“You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.” – Genesis 4:7

One fine day, the brothers Cain and Abel set out to make offerings to God. Cain prepared his choice selection of fruits and vegetables while Abel brought his choice firstborn lamb. As Cain laid out the colourful display of crops, Abel silenced the frightened lamb with a slit of its throat. Blood gushed out profusely and pooled around the base of the altar as the lamb shuddered weakly in its final death throes. It was a sickly sight to behold, but Abel did it anyway. As the brothers burnt their offerings, it turned out that God took pleasure in Abel’s offering, but not Cain’s. That upset Cain a lot. He probably wondered if God was playing favourites. Well, who wouldn’t want to accept an offering that is fuss-free and that does not require the involvement of death and bloodshed?

God sensed Cain’s anger and spoke thus, “Why are you dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right.”

Apparently, God knew that the brothers had been taught in making the right offerings to Him as He deemed appropriate, but Cain was not being accepted as he had refused to do the right thing. Abel was accepted because he did things according to God’s way – the right way. God was also admonishing Cain for more than not adhering to the rules of the offering ritual.

God continued to say, “But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.”

I think that was a severe message for Cain. God read the thoughts of Cain’s mind and saw that he had some evil intent of exacting revenge on Abel for besting him in the ritual. Cain must have felt embarrassed and he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had shown that he was the more powerful one. God had warned him to refuse to do what is wrong, to subdue the evil urge and make it a slave, captive to righteousness. Otherwise, sin crouches at the door of his heart, ready to devour him whole.

Refusal to do the right thing paves space for sin to come and threaten our position of right standing with God. Such a refusal can be in a passive form where we are too apathetic to do good and it can also be in a deliberate form where we intentionally refuse to do good where needed. There are many reasons that people refuse to do the right thing. To name a few of them, some people think that it is not convenient as it involves some measure of discomfort; some have been very discouraged by past experiences; and some are simply so inert that they see no point in being proactive about doing the right thing.

When we refuse to do the right thing, we stray away from the shelter of God and give Satan the permission to send his pet minion called Sin. This misshapen, scaly, four-legged abomination creeps into our hearts, lusting to savour our souls and pollute our hearts with its venom. Lust, greed, hatred, pettiness, resentment, immorality, covetousness, selfishness, pessimism, negativity; you name it all!

God desires people to live doing the right things His way. It is not about what we think is right, nor what the world’s wisest sage things is right, but it is about what God says is right. The word of God reads, “But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love Him. That is how we know we are living in Him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.”(1 John 2:5-6). God wants people to be loving and respectful in the way they handle relationships so that they will grow healthily and enjoy companionship. God wants people to give when it is within their means so that the wealth can be extended to help the poor. God wants people to work hard so that institutions can be run effectively to serve the world’s needs.

Doing the right thing is not always easy, but people need to keep at it because it is the right thing that God desires us to do. When we are required to give an account for things that we should have done, we cannot say, “I was told to do thus” or “I didn’t do it because it wasn’t convenient”. God called us to do good, even if it means suffering just as Christ suffered for us. Jesus is our example, and we should follow in His steps. (1 Peter 2:21).

Cain chose to do what he thought was right, but he was dejected. Abel chose to do what was right in God’s eyes regardless how unpleasant, and he was accepted. What will you choose to do today?

1. PRAYER WALK CUM TUITION FLYERS DISTRIBUTION THIS SUNDAY (17 JAN)
We will be having a prayer walk this Sunday, 17 Jan at 2.30pm sharp. We will pray for our surrounding areas, and at the same time, going door to door to the nearby HDB flats to distribute the tuition flyers to publicise our tuition programme. Lunch will be provided for those who are joining us for the prayer. Please inform Hwee Ling @ 9451 7787 or hweeling@alivecommunity.net

2. PRAYER MEETING ON FRIDAY EVENINGS
Prayer meeting will resume on next Friday, 22 Jan at 7.30pm sharp, Auditorium.

3. TUITION FLYERS DISTRIBUTION NEXT SUN (24th JAN) 
Distribution of tuition flyers will continue next Sun, 24 Jan at 2.30pm. Meet at Auditorium. Lunch will be provided for those who are joining us for the tuition brochures distribution. Please inform Hwee Ling @ 9451 7787 or reply to this email to confirm your attendance.

“So Joshua conquered the entire region – the hill country, the entire Negev, the whole area around the town of Goshen, the western foothills, the Jordan Valley, the mountains of Israel, and the Galilean foothills. The Israelite territory now extended all the way from Mount Halak, which leads up to Seir in the south, as far north as Baal-gad at the foot of Mount Hermon in the valley of Lebanon. Joshua killed all the kings of those territories, waging war for a long time to accomplish this.” – Joshua 11:16-18

To the pessimistic, the passing of time from 2009 to 2010 is just another ordinary, minute movement on the clock; there is nothing special to celebrate about, nothing in particular to look forward to. However, the one who is optimistic and hoping in God sees it differently. The closure of 2009 is the last chapter of an eventful year filled with victories won and battles conquered, and the beginning of 2010 is the first chapter of yet another year of promotion. Just as it had been prophesied that Alive Community Church and her members would experience a year of promotion in 2009, 2010 will also be a year of promotion as long as we keep our minds open on what Jesus is about to do for us.

Alive Community Church has just moved into a new premise in Mountbatten, as promised by Jesus and yet there is so much left to be done. Staff members and volunteers alike have labored hard to make the move happen at the end of 2009 and come 2010, more work has to be done to settle the rest of the renovations, arrangement of furniture and documents, and logistics. No wonder it is easy to lose the light of hope and dread the coming of a new year; because a new year brings a whole new workload for all of us to handle, and we will have new problems to fight through, new directions to be set, new commitments to be made. Remember though, there is no success without sweat and toil.

Israel was promised a large piece of land in Canaan, but that promise was not to be fulfilled without a fight. After Joshua led the Israelites to cross over the river Jordan, they had to face a new slew of challenges altogether. God required them to wipe out the nations in Canaan in order to occupy. It surely was not a free land for them to take! While we can easily read about the conquests in the land of Canaan in one sitting, the entire effort actually took about 7 years. Just imagine the countless times when the fighters had to trudge out of their comfort zones to fight against enemies that had greater numbers than their own. But as they lived with God and walked alongside Him, God helped Joshua and his army to conquer the giant descendents of Anak, and the entire hill country of Judah and Israel. By then, the land finally had rest from war.

From the account of Israel occupying her promised land, we see that fighting and struggling only exist for a season of time. We often expect quick changes and quick victories, but both the move of Alive Community Church into the Promised Land in Mountbatten and our journey with God are things that require a considerable amount of effort. It may take a few more weeks or even months for the new premise to be fully furnished, and it will surely pass. On the other hand, our journey with God is a lifelong process and the changes and victories will take time to happen. We will surely be met with new challenges at work, in school, in relationships, in ministry. Some of us will berate people in awful situations; some of us will shed tears for the people we work hard to minister to; some of us will wring our hair out due to study commitments; some of us will retreat into that dark corner in our hearts when we feel down. We may work hard, fight hard, and pray hard and still do not see progress. But Jesus never stopped working. He never stopped ministering to the needy; never failed to lift up the spirits of the broken hearted. He always watches you closely; He knows you inside out. He knows full well that He will fulfill the promises that He had made for you, and no record in history has shown that He has ever failed. Bringing prophecies, promises and promotions to come to pass is a job scope that Jesus will never fail to do.

At first the bouts of fights we go through do not make sense to us, but Jesus knows what He is doing for us. Just as we have testified that year 2009 had been a year of promotion, we can once again stand firm in our faith in Jesus Christ, and prophesy that year 2010 will be another year of promotion. Keep our minds open, keep believing, keep expecting, and keep working along with Jesus. He will bring us to places beyond what we can imagine.