Monday, August 4, 2008
No copyright :)

• The quality of your behaviour reveals your stage in life. Maturity comes with the acceptance of responsibility! * So easy to discern who's mature n who's not now :p

Exo32:21-24 This passage reveals how immature Aaron was bcoz instead of taking responsibility for his mistake, he pointed his finger towards the children of Israel. *Now if you guys think that maturity is only for the more spiritual people(i.e cell leaders, pastors,etc), think again. Aaron was the first high priest of the Hebrews!! VERY HIGH SPIRITUAL POSITION! He was also the brother of Moses. Yet Aaron could display such childishness. Goes to show that maturity does not follow positions. Why do I want to point this out to u guys? We're discipled to respect our leaders and to honour them. That's so important bcoz we love our leaders. But guys, leaders are also imperfect ppl like U n I. They do make mistakes.. They do tumble... So we all gotta guard our hearts against disappointments that'll stumble us. The high expectations that we placed on our leaders can lead to great disappointments. BUT we gotta remind ourselves that ultimately, we serve JESUS. Man disappoints but God NEVER disappoints. Hope in God n we'll not be disappointed. I just feel that this is so important bcoz if u backslide bcoz u r disappointed by a more spiritual person or someone with a more spiritual position than u in the church, u're allowing the devil to win! Bcoz, ultimately, WE SERVE JESUS!

Roms 14:12-> God wants everyone of us to be personally responsible for ourselves.

• The one thing that u’ve control over is yourself!
  
• We’re responsible to people BUT NOT for people. Don’t be the Holy Spirit to someone! (Ezekiel 33:3-6)

Your destiny all goes back to how you think

2Cor10:4-5 -> We have to surrender our thoughts to Jesus. Especially the evil ones! We cant prevent thoughts from coming into our head just like we cant prevent birds from flying over our head. But what we can do is not to allow evil thoughts to build a nest on our head!

• Your will is the decision making mechanism in your life.
  
• Who you are today is the result of the decisions that you’ve made. So you got to take the initiative to make a decision to be mature if you want to be a mature person. Maturity does not happen overnight! So, change NOW, not tomorrow.

Exo8:9-10 -> Pharaoh had a chance to remove the frogs in Egypt immediately, but he chose to decide the next day! He rather live with the frogs for one more night! Sounds silly but many of us choose to live with bad things in our lives for a few more moments instead of making that decision to remove them! Eg. Bad memories. Instead of asking God to help us to forgive n to forget, we replay them again and again in our head!

• We must not be ruled by our emotions. Take responsibility for them!
  
• Just like joy is a choice but happiness is what happened to u that makes u happy. We can learn to direct our emotions. Sometimes, we may have a bad day but we don’t have to show a grouchy face just because of that. Or perhaps we are unhappy with or frustrated with some problems, but it does not mean we treat the people who caused those problems with disrespect. A mature person treats someone with respect even when they don’t deserve it.

1Cor9:27-> We all can preach about maturity but we are not mature, we disqualify ourselves to preach.

• Loving someone is respecting the person
  
• When you start taking responsibility for your own live, you’ll start to influence others around you.
  
  Pastor Mark shared his story..
  
  He went back to Australia from the states to study in a high school. But because he spoke with a strong American accent, his teacher thought that he was an American. That was some 20-30 years back. At that time, the war caused his teacher to be especially hateful towards Americans. So, he started treated Pastor Mark very badly even when he was a good student. So Pastor Mark began to develop much hatred towards his teacher. But he decided to still respect his teacher even under such harsh and unfavourable conditions in school. As time passes, his teacher began to soften. Instead of calling Pastor Mark yankee boy all the time, he called him Mark eventually. Everything became well eventually.
  
• We may not be surrounded by mature people all the time and sometimes, we get ill-treatments because of someone elses’ immaturity. But we cant control what others does. However, we can control how we react. The way we react will eventually influence them. We can be placed within a group of very ungodly people and even unchristian like Christians. But the bible instruct to not grow weary while doing good because in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart. So as long as we persevere in keeping His values in our own lives, others will eventually follow suit J
  
  
  

On 8/04/2008 12:31:00 PM, JoAnNa let go.