Tribe of Judah

A random photo posing as inspector gadget with a cool crew

I listened to these very funny/powerful/hilarious/awesome sermons and it changed my whole walk with Christ.

Its a six, count them six part sermon about EMBRACING GRACE. 6 hours of grace. Youth Pastor Judah Smith preaches about why youth today are not embracing grace, and how you should react to the Lords grace.

Here are the links:

When grace runs at you
http://generationchurch.org/download.php?file=gca08-01-172.mp3

When grace hugs you
http://generationchurch.org/download.php?file=gca08-01-312.mp3

When grace kisses you
http://generationchurch.org/download.php?file=gca08-02-062.mp3

A robe, a ring and Reebok's
http://generationchurch.org/download.php?file=gca08-02-142.mp3

What Do You Do When Favor Finds Your Friend Next To You?
http://generationchurch.org/download.php?file=gca08-02-203.mp3

Carried To The Table
http://generationchurch.org/download.php?file=gca08-02-282.mp3

Pastor Judah Smith will also be preaching at Hillsong Conference 2008. Getting pumped?

so moving on to the next best thing... ta-dah

hey//
ppls/
i
need
some
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portraits
for project
/time
thx!!

The Glory of the Living God...

Last night, a group of brothers and sisters came together to pray. We had no other agenda but to pray and to welcome the Holy Spirit to move in the place as He pleases.

We began by praying in tongues. A few of us led in prayers and welcomed the Holy Spirit to speak through us and intercede as He pleases. Very soon, we began to quieten down as we rested and stayed still in our Lord's presence. After a while, we all began to pray in tongues again and began to pray loudly and with tears flowing down our faces.

What followed was a stream of the Lord's Almighty presence which swept over the room. I will let the other brothers and sisters share their experiences with you. I will share with you my experiences.

During the gathering, Anne spoke particualr words over different people. She also spoke particular words over my life, and I found them to be truly amazing. In response to what God had said through Anne, I knelt down before God and spoke in my heart and audibly to myself (I spoke wholeheartedly with every part of my being focused on what I was about to say with willingness, obedience and full submission to the Lord), I said that I am here to be Your hands and Your feet O Lord. I am here to serve all people. Whether they be big things or small things, I would be here to serve the Living God and His people. I thanked the Lord and opened my heart and life to God to be used by God.

As I knelt down to pray this prayer, I felt that my whole body was extending and protruding so that my arms and legs were stretched. As I did this, I felt a strong heaviness press down upon my whole body. My face was pressed onto the floor with my nose squished onto the carpet. My arms, legs, chest, stomach, just my whole body was pressed down heavily. I could not move. I layed pressed onto the ground experiencing the weight, heaviness and the glory of the living God. I stayed in this position for a long time. I don't exactly know when I began to lay there (I think it was about 11:00pm, but need to check with the others who were in the room to confirm). I was only able to get up at about 12:34am.

During the time I was on the floor, I tried a few times to get up. With all my strength, I would try and lift myself up from the floor. But it was no use, none of my body could be lifted. It was like I was glued to the floor, with a really really really heavy weight placed above me. I could only move my head slightly to turn my head from left to right and face down to change the position of my head. Eventually, at about 12:20am, my feet and ankle were able to move. And then slowly and gradually, different parts of my body were able to move. First my feet, then my lower leg, then my hands, then my arms, then my whole leg, and eventually my chest, stomach (centre part of my body) was able to move again. I then tried to stand up, but the weight was still there. I tried to stand up to my feet with all my strength, but it was no use. So I sat there a little longer until I could stand up.

Wow, our God is truly amazing. Truly, truly amazing!!! I really do not know what to say. He is a real and living God. Quite often, we can use words to describe our experiences and feelings, but when it comes to expressing our experiences in God, we are limited in our vocabulary. Praise the Lord for His glory and His power and His grace. He is truly amazing.

God Bless everyone!

Where to begin...

I can begin by saying what is at the heart of this message...
My Greatest Love is You...

There are songs and words that can express love; there are actions and thoughts that can express love. But all these don't really mean much when you cannot express this love to someone or something. To whom or to what is the 'object' of love that you are bringing to?

A thought came to my mind one day when I was going about my daily work. I was thinking, the worship songs that we sing and play music to unto the Lord may seem quite strange to someone who does not know who we are actually singing the songs to. I mean lyrics like...

'I worship you'; 'There is none like you'; 'I'm hungry for you'; 'Lover of my soul'; 'Deeper in love with You'; 'to feel Your heart and know Your mind, looking in Your eyes stirs up within me'..

I remember when I first went to Church in 2004, (I went because a lot of my high school friends went as well) it came to the time of worship. I would sing along with the songs, but whenever it came to words such as 'God', 'Jesus', 'Spirit', 'Son of God', I would be silent and not sing until those words were skipped over. I did not know who Jesus and God was, and I did not see why I need or should sing songs to them and say that I love them and cannot live without them. I thought stubbornly to myself, I am not going to sing those words.

You see, the same worship song that we sing can lose its significance and purpose when we do not know why and to who we are singing it to. If we do not know the 'object' to whom we are singing to and for, then the song will be quite empty, with just words and melody.

Who is your greatest love? Do you know why you sing the song that you sing when you worship? Do you know to who you are singing the song to? Are you just singing with words from your mouth, or are you pouring out your heart as you sing each word and play each note. That each note or each word that you sing is your heart's expression to the love that you have for the person that you are singing to.

We really have received such a wonderful gift and it is really by God's grace and His love for us that we can worship to someone who we know personally and have experienced in our life. As God has kindly and graciously revealed Himself to us, we can now worship and sing with the revelation of to who and why we worship.

Let us reveal this Person who loves us so dearly to those who are around us. This person who loves us so much that He died in our place. That though He was pure, blameless, just, and holy in every way, yet He took all our uncleanliness and infirmities and transgressions upon Himself for us that we may become clean, righteous, and pure. This Person who saves and heals is waiting for you to reveal Him to others around you. Let us share this wonderful gift to the people who are around us.

My Greatest Love is You... Jesus

I would like to share the following song with all of you. The song is called, 'My Greatest Love is You.' It really touched my heart immensely when I was worshipping with this song. I could not stop crying. I only have the lyrics here with me. If you would like to listen to the song, feel free to tap me on the shoulder and I will sing this song to you personally :-) God Bless everyone!

Before entry into NLCC, I was addicted to ice, speed, acid and cocaine. The more I had the more I missed it. The more I missed it the more I had of it. However last year I went to the front for an alter call and Pastor Catherine and Anne prayed over me and suddenly, I felt the blood of Jesus wash over me. Making me a fresh, clean new person loosing the desires for drugs, and replacing it with the desire for Jesus.

What would normally take someone years of rehab, happened to me in one day.

Now the more worship I do, the more I miss it so the more I do of it, making me stronger each day. Praise the Lord our savior!

" Acts1:8 stands out to me today. For I have the power of the Holy Spirit inside of me and I'm being a witness of Jesus which is the Light of Love! Now I truly see that where ever light shines darkness will become bright with light! God Bless! "

Ever since I was taught how important morning devotion was, I decided to practice and put it to the test. Now every morning I must wake up at 7.00am and get breakfast ready for my little brother Kevin. I now wake up at 6.30 to start my devotion and this is what happened.

Joy. Simply joy. During mornings spent with the Lord, I just pray about my needs and confess my heart to Him. I make sure I be silent at times in case the Lord wants to say something life changing. Ive noticed that since I started morning devotions, there is something different about me. I'm having dreams, dreams with meaning about my relationships. And last night when I closed my eyes to pray, I saw hundreds of graphic design images flood into my head. Images I have never seen before in my life, come flooding in crystal clear. I quickly got a drawing pad and sketched the one's I remembered. One of them included a design for Anne's blog. Praise the Lord for that one. I have decided to only design based on images that come from the Lord.

There is a calm, peacefulness in my heart. Usually this goes away when I start the rest of my day, getting lost from the daily activities. But the change... It's brought newer security. The calmness remains throughout the entire day, morning to night.

Anne said that change is happening for those who put the Lord first. I feel this change and my time table is getting better. I no longer play games that often. Instead I use that time to study and focus on what is important. Amen.

Hi everybody. Anyone who has creativity inside them and want to unleash it to the world, please join the creative ministry team. So far its only Aaron and myself but I would like others to join and multiply. It doesn't matter if you feel you don't have any talent, what matters is your heart. It doesn't just have to be graphic design. It could be paintings, drawings, sketches, whatever!

Anyway I made these to give you an idea. Size should be 1024 x 768 canvas. All designs should be submitted to marcustan1@gmail.com or pass them to me on USB. If its a hard copy, then bring it to church and I'll take a photo. I'll submit the designs on the official website.

It has been around 5-6 years that I've been in New Life Christian Community, and getting accustomed from one church to another was very difficult. My church is very similar to the church here: raising me up by a huge body of people with Christ as the Head. I remembered vividly the time my parents 'strongly' encouraged me to join the youth group. I was 12 years old. Not surprisingly, I hesitated to attend the youth meetings. The people back in the 'youth dock' were of age 17-18 and were physically bigger than myself. If you saw pictures of me back then and compared it to them you'd understand! Furthermore, I knew of no one there besides my brother and didn't think I'd be able to settle in well.

The youth group was indeed very unique. My first experience there was nonetheless my most valuable experience. Youth was held on Saturday nights at the church's youth leader's house. We had a worship leader that played the guitar and one other musician that played the piano. The night started off with strong up-tempo songs. Everyone was jumping and praising the Lord in that small living room! After a while the music slowed down to worship songs and the atmosphere greatly changed in the room. Cries of adoration and exhortation were heard and everyone lifted their hands up exhorting the Lord God almighty. It came to my adolescent brain that it wasn't the very music played that was responsible for this change, but it was the deep cry of every individual that caused the presence of the Lord to fall down!

Worship lasted approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes, which was really short at that time! After receiving strong words of faith and teachings from the scripture the Holy Spirit silently entered the room, and I observed first-hand the manifestation of the Holy Spirit right in front of my eyes. Something taught briefly in Sunday school happened right before my naked eyes. The heart cry of the youths turned into something extremely powerful! Suddenly, the worship leader was filled with the Holy Spirit, and started laughing vigorously. He couldn't help but fall backwards, with one hand holding his body up by clinging onto the wall, while at the same time the other hand on his stomach. I guess there was a degree of pain in his stomach caused by this laughter. The spiritual realm is really powerful! As strong as the worship leader appeared to me physically, he stumbled upon the floor and laughed, "HAHAHAHA" very loudly, trying to gain control over his every action. The others were so in-tuned with the Holy Spirit it didn't affect their communion with God.

Interestingly enough, the worship leader started rolling over in laughter and his hand touched another who was kneeling down worshiping God, and she too started laughing and rolling over. Eventually, a chain reaction was birthed and everyone experienced 'holy laughter'. It was quite funny as well. The worship leader would walk to a corner of the room towards someone who's laughter was about to die off and touch him once again. This sparked a tremendous laughter that continued the chain reaction over and over again! What a priceless sight! From that day onwards, I looked forward in meeting God. Youth started getting bigger and the church grew.


Why was the house full? Because Jesus was in the house :) I believe that when Jesus is with you or in anyplace, crowds will be attracted! AMEN.

All over the world, different people just like us are living lives differently, with different meanings and purpose behind each individual action. Many modern Christians are more interested in manifestations of the Lord rather than knowing Him who manifests. It is possible to have high-intensified praise music with skilled musicians and great musical arrangements AND also have the complete absence of the Lord's presence. Today, there are people standing inside churches, eyes wide open, hands in pockets, some talking to their neighbours or looking out the windows, appearing bored waiting patiently for God or the church to perform some kind of dead-raising miracle to strike their attention. What can be more heart-breaking is that some of these people are 'Christians' as well.

Imagine this: You are a salesperson selling highly ergonomic technological devises and you do door-to-door services, ringing the doorbell of each house, with a big smile on your face and a great desire to bring something of great value into another person's life. The door opens and you were greeted with a careless attitude and a monotone sigh, "Oh, its you again". How would you respond to such a greeting? Maybe brush it off and just get to 'selling of products' phase? Well, imagine that was the response you get from your wife, or family members? Would you just brush it off?

Well, would the Lord God almighty enter the house where respect, honour and reverance is not due to Him? Would the Creator of the Universe speak forth when His Word is not respected enough to be listened with open hearts? I have learnt that we cannot truely love God until we fear Him.

"A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD" - [Isaiah 11:1-2]

'Holy fear is the key to God's sure foundation, unlocking the treasuries of salvation, wisdom and knowledge. Along with the love of God, it composes the very foundation of life!' You can never stop getting closer to God while living on this temporary world that He created. Let's go one level higher, and love Him so much that we fear Him!

Happy Birthday from all your brothers. We love ya!