Contributed by Bro Daniel Chow

The Empty Chair!

Author Unknown

A man's daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her father. When the minister arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows. An empty chair sat beside his bed. The minister assumed that the old fellow had been informed of his visit. "I guess you were expecting me," he said. "No, who are you?" said the father.
The minister told him his name and then remarked, "I see the empty chair; I figured you knew I was going to show up."
"Oh yeah, the chair," said the bedridden man. "Would you mind closing the door?" Puzzled, the minister shut the door. "I have never told anyone this, not even my daughter," said the man. But all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it went right over my head." "I abandoned any attempt at prayer," the old man continued, "until one day about four years ago my best friend said to me, "Johnny, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus. Here is what I suggest."
"Sit down in a chair; place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see Jesus on the chair. It's not spooky because he promised, "I'll be with you always." "Then just speak to him in the same way you're doing with me right now."
"So, I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day. I'm careful though. If my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she'd either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the mental hospital."
The minister was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old man to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with him, and returned to the church office.
Two nights later the daughter called to tell the minister that her daddy had died that afternoon. "Did he die in peace?" he asked.
"Yes, when I left the house about two o' clock, he called me over to his bedside, told me he loved me and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead.
But there was something strange about his death. Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on the chair beside the bed. What do you make of that?"
The minister wiped a tear from his eye and said, "I wish we could all go like that."

Be still and know that I AM GOD

I recalled a sister asking me how early do i start my morning watch as it is not easy to wake up early. This is my replied to her : to begin, for many years, i failed many times with regards to have a morning watch, indeed it is very tired and even if i will to open my bible, my spirit is willing but my flesh is weak. So i have my night watch instead. But lately, after our Lord Jesus revealed to me that it is best to come to HIM in the morning, so I tried again. This time is different, no only i am awake, i experience numerous times that our Lord Jesus speak to me, otherwise i do not have so many words to share to all of u. I choose not to prepare the night before, but i want a fresh speaking in the morning. So i have tasted His Faithfulness. You have to taste the goodness of HIM, and it is very important to have a intimate relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. Coming to HIM early in the morning will give a wonderful time to start your brand new day, of course, no guarantee that your day do not have problem or stress, but you will begin a lesson to learn to trust HIM more, lean on HIM more, acknowledge HIM more as you know that HE will surely direct your path. HE will show you, guide you and even teach you to handle all situation. (Proverb 3:5-6)

"Hide me now,Under Your wings.Cover me within Your mighty Hands.When the oceans rise and thunders roar,I will soar with You above the storm. Father, You are King over the floods.I will be still and know You are God. Find rest my soul, In Christ alone. Know His power, In quietness and trust."

Let not....and so....

Let not mercy and truth forsake you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart, And so find favor and high esteem In the sight of God and man. (Proverb 3:3-4)

Praise the Lord, verses i found concerning "neck". Read and mediate and may our Lord Jesus Christ revealed to you the significant of of "neck" in the bible. And the closeness between our neck and our heart. Glory be to HIM.
Job 41:22 Strength dwells in his neck, And sorrow dances before him.
2Ch 36:13 And he also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear an oath by God; but he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the LORD God of Israel.
Deu 31:27 for I know your rebellion and your stiff neck. If today, while I am yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against the LORD, then how much more after my death?
Pro 29:1 He who is often rebuked, and hardens his neck, Will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
Jer 17:23 But they did not obey nor incline their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear nor receive instruction.
Exo 13:13 But every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb; and if you will not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. And all the firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem.
Son 4:4 Your neck is like the tower of David, Built for an armory, On which hang a thousand bucklers, All shields of mighty men.

Gen 41:42 Then Pharaoh took his signet ring off his hand and put it on Joseph's hand; and he clothed him in garments of fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck.
Gen 49:8 "Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; Your father's children shall bow down before you.
Deu 28:48 therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you.

Love His Word

Dearest all, this morning we will come to the book of Proverb 3. I came across this Proverb when we were reading with the Polytechnic student. And this is one of the Proverb that our Good Lord Jesus Christ revealed to me regarding "cause and effect", that is "if" and "then".
From the above the verses, well, there are many people who have length of days and long life, but what they lack is PEACE. The Lord says :
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. (John 14:27)
But before we talk about Peace, do we truly know HIM. Before we talk about "forget HIS LAW & Keep HIS COMMAND in our heart", do we read HIS WORD?
Lately, i have encountered saints who "stuck" in the book for years. For example : You begin with Genesis or Matthew and you started to read, but because of your inconsistency, you stop for a long while, and when you recalled to read the bible thru the encouragement of the saints, you forgot where you were the last time, so what happen? you begin from the beginning. As a result, forever in the book of Genesis or Matthew. If you are one of them : firstly, get a book-mark, secondly, ask the Lord to help you to see the important of reading HIS WORD which is The Bread Of LIFE. The Life that pleases HIM. Thirdly: Just read thru even you do not understand. I assure you, you will get to know as you grow in HIM.
But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Tim 3:14-17)

Are u one of them?

Hi, are u one of them? one of them that you see "them" every morning when you are in the MRT or in the bus, looking at their restless, motionless face (be it eye close or eye open). I said to my wife as i was looking at the vehicle beside me; "Mummy, look at her face, face of no hope for the day ahead."
But look at us, we are able to praise HIM and tks HIM for the morning that HE has given to us. Singing hymn and looking forward to the day ahead.
I guess, the secret is : Come near to HIM first thing in the morning. That is what our Good Lord has shown me. Even since i woke up early to prepare verses for the saints, i come to our Heavenly Father first, alway begun with a short prayer and tks HIM for the morning.
Thereafter, i will turn on the Chinese hymn "祷告” to let my children hear while they are preparing for school. Ya, they are able to memorize some of the stences :), and my wife will have her quiet time while waiting for me.
I will also turn on the CD (Christian music) in my car, and sometime, my wife and i will pray after a hymn. So sweet right :) .
YOU CAN ALSO...... be it single or couple. Just have to keep yourself walking with the Lord before the "world" comes into you between 9am-6pm. The Lord say that He is the Rewarder to those who diligently seek HIM.
Take care, and God Bless.
Shalom

Our God is Great!

When you've prayed every prayer that you know how to pray. Just remember the Lord will hear and the answer is on it's way. Our God is able. He is mighty. He is faithful.
And He never sleeps, He never slumbers. He never tires of hearing our prayer. When we are weak He becomes stronger. So rest in His love and cast all of your cares on Him. Do you feel that the Lord has forgotten your need. Just remember that God is always working in ways you cannot see.

And DO REMEMBER, Our God is able. He is mighty. He is faithful.
Amen!

Relationship with Our Heavenly Father

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Do not take the love of saints and God for granted

"In the church, we all enjoy the love of saints. For example, every Sunday morning those chairs that we sit on, was it arranged by
itself? It should be some saints with love and arrange the chairs.Another example, every 3rd Sunday we have love feast in hall one. Who does the ordering? Who arrange the plate and fork? Those saints who help to scoop the rice and vegetable are always the last to eat. What is these, all these are love from saints and we take it as granted. And what about those saints who does visiting weekly?

Even sometimes you see saints doing something wrong and you rebuke them, this is because of love, if not, why I waste my energy to
correct somebody not related to me. On the other hand, it is easy to let somebody fall, whenever he/she did anything wrong and yet you didn't correct him/her and let him/her to carrying on doing wrong."

Tks for the dear brother's contribution. i guess at the end of the day, may we all see in order to be love, you need to love. Just as what our Lord Jesus Christ says:
Luke 6:31 And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.
I recalled the story that found in the book of Nehemiah, where all do their parts to built the wall of Jerusalem. Dear saints, what we are doing, be it serving and loving one another, all these is to remind, encourage one another to draw near to GOD each moment of our lives. To race the heavenly race together and that His Church be Built. Above all do not take granted of the love that our brothers and sister and our Lord Jesus had for us.
He is looking forward to receiving HIS BRIDE. And we are looking to be received by our Bridegroom. What a blessed and glorious HOPE.

Praise the Lord.

Serving HIM is the Most Glorious thing.

This is our God and our Lord. He is THE ONE who made Heaven, Honor, Majesty, Strength and Gladness belong to HIM, belong to HIM. Do you see how Great a GOD we have and yet how often we see ourselves "greater" than HE IS? Lately i have this "strong" disturbing feeling within me concerning serving our GREAT GOD. Because i feel that many of us do not feel "proud" of serving our Lord. i hope you understand the word "proud". it speak of our attitude, our zeal, or priority and above all, to feel honour. i mean who are we to serve HIM, yet it is HIS LOVE that attract me to give myself to HIM. Be it serving HIM full-time or serving HIM while we have our own job.
Compare to the secular world, our attitude toward our job, especially if you have be hired by a renowned company, you will tell yourself, i will give my "101%", isn't it? but when come to serve our Lord, where is our zeal. Well, many of us would say that we are tied down by our work. Putting HIM in our least priority.
Mar 8:36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?
Mar 8:37 Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
Mat 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
I pray that our Lord will reveal to all of us that the most Glorious thing in our life is to serve HIM.
I remember this hymn :
The Greatest thing in my life is knowing YOU.
The Greatest thing in my life is loving YOU.
The Greatest thing in my life is serving YOU.
It is an honour that we can serve HIM, not because we can, but HE IS ABLE. Shalom.

Learn to Sing Hymn.

They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: "Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints! Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. For all nations shall come and worship before You, For Your judgments have been manifested." (Rev 15:3-4)

Ten thousand thanks to Jesus,Whose life our ransom paid,
Whose blood a full atonement,For all the world has made.
Let every heart adore Him;Let every creature sing
Ten thousand thanks to Jesus,Our Savior and our King.

Ten thousand thanks,Ten thousand thanks,
We'll praise Him o'er and o'er;And for the life with Him to live,Ten thousand thousand more!

Ten thousand thanks to Jesus;How gladly would we give
Ten thousand lives to Jesus,Had we so long to live.
Ten thousand tongues shall praise Him,Ten thousand songs ascend
To Him, our blest Redeemer,To Him, our dearest Friend!

Ten thousand thanks to Jesus, for blessings every hour;
Ten thousand times ten thousand, for love's redeeming power;
And when we hear His welcome beyond the rolling sea,
His love thro' endless ages, Our sweetest song shall be!

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/t/t/tttjesus.htm

I am refreshed by His Living Word

A covenant is one that reflects the commitment of the other and is initiated for the benefit of the other person, founded on unconditional promises, based on steadfast love, views commitment as permanent.

Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Despite the Israelites numerously sinned against God, the covenant that God had for Israel never change. His Love towards them never change, once His chosen people, will forever be His chosen people.
Today, we have a new covenant:
Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom." (Matt 26:27-29)
Heb 9:15 And for this reason He (Jesus Christ) is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. It is not how we feel but what HE SAY. Sometime we have to rebuke the evil ones in the name of Jesus Christ whenever we have doubt in our salvation. Do not look at yourself, look at the one who give you LIFE, PEACE, LOVE etc. Look onto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. We are His children, and that is a fact, We are HIS CHILDREN. His covenant toward us will fulfilled. I believed, do you? I believed and am looking forward toward the day where i will drink again with my Lord in my Father's Kingdom on that day. Come, Lord Jesus come. Praise the Lord!!! I am rejoice and i am refreshed. Hallelujah.

Remember our Creator

We have lots and lots of memories to be remembered in our life, especially our childhood days, our school days. When we are sad, we are told to remember those happy moment in your life, you be happy.
God of Abraham, Jacob and Isaac, Crossing of the Red Sea, The Cross, Our Lord's Incarnation, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, Holy Spirit etc. has been many times in the Bible. Not forgetting Our Lord Jesus Christ want us to remember the Lord's Table. How much do you remember our Lord? He saves us and that is all?
He wants us to remember HIM, remember that He is The Great "I AM", He is a Faithful God who never change His Promises. A God that cannot lies. His has done so many wondrous works in our lives. The hymn : Count His blessing, name them one by one. May we not only remembers those wondrous works that He has done, may we also remember that we are all His Chosen Ones.
And remember that He is doing a wondrous work on you every day. You may not agreed with me right now, but many years later, if you look back, you will thank God for all His blessing and wondrous works that He has done on you. Remember the story of "footprint"?
Praise the Lord! Continue to trust in HIM, and give all your heart to HIM. Love HIM with all your soul, mind, heart and strength.

Bro Kian Heng Sharing

Thanks bro, I’m very encouraged by the following verses in Nehemiah 9:16-21 today. The goodness and compassion of our heavenly Father never fails.

"But they, our forefathers, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and did not obey your commands. They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, 'This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,' or when they committed awful blasphemies.

"Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the desert. By day the pillar of cloud did not cease to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst. For forty years you sustained them in the desert; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen.

So we have every reason to rejoice and love Him.

Look to HIM and you will rejoice.

Are you rejoice, dearest Saints? are you rejoice? you may say :"look at the mess in my life or if you look at the things that had happened recently or surrounding me, how to rejoice?" Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! (Phil 4:4). To be rejoice is to look at HIM and not at other things. This is the secret to rejoice. Remember this hymn?
Turn our eye upon Jesus, and look at His wonderful face, and the things on earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His Glory and Grace.
I not saying that you bypass or ignore the problem rather you have to continue to face the problem in the life. I shared recently in the home meeting that there were 2 occasions that our Lord's disciple experience the stormy sea. One is where the Lord slept on the boat, and the other is where Peter walked on the water. Do you think that our Lord do not know the storm is coming, and if it is told by the Lord to ask them to cross to the other, isn't this His will? look at Peter, when his eye fixed on Jesus, he really walk on the water, but the moment he look at the surrounding, he began to sink. But God is faithful, He saved Peter. He is always there for all of us. U can only rejoice if you see that He is and He is the God that cares for us and will saved us thru all the circumstances. REJOICE, ye saints of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sharing from Bro Chong Hau

Yesterday I really enjoyed the following verses in Revelation 3:20-22

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches". (NKJV)

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Our Lord desired everyone to be an overcomer. In this critical age, he even proactively stand at the door to knock on us. The key is whether we hear His voice and opens our heart to Him. For many times, I may not know my lack in God, unless I go through a tribulation just like what God promised to the conditions of 7 churches in revelation. Hence, if I desired to be an overcomer, there is no other ways but to actively listen to the "still and quiet" voice of God and allow the Spirit to work in me. For several times, He urges us to "HEAR what the Spirit says to the churches"

And doing what the Spirit says requires my OBEDIENCE before God.

Listen and Obey is what I learned.

Thank God for his grace and mercy,

Chong Hau