I've just come from the Throne Room.

down from the mountain, to live in the valley. :)

wow wow wow. where do i start?
God is so so amazing! :D
i thank Him for the work that He is doing in my heart, in my life.
so much from the exchange life has got me thinking...

i wish i could shoutout and tell all christians about this Christ Life!
cos its the normal Christian Life! (:
its like, taking it in today's terms,
we are offered an iPhone. but we reject it and want to carry on using our Nokia 3310!
*Nokia 3310 is a really really old model.
haha. getting the picture a little?

okayy, let me try to describe life for most Christians (including me)
this is from my experience growing up from a Christain background...
we come into this world, for those of us who have Christian families,
we are made familar to the things of God from a young age.
we go to church every Sunday, sometimes we may tag along for the mid-week prayer meeting.
our parents may have family devotions with us everyday.
they teach us good Christian moral values.
we learn that a 'good person', a 'spiritual' person looks like this.
and so we grow up striving to be this person. the person everyone is pleased with. who looks soo good from the outside.

as we grow up...
some may succeed at becoming the 'good/spiritual' person others may not be too good at it.
but nevertheless, we all try..
and as we grow up, we start to be introduced to the things of this world, we start to be influenced to think the way the world thinks. and subtly, without knowing, we are no more the 'good' person that we once were. or for those who still succeed at being 'good', the outside is good, but the inside is rotting.

and we all wonder what on earth are we here for?
whats the meaning of life with all this pain and all?
why am i so lonely, so miserable?
why am i feeling so empty!!!? (though i am a Christian, and i thought Christians aren't supposed to feel empty..so why the emptiness?)

ah, ever felt like that?
i have. and the worst part is, my outside looked so good, but on the inside, i was dying. dying.
i always asked God, where is this abundant life that you promised?
how come i don't have it? how come so empty?

but my heart is so proud. you wouldn't beleive this, but i was so self-righteous that i thought i did not have sin! imagine that. or even if i had sin, it wasn't alot.
i thought that way cos i only looked on the outside.
outwardly, i was not rude, not angry, not rebellious....
so that equated to = good?
nah!
inside was stinking! yucks! so much pride, jealously, comparision...pride was the biggest. it blinded me to think that i was somebody. that i had it.
awful right?
welcome, please meet - the FLESH.
that is the FLESH.
im just so disgusted at my flesh! eeeee!

okay back to the iPhone and Nokia 3310 thing..
you see, before I got saved(accepted Jesus to save me from sin) i was a Nokia 3310 model. everyone starts out as a Nokia 3310 model. in this model, we are dead. spiritually dead i mean. and sin's penalty and power still has control over the Nokia 3310.

but.. when I put my trust in Jesus Chirst,

He makes me a new creation! :) praise God!
do you believe so?
you may not feel it, you may not think it,
but it is true!
why? cos God said it, and God can't lie.
He said in 2 Cor 5:17
"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new."
yupp, the analogy is limited and cannot expressed all that happened at Salvation, but think with me.. when we trusted in Christ, the model of our phone, from being a lau pok pok Nokia 3310 we become an iPhone! (: we become a totally new creature. new on the inside(smth this analogy cannot express)

so..
we are the iPhone right?
being an iPhone we have become alive and sin's penalty and power has no more rule over us.
but then many of us, yeah we are the iPhone on the outside right, but we don't like the inside of the iPhone, we don't like the functions...so, we go and get the inside changed back to the old Nokia 3310 functions. and we go on though life like that...

im sorry this analogy does not totally signify the spiritual truth here, but this is the best i can think of for now. :p will try to think of a better one soon.

ya, but basically the point is this:
many of us are given a new life in Chirst, but what does that mean to us? how does it change the way we live? it is sad that many of us go on living the same way..go on living in the flesh, and giving in to all our fleshy desires. oh, at this point, i'd like to define the flesh - the flesh is everything i am apart from Christ. yeah, so we were saying, we go on living in the flesh, and then we ask, why so empty? why no peace and joy?

and the scary thing is that we can do seemingly good things in the flesh. things like even ministry or serving God... something i fell victim to.

so you may ask, so how do we know what is done in the flesh and what is done in the Spirit?

Its not about what we do or do not do, but rather, why we do it and on whom are we depending on to do it.

take some time to think about it...
Its not about what we do or do not do, but rather, why we do it and on whom are we depending on to do it.
it all boils down to what is our functional source of life? what are we depending on to be successful in life?

and just one more point and i'm done. haha. (: thanks for bearing with me.
it's this.

so you may ask, how do i know if i'm in the Spirit?
one good way is this.
have you, today, yesterday, in the past week, been esteeming others better than yourself?
When you're in the Spirit, you'll esteem others better than themselves.
and this is somthing i've been not able to do. cos of my pride. so i was thinking about it, issn't it so hard to esteem others better than myself..then, euerka! when i am depending on Jesus to live His life through me, He will allow me to esteem others better than myself. and it issn't a tiring thing, cos hey, its not me! its Jesus living through me! :) anyway, here it says in Philppians 2 that this humility is one that Chirst had...and if Christ lives through me, then its possible! :D

3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

well, i know this has been a lllooongg post, but theres just so much cool stuff im learning! and i can't help but to share it! (: cos think of it, how revolutionary it will be if we applied what we learnt to our lives? living life in the Spirit, moment by moment, situation by situation.. what a joy life will be! :D

something to think abt as i finally end off (haha!)

It is not about me living my life for God. It is about Jesus Christ living His life through me.

not me living my life for God.
it is about Jesus Chist living His life through me... through me.
what have i to do then? simply, let Him.
let Him live His life through me.

May we let Him live His life through us! (: God, may you be glorified in our lives.

"I am Thine, O Lord and I have heard Thy voice and it told Thy love to me...draw me nearer, nearer Blessed Lord to Thee..to Thee. Take my heart, and make it Thine."