Pastor uhhh...... 4th Of July!

Firstly..

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUMMY!!!!!!!

UR "D" BEST MUM EVA!!!!!

LOVE YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!!

Secondly...

wu..... independence day for the u.s. wee....

Thirdly, today's message.

Sidetracking, this week I didn't do a cube once. And I really tried to hold back swearing, which is good. So I'll keep it to a minimum.

I had a super bad week, and I really hated it. Everything was just going bad and bad, and I even blamed God for somethings.

So God let todays message teach me something.

We had a guest speaker from Europe, I'm guessing Germany or his Jewish cause he kinda sounds like Mel Brooks, which in a way is funny.

Side note, preachers can be really boring, but if its really speaking to you about something in your life, then its not boring. You just have to lend your ears even though its really hard and see what you can grasp. Some pastors would told me, that you don't have to get everything, just learn at least one thing at a time so that their message would not be a waste.

(I didn't get his name, as in, I didn't hear it. So I'll call him Pastor G, G for Guest Speaker & G for Germany lol.) Pastor G preached about True Worship. Sounds familiar... same topic from Pastor Mark from Paradise Band, but another view of it.

He preached from the same verses, the Samaritan Women and Jesus.

John 4:1-26

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman

When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

⁴Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

⁷When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" ⁸(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

⁹The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.^"

¹⁰Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

¹¹"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹²Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"

¹³Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

¹⁵The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."

¹⁶He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."

¹⁷"I have no husband," she replied.

Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."

¹⁹"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

²¹Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.²²You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.²³Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

²⁵The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."

²⁶Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."

Pastor G says that everyone has the wrong view on true worship. We think that we are doing it correctly or having the right perspective of it, but we certainly are not. We can't simply worship got like Cain did, if our worship is not right, our sacrifices will not be right either.

He spoke about a few similar things from Pastor Mark's message, but went in more detail.

Firstly, he talked about the 2nd commandment in Exodus 20:4-5.

⁴ "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. ⁵ You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.

It says that we should not worship any types of idol in heaven(can mean both Heaven and the sky), earth, or sea, and most importantly that "God is a jealous God." We cannot simply worship God, our worship cannot be idolatrous neither adulterous.

He gave an example of what he meant by worship God in a adulterous way. When Pastor Ong visited Europe, he brought a picture of Pastor Nancy, and always talked about her to Pastor G.

This is a Metaphor, story, example, fiction, not true.*Just in case some one mis-understands.*Pastor G says that surely Pastor Ong will have a picture of Pastor Nancy on this office table and that her picture gives him comfort. But what if there was a picture of another woman next to Pastor Nancy's? Pastor Nancy would come in and start questioning who he is and Pastor Ong would say "Oh, some times when I get tired of your picture, she helps me and revives me." Well Pastor Ong would be dead =P.

Pastor G's point is that the same goes for God. We can't worship God and have another thing we love beside him. Its adultery towards God, and God is a very jealous God.

The next point is where I learnt my lesson. Pastor G said that if we are having a terrible week we can't treat God differently. If we worship God in good times and then when bad things happens, we must not change our perspective of God. No matter when, no matter the circumstances bad or good, God is God and we cannot change how we look at Him. So I learnt that, even though I'm having a bad week, God is still God. I have to worship Him properly, and that it is unfair for us to have a bad week and not give Him the praise He deserves.

Though I'm still having a problem of understanding bad things and how to overcome them.

Also Pastor G gave another example, a story of a little girl who had learnt from sunday school that God is omnipresent. So she asked her mum,"Mum is God in the kitchen?" Mum says"Yes He is."

Then the girl goes and makes a peanut butter sandwich, and she asks her mum,"Mum since God is everywhere, is God in the peanut butter jar?". Since she was a little girl, her mum said"Yes He is."

Then the girl closes the jar quickly goes,"Aha! I caught Him!!!"

Pastor G said that when we are having a bad week, we can't just put God in a jar. God is God, and God does not go into a jar. We cannot simply enclose God in a box and see God just as that box, and give our love for Him to another thing and think that could help us. We would have sinned as idolaters, as adulterers, and our worship of Him.

The things is I'm not even sure myself, that if we are true worshipers in bad times and have faith in God, but bad things still happens, I myself am not sure what to do. I guess for one thing we can't say that what ever is happening to us is the end of the world type of thing, its bad but not that big of a deal. We can pray for God's help, and that we must endure through it. One I'm sure of is that God does not do bad things to us for His own fun, He loves us enough to let His only Son die for us, so He does not do that. But God does tests or let us be tested, not more than we are able to handle, like Job. We can't ask God why does He test us, because God does not need to tell us why. He is God and has His reasons. We can't blame Him for that is wrong. But we need to honor God for He lets bad things happen to us, and turns it into something good and bring glory to His name like Joseph's life.

On a side note, how to endure through all the bad things. Sometimes we have to do it alone, with God! But sometimes we have people to help us too. On Friday, I went to the Campus Meeting, yeaauuy. The Campus Meeting group discussion was about, how as a group, like Lifegroup can we be devoted and steadfast, I think =P. Not my point, my point is that from the scriptures of Acts 4 when Peter saved the multitudes, those multitudes grouped together and helped each other physically, food, housing, etc... and spiritually. So when we are having bad times, we need a group of people or friends who are spiritually strong so that they can help us, pray for us, and give wisdomful(Its a word, in my dictionary that is) advice.

What if we don't have a group? Then join a Lifegroup or create your own. Start with you and 2 other people, and let God enlarge it further. Don't worry if you don't seem to have people, when we are in need(the right types of needs) God will provide, one way or another.

Strengthening the group. So this is where the discussion of steadfastness and devotedness comes in comes in, I guess :P.(Oh devotedness is a spelling error =/ whyyyy)

Well strengthening the group is quite straight forward.

1. Always socialize with the group and build a relationship whereby all types of walls are broken down and that you can relate with the group like how best friends do.
2. Encourage the group, never bring down people; for it is a really really really really big sin to bring down people, it is in the Bible. Share testimonies and like what you learn from your mistakes. Your experiences.

>_< notes ="/." _="....

This teaches me to NEVER THROW AWAY THE NOTES UNTIL I AM DONE WITH IT.

=)

I feel like I need to start my own group, well not group la. Like just me and some dude, I don't really want world wide domination. OH BOY TOMORROWS MONDAY... yay...