The Ultimate Sacrifice

John 15:13- "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends."

What constantly amazes me every year about Easter Sunday is the memory that Christ died on the cross for ME! Even before he knew me, and even before I committed my first sin, He came and hung on the cross for ME!?
The scripture says that He laid down His life for His friends, but what "friend" would mock an innocent man with taunts and cruel words? What "friend" would nail an innocent man to the cross to die in painful agony? What "friend" would laugh and shout encouragement as they watched each cut of the whip bite into the bare flesh of His back? And yet, have we not done all these things? Do we not continue to sin in our words, deeds and actions? As much as the Roman soldiers drove the nails into our Lord's hands, we were behind every hammer blow....and yet, He died and paid for our sins that we might have eternal life. What an awesome God we worship!

Yesterday we saw several infant baptisms, and one adult baptism. The children who were baptised were Bin Boon and Kat's two kids, Reuben and Renee, and Kah Keong and Janice's Lisa Emmanuelle. Khoon Sheng was also baptised, and he also shared his testimony with us. It is indeed a joy to welcome these brothers and sisters no matter what their age, into the family of God officially! Rev Eng Kiat conducted the baptism as well as shared the message.

Good Friday service was held at Raffles City, and the ballroom as usual was packed to capacity. The message was really good, delivered by Rev Dr Michael Raiter. He drove home some very insightful and meaningful points; interestingly, he chose to speak from Zec 12:1-13:1, but the message was very powerful. What really spoke to me about the message was how often we take God for granted, and forget what he has done for us. What better time to remember this than at Good Friday, when we recall his ultimate sacrifice for us!

Good Friday has always had special meaning to me, because it was 18 years ago, as a 15 year old that I rededicated my life to Him on Good Friday, 17 April 1987. It has been an incredible journey of faith since then, of course with its ups and downs, but always with one goal in mind for me, that at the end of this journey in God's timing, I will stand before Him and hear the words "Well done, good and faithful servant". May this be the prayer of all our hearts this Easter, and always.

Off on holiday!

Hi all,

sorry have been a little lax in updating this page. I've also realised that it seems to have turned into a personal diary rather than an update of church events. The reason for that is that it is very difficult to actually keep the narrative to strictly church events, without giving some perspective on my part, so I won't make any apologies for that. After all, I hope you guys want to know what my thoughts and feelings are, rather than just narrating church events to you right?

We have had mass evangelistic training over the last three weeks after service, which have actually been very good. Yesterday's session was the final one, which showcased several methods of sharing the gospel. The session yesterday was taken by a few different presenters. Last week's was by Lester and Srimal, and covered a good background of how to deal with likely questions which you might face when sharing the gospel.

The purpose of this training was to equip the church with skills to share the gospel in preparation for some of the evangelistic events coming up, such as Mother's Day, and some of the youth programmes as well. Gospel camp is in fact coming up this weekend, but unfortunately for the first time in 5 years, Elena and I will not be around, as we are going to Phuket! We'd booked the trip back in October, so even after the tsunami, we decided to go ahead with it and at least try and do our little part in rebuilding the tourist economy. We will be on a boat for 4 days (dive dive dive.....) and then in Phuket for another 3; leaving tomorrow and back next Tues. Looking forward to it.

Other happenings in church; AGM coming in May. Our first AGM as an independent congregation, and approaches have already been made to some people to run for deaconship, and of course, other people have been asked to step up to be elders. Watch this space for more updates, but many are said to be considering the nominations.....

Hope you all liked the photos of the new house, and do drop me a line to share your thoughts. Let us know how we can be praying for you guys too!