Everyday is UNIQUE

Today is 26 July 2007, Thursday and it is pouring outside right now. No work for me today and I believe that this will tentatively be my last official weekday OFF for my job. The reason is I will be going back to the normal shift starting next Monday. It will be a fresh start for me as I will be reporting to a new section, working with new colleagues and trying to get used to that five working days week from scratch again.

Last weekday OFF. 24 hours for me to use and how did I spend it so far? I woke up in the morning realizing that it is one of my church brothers’ birthday today. Next, I went to the gym for a time of working out doing mainly resistance training. Lunch was at Compass Point food court and now typing this entry as I use my new external keyboard bought only yesterday.

Need to pray to God for adjustments to my new life starting next week. Tomorrow and Saturday will be my last rotating shift to serve. After work on Saturday, I will need to shift all my ‘barang barangs’ to a new cubicle. Everything starts afresh. New challenges are waiting for me and I think I will need to continue to press on and persevere ahead as I wait upon the strength provided by my Redeemer who is Christ Himself.

Life is a journey and many times, changes will be inevitable. The only thing constant in life are the changes that we face. I thank God that He is still the same yesterday, today and forever. And because of this simple fact, I can continue to put my trust in Him for every moment in my life to face the challenges ahead.

Press on; endure with Him and we will also reign with Him one day. Let’s make our lives count for Christ today. ^^V

It’s the HEART that really matters

This is it. I am finally out of my night shift stint and currently working in the day shift. It is still that work two rest two shift pattern but overall I am still enjoying my true two days of rest after an intense 24 hours of work. Coming up in August, I will be going back to the normal shift which brings me back to the beginning when I first joined the company last year on 09 Oct 2006. I will be taking the bus at 0735 sharp and meeting those familiar morning hour rush people in my neighbourhood again.

Throughout my five months of night shift, I struggled a lot in my spiritual life. I was disheartened and came to a point that I blamed almost everyone that I see in church. I went into a state of emotion instability and was very bitter against the ministries that I was involved in. Many times, I forced myself to go for church services and realized only that I have never gave myself time to rest and reflect on what on earth I was doing at those moments. I indulged myself in serious self-gratification as I sympathized with myself for being so pitiful in my own myopic view of myself. This is termed as self-pity. I was also disillusioned with God and knew Him in my own limited human wisdom. Those days were really dark moments in my life.

The turning point came when I went for my church retreat. ‘What was I building in my life?’ was one question asked during the retreat. Do you all still remember the six steps of obedience? Oh yes, obedience. A simple nine-letter word but to live it out is so tough. I prayed to God to teach and enlightened me. I went back to His Word to find the answer. I stopped to catch His voice so that I won’t miss Him speaking to me. I mediated…

After the retreat or rather during the last evening of the retreat, I received a call from office and was told that I will report for day shift after my leave. It was a sudden turn of events and subsequently I started to learn a great lesson from God from that day till now. As I gathered my thoughts plus mediation from His Word, I realized that in the journey with Jesus in our spiritual lives, there is only one thing which matters – our hearts.

Many times, I studied God’s Word diligently but to live out His Word in my life, I failed terribly. The sole reason is all that studying of His Word is left only in my mind which is eighteen inches away from an important place that it must reach which is my heart. All my complaining and grumbling of many issues during my night shift stint comes only from an incorrect heart attitude towards God.

I finally discovered that in order to serve with joy, the first priority is to ensure that your heart attitude is the same as that of Jesus Christ! (Phi 2:5) It was shocking that I forgot what I have once mentioned earlier which is JOY means Jesus first, Others second and You last. And two verses before that is, ‘Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.’ (Phi 2:3-4)

God was practically asking me why I am so frustrated when in the first place I did not get my heart condition right. He is always looking at my heart. Once I get my heart condition right before Him, everything else will fall in place. How silly I was all this while. Through these weeks of mediating and thinking on what He has said in His Word has dawned on me finally on this issue of my heart.

Recently, I have just finished reading a book by Selwyn Hughes titled, ‘The 7 Laws of Spiritual Success’ and do you all know in his opinion which is the number one law? The number one law is the primacy of worship. Does worship revolves round good music, beautiful penned worship songs and majestic singing praises to God? That is not all. If we turn to the Scripture, it says, ‘Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.’ (John 4:23-24)

I finally come into knowledge that the number one priority in my own spiritual life is to worship God. Yes, just these two words – Worship God. All other issues are falling under these two words. I failed to worship Him when I thought that I am doing all the serving without anyone recognizing my efforts. I failed to worship Him when things in ministries seem so dead. Hey cs, wake up your idea! It is not your ministry but His! Why are you so frustrated? The only answer is that I have lost my first love which is my Lord Jesus and I failed to worship and revere Him in all my service and work. Worship before work!!!

Coming this Saturday, I will be attending a combined cell meeting which will be led by my Youth Pastor. The main topic which we will be going through is Maturity in Christ. I shared a simple devotion with my cell members last Saturday in preparation for this series of combined cell meetings. Basically, I went back to Luke 14:25-35 and gave three simple truths that I gathered from my Lord pertaining to the cost of being a disciple of Christ.

The three truths which I gathered are as follows:
We are to put Christ as our number one priority in our lives – (Luke 14:26)
We are be obedient to His Word – (Luke 14:27)
We are to surrender everything to Him which includes our sins – (Luke 14:33)

Looking at these three truths, one common thing still stands out here. I cannot do all three if my heart refuses to. Therefore, the only action point to execute before doing all these three things is to check my heart condition daily before God.

Hence, cs needs to check and check again to ensure that his heart Is right before God. Please give him a punch on his face if you find that he is deviating from Christ’s heart attitude. Please give him a tight slap on his face if he complains again about ministries. He will be most grateful for you are helping him to stay on track. =)

Hope this helps. Remember that one should never give up on his / her spiritual life. God Bless.

The Tabernacle ~会幕~

张学友演唱会就在今夜！

我面试时的题目 ~好难!~

5个海盗分钻石
这是一个有趣的“智力游戏题”：

5个海盗抢到了100颗质地完全一样的钻石，但又不愿意平分，最后5个人同意抓阄解决：按照1，2，3，4，5的抓阄结果，将5个人编号。抓到1的是1号，抓到2的是2号，依次类推。现由抓到“1”的1号海盗提出分配方案，为了防止他分配不公，海盗们达成一致：他的方案必须有所有人（包括1号自己）的半数以上（注意，必须大于50％）通过才可执行。否则，他将被杀死，再由2号海盗提出分配方案，2号的方案也要所有剩下的人（包括他自己）的半数以上通过。否则他也将被杀死，依次类推。假设这5个海盗都贪婪成性、残忍无比、绝顶聪明而又一诺千金，都想自己得到最多，都想看到别人死去而自己活。请问，1号要怎样分配才能使自己得到的钻石最多？

解答：

要回答这个问题，一般人肯定会想到，1号必须先让另外两个人同意，所以，他可以自己得到32颗，而给2号3号各34颗。但只要仔细想想，就会发现不可能，
2号和3号有积极性让1号死，以便自己得到更多。所以，1号无奈之下，可能只有自己得0，而给2和3各50颗。但事实证明，这种做法依然不可行。为什么呢？

因为我们要先看4号和5号的反应才行。很显然，如果最后只剩下4和5，这无论4提出怎样的方案，5号都会坚决反对。即使4号提出自己要0，而把100颗钻石都给5，5也不会答应――因为5号愿意看到4号死掉。这样，5号最后顺利得到100颗钻石——因此，4的方案绝对无法获得半数以上通过，如果轮到4号分配，4号只有死，只有死！

由此可见，4号绝对不会允许自己来分。他注定是一个弱者中的弱者，他必须同意3号的任何方案！或者1号2号的合理方案。可见，如果1号2号死掉了，轮到3号分，3号可以说：我自己100颗，4号5号0颗，同意的请举手！这时候，4号为了不死，只好举手，而5号暴跳如雷地反对，但是没有用。因为3个人里面有2个人同意啊，通过率66.7％，大于50％！

由此可见，当轮到3号分配的时候，他自己100颗，4和5都是0。因此，4和5不会允许轮到3来分。如果2号能够给4和5一些利益，他们是会同意的。
比如2的分配方案是：98，0，1，1，那么，3的反对无效。4和5都能得到1，比3号来分配的时候只能得到0要好得多，所以他们不得不同意。

由此看来，2号的最大利益是98。1号要收买2号，是不可能的。在这种情况下，1号可以给4号和5号每人2颗，自己收买他们。这样，2号和3号反对是无效的。因此，1号的一种分配方案是：96，0，0，2，2。

这是不是最佳方案呢？再想一想，1号也可以不给4号和5号各2个，而只需要1个就搞定了3号，因为如果轮到2号来分配，2号是可以不给3号的，3号的得益只有0。所以，能得到1个，3号也该很满意了。所以，最后的解应该是：97，0，1，2，0。

好，再倒推。假设1号提出了97，0，1，0，2的方案，1号自己赞成。2和4反对。3∶2，关键就在于3号和5号会不会反对。假设3号反对，杀掉1号，2号来分配，3自己只能得到0。显然，3号不划算，他不会反对。如果5号反对，轮到2号、3号、4号来分配，5号自己最多只能得到1。

所以，3号和5号与其各得到0和1，还不如现在的1和2。

正确的答案应该是：
1号分配，依次是：97，0，1，0，2;
或者是：97，0，1，2，0。