AR Bernard's in town! I've never heard of him before this year, but apparently he's quite famous. Yesterday's service was so so good. I think it's one of the best I've attended. Not just the sermon, but also the praise and worship, and even the offering message! The offering message was given by Pastor Kong haha. Man...God was really in the service throughout. I know He always is, but yesterday was really like... wow.

AR Bernard talked about a lot of issues which had been covered by pastor in the past 8 months, but even though we've heard the essence of the message before, it was really convicting when he presented it. I can't type the entire sermon outline here cos it's too long (5 pages) and it has some diagrams which I can't present here. I'll just try to summarise the main points, but really, you should go get the audio cd. I'm most probably getting it.

Here it is:

- Knowledge is the key. It unlocks a world which would otherwise be inaccessible. You are limited in life by the knowledge in your own mind, and the content of your character.

- Man becomes carnal if his behaviour is not consistent with his knowledge. He knows God's word but continues to live as if he doesn't.

- The more specific you are, the more cooperation you will get. If you're general, you live it open to interpretation and mistakes.
General revelation of God => Universe of law and order
i.e. Law and order could not have come out of chaos. God must have created the world.
Specific revelation of God => Jesus Christ
God gave the incarnation of Jesus to move revelation from general to specific.

- The church becomes the agent to reveal God to the world.
- The church should know what God is like, but too much of the church doesn't know.
=> Leaves the natural man to come up with his own ideas.
=> We haven't done a good job in representing Jesus. He must be re-presented to the world.

- Vision determines method. Method does not determine vision. If not, we'll be stuck in tradition.

- Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope."

God was talking to Israel in Babylon, in a society contrary to their beliefs. For them to increase in Babylon and not diminish. So we should increase and prosper in the world and not hide from it.

- Genesis 1 takes place in the human heart, waiting for the word to say "let there be light!"
The Holy Spirit is hovering over the human heart, waiting for the word to be spoken to bring light in the darkness.

The world is not the enemy. It is our mission!

- The word can be choked in an environment overshadowed by culture. But greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world. We should not be afraid to engage the world.

- The world is calling everything but the church for help because of how we've represented ourselves. This must change.

- Jesus is the physician to those who are sick.

- We're bringing a new social order. The kingdom of God. A social order which builds men and not tear them down. We should be experts in every field. In raising children, marriage, education, etc.

- God's kingdom comes when you exercise spiritual authority over the demonic. The future is brought to the present by exercising spiritual authority. The sick are healed, blind men see.

- We are in a symbiotic relationship with the world.

- Our greatest value to God is not in heaven but right here on earth!

- Heaven is not the final destination. It is a holding place until God establishes His eternal kingdom here on earth.

- We need to know God's character as it can teach us what He wants which is not written in the word.

- We need to learn how to navigate in a world which is against us.

This isn't the full sermon, but I should have caught most of it here. AR Bernard's really good. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Actually, I wouldn't have missed service for anything. There's no better place to be than in the house of the Living God, worshipping Him with His people, dwelling in His presence.

After service, I went to eat supper with meiqi, weiqi, yuan tai and jirong. We went to Eunos to eat, then weiqi went home and the rest of us walked over to jirong's house to stay over. We were discussing about the med fellowship. Somehow we feel like the fellowship wasn't going anywhere. Something's missing. We'll still try to make it work. Maybe we need to meet up to praise God and to pray. Not sure what we need to do, but we need direction. All is not lost. We still can go somewhere, a long way, if we find out what's missing.

Jirong has a fish tank! So cool. Oh they sang me a birthday song just before we slept. I always seem to be sleeping over somewhere on my birthday. I was at the shooting chalet last year.

Jac offered to sell me her beetle. I was so happy when I heard that cos I really wanted a beetle, but well, parents don't allow of course. So sad. And I don't have money to buy it myself.

I had my first philosophy lesson yesterday. I don't know whether I can make it or not. But I do hope I get a good tutorial teacher.

On Thursday, God gave me 2 more "revelations" haha. During physiology, the lecturer said something like "the heart cannot pump out blood if it is not filled first", then I was like hey! We can't give to others and love them if we are not first filled with God's spirit and love.

Then during physical pharmacy, we learnt that a 3rd solvent can dissolve two immiscible liquids together. And I was like hey! Jesus came to die for us so that we can be reconciled back with God. Jesus is the 3rd solvent. Our bridge back to God. Haha. Hope this continues. Every boring lesson becomes interesting when God talks to you halfway hahaha.

I'm old.

Trying not to be stressed. Still learning to trust God with everything I have. I get stressed when I don't hand over my stuff to Him. There's just so much to study, people asking me constantly for notes to zap and it's like only the first week of school. I photocopied half a textbook on the first day of school with 2 friends by the way. I have yet to read through my notes.

But God's grace is sufficient for me. His strength is made perfect in my weakness. I know I can't handle it on my own. It takes effort to learn how to trust God because it doesn't come naturally to me. I like to take control of my own life. But I need to learn how to hand over the control to God. To surrender all.