Greetings in the blessed name of Jesus!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

First and foremost, I want encourage all those who are in love to continue to shower your loved one with love and care. Don’t just do it for this weekend but for the rest of your life! And for those who are still looking for love, I pray that God will grant you someone according to the desire of your heart and His heart.

Relationship is definitely one of the biggest things in life if not THE biggest! It is something that we desire to have and yet at the same time we have a lot of reservations about it. Sometimes, we are afraid to get involved because we have this fear that tells us, ‘What if he/she is not the one for me?’ With this, we end up with having a lot of people not having the courage to love - living a life that is incomplete… always having something missing. This is not good. We are not meant to live that way. God designs us in such a way that we need someone to compliment us. We need companion. We need a special friend to be close to us to care and share the joy and woes of life. However, on the other extreme of the spectrum, we have those who would rather love wrong than never loved at all. This is dangerous. To go against God and against your wisdom to be with someone that you know you are not supposed to be with is a recipe for disaster! I know of many people who are like that. And I am saddened by the fact that they are not doing well as a couple or as a family.

Church, I want to encourage you to always put God first in your life. Let Him be the 3rd person in your marriage. Allow Him to come and construct your family – because marriage is not just about husband and wife but also about raising children. Friends, I want to encourage you and remind you to always have this close to your heart.

With this, I believe every Valentine would be a special one both for you and your loved ones.

In Him,

KEV

Dear Church,

Greetings in the blessed name of Jesus!

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Chinese New Year! WOW! What a wonderful season it is… I still remember those days when I was still a little kid, Chinese New year is like the time of the year where there were lots of food, entertainment, hang-outs, lion dance, home visitations and of course the most important one of all ANG POWS! Well, it is still very much the same these days except for the fact that now I have to give ANG POWS instead of receiving them. But it is all good. The Bible tells us that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

As believers I want us to learn to give with a generous heart. It is a good thing that all of us can do. Apart from giving money to those whom we love, we should also learn to give of our time and our energy. Most of us will want to rest when we get home. Our ideal holiday is one that is filled with food and sleep! However, this is also the only time we are home. So, use this time to help out your parents and families with all the home decorations and shopping. Company your mom and dad to the market. Show them that you care and that the things that matter to them matter to you too. On top of that, it is also through actions like these that we show our honor to our parents.

Friends, our mom and dad have done a lot for us. Sometimes the sacrificed that they have made is way beyond our imaginations. It costs them too to raise us up. As your pastor, I want you to learn to be thankful and grateful to them. I want you to go all out this Chinese New Year to show them that you love them and that you care very much for them.

This CNY is not going to be the same if we all go home with a totally changed and transformed attitude.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Dear Church,

Greetings from freezing cold Seoul, Korea!

How are you doing? I pray that this edition of Word Weekly finds you blessed and well. A few of us have been here since Monday and the trip so far has been life-changing. Though the weather has been extremely cold, our hearts are warmed by the presence of God and the fervency of the Korean Christians.

Every day we have to wake up at 330am to get ready to attend the 430am prayer meeting. The first day was rather tough to get up. However, it got easier and better the next day. I find myself being able to wake up earlier and actually look forward to the prayer meeting. Honestly, the first day was so tiring. I just couldn’t plug into it fully. On the second day, I just prayed and prayed and praise God that I finally plowed through. After that, it was a breeze. I just so enjoy the fact that so many of us can wake up as such an early hour to seek the LORD. And every one was just so serious and so fervent. By the way, there are 24,000 people gathered to pray every day at different locations. They usually do this for 21 days in January so that all of them can align themselves right with God.

Church, I want you to know that I am very impacted by them this time round. Seoul is a city larger and busier than ours yet the believers here make time to pray. They could have given a million reasons why they could not make it. But they didn’t. They adjust their lifestyle, reschedule their meetings and humble themselves before God and pray. Friends, I want to encourage you to do the same. This year, we will have once a month weekly morning-prayer meeting. And when we do that, I want the whole church to participate. I want you readjust your schedule, go to bed early and wake up early to seek the LORD. Don’t find excuses. Don’t try to reason. Just make God your priority. Make prayer the #1 exercise in your life.

Revival begins and continues if we will pray. ‘IF’ is a big word… if you will pray…

Pray, City Harvest!

KEV

Dear Church,

Greetings in the blessed name of Jesus!

Once again, I would like to wish everyone in our church a happy and blessed new year! 2009 has just begun and I am sure all of us are excitedly looking forward to a great year that the LORD has in stored for us.

It is the first week of the year. What shall we do? Well, I know you have heard it many times but it is still important. In this first week, I want you to set your visions and priorities right. I want you to set yourselves goals and have plans on how to achieve them. This is very important as it sets the tone and pace of our lives. It also helps to define our year. However, please do not try to have too many goals. Please do not try to achieve too many things. Why? It is because we can easily get distracted and end up with not meeting any of them. So, my advice for you this year is FOCUS. Learn to focus on things that are major in your life. Do the more important things. Focus on building your spiritual life, family, career (studies), finances and ministry. And in each of them clearly define what you want to achieve. For example, in the area of your spiritual life, set yourself a goal whereby you aim to pray at least 15 minutes a day. Subsequently, have a chart that you can track yourself. By doing that, you can quantify your progress! Or in the area of your finances – set a savings target. Try to aim something like RM10,000 or RM100,000 by the end of the year. From there, have a spreadsheet that you can track your savings. You and I will not be able to meet our target if by the 10th month of the year we hardly have anything in our bank account. Start now, though the amount may be small. If you have debts, make it a priority to clear it as soon as possible. Stop spending and start saving. Forget about investment in this season of your life. Forget about starting a business. Sort out yourself first before moving on to the next phase. If our foundation is not strong, what can we build? Make sure we first keep our house in order. And it is only once we have done that we can build a community….

2009 is going to be your best year yet!

Run with faith

Dear Church,


Greetings in the blessed name of Jesus!

On behalf of the Board Members and the entire leadership team, I would like to wish everyone a happy and blessed New Year!

Well, 2009 is just 3 days away and we only have 72 hours left to do anything that still needs to be done before 2008 comes to an end. I hope there isn’t much left to be done. As we reach the closing moment of the year, and since Monday, Dec 29, is a public holiday, I really would like all of us to take some time out to evaluate our year. Where there are achievements and blessings, give thanks to God. Where there are mistakes and failures please ensure that we learn from them and don’t repeat them again. It wouldn’t be very wise if we keep making the same mistakes again and again. Church, I want to see you grow stronger and firmer in the LORD in the coming year. Not only that, I want your love for Jesus to grow deeper as well!

In 2009, there are 5 areas that I want you to focus and build on, and there are your HEALTH, FINANCE, MARRIAGE/FAMILY, CAREER, AND MINISTRY. I want you to take time to seriously pray and ask God for a vision for each and every one of them. After that, stay focused to achieve them. A lot of people do not achieve their dreams and goals in life because they constantly change them or worst still forgotten about them. If we are not persistent, we will never see our dreams come to pass. Friends, remember, what we focus on will grow and what we starve will die. If we treasure the dreams of our lives, then we will value the days of our lives. We only have a lifetime to prepare for eternity. Honestly, it is not that long. Number your days and make them count!

Armed with this preparation, I am sure 2009 is going to be your best year yet!

See you on the other side!

KEV

Dear church,


Greetings in the blessed name of Jesus!

On behalf of the Board Members and the entire leadership team, I would like to wish everyone a happy and blessed Christmas!

Christmas! WOW! What a wonderful season it is – a time that remind us that life is all about love and giving. Truly, what is the point of living if we cannot love and we don’t give! Life would be miserable if we cannot share our joy and achievement in life with people we love. And it would be even worse if we do not know how to give and who to give to. God proved that importance to us in that more than 2000 years ago, God showed His love to us by giving us His one and only Son, Jesus Christ. That one act of giving by God has transformed the face of this earth upside down! And the effect of it has lasted for more than 2000 years!

It is often said that love is not love till it is given away and we may be able to give without loving but we can never love without giving! The personification of love is expressed in our ability to share. So church, I want to take this opportunity to invite all of you to share your life, your love, your time and your energy by being a part of City Care! City Care is our church’s new initiative to encourage all our members to be involved in humanitarian work. The Bible makes it very clear that true religion is when one cares for widows and orphans and is not contaminated by the world. City Harvest, when we extend our arm to look after someone, when we take the time to care for somebody, even a task as simple as giving someone a drink, Jesus said we are doing it for Him. Church, doing humanitarian work is practically extending God’s love to the world we live in. We may not have much experience in doing this, but let us give of our best and shine for Jesus!

There will be booths outside the lobby this weekend so make sure you sign up!

Let’s build a city that cares!

KEV

Greetings in the blessed name of Jesus!

Well, as of this weekend we have arrived at the 2nd last weekend of the year… and we have approximately 10 days to end the year 2008! Phew! Time flies in almost the speed of light! Church, because of that, I want you to take the last days of this year to take stock of all that you have done or failed to do. It is important for us to do this as we learn to count our blessings and see how far we have gone as a person. Our achievements reflect our hard work, discipline and excellence. On the other hand, it is also crucial that we learn from our mistakes. The most costly lesson is the one we never learned from. I don’t mind if we make new mistakes. It shows that we are doing something new, something different. However, if we keep making the same mistakes, then it is a matter of stubbornness and having an ‘un-teachable’ heart. And this is a serious problem… it will lead us into denial and the inability to grow further in the LORD. With this in mind, I want us to take some time out to tie up all the loose ends of this year and finish all the things that we are supposed to do. And also, please do a really good evaluation so that in 2009, you can go all out in full steam unto the LORD.

I have a very good feeling on the inside of me that 2009 is going to be our best year yet. As a church, we will venture into many new territories and individually, there will be many ‘firsts’ in our lives. And it is because of this that I want all of us to let go of all of our heavy baggage unto the LORD. Make sure that we are lightweight, flexible and maneuverable. This way, we will find ourselves be able to do a lot more in the days to come. Well, as the sayings go, we are only young once. So let’s use this season of our lives to build a super strong spiritual foundation in the LORD, so that we may leave behind an influential spiritual legacy for the LORD and our family. Church, let’s arise and do something meaningful and purposeful!

Let’s believe God together for an awesome 2009!

Amen!


KEV