Jailbreak

Jailbreaking is a process that allows iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users to run any code on their devices, as opposed to only that code authorized by Apple. Once jailbroken, iPhone users are able to download many applications previously unavailable through the App Store via unofficial installers such as Cydia, as well as illegally pirated apps. A jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch is still able to use and update apps downloaded and purchased from Apple's official App Store. So ever since I own an Iphone three months ago, this "term" keeps knocking at my mind… 

So let look at the real jailbreak….

For without the righteousness of God, nobody can live right, not even one, nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God. We all taken the wrong turn and wandered down blind alleys. No one is living right; you can't find a single one. Our throats are gaping graves, our tongues slick as mudslides. Every word we speak is tinged with poison. We open our mouths and pollute the air. We race for the honour of “sinner-of-the-year”, litter the land with heartbreak and ruin. We don't know the first thing about living with others. We never give God the time of day. This makes it clear, doesn't it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it's clear enough, isn't it, that we're sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God's revelation doesn't put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else's sin.

Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another Person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, He got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one Man said yes to God and put many in the right.

Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man's sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God's gift poured through one Man, Jesus Christ, will do! There's no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man's wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness, that the one Man Jesus Christ provides?

Our firm decision is to work from this focused centre: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in His life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.

Because of this decision we do not evaluate people by what they have or how they look. The Jewish people looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong. We certainly don't look at Him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, a new creation. The old life is gone; a new life began! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and Him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with Himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what He is doing. We are Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We're speaking for Christ Himself now: Become friends with God; He's already a friend with you.

So go and tell people about this jailbreak instead…

A compilation from the Message Bible

Jenga

Jenga is a game of physical and mental skill. In Jenga, players take turns to remove a block from a tower and balance it on top, creating a higher and increasingly unstable structure as the game progresses. The word Jenga is the imperative form of kujenga, the Swahili verb "to build".

As we grow in the Lord, our spiritual life is just like Jenga. As the Lord builds us, we are also busy helping God. But the problem is, our contributions make the Jenga unstable. The Lord is using His Gospel to build on Jenga tower, we use our religion to help. Along the building progress, our religion, our self righteousness, our own effort and all our nonsenses are causing the tower to be unstable. It will become a religious Jenga.

Hebrews 12:27 ~ Now this, "YET ONCE MORE," indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.

Shaking is good; shaking away all the nonsenses so that the things cannot be shaken may remain. When the tower falls, only our nonsense blocks are fallen off. Those are of the truth based on His grace are well intact as they are built on the ROCK. From this unshakable foundation, more radical truth can then be built on this solid foundation. This is how we move on radically in His grace, after minus all our nonsenses.

Thank God for this falling is not like the falling building in the world. When the worldly building collapses, the building collapse flat on the ground! As for God Kingdom, His grace is unshakable, and which cannot be shaken may remain…

All the while, I thought that as I grow in the Lord, I can pile up the revelation of grace. The higher the piling can go the more equip and more efficient for me to share His grace. I was wrong anyway… He cannot build His truth on my nonsense. He cannot build His truth on my religion. His truth can omly be built on His truth alone.

Psalm 127:1 ~ Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain.

I just thank the Holy Spirit for using the example of Jenga to get me through His revelation. As He continues to renew my strength, He will continue to build on this Jenga. This Jenga will soon become higher, stronger and more radical!

Perseverance

James 1:2-4 (New International Version)

2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Perseverance is the fruit of what your faith knows to be true about you. You cannot buy perseverance over the counter, neither do you inherit perseverance; it comes no other way. Perseverance in your faith, to be convinced about your true identity and oneness with God, is your link to the most sought-after quality: a life-experience beyond lack. A test or temptation in this context means anything that makes you feel imperfect, incomplete and in lack; anything that would challenge your conviction that Christ is in you.

Remember, God tests no one; there is no hidden agenda with God, no shadow of inconsistency or change of mind. God is convinced about you. His mind is made up about you. His opinion of you is not subject to your passing or failing a test. He is in no need to still experiment with you before He finally approves of you.

Thoughts For Life - Francois du Toit

Perfect

He is a Perfect Man

In the time of the Old Testament, there were a lot of priests, for they died and had to be replaced. But Jesus' priesthood is permanent. He’s there from now to eternity to save everyone who comes to God through Him, always on the job to speak up for them.

So now we have a High Priest who perfectly fits our needs: completely holy, uncompromised by sin, with authority extending as high as God's presence in heaven itself. Unlike the other high priests, He doesn't have to offer sacrifices for His own sins every day before He can get around to us and our sins. He had done it, once and for all: offered up Himself as the perfect sacrifice. The law appoints men as high priests who are never able to get the job done right. But this intervening command of God, which came then, appoints the Son, who is absolutely, eternally PERFECT.


He lived a Perfect life

God put the wrong on Jesus who never did anything wrong as He was PERFECT and knew no sin, so that we could be put right with God.


He died a Perfect Death

At the Cross, He cried out loud, “It’s Finished!” and by one sacrifice He has made PERFECT forever those who are being made holy.


We have Perfect Salvation

While He lived on earth, anticipating death, Jesus cried out in pain and wept in sorrow as He offered up Priestly prayers to God. Because He honoured God, God answered Him. Though He was God's Son, He learned trusting-obedience by what He suffered, just as we do. Then, having arrived at the full stature of His maturity and having been announced by God as High Priest in the order of Melchizedek, He became the source of PERFECT and eternal salvation to all who believingly obey Him.


A Perfect Man did it all for imperfect men like us… this is grace!

BIG Mac ~ Big Shaking!

I have not been to McDonald for a long time and since Adrian said he would like to try their "Prosperity Burger", so we decided to have burger for our dinner. I ordered a Big Mac meal just to recapture my childhood memory and I am sad to say that I had a disappointed Big Mac meal for my dinner today.

I was surprised to see how small the beef has shrink and in fact, the whole burger has shrink. This Big Mac meal dug up my remembrance of whenever I visited this kind of fast food outlets like KFC or McDonald, I would always like to complain because the meals they served were always look different from their food menu, in term of quality and quantity… and mind you, the situation is getting worse!

Well, my Elder just preached to us this morning that, as believers who have been enlightened by His grace, we should put our full confidence on the Finished Work of Christ and never put our confidence in the things of this world because the things of the world are on shakeable ground. Indeed, this Big Mac is fast to accomplish its purposes to disappoint me and at the same time, confirm the word of God to me.

Image of Big Mac downloaded from Google

Big Mac in Kuching

Hey, where is my beef?

Oh.. Here it is...

Extremely undersized beef on both layers

Hebrews 6:17 ~ Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.
Hebrews 6:18 ~ God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.
Hebrews 6:19 ~ We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain,
Hebrews 6:20 ~ where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.

The amount we pay do not really reflects the quantity or quality we deserved because this fallen world in its fallen stage has failed to keep up with its law based on deserving system. God never bless us based on our performance or what we deserved., and at the Cross, Jesus took away what we deserved and in exchange, He lavished His grace to us so that what we do not deserve, become ours through His promises. The grace of God is indeed on an unshakable ground and was put into covenant by Two Unchangeable Being. It is lavished to us undeservedly, "unearnedly" and "unmeritedly" from God.

And talking about shaking, do not put your confidence on Politicians too, they shake your hand before elections and your confidence after...!!!