Philippine Pharmaceutical Association 57th Annual Meeting & Conference

(Some photos were taken using my cellphone, hence the blurry outcome. While others were well, through my digi.)

Date: April 20-21, 2007
Venue: April 20 -- Welcoming Dinner @ Patio Victoria, Intramuros
April 21 -- Whole day affair @ Fiesta Pavillon, Manila Hotel

It was my first time to join the PPhA Convention... Glad to be with Shi, Deanne, & the Zamboanga delegates that day, it made the day so much fun!:)

2007 Summer Bible-Reading Activity -- Hymn Singing

2007 Summer Bible-Reading Activity -- Hymn Singing

God's eternal economy is to make man the same as He, is in life and nature but not in the Godhead.

And to make Himself one with man and man one with Him. Thus to be enlarged and expanded in His expression.

That all His divine attributes may be expressed in human virtues!

2007 Summer Bible-Reading Activity -- Hymn Singing

2007 Summer Bible-Reading Activity -- Hymn Singing

Singing the Subjects of the Bible...

Genesis and Exodus the first two books we sing...

2007 Summer Bible-Reading Activity -- Corporate Morning Revival

Hymn-singing..

All Scriptures is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work! "o"

2007 Summer Bible-Reading Activity

During the reading...

Pictures to follow...

Bible Reading Activity

Date: April 22-27, 2007
Venue: Hall 1, Church in Manila; Ninoy Aquino Park & Wildlife

That's the link for the zip file of 300+ selected photos.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/x6x9p4

Descriptions and labels to follow... Too many kc...
Sorry for the quality of the photos coz I'm still a newbie in photography...^-^

Joanne's Baptism

Date: April 22, 2007

Now I belong to Jesus,
Jesus belongs to me.
Not for the years of time alone,
But for eternity!

Bro. Jacinto Giving a Concluding Message (3)

Elders, Responsible and Serving Ones' Training

Bro. Jacinto Giving a Concluding Message (2)

Elders, Responsible and Serving Ones' Training

Bro. Jacinto Giving a Concluding Message

Elders, Responsible and Serving Ones' Training

Bro. Lin Hong giving a Bird's Eyeview of the Messages (2)

Elders, Responsible and Serving Ones' Training

Bro. Lin Hong giving a Bird's Eyeview of the Messages

Elders, Responsible and Serving Ones' Training

Bro. Simpson giving a Bird's Eyeview of the Messages (4)

Elders, Responsible and Serving Ones' Training

Bro. Simpson giving a Bird's Eyeview of the Messages (3)

Elders, Responsible and Serving Ones' Training

Bro. Simpson giving a Bird's Eyeview of the Messages (2)

Elders, Responsible and Serving Ones' Training

Bro. Simpson giving a Bird's Eyeview of the Messages

Elders, Responsible and Serving Ones' Training

Elders, Responsible and Serving Ones' Training (Regions I-VI)

Date: April 13-15, 2007
Venue: Baguio City, Philippines


General Subject: Shepherding the Church of God as a Slave of God


Table of Contents

Message One: Being Replaced with Christ by Enjoying and Ministering Christ to Shepherd the Church of God as a Slave of God for the Fulfillment of the Dream of God

Message Two: Shepherding the Church of God as a Slave of God, with the Spirit of a Slave, the Love of a Slave, and the Obedience of a Slave

Message Three: Types and Prophecies in Isaiah concerning Christ as the Slave of God and Their Application in Shepherding the Church of God as a Slave of God

Message Four: Shepherding the Flock of God as a Slave of God by Living and Proclaiming Christ as the Jubilee of Grace

Message Five: The Lord's Shepherding in Life Bringing Us into the Enjoyment of His Blessing and Causing Us to Become a Blessing under the Showers of Blessing

Message Six: Shepherding the Flock of God as a Slave of God, a Priest of the Gospel of God, by Experiencing the Healing Christ and Ministering Him as Life to Others

Message Seven: Shepherding the Flock of God as a Slave of God by Coordinating with Christ in His Heavenly Ministry to Care for the Churches and Produce the Overcomers

Message Eight: Experiencing the Organic Shepherding of the Pneumatic Christ for Shepherding the Church of God as a Slave of God


Overview...

Message One is the general outline for all of the messages. It showed us that God has a dream. This dream is His eternal purpose to have the reality of Bethel, the house of God, the mutual dwelling place of God and man. He is doing only one thing in this universe, that is His building His eternal habitation for His expression. Christ is the reality of Bethel, the church as the house of the living God, the reality of every aspect of the dream of God's eternal purpose. Christ is the reality of the house of God, and we need to know, experience, enjoy, and give ourselves to Him as El-bethel, "the God of the house of God," so that He can fully replace us with Himself for the accomplishment of His eternal purpose. To be replaced by Christ doesn't mean that we need to have an exchanged life, rather, we need to have the grafted life, a life in which Christ lives in us, through us, by us, and with us. Just as the Lord Jesus lived because of the Father to express the Father as the Slave of God so that we might live because of Christ to express Christ as the slaves of God; food supplies us so that we can live because of its supply; to live because of the food, we must eat the food. So we must enjoy Christ to the utmost for us to be able to fully express and live Him and be able to shepherd the church as a slave of God for the fulfillment of the dream of God, the eternal purpose of God.

Message Two and Message Three showed us how Christ is the perfect pattern of being a slave of God.

We would want to be a slave of God to shepherd the the church, but we need to see that by our fallen nature we cannot be accepted by God. Only Christ is qualified to be a slave. You may ask, how about us? It is no problem at all. All we need to do is to be replaced by Christ. To be replaced by Christ is not such a hard matter at all. All we need to do is just to love Him. It is like the words of the hymn, "I love, I love my Master. I will not go out free. For He is my Redeemer, He paid the price for me. I would not leave His service, it is so sweet and blest. And in the weariest moment, He gives the truest rest." We need to come and enjoy Him! As a slave, we need to daily come to the Lord to enjoy Him in the morning, hearing Him speak all day long. As a slave of God, we need to have the spirit of a slave, that is, we need to have the spirit of sacrifice, always willing to serve others and sacrifice himself for them. As a slave of God, we do not have any right, nor do we have any ranks, rather, we should empty ourselves, humble ourselves, not claim anything for ourselves, and sacrifice ourselves to serve others. We also need to know our position as a slave. As a slave of Christ, our position should be at the doorpost to have our ears bored through to listen to the commands from the Master. Many Christians are serving God, but they do not stand by the doorpost, and their ear has not been bored through. So oftentimes they would do many things according to their own concepts, desires, and intentions. It seemed quite hard to be slaves, but we need to take Christ as our pattern, let Him first serve us (footwashing), then we would be able to serve others. Even though He is God, yet how humble is He! He is our real pattern!

In Message Three it showed us that the Lord Jesus did not speak His own word, but have the tongue of the instructed, spoke according to God's instructions. What God desires is not sacrifice or offering but ears that are open to Him. Jehovah awakened the Lord Jesus every morning, awakening His ear to hear as an instructed one; this indicates that every day the Lord Jesus had a morning revival. As instructed ones, we need to be awakened by the Lord morning by morning; this is the real morning revival! Because of this, He is able "to sustain the weary with a word."

When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He never made Himself great, He didn't strive with others nor promote Himself, rather He preferred to be hidden.

Because He was full of mercy, the Lord Jesus would not break the "bruised reed" or quench the "smoking flax". How exposing it was to us! Oftentimes if the ones we are taking care of are like "bruised reed" or "smoking flax", then we would break or quench them. What would have happened to us if the Lord had treated us like that. For we are these bruised reeds and smoking flaxes!

The next group of messages, Messages Four to Six are ways of shepherding. Firstly we need to be shepherded by the Lord then we would be able to shepherd others. The extent where we can shepherd others all depends on how much we have experienced the Lord's shepherding. May we all desire to have deeper experiences of Him.

Message Four showed that we need to enjoy Him as our real jubilee before we would be able to preach the Jubilee to others. Then Message Five showed that we need to enjoy Him as our blessing then we would become a source of blessing to others. Message Six then showed that we need to firstly be healed by Him then we would be able to supply others with life.

Message Four mainly speaks that Christ is the year of the jubilee, the year of grace, to fallen man. The background about this is that what God desires is for us to enjoy Him. So He had called the Israelites out of Egypt from working as a slave, to go to the Good Land of Canaan, the land flowing with milk and honey, to enjoy the rich produce of the land, typified by the all-inclusive Christ. He had subdivided the land equally to the Israelites. So everyone has their fair share of the Good Land to live and dwell on. But to continuously live and enjoy the rich produce of the land, they need to maintain it. But the sad thing is, there are some who were too lazy to work on their land, after sometime, they sold it to others and eventhough they've sold the land and got the money, they were still too lazy, squandered all their riches away, eventually they resorted to sold themselves to maintain a living. Praise the Lord for God's ordination! At the tenth day of the seventh month at the fourty-ninth year, there is the blowing of trumpets, announcing the glad tidings. Then at the fiftieth year, the ones who've lost their lands will get their lands back and the ones who were sold to slavery would be free!

In our case, we were once in Egypt, but we've been saved and can now enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as our Good Land. So daily we need to labor to have this continuous supply. If not, we would lose our inheritance and even be sold to slavery. How pitiful that would be. It would be just like being a slave in Egypt burning bricks for Pharaoh! We need not wait for the year of the Jubilee to gain the lost inheritance, all we need to do is just to turn to the Lord, have the living of the jubilee day by day. This is a living in the enjoyment of Christ, a living of enjoying God as our real inheritance and real freedom. Such an enjoyment and proclaiming of Christ as the jubilee of God's grace will issue in the full enjoyment of Christ as the jubilee in the millennium and in the fullest enjoyment of Christ in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth.

Following is an excerpt from Message Five: "When we have blessing, everything goes well and nothing is difficult. Without the Lord's blessing, everything goes wrong and nothing is easy. The Lord wants to bring us to a point where His blessing takes the first place, a point where we have never been. When the Lord brings us to such a point, He will have a way to go on....In the Lord's work, the basic problem is the Lord's blessing; nothing else matters. If God brings us to the point of seeing that everything in God's work depends upon His blessing, it will bring about a basic change in our labor for God. We should not consider how many people, how much money, or how much bread we have. We would say we do not have enough, but the blessing is sufficient. The blessing meets the need that we cannot meet. Although we cannot measure up to the size of the need, the blessing is greater than our lack. When we see this, the work will have a basic change. In every matter we must look at the blessing more than we consider the situation. Methods, considerations, human wisdom, and clever words are all useless. In God's work we should believe in and expect His blessing.

The basic concern today is that we must learn to live in a way that does not hinder God's blessing. Some habits force God to withhold His blessing, and these must be eliminated. Some temperaments keep God from blessing, and these must be done away with. We must learn to believe in God's blessing, rely on it, and eliminate the barriers which prevent us from receiving it.

We must see that the Lord withholds no good thing from us. If the work is not going well, if the brothers and sisters are in a poor condition, or if the number of saved ones is not increasing, we should not use the environment or certain people as an excuse. We cannot blame the brothers. I am afraid that the real reason lies with our harboring of some frustrations to the blessing. If the Lord can get through in us, the Lord's blessing will be greater than our capacity. Once God said to the Israelites, 'Prove Me, if you will, by this,... whether I will open to you the windows of heaven and pour out blessing for you until there is no room for it' (Mal. 3:10). God is still saying this today. The normal life of a Christian is a life of blessing, and the normal work of a Christian is a work of blessing. If we do not receive blessing, we should say, 'Lord, perhaps I am the problem.'"

In Message Six, we need to experience the healing Christ and minister Him as life to others to heal, recover, enliven, and save them for the building up of His Body in love.

There are four kind of sicknesses that we need to be healed of, and they are:
Fever -- signify a person's unbridled temper, which is abnormal and intemperate; He healed us by becoming our inward rest and quietness, and restores us to normality that we might serve Him.
Leprosy -- the cleansing of the leper signifies the recovering of the sinner to the fellowship with God and with men.
Paralytic -- signifies a sinner who is paralyzed by sin, one who is unable to walk and move before God.
The Flow of Blood -- signifies a life that cannot be retained; by the touching of the Lord, His divine power is transfused into us to become our healing.

The specific sickness that we should all be healed of is our blindness. All of us in the church life need to throw away all the garments of position and care only to receive spiritual sight. By dying with Christ, we pass out of our blindness and into the Lord's resurrection to receive our sight and to enjoy Him as our all-inclusive, universal replacement. This is our final healing.

Message Seven then showed us that Christ's heavenly priesthood is a speaking ministry; He speaks to God by interceding for us, and then He speaks to us to accomplish that for which He intercedes by ministering God into us.

We must shepherd the flock of God as a slave of God by coordinating with Christ in His heavenly ministry to care for the churches and produce the overcomers.

While the Lord Jesus as the Ruler of the kings of the earth is arranging the world situation so that God's people may go on, He is also exercising His heavenly ministry to supply God's lovers and seekers with the heavenly riches, the divine element, so that they may be kept on an overcoming level to become pillars in the Triune God for His divine building. God's eternal covenant is to consummate the New Jerusalem by Christ's shepherding; we must enjoy Him to carry out His heavenly ministry by loving Him to the uttermost to shepherd His sheep.

Jehovah's visiting His people was His coming to them in the man Jesus as the Slave-Savior to be the real Shepherd of His afflicted flock; when we enjy the Lord's loving and shepherding visitation, our situation changes due to His cherishing and nourishing presence.

The Shepherd of God's flock is one of the sheep, the Lamb; this shows that the Lord comes down to our level, the level of the sheep, even the weak ones' level, to sympathize with us in our weaknesses and cherish us in His humanity.

The Lord's shepherding includes His feeding, His nourishing us in His divinity; under the shepherding of Christ, "I will lack nothing".

Message Eight is the conclusion of all the messages. Here we can see how the pneumatic Christ is now shepherding us. The message was based on Psalm 23. This was a psalm written by David about Christ. In Psalm 22, it wrote about Christ's crucifixion, of which we have no part. Then in Psalm 24, Jehovah of hosts will come back. This is His return on earth. So between His resurrection as written in Psalm 22 and His second coming in Psalm 24 there is a gap. It is really enlightening here to know that between the two stages is the stage that we are in today. It is the church age, where Christ is the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ.

In Psalm 23, there are five stages where we experienced the Lord's shepherding:
In the First Stage, the Shepherd here is the pneumatic Christ, He is shepherding life organically. As sheeps we should continually eat on Him as our green pasture. We come to the wells of salvation by calling on His name and pray-reading His Word. It should eat and drink of Him continually.

In the Second Stage, He causes our soul to awaken, guides us to the path of righteousness for His name's sake. In Romans 8 it is written that we should walk according to the Spirit, this is for us to fulfill the requirements of the law and righteousness. We need to be proper and balanced in our mind, emotion, and will; otherwise, we cannot be righteous. Under the organic shepherding of the pneumatic Christ, we are balanced, corrected, and adjusted.

In the Third Stage, we may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, yet we will fear no evil, for He is with us. We may wonder why we would experience lots of downs and valleys eventhough we are Christians. We may expect to have a life without sorrows and distresses, or so to say, a perfect life. But God doesn't want it that way. If He'd placed us inside a glass cage, then we wouldn't be useful to Him anymore. In a glass cage, the things in it are well-kept, free from dust, and cannot be disturbed by outward environmental conditions. But it would just be for display. But, God does not create us with that purpose in mind. Even though we may meet difficulties, depressing situations, but He is with us all the way. This is His tender care. We would feel His presence much more when we are in the valleys than we are just in a peaceful condition. What we can enjoy the most is His presence. Do not ask why the situation come to you. Do not prevent Him from shepherding you. And do not try to run away from the valley of the shadow of death too. Whenever we come to that situation, we should remain for we know that it is through that that we can go on to the next stage.

The Fourth Stage. In front of our adversaries He had set a feast. The Christian life is a life of feasting and fighting; thus, on the battlefield a table, a feast, is spread before us. We should go on and fight for the Lord's interest here on earth!

The Fifth Stage. Under the Lord's shepherding, the enjoyment of the processed and consummated Triune God ushers us into the house of Jehovah (the church and the New Jerusalem - 1 Tim. 3:15-16; Rev. 21:2-3, 22) "for the length of my days," that is, in the present age, in the coming age, and in eternity.

God's house is our dwelling place, where we enjoy the Triune God - the Son's grace, the Father's love, and the Spirit's fellowship.

Today we enjoy the Triune God in the church, and in the future we will enjoy the Triune God in the New Jerusalem.

The house of the Lord is the enlarged, universal, divine-human incorporation -- the Father's house for His manifestation, satisfaction, and rest - where we will dwell (in the way of coinherence) for eternity! This is then the accomplishment of God's dream, the fulfillment of Bethel.

Tam-Awan Village, SM Baguio, Mine's View, ETC

Tam-Awan Village

Date: April 13-15, 2007
Places: Tacay Lodge, Tam-Awan Village, SM Baguio, Mine's View, Baguio Blending Hall, Church in Baguio Meeting Hall

Baptism During 2007 College & Young Working Conference

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord for adding sister Joanne to the Body!

Bro. Joel speaketh on "Not Living by Our Feeling but by a Governing Vision"

"Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." (Acts 26:19)

Paul was being governed by a heavenly vision. So that even before the king, he stood boldly for what God had entrusted him. If we are in his place, we wouldn't be like that at all...

He didn't disobey the vision just because the circumstances seemed to be against him.

I was really enlightened with the situation that Paul had undergone. At that time, Paul had gone to a place to preach the gospel, yet the people there not only didn't received him, rather, they even go as far as trying to kill him (stoned him) and dragged him out of the city. Even his coworker thought he must be dead by then because of what the people there had done.

But after a while, he'd risen up and proceeded to go to another city (Derbe) to preach the gospel. He didn't shrink back because of what happened to him, nor did he took some time to nurse his wounds and bruises (which must be really serious). Rather, he simple rose up and proceeded to go on to the next city to do the same thing, that is, to preach the gospel.

If we are in his place, probably we would have hurt feelings or would have thought that since the situation was so against us, God must have disapproved our preaching of the gospel at that time. But no, he knew what God wants and wouldn't back down to take care of his needs first. He just rose up and go on to do what God desires.

How we need to be like Paul today. To be for nothing but for Christ alone. We should only care for His interests here on earth. He wants all men to be saved and come to the full knowledge of the truth, and preach the gospel until the end comes.

"Therefore let us also, having so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, put away every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and run with endurance the race which is set before us, looking away unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith." (Hebrews 12:1-2a)

Oftentimes our eyes would only see our needs. That is because we are so self-centered. We have our own solar system where we are in the first place all the time, and God is put somewhere farther away. But now we should turn the sequence around. God should be in the first place and we must be in the last place. He should be the center of our existence. We need to look away unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, so that we would be able to run with endurance the race that is being set before us and be able to reach the end.

O Lord, may You keep me to continually enjoy You. Not caring for other needs but Yours alone. May You continually keep me on this race, be my strength, be my Faith.

Holy Week Conference

Date: April 8 & 9, 2007
Venue: church in QC Meeting Hall
Topic:
General Subject: Walking Worthily of God's Calling for the Reality of the Body of Christ

Baguio Etc Pix

These are pix that are not really related to the training.
Most of the views were shot while on our way home from Baguio. Can't sleep at that time, and can't read also coz the bus was moving, so to pass the time and to give justice to my new SD card (:p), I'd just shoot at anything that came into sight.

It gives you an idea where the bus had passed through, right? ^-^

2007 Training for Young Working Saints & College Students

Date: April 5-8, 2007
Venue: The church in Baguio Blending Center

Taiwan

Some places and persons we've visited while in Taiwan.

来听主的话

刚刚有一位姊妹分享这段。。。








“在马利亚身上有一个态度，马大为多事烦扰，但马利亚拣选了上好，坐在主的脚前听他的话，被他的愿望所注入，我相信在这个家里，大家也都在听，但为什么只有马利亚得着了启示，。。。。眼目应当专注於耶稣，我们的心思必须置于灵， 我们必须是听神话语的人。“





是啊，为什么只有马利亚得着启示。 这都是因为马利亚放下了一切，只专心来听主的话。 我们会认为我们有很多服事烦恼就够了，其实并不然，我们还是必须先停下来静听主所要说的话。

Lovefeast for Newly High School Graduate YP

Date: April 1, 2007
Lord's Day, 12pm.

They've graduated and will go on to the next stage of their lives. But as they go on, may the Lord continue to preserve them, so as not be usurped by Satan, and so that they'll continue to love and pursue after the Lord, and become pillars for the Lord in their respective campuses. O Lord, this is Your desire to gain a strong next generation for Your economy!