To Faithful Or Not To Faithful?

So here’s for a totally unrelated introduction — puns!

Why do cows have hooves?
Because they lactose!

Why do green plants have feelings?
Because they have chloro-feels!

The currencies had a marathon. Guess who won?
The Korean Won!

A good wok is ber-kuali-ti!
Credits to The Pun-ishers on Facebook.
Don’t judge me. Introductions to blog posts are always the hardest part.

Now, back to the awkward running of business.

We had the spanking game. Not sure if it was punishment masquerading as icebreakers. Cause people deserved it. Cause Nehemiah primed himself for it *points to his picture below*. Cause Joycelyn thought it was best for the rest of us.

Nicolas and Daniel, one looks like a well-dressed mafia 2nd in command and the other, a street thug

So with a rather flimsy newspaper roll, the unfortunate dude/dudette in the middle has to spank (Not quite actually, as spanking is a corporate punishment more segregated for the act of beating the buttocks. We don’t do that here, but for the sake of the name of the game, let’s go with it shall we) the person whose name was called. Now to avoid being spanked, he/she has to quickly yell out the name of another. If you’re too late for that, then you shall take the place of the spanker dude/dudette.

Note : This was enough exercise for some people in the middle for the year.

Mandatory fireBRANDS logo on the bottom right, just because.

After worship, Isaac, the town-crier, went and did his thing for announcements.

• There will be a badminton tournament coming up, details are in the poster below. Do call your friends from school/tuition/college/neighbourhood to join in! Oh, and the registration fee is only RM 10 per team of three people (Or, RM 3.33333333 per person)

• There will be a photobooth in both North Zone and Central Zone tomorrow (17 April) for an update of those who attend fireBRANDS. So see you there, and look good!

That’s all for announcements!

“ I feel like doing something something lame la. Can ah?”

That was the first thing Pastor Cowan said. Of course, whatever it was, it was done anyway. Such compulsion.

This was what he did —

A wefie.

Oh, what’s that? You can’t see the people in it? Poor thing. Here you go —

Legend has it that there is a troll in Daniel’s nostrils if you look deep enough. Not sure if Celestine is that happy for every photoshoot. Benz’s face looks like every facial flaw was edited away.

I kid about the captions. Don’t send the Nostril Troll after me. My nostrils are dilated enough as it is — whatever it means.

Mandatory photo of Pastor Cowan to separate the jokes and the sermon.

One of the astounding attributes of God is His faithfulness.

Why astounding? Because faithfulness in the human world is withering.
Patience, loyalty, perseverance and sincerity are pretty much the words people shudder at inside. It takes a great deal of sacrifice, and for most, the best response would be “meh”.

Faithfulness is supposedly the one of the foundations of a marriage and people are “meh”-ing about it. Divorces happen when people are willing to sign legal papers absolving them of the responsibilities toward the family they’ve built.

But not God. He is another story. He is faithful, and to two things :
1) His Word and promises.
2) You and I.

He is faithful to you and I despite us not being so. Jesus was treated like royalty on Palm Sunday, and not long after, the same crowd screamed for Him to be crucified.
Jesus, being all alone and weighed with emotion, requested that His disciples stayed awake and prayed with Him. He went back and saw them all asleep instead. In Pastor Cowan’s words, “What for I die for you who sleep?”

Jesus, being a 12-year old, told Mary that He was at the temple for the Father’s business.

Jesus, being God Himself, allowed for mere mortals to torture and mock Him.

All of these because He chose to be faithful and to die that we may live.

God is the manifestation of faithfulness (2 Timothy 2:13). There is nothing you can do that causes Him not to love you. Try all you want.

One of the biggest consequence of our failure to be faithful is giving in to temptations. We don’t give in to temptations because we are weak. We give in to them because we set the trap upon ourselves — we tempt temptations to come in. God will never allow for anything bigger than us to take over our lives (1 Corinthians 10:13)

We need to realise that faithfulness doesn’t come like an anointing. It requires action and sacrifice. After each victory on God’s side in our lives in being faithful, know that it reflects on us just as it did for God.

To those struggling with faithfulness and need some promise to cling on to, read John 15:4–7. Know that we don’t have to do extra somethings to make Him happy. All He ever wants is for us to remain in Him.

So, see you tonight (and forgive me for the late post, dear Editor) and I pray you will be a blessing to people around you just as He has been to you.