"You do not know on what day your Lord will come."

³⁶ “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,^[a] but only the Father. ³⁷ As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸ For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; ³⁹ and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ⁴⁰ Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. ⁴¹ Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

⁴² “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.

Matthew 24:36-42

Knowing that Day of the Lord may come any moment and we may be plucked from the earth, will that change the way you live your life as a Christian?

Any moment may be the last chance you have to bring your friends to Christ. Knowing that by God's grace we have received the amazing gift of eternal life, how is it possible to just keep it to ourselves!?

We must not be stagnate Christians, so I hope everyone can push aside those thoughts of worry and rejection and take the step of faith to chat to your friends about our God!

Where is God in this?

Having to wait for something without knowing the outcome can be both quite daunting and exciting. I mean in our context, a day before our VCE Scores, it must be quite frightening for some of us, well for me at least. 

So I begin the journey of numbing myself and thinking of ways to isolate myself when a "something point something" gets released to all my fellow classmates, friends and church buddies. I run through a billion times in my head the way I would wake up tomorrow and how I would react to whatever score comes at me. 

And this got me kinda thinking, what happens to me after I receive the number?  Would I be any different to the person I already am?

But what I really was afraid of asking myself, was "what kind of future do I have for myself?". I was not directly pondering about the Score but the future of courses, life and friends. 

This all happened in the span of an early Wednesday Morning during one of the training sessions. As I was persecuting myself for not having the right answer to life, I notice the person opposite me. He was seventeen, smokes, doesn't go to school, hardly knows about the concept of God and don't really know what his future looks like. I mean He lives day by day training his ass off hoping to get somewhere but only Four people out of lots and lots of people get to represent China and make heaps of money. So as I compared myself to him, which is really bad and unchristian, I wondered what my future would be like compared to his. Would I become richer than him? have kids? be better than him in Table Tennis?. All these thoughts came into my head, and it made me happy for a second or rather it made me evil with content. 

All this brought me back to God, somehow. Among all the things I was thinking of, something really pressed on my heart.  That is no matter, how we go about things in our lives, God has a plan for us. And though we may not see it, some more convoluted than others like the ping pong kid. We need to know that he is there and he has something for us, something perfect in his eyes.
So I came out of that training, thinking that "right no matter what I get, I know its part of God's plan".
However, I was still lacking this trust that most kids have when they are five years old; a firm and strong belief, naive but strong. 

So again, God made me realise something which was in front of my face for about twenty days. You see, when I got to China, I was hoping for some Individual Coaching from some players, they usually cost around 100-300 rmb, 300 if you get ripped off. However, I seriously didn't want to spend money, one because I am stingy and second because I was already training at night and that was sufficient enough. Even if I receive Individual training it would be on off days where it doesn't interfere with my training.  

However, One day a player came up to my room, quite stalkish I know, but he came up to my room and asked if he could have a hit with me. At first my mother was reluctant to say yes since he encapsulated the room with the smell of smoke. But I went along with it. After that one training session, he has been coaching me individually everyday for free on the condition that I'll be his English tutor after training. 

So one night, after training with my new found coach, I realised something. This was some sort of miracle God has given to me. I don’t know what classifies this to be a Miracle, maybe because I really wanted coaching but didn’t want to spend money. I guess I am pretty shallow labeling things as Miracles and what not, but I truly believed that God has his hand in this one. To be training every day with the third best player out of 4 million people living in Xi'an is pretty cool to me and God-friendly. So out of this experience I learn that something so rare can be overcome by God.  His blessing are overbearing, I never asked be trained for free every single day, but he has brought it upon me and as return I am able to connect with this kid even more and tell him I may be a Christian :). 

And so we come to this morning, Sunday morning, this was the sole reason why I am writing all this to you. As I was wallowing in my bed thinking about the Score, again. So often we all forget this one thing when our circumstances are going well but we aggressively beat up this one thing when our lives are bad. Before every single exam, I prayed.  I prayed for my friends and church buddies to do well and I prayed for myself to do  well. That being said, God was with me for the entire thing, I wasn't nervous going into the exams and going out of the exams.

And then it hit me. The score I am about to receive isn't my score, its God's score. I have no right to be all up about myself nor down and beaten up.  I did my best and God did the rest and so because God did the rest, I have no right to complain nor be scared about the Score I am about to receive. Cause whether I like it or not, He Always has a Plan for me, Always In Control and will never ever abandon me. Tomorrow when I receive my score I can only thank the true creator of the blessing he had given to me the past eighteen years.


"It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” Deuteronomy 31:8

Hey Everyone!

I was encouraged to write on this blog so as the new kid on the block I would just like to start off by saying... THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE at this church who has made Helen, Bessie and myself ("the mlc girls" lol) feel soooo welcome. This year has been an incredible year for me as I have grown closer to God, in ways that are indescribable. And it wouldn't have been this way if it wasn't for MCBC. I feel so blessed and pray that my spiritual journey will only accelerate from here on in! Thanks again - because MCBC and you all have helped me gain so much this year - in ways that you might not even know! God planned this in my life and I'm so thankful that he did :)


"Enter into His gates with thanksgiving
And into His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him, and bless His name."
-Psalms 100:4

This blog is a pretty awesome idea.

Monica

Wanted to share; He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” .

That is how transcendent and all mighty God is. Maybe we tend to forget how big God actually is in our lives, but all we really need in our lives is God. He is in charge of everything. Our Worries, Happiness and our Marks!

Yeah, that was about it! YOU GUYS CAN DO IT :) do everything for God!

Praying for all of you guys ;3

love josh :)

Life in Year 12

Recently the results for VCE came out. Many were happy and many were sad. I for one, was happy along with my family. Although my study score may not have been as glamorous as other people's, however, our family were happy because I had tried my best. Also more importantly the power of the Holy Spirit had carried me through.

God has a plan for each and everyone of us. This plan may not look appealing to others. But this plan will bring peace to us. All you need to do is Trust and Obey. Have faith in God and the rest will follow. Believing this has been a big turn around for me, because now I am not doing VCE to gain acceptance from others. I am doing VCE to praise God and give glory to HIm. God's plan for me in year 12 is to shine for his name and to put him first above all things.

"I Can Do All Things Through Christ Who Strengthens Me" Philippians 4:13

You can do the same, it all depends on you allowing God to be the centre of your life.

IN THE END, all our praise goes to him. No matter where he tells us to GO!

Josh.

3/4 Results today!

Well firstly, a big congratulations to everyone who have completed their 3/4s for this year. A special shoutout to Gavin who finished his yr 12 studies and his entire schooling career!

I guess I'm writing today 'cos I wasn't very pleased with the score I was given for VCD (Viscom).

As you all know I love VCD and was very confident about getting a great score considering I recieved 99% for Unit 3 and 100% for Unit 4. But this morning when I checked what I recieved, it was quite a bit lower than what I was hoping for.

Enough with my complaining, basically, the point I'm trying to make is today after I finished moaning about the dissatisfication of my score, I realised what is done is done and this is probably God's way of telling me to try harder next year because everything happen's for a reason, not just luck. This way, He has made me more motivated for Year 12 to try and get the score I want.

I know this is usually the part where I'm supposed to share a Bible verse, but instead here's a quote which is going to be my 2012 mantra (if not for all of you). The quote is: Never quit, never fail. I guess with God's help, we'll all pull through together with the success we deserve :)

I'm one of the richest men on this earth, 'cause I have God"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386434/Homeless-man-befriended-banker

This is a great article!

Have a good week guys :D