John

Sorry this is sorta overdue, but these are some observations i've made from reading John.

Chapter 1
We are nothing and there will be nothing without God/Jesus.

John 1:1-5

Jesus became human to save a race that was blind to His grace and love.

John 1:10-11,14

Chapter 5

It's not about what you do (on the Sabbath) but the reasons and motives behind each action.

John 5:8-14

Eternal life is not gained simply by reading the Bible.

³⁹You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, ⁴⁰yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

Chapter 6

God already has a plan. Somethings happen just to test how we react. Always have faith that God already has a plan and purpose.

⁵When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" ⁶He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.

Jesus/God is everything we need. Work for His glory and we'll have everything we need (not want). God will never leave us. Each time we fall, He's always willing to take us back as long as we truly repent. Jesus came to save, not condemn. We should do the same. If we see a brother that's fallen, we should not condemn him but help him.

John 3:17-18
John 6:26-27, 35-40

Chapter 7

We should never take what we hear or what was taught to us for granted. Search the Bible and pray to see if it is indeed true and in line with what God wants/says.

John 7:17

Chapter 8

When there is someone who has sinned. We should not condemn them for we too are sinners. We should be supportive and help the person turn away from sin. Jesus' love for us is GREAT! He doesn't condemn us and receives us with WIDE OPEN arms when we repent.

John 8:3-11

Chapter 9

Our circumstances may not be bacause of our sin or parents' sin. It may be that way because God has a plan for it to display God's work.

John 9:1-3

Genesis

i have to say that our bible reading have slowed down rather significantly and we cannot actually catch up to the pace we wanted to at first.
but i would like to call out to members of this blog to devote some time to the Lord everyday..some in the morning maybe but definitely spend sometime reading the bible at night (:
devoting an hour everyday is much less than what we should (1/10 of a day) but it is a good habit we should build up that everynight we spend time with God and reading His word.
Me being somewhat a firstimer reading the bible has found the book of genesis rather disturbing..i will talk about that later
the beginning of the book talked about creation of mankind and the Earth and how mankind was cheated to eat the forbidden fruit.for this sin man had to die.
the first murder was then occured and Abel was the first man to die.He died because of jealousy.. an evil thing all of us have.. jealousy.. evil and powerful..if we do not stay close to God.. jealousy and sin can blind us.
Methuselah was probably the oldest man ever lived.969 yrs old. imagine we lived THAT LONG. haha..what will our lives be like.. hmm..
Enoch was the first man God took away for he walked with Him..he lived 365 yrs before he was not.
afther that.. evil manifested and the world became so unpleasant to the Lord that he decided to destroy the Earth accept for Noah and his family along with other animals.then came the story of Noah's ark which is an act of great faith.
after the flood came the covenant of the rainbow.."Genesis 9: 13I do set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth. 14And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud.15And I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh."for this i have a question.He promised not to destroy us with water anymore,but he can easily find another method to destroy us so what is the purpose of this covenant..or what he meant was that he will never destroy every creature again?
i also found something puzzling in
genesis 9.21 When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers outside. 23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father's nakedness.

24 When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said,
"Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers."
i do not understand why Noah cursed Canaan as i do not see what he had done to Noah.haha..maybe im too blur.

Then came the tower of Babel.. something im puzzled about too.do the Lord really have to confuse the languages of the people and scatter them.. is it really possible for people if they all speak the same language to do ANYTHING?... so it is actually possible to built a tower to reach to the heavens??!!.. very interesting concept..maybe i misunderstood this.haha.
ok.. then the disturbing part comes in.. is it like a trend in the past that if u cannot concieve u send yr maid to lay with yr husband so that you can have a child.. its a veri weird thing to do in my opinion
the next disturbing part.
3 But Lot insisted, so at last they went home with him. Lot prepared a feast for them, complete with fresh bread made without yeast, and they ate. 4 But before they retired for the night, all the men of Sodom, young and old, came from all over the city and surrounded the house. 5 They shouted to Lot, “Where are the men who came to spend the night with you? Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them!”
6 So Lot stepped outside to talk to them, shutting the door behind him. 7 “Please, my brothers,” he begged, “don’t do such a wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two virgin daughters. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do with them as you wish. But please, leave these men alone, for they are my guests and are under my protection.”

is not giving away his 2 virgin daughters to the people an wicked thing too? or is he supposed to do that.. imagine yr father is willing to give u away to strangers who will do harm to u.. disturbing thought indeed.

after this sodom was destroyed for it was such an wicked city.
ANOTHER DISTURBING ISSUE. Lot and his daughters.. the daughters made the father drunk and had sex with the father.. isn't it something very wrong.and why did Lot drink until he was drunk? what is the message these verses is trying to bring out.. do not be drunk?..
after this came the test of abraham's faith.. im not sure what the Lord did this for it is a very very painful thing to do.. to sacrifice yr most loved one.. who will do that.. Abraham is a man of great faith.. but i do not understand why God had to do that.Abraham probably didnt too.. but he followed.. so let us thing if such a test was brought to us.. will we follow God's command.. i have to say that i will not have such faith and courage to bring myself to do such a thing..
the story of Esau and Jacob also makes it a veri contorted and somewhat corrupted one since Jacob being such a scheming n cunning person is allowed to have blessings and all.in genesis 30 came again the trend of sending their maids to the husband to concieve children.
so anyway thats the summary of my confusions about genesis..
the stories of faith and miracles are inspirational and i dun think i need to write much about that..
so ppl.. pls finish up genesis and read exodus. (:
hopefully by this week?
haha.. Pls help me find answers to these queries.. thanks.
whee (:

genesis - the rainbow.

i must say i havent finished genesis!! yes it's a mighty long book. we're supposed to start on exodus this week right?

haha.

anyway, one thing that really striked me while reading genesis was the flood. and the RAINBOW.

I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of covenant between me and the earth. -Gen 9:13

the human race was so evil that God sent the waters from the heavens and the sea to destroy them. but the rainbow! i felt really wow-ed when i read those verses (Gen 9:8-17). God promised not to send a flood to earth again, and he creates the rainbow to as a token of the convenant which He established between Him and all flesh that is upon the earth. to show and perhaps, emphasise His promise to man. and we still see the rainbow up till this day, dont we?

many of us look at it as just some beautiful thing in the sky, representing God's promise.. but don't we see that it IS His promise, it doesnt simply represent it.. and the very fact that we can SEE the rainbow after the rain.. thousands of years later. it's like a piece of noah's time on this ageing earth. i just think it's great.. i dont really know how to put it in words. haha. we always say that we can't see, hear or feel God. but He's right there man.. He exists. the rainbow - His promise.

secular people will explain the formation of a rainbow through science.. the whole refraction thing. then there are those little experiments with the prisms. but why is it that no one (or at least i think so) has managed to re-create a rainbow in the sky? a huge lovely spectrum of colours. always reminding us that God is there.

sarawak people, rem the double rainbow we saw at kuching? God's presence :) watching over us.

i think i have blogged enough about rainbows hahaha.

will finish up the rest of genesis by this week i hope! (:

the first bit of genesis.

"So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." - Genesis 1:27

I didn't realise that Genesis was such a long loooong book until I actually had to both read and comment on it. It's huge! Anyway I've done maybe the first half of it. Better to post in segments than have to write one big thingy at the end. Thank God we have two weeks to get through this! :) (ignore the pun.)

I guess that the major thing that this says to me is that not only is God our Creator, He is also our Saviour. He's the all powerful, almightly being, and yet He still came to die for us. When He created man in His own image, as the one thing to crown His creations, He thought of a Plan B should anything go wrong. And when it did go wrong, He did not hesitate to carry it out. Even though He had every right to destroy Adam and Eve when they had sinned (for isn't the wages of sin death?), He didn't - instead He sent them away, but with the promise that salvation would one day come. And He kept his promise.

When God once 'cleaned up' Earth with a great flood, He left His covenant in the sky. That rainbow is still in the sky today, and even though basic science tells us how that happens, the fact that it does happen remains a miracle of God. We're still around - God keeps His promises.

When God was going to destroy Sodom and Abraham pleaded with Him, He agreed to spare Sodom should there be ten rightous people in it. Unfortunately there wasn't even that much - but even so, what a merciful God!

When Sarah conceived Issac even though she wasn't even menstruating anymore - what an awesome God that keeps His promises ...

All through the Bible we see that God has always kept His promises. What makes us think He won't do it now? And here's more food for thought - we're created in the image of God. Do we measure up to it? Do we reflect the character of Christ and do as He would?

Hm ...

Word of Encouragement

This passage was shared during one of Canny Lao shi's Sermons. Very POWERFUL and great is the message. In our pursuit of Understanding God through reading the bible, this paragraph of bible truths is really encouraging for me. I bolded and enlarged the key points k. Please read this carefully that we might have the right spirit toward reading the bible and be greatly motivated by its words.

Great Controversy

chap37 The scriptures a Safeguard

pg 599

The language of the Bible should be explained according to its obvious meaning, unless a symbol or figure is employed. Christ has given the promise: "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine." John 7:17.

(We, who are searching for God's will, will know His teachings.YAY!)

If men would but take the Bible as it reads, if there were no false teachers to mislead and confuse their minds, a work would be accomplished that would make angels glad and that would bring into the fold of Christ thousands upon thousands who are now wandering in error.

(just by the bible and the Holy Spirit as our guide we can spread God's word and save many souls. powerful!)

We should exert all the powers of the mind in the study of the Scriptures and should task the understanding to comprehend, as far as mortals can, the deep things of God;

(which we are doing;))

yet we must not forget that the docility and submission of a child is the true spirit of the learner. Scriptural difficulties can never be mastered by the same methods that are employed in grappling with philosophical problems. We should not engage in the study of the Bible with that self-reliance with which so many enter the domains of science, but with a prayerful dependence upon God and a sincere desire to learn His will. We must come with a humble and teachable spirit to obtain knowledge from the great I AM. Otherwise, evil angels will so blind our minds and harden our hearts that we shall not be impressed by the truth. Many a portion of Scripture which learned men pronounce a mystery, or pass over as unimportant, is full of comfort and instruction to him who has been taught in the school of Christ. One reason why many theologians have no clearer understanding of God's word is, they close their eyes to truths which they do not wish to practice.

As understanding of Bible truth depends not so much on the power of intellect brought to the search as on the singleness of purpose, the earnest longing after righteousness.

The Bible should never be studied without prayer.

The Holy Spirit ALONE can cause us to feel the importance of those things easy to be understood, or prevent us from wresting truths difficult of comprehension.

It is the office of heavenly angels to prepare the heart so to comprehend God's word that we shall be charmed with its beauty, admonished by its warnings, or animated and strengthened by its promises. We should make the psalmist's petition our own: "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law." Psalm 119:18.

Temptations often APPEAR irresistible because, through neglect of prayer and the study of the Bible, the tempted one cannot readily remember God's promises and meet Satan with the Scripture weapons.

(Time to Start memorsing Favourite bible Verses!!!)

But angels are round about those who are willing to be taught in divine things; and in the time of great necessity they will bring to their remembrance the very truths which are needed. Thus "when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." Isaiah 59:19. {GC 599.3} Jesus promised His disciples:

"The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." John 14:26.

But the teachings of Christ must previously have been stored in the mind in order for the Spirit of God to bring them to our remembrance in the time of peril. "Thy word have I hid in mine heart," said David, "that I might not sin against Thee." Psalm 119:11.

It is my prayer that we the Bible Reading Bloggers will be faithful and understand a whole lot about God that in the last days when trials and temptations come, we will stand strong and faithful holding up the banner of Christ.

AMEN!

BOOK OF JOHN

okay shall quote my fav verse first.
John 12:24,25 24Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
25He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
Without Christ's sacrifice, we are nothing. But his death on Earth brought many people to believe from which more and more people became believers.
the book of John quotes many acts of miracles that Jesus had performed. many people chose to believe in these act rather than him which led to their unstable n weak faith. we should learn from the history and have total faith in him.the weak faith can be seen from chapter 6 v60-70
The promise of the holy spirit's presence with us is also something that we should learn to cherish.from john chapter 7
--37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” 39 But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing[g] in Him would receive; for the Holy[h] Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
And from what i learnt.. we should NEVER follow entirely a HUMAN leader.. we should ask God and have God guidance... for the jews chose to believe in Abraham as compared to the Son of God. thats why we should believe his word and always pray for guidance which will make us free. quote John 8-
31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
This is a very motivating text i saw from John 14
1 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions;[a] if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.[b] 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
it tells us that if we believe and obey him.. we will have a place in heaven.. n thats veri comforting to hear (:
hmm.. i cannot concentrate fully due to my ns tmr. wahha.
oh well. to me.. the book of JOHN is basically about the love of Jesus for us. Many of us take his sacrifice for granted (me included) and continue to sin each day away even though many times the sins can be avoided. asking for forgiveness everyday for the same old sins have disgusted myself. Why can't i avoid the same sins and try to remove them from my life. maybe we should all start it today and remove our evil thoughts and foul words from us one by one.. hopefully one day we will be void of many of the sins we commit each day the past days...
hope my ns will be smoothsailing..
(:
have fun reading genesis..
n welcome our new members :D

GOSPEL OF JOHN - sheena's post.

haha i've finally finished reading today! but, i read the clearword :) gonna read kjv soon before embarking on genesis.

its a really nice book! had such a nice feeling when i finished the last few verses. anyway many things struck me while i was reading.

firstly, about the Holy Spirit. when Jesus carried out his ministry here on earth He taught the people many many things. but He said in chapter 14, when He dies the Holy Spirit will be the one who teaches us (14:26) instead. i thought that was pretty powerful. i was wondering how the Holy Spirit is gonna teach us. like you cant see it or feel it right. and i realised that it's through the prompting of the Holy Spirit that we will learn and grow, and through US as living christians the Holy Spirit can spread the gospel and reach out to other people. we are God's living instruments :)

other thing - in the book, it seemed to be very difficult for the Pharisees and many of the Jews to understand what Jesus was talking about because they kept thinking of things in the 'earthly' terms instead of spiritual. for eg, when Jesus talks about the Father, they get confused because they think about the earthly father instead of our Father in heaven. kinda shows that our focus is all on the wrong places sometimes. we shld be focussing on spiritual food that will grant us eternal life! its like what karen's post is about.. very apt!

okay, i know this is quite nitty gritty. and i thk i havent really gotten the whole gist of the book yet. i know the gist of it and what it tells us about God is that - God loves us so much that he sends His Son to die for us! (3:16) he seems to have a Plan B for this fallen nation.

but i will admit that i am unable to fully comprehend the magnitude of His love and the death of Jesus. and i guess i will find out when i read the whole bible :) hopefully at the end of this year i can describe it :)

SRY

i promise to post by tmrrrrrrrr...........
cos i wanted to have a better post as my first official post (:

THE BIBLE IS A WONDERFUL BOOK

yeah, my conclusion after 6 chapters of John

Chap 6
Many people use human logic to judge spiritual things; use worldly measure to measure the the untimate and divine. They use intellectual reasoning more than spiritual faith in Jesus. Hence, they fall out of the fold - fall from the herd of the followers of Christ, because spiritual things thought with our human minds would seem nonsense. ( It takes the spiritually discerning to discern spiritual things) These people think their reasonling is infallible and hence Christ's words incredible.

6:39 And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.

6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

6:41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.

6:42 And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?

6:43 Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves.

6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Also verse 47 - 58

These are the people that so not exercise faith. Who do not believe in what they cannot see and explain at the moment. Their unbelief cause them to lose their salvation.

I think when we read from the bible we wll understand the words of Christ because we know the spiritual concepts already. Concepts of Christ's death and resurrection and how it applys to the plan of salvation. Hence what Christ says makes perfect sense. For the common folk at Christ's time, it may be inconceivable because the works of Christ is heard from here and there and may be really fragmentated. However, thay are not disadvantaged because they're living in that time and don't have to New testament to piece things together. As they have seen Jesus's flawless life and His miracles through interaction with Him. Moreover, many of the old testament scriptures point toward Jesus's Birth, His ministry and His ultimate sacrifice. Any dilligent and sincere student would understand His words perfectly and stand inawe of His perfection.

True religion required alot of FAITH.

My take away is that we musn't use the measuring tape of man to measure the deep things of God. When we doubt, seek spiritual guidence or pray. Many things are a mystery to a believer, because we are humans with limited understanding. We cannot attempt to comprehend the unlimited knowledge of God many times.

The rule of the thumb is to pray to God for wisdom, knowledge and understanding when trying to understand concepts of God. Then, trust Him to reveal His meaning to us in due season.

FAITH FAITH FAITH FAITH GOD GIVE ME FAITH.

PS. actually I have bible promises to support our bible reading.I'll post next time.

HEY MY DEAREST FRIENDS, CAN YOU GUYS TAKE UP THE GREAT CONTROVERSY AND READ CHAP 37 please. Its really inspiring and WILL SURELY GIVE YOU GREAT MOTIVATION TO FINISH READING THE BIBLE.

Ciao!
Take care!

huh.

This is the bleary eyed sick person who is came online for the first time in a week and a half and sees that - uh - she's totally out of touch. Nevertheless she will endeavour to produce something in the space of 5 minutes.

*sniffle*

*finds a tissue*

Okay.

John is one of my favourite books in the Bible. Heck, it IS my most favourite book in the Bible. I think that John is the portion of the Gospels that sheds light on Jesus's humanity and its relationship with Divinity. In the sense that even though He was God, He cared about the "little people", as such. Just everybody and anybody on the street.

It tells us that "God became man and dwelt among us". It tells us the God so loved the world that He sent us His only Son that we might live and not die. It tells us that there is no greater love than that He laid down His life for His friends. For isn't Jesus our friend?

Thorugh its pages it tells us of a God who listens when we cry out and heals those who come to Him.

It tells us that Christ was God, yet He was also man.

What an awesome God!

KAREN!

go read yr hotmail inbox!! (:

to add on

as the books are pretty long right, i think we should do what uncle franklin taught us. which is, while reading, find out what each book tells us about God. if not our focus will be all over the place. okay happy reading everyone! :)

Instructions

hi ppl.so i shall give guidelines about how to post.
1.title of book
eg John
2.word u chose to describe the book
3.favorite verse/verses
4.what each chapter is talking about briefly
5.thoughts and feelings
6.applications
7.questions that u have about the verses.
Of cos these are just guidelines i've just thought of. its just SOME of the things that shld be inside yr post. Other topics of it are welcome.
please post latest by saturday night 11.59am (:
and karen.. i dun see u online!! haha..
and sheena, wad is the time taken for each book based on.. number of chapters? or wad.. its is as I II III john and jude in 2 weeks seem a pretty long time for such short books eh.

is it me or do i see 2 johns.. or are we supposed to read it twice

first week - book of John

hey i thought we were doing it in 1 year starting from john, then old testament?!

SOMEONE (*cough*jiahong*cough) was totally supposed to put up an instructions list LAST NIGHT. hahah. soon yeah. okay so by end of this week (sabbath) we must read finish the book of john aight? jiahong i alr gave u the nkjv bible, so no excuses.

im gonna do so after i iron the clothes and bathe. school starts for me tomorrow! rahh.

HUGS KARENNNNNN come back soonish!

michelle hasnt accepted my invitation! haha. HURRY.

YOUR DEAREST FRIEND HERE!

HI!
i read the first and second book of mattew today!
its basically the line and story of the birth of Jesus. Its actually more interesting than my devotion book!

didn't expect the bible KJV to actually be so engaging! (alright at least it is rite)

I think Jesus is really special cos imagine all the prophecies that were fulfilled that foretold His coming. How could the bible teachers the pharisees miss the fact that HE's the MESSIAH! I guess people can choose to be so blind to evident truth.

ANYWAY, we're reading the whole bible in two years starting from the NEW TESTAMENT right? I hope we'll be very consistent in our readings. =)

I have been praying for you guys and take care. DUN MISS ME AS MUCH AS I MISS YOU, and hope to hear your sharing soon!

LOVE
KAREN