Dont let sin drag you down...

 " I know I need to study, but Im too comfortable sitting on my couch in front of tv. Exams are a few weeks away anyway and I promise I'll study tomorrow."

" I know I need to spend time with god through personal devotion, but Im too busy doing assignments and studying for exams. I get tired at night and its hard to wake up in the morning to read my bible and pray to God."

I was planning to study after I woke up the other day and do as much as I could to make my day off productive. What ended up happening instead?? Yup, procrastinating pretty much the whole day. I've been wasting my time doing things that are not necesarry/ not productive such as facebooking for hours and hours, allowing myself to sit in front on tv for hours as well, and im sure I wasted my time doing other things that I cant event remember what they are at the moment but you get the point :D:D

I know that I am wrong and I know that I need to change, but my heart is dragging me down and saying that I should be okkie with the way I live now. Why am I like this?? Here are my reasons:

• I havent been feeding myself with the word of God which would protect me from my deceitful heart
• I am relying too much on my own power hoping that I would change sometime soon
• Im lacking of motivation and focus to be productive
• I let my deceitful heart take control of my life

By God's grace, I come to realise that my sin is causing me to feel and act that way (not using my time productively and letting my heart rules what I do.) Romans 7: 14-20 describes how I do things that I do not want to do because sin is living in me and it is sin who is causing me to do the things I dont desire. Romans 7: 24-25 continue to talk about how sinful I am and God rescued me from my sinful desire through Christ which transform my mind to be slave to God not to sin.

How should I deal with sin then knowing that it is my biggest problem now??

I wouldnt be able to deal with sin if I rely on myself because I am still living in my sinful body and my heart still deceives me so I am hopeless if I rely on myself. God knows that I would never be able to do so thus he sent Jesus to deal with my sin by dying on the cross. We have Jesus who knows how to deal with sin and able to sympathise our weaknesses just as Hebrews 4:15 says : "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin."

Jesus is the answer of my problem. He fixed my problem of sin and thus I can cling to him to help me fix my deceitful hearts which leading me to allow myself to stay comfortable in sin and lacking of motivation to do what I have and want to do. My encouragement to you who have the same feeling as I do towards procrastination and sin are:

• let us fix our eyes and thoughts on Jesus who tranforms our minds to God
  
• ask God to help us fight against sin through prayer
• let us feed ourselves and protect ourselves from our deceitful hearts through regular bible reading
• keep encouraging you brothers and sisters in Christ to fix their eyes on Jesus too

"But my eyes are fixed on you, O Sovereign LORD; in you I take refuge—do not give me over to death." (Psalm 141:8)

Leading towards final exams

Time flies soooo quick, a year had gone by since i was sitting my HSC exam, the most important exam ever in my life and the hardest too. Now i think every exams are equally important. Why do I say that?? if u have the same thoughts as i do towards this particular issue, u'll agree with my view of exams. Let me put it this way:

• In primary school final exams in year 6 was an important thing because if i didnt do good in them, i wouldnt be able to go to a good high school. In fact, to be able to go to a good high school, i had to do another test which are important as well. (this happen in indo as i was in indo a few years back and im sure some selective school in australia would test ur academic skills apart from looing at ur school report before u can get into the school.)
  
• In high school, year 12 HSC exams were important as well, in fact it seemed like the most important exam ever, because without great UAI* (ATAR they call it now) i wouldnt be able to go to a good uni
• In uni, exams are pretty important as well even though u need only to pass the exam in order to pass the course but passing an exam in uni are not as easy as it sounds... besides passing, who doesnt want to get distinction and or high distinction???

One encouragement that I find very helpful regarding exam is God does not care about how great my results are in the end but he cares most about how faithful i study. Why would i study faithfully while i can just study for myself though in the end its my mark and i get to do anything i like with it?? Because i am God's creation and as a christian i am living my life to glorify God's name in all things that i do (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Study faithfully means that I do my best with my study and leave up the rest to God. In a day to day example, it'll looks like this: I study my best for my exams but not neglecting other commitments i have such as church and family. In the end, whether i get good mark or not i would thank God for that knowing that he has something plan for me and it will always be for my own good (romans 8:28).

I am not saying that we shouldnt put an effort in our study since God doesnt care anyway about our mark. I am saying that we do our best which means study hard with a different intention and focus now. Instead of striving great mark to get good job and having a security in future by relying on ourselves, we're striving good mark because we want to do our best in our study given the opportunity to do so and trusting God with our future knowing that he knows whats best for us.

Who am I- Casting Crowns

What a good rhetorical question to ask myself as i take God's forgiveness for granted most of the time. By forgetting the fact that I am saved by grace affect the way I live in a day to day basis. I can be easily influence by things that the world has to offer and say. It'll leads me to rely on tangible things for security and identity such as popularity, having an awesome boyfriend, friends, great mark in study, getting a high paid job, and many more.

"Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth,Would care to know my name, Would care to feel my hurt?" God who has the authority over all things would come down to earth for me?? He could just sit and relax in heaven without having to worry about me in this earth facing eternal death as the result of my sin. I am nothing in God's eyes and I was a sinner after all (romans 3:10-12).Why would he come down from the greatness of heaven to suffer on earth? The answer is Love (john 3:16, romans 5:8). Not because I am a good person (never kill anyone physically, never steal, loves peace), not because Im trying to do my best to behave in a good way, not because I am smart and so on but ONLY because of his great and awesome love to me that he would willingly suffer in my place and died in my place.

Being reminded that my identity now relies in Christ who died for me and loves me so much makes me wonder why do i often go back to rely myself on earthly things which in the end would dissapoint me... i assume that this is a struggle for us as christians. It is not easy living as a christian in this world that is against us. I pray that as christians, we would encourage one another to focus on Christ and to always hang onto God not worldly things.

Assurance of going to heaven

I thank God so much for revealing Christ to me and make me realise that no matter how much good works i do to balance out my bad works (so then i would earn favour in God's eyes) would never be enough because God's standard is perfect while I failed to reach it because I sin. Not only once but keep sinning and keep failing to not to sin because its around me and tempting me in everyway.

How can I be sure then whether I am going to heaven or not since I keep failing to not to sin???

Doubts and temptations come and go in a day to day basis which might lead me astray eventually. Ways that I find helpful not to be lead astray by worldly temptations and doubts are being honest and talk about my struggles with other christians who i know would keep me accountable and rebuke me if they need to as well as reminding me to go back to God's grace and rely on God.

Pray about it and feed myself with God's word are also important in bringing me back to the right way of living my life. Ultimately, I think that me myself would have to change my heart and willingly want to change after being rebuke and again pray to God that he would soften my heart to want to change in the way i live my life because he is the only one that knows my heart and change it.

I cant do anything actually to earn my spot in heaven, because I am going to heaven not because I do something to earn it but because of what Christ had done for me which was paying for my sin through shedding his blood on the cross.

High priests in the old testament had to sprinkle blood once a year to wash away their sin and also the sin of the whole nation and it has to be done in the most holy place which can only be accessed by the high priest ( Leviticus 16). What a privilage we have now as christians because we do not have to do that again every year because Christ died ONCE AND FOR ALL people not just Israelites (1 peter 3:18).

How can I be sure then that I am definitely going to heaven??

• I have Christ now as my high priest who sacrificed himself for me thus I am sure that I am going to heaven through his death and resurrection :D:D

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." (Romans 3:23-24)

Laziness that might leads to Regret

I've been very lazy to do all the works i have/wish to do such as uni assignments and start preparing for final exam as I hope I started earlier in the week but hasnt been happening *sighss :(:( What have I been doing all week instead??

finishing up my assignment because its due last wed and procrastinating pretty much most of the time... (:(

I got a smacked in the head earlier on before I posted this blog by Josh Harris'video about Self control. He doesnt specifically talks about lazy in study but the idea is there. As I've been struggling with laziness and lacking of motivation for a few weeks now, God slap me in the face and wake me up to do other things that I should be doing instead of procrastinating and procrastinating... Investing my time in a more useful things than just sitting in front of the computer for the whole day and just never stop till the night comes and I get tired.

I keep telling myself to study faithfully but what I've been doing is not studying faithfully becoz procrastinating is deffinitely not a form of studying faithfully. What would studying faithfully looks like in a day to day basis???

• it means i would use my time wisely
• it means i have to control myself not to procrastinate
• it means that i would rely on God regardless on the results i get
• it doesnt mean that i have to study 24/7 but it means that i have to be commited in all other things that i have to do as well apart from studying
• it means im doing my best and not being lazy with my study

Matthew 25:14-30 ("The parable of the talent) encourages us not to be like the lazy servant who did not do anything regarding the talent that was given to him and thus the master took away the talent and give it to the other dilligent servant. I am given the opportunity to study and if what i do is being lazy and not using the opportunity given wisely, God might take away my opportunity and give it to other people and it would be too late for me to regret.

I personally thank God for the bible which reminds me to the fact that I am so lucky to have this opportunity to study that I often take for granted and I would continue to pray that as brothers and sisters in Christ, we would encourage and remind one another not to be lazy in terms of anything that we do and I pray that we would glorify God's name in all things that we do.

"Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us."

1 Peter 2: 12