Happy Birthday FL...

Today is one of my CCF friend's birthday and she just turned 20 today. We went out to dinner and MHQ to celebrate and I also got a chance to play some Initial D and Jitz...We made a pretty funny video as a gift:

"I want it that way" remix video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8qlCiG9IiI

Unedited version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aigPKGMkzkQ

According to her MSN e-mail, she's also a big S Club fan, here's one of the songs we sung last night and I was thinking about some of these lyrics during our sermon today too:

S CLUB 7 LYRICS

"Never Had A Dream Come True"

Everybody's got something they had to leave behind
One regret from yesterday that just seems to grow with time
There's no use looking back or wondering
How it could be now or might have been
Oh this I know but still I can't find ways to let you go

I've never had a dream come true
Till the day that I found you
Even though I pretend that I've moved on
You'll always be my baby
I never found the words to say
You're the one I think about each day
And I know no matter where life takes me to
A part of me will always be with you

Somewhere in my memory
I've lost all sense of time
and tomorrow can never be cos yesterday is all that fills my mind
There's no use looking back or wondering
How it should be now or might have been
Oh this I know but still I can't find ways to let you go

I've never had a dream come true
Till the day that I found you
Even though I pretend that I've moved on
You'll always be my baby
I never found the words to say
You're the one I think about each day
And I know no matter where life takes me to
A part of me will always be

You'll always be the dream that fills my head
Yes you will, say you will, you know you will
Oh baby, you'll always be the one I know I'll never forget
There's no use looking back or wondering
Because love is a strange and funny thing
No matter how I try and try I just can't say goodbye
No no no no

I've never had a dream come true
Till the day that I found you
Even though I pretend that I've moved on
You'll always be my baby
I never found the words to say (words to say)
You're the one I think about each day
And I know no matter where life takes me to
A part of me will always be
A part of me will always be with you


[Thanks to tweetylover162001@yahoo.com, DancingGurl357911@yahoo.com, trendychick056@comcast.net, af_blonde_09@yahoo.com for correcting these lyrics]

[ www.azlyrics.com ]

[http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/sclub7/neverhadadreamcometrue.html]

Now don't get me wrong, I WAS paying attention to the sermon. I just happen to be thinking about this song because the sermon reminded me about some possible bad decisions in the past I cannot take back but some of them at least I can do something about correcting in the future... So even though:

"Everybody's got something they had to leave behind
One regret from yesterday that just seems to grow with time"

I don't believe that:

"There's no use looking back or wondering"

Afterall one of the main points in the sermon was that experience is a teacher and through experience we can learn how to be better stewards for God. I figure writing some personal reflection on the sermon may help me gather some thoughts on how I'm going to lead the discussion for fellowship on Friday.

At the very beginning of the sermon, our senior Pastor was describing how some people withold money they could offer to God whilst others withhold time. It's a pretty interesting coincidence that earlier on in the week on Friday in our fellowship we were listening to John Piper's "Don't waste your life" sermon or at least one of his sermons in the series. That sermon shared a similiar point about how everything we have from is a gift from God. Like that verse says:

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. [James 1:17]

When we grasp the concept that everything we have is really from God, we need to change our outlook and not be so selfish and allow God to use what's really His as He sees fit. Including ourselves...

I found this from one of my old April 2007 entries:

"If God wants something to happen, and you're sure, don't fight it... also don't delay it, commit to it, your mind body and soul [Deuteronomy 6:5/Matthew 22:36-39], even if God's schedule is DIFFERENT than yours."

I like the movie I-Robot (and not just because there's no pretty much no romance scenes in it :P there's definetely no kissing which is starting to be rare in movies nowadays). I also suspect the writer may be Christian do to certain analogies used in the movie. Here's one quote I feel is related to this particular sermon:

"Do you believe we were all created for a purpose? I certainly do..."

This is basically an expansion of the same point, about offering what really belongs to God, to God. Our senior Pastor also quoted this passage in his sermon:

"10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit," says the LORD Almighty." [Malachi 3:10-11]

Allow me to also quote the two verses before/above it:

7 Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty.
"But you ask, 'How are we to return?'
8 "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.
"But you ask, 'How do we rob you?'
"In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. [Malachi 3:7-9]