Our Shepherd

Below are notes that I took from Jan 11, 2010 BSF Lecture and handout, here is the disclaimer for the notes.

John 10 – Jesus is the Good Shepherd

Once upon a time, there was a performance on Psalm 23.   Two persons have been invited to do the performance.  The 1st person, is very good performer, he also has excellent presentation skills.  As he was doing the performance, the audience were yelling, clapping their hands.  At the end of the performance, the audience even yell for “Encore!!”.

After the 1st performance has ended, an old man, slowly walks up to the stage, started reading Psalm 23 slowly. After he finishes the Psalm, everyone were quiet, going into a deep devotion and some even pray.

As the old man walked down the stage, the 1st performer came out, and said to the audiences. “There is something I want to say.  I want to confess.  After watching the performance.. I know that….I know Psalm, however.. my friend here…he knows the shepherd”.

This story touches me a lot, do I really know my Lord, the great Shepherd? Or I just think I know?

The scripture tell us that Jesus’ has a special relationship with His sheep.

• He knows His sheep by name, every joy, burden that sheep is facing, every strength, weakness that the sheep has.  And He always stands ready in time for the sheep needs.
• He never leave us, and no one can take us away from Him
• When Jesus saw dangers coming to His sheep, He did what He can to save us.  He love the sheep to the point that He is willing to give us His life, and He did.

When I watched Passion of the Christ, I cried. When I think of what Jesus did to me, I cried. I often asked why, Jesus, the creator of the whole universe would come to earth, for sinful human like me, and suffered for us. There is really nothing I did or nothing I can do that worth His love, it’s all Grace. He don’t have to come, but he choose to come, to save us, and show us how to live a richer and abundant life.

He came the the world that He created, and yet the world rejected him.. (John 1:11).  When I think of the scene where people made fun on Him, tortured Him.. and still, he chose to go on the cross, suffered, and died for us at the end.

Jesus said “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” (John 10:18)

All because of the fact that He created us, and He loves us.  He didn’t just leave us, and let us suffer. One may ask, why do Jesus has to died in order save us?  It is because of Hebrews 9:22.

I hope that we all get to know and experience our great Shepherd, because we are not walking our life alone, our Lord, the Great Shepherd is always looking for us, and waiting for us to come back to Him.

Miracles

Below are notes that I took from Jan 4, 2010 BSF Lecture, here is the disclaimer for the notes.

John 9 – Jesus gives sight to a man born blind

Have you ever prayed for something to happen? and when you see that it actually happened, you tried to explained how it happens in your own way?

In the scripture, there is a man who is born blind.  Jesus healed that person with saliva mixed with mud.  (Note that he was born blind, it is not a fix, Jesus actually created vision for that person).  The Pharisees did not believe it, and they started to investigate by questioning different people, including the man’s parent.  The Miracle is right in front of them, but yet, they don’t believe, they kept questioning it until they cannot question anymore, and at the end, they threw the man out.

Many times Miracles is right in front of our eyes, but yet, we missed it.. perhaps we are really blind sometimes.  I wish we have a better spiritual vision.  Sometimes we would even question about it and try to give explanations to the miracle as well.

Reflect:

• Give full credit to God when your prayer has been answered, and do not try to explain how it happened.
• Our Lord Jesus is powerful, yep, including his saliva too :)
• When the blind man knows Jesus is the son of God, he worshiped Him.  If Jesus stands in front of you today, what will be your reaction?

Below I’ve attached Amazing Grace, a song that we sang tonight.. the lyric goes… “I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now, I see”.. matches the scripture so well..

A few years ago, I was lost, I was sad.. and I didn’t know what I was doing…but God came and saved me, open my eyes to learn, to see, to love and to experience Him.  I still remember the night when I re-accepted Jesus, I was alone on my bed and my tears were falling like a river… from that night on, I started to rebuild my relationship with God.  Thanks God for loving me… Amen.

Freedom

Below are notes that I took from Dec 16, 2009 BSF Lecture and handout, here is the disclaimer for the notes.

John 8 – The adulterous woman and the controversy at the Feast of Tabernacles

8:1-11 – Jesus is setup to judge the adulterous woman

Here in the scripture, the Pharisees has setup a trap for Jesus where both choices are bad, if Jesus answered that the woman should be stoned, He would, in the eyes of the people, lose something of His reputation for mercy and for being the friend of sinners.  If He called for the woman’s death, He would become a criminal int he eyes of the Roman government since Roman law forbade any Jew from exercising the power to sentence a person to death.  If on the other hand, Jesus said this woman should be pardoned, then they would accuse Him of breaking the law of Moses and, by condoning adultery, encouraging others to commit this sin.   But Jesus didn’t answer them, instead, he dispute the qualifications for punishing someone else.

Reflect:   In our daily life, we often hear other people fall into their sins.

• It is so easy to fall into gossiping, the discussion may not be doing anyone good but to make the situation worst.
• Need to be careful not to be the one who stone the person but the one who pray for them.
• Not to look for people’s sin, or their secret sin.  Before talkin about someone’s sin, it’s always better to first look at our own.

8:12-59 – Jesus calls Himself Light of the World, and the source of Freedom

Jesus first reveal Himself as the light of the world (8:12-20) – To live by His light is to see clearly the meaning of life.

Secondly, Jesus speaks of His departure to heaven (8:21-30) – He warns His hearers that if they choose not to commit themselves to Him, they cannot go where He is going – heaven.  To reject or ignore Jesus has eternal consequences.

Thirdly, Jesus reveals Himself as the source of freedom (8:31-59) – He tells how to be free from slavery to sin.

I personally has an experienced on how Jesus granted me freedom.  A few years ago, I used to download a lot, everyday I look for free download and I was proud of it.  I share the downloads with friends and family.  I feel like I’m helping everyone around me!  Although in my heart, I know it is not the right thing to do, but I still feel happy about it.  I enjoy looking at the download progress as well.  I like organizing my downloads; all my songs are nicely labeled with CD covers.  It is taking away a lot of my time,  it is actually eating my life.. I know it, but I just cannot let go of it….

Until one day, Jesus gave me an alert and helped me to stop all my download activity, from then on, I’m free from download!  I do not need to look for free downloads anymore, I don’t need to organize my downloaded files, no need to think about how to back up.   Everytime I want to download, I just pray pray pray…everytime I want a free software, I pray again…I tell myself that if there is something that I need in my life, Jesus will prepare it for me, I don’t have to worry about it, or spend time to get it.. and I can always ask Him, He is the creator, He has everything!  :) haha.. and here, is an example of how Jesus free myself from download.

Bible Study Fellowship (BSF)

In case you are trouble with your devotion, perhaps this is a solution for you!

A few years ago, my auntie in Hong Kong has invited me to go to a Bible study group call BSF.  She said that it is an international group, and there is a group in Toronto.  My auntie has always been my spiritual teacher, giving me guidance on my spiritual journey, and I believe she has always been praying for me all these years to be in love with God as well.  I should have really listen to her back then, but I did not. 

Perhaps I thought the teachings from church is already good enough, perhaps I thought I can read Bible on my own, and if I need to, I can always just read more books or do researches on the internet. Perhaps I just didn’t put reading God’s word a high priority of my life.

Well, over the last 2 years, I’ve always rely on myself to do devotion, most of the time, either I leave it until the last minute before sleep or try to wake up early in the morning to do prayer and devotion (just like Jesus, but I think I’ve only done it once! and that once was an accident where I accidentally fell asleep the night before at 9!).  As you can see, it just doesn’t work for me!

Last month when I was in Hong Kong, my auntie once again asked me to go to BSF (See how nice is my auntie? and God, who never give up on us!).  This time, I’ve accepted it and I’ve told myself, I must go and hope the group can help me read the Bible.

So, when I came back, I found out that the meeting time for the Toronto group is on Monday night, and last week, I’ve finally decided to go.  Well, guess what… It is really THAT GOOD!  I thank God as I was driving home that He has leaded me to this group.  There are many people from different cultures who attend the fellowship, they all study and discuss together.  There are trained leaders who will help lead the discussion as well.  I’ve met a guy call Doug who has spent 40 mins doing the introduction of BSF for me.  He shared how he got into the group and what God did to help him change his busy schedule so that he can come.  It was really amazing.

So why is it so good?  Because the BSF uses four methods to help us study:

1. Daily Questions – for personal study everyday (they are actually very inspiring)
2. Discussion Groups – where insights are shared
3. Expository Lectures – with applications for daily living
4. Printed Notes – distributed to members attending each week, these are high quality commentary

After a week, you have studied the same bible verse using a total of 4 different methods, I can really tell myself “I really know a lot more in the Bible verse than before.”  These people run the classes seriously with commitments. Their seminars are also very rich in content, helpful for us to live out our belief.  And best of all, you have a group of peer who has the same interest, studying together with you!  Which creats an environment that ace your study.  I am really starting to enjoy BSF.  I hope this fire inside me will last for a long time!

Well, I really hope you have a chance to go as well, check out their website and see if there is a class close to you.  Maybe you will like it as much as I do :)  If you have busy schedule, perhaps try praying to God and see if He will open a door for you, I have faith He will open the door for you just like what He did to Doug, you’ll be surprise! :)

我的心你要稱頌耶和華

我的心你要稱頌耶和華

我的心，你要稱頌耶和華，不可忘記祂的恩惠。
祂赦免你一切過犯罪孽，醫治你疾病復原。

我的心，你要稱頌耶和華，不可忘記祂的恩惠。
祂以仁愛慈悲為你冠冕，為受屈的人伸冤。

天離地有何等的高，祂的慈愛也可等的深，
東離西有多麼的遠，祂使我的過犯也離我多遠，

耶和華有憐憫的愛，且有豐盛無盡的恩典，
從亙古直到永遠，耶和華祂是我的神。

We Are the World

We Are the World

There comes a time
When we head a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
And it’s time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all

We can’t go on
Pretneding day by day
That someone, somewhere will soon make a change
We are all a part of
God’s great big family
And the truth, you know love is all we need

We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let’s start giving
There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
It’s true we’ll make a better day
Just you and me

Send them your heart
So they’ll know that someone cares
And their lives will be stronger and free
As God has shown us by turning stone to bread
So we all must lend a helping hand

We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let’s start giving
There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
It’s true we’ll make a better day
Just you and me

When you’re down and out
There seems no hope at all
But if you just believe
There’s no way we can fall
Well, well, well, well, let us realize
That a change will only come
When we stand together as one

We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let’s start giving
There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
It’s true we’ll make a better day
Just you and me

I’ll be There

I’ll be There by The Jackson 5

You and I must make a pact
We must bring salvation back
Where there is love
I’ll be there
I’ll reach out my hand to you
I’ll have faith in all you do
Just call my name
And I’ll be there

I’ll be there to comfort you
Build my world of dreams around you
I’m so glad I found you yeah
I’ll be there with a love so strong
I’ll be your strength
You know I’ll keep holding on

Let me fill your heart with joy and laughter
Togetherness, well it’s all I’m after
Just call my name and
I’ll be there
I’ll be there to protect you
With an unselfish love that respects you
Just call my name
And I’ll be there

I’ll be there to comfort you
Build my world of dreams around you
You know I’m so glad that I found you
I’ll be there with a love so strong
I’ll be your strength
You know I’ll keep holding on

See, if you should ever find someone new
I know she better be good to you
‘Cause if she doesn’t then
I’ll be there

Don’t you know baby yeah yeah
I’ll be there
I’ll be there
Just call my name and
I’ll be there

I’ll be there, baby
You know I’ll be there
Just call my name and
I’ll be there
Just look over your shoulder
Just call my name and
I’ll be there