How then Shall we Live? In Fear or Freedom?

From the time I first heard about Peng's death, until today, after the Wake. Funeral is on today at 11am, I've had the opportunity to speak different persons.

As a guy, we don't feel much fear about what's been happening. We're generally pissed off and angry at the perpetrator. How dare he do such a thing? Even Peng's brother, as he closed spoke out at the injustice and asked for justice.

As I reflected on this..

All of us seek justice.. All of us want justice.. OUR Way! It's shown very very clearly, that our justice is actually revenge. A life for a life a.. our justice.. or any justice ... is never perfect or reasonable.. pure or righteous..

We pray that justice in God's eyes be done. That as ridiculous as it seems, that this perpetrator will come to Christ and receive the forgiveness & salvation that he/they need so much ..
How can we think of such a thing, when such a precious life is lost? It is only in seeing from Christ's perspective.
Our initial response to anything nothing less than human. Christ is human to, but divine in nature. He has emotions just like us, He understands our pain, and His understanding and response is divine. When His friend Lazarus died, He wept. And He then raised Lazarus back up from death.

You may then ask, why not save Peng? Why let her die? We all die one day, sooner or later. Question is.. have we lived it to the full. From the Eulogies at the wake, we can see she had lived her life to the fullest. Fullest, not to the eyes of the world, but to hearts of the lives she touched. Approximately 200 ppl turned up I believe. Mostly from DUMC. We pray that we brought peace and hope into the situation.

~"God is sovereign", Pastor Alan said.
~"Do we know where we are & where we are going?", Pastor Seng Fei said.
~"She always had a remedy and advice for ailments and problems. ",
~"It was evident she trusted in the Lord for everything",
~"She had problems, and she never showed it, no one would have known", some others shared..

Life is indeed fragile.. some I've talked to kept saying

"The country has gone to the dogs."
"The days are indeed evil."
"I had dreams about her."
"I had trouble sleeping last night. Had to call upon scriptures to help me sleep"

All of these responses are about our human feelings,
But what is the supernatural response?

How then shall we live? ...
"Eph 5:15-16 ~"Be careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise. Making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil"

This is my response to this scripture.
We can indeed say days are evil. They have been evil since the beginning of SIN.
Even with 4 people on earth at that time.. Abel was not safe from his own brother Cane. Murder & jealousy has marred our humanity since the beginning of time.
Should we then live in fear? Should we be scared when someone approaches us?
As Christians, we just need to be careful, but not fear. Careful is, being cautious of our surroundings. Operating in the power of the Holy Spirit, trusting in Him.. Living with no regrets.

This is Pastor Seng Fei's mini-sermon at the wake as summarised by Josh in our PengYaus Blog

"Pr Seng Fei's waking call is that Peng's death reminds us that life is short, and we need to know who our source of life is and that we will be remembered by our deeds - thus we need to be wise about how we live our life. "

I insert my brother LX's sharings here:

"Though there are many incidents such as this, which unfortunately have claimed even close friends and acquaintances of ours, I would encourage us all not to retreat in fear and have our lives controlled by potential evil-doers.

Many people whom I know, have been deeply affected by untoward incidents and have since chosen to live a "safer" life, and decline going out at night, etc...My take on things is to be vigilant, yes, VERY vigilant and not to do silly things such as walk alone in dark alleys, but not to have fear control our lives.

Imagine if Peng had been fearful every night of her life and not helped out at Punctuations, what a loss it would have been for the Kingdom.

For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of wise discretion.(2 Tim 1:7 - Darby Bible Translation)

I believe she led her life to the full, and God undoubtedly was in control, even in the bad times. We may never understand it as a human, but one day, we can quiz God about all things."


Be vigilant & intentional about what we do, but do not ever live in fear. His Spirit in us releases from fear.

My God is so BIG, So Mighty and so powerful.. There's nothing my God cannot do. Live it! Live it to the Fullest!

Don't stop what we do in the Lord and in fellowship, but be vigilant. You can employ some safety measures that helps, like CC's SMS Buddy .

It's true all man-made measures have always got failure rates

Bodyguards,
Pepper Spray
Martial Arts
Living in Gated Communities

Nothing is fool-proof.. Man in his twisted ingenuity can figure out ways to fool a system.

Can you really trust your bodyguards?
Pepper Sprays have expiry dates
Martial Arts? Have you heard of muscle cramps & trembling in fear?
Living in Gated Communities? Can you trust your neighbours or even the guards. A lot of guards practice the Palm Wave Access Control Recognition Technology. I should know I have seen it being "effectively" practised. 0% Technology required

But ONLY salvation in Jesus is fool-proof!
He seemed to be a king of fools to die for sinners such as us, but it was done out of love for us..

The song "Lovefool" suddenly comes to mind.. . groovy bassline.. *but .. I Digress*

I think that's all for now.. this blog entry is getting too long.. I hope you get my drift.
He came to give us life.. life to the fullest... to live in freedom and in power not fear, bondage and weakness.. Blessings!!