Crystal Kei

Great news! Christ is risen! Happy Resurrection Sunday! Why is this such great news? I never understood before I came to faith. Have you ever disappointed your friends, your family, yourself? Have you ever been grieved by the wickedness of your heart? We all make mistakes and often, we tell ourselves we’ll do better next time. We try to recount our good deeds to make ourselves feel better. But we continue doing and planning evil in our hearts - we are self-seeking, bitter, hateful, angry, jealous, lustful. There is no way to earn forgiveness, there’s no fixing our mistakes, there is only a manipulation of our outer behaviour to better hide the wickedness of our heart. There is none without sin. There is none who are good. Even if we could change for the better, better is not enough. God is our judge and His perfect judgement requires that each and every sin be punished with eternal damnation. How then can we hope? How then can we live when we know the destruction that comes from our hands and lips and the certainty of God’s wrath to come? God loves us so much that He sent His perfect Son Jesus Christ to die and suffer His wrath in our place. On the third day, Christ conquered death and rose from the grave. In His death and resurrection, there is victory over sin! We are set free! Our sins are fully paid for! In all our sin, we can cling to our Savior and say that because of Christ, I am no longer condemned. I have been given life. Friend, if you are lost today and you see that pursuing things for yourself could never satisfy, I urge you to be real with yourself, repent and come earnestly to Christ. Because I can testify that He is the greatest treasure and there is a fountain of living water waiting for you.

Friends are such a blessing. This past week has been difficult but I’m grateful that I got to spend time with @elysiaadi on Wednesday. God has been good to bless me with a best friend who continually encourages me and points me to Christ. 💕

Not to me, but to Christ be all the glory. This week Christ has been so good to humble me to see that I am nothing without Him. I can do no good apart from Christ. ❤️

Do you love God or do you love His gifts? Do you praise Him for every single thing from His hand or only when He gives you what you want? Our fallen hearts are inclined to want all the things of this world above the greatest treasure. My birthday wish for this year is to love Christ alone because I so so desperately want to break free from the shackles to know perfect love.

I don’t seek to influence you to look a certain way or to covet what you do not have. I seek to influence you to have joy, and to have joy abundantly.

Merry Christmas! Hope you all have a blessed day with your family! 🌟❤️ I know this year is different to what we expected. It is disappointing not being able to travel and go out. For many, it has been a difficult year full of struggles and hardships. It definitely has been for me. But I hope that you have still found blessings in the midst of it all. The pandemic gave me precious alone time with God and quality time with my family. I hope that as we stay at home this year, we will turn our attention away from the material things we are so preoccupied with and toward the true meaning of Christmas. “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:9, 4-5)

Comment below your first reactions to this waterfall. ⬇️ Those same words describe you! The God who created the waterfall created you!

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.” - Psalm 23:1-2 I had a really bad stomach ache today but through the pain this verse brought me comfort and relief. I know that my shepherd will take care of my every need and provide me rest. He is the one that I rely upon completely because He always knows what’s best.

Nature truly has a way of lifting me out of the downward spiral of self pity and self importance to see who I really am in the eternal scheme of things. I am nothing but a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. I am nothing but a temporary being meant to bring glory to God. God created the trees and the waterfalls and the dragonflies just as He created me. This world really isn’t about me; it’s about the creator. When I look at nature, I am just so in awe of Him. 🌿

Pain and suffering is inevitable in the life of a Christian. Yes, it hurts. But it also allows us to experience just an bit of what Christ suffered for us and come to know and love Him more. Instead of complaining about pain, we need to embrace it, cry and pour out our heart to God, and finally, 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 Him for how He is using it to grow us to become more and more like Christ. It’s easy to be caught up in the pain of the moment but we have to remember that God works 𝐀𝐋𝐋 things for good for those who love Him. ⁣ ⁣ Psalm 77:8-14 (ESV)⁣ “Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time?⁣ Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?”⁣ Then I said, “I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.”⁣ I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. ⁣ I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds. ⁣ Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God? ⁣ You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples.

Since learning about natural revelation, I’ve appreciated the nature around me and had so much more thankfulness and admiration in my heart towards God for creating all things. I love how the skies are always blue. I love how the sun shines so brightly everyday. I love how the sunsets are pink and orange and purple. The weather in Hong Kong has truly been a miracle, especially considering that it is usually typhoon season right now. The Lord knew just what I needed to lift my spirits in hard days and for that I am thankful. 🥰

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” (Romans 12:15) It’s so easy to get caught up in our own worries that we forget to be there for those around us.⁣ ⁣ After a long hiatus from Instagram, I just want to catch up with you guys and ask how are you doing? How can I be rejoicing or weeping with you during this time? You are not alone! Please feel free to reach out: leave a comment or send me a message! ❤️

I praise God for growing me in contentment everyday. ☺️ I’m a person who often wants more. Joining a tour to Sri Lanka with my family, I was disappointed to find that we weren’t going to visit some famous destinations like Lion Mountain and Ella, complaining to my family about that. However, God is faithful in revealing to me just how materialistic and greedy my desires are. What a blessing it is just to be able to travel and spend time with my family. My perspective shouldn’t be on what I do not have but all the wonderful things I do have and have so much of thanks to God. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ What blessings can you be thankful for today? 🙏

I’ve only been in Sri Lanka for one day, but I have already learned so much more about Sri Lankan culture and people than I could have over the Internet!⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ One thing we need to be careful of when traveling is characterizing the behavior of the local people as strange or other. I loved reading “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” in my sociology class, being amazed by how utterly strange the practices of the Nacirema (e.g. having mouth-rite rituals and women baking their heads in ovens) were only to find out in class that the Nacirema are actually us Americans (spelled backwards) and these ‘strange rituals’ are actually everyday American practices (brushing our teeth, going to the sauna etc.). I so instinctively viewed the world through the schema of ‘normal’ American practices that I characterized everything else as other. The Nacirema once seemed so shocking to me that I couldn’t believe they existed.

Merry Christmas!! ❤️ Hope you had an amazing time with your friends and family! ⁣ ⁣ As Christmas has become commercialised, I want to use this post to commemorate the meaning of Christmas and why this is such a joyful time for Christians. Today we remember the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ who was sent by God so that all who believe in Jesus may be made righteous through Him. Without Jesus, we would still be dead in our sin, unable to become children of God. And so we rejoice because Jesus is born!