Prayer?

I guess I'll be doing the passage about Jesus' transfiguration.

This passage talked about Jesus going up with some of his disciples to the mountain to pray. Then Jesus undergoes a transformation in which his appearance changes and his clothes shine. It's a passage that I'm kinda familiar with, but I still have trouble understanding its significance.

The reflection shows one interpretation/aspect of this passage. It discusses the transforming power of prayer. In the passage, this transformation may have been completely physical or it may have been something else. I don't know, but I agree with the notion that prayer has the power to transform lives, to change lives for the better. I quote, "Praying transforms us...our lives will shine before others, reflecting the glory of God." The reason I say that I agree with the notion of the transforming power of prayer is because I don't quite remember personally experiencing it full on. I say I believe it, but because I don't practice it as often as I should, I don't see it's power manifesting in my life. Nevertheless, I underlined this in the book because it's something I thought was worth underlining. =.=a

Before I read this passage yesterday, I made post-its and put them on the frame of my bed where I could see it everyday. I wrote a note for each day of the week with their own prayer topics. I don't quite know why I did it. I just had an urge to do so, and I so did. Now the real deal is whether I'll set aside a time each day to pray for those topics. I'm not a very prayer-centric person, and I know I should be. I guess it has to start somewhere. Pray for me that I'll pray for you (among many other things as well. =D). I hope that my life will be transformed by the power of prayer, and that others will see God's reflection in my life.

Confidence, Not Pride

I don't hear much about demon possession... It must be a rare happening nowadays. I've only heard it from friends who went to remote places in Africa for mission trips - but confronting someone with wild convulsions and destructive behavior would be... kinda scary.

Anyhow, Jesus heals him at an instant, and everyone who was watching were amazed at the greatness of God. Through this boy, I think Jesus is teaching us how to evangelize - that 1) it requires faith, no matter how difficult it may seem to reach out to that person, and 2) to the evangelizing Christian, receiving credit/praise for bringing salvation should not become the focus. If we evangelize with little faith but big desire to be seen by others, God's greatness cannot be shown.

Maybe this was the case with the disciples - they were probably scared or lost hope seeing that they're too weak to heal such a severe case of demon possession. Jesus was quick to rebuke them for their lack of faith, but what's funny is that soon afterwards the disciples started arguing who'd be the greatest. Their view of salvation was freedom of Israel from the Romans, and if Jesus was to pull off this amazing feat, they'd logically become the top ranking bureaucrats alongside Jesus. The disciples failed to see the real meaning of salvation and the way Jesus would be bringing it. Only after seeing with their own eyes the humility and love shown on the cross were they able to become the effective cornerstones of Christian churches that would carry the gospel message to this day.

Even the times when we successfully reach out to someone, we become proud (and rightfully so), and that gives us confidence to take a step further. But to us sinners, even that confidence and easily become pride, and pride can easily take away from the real joy we can experience from God - spoiling the entire show. To me personally, worship leading in EM has been a huge blessing and many people also told me worship was blessing and powerful - but on every Sunday morning, I have to repent for the ways I'm solely depending on our team's ability so I can just wing it and get by with similar "performance" as the week before. Compliments are always pleasing to hear, but that shouldn't be the goal of my ministry. I have to lose myself, to be completely immersed in God's presence when I'm worshiping.

So... one thing I learned today is that I want to have confidence in God (and hold on to it), not pride in myself.

My application is to... well, I gotta prepare for a sermon for this Sunday. Please pray for me. I'll apply today's message by being kind to my officemates. =D Believe me, Caltrans can be a pretty hostile place - and with everybody trying to get things done by stepping over bureaucracy and other bothersome people, there are many people who feel disrespected. My office especially is notorious for all that drama. But after I made that commitment to be kind to my officemates today, so far it's been good and things are running pretty smoothly.

Authority & Power

Wow...
Thanks Jonathan ~~ for making this cool blog space for us ..
Now, commenting became so much easier too ~~
for sure we will have more chance to share to ecah other !! ^^

Today's Qt passage speaks about Luke's version of
"Feeding the 5000"
Although I can see the passage in two diffferent stories (v.1-7 / v.10-16)
for some reason God is speaking to me from both.. on the same concept.

The disciples, before they were sent away were equipped by God's
"Authority & Power" And my first immediate response to this is ...
God, I want it too!! Give me give me !!
But as I read the passage about the feeding of 5000, I realize,
that God will choose to give the authority and power according to
its size and need! For the disciples, He gave power to heal and for the
people - because that's what was necessary for the disciples.
But for the crowd, Jesus exercised his own power to feed 5000.

I wonder how God will equip us for His ministry in RY !!
All 8 of us are uniquely equipped to impact RY and for the vision
of RY .. which goal stretches out to "enRiching Others" also...
My prayer is ~~ God help us to realize that YOU are capable
to give us power!! To each on of us God has given a place to serve
and his authority and power is given to us accordingly.

Application: I want to pray for you all ~~ that God's power and authority
will be on our shoulders as we minister to each other and for Ry.

I'm on coffee break ya'll!!

Taking a short break from my busy busy life in Caltrans. ;-)

The QT blog is here! And all authors are shown in the "Contributors" sidebar. Enjoy~

Oh and btw, your post automatically shows you as the author at the bottom of the post. But I bet you knew that already... sigh