Grace, Unity and Perfection

Reorganizing/tidying up my room yesterday. Threw away quite a number of  study 'papers' away.

And I am not done with it. The problem is the endurance to do it into completion.

With somewhat great reluctance or struggle (the inner turmoil- temptation of games etc.) I have decided to come to my blog and evaluate on things that I had been impressed upon me through the week.

The 1st thing on my list would be Grace, that infinite, immeasurable Grace of God. I have learnt of the difference between Miracles and Providence reading on C.S Lewis book, but that would not be relevant to talk about here.

This Tuesday Night-out I had decided to stay in camp despite everyone from my bunk going out. I was basically alone in bunk after my dinner at the canteen. Hence I was able to spent some good Quiet Time reading and praying. And the temptation to 'doubt' came almost immediately, I was semi-asleep when I heard something about me doing Guard duty on CNY day. That alone greatly disturbed my sleep with my mind entertaining many unwholesome thoughts till I almost cried.

Yet, God is good and it turned out that it was not me after all. Apparently, they were drawing lots for duty on that day and since I wasn't present in the office as I did not went out of camp, the last lot for that duty was drawn even before I had to take the last lot. Thank God.

GOD IS FAITHFUL, WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Now onto Unity.  These few weeks sermons is somewhere along the line of unity as a body of believers. There's this somewhat jerky and weird feeling. I have seen in camp this week the very problem of standing united as one group/platoon of people. This disunity had arose due to the issue of equality of treatment or fairness of work allocation. It's very interesting to note how we have become a generation of people that is so self-absorbed that the care for others have grown completely cold.

Army for one sense did not help us to work together, and that's purely my opinion. Sometimes I think it's that resentment or jealousy of others not working when I am working on something that deprives me of the comfort they have. It's easy to forgive once. I am beginning to understand the real difficulty to keep forgiving, to keep on showing that Love.

There's like this complain session among the few of us in camp that day about this particular issue of fairness. I expressed to them that unity is of more importance than fighting for equal distribution of work. And this seems very practical in light of how such unity is able to promote cohesion, openness, discouraging backstabbing, gossiping. The most stunning thing is that we will be eating, working, playing, sleeping together for at least one more year. Thus it's wiser to be for unity.

I wonder if each of us in Church is for Unity.

The final one: Perfection. Came across this verse today:

Matthew 5:48 'Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.'

I was wondering how our image of 'perfection' changed as we grow older. For me, it was somewhat drastic after I enlisted in army. An example will give a vague idea. (I dunno if it apply to all, at least it applied to me). When I was younger, I always have to 'consult' or get that confirmation from my parents regarding issues like the cleanliness of my clothes, often checking with them if close-to-expiry food, or food dropped on the table or floor can be eaten. It may sound somewhat foolish, but that how I view things then, when my parents showed me the 'green' about these concerns, there was no doubt on my part to see it as 'perfect' for my use/consumption.
As understanding of things sets in, along with the ability to reason for myself on this issues, there's this sudden bearing of responsibilities. The self washing of clothes and cleaning of my bed/cupboard in army in a way forces me to grow out of this misconception. What is 'perfect' is now 'perfect' by our own better judgement. Yet there this Perfection which was totally different.
We all need to be Perfect in our life. We cannot be on our own.
No one can boldly claim to have live a perfect life. Yet Jesus did. He was Perfect. And the Bible shows quite clearly that this Perfection only comes through Jesus. It's different in that there not really the responsibility to bear for Christ bore it for us on that Cross. There no need for judgement on our part for God is the Righteous Judge.

It seems there this somewhat rocky phrase in our walk during this period of time for many of our Church members. It may be the lack of genuine and quality fellowship between each of us in Church due to the absence of GCSS. I myself am very shocked as well. Today in Church I merely said something like 'tuck in your shirt' to Darren'. And the next time I will be seeing him will be a week later. Oh well.

I would like to end off with this stanza from the song the Choir presented today titled 'Grace Alone'

Every soul we long to reach

Every heart we hope to teach

Everywhere we share His Peace

Is only by His Grace.

 Continue to press on!