City Harvest Church - Xmas Drama 2014 - The Night I Met The Watchmaker

Week 62: The Tree of Life

In this same month 2000 years ago, God decided.... "Enough, is enough.." Despite the first compilation , Old Testament being a hit.. Despite it recording His great miracles through the hands of His appointed ones.. Moses parted the Red Sea and delivered His people from the hands of Egyptians. David killed the gaint Goliath with a sling and a stone. Samson killed a thousand of Palestine with a jaw of a donkey. Joshua tore down the walls of Jericho by matching around the walls in 7 days. All these were great men of God, but God was not satisfied  As much as these men of God had victories of their time, they were still under the dominion and curse of the sin which Adam brought forth.

Week 61: Perfect Love Casts Out Fear!

The system of God (lack of a better word) with man, can be determined right at the beginning of the Bible. Because of the existence of sin, blood shed is essential for the sinners to make right with God. This is seen when we look at the story of Adam and Eve. Right after they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, They hid themselves when God came looking for them.

This is the beginning where we see sin entered and separated man from God. Adam and Eve knew they sinned against God and they knew they were naked when their eyes were opened to the knowledge of good and evil. They tried to cover themselves with fig leaves.

Fig leaves in the Bible is referred to as "self-effort". As you can see from Adam's action. They tried to cover their own nakedness with fig leaves  But, what God did was He  clothe them with the animal skin. That is the first mentioned of animal sacrifice killed to cover man's sin.

Week 60: From Law to Grace

We have been discussing Law & Grace for a number of weeks. I hope by now you have a good idea of what they are all about. Last week, we said that the essence of Law is demand, whereas the essence of Grace is supply.

When we are conscious of our state of mind, we can easily determine if we are under Law or under Grace. Simply, ask ourselves this question: Are we in a demand-mode or supply-mode? Are we demanding on ourselves or others to get things going? Or are we simply relying on the strength of our Lord to get things done?

To look one step further, usually toxic emotions are associated with demand-state, A commander, demanding a high standard of his soldiers, will most often than not, yell at his soldiers. Yelling speaks of toxic emotion; this could often lead to what we discuss last week about stress. Hence, in a demand-mode, we are subjecting ourselves to negative state of mind and its effect.

When we study the Bible carefully, Jesus did not subject Himself to such negative emotions. Throughout the Scriptures, we don't see Him yelling at His disciples. He did correct His disciples but not through yelling nor screaming. He is the Supplier and He is the Source. It speaks a lot of His character especially when we realize His disciples weren't a perfect bunch  (Peter-lowly educated, behaved like a gangster;Matthew-tax collectors(not liken by many); Thomas-nick name doubting Thomas; Judas-not a true follower, a betrayal). It takes a person with a lot of character to mingle with these people for three and a half years, isn't it? And yet, Jesus took them as disciples and never mentioned in the bible Jesus yelled or shouted at them at any one time.