Be near me, Lord Jesus...Light of the World...

The ultimate Light has come to our dark world.
He came in a form of a baby, God wrapped in a flesh, for He is called "Immanuel" which means, "God with us." The ultimate Gift for us all, Him who's light is so bright... that those who their life have been touch by Him have that light also.

He commands us, His followers that "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

A new dawn is coming, a new chapter is coming for us as the new year is approaching. Let's be that Light, to act justly everyday, loving mercy in every way and walking humbly before our God. God came to this world because He loves all of us and He for a reason beyond my own understanding He actually cares for us and wants to save us, so we can be with Him someday in Heaven.
Now the challenge is "How people that don't believe that God is good and loving may see that He is actually good and loving?". We, His people, are the answer. It may seem like a bad plan to leave God's rescue plan to all of us, the imperfect selfish people. Nevertheless that is part of His plan to show that He is good and full of love. But we are not alone, those who has put his/her trust in Christ Jesus has the gift of Holy Spirit that will guide us, renew us, inspire us and convict us. Jesus promises us also that He will be with us to the very end of the age.

So let's us a group in the coming year try to be that light, show our good deeds, be more loving to our friends, our family, people that God has put in our path and importantly strangers. Let's lovingly challenge each other in these areas, to be the Light-bearer to all people. This is not just a cliche that we read in a Christmas card, we can actually do this.

With that I wish all of you a wonderful and a Merry Christmas. Stay warm, share laugh and love with family, friends...
Thank you Lord Jesus.


You have shown us, what You require
Freely we've received
Now freely we will give

We must go live to feed the hungry
Stand beside the broken
We must go

Stepping forward keep us from just singing
Move us into action
We must go

Fill us up with Your spirit and send us out
Fill us up with Your spirit and send us out
Fill us up with Your spirit and send us out Lord

THE COMPASSION OF CHRIST (RECAP)

Who is Matthew? (Matt 9:9-13)
• A Tax collector, accountant, has a good job, well educated
• One of Jesus’ disciples
• Instant submission (v.9), left everything he has behind and followed Jesus
• Gaul (v.10), invited his tax-collector friends for a dinner with Jesus

Bible Reading on Matthew 9:18-38
v.18-19 Jairus, a leader of synagogue, asked Jesus to come to his place to bring his daughter, who just died, to live.

v.20-22 While walking towards Jairus’ place, a woman who suffered from bleeding for 12 yrs touched his robe. She was considered unclean in the society.

v.23-26 Jesus got into Jairus’ place, people didn’t believe in Jesus, there were asked to leave, and Jesus brought the girl to live.

v.27-31 Continue journey…
Two blind men called Jesus as “The Son of David”, which means The Messiah, to get his attention but Jesus kept walking.
Isaiah prophecy about the ability of The Messiah to heal the blind and the mute in Isaiah 29:18, 35:5, and 42:7.
They followed Jesus, and got healed. Jesus was actually tested their faith and persistence.

v.32-34 The blind men brought their mute/demon possessed friend to Jesus. The mute was healed, but Pharisees accused Jesus using Satan force.

v.35-38 Jesus was doing this whole thing not as a miracle worker, but to show his compassion and healing to the sick world.
Jesus is God, he created the world in fine condition (Genesis 1:31), but all he sees now is sick people and their troubles.

Summary:
Compassion without action is just a pity, or feels sorry.
We need to get out of our comfort zone and do more effort to put our compassion in action.

What's on your wallpaper?

When I worked in SF, I was given the client laptop to use (separate from my company's laptop). I knew I would use it for quite a while, so I started customizing it. One of my favorite things to do is changing the computer screen saver.
As with my other laptops, I set the screen saver to display pictures in My Pictures folder. I want it to display bible verses, instead of other pictures, so.. I have a few templates in Word that I can type in the verses. For each page, I take the screen snapshot and save the picture in My Documents -> My Pictures folder. This is one example:


After a while, I got bored with my wallpaper, too. So I decided to look for a background wallpaper with bible verses in it. Then I found one with this verse in it: Matthew 6:19-21, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

At first I thought of this only to help me memorize verses. But what happened was.. after I started working from Chicago, my laptop was used by a team mate in SF, and apparently he never changed this wallpaper. Just a few weeks ago he told me that now the only bible verse he remembered is Matthew 6:19-21, the one on the wallpaper!
I am never sure if he is a believer, but regardless, it's great to know that he now remembers one bible verse :)

I bring this up just as an idea. If you are bored with your screen saver or wallpaper, try this idea. You can also pick a nice picture as a template, add a bible verse on it (by using Paint), and use it as wallpaper. This way, you can change it every week or so, and use that to memorize bible verses :)