hishandmaiden

The grass is not green, but yellow. Faces after faces of living skeletons in filthy rags staggered aimlessly towards nowhere in particular. A long-haired living skeleton threw a tiny half-alive skeleton away from itself. "Don't leave me, mama!" The young half-dead whimpered, not with its voice, but its eyes. The long-haired skeleton walked on, joining the faces after faces of skeletons in filthy rags in their journey to nowhere. The young half-dead tried to force its tiny legs to stand, but it crumpled to the ground. Its skeleton legs were incapable of supporting it. "Don't leave me, mama. Don't leave me!" It screamed, wordlessly. "Shu Zhen, are you with us?" The voice of her church friend, Mei Zhen brought the 22-year-old young woman back to the real world. "Er, yes," Shu Zhen stammered. "Sigh, you are daydreaming, again, aren't you?" Xiao Hui, another of her friends from church, sighed. "Well, er, not really," Shu Zhen replied. Her friends took no notice of her. "The food here really sucked," Mei Zhen commented. Her not-so-thin hand, with the use of a knife, cut out another large portion of meat from one of the several dishes before her. "I don't think we can finish the food," Shu Zhen said. "Besides, we are quite fortunate to have something to eat." "Fortunate? The food is not free. We paid for them; you know. With our money. Our hard-earned money." Xiao Hui stated her opinion, aggressively. She paused for a moment to help herself to some sliced pieces of beef on her plate. "The government, with the tax increase, really robs us of our livelihood. We will starve to death, I tell you, starve to death! Shu Zhen shuddered. She thought of the skeletons she saw in her vision. "What about the Ethiopians who are currently suffering from a famine? Aren't we more fortunate than them?" "We can't really compare ourselves with them. They are used to it." Xiao Mei replied. "Well, still, maybe we can do something to help them," Shu Zhen suggested, timidly. "Don't be silly, Shu Zhen. There is nothing we can do to help them. Only those God has called to be missionaries are given the abilities to help these destitute people." Mei Zhen said. Why are you so sure that God is not calling us to be the missionaries? Shu Zhen wondered aloud to herself. She was too fearful to express her insignificant voice. The cramped seat in the plane afforded her plenty of time to reflect on the words of her parents. "You are kind to the world, but cruel to your own parents!" Her mother had expressed disappointment. "We brought you up, gave you a good education, and now you ... sigh ... it is your choice." Her father sighed. Shu Zhen thought about her bungalow that she had resided in since she was a child. She thought of the eight maids that her busy parents had hired to look after her needs. She thought of the never-ending-supply of food that her house had never failed to provide her. She thought of the income that was the envy of her friends, which she received as a manager of her father's company. Fear crept into her heart and mocked her. You are a sheltered pot. You won't be able to deal with the hardships there. What a foolish decision this is. Fear's voice was loud. Shu Zhen was too timid to combat Fear. The grass is not green, but yellow. The young half-dead was lying alone, counting the seconds before blackness engulfed it. Its eyes would soon fail it like the way its legs and voice did. In the midst of darkness, it saw a figure of light walking closer and closer towards it. "I am Jesus." The figure of light whispered to the child. The child smiled when he saw the bread in the hands of the figure of light. The blackness would not engulf him, after all. The child lied comfortably in the laps of Jesus. "I will be your mama." The voice of Shu Zhen said, lovingly. Boldness delivered a crushing blow to Fear, and Fear was defeated. Shu Zhen held tightly to the vision in her mind, and found to her surprise she was not afraid anymore.

Evan Lee grinned. He loved God. He truly did. He always tithed, he never failed to read the bible, he went overseas to do missionary works and gave himself fully to church ministry. He even preached against abortions and homosexuality. Surely, no one loved the Lord as much as he did. ~~ Shu Mei wept. She hated God, although she used to be His sheep. She prayed and prayed for God to save her non-Christian father but God did not answer her prayers. She prayed for a job but God did not even give that to her. When she came to Evan Lee and asked him why God failed her in every way, he told her God did not fail her, her sins were what separated her from Him. She hated God. God may love other christians, God may even love Evan Lee, but God definitely did not love her. Shu Mei turned away from God and no longer went to church. ~~ Jesus was in pain. He wanted to tell Shu Mei He loves her. He wanted to tell her He never forgets her. He wanted to tell her it was not her lack of faith or sins that stopped Him from answering her prayers but rather that He tried knocking hard at other Christians whom He had blessed to reach out to her but... oh... their hearts were so hard. He tried getting someone to preach to her father, no one answered His call. When she could not get a job, he knocked at Evan Lee's heart to give her his money but Evan Lee was too busy tithing, too busy reading the bible, too busy reaching souls for Him on overseas missionary works and doing church ministry to open the door to let Jesus used him to give money to Shu Mei. As a result, Jesus wept that Shu Mei no longer believed in Him. Oh... why didn't his ever safe 99 sheeps care for this one lost sheep like Jesus did? Jesus was helpless so He wept.

The first sin that man committed is not the sin or murder, or the sin of theft, or what we called any of the major sin today. Instead, the first sin that man committed is the sin to define for ourselves the right to determine for ourselves what good and what evil really is. Adam and Eve sinned because they took the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 3:6) They did this because, they wanted to be like God, knowing good and evil. In other words, they wanted that right to define for themselves what good and what evil really is. They rejected God’s right to be the one and the one alone to decide what good and evil is. That is the reason for the mess of the world today, with each man or woman deciding for ourselves what good and evil really is and because we disagree with each other on our definitions of what good and evil is, we quarrel and argue with each other and we even fought wars in the name of what we believe to be right. And since each of us has different definitions of what is right, the wars we fought and the murders we commit in the name of what is right is endless. Oh, why can’t we accept that God alone has the right to determine what is good and evil. He is after all; the Potter and we are His clay. (Jeremiah 18:6) Surely, He has the right to determine what we are and how our conducts are to be. (Romans 9:21) 21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honourable use and another for dishonorable use? When we give God back His right and His right alone to determine what is good and what is evil, the world will become a better place. For in Joshua 1:8, it is said that we will make our ways prosperous and have good success if the Word of God does not depart from our mouth and we meditate on it day and night. God promises in His Word that if we do what He says is right, and avoid what He says is evil, we will be prosperous. Therefore, the first step to changing the world for the better is to accept that God is who He said He is, that He is good. (Psalm 25:8) If we truly believe His word that He is good, then we will believe also that He knows what is good and what is evil. If we truly believe that He knows what is good and what is evil, we will give up our own right to decide for ourselves what is good and what is evil and submit to His decision of what is good and evil. If we truly want to submit to what His decision is about good and evil, we will read His Word to find up for ourselves what His Word says is good and evil. For in 2nd Timothy 2:16-17, it is said that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” It is therefore by studying God’s work that we know what good and evil is, and by doing only what God said is good, that we can be a better person and make this world a better way that before. Therefore, let us go back to the basic of basics—that we accept God’s Word that He is good, truly believe it, accepts His right to determine for us what is good and evil, gives out our own tree of knowledge of good and evil and accepts His tree of life. Then, we study His Word and do all that He tells us is good and avoids what He tells us is evil. Then the world will be a better place than before.

I think it means we must not be too worldly, and concerned about money.

I think Jesus is both a mortal man and a member of the triune Godhead at the same time.

Please do not give out Jesus. He suffered and died for you and fully knows what you are going through and loves you. He is in pain because you are in pain.

It is in my signature!

I am currently still at module 1 of Justinguitar. I have been practising between switching D and A chord and find some difficulty in doing so. Also, I find it hard not to strum the top 2 strings of D chort and the top string of A chord. Furthermore, I find it a hard choice whether to look at my right hand or left hand when I play. If I look at my right hand, I will place the chord wrongly. If I look at my left hand, I will strum the top strings of the D chord and the top string of the A chord. I am having fun so far, though, and enjoy pracrtising. I am getting better but still not there yet. Sometime, I am unable to sound all the 6 strings of the chord when I play. Some of the strings become muted, and it is hard to make them not muted. Especially when my string are so tight and pressing hard on them can be so painful. Still, I practise sometimes to make the strings not muted but it is really hard. I am also having a hard time getting my finger to the edge of the fretboard as, is recommended by Justin. But I am not giving up! I hope to master my A and D so that I can proceed to the next module of Justin’s course. I wonder if there is any worship songs that just have A and D chord so that I can practise with them instead of the recommended songs on Justin’s site. Learning guitar is more fun than I remembered, and I hope one day to master the guitar. Meanwhile, my parents and younger brother are constantly betting with each other on when I will give up on the guitar. I hope to prove them wrong. They keep telling me, my guitar skill sucks, and I feel like telling them, at least it is better than them knowing nothing but I choose to keep quiet instead. Hopefully, ten years down the road, I will prove them wrong.

I am mainly learning guitar to learn praise and worship songs. I want to worship God with the guitar. I had 2 months of guitar instruction back in the past before I stopped due to financial constraints. I learnt the dduudu strum pattern during my guitar instruction class. It is a group instruction class. I am interested in learning mainly to play praise and worship songs, as well as hymns and gospel songs. From justinguitar, I learnt the D chord and A chord, though I struggle with them sometimes. I am currently using justinguitar as a resource. I may consider subscibing to either guitartricks or jamplay, though I am not sure which is better. These guitar sites are good, but they mainly teaches secular songs, and rarely, and most often not, have any praise and worship songs which I can learn. I will really appreciate if someone can point me to a website that focuses on teaching praise and worship guitar, even if it is a dvd. I prefer online video site with lifetime subscription, so that I don't have to pay again and again. I know of two websites, worship artistry and worshiponline that focuses on christian praise and worship but they are mainly songs and not techniques or styles or music theory. I will like to learn guitar music theory, guitar strumming pattern and learn more guitar chords. I also hope to learn to move up and down the guitar fretboard and transpose with capo. As of now, I do not know how to use a capo. Also, are there any guitar websites beside guitartricks, jamplay, truefire or artistworks that offer video instructions from beginner to advanced? Especially one that is focus on praise and worship? Or teaches songs that worship artistry and worshiponline doesn't cover? Thanks for all the recommendations so far, will continue to look at more recommendations. I recently bought a FG830 Yamaha acoustic guitar and wonder if it works with praise and worship songs, or will an electric guitar suits me better? Also, which is better, guitartrick or jamplay or truefire? Furthermore, I recently inherited a sum of US$1000 and will like to invest them on guitar course. Price is not an issue for me. What are some guitar accesories I should look up for and purchase, besides the capo, that will aid me in learning guitar? My budget after spending on FG830 is US$1000. Any course within that price range and is good will be considered by me. Thanks for reading!

I will read books about great saints in the Lord. I really enjoy reading about the saints and their great trust in the Lord, something which is sadly lacking in my own life.

I struggle with the ability to live by faith. I prefer to be rich and have no financial worries. When I struggle with money, I wonder if I will deny the Lord. I am really weak in my faith.

I look forward to meeting Jesus and sending eternity with Him. I also look forward to seeing God face to face.

I really struggle with the issue of giving. God is challenging me in this area of my life. I want to give to God's works. Please pray for me!

Have you heard of him and do you know where I can download his sermons for free?

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