I'm swaying

It was an interesting evening today. At the end of the workday, I was recording a meeting date in my diary when I suddenly felt myself swaying backwards and forwards.

For a moment, I wondered whether what I was warned has come true. Some time ago, a doctor told me that I was "low blood" (I guess that means that I have low blood pressure?) and that such people are at risk of fainting spells. I have never fainted in my life (thank the Lord!) and just as I was swaying, I wondered whether this was my first experience at fainting.

However, I overheard some colleagues asking each other, "Did you feel that?". That was when I realised that our office building was swaying! Our office building is located in the Central Business District of Singapore.

I recall that some time ago, the people in the building where LSD works felt tremours when there was an earthquake in nearby Indonesia and they were evacuated.

Today, even the door to my room was swinging from left to right as we felt the tremours. When I tried to stand up, I nearly lost my balance and I had to sit down again.

By the time the swaying subsided, I was feeling nauseous. Several colleagues and I decided to call it a day and leave for home. One of my colleagues told me that there was likely to be an earthquake in nearby Sumatra and it must have been a very bad earthquake. Some colleagues decided to walk down the staircase to the ground level. I was in two minds whether to take the elevator or to walk down the staircase. I was not looking forward to walking down several flights of stairs.

By the time I reached the lift lobby, I decided to take the elevator since another colleague had done so. There is safety in numbers, I guess? Or we were equally foolhardy. *grin*

As I left my office building, I saw many people standing outside my office building. The same situation was prevalent at the other buildings surrounding my office building. At that moment, I wondered why there was no public announcement in my office building advising us to evacuate the building. Hi LSD, when your office building experienced the tremours, was there any public announcement advising you to evacuate the building?

With shaky legs and still feeling nauseous, I contacted Da and we arranged to meet at the bus stop near his office. I could have gone to the bus stop nearer my office but I decided that I needed the walk to clear my nerves.

By the time I met up with Da, I thought that I was feeling better. However, when I reached his side, my legs nearly gave way and I had to grab his hand to steady myself. Gosh, this is the first time in my life that I have felt any tremours from a neighbouring earthquake.

When we reached home, I decided to cook a simple dinner for the two of us. On 28 September 2009, my mother had given us a pot of ABC soup that she had cooked. We had a little leftover soup (with some ingredients) and I decided to use the soup as a base. I added some green leafy vegetables, several slices of salmon (marinated in curry powder), egg and instant noodles.

This is Da's bowl of noodle soup.

This is my bowl of noodle soup. I was not able to finish the soup, though.

Did you experience any tremours arising from the earthquake today? What was your experience like?

Shaloam,

Prisoner of hope

Everyone who came to Jesus always left healed, prosperous and blessed. We are under the waterfall of God's grace because Jesus has done the hardest part. The things that we want in this life are easy to achieve because Jesus did the hardest part.

God gave up His Son, His only Son, the Son whom He loved. God did the hardest part so that today, we can receive all the blessings easily.

There is no other good news other than the gospel of Grace. It is the gospel of Christ. It is so good! It is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. The power of God to our health, wholeness and healing comes through the gospel. The good news reveals the righteousness of God. The gospel is a revelation of the gift of righteousness. The righteous shall live by faith. Jesus is the end of the law. Jesus came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it. When Jesus fulfilled the law, it was a perfect fulfilment. We can be a rascal and still receive from God.

I am the righteousness of God in Jesus. We have our fruit unto holiness. When we believe right, we will live right. True holiness is from inside - we receive from God a new set of "want-to"s. God will not design a gospel that does not produce holiness. The gospel meets all our needs.

Sin shall not have dominion over us because we are not under law but under grace.

By Adam's disobedience, we were made sinners and by Jesus' obedience, we are made righteous. God sees us a righteous because of Jesus. Adam's sin brought death into our lives. Jesus' obedience brought righteousness.

Let us practise right believing. We are the righteousness of God based on Jesus' obedience.

The devil builds strongholds in our minds. Do not put your eyes on your obedience or lack of it. Being every thought into the obedience of Christ. It was His obedience that made us righteous and puts us in a position to be able to receive. Those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through Jesus Christ.

Those who live under the flesh are living under the law. We are living under grace and we are irreversibly saved. God will put us in the right place at the right time. Having been set free from sin, we become slaves of righteousness. Stop doing wrong and start doing right. When we fail today, we are still righteous. The blood of Jesus is permanent; it gives us eternal forgiveness. You can choose who you want to believe but you cannot choose the result. If ever we call upon Jesus, we are saved eternally.

Jesus made it easy for us but it was not easy for Him.

Our prayers are always heard. Because of the blood of Jesus, God will set us free. We are in the stronghold of righteousness. We are prisoners of hope and we expect good things to happen to us this coming week. Today, God will restore double to us!

Faith is the substance of things hoped for. I am in Christ, not because of my obedience but because of Jesus. As such, a thousand may fall at my side and ten thousand at my right hand but it shall not come near me.

When God shuts a door, it is because He has a bigger and better door to be opened to us. Trust God! He watches over us and He plans for us. We can never lose this righteousness. It is all written on the stripes on the back of Jesus. It was His wounds that gave us the prison exchange from sin to righteousness.

soup and stew

We had a sumptuous dinner after work today.

My mother had cooked a pot of ABC soup for us. As she added ingredients such as corn, onions, carrots, etc the soup was sweet and delicious.

FIL and MIL came to our home after work today. MIL had cooked some food and wanted to share the food with us.

MIL had cooked a pot of chicken stew.

MIL also cooked some white rice, which complemented the chicken stew. FIL certainly enjoyed his dinner.

MIL likes her food piping hot and as such, she decided to heat up the chicken stew before she ate it.

MIL also fried an egg omelette.

For dessert, we ate the pineapple upside down cake that I baked yesterday afternoon. Yummy, yummy... I have also posted a photograph of this cake in my facebook, just to tease my facebook friends. *grin*

Shaloam,

spicy pork cubes spaghetti?

It was a lazy sunday.

As our friends, NN and SF were coming to our home in the afternoon with their daughter, IL, I decided to bake a pineapple upside down cake.

Here is the pretty IL. She is very lovable and very intelligent.

At night, my mother, my brother (LG) and LG's girlfriend (ZT) came to our home for dinner. Naturally, Boy-Boy came along as well.

LG had cooked spicy pork cubes spaghetti, aglio olio style. It was delicious! I cannot wait to try other variations of this by LG.

Boy-Boy was given a treat by my mother. As I had bought some bak kwa recently, my mother took out a slice from the container. When Boy-Boy smelt the bak kwa, he was excited and approached my mother.

As my mother broke the bak kwa into smaller pieces, Boy-Boy waited impatiently for his treat.

Finally! Yummy, yummy....

Shaloam,

saturday visitors

Da had to work this morning. Also, he had arranged for our car to be serviced, with the intention to send the car for the testing that is mandatory before our road tax can be renewed.

This afternoon, I busied myself with baking (what else?). I baked some sausage buns. I used the pork sausages that MIL had given us recently. The "topping" that you see on top of each bun comprises grated mozarella cheese and castor sugar.

I also baked a mango jam cake. The slices of cake are shaped this way because I used a bundt pan to bake the cake.

As we will be having visitors later, I also baked some cherry muffins. The muffins look so colourful because I used red cherries and green cherries. Hmm... reminds me of Christmas!

We were running out of bread and as such, I baked a loaf of mango jam bread.

In the afternoon, FIL and MIL paid us a visitor. Goodness me... they bought enough food to feed an army!

FIL and MIL bought a roll of popiah for me. Although MIL requested the stallholder not to add any chilli (as I do not eat chilli), I could still taste the chilli in the popiah. It could be due to the fact that the stallholder may have used the same spoon to spread the chilli sauce and the sweet sauce on the popiah skin. As such, I decided to share the popiah with the others.

MIL bought four siew mai from a dim sum stall at the Marine Parade hawker centre. It seems that the two stallholders are from Hong Kong and speak only Cantonese. They apparently do not speak English nor Mandarin.

Dim sum establishments are known for their char siew pau and as such, MIL bought three of these to be shared.

MIL also bought some Hong Kong style chee cheong fun (without chilli) for me. I prefer the Hong Kong style chee cheong fun to the local type of chee cheong fun. Unfortunately, the prawn did not taste very fresh as I found it a little "mi mi". I am not sure how to translate "mi mi" into English but perhaps the closest would be that the prawn was not firm?

FIL, MIL and Da ate a packet of chicken rice each. MIL did not buy chicken rice for me because this stall only sells steamed white chicken whereas I prefer roast chicken.

In the late afternoon, the family of the Three Musketeers came to our home. We had not seen them in several weeks. While they swam at our swimming pool, we took FIL and MIL for a stroll around our estate. As we were on our stroll, we saw a cat perched at the window ledge of a neighbouring development. It looked very comfortable sitting there!

FIL and MIL declined to join the rest of us for dinner. As such, Da ordered home delivery from KFC.

The party pack came with cole slaw and whipped potato as well. This reminds me... when I was in junior college, my friend NN could finish an entire container of whipped potato by himself, if I recall correctly.

I baked some garlic bread using homemade bread and homemade garlic spread.

The highlight of the night was, of course, watching Manchester United football club win their soccer match. Go, Red Devils, go!

Shaloam,

Night visit

MIL paid us a visit this evening. FIL had a meeting to attend and MIL was a "free agent". As such, she decided to bring some dinner over.

MIL bought some yong tau hu for us from the Marine Parade hawker centre.

When MIL arrived, she made herself at home in the kitchen.

She had requested the stallholder to pack the soup separately.

I had bought several curry puffs from a coffee shop near my office this evening. As such, I heated up two curry puffs for MIL.

I tried to take candid photographs of MIL but I think the smart cookie knew that I was "lurking about" because she was smiling even though she was not looking in the direction of the camera.

As the soup had turned cold by the time MIL arrived, she decided to heat up the soup in a pot.

Da had brought back several sugar rolls from Polar Cake Shop. Yummy! I like sugar rolls!

When the soup was boiling, MIL turned off the flame and ladled the soup into a bowl.

Thank you, MIL for the dinner. It was very thoughtful of you.

Shaloam,

The spirit of sonship

Because of what Jesus has done, it is easier to be saved than to be lost. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. It is as easy as that. The bible has simplicity.

There were two thieves who hung on the Cross on either side of Jesus. Today, we will not be robbed "left and right"!

God has better things for us. We are not under the curse any more. There is only one reason why God hears us - it is because of Jesus. Jesus came to reveal one name - Abba Father. We have received the spirit of sonship. He is almighty God and He is our daddy. God is our Father.

We know how to give good gifts to our children. How much more will our Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him. Father, give my family, my relatives, my loved ones, my friends and me protection against diseases, including the H1N1 virus. Thank You, Father. Amen.

We do not ask God because we are good or because we deserve it. God gives good things to those who ask Him. We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but we have received the spirit of sonship by which we cry out, "Abba, Father". Thank God that God is our Father. He will never abuse us physically nor verbally. He is so much more in goodness.

What is your spirit? Is it a family spirit? we are family and God is our Father. It is so easy to receive from our Father. We can just take and take. He is more than happy to supply us with good things.

Jesus did not come to destroy but to save. Do not have an "old covenant" spirit.

Is your spirit a God's spirit of family? Father, I appreciate You. I love You, I adore You and I bow down before You. Prayer is a visitation with our Father. Prayer is an experience of being loved. We just enjoy.

It is not enough to love those around us if we do not say it, show it and manifest it. The devil will work on the minds of others around us and they end up thinking that we do not love them.

There are more in heaven than in hell. There are multitudes in heaven and it is all because of the blood of Jesus. Many a time, we receive before we have grown up spiritually. The goodness of God leads us to repentance.

We are heirs of the world. Christianity is not a religion. The devil wants to keep us sick and broke because he is afraid that we find out about our inheritance through the blessings of Abraham. We belong to God and God is our Father. Jesus came and died for us. He redeemed us from being children to being sons. Everyone who received Christ is put into sonship.

The law is a weak element. Jesus was born of a woman and born under the law, to redeem us from the law. We are now under grace. All of us are sons of God and God has sent forth the spirit of sons into our hearts. We can now call out, "Abba, Father". We have intimacy with God and we can freely receive. We are heirs of God through Christ. Everything that Christ has, we are an heir. The spirit of sonship is manifested in the way we address God. He loves us, watches over us and protects us. He is so good that no words can describe. Heavenly Father, I appreciate You!

What spirit do you have? If we have the right spirit, we will inherit. We do not have to pray complicated prayers. If God wants to get all the glory, God has to do all the work. We rest in Him and He gets all the glory. Our lives are a life of rest and we just enjoy His presence.

Father, I renounce any orphan spirit and the spirit of legalism and any old covenant spirit. Father, restore to me the spirit of sonship. Father, I belong to You. Thank You for making me Your heir. Amen.