More than a Week of Worship

Hosanna?

Hey All, I haven't blogged in ages on FireAC or my own blog, so yeah, my blogging skills are really rusty now. Okay, so T3W9 was a "week of worship"(WOW), haha, new acronym, but yeah, its a bad bad acronym i believe.

Why should this be more than a week of worship. Simple answer, but sometimes we just simply forget. Worship is really more than just singspiration, evangelism, prayer and the list goes on. Its about using YOUR LIFE to please and make God glorified. Quite a simple concept, but some times we forget it. We always think we must evangelise, must do 1 hour QTs, but you know what, its more than that, the small things like just short prayers like "thank you God for that tissue my friend passed me when I needed it" count too and we sometimes forget that.

Okay, now lets move on to like singspiration. What makes a good singspiration? Is it the good keys chosen, is it the uber guitar rifts that a guitarist can play, is it the crazy range of the worship leader, is it by how well planned out the songs are? Well, they do contribute to a good singspiration in the technical sense, and they do help others to connect with God, but they aren't essential. Sometimes the best singspirations are simply the simple ones, there doesn't even need to be a guitar, a singspiration when everyone is just so bubbly and excited to SING OUT their praises to God is a good singspiration. It isn't the worship leader/musicians that make a singspiration good, its YOU. After all singspiration is about YOU SINGING/CRYING OUT to praise God.

So now, you know songs. Do you notice something? Usually the most simple of songs, the most simple ones that don't have all the crazy guitar rifts, crazy technical stuff, are usually the most impactful songs. Lets take the song "How Great is Our God" written by a well known worship leader Chris Tomlin. How simple is the chorus. Another one, "Blessed be Your Name", such a simple bridge and chorus.


How Great is Our God [Chorus]

How great is our God, sing with me
How great is our God, and all will see
How great, how great is our God

Blessed be Your Name [Chorus and Bridge]

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name



Well, all these simple yet powerful songs came straight from the heart of the writers as they were writing it. You know, sometimes when I just simply can't seem to love God at times or accept some things, I'll just keep listening to Blessed be Your Name over and over again until I'll be able to really mean the words that keep coming to me. God gave us music, so yeah, use it to minister to ourselves and to praise Him.

So okay, sorry for being so messy with my points. Anyways, here's 3 points or things you should do before any singspiration or worship session.

1. Pray and ask God to let you be free to worship him in songs of praise.
2. Write down anything that may be distracting you like homework, assignments and important things to remember. So hopefully you can be free to worship, and after you're done you can remember the things which you dropped to worship.
3. Give your ALL, close your eyes, smile and come into worship as if you've not done so for months.

In the Faith of Jesus Christ,
Lin Xunliang

people need the Lord

i grew up with this song all my life, but i never really thought about the reality of its message. the world is desperately looking for God, and we are called to be his servants. there is no cost too great, no price too high to tell the word the story of our Savior and the power of the cross.

people need the Lord

everyday they pass me by
i can see it in their eyes
empty people filled with care
headed who knows where
on they go through private pain
living fear to fear;
laughter hides their silent cries
only Jesus hears

people need the Lord
people need the Lord
at the end of broken dreams,
He's the open door
people need the Lord
people need the Lord
when will we realize
people need the Lord

we are called to take His light
to a world where wrong seems right
what could be too great a cost
for sharing life with one who's lost
through His love our hearts can feel
all the grief they bear;
they must hear the Words of Life
only we can share

people need the Lord
people need the Lord
at the end of broken dreams,
He's the open door
people need the Lord
people need the Lord
when will we realize
that we must give our lives
for people need the Lord
people need the Lord

in His love,
dan

What defines Christianity?

A short post

Assuming you are talking to some pre-believer friends about God and they ask:

What defines Christianity? What sets it apart from other 'religions'? what makes Christianity the right way and others the wrong way?

If you were to look at other religions you would see something similar of sort, they all promise almost the same thing, do good, and get a good "afterlife" , based on a set of morals set by some  god. they all seem like they could be possible ways to attain salvation of sort....

You can run through the lists, Buddhism, you got this karma concept where you do good so you have good things happen to you, you die, you reincarnate, you continue doing good until you attain this so-called nirvana state

Islam, work out your salvation through your works etc...  want an instant passport to heaven? go and be a martyr, or suicide bomber... jihad... and, they also have this single all powerful God, the same God of Abraham , as the Jews and Christians have

What therefore sets us apart as Christians?

The answer?

The Resurrection of Jesus. No other religion ever had its religious founder die and rise again, all of them died eventually...

if the resurrection was a lie, we Christians would be the most pathetic people of the lot...

The resurrection showed that God had truly come down in the form of Man to die for us

We unlike other religions, have our salvation paid for , we are saved by Grace alone

and we cannot earn our salvation, the bible tells us that our good deeds etc, are deemed filthy rags in front of God, because He is holy , we are sinful...

we as such can have a living relationship with God, because Jesus has paid the price, our sins are washed as white as snow, because of what He has done on the cross

We have a God who is both just , and loving and merciful.

The resurrection of Jesus, that God came down in the flesh and died on a cross , laid in the tomb for 3 days before rising again , is what sets Christianity apart...

Taken from what I heard in church today, God bless

In His Love

Emil