard/I'm not good at it/no time/etc. In order to fulfill our destiny, we have to start seeing this changes as steps towards the final goal and have the discipline to implement those changes.

Lastly, today's sermon talks about 2 kinds of Christian packages. There is the Safe Christian Package and the Adventure Christian Package. Safe Christian Package means Christians who go to church, worship the Lord, believe He died for us on the cross but just go back to their lives not really impacted by God. The Adventure Christian Package are those who actively seek out His words and are running towards His prophesy over their lives. They are the ones who reach out and touch the hearts of others. The choice is up to you. Personally, I would prefer Adventure.

Lastly, I would like to sum up the whole sermon with this verse:

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 - Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but
only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who
competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that
will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last for ever. Therefore I
do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the
air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to
others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

In other words, to reach our destiny and claim the prize, we must make a firm decision, be disciplined and follow it through.