Hope in a Hopeless World

To all those who read this blog... after many months, I think its time to revive it.

So what's been happening in the life of Pat?

Last weekend, I went to YF CAMP 2009 which was held at Camp Bornhoffen. This year the camp theme was Hope in a Hopeless World. Out of the different years which I had been to YF Camp, I found this camp challenging, convicting and refreshing.

Throughout the camp, our speaker, Pete Ko presented us with some thought provoking ideas:-

- As Christians we aim to be like Jesus (ie. Christ-like)... But why?
Jesus was the perfect Adam, an example of how we as man was supposed to rule the world. Could it be that why we aim to be Christ-like so that we can be what God intended us to be?

- As Christians we know that we should put our faith in Christ for salvation is through him and that one day we will join him in Heaven... But then what if we are already in this new creation? As said in 1 Cor 15:20, Jesus was the firstfruits of creation.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead,the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Many more ideas were presented throughout camp, all of which challenges me to think about and test with the Bible.

Nonetheless, something that happened today reminded me of how real all this was, the idea of creation, heaven, hell and most importantly God. Tonight I was having dinner with my mum at a restaurant and out of the corner of my eye I noticed some of my friends who I had grown up with during my youth. I went and said hi to them and had a a bit of a chat and went back to join my mum. Whilst eating dinner, it saddened me to think about how those friends at one stage were on fire to know Christ and then... they fell away. And we all know that for those people on judgement day, they wont be coming to heaven with us. I feel so helpless... I dont know what I can do to change them, to bring them into a relationship with Christ... one thing I know is only God can change them and I pray that he will. Like the theme of YF Camp 09, Hope in a Hopeless World. Jesus is our Hope in this Hopeless World.