...this is almost two weeks overdue. that's why the info here may not be 100% accurate...

[i have no idea why my name appears twice in the profile list. what did i do?]

18/11/07
joshua chan led worship last, last, week.

and later, we went through a more in-depth study of the ten commandments. these the commandments in brief and their meanings:

1) You shall have no other gods before me
2) Do not worship/create any idols in any form
= these two tie in with each other and place emphasis on God being the first priority in our lives. this means placing God before anything else, e.g. celebrities, pop idols, gaming...and is not just restricted to man-made idols.

3) Do not use the Lord's name in vain.
= saying "omg" and swearing on the Lord's name has become common practice as even on TV we hear people swearing "omg" and other profanities. how many of us have been influenced by society, culture, mass media, or our friends around us that we too have started to say these words?
"You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name." Exodus 20:7

4) Keep the Sabbath Day holy.
5) Honour your parents
= lots of kids honour their parents. even more kids don't. whether we're 2, 12, or 20, we still have to honour our parents cos those are the people that God chose to bring us up, like it or not. this means obeying our parents even when we don't feel like doing it, not being rude to them... especially hard to keep since i don't know how many times i have broken that commandment this past week...and this reaps rewards for,
"Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you." Exodus 20:12

6) You shall not murder
= Matthew 5:22
"But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subjected to judgement. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' [that is a term of contempt, much like our modern day swear words] is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell."

7) You shall not commit adultery
= looks easy to do..."But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already commited adultery with her in his heart." Matthew 5:28...but this extends to not only literal adultery, but also how we think.

8) You shall not steal
= stealing includes buying pirated movies, downloading and watching online or other people's videos or music and not just robbery or shoplifting. here joel brought up that the reason for this commandment was partly to make us earn what we want.

9) You shall not give false testimony against your neightbour.
= who is our neighbour? 'neighbour' is not just the person living next door to us. this commandment includes gossiping, slandering, lying to save face/get out of trouble/scapegoating etc.

10) Do not covet.
= "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:19-21

and we learnt that it is not necessary to be perfect to be saved, cos Jesus has already paid the price for us. but the ten commandments are like a mirror, where we can view our own faults. for without the ten commandments or the bible, will we know that stealing or adultery is wrong? so all in all, the commandments are guidelines to our everyday living. we look into the mirror to adjust our appearance, so in the same way, we look to the ten commandments to adjust the stuff that we're doing wrong in our lives.



25/11/07

last week esther and joylynn led worship.

first we went through an overview of the ten commandments. and then we wrote ten of our own personal commitments on a piece of paper. they could or could not be related to the ten commandments, but some of us did use the commandments as references.

the thing about the ten commitments is that they are personal, as well as about stuff more relevant to us as individuals, so it's more meaningful cos just the ten commandments by themselves can be put into different contexts.

like "You shall have no other gods before me". can mean placing computer games or pop idols before God, and may not exactly referring to the idols of other religions. so the idea is to set commitments that are do-able, will be relevant to our own lives and a challenge to keep.

and afterwards, we were giving craft materials and a mirror. we have to use the mirror and our ten commitments to create something that we'd look at often to remind ourselves of the commitments we are making.

i guess that's all. remember to pray for youth camp, those having exams, people on missions, and crossing the line in '08!

Hallo guys,

I published a post in July (25th July) on the above topic.

Since we are on the topic of the 10 commandments, now is a good time to have a read on that! I suspect this particular commandment is pretty difficult to put into practice!

Prayerfully,
Jere

hey! i'm back after so so so so long. haha. okay maybe not so long.
anway, today we continued with the ten commandments.
first, auggie led us in a time of worship with one song: Jesus, lover of my soul.

then Jere showed us a white board which was completely white except for one dot. okay. EVERYONE thought it was a dot right?? haha. almost everyone noticed the dot instead of the huge white board. some even said that the small little tinny whinny dot was more obvious than the white board itself.
actually, Jere wrote the word sin on the white board to illustrate that even a small sin was very obvious.

later, we broke up into smaller groups to discuss about the ten commandments, what they mean to us and what were some of our experiences with regards to breaking the ten commandments. i mean most of us break the commandments sometimes. don't we?

haha. okay. so we broke up into three groups, namely, the ZHA BO MEN (as suggested by Vanessa, as usual. haha.), Auggie's group and Jere's group. we went into different rooms and had our disscussion.

the girls discussed quite a lot of issues and our experiences with regards to breaking the ten commandments. it started off with the reading some verses, namely,

Matthew 5:22 - under commandment six
Psalm 119:9 - under commandment seven
Matthew 6:20-21 - under commandment ten

which were on the piece of paper, then we went on to the disscussion which included toothburshes (laughs) and sibling rivalry between you-know-who. haha. we almost finished the whole list, when the guys came back in. then we realised that they didn't finish the list either. they only did like FOUR! haha. so we, ZHA BO MEN are the faster species. :D

the dicussion showed us that we should use these rules as a guildline and change ourselves so that we should not break most of the rules. it also allowed us to reflect what we have done and make sure that we learn from our mistakes. through the discussion, we were able to learn from each other's mistakes. :D

that's all i guess. so i'm done. remember to pray for those who are still having their exams. :D

hahaha im back! after quite a long time eh?

yeah today we had our first wkrz after the month-long break. we were doing the ten commandments today as well as for the next three weeks (i think).
so today was kinda an overview thing:D

first off, jere led us in this time of worship, followed by a game.
hahaha yeah actually we all played the game before but we still played it.
aiya fun mah.
the objective of the game was to pass the ball in sequence in the fastest time possible.
(sounds familiar?)
yeah we got like 2.62seconds. right? i think so.
so anyway, the lesson learnt was 'teamwork', 'communication', 'method'
there's actually more but i cant remember.
the main point was METHOD.

next, jere then passed each of us a piece of paper with the ten commandments printed on it.
we were supposed to jot down whethere we've been following them, or not.
after that we then rated ourselves on a scale off one to ten for each of the commandments&added up the score.

even though we dont get into heaven based on the score we gave ourselves,
(cause JESUS saved us)
its still important for us to obey the commandments cause its like our guideline, telling us what is right/wrong.
so the ten commandments are still important!

yeah okay im done.
remember to continue praying for those who still have exams!