A Book Full of Mysteries

"Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near." (Revelation 1:3)

I saw a book on my living room's table when I went home last week. I picked it up and turned to the first page. Unknowingly, I continued reading. The content in it was very interesting. The book Revelation in the Bible has long made me thinking and questioning on some of the verses(with symbols and mysterious details). But through this book (entitled "The Victorious Lamb" - by Rev. Dr. Tie King Tai), I can now have a better understanding on the verses in the book of Revelation. No other New Testament book resembles Revelation in style.

This is the book that I mentioned earlier("The Victorious Lamb - An Exposition on the Book of Revelation"). Pastor Tie has indeed made a great effort in explaining and giving a clear interpretation on the events and verses in each chapter of the book Revelation. There are a few real-life testimonials that would touch every reader's heart. It shows how wonderful it is to believe and accepting Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour. Through this book, one will also know the events that will take place at the end of times.

According to the New International Version Bible, many explanations are made in explaining the book Revelation. The codes in Revelation is effective- so effective that few people today agree on exactly what they mean. Some explain Revelation in terms of the first century, concluding that many of the events prophesied in code took place during the Roman empire. Others find clues to John's meaning spread out over 2000 years of church history, or an idea based on a scanty evidence that he uses to describe an idealized battle of good and evil.

Because of all the conflicting theories about Revelation, readers are tempted to respond in one or two ways. Some judge the book so weirdly that they find no reason to read it at all. How can anyone be sure of its meaning?

Others conclude they have discovered the secret explanation of each obscure(mysterious) detail. Since the first century, some group has come up with different interpretations of the prophecies.

Why read this strange book? From the 1st verse, John gives us a clue: "the revelation of Jesus Christ" which introduces this book. Revelation gives a unique picture of Jesus Christ, and the New Testament would be incomplete without it. Revelation shows Jesus Christ from a new perspective: as the mighty ruler of the cosmic forces of good. When John saw him in this glorified state, he fell at Jesus' feet as though dead. (1:17)

Although Revelation does not remove the mystery surrounding Jesus' return and the end of the world, it does throw light on those events. It speaks lasting truths to every generation of readers. Revelation tells of Christ's future triumph over the evil in the universe. This crucial message of final hope was needed by its original readers in the first century and is still needed by us today.

While reading(or before reading) Revelation, a good Bible dictionary or commentary will clear up the confusion about Revelation.

Till then, God bless. Jesus loves you. :-)

P/S: Classes have started and I have to keep up my pace with it. Please pray for me.

In a blink of an eye

"But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:8-9)

Yeap, time passes that fast(based on the topic)........ From the day I set my foot back in my home last Friday night, a week has almost passed. My term holiday is nearing to an end. Very soon, it's time to go back to school once more. I'll be leaving Kuching the night after tomorrow, and my flight is bound for Penang. Gonna miss home, family and friends!

I reckoned that the coming days are gonna pass really fast. Soon, it'll be Christmas and New Year again. At the starting of my new term in the course I'm studying, I reckon that there will be more things to do and more obstacles to be overcome. Through my faith in Jesus, I believe that God will guide me and make a way for me. He is my Provider and He lights my path. Let me share with you these Bible verses: "Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Philippians 4:11-13)

To those out there, whether you are a Christian or not, God loves everyone of us and He is always there for you, God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins when we are still sinners. By believing and accepting Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, we are cleansed of our sins and become a renewed person. Through all the circumstances that we are facing, we can also give it to Jesus(Through prayer and believe(faith)) and rest in Him. Jesus said: "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

Please pray for me that I will continue to abide to God's will and have my faith continue to be strengthened in Jesus Christ, our Savior.

Till then, God bless and take care.

Jesus loves you. :-)

Two months ago

"Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:39)

This post is actually a sequel to the 'two more days to go for opening ceremony' post. It has been delayed. So I decided that I should blog about my campus opening ceremony today. Before touching on the topic, these are some pictures taken two months ago.

From left: Gobi, Rome, me, Kirath, and Alvis

Me and Alvis

To cut things short, the pictures below can tell you the processes on how the two days of my campus opening ceremony went:

The night before the official opening ceremony, we met Adrian(the man in specs beside me)(He is the TV2 news broadcaster) and quickly grabbed the opportunity to snap a pic with him

We then saw this beautiful young lady (middle-person, with longest hair) and later found out that she is actually Miss Malaysia 2008! She and Adrian were the MC for the opening ceremony.

Workers cleaning the windows

Marquees (large tents) were set-up to hold the lunch reception. There's another one opposite it.

Bowls, plates........(for next day's lunch)

Inside the marquee

Dato Sri Samy Vellu came and inspected the campus that afternoon, see him?

Some of the preparations...

Some of the flowers from Cameron Highlands

An aerial view of my campus (model)

Inside the great hall to see the rehearsal of performers


Snapshots during the lighted-up-campus-night

Dentistry, engineering, business and IT faculty

The boys from left: Richard, Rome, Bong, me, and Alvis

The girls from left: Nicole, Rachel, Sherlyn, Tiffeny, Ai Ping, Elaine

Library at right and Medical faculty at left

As I was one of the ushers, it is compulsory for all ushers on that day to wear traditional costumes. So these are the pictures on the day of my campus' official opening ceremony:

Three different races: Kirath, me, and Rome


Aaron and I

A pic with our Prof.

From left: Rachel, me, Kelly(Malaysia Airlines air-stewardess look-alike) and Yee Ling

I shook hands with the PM, the man at right is our Vice-Chancellor

Our PM enjoying the daytime fireworks show. The fireworks were beautiful and I'm sure everyone enjoyed it.

Luncheon
A pic with our lecturer





More pics......

This is the whole summary on what took place during my campus opening ceremony...there are actually more things to talk about but the time doesn't allow for now. That day was indeed memorable and everyone was pretty tired at the end of the day(enjoyed very much though).

Till then, God bless.

Jesus loves you.

Reunion

"And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." (Genesis 1:3)

My ol' pals and I had a small reunion at The Spring last Sunday. It was good to see them again after so long. We are now studying in different states across the country and each one of us has a story to tell. We crapped and joked around. This reminded me of our good ol' days in secondary school. Clement was the only best old friend who was not there with us...He has gone to Russia to pursue his medicine course.

We had our lunch at the food court and sat down at one corner where we had good talks and laughs. These were some of the pics that were taken that day:

Jun Yi (at left: now a TARc student) and I

Beef noodle (frankly speaking, you can cook it yourself)

From left(clockwise order): John (KCH), Ai Dee (KL, going to Korea soon), Jun Yi (KL), me, and Chung Yee (KCH)

Guy in black: Kok Sin aka. Bong and John

Sitting from left: Bong (Penang), John, Ai Dee

Standing from left: Chung Yee, Jun Yi

Caption: the same as above, except that I'm at behind right

For dessert, we went to the opposite Sugarbun shop to buy this 'tall' ice-cream (it became 'the Leaning Tower of Ice-cream' (Pisa) eventually)

Promoting......

Yun Seh (another ex-schoolmate of ours) came later. We talked for a while but I had to leave by then as there's youth fellowship later in the afternoon.

Days are passing by fast. The Sun rises and sets so quickly.

Please continue to pray for me and for the candidates who are siting for their public exam real soon.

Till then, God bless and take care. Jesus loves you.

P.S:// It was great to see you guys again and good luck to you guys in your future undertakings!

Alas!!!

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." (Deuteronomy 31:6)

"YES! Finally! Term exam finished! It's time to go home! Woohoo!!!!"

This was the phrase most of my friends (I said this too) said after all papers have been handed up.

And an approximate of 15 hours and 45 minutes ago, my Sarawak friends and I took a cab and rushed to the Penang airport. It was around an hour drive. Our first 30 minutes in the cab was quite entertaining as something really unexpected came up (it's not common in most of the taxis in Malaysia).

It all started when I bid farewell to my friends and went into the taxi and thought that I would take a rest during the journey. I sat behind and see the things around me. It was quite an old taxi, but let me tell you this....it has some of the best stereo sound system and plus a DVD player with an approximate 8 inch X 14 inch wide screen TV(I'm not sure, but it's considered wide screen for an installed TV in a car). So as you can guess, my friends and I watched this movie called The Medallion, which most of us have watched it before but forgot the whole plot line. We laughed and said "Ouch" when we see Jackie Chan's humorous actions and during the times when he smacked some bad guys down or when he get punched instead.

When I see the taxi driver putting down the front shade, I didn't thought that that was a TV, until the time I really see it, I said: "Oh-my-goodness" My friends were shocked too but we remained the coolness. It was worth it and the movie took all our boredness away.

After the movie, silence took over. We were in our own thoughts. We passed the Penang Bridge which was under expanding construction. There was a small jam but it quickly ended.

Once again, time flies. We arrived at the airport and my friend went to check-in. His flight was 1455. We heard our stomach growling for food so we went to the nearest and to the one of the best sold hamburger fast food franchise - McDonald's.

We took our time there and looked around. Some people hurried to the check-in counters while some others sat around doing their own things. As time passed, my friends left me and another friend. Their flight are earlier that us. My friend and I watched an hour of Red Cliff on my laptop and went to take our boarding passes. As soon as we left our seat at McD, as soon as we found out that we were at the departure hall for boarding.

As there was still a long time to wait, I took out a book to read and flip to page where there's this article on nowadays Russians. I was reading when something caught my eye. I looked up from my book and saw this young woman, probably an Indonesian, who came running towards the departure gate to catch her flight on Lion Air. Unfortunately, the gate was closed already and the walkway has been disconnected from the plane's main door. From a smiling face, this young woman suddenly became paranoid and went hysterical. The workers tried to calm her down but to no avail. She kept crying and shouting about. I thought I heard her saying "....Jumpa Mak......." (visit mom in Bahasa Malaysia) but I finally concluded that she was actually telling the workers that her luggage were on the plane (I guessed this was the reason when one passenger waiting for his flight went walking towards her and firing the workers there, saying on how could they left her when her luggage were already checked-in, what if there's a bomb in it? That's what he asked, when I thought that this question is quite...uhhhh.....you know it). The workers didn't manage to do anything. One woman worker then calmly brought her away. The situation was back to normal after that.

And so, everything went as planned and soon, we were in the skies. We took a rest and as I looked out, the skies darkened and night fell. After one and half hour (we were nearing Kuching airport), the seat belt sign came alive and the cabin crew told us that we were heading towards a stormy weather.

Outside, flashes came and gone. We didn't hear any thunder, however, which I reckoned that that was because the plane is made up of sound-proof material. I saw this lightning that strike the ground at a distance. It was really a scene but scary at the same time. One can just imagine how much voltage is in it. There were some turbulence also. As the cabin lights are switched off (only the important signage lights were on), the sudden lightnings that came illuminated the cabin once in a while. At that moment, I particularly felt the going-through-a-stormy-weather experience.

Praise God, we touched down at Kuching International Airport at 1950 and met up my family at 2010. We sent my friend off to the bus terminal for his trip back to Sibu.

After not meeting up with my family for some time, we have lots of things to talk about and I'm updated with the things happening in Kuching during the past few months.

Till then, I'll see if I've time to blog about the things that I've went through in my campus.

Please continue to pray for me and God bless. Jesus loves you.

Prayer

Thus says the Lord, Your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way you should go." (Isaiah 48:17)

Wow...time totally flies....It's been one whole month since I updated my blog. Exam is just next week so I can't write much right now. Just to let those out there that there are quite a number of events held last month (not to mention, lots of happenings in everyday life too). I'll see if I can squeeze all the activites I joined and saw in the coming posts. There are seriously lots of pictures taken too.

And guess what? I'm going back to my hometown next Friday! Woohoo! Home sweet home! From my friends blog, I came to know that some of them are going back this week already. So meet you guys real soon!

Assignments and projects for the term have been completed and everyone is now buring themselves under tons of books.

So till then, please pray for me in facing the coming exam.

Take care and God bless