A Devotional Corner

Love and Light

2009-06-13T12:38:00.002+10:00

Loving is living in the Light
Hating is living in Darkness

Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.
1 John 2:9-11

The previous posts have concentrated on love between believers. I will continue along this chain of thought.

Have you heard of brothers and sisters from church hating someone? Have you heard of brothers and sisters at church accusing, judging, punishing, plotting, planning, attacking, discrediting, and slandering other brothers and sisters? How deeply saddening.

How blind the darkness can make us?
We have been called to love each other. Not because anyone is deserving to be loved, but because this is the command that we have heard from the beginning.

If we say we walk in the light and yet hate our brother, what does that mean?

The New Command

2009-04-14T21:28:00.002+10:00

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.
Deuteronomy 6:4-6 (NIV)

" 'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD…”
Leviticus 19:18 (NIV)

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" In reply Jesus said:
"A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'
"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."
Luke 10:25-37 (NIV)

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:34,35 (NIV)

Alive in Love A.D.85

2009-04-12T00:52:00.005+10:00

It seems that the described problem had already appeared a few decades after the resurrection of Christ. This epistles of John is believed to have been written around A.D 85.

This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 1 John 3:11

And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 2 John 1:5

The two verses both contain “from the beginning” as if to tell the audience of that letter that “you should already know this”. It almost implies that the audience of the letter had forgotten to love each other!

I want to say that from A.D. 85 to A.D. 2009, the problem didn’t go away. Though the cause of the problem might be slightly different. It is probably because I have a bad memory, but I seriously cannot recall any sermons on the topic of “love believers”. Maybe it is because of the churches I attend. Or maybe people think that it’s not important.

Sermons usually are centered around certain topics. A lot of them are evangelical in nature. Focusing on Salvation and the good news to the world. A lot of sermons focus on daily issues, and Jesus’ teachings about everyday life. I love all these topics. But writing this post has made me think of “loving believers” as a neglected topic.

We are evangelically oriented. My early Christian services were on evangelism. It still is my mission and may it be the will of God that it will continue to be my mission. The church focuses on evangelism to the out side world. We are focused on the Great Commission. Our programs are evangelical in nature. We aim always to attract non-believers. We focus on being good witnesses to non-believers. We focus on giving good testimony to non-believers. We focus on reaching non-believers overseas by long term missions and locally by short term missions.

Please don’t get me wrong. I believe very very very much in evangelism. I think it is extremely extremely important. That is why I spend so much time and effort on it. I am now however, starting to realise that “loving one another” is even more important.

This is unproven, but I would like to propose that the direct phrase/command "love each other" or "love one another" is repeated more times than any other phrase or command in the New Testament.
I am beginning to think that “loving one another” is “above” evangelism. You must evangelise. But if evangelism stops you loving one another, then you are doing the wrong evangelism.

I don’t know if I should say this. But I will say this anyway because I believe that the truth is good. It is good for the truth to be known. Sometime when I attend church committee meetings, flares start flying and all sorts of human emotions are let wild. But us members are passionate Christians. Sacrificing our time and money and effort on the service of the church of believers. Sacrificing for the sake of the gospel. I have to say, it really does us no benefit if we do not love one another.

Loving one another must come first. If you do not know how to love each other, then do not evangelise. If you do not know how to love each other, then do not take up positions in the church. But you must evangelise and you must serve your God. So learn to love each other!

I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 2 John 1:5

Alive in Love

2009-04-04T16:09:00.011+11:00

This mindset is prominent among many “Church-goers”

Love non-believers, talk bible to believers.

This is not an incorrect mindset. But this is a secondary consequence of the primary objective. What is lacking in the mindset of many “church-goers” is the primary mindset.

Love believers, talk bible to non-believers.

When I brought this idea up with Ivan, I had some problems explaining this "new" idea to him. This got a bit clearer when we went down this thought pattern:
Compare the amount of time you spend loving a non-believer to the amount of time you spend loving a believer (this is assuming that you have some biblical concept of love).

There are about 250 verses in the New testament with the word “love” in it. I proposed to Ivan that this ratio of the time spent loving a believer to loving a non-believer should be about 50 : 1.

This might be extreme but what is your ratio? 1 : 50? 1 : 20?

Perhaps 50:50 is the best ratio?

This is the commandment of Christ to his followers:

Love each other
(John 15:17).

This is one of the most important perhaps the central theme in the New Testament.
This commandment is impossible to fulfill for non-believers.
This commandment is impossible to fulfill for those that do not have fellowship with believers.
This commandment is not something you fulfill once a month at church. This commandment is to be lived out fully for the rest of your life on earth.

The books of the bible speak as one:

John 13:34
"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

John 15:12
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

John 15:17
This is my command: Love each other.

Rom 12:10
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.

2 Cor 8:24
Therefore show these men the proof of your love and the reason for our pride in you, so that the churches can see it.

Gal 5:13
You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature ; rather, serve one another in love.

Eph 4:2
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

Eph 4:16
From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Phil 2:2
then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.

1 Thes 3:12
May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.

1 Thes 4:9
Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.

1 Pet 1:22
Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.

1 Pet 2:17
Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.

1 Peter 3:8
Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.

1 Peter 4:8
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

1 Pet 5:14
Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ.

2 Pet 1:7
and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.

1 John 2:10
Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.

1 John 3:10
This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.

1 John 3:11
This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

1 John 3:14
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.

1 John 3:16
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

1 John 3:23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

1 John 4:7
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

1 John 4:11
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

1 John 4:21
And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

2 John 1:5
And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another.

(All passages from NIV)

My Spiritual Weak times

2009-03-31T23:47:00.002+11:00

Many things are happening right now. Some good, some bad. It has made me very busy thinking about this, thinking about that. So much worrying and thinking that has made me neglect my relationship with God. The fact that this blog was left unattended for months is the best example.

I have been speaking to God through prayer, but I pray rubbish.

I have been listening to God through reading His word in the bible, but my ears and heart weren't opened. His words that I read don't mean much.

I try and take up roles to serve the Lord to stay connected with Him, but not out of the passion and the warm-heartedness that we should have as God's children who experiences His Love, but just doing it just to feel better and not feel so guilty.

I lack spiritual joy. When will I come back to you and walk close by you?

Sacrifice

2008-09-22T22:04:00.004+10:00

In the Bible, people are always offering things to God. God demanded that sacrifices be made to Him. All kinds of offerings from flour to sheep to bulls to birds.

We don't really do these things anymore. We don't slaughter animals. and we don't burn fat that create a smell pleasing to God. Is it the case then that God has decided that he doesn't need sacrifices?

He does. You are to "offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God"

How often do you sacrifice? For God?

I have found that we are still very reluctant people. Quick in our mouths, stubborn in our hearts.

And when we do offer sacrifices, we don't offer the best. We offer the second best. Do you sacrifice your time for God? Does the work you do for God always fall in the the "gap filling" times? I must admit I do do that sometimes. Reading the bible just before I sleep, when I am sleepy already. Not offering my prime for God.

Do we offer our

prime Energy,

prime Time,

prime Health,

prime Youth,

prime Talents

to God?

This is one of the first problems of Man Kind:

3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. 4 But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. (Gen 4 NIV)

And he ended up killing his brother out of jealousy.

Fortune Telling

2008-09-20T17:54:00.004+10:00

A friend has recently asked for my views on fortune telling in life as a Christian. These are my thoughts after reading the following passage from Deuteronomy:

Deuteronomy 18:9-13 (New International Version)

Detestable Practices

9 When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. 10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in ^[a] the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, 11 or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. 13 You must be blameless before the LORD your God.

There are a number of things to get out of this passage:

(1) It is not a rule
What to get out of this is not to interpret it as a "rule" of Christian living. Christians are not about living with rules locking down your life. In fact, as Christians, we are freed from our sinful life so we may be free to live a life that God intended us to live, that is, to follow Christ rather than follow evil.

(2) These things exist
God speaks and acknowledges that these things exist. So there may be wonderful statistics or stunning testimonies where it has worked, because even God, the ultimate creator endorse that such things exist. But ...

(3) God finds it detestable
Rather than to read this as a "rule", remember to read this as what God likes and dislikes (ie what He intends our lives to be, rather than evil). He sees things outlined in the passage above to be detestable, including fortune telling (interpret omens). He finds it is filthy in our lives. It is activities that God does not endorse at all.

(4) Where is the source from
If God does not endorse it, it means it does not come from God. Naturally, that means it comes from Satan, to lure us away from a Holy and Godly life, so we can fall back into sin. The fact that people experience the real power of fortune-telling does not mean it is Holy and Godly. There are many things that are happening around us that is real: people do anything for money, people lust, people have affairs, people cheat. These, amongst other things, are all real.

The question you have to ask is, is that what God really want in our lives?

God wants us to be Holy. He has paid a high price by getting his beloved son to die for us in our place for our sins so we could live the way God intends us people to live. We should avoid what is sinful.

(5) Trust and Faith
One may say that fortune telling just means they'll be able to plan a smoother life, and avoid the bumps in life. I'm not hurting anyone, that's not too bad, it is not like fortune telling is doing something illegal.

The question that needs to be asked is this: Who do you trust in your life when you have decided to become a Christian? Do you trust God, who you have declared your faith, and submitted your life so you belong to Jesus? or trusting earthly (evil) sources to dictate how your life should be?

As Christians, we live by faith. We have to trust God is the one and only who, through our Lord Jesus Christ, will lead us. He is our Father in Heaven. We are told in the gospels fathers do not feed stones to their children. He will have everything good in store for us. For sure. All we need is steadfast faith in God.

Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us that God has always planned for us: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

That is what Christian living is all about. It's not about having a carefree life. It is about trusting God in leading your life, and letting him steer your life to bring what is good for you.

My Baptism

2008-05-24T16:50:00.002+10:00

I was baptised last Sunday on 18 May 2008, and I would really like to thank my friends who had took their valuable time in coming to my baptism ceremony to witness one important event in my life. I would like to give special thanks to my co-blogger, Jot, in coming. He has consistently encouraged, challenged, nagged me to get baptised for the past 4 years ever since I have become a Christian; Rita, another co-blogger (but for a different blog) for setting a nice example to learn off in the lead up to my baptism; Vikki, for still being able to make it at the cost of being late in picking up her mum at the airport that day; Brian, waking up bright and early to ensure the carpool for Jot, Rita and Vikki will be on time. Simon for making every moment of my baptism morning a photographic one; Michelle, for skipping her later service at WS to come; Kit, for waiting for that never-going-to-come weekend train and still managed to come on time; and Lin, waking up in an early Sunday morning and pushing back an appointment to attend. Last but definitely not least, my girlfriend Sharon, for flying all the way from Melbourne, and my parents for being supportive in my decision to get baptised.

Prior to the ceremony, I discovered that there has been a fair few of my friends who regarded baptism as a ceremony that was done while you were young. It was all part of the Christening process. While some churches may do that, the bible records that baptism usually comes after a person has believed in the gospel (Acts 8:12, Acts 8:13, Acts 16:15, Acts 18:8). One will notice that believing in each and one of these verses are seen with greater emphasis than the act of baptising.

Friends have also asked what it feels before and after baptism. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to give them some magical answer that baptism has given me a "spiritual boost". I have explained that while baptism is formal declaration of my faith in Christ, it does not make me a better Christian than I was before I was baptised. It is not a magical ritual that makes a believer suddenly more spiritually stronger. At most, baptism is a commitment to build a stronger relationship with God.

I have explained it by way of an analogy with a marriage. If you love a person, a marriage ceremony itself does not instantaneously make a person love his/her partner more. The love and the relationship is still there. It only marks the commitment and declaration that you are serious about this relationship so it will grow over time.

The submersion of our body into water during baptism is a symbol to bury our old self-centred past to death. The subsequent coming out from the water in baptism mirrors the resurrection of Christ, giving us a new life to follow our Lord Jesus, reconciling our relationship with God.

3Do you not know that all of us^(A) who have been baptized^(B) into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

-- Romans 6:3-5

Thank you everyone for the gifts!

Loud

2008-04-25T00:32:00.003+10:00

I'm not a loud person.

Ivan and I were on the train today and we were having a debate about the term "sinner". I am reading a book called "Victory over the Darkness" by Neil Anderson and Anderson made the point that the term Sinner is generally only used on non-believers, while the term "saint" referred to all believers. The debate was quite lively and Ivan was talking loudly (hehehehehe). We were standing there talking when a young man who was sitting down said something to us.

This young man had over heard our conversation assumed we were Christians and made a statement to challenge our religion. He said that hell was only a short term thing, and that Christians made it a long term thing to scare non-believers into converting to Christianity. That was interesting... I've never heard that one before.

It was obvious he was Jewish, and he had the understanding that religion is all about doing things to avoid hell and to go to heaven. We only had 3 or 4 stops to share our Gospel.

We briefly explained hell to him. I told him that Christianity is not about following rules and doing things to get into heaven. Christianity was entirely about our personal relationship with God. He said he didn't know that and he would do some research on it. If he really does, both Ivan and I will be very very happy for him.

Our stop came and Ivan gave him his business card. Will he contact us?

I am not a loud person, and although it was very noisy in the train, I was uncomfortable that we were talking so loudly. But I think our loudness was used for an unexpected purpose. We gave that young man a completely different view on Christianity.

There were also people standing and sitting around us. I'm sure some of them were listening to our short debate too.

My World

2008-04-11T02:23:00.003+10:00

1 God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
Psalm 46:1-3

The LORD is our refuge and strength.
But the Earth will continue to give way, and the Mountains will continue to fall.

"Be still, and know that I am God" Psalm 46:10

Let it continue then. There is no Fear.

Sorrow

2008-04-09T21:23:00.002+10:00

For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. 2 Corinthians 7:10 KJV

What is godly sorrow?

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death - NIV

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation.

Getting out of the Comfort Zone

2008-03-27T23:40:00.006+11:00

When we socialise with our peers, we often feel comfortable and glad when we are able to find topics in common to talk about. You feel a sense of connection with the person. Not much needs to be explained, a short few words and they understand and appreciate what you are saying. It is a natural reaction to stay in this comfort zone because life has always been promoted to be all about enjoying ourselves. Why go a painful way when there is an easier route to enjoy ourselves?

I am certain that I am not alone on this, and when it comes to sharing your spiritual faith, we would often prefer sharing their faith and experiences amongst our fellow brothers and sisters, because it is much easier for them to comprehend the Love, Joy, Peace or Hardships that you may be spiritually experiencing. We are comfortable sharing it, and most of all, we are comforted in that you will know your fellow brothers and sisters will be praying for you.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing. We should all grow spiritually through fellowship/discipleship by sharing our spiritual experiences with fellow Christians.

But when it comes to evangelising and sharing their spiritual faith with non-believers, by telling or showing them our living testimonies as a gospel-sharing opportunity, it becomes a completely different story altogether. Many tend to shy away from this activity.

In the most recent encounters with fellow brothers and sisters, I have heard so many reasons where they avoid evangelism. Excuses galore:

I only look after the finances in my fellowship. Evangelism is something that is someone else's responsibility within the fellowship. They will look after that. I have no part in it.
I don't have the experiences to evangelise. I just don't think I am equipped to do it.
I don't think God has planned for me to evangelise. I think I am better in discipleship. For some reason, I excel in helping people spiritually grow but making non-believers understand the gospel is really not what I am geared to do.

The excuses I often hear branch out from this logic: there are different responsibilities that you need to take care of for a church to operate. As 1 Corinthians 12 say, we are different limbs of the body of Christ, we need to have different roles to serve. Often, we would like to just palm off the dirty work to someone else, as long as it is just not me doing the work, it'll be fine.

We often remember God's grace and blessings. We enjoy these fruits for being His children. We love being in the comfort zone, being looked after, knowing that we are safe.

What we don't remember is, what our purpose of being a Christian is. We often forget that we have surrendered our lives to follow our Lord Jesus. We forget we have made the decision to let go of our desires to serve him. We forget the most important and final direction that he has left us before he ascended to heaven: The Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20, Mark 16:14-20).

The Great Commission
14Afterwardhe appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. 15And he said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover." 19So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. 20And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.]]

Experience does not magically come by declaring that you lack it. You have to get your hands dirty, bump a few nails. Jesus teaches his disciples that "... if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you." (Matthew 17:20)

Stop thinking what you can get out of your faith in Christ. Think what you can give through your faith in Christ! The bible tells us 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' (Acts 20:35) Think of those needy ones around you that are thirsting for living water, who would be so much better off if you could bring to them the Love, Joy and Peace that you are experiencing in your spiritual walk with Christ!

The bible says that we are the ambassadors of Christ and we are the light of the world that should shine before others, giving glory to our Father in heaven!

It is time to get out of the comfort zone and to play your part in the Great Commission!

If only God was a Pilot, there would be more believers ...

2008-02-18T22:34:00.002+11:00

It was my birthday recently and during the weekend, I decided to go away and catch a plane. Walking through the terminal building, you would occasionally see people who is dressed up in uniforms who appear to be pilots. As I boarded my plane, waiting everyone to settle and the plane to take off, I began to think, despite the fact that I see people wandering around the terminal who appear to be pilots, how often do I get to see the actual captain that flies the plane that I am on?

Then a whole raft of questions began floating in my mind:

If it is so rare that I get to see a pilot operating my plane, why do I have to believe that in this particular flight, there is someone controlling the plane?

Why can't I assume that in such a technology-savvy world, can't this thing be just flying itself?

Even if there was someone inside, how am I to know that he (she) is qualified? He may have three stripes over his shoulders, but where is his certification/identification that reveals he is really qualified?

(And in the midst of all these questions, we experienced turbulence, and then the seat-belt sign turned on) Why do I have to trust his announcement/sign and belt up for my own good?

But Ivan, they are very easy questions to answer. There has to be a person operating the plane because we are told in books that it needs to be operated by a person. We are revealed in books and documentation that they need to go through a strenuous process before they obtain certification and qualification to become pilots. Therefore we have to trust the pilot because he has all the equipment and the experience that we would not otherwise have to make the call in turning the seat-belt sign on to ensure our safety throughout the flight. All this out of trust in someone that you have a close-to-zero chance of meeting in the ordinary course of air travel.

When it comes to questions of our faith in God, we are often asked:

What a wonderful world, but how do I know someone is in control?

Since the world is so vibrant, why can't I assume its just running itself?

Even if there is some controller (God), how am I to know he really is qualified? He purports to be God, but what are the signs to show who He really is?

Why do we have to listen to the ways He suggests us to live our lives and trust that it is for our own good?

Well, these answers, of course to many, are hard to answer. We are told in a book (the Bible), that God is the operator of this world. But people don't believe. It is revealed in the Bible that God has shown himself in human form through Christ Jesus, healing the sick, raising the dead, making the blind see to show he is more than qualified to be the operator. But people don't believe. God knows everything we know, and everything we don't know to know when to make the call in telling us to do certain things to prevent us from getting hurt. We ignore those directions.

So how hard is it to believe in God? Not much more than the faith required to hop on a plane and know that it'll take you from A to B.

You know me?

2008-01-20T00:12:00.000+11:00

… he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" Luke5:8 NIV

Only God knows the wretch that I really am. Who will save a wretch like me?

God forgives sins yet men do not. We judge others, and compare ourselves to other people, and comfort ourselves by that fact that we can always find someone worse than us.

If I summed up all the bad and evil things I have done in my life, it would be an ugly picture indeed. I think it would be very ugly. There will be people who will sum up the sins of their life and compare it against mine and say, "Hey Jot, that's nothing, look at mine".
Then there are still others who will say, "Jot, you have lived a terrible life. I am a saint compared to you!"

Yet if we were all to be sentenced, we'd all receive a just penalty of death. The best that man can do is still far short of the perfection that God is.

My friend thought that I was a good and faithful Christian. I was some sort of a saint or angel from heaven. That is the image that some people have of me. But how much do you know about the things that live in my mind or the record of my sins? I told my friend about one of these things. Instantly she recognised that I was just another Sinner. The saintly glow that shone from me suddenly switched off. Disappointment drenched her thoughts.

I am no saint and I want the world to know. I am a sinner and that's the truth.

I am learning to live by the Grace of God that gives me hope. A promise of salvation and new life that is offered out of Love.

Lord, thank you for dying for a wretch like me. Teach me to live by your Amazing Grace.

Is it the looks or the heart that matters?

2007-11-28T22:47:00.001+11:00

Down under in Australia, we just had a Federal election last Saturday. The people has decided to vote the 11.5 year-old Liberal-National Coalition Government out and Kevin Rudd and his team in the Australian Labor Party has been elected as the new Government to lead Australia. It has been a controversial election which gave an unprecedented result of the Australian people voting a government out of office in times where the country was growing modestly and unemployment is at multi-decade lows.

During lunch today, I have asked my friend whether she was satisfied with the election results. She told me that she was pleased with the result. She was very impressed with Prime Minister-elect Rudd's incoming speech where he declared victory. Rudd succinctly addressed all aspects that he needed to address. It was spot on.

My view, on the other hand, was much the opposite. Pessimist, you may call me, but I found the speech more or less the same as the Labor Party's campaign: It was too good to be true. It was too perfect to expect it will happen in reality. His speech was scripted so there was no room for error. Outgoing Prime Minister John Howard's exiting speech, on the other hand was not scripted at all. It was very touching. Every sentence of his speech came from the 33 years of political experience, but more importantly, it came from the heart. Many people who I have spoken about this agreed that if he spoke from the heart as he did in his outgoing speech throughout the campaign, there would be a much greater chance of him winning, as it would actually reach out and touch every voter's heart.

My friend then questioned me: isn't it good that the whole thing about having a 'facade' and showing only the good side supposed to be better? She argued that there was no need to show the voter the dirty and messy side. The average voter does not need to know what happens behind the closed doors. They can have their fights any way they want but as long as they have that good image to represent the people of Australia, then its fine.

I then made remarks along the lines of saying voting in politics is somewhat like choosing a boyfriend (or girlfriend for guys reading this). What is more important is not the looks, but really the things that reflect their heart. No point choosing a guy/girl with very impressive looks and not realising that their intentions is to cheat on you (I would like to clarify though, that I have no intentions to say our new Government has intentions to cheat on us). Likewise in politics, you would not like to choose a leader that merely has the perfect 'facade' and have nothing coming out from the brain. You would want the wonderful appearance to be a fruit of the leader's good heart and fundamental experience.

Likewise, God has made it clear how critical He is when it comes to choosing His people at the end of the day. He does not choose people that merely look good, but He chooses those who has a heart for Him . The Pharisees of Jesus' day were respectable religious leaders who would do everthing that looked religiously correct in front of people. Throughout time, rather to do what is religiously correct in reverence of God, they did it to enjoy the social status and recognition (Matthew 23:6-7). They had a wonderful image, but Jesus went right to his most central criticism at Matthew 23:25-28 (ESV):

25"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
27 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. 28So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Jesus vs Parents

2007-11-25T19:18:00.000+11:00

I used to have a lot to talk about with my mum (who has yet to submit her life to Christ) and we would be able to talk about all sorts of things before I became a Christian. But ever since I have become a Christian, conversations turn sour when it comes to a conversation about religion generally. She does not hate religion generally, but because I have made my position clear, as a Christian, in rejecting other religions that purport to preach the Truth, she really dislikes me having any kind of in-depth involvement in any activities that has any associations with Christianity.

I believe her negative attitude towards my faith is because prior to myself becoming a Christian, I would not have such strong opposing and critical views on anything, let alone the sensitive topic of religion! I would just silently disagree, if that is what it takes to make everyone happy. But no, nowadays, I would make my position quite clear in what I believe in (hopefully in most circumstances, in a passive but succinct way).

As I grew spiritually, I can view that the Holy Spirit has begun working within me and I feel my values have begun to change too. Although this does not mean I am in any way more perfect or more superior than anybody else, I begin to see that what I believed to be good before is not enough in God's eyes.

There are moments where I would make a decision based on the teachings of the bible and mum and dad would subsequently ask why couldn't I have been less honest so I could protect myself a bit more in such a cold-blooded commercial world? In those circumstances where I would just love to answer 'because the bible teaches us not to cheat and God assures that He has plans for the righteous', I would refrain from introducing God into our conversation so that we would not strain our relationships, because they would simply dismiss my justifications and say I am inexperienced and naive, and most importantly, they would be infuriated if I said my God could somehow pull "magical tricks" to fix up my naivety.

I soon faced a struggle. Although I wanted to tell my parents everything I felt deep within me, but yet I knew that if I would do so, it would be just sour the relationship. Soon I began to only tell them what I believed they would be pleased to hear. However, my retraction in saying what I feel from the heart has slowly made them feel that I am not sharing everything that I think and believe with them. I believe that they sense this distancing without really wanting to find a resolution to this problem.

My friend is plagued with similar problems (if not, a worser scenario). Like myself, her mother is a Buddhist. Her retraction in refraining from sharing certain views with her mum has left her mum asking one night whether this 'deterioration' is because she felt her parents does not love her anymore. Starkingly, this has been a question asked by my parents as well. They somehow feel that we do not feel their love anymore if we no longer share what we think and feel deep within ourselves.

Good and responsible parents spend all their time and effort to love and nurture their children. They try to teach their children to the best of their knowledge so that they will not get hurt in such a dangerous world. Perhaps they get anxious and helpless if they see their children slowly unlearn what they have taught, and perhaps even get angry if they see religion tearing the foundations of the parents' teachings apart.

But if a person is serious about believing in Jesus so he may submitting himself to Christ, there is no two ways about it when it comes to living in the Truth by being a follower of Christ. We just have to accept the fact that we cannot have the good of both worlds and find some position of compromise. In Matthew 10:34-39 (ESV), Jesus teaches us:

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 ch. 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; 17:33; John 12:25 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Obviously though, this does not warrant us to dishonour, abandon or neglect our parents (Colossians 3:20)

Witnesses

2007-10-24T21:07:00.000+10:00

I note your criteria.

Reputable
Meticulous
Honest

I’m not sure if you have done any research on Luke. From limited readings, I have found that historians generally believe that Luke was a meticulous historian. Luke investigates his stories. I don’t recall the exact numbers but out of the two hundred and thirty something cities that Luke sites, everyone of them has been finally been verified either through other accounts or archaeological evidence. Luke states accurately the traditions of that time and in detail too. Luke names the rulers, the province heads, military traditions without error. So if you were not biased against Luke, you will have to conclude that he is meticulous.

I have limited knowledge of ancient historians also. I searched for “Famous Ancient Historians” and found a list of ten people. Of these I have read the writings of Julius Caesar and Titus Livius (Livy) in their original language. I have not read all their works but I have studied them for about 2 years. All historians are biased in one way or another. Julius Caesar writes about his Gallic Wars. He describes almost all his enemies as Barbarians. And he talks about how brave and noble his soldiers are.

Livy was commissioned by Rome to write a history of Rome. Historians tend to stand on the side of those that finance their ink and scrolls. He writes brilliantly about the rise of a great nation. He has pride in Roman power and ingenuity.

Yet I would say that both these people do portray a good picture of their subject. They write according to their beliefs. i.e. power and glory and wealth.

Luke and the gospel writers also write according to their beliefs. Truth, righteousness, love. The out come of this you can judge for yourself.

I’m sure you won’t try to compare Luke to your wife’s friend. Judge for youself by reading Luke’s writings. It is no small thing for a person to be literate in Greek at that time. Luke is known to be a physician by trade. His qualification as a historian is not easily dismissible.

Luke 1:1-4 (NIV)
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

You have no reason to believe that Luke is a dishonest person. Just as there is no reason to believe that Caesar or Livy are dishonest people. There is no logical or intellectual reason or evidence to believe that the gospel writers are dishonest or delusional.

The gospels are written for different audiences.
For the poor and illiterate.
For religious zealots
For educated middle-upper class
For those in power
For the ordinary person.
You have not critically analysed other historical records from antiquity. But you insist that there is insufficient evidence to confirm the reliability of the bible. I’m sure that if you applied your scepticism to any of the historical writers, you will find that you have no history to believe in.

The gospel writers made it up?

Wouldn’t it be strange to claim that hundreds of miracles happened between 1970AD and 1975AD and yet not a single person came forward to say they saw it? Miracles don’t happen every day. You’d remember it if it happened. You’d talk about it if it happened in your town. Who is going to follow a bunch of Jews who claimed that hundreds of miracles happened if they had no eyewitnesses to prove their stories? They can not do it with one eyewitness. They need to have done it with hundreds of eyewitnesses with collaborating accounts. Anything short of that, and they’d be out like the latest fad. This is because of the overwhelming number of miracles they claim in their accounts.

Witnesses

You mentioned before hypothetical witnesses. They don’t exist so lets stop talking about them Let’s talk instead about the witness that did exist. The many hundreds of them.

If you see one miracle, it is understandable for a sceptic to dismiss it.
If you see two miracles, it is still understandable to dismiss, but you would expect a person to be on the look out. And be ready to investigate.
If you see three miracles, then you would have to give this man serious thought.
If you see hundreds of miracles over and over again, you have no choice but to knee down with your face to the ground and to worship him

I want to propose that your concept of an objective non-Christian eyewitness to be logically impossible. A person who witnessed these hundred of miracles and still proclaims to be a non-believer cannot exist.

John the Baptist sent some people to ask Jesus he was and Jesus replied. “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” Luke 7:22 NIV

Only the bible is bold enough to stand out and declare that hundreds of miracles have been performed before thousands of verifiable witnesses. No other religion can even claim even 0.5% of that. Such a grand and amazing claim. Hundreds of miracles performed in a few years. If there were not thousands of witnesses confirming the events, do you think Christianity will still be standing in 40AD?

I can only quote you written accounts by Christians because it is impossible to find a witness that has bothered to write a testimony of the miracles, and yet has managed to remain non believing. Lets explain the witnesses we have and not the hypothetical non-existent counter witnesses.

Christian Character

The greatest act of love was the death of Christ on the cross. Jesus had been telling his disciples over and over again that he will die and rise again in three days. I’m sure you would have heard this argument before. Let me repeat it. If Jesus died on the cross and did not come back, how many people will still follow him and preach his gospel. None. If Jesus died and did not come back, that would mean that he is not credible. Jesus claimed to be God. He claimed to have power over life and death. If he did not come back everyone will very quickly realise that he is a fraud.

You argue, why not continue to spread the gospel even if Jesus didn’t come back? If you look at the character of the bible writers, they believe in truth and righteousness. They don’t believe in tricking people just to give them a good message. They can give them a good message without talking about Jesus! All they need to do is to preach a righteous and godly message without mentioning Jesus, and they would have achieved their purpose. But no. Instead, the followers insist that Jesus is alive. This is at the risk of death by crucifixion. As argued by apologists, people don’t die for lies. Especially if they don’t need to lie to get a good message across.

What is the message? I’m not sure if you fully understand the message. If you understand the message, then you would understand that they would have nothing to preach if Jesus didn’t come back. The fact that they preached it with such conviction indicates also their conviction that Jesus is now alive.

1 Peter 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead .

Can you see the conviction in Peter’s words? You want to know what kind of person Peter is? Read the rest of his letter. Read the rest of the gospels which talk about him. Unlike other false prophets and fraudsters (not mentioning any names) Peter does not have money, power and women to gain from this. Unlike other lunatics that preach, Peter’s wisdom surpasses any other religious philosophers (or at least on par with other religions if you’re non Christian). His message is consistent with the other biblical themes and wisdoms.

These are the eyewitness accounts that are as accurate today as it was two thousand years ago. You can read today the accounts that eyewitnesses have recorded two thousand years ago.

I hope that I’ve already covered your concerns about the credibility of witnesses and gospel writers. The only ground on which you discredit them is that you do not believe them. But as I’ve shown, there are so much more reasons to believe them then to not believe them. What are the reasons for not believing them? If it were Joseph Smith, I could list hundreds of reasons why you shouldn’t believe him. If it were Julius Caesar, I could list many reasons for not believing his record of events.

In mathematics there is a type of proof where in order to from that a statement is true (I think it’s called prove by contradiction). You first take the negative of that statement. Run the new assumption through your maths. Find that the maths is inconsistent with the assumption, and conclude that the opposite of the negative statement must be true (given that the positive and negative encompasses the entire set of possibilities.) Assume that the gospel writers are liars. Run that through the personal testimonies. Conclude that the gospel writers are not liars. Assume Jesus did not perform miracles, run through the personal testimonies of the first century, conclude that Jesus performed miracles. Assume that Jesus did not rise from the dead, run through the personal testimonies, conclude that Jesus rose from the dead.

I am sad to say that there are people that will not believe, even if a miracle was performed in front of them.

Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. Luke 10:13-15

Doubts

2007-10-20T01:15:00.000+10:00

I note that the assumption is made that there was silence between the miracles happening and events being recorded. This is quite an unreasonable assumption if you assume that Jesus did perform miracles. If Jesus did do miracles, then people would have talked about it everyday. Dads would tell their sons. Neighbors will tell their neighbors. 30 years is not a long time at all considering that this was 2000 years ago.

If on the other hand you assume that Jesus did not do any miracles, then it would be unreasonable to assume that people would go around spreading the news that Jesus did perform miracles. Also waiting 30yrs to write about something that didn’t happen doesn’t make sense either.

You will note that there are a lot of assumptions made everywhere, and I think that this leads some people to find the argument flawed. I’m sure with other assumptions and combination of assumptions, you will be able to generate limitless numbers of scenarios, out of which, the Evangelical version is but one.

It has also been argued that just because no witnesses came to refute the claims, it does not mean that the event did take place.

This poses a big problem. If someone chooses to take on this line of argument, it is possible to refute almost every historical record or event that ever took place or was ever written down. There are many volumes of history that have been recorded as fact over the past 5000 years. With regards to pre modern history, I would say that a large portion of them are written from one perspective. It has been said history is written by the victorious. With the mentioned line of reasoning, we would have to cast doubt on almost all ancient documents and records.

In the justice system, witnesses are called to testify. If we argue that “just because no one came to refute the claim, it does not mean that the witnesses is the sole witnesses and a credible witness”, then there will be much less people in prison today.

Of course, the bible is reliable not solely on the grounds that no one came to refute it. This is only one small piece of the entire picture. (it’s reasonable to assume that at least one or two people tried to refute it..)

Such is the nature of written history. The bible is claimed to be the most reliable historical document from ancient times, and second place is miles behind. Events are not proven by scientific experiments. Events are confirmed through eyewitness accounts testimonies and recorded in documents or other media. How else will you know that an event took place? If you doubt the story of Jesus, then you should doubt the entire human ancient history many many times more.

Some people choose to believe the events written in the bible. Some people choose to doubt it. Some people don’t even know what’s in it.

Reply - continued ...

2007-10-18T23:28:00.000+10:00

If you have been following our discussion from our previous post in the comments section, this is my further reply to my new friend in America that has deviated so much I felt I should start on a new post. I sincerely invite all those who are interested in a discussion on the accuracy (and the proving of such accuracy) of the bible as a document that records historical events ...

I stand to be corrected if I have understood you incorrectly, but from observing your comments and your blog entries, an underlying theme that you bring out is that there is always two sides of the coin that if you try proving one side, you will most certainly neglect the other side to prove your point.

In your most recent blog entry, you have highlighted that Lee Strobel would somewhat provide a bias view just to prove his point, and he somehow neglects or avoids the uncertainty, doubts that may potentially cause a stumbling block for his case.

However if we are dealing with history, it is almost certain that there will be no way where you can have record an event with 100% accuracy. One of the reasons that cause a deficiency in such historical recording includes, but not limited to, the way the person who perceive things will always be bound to be different. Putting the spiritual element of the bible aside (i.e. that the bible is God breathed, true, inerrant etc) and looking at the bible purely as a historic document highlight this. The four gospels are obviously written by four different people at four different times and places. They all claim the one event, but they uniquely portray the events on different perspectives. (I note you probably question whether what they claim is in fact the actual truth, but lets put that aside for now).

You've raised a number of hypothetical scenarios, so perhaps I will add another one more to our discussion.

Although we are nearly half a world apart, but suppose I manage to have a verbal conversation with you (and for argument sake, our oral conversation is not recorded in any way). Now suppose immediately after the conversation, we engage in an exercise to record the exact words of our conversation (i.e. you said "x", then i said: "y" and so on).

You and I would certainly have great difficulty trying to recall every single word that was said, and to make things even harder, in the order that they came out in. HOWEVER, I trust that both of us would have substantial contents or the most important points of our conversation recorded.

I believe you would not disagree if I said we would probably have a greater chance of winning the lottery than to have two identical accounts of the same conversation if there was no collaboration. (Also, for the sake of argument, lets put aside the issue of Christians gambling/playing lottery for the time being).

Now the question I pose is this: are we to doubt whether the conversation existed because we could not record the exact words of our conversation? Are we to doubt whether the conversation existed because we had two accounts that would have some discrepancy somehow or rather?

I would trust the answer is in the negative, simply because you and I just had the conversation. The fact that we could not recall the exact words does not disprove the conversation existed.

Simply because there are doubts in the details of an event does not necessarily mean that we have to doubt whether an event in fact occurred or not. The fact that there is discrepancy in fact supports we did not sit together and fabricated our hypothetical conversation!

You have mentioned the golden "30 years" a number of times, and I take that to be the parallel in the so-called "period of silence" between Jesus's death and the time the gospels were written. I won't go into discussing whether that "period" was in fact silenced out (but perhaps we may explore that some other time), but the point I would wish to highlight is that I guess we just have to accept that society back then operated on an oral one rather than a pen-on-paper society. It's a bit like asking the question 10 or 20 years later by our grandchildren why on earth was information about the 1950s only recorded on the internet some 40 years later in the 90s? Simply because it was not the common mode of communication at all. (Perhaps it is not the most watertight example, because the internet was not even invented until probably the 80s when it was exclusively used, I believe, by your wonderful country's Defense department but I trust you understand the point of my illustration)

I'd love to hear more from you, but to end the comment, I'd like to borrow your closing remarks in your most recent blog.

You noted that Billy Graham just got on with life and in effect said Christianity is all about faith. Yes. I agree with him.

Why are there people like Lee Strobel trying to prove again and again and again? I guess it is to show what Christians believe in is anchored in some sort of reality and its not solely spiritual.

It is when you are satisfied that what is recorded in the bible is in fact a record of what has happened and you have found that anchor, it is time to take the infamous leap of faith, and accept it as God's word, to embark on the journey of Christianity: establishing a personal relationship with Christ Jesus.

Gospel sharing encounters

2007-10-16T22:09:00.000+10:00

I bought a book recently: Don Piper's "90 Minutes in Heaven". It was a book that I wanted to long read but never had the chance. It has been sitting on my desk at work and it has stirred some curiosity in fellow colleagues in asking what the book was about. It was also a good opportunity to start conversations with sharing the gospel too. Today's conversation started with a comment by a fellow colleague saying that he is a strong scientific person. Here is how I responded:

Science cannot explain everything
Before I became a Christian, I also had a scientific struggle. I often asked, if what was said in the bible was true, proof it with science. However, does science explain everything? Science could explain the process of the food being digested in our stomach as we spoke; Physics can probably explain the sound waves resonating from my mouth into his ears, but science cannot record the fact that I had a conversation with my colleague today; nor can it explain why we are having such a conversation.

History is there to compliment the science sphere. The fact that it cannot explained by science does not mean that it did not happen.

Another example that I gave was history can record that at this current point, the Prime Minister of Australia is John Howard, but science cannot explain that. Yes it can, says my colleague. Well, statistics can explain support he was elected/re-elected for the past 4 times, but it only explains process, but does not record what he did in the past 11 years of being in Government.

Isn't believing in a super-being who created us is enough?
Well, if there are claims that something has happened in the past, we must test whether this historical claim was actually worthy to be trusted upon. The conversation was not supposed to last for hours, so I have explained that the Bible in recording the historic evidence has been tested to withstand any legal evidential hurdles to make it a historically reliable source document (of which I did refer him to Lee Strobel's 'Case for Christ').

If the bible is held to be true and correct, it is only sending one true message! And out came a message somewhat along the lines of the Two ways to live spill.

Wait a minute, miracles can't be explained by science. How could that be true then?
How did this question came up? Well, I was starting to go into the lines of saying that Jesus was identified as the Messiah because he had fulfilled the prophecy that was said almost 300 years before he was born. He was born at times where prophets said he was born. But any old baby could have been named the "messiah" and someone could have trained this baby to become the so-called Saviour! What about the miracles that were promised in the prophecy. If you were that baby named to take up that responsibility, you'd be one stressed baby trying to work out how to turn water into wine, heal the sick, blind, deaf ... feeding 5000 with only 5 bread and 2 fish?

Imagine you tried to fabricate a historical documentary today that you have fed the entire Sydney Cricket Ground stadium with 5 sausage rolls and 2 hot dogs at the most recent cricket game. A convincing documentary it may seem, after high-tech video editing. It gets released. If you did not do what you claimed to do, I am sure all those fans who attended that match would have came out and disproved it in a matter of minutes.

No one came out to refute this allegation on Jesus's miracles. And HE pulled the trick TWICE by feeding two crowds both in the thousands! (as if one crowd was not enough to prove his case!)

If it has survived the historical scrutiny where eyewitnesses did not come out to disprove the event and the history was passed down for the last 2000 years, you don't need science to explain that it really in fact existed!

Besides, if miracles could be explained by science or rules of mother nature, what makes it so special to make it a miracle? What makes an apple falling from the sky so special?

Since I am a scientific person, I still believe that seeing is believing!
If you were playing computer games one day at home, and a man pressed the door bell at your front door, you open the door and he says: "I am Jesus", would you believe? If he does certain things to prove himself, you would probably think he is some weirdo magician trying to cheat your money.

I also said that even today, there are miracles happening, are we ignoring these works of God? Don Piper actually died and had no pulse for 90 minutes after his car crash. Medical officers at the accident scene announced his death. 90 minutes later, he came back to life. There can be no medical explanations given. Isn't that a miracle happening in our very eyes today??? Will seeing is believing really help your faith?

While onto faith, another question came up ...

Isn't Christianity just about this whole thing about faith so you could feel better, its just all this thing about thought? (or something along those lines ...)
I said Christianity is not solely on some airy-fairy spiritual thing that "makes us feel better". While there is a spiritual element to it, Christianity is believing in the truth and living in what we believe is the right way. I gave what I call the "operation manual" analogy, which I have mentioned in my previous post:

All machinery and technical gadgets come with an operation manual. There are some people who are impatient and who think they know what they are doing and start using the machine without going through the details in the operation manual. There are the careful ones who would sit down, and see what the manual has to say. You may be in the first group and be lucky and manage to find a way of operating it the way you like. It may work but it may not be the correct way of operation and in the end, the machine breaks.

Humans, are like the machines in the above situation. We often neglect our operation manual (ie Bible). Our creator, God, has left us The operation manual so that we may not stuff ourselves up. You may see them as a set of rules, but it should be seen as a set of recommended ways to lead our lives.

God has shown us (through the bible) what he perceives as the right way of living and merely believing in a super-being whether its the Jewish God, or the Islam Alah, or the Christian God or any other god, who created us is not what the way. It is believing that Jesus, God's one and only son, who has come to earth and died for our sins, and surrendering our life to follow the Lord Jesus is God's right way of living our lives.

Where are our foundations set?

2007-10-13T20:02:00.000+10:00

I am reaching that stage in life where one after another, more and more close friends are all planning to get married. It's a privilege to be able to attend my friend's weddings, being able to witness a fabulous start in their next stages in life. It takes quite a lot of commitment and effort in order to move on to next stage in life.

For the past 20 odd years of your lives, you would have somehow been the dependent of the family. All the needs are mostly taken care of. Moving on to some bit of freedom for some who had the luxury to move out to live on their own, you reach that stage in life where you will have to leave your "previous life" and to start living a life together as one body with you other chosen half and start a family of your own! There must tremendous trust and faith required to make a marriage work, but I guess the most important of it all, is that there should be a solid foundation on which the relationship should be built on!

I guess the first knee-jerk reaction of giving an answer to solid foundation is that you must love one another. But in a world today, where society cannot even provide us what "love" involves, providing such an answer really does not provide us much basis until we start having a look at what love really should mean.

But in the most recent wedding that I have attended, the MC at the wedding asked the groom what he liked about the bride that started the relationship. Without hesitation, he answered, amongst other things, that because they both liked to eat, that was the thing in common. They loved eating so much that almost 70% of the photo slide show was them eating! They thought they have the wedding in October so on each and every anniversary, there would be the Sydney Good Food Month to celebrate with.

On another occasion, the couple was creative enough to have a typed up blurb of their life on fancy looking paper on every guest's table. It outlined what they respectively studied, what their presence were in their respective families, how they met, and upon finally confirming that they have made the right choice in being together, the bride accepts the marriage after the groom took out an expensive branded ring! The 'blurb' ended there so I never ended working out whether that was the "foundation" of their relationship.

I am not saying that my friends don't love each other and they have to rely on either Good Food or expensive rings to fuel their relationships in the long run, but I guess you would appreciate that it is very crucial where you should tie a relationship to, in order to have a sustainable relationship in the long run. It makes it really hard to build on what you currently have if you decide setting foundations on things that are susceptible to change. You don't need to be a engineer to understand the importance of strong solid foundation for large constructions to stand over a long period of time.

The foundation of marriage, like any part of our lives, requires us to set ourselves in a solid foundation in order for us to live a purposeful life. In Luke 6:46-49, Jesus tells us:

46"Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you? 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great."

Jesus promises us that if we listen to his words and follows him, he will provide us the solid foundation to build our lives upon, whether it be marriage or any other part of our lives. God loves us and has made a promise that if we set our foundations in life on him, we will not fall into pieces and be in ruins.

Are you willing to accept this promise and set your foundation in him today?

Cult M

2007-10-11T00:42:00.000+10:00

I talked to two Mormons at my home today for 1.5 hours.
Two very young men. Quite inexperienced with the bible and apologetics. But they had enough courage to leave home and travel overseas away from contact with their family and preach a false gospel to the world. How strong is the human will.

I am well prepared. Armed with the truth. Truth as my defender. I once heard a pastor say that he doesn’t debate with Mormons anymore because all he is doing is training them to become better Mormon-Apologists. But I went ahead and invited them in.

One had come from HK not long ago. The other from USA. They seemed pretty ignorant of the world, and they seemed pretty ignorant of what Christians believe.

As my friends know, I can be quite passionate about what I believe. These two poor people had no idea what the truth was. All they know is that the mainstream churches have been corrupted and that the truth has been restored by a guy called Joseph Smith.

When I told them Jesus was God, they had no objections. I got them mixed up with Jehovah’s Witnesses. Mormons believe that Jesus is a god. Jesus is just another god. Also, there are many other gods which we don’t know about. They believe that we know the god of this earth only because he happened to be the god of this earth. Otherwise we would know some other god. Mormons actually believe that we are literally children of god. They believe literally that Jesus IS a son of god (not the son of god). That’s why Jesus is a god. Because gods give birth to gods. Get the logic?

I made my position clear from the start. Mormonism is a cult. Joseph Smith was a false prophet. Joseph Smith was a little educated American.

I found out from them that they had lines of prophets, pretty much like the Catholics have popes. The Mormon lines of prophets act like a pope in that they reveal what their god has to say to them. Their words are inspired by their god just like the Catholics.

I challenged them on their believe about the prophet. Their latest prophet is an American called Gordon something. I shouldn’t have done that. Not because my arguments were flawed, but because as the pastor said, it would only prepare them for their next victim. Notice how their prophets are Americans? And all biblical prophets are Israelites? I asked them why they believed that Gordon was a prophet. He said that he said good things. Eg. “pornography is bad”. I am a very logical person. That answer was so poor. Saying good things doesn’t make a guy a prophet. They had no more replies for that chain of reasoning.

I also challenged them on the fact that they believed that there are many gods. While in the bible ( they use the KJV, and they kept quoting bible passages on me ) there is never any mention of any other gods. In fact the bible is very clear that there is only one God. I couldn’t quote verses though. But I told them to go and ask Any Jew in the world, and they will tell them that there is only one God.

I was stumped by one passage. I never gave much thought to it before. It is the idea of going to a place and waiting to be judged. It was the idea of baptizing for the dead. The repentance of the dead. They quoted 1 Peter 3:18-21. I know the first sentence too well. But the next bit seemed to have not registered…

I kept drilling on the fact that Joe was a false prophet. And that the extra information that they provide were never mentioned in the bible. And the good stuff in the book of Mormons were Already mentioned in the bible. Joe added no good information. He only added false information.

I did manage to give them the Christian Gospel. During my “2wtl” I emphasized (over 20times) that my God and their god were two very different gods. My Jesus and their Jesus were two different Jesus’. I gave them the Christian concept of God, Sin, Death, Survivorship and Lordship.

I left them speechless for a few seconds… they had no idea how to respond. I hope I am not training them to defend against Christianity. A little like the Borg.

I tried to get their names. They wouldn’t tell me. “church rules”. They were only allowed to give last names. But I did get the HK guy’s name. (some people think I am manipulative hehehe). I might contact him some time. But very busy lately. I could sense in him that he knew that there were some truth in what I said. If you know me, then you know how worked up I can become when I talk about this subject. But he wasn’t able to accept it. He had his partner with him. He had been assigned a mission. Poor guy. I wish I could bring him to my church. If only he applied his dedication and bravery to the work of the Real God.

When we left, I told them I will pray for them. One of them told me to pray to god that I may know that Joseph Smith is a real prophet of god. That didn’t sound right. I didn’t know how to reply. But as I think of it now. I can see the flaw. In order to know Joseph Smith, I would have to pray to god. THEIR gOD. But my God is more powerful. My Jesus is more powerful. Is more just, is more righteous, is more wise, is more unique. And I will pray to no other god but my God. I should have asked them to pray to my God. Next time. God willing.

I will pray for them. To my God.

5/5

2007-05-14T00:17:00.000+10:00

For the next 20 yrs or so, when ever I see, 5/5, I will think of the yeah show. Ivan and I spent many hours on it for about 2 months. Not as much as the performers maybe, but a lot of time. Originally Ivan and I had decided to invite some close friends to come to the show with us. Maybe 10 people or less. But the list kept growing.

In the first batch we bought 18 tickets, in the second batch we bought 26 tickets, in the third batch we bought 14 tickets. Most of the friend we knew personally. But some of them were friends of friends. Christian friends were asking friends, and non Christian friends were also asking friends.

Ivan and I spent a lot of time emailing people, having lunch with people, meeting new people, collecting money, and generally organizing things. Did your eyes read “collecting money” twice? It was kind of an awkward thing. People would say, “come on guys, you’re not that desperate for the $10 are you?” Well we’re not really. But we do have about 60 people going, and if half of them decide not to pay, we would need to prepay $300. It was a very good thing that we made an effort to collect the money first. It meant that we were not hurt by those people that didn’t turn up to the show.

In total about 11 people ditched us before the show. The rate of ditching increased exponentially as we approached the night of the show. We were able to replace 5 of them in total. Ivan and I were frantically calling people on the afternoon of 5/5. I called a few people and Ivan called a few. I even called one that was asleep in HK. I didn’t know she went to HK hahahaha.

The show was very entertaining. I did enjoy it. Though there was less “Christian” content in the comedy than I expected. I wonder how our non Christian friends felt. I’m sure they had a big laugh, but I’m not sure they went home knowing what really Christians believed in.

For those of you that have not already heard, my friend that was sitting next to me went down to the stage to take her first step over the line. From hearing about it, to living it. The journey ahead is hard but it is going to be spectacular because she has chosen to follow Christ. I really pray that God will lead her and guide her.

Another friend also went down to the stage with Ivan. Though I think she had very little idea what was going on. I hope that her going down to the stage indicates that she is at least willing to find out about God’s Love. Love was the message that they kept repeating.

I think this has been a great experience for me. I know that God is training me for some thing ahead. The show gave me reason to contact people. It gave me a topic to talk about to strangers. It gave us an opportunity to gather our friends together to see a bit of Christianity together.

Ivan has been a great friend and brother in Christ. We have disagreements, but we have 100 times more agreements. The disagreements do not hinder us, but we pass them safely and our friendship is made even stronger. I am so glad to work with Ivan on this. God has put us together to fight for Him.

I would like to thank those people who came with me and Ivan. We would really like to share our joy in Christ with you. So I thank you for giving us the small opportunity to do so. I would also like to thank those who ditched us. You keep my mind on earth, where things are not perfect. I know that it was a big step for you already to say yes to us and to hand over the $10 haha.

For those of us that have Christ’s love in us, let us not stop proclaiming the Good News.

Rituals - where is the line drawn?

2007-04-07T17:33:00.001+10:00

The Sydney Morning Herald reported the pope washing 12 men on a Thursday Mass (read it here )
and in the Philippines, devoted Christians even go to the extent of whipping themselves with rope until their backs bleed. Some even go and re-live the scenes of Christ being crucified with nails really going through people's hands on a cross. (view it here).

Not so long ago, I was speaking to a catholic friend and they fast on Ash Wednesday in order to remember Jesus fasting for the 40 days in the dessert.

From my understanding, rituals in the old testament days are there for people to follow (most importantly with their heart without doubt) in order to show their reverence and obedience to God.

Today we no longer need to practice in rituals. We are freed through the death of Christ. We show our reverence in God by whole-heartedly submitting ourselves to Christ, acknowledging that he is our one and only Lord and Saviour.

But what is the extent of remembering Christ? In protestant churches, there is communion so that we may remember that Christ paid the ransom for our sins through his own blood and flesh.

What about fasting on Ash-Wednesday, washing the feet of 12 men, or re-living the crucifixion of Christ? Are they legitimate forms of remembering God's unconditional love for us?

Where is the line drawn between a ritual (religious practice) and something merely to remember Christ?

Read about the discussion here

R2

2007-02-17T14:23:00.000+11:00

Yesterday, I was chatting to my friend. Ivan had asked him to come to a Christian event, this friend had declined Ivan and I was asking him why he wasn't going. Can you guess what the reply was? :)

"I'm not religious"

Naturally I referred him to our blog. (refer to my last post)

After reading the blog, he told me that his definition of religious is "to believe in a god". It's kind of a Catch 22 for him. In order to believe in God, you need to hear about God. But his very reason for not hearing about God is that he doesn't believe in God.
It's beautiful.

We talked about many more things.

He said " I didn't realise that you were a devout christian!". I found that very funny actually. I lol'ed and told him that I wasn't devout. He was surprised. I told him he was a devout non-christian. We both laughed. He was as devout as I was.

Religious

2007-02-11T19:14:00.000+11:00

I asked a friend to come to bible study with me this week. She came once before a few weeks ago. My friend didn't come. She said she was not a religious person.

A few weeks back, I was talking to a church going friend of mine. We got on the topic of inviting non Christian friends to our fellowship. I asked her if she had any, and if she had tried talking to them about it. She told me it was no use. She told me that all her friends are not religious.

I should have invited them to the series of talks on the topic "How to be a Christian without being Religious". Then they'll have to use other excuse to reply.

God doesn't want you to be religious. He wants you to know that he is the only Lord and Saviour. He wants you to make to choice to live free from the chains of sin.
This is the Good News.

Consider the two statements:
1. Your mission is the spread the Good News to non religious people.
2. Your mission is the spread the Good News to religious people.

What has this world become?

2007-02-11T18:26:00.000+11:00

Almost 20 years ago when I migrated to Sydney from Hong Kong, I remember we had to go through a transition to adapt to a new way of living. Unlike the vibrant Hong Kong, where you seem to be able to shop or eat anywhere, anytime; shops in Sydney only opened 9am-5pm on weekdays.

Technology was also simple back then. It was the days where it was just the good old television set, a VCR, and the telephone. There weren't home theatre sound systems. Mobile phones and computers were still the high-end consumer products. I would be able to spend more time with mum and dad, going to the nearby oval to either play ballgames, or ride a bicycle. Then you could invite neighbours to come and visit or pick up the phone to chat with friends.

Then we felt that we should be more competitive. The five day week for the retail sector was definitely not enough. How could we shop when they close when people just finished work? People wanted more entertainment and wanted more activities on the weekend.

Soon after, shops began operating 7 days a week and shopping times became longer and longer. 24 hour supermarkets begin to appear. Night life has continued to grow in Australia. More and more restaurants and cafes began to close later and later. Five years ago when I visited Perth, there was only one street in a suburb of Northbridge that had some sort of 'night life'. There were probably a total of 10 bars, pubs, and restaurants altogether that opened past 5pm. A colleague just recently visited Perth tells now has streets filled with cafes, bars, restaurants that stay open forever.

Australia has finally caught up with the rest of the world. We finally have a life after 5pm. People are working around the clock to provide entertainment and retail services. We now work longer hours so we could ultimately earn enough to spend more on entertainment expenses and enjoy a betterlife.

So we have achieved what we wanted. Shops, restaurants open 7 days a week. All the city skyscrapers are more lit then ever at night making our city look brighter at night than it is in daylight. Technology has made our lives much easier. With internet access, you can get the latest news, and be able to reach anybody all over the world via email. The world is working without rest to satisfy our demands.

But now we are suffering the consequences.

Family wise, the lack of time spent with family (or perhaps getting too much entertainment away from home), we see marriages breakup, or family arguments. Friends, become less and less close as they need more time to bring in more income to support this way of living.

Technology has helped bring people closer. Or has it rather made people more distant? Rather than speaking directly to the person that sits next to you at work, you have to email him; rather than being able to communicate with family, we probably spend more time staring at the computer screen to surf the internet than we see our family members. Rather than meeting up your friend over the weekend to chat, you have to SMS him instead because he has a weekend shift for work.

Our natural resources are stretched to the limit. The increased pollution and carbon dioxide emissions released as a result of satisfying our demands (whether it be transportation getting us from A to B, or those extra energy consumption to have that unforgettable dinner) has hurt the earth. Just to show a bit of statistics:

12 of the past 13 years were the warmest since records began;
Glaciers, snow cover and permafrost have decreased in both hemispheres;
Sea levels are rising at the rate of almost 2mm a year;
Cold days, nights and frost have become rarer while hot days, hot nights and heatwaves have become more frequent.

And the cause is clear, says the climate experts: 'It is very likely that [man-made] greenhouse gas increases caused most of the average temperature increases since the mid-20th century.'

And the consequences go on ...

This is what the earth is like when we are the managers, doing what we would like to do to satisfy our needs. We get our luxuries by ruining (whether it be quickly or slowly) relationships, family, life, and the earth.

There is a purpose in God's direction when he tells us to rest on the 7th day.

We could revive to prepare ourselves for the coming week;
Have time out to communicate and maintain relationships with friends and family;
Gives the Earth a rest; and most importantly
Gives us quiet time to reflect on our relationship with God.

Rather to live a life with the aim of chasing endless wants, lets reflect on how life should really be lived so we can make this world a better place. Not a place just after money, but for love. God's love.

Planning for The Rainy Day

2007-01-16T23:02:00.001+11:00

Last Friday, my parents and I attended one of the events that were part of the Sydney Festival called: See - The World of Animation. The event showed the process of producing animation and how technology has brought the quality of animation to such a long way. It was held in the open park area and my parents began to worry the changing weather was going to become one violent storm as the southerly wind whipped through the area.

I was too attracted to the animation that was shown and I didn't really care about the weather despite the fact that I'll be soaked if the storm really hit the park! Without an umbrella, my parents decided to force me home to dodge the rain. (A big child I am indeed!)

Many people plan for the weather ahead of them. Even with extensive weather forecasting technologies that we have today, there is no one who could precisely tell when the first drop of rain will fall in a storm. But even in this uncertainty, people would still carry an umbrella with them; or, like in our instance, would do something about it to avoid getting drenched in the violent weather if we weren't carrying an umbrella. I guess you would be stupid if you knew it was coming, and you didn't do something about it!

There are many telltale signs today such as earthquakes, famines and wars that fit the description that Jesus gave as signs before his second coming (see Matthew 24). These signs are like the southerly winds bringing in the storm clouds, telling us that it is going to rain any minute now. Just like no one could precisely tell when the first drop of rain will fall, Jesus tells us in Matthew 24:36-51 that no one would know when he will precisely return.

If I was not dragged away from the mesmerising animation, my consequence would merely be getting drenched for ignoring the telltale signs of a storm coming. But if the telltale signs of Jesus' second coming is ignored and you decide to not follow Jesus and be mesmerised in your own earthly life, the consequence is eternal punishment, far greater than just getting drenched:

[T]he master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 24:50-51 ESV)

The logic of 'Harm Minimisation'

2007-01-09T22:24:00.000+11:00

Australian parents often introduce their children to small amounts of alcohol early to help them learn to control their behaviour in later life. "Harm minimisation" is the nice sounding term for this whole procedure.

Although this term sounds very new to me, the procedure certainly has been familiar to me since my teenage years of growing up. Friends used to occasionally boast in front of me during the years where we were still a minor (being under the age of 18 in Australia) for being able to have that sip of alcohol from their parents. The parents say they feel they have the responsibility to train their children up so the evil world out there would not have a chance to use their children's inability to drink alcohol against them. However, according to the Australian, 'parents who allow their children small amounts of alcohol in an attempt to instil safe drinking habits may be setting them on the path to becoming binge drinkers' (read all about it here).

We often have to have alcohol to get the socialising going whether it be in the pub, bar, disco, you name it! Yet we know if we have too much, it damages our body. Whether it be a temporary damage where we lose control of ourselves or the long term damage to our liver to get rid of the excess alcohol, we know its bad for our bodies. But alcohol is a rather strange consumable where when we clearly know its bad, parents out there still believe they should get their children to load it into their bodies!

You don't think it is strange? Well I have not heard of parents training their kids with illicit drugs so they have safe habits of not damaging themselves when they go out partying. But Ivan, how can you talk about illegal drug use? Fine, what about smoking then, have we heard parents getting children to smoke so they could get used to all the passive smoke around us today? I probably cannot guarantee there is absolutely no parent who would do such a thing, but I could bravely say responsible and reasonable parents would definitely not!

So why the exception? Why do we make alcohol the exception when we clearly know it is bad for us? We shouldn't! If we would like to have a good healthy life, it is obvious that we should keep it out of our lives so it will not affect us! It's obvious that the harm removal approach is much better than harm minimisation, by far!

The many so-called "rules" within the bible that many people misunderstand them to be is like God, our creator, telling us that if we would like to live a Holy life, that is, living the way He intended things to be, we should follow Him and remove ourselves from certain bad habits that we may have. Rather than being the "binge drinker" in life, indulging ourselves in our bad habits and slowly killing ourselves in the long run, we should free ourselves so we may live a more purposeful and meaningful life before God.

Which type of person are you: a harm removalist or a harm minimalist?

Matthew 5:29-30 (English Standard Version)
29If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Why don't they get what they deserve?

2007-01-05T16:34:00.000+11:00

There is an Hong Kong Evangelical Team that recently went to Adelaide Australia to do a shooting for a gospel sharing film. In the process of reaching the shooting location, the Evangelical Team has unfortunately experienced a motor accident. Fortunately, there were no deaths but it has caused severe injuries to the crew. Fiona Leung, who was previously a renowned Hong Kong actress, was part of the crew as programme host. Fiona attracted a lot of attention of the general public in the Hong Kong community towards this motor accident. (read about it here in Chinese)

This incident was raised as one of the many topics discussed in one of the Christmas dinners that I attended last year. The conversation began commenting on how unfortunate the crew were, and why such accident had to occur on a bunch of good people with wonderful intentions. The most impactful statement made in the course of discussion was: 'Fiona is a devoted Christian. She is actively serving in gospel sharing activity. She is not a lazy Christian, so why didn't, at the very least, Jesus protect her but exposed her to this accident? She should at least got what she deserved for being so devotional?'

When it comes to times of pain and suffering, we tend to think we are the better "managers" of life, questioning why people who suffered did not get what we would perceive are the better things in life. People often would accuse God and question why He just sat there with His arms crossed and did nothing to stop the bad things from happening on the good guys. While it may be a difficult challenge for people to have faith and hope that God will provide us with all the good things when times are rough, we should constantly remind ourselves God does have His own timing and own plan for everything to take place.

In Genesis 6, God has told Noah He is going to destroy everything and told Noah that if he wanted to save himself, he is to build something no one would have ever thought of building at the time: an ark. People during Noah's day would have probably questioned why a man would be so stupid to build such a big boat (if a boat was ever an invention known in those days!) in the middle of nowhere on dry land with no apparent reason. Noah himself would probably want to know how the ark is going to save himself. However, with so many uncertainties in mind, Noah still persisted and placed his faith in God's direction for almost the next 100 years to get the ark built!

Imagine having no clarification on the given directions for almost 100 years! Would you have thought God crossed his arms and have forgotten what He had commanded Noah to do? With the benefit of hindsight, that is certainly not the case. By Genesis 7, it is revealed that God had never been forgetful and I am sure everyone can fill in the rest of God's gracious plan for mankind: the flood came and only Noah's family, along with all the pairs of animals survived.

Today, the attitude of many people has not changed much compared to the days of Noah. Many bad things happen on good people that make a person's faith in Christ look "stupid", just like Noah looked "stupid" for building an ark in the middle of nowhere. Questions like "Why do devoted Christians have to suffer? Jesus should have saved them from it!" make the Christian faith incomprehensible. But with Noah's lesson in mind, 1 Corinthians 2:9 further reminds us that "no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him" (ESV).

There is no way we would be able to see how God is preparing for us. While we may not understand why some bad things inevitably has to happen to us, we should remind ourselves that it will ultimately be good in God's big picture at the end of the day. The prophet Isaiah writes in Isaiah 55:8-9 (ESV):

8For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
9For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

The Better things in Life

2006-11-20T21:45:00.000+11:00

Our office is recently in an expansionary phase and as a result, we needed more floor space in order to cope with the increased work load. In the renovation period, my colleague and I had to be relocated temporarily. My colleague was rather unfortunate as her temporary desk was what used to be our portable rectangular lunch table that could seat four people (two-pairs facing each other). I was more lucky. My temporary desk in fact had more working space than my previous desk, so although I had to forgo my window view, I was more comfortable in a way, being able to space out all my work over a larger area.

Our boss, knowing that we may not be too happy about this temporary arrangement, promised that once the renovations are completed, our desks would be much better. I believe that my boss would have no problems convincing my colleague because any desk would have been better the one she had been temporarily allocated. However, realising that I have been given a larger table in the transition period, my boss constantly reminds me not to be attached to my new workstation and that I'll be moving into a room where it will be far more spacious than the workstation where I am sitting in.

Like the situation that my colleague was in, I believe it would not be hard to convince a person who lives in a not-so-good situation to be with God, who has promised that there is a better place for living that has yet to come. On the other hand, when we have the tastes of the luxuries of this world, we could often be satisfied with the things before us and forget the better things that God has promised us, which will come in the future. Like the situation that I was in, we often have to be reminded that the world we are living in is only our temporary place of residence, and that we do not attach ourselves so much to it that makes us forget the truly better things in life that are awaiting us.

Lay Up Treasures in Heaven - Matthew 6:19-24 (ESV)
19"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22"The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
24"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Decision Decision

2006-06-17T00:50:00.000+10:00

Where in the bible does it say that we have to marry a believer?

I don’t know the statistics. What I know is that I know 4 different friends who once went to church with me. They are all girls. One by one they paired up with a non-Christian partner. Everyone of them have moved away from God. None of them goes to church anymore. Is the main aim of life to find happiness in a partner?

What is your ultimate goal?

“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell,…” (Mark 9:43-47 NIV)

If anything should come between you and heaven you know what to do.

Relationships - Attraction vs. Compatibility

2006-06-11T22:37:00.000+10:00

A friend has raised the topic about whether to base a relationship on attraction or compatiblity. Here is what I wrote:

Many have a misconceived view of Christians as being those who have to lose their freedom and they have to adopt a whole new set of rules. When it comes to talking about relationship, I guess after the most criticised "rule" of not being able to engage pre-marital sex, would probably be the "rule" of only marrying a Christian.

Whether it is a "rule" or not really depend on how your perceive things. Let me explain by way of an analogy that was used by a pastor in sermons once. All machinery and technical gadgets come with an operation manual. There are some people who are impatient and who think they know what they are doing and start using the machine without going through the details in the operation manual. There are the careful ones who would sit down, and see what the manual has to say. You may be in the first group and be lucky and manage to find a way of operating it the way you like. It may work but it may not be the correct way of operation and in the end, the machine breaks.

Humans, are like the machines in the above situation. We often neglect our operation manual (ie Bible). Our creator, God, has left us The operation manual so that we may not stuff ourselves up. You may see them as a set of rules, but it should be seen as a set of recommended ways to lead our lives.

So after half a day, which one am I opting for: Attraction or Compatibility? Neither. Why? Because both don't really last. After a while, you will get used to a person's appearance, so while it may be something worth considering in the short term, it is definitely not the key to a long term relationship. Neither is compatibility. Well it depends on how you define compatibility. If we define it so that it includes things like having similar interests and topics to talk about, I doubt that would last, because through time, interests change, and you run out of topics to talk about. Like my passion for cheesecake died recently (don't know whether it's because of me studying exams are what), that clearly shows that if relationships were based on "cheesecake-compatibility", my relationship would have been flushed down the toilet with that last bit of cheesecake!

So what should relationships depend on? While 1 Corinthians 13 is a good starting point in showing us how to love in a Christian manner, I personally feel Psalm 118:8 is better: "It is better to trust in the Lord than to depend on man". From this, I mean that instead of placing our relationship on the earthly foundations of attraction and compatibility, we should place our relationships on the foundation of the Lord.

The world is full of uncertainties. There is no way where we could depend on ourselves to trust each other. Relationships would only work well if there is a 3-way bond between male, female and God so that it is not each other that we trust in, it is God whom we trust in Who will make the relationship work. That is the reason why Christians should have relationships with Christians, in order for them to set a 3-way foundation to make the relationship grow.

It's not a rule, it's just there for our own good.

Uncovered

2006-05-21T17:33:00.000+10:00

End of the Church. The Telagraphi 21 May 2006

A Manuscript was dug up in April 2006. It was the gospel according to Ben which was written by Ben a Christians of the 1st century A.D. It claimed that John had Two Heads on his shoulders and that he was the real King of the Jews, the one who actually died on the cross.

If it was not for the discovery in 2006, no body would have known that John was the one on the cross.

The Church is now being condemned for not including the new gospel in the Bible, and Christian credibility is now at a new low. The Catholic church have made an official statement to apologise for the cover up, and the centuries of injustice to the followers of Ben.

** Note article completely fiction. I hope it explains why some gospels are not in the Bible. JT

God - a Luxury or a Need?

2006-04-26T17:07:00.000+10:00

There have been various newspaper reports indicating that many people are changing their lifestyles to accomodate and adapt to the ever rising petrol prices. Instead of going out and eating at a nice restaurant and building up an impressive DVD collection, people are now beginning to order the pizza takeaway, and hiring the DVD from the video store in order to get around to places in the car rather than using public transport.

This is a simple economic principle. When times are good and people have the extra money, they would spend it on luxury items to have a better living; but when times are rough, people will tend to cut back spending on these non-important items and focus on just the necessity items. The reliance on the use of cars has made petrol now a need in our every day living. Like bread or milk, many of us would sacrifice other parts of our lives in order to spend on petrol.

Many people treat God as a "luxury" in many circumstances. They have many "needs" that need to be satisfied before they have the time and resource to invest in the "luxury", God:

The "need" of meeting the immediate demands like project deadlines;
The "need" of climbing the career ladder;
The "need" of improving on the living standards;
And so on ...

To summarise the situation, people just don't have enough time to spend on this unaffordable "luxury". People magically seem to have all the time for working, sleeping, playing, gossiping; but somehow they just do not have time, at the very least, to go to church on Sunday. (I should stress that "church-going" is not an obligation for the Christian, but rather it should be seen as an avenue to have a better understanding of God). Based on a person who has an average of 8 hours sleep a day, a 2-hour church service only take up 2% of the time that he is awake during the week! Does God really take up that much of your time?

Or is God really that unimportant that He just does not even deserve to even be in that 2% of our lives?

Genesis 2:7 tells us that "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." (NIV) God is the source of our lives. Without God, the things around us would not exist. Without God, there would not be those project deadlines, there would not be that career ladder for us to climb, there would not be those luxury living standards to strive for, because without God, we would not be a living being at all! Without God, is anything that we do meaningful at all?

So is God the "luxury" who we should neglect because we have not satisfied all the needs in our lives, or is He perhaps, that luxurious "need" that we would never have enough of that should be first on our list rather than last?

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:21 NIV)

Pente costs us

2006-04-07T00:27:00.000+10:00

I was talking to someone about the denominations of Christianity. She belonged to Assemblies of God, part of the Pentecostals. I really know very little about that denomination. Or maybe I already know a lot because we believe in the same things. If you don't know much either then maybe it is a good idea to find out more. Apparently they are the largest Christian tradition, after Roman Catholicism. Is this true?

I briefly looked at their Doctrines. These are probably the two that stand out as "extras"
• Jesus the Healer: We believe in divine healing for the sick. -We believe that God is still active to accomplish healing and other miracles.
• Baptism in the Holy Spirit. -We believe that God is willing to indwell and empower believers today.

I think these two statements separate the pents from the "mainstreams".

But why bother? To me, it just creates yet another denomination. Creates confusion, division. If people decide to tag an extra couple of Statements to the "central" one, then isn't the number of denominations going to grow. Doesn't that break the Unity of the church? Each new denomination and each innovation harms us. Should we all tag the couple and join them?

It's kind of like extended families. You don't see them much. Some of them you have little communication with. Others you ignore.

I'd rather one family.

http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/char/more/pente.htm

http://www.3ca.org/h/sta.php

Please Correct me if you find that I have made any grave mistakes.

Creation

2005-11-12T09:09:00.000+11:00

There are often times where we have advanced so much and it becomes a little worrying when the fundamentals has either been forgotten or haven't been well established in the first place.

There was one day where a Christian friend of ours asked a question: "Did God just make only Heaven and Earth?"

Strangely, the exclusivity of God only making Heaven and Earth and nothing else never occured to me. If He did not create everything, how could He possibly declare that He is the only supreme and true God?

I thought consulting the Word of God by opening the Bible to Genesis 1:1 would just solve the problem. However, to my suprise (not knowing my verses well enough!) it reads: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1 NIV)

It cannot just end there. The world we live in today just does not match the description in verse 2 which tells us that the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. Reading on, verse 16 tells us that God created two great lights to govern day and night and it goes on to read "He also made the stars".

With a bit of background in astronomy, God did not just only make Heaven and Earth. It is far beyond obvious that He has made more than just the two places for us.

Everything was created with a purpose, even you and me.

Self-Centredness

2005-10-16T19:31:00.000+10:00

In a world that is competitive and selfish, people do things their own way without having a slight consideration for others. They do it either to protect themselves from the side effects of unhealthy competition; or they just try to maximise their wealth and satisfy their desires at all costs. So why has the world become so selfish?

Self-centredness. Everyone wants it their own way. They want what is best for themselves.

This reminds me of what was said in a sermons one time. Life is like a circle. All circles have a centre. That is what self-centred is all about: the more you focus on putting yourself in the centre of that circle, the more self-centred you become.

But being a Christian is entirely different. It is about putting Christ first in your life before satisfying your own desires. It is about letting go of yourself, vacating the centre of your circle, and placing Jesus Christ in the centre of your life so that whatever you do, you do it in the name of Christ (Colossians 3:17). It is not our will that will be done, but God's will be done (Luke 22:42)

I thank the Lord that a friend of mine has finally opened herself to listen to God's word. Through these recent months, she has changed from one who was completely reluctant to even talk about religion, to one where she is willing to find out more about God.

But wanting to know more about God is not enough. Accepting Christ and letting go of yourself is what makes you into a Christian. It may sound hard to understand, so consider the following example:

"I am not going to let myself to get upset ... again"

What happened to Christ? He got left out of the picture with the person remaining full control. Wouldn't it be much better, in the same situation, to entrust our lives in Christ and say:

"I trust that Christ will make me strong and guide me through so I will not be upset again"

Their are times where things are just beyond our control. Have you let go of yourself and invited Christ into the centre of your life yet?

"Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke and put it on you, and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit; and you will find rest. For the yoke I will give you is easy, and the load I will put on you is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

shy

2005-07-19T22:25:00.000+10:00

A friend of mine is really shy. She feels embarassed when we talk about God. In fact, I think she is afraid of talking about anything to do with God. We were at dinner the other day and we started talking about JW the cult. Two sentences later she excused herself. Not the first time she's done it.

Some people do not like to talk about God. Even though they acknowledge that God does exist and is the creator and ruler of everything. I am reminded of a homeless friend at shum. He catholic and goes to mass every sunday. Whenever we try to bring up the topic of God, he would declare that he will not talk to us about religion. Every week we would try, and every week he would refuse to talk.

How do you help them? If they read the bible, then maybe they will realise. But under what conditions will they read it? If they refuse to listen, there is no way to tell them. So show them?

Investments

2005-07-17T00:31:00.000+10:00

We all have to make decisions about investing the resources that we are given. For us, resources ultimately points to Time, and Time is our greatest resource.
I think everyone we know invests most of their time into making a living. We use the years of our youth learning, and spend most of our adulthood earning. Then when we are old we hope that there is some sort of return from our investments of time? hmmm well not every one.
But one thing is true. If we invest our Time into earthly things, we will surely gain earthly returns. Sounds as if you shouldn't waste time on earthly things? That’s impossible. We have to invest time into learning and earning and using.
Investing in heavenly things will then give heavenly returns. Everyone has seen that investing time into earthly things will give you earthly returns. I think I invested time into my degree so that I could get a job and get money. Has anyone seen the returns from investing in heavenly things? Has anyone on earth and alive seen the rewards that they have accumulated in heaven?
I guess it is hard then to invest in something and not have previously seen anyone get returns on it. BUT it shouldn't be hard. I know for certain that there are returns. Because, the returns are guaranteed by the one who grants guarantees worthiness.
Now if someone told you that if you leave $10000 with them, they will give you $10000billion in 60yrs time, would you do it? Or if they tell you to give them $10 a week ... We know that if we invest in heavenly things we will get something worth far more than $10000billion.
How do you invest in heavenly things? Everything you do, do it for Him. Everything you do for Him, do it with Love.

JW

2005-07-12T23:58:00.000+10:00

They think that JC is Michael the angel.
They think that satan came to earth when WWI began.

Spent an hour talking to them.

Fiast

2005-04-18T21:02:00.000+10:00

"Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last." Luke 13:30

What will the last person in heaven do?

antifelix

2005-04-17T23:43:00.000+10:00

Saturday;
one of the car doors couldn't open
i forgot to bring goggles to swimming
lost a piece of skin while trying to stuff rubbish in bin
first to become bankrupt in a game of monopoly of 5 players

a guy goes into the casino with $100 and comes out with nothing. another one goes in with $100 and wins $1000. ceteris paribus, WHY. is there absolutely no reason?

there isn't such a thing as luck and neither is there such a thing as bad luck
do good and bad things happen at random?

I am inclined to think however, that everything single thing that happens, happens for a very good reason.

My_Excuses.txt

2005-04-10T23:13:00.000+10:00

.i'll read it tomorrow
.i'm too tired today
.i've read it before
.i don't understand it
.it's too deep for me
.i already went to church today
.i don't know where i am up to
.i don't know where to start reading
.it's boring
.i need to read my text book
.i'd rather spend the time doing all those things that need to be done

Why do you read the bible?

Bad parents

2005-04-06T22:29:00.000+10:00

Are you in trouble if you have bad parents?

Below are passages from proverbs

ch1
8 Listen, my son, to your father's instruction
and do not forsake your mother's teaching.
9 They will be a garland to grace your head
and a chain to adorn your neck.

ch4
1 Listen, my sons, to a father's instruction;
pay attention and gain understanding.

ch5
20 My son, keep your father's commands
and do not forsake your mother's teaching.
21 Bind them upon your heart forever;
fasten them around your neck.

ch 13
1 A wise son heeds his father's instruction,
but a mocker does not listen to rebuke.

ch 15
5 A fool spurns his father's discipline,
but whoever heeds correction shows prudence.

ch 15
20 A wise son brings joy to his father,
but a foolish man despises his mother.

ch 17
25 A foolish son brings grief to his father
and bitterness to the one who bore him.

ch 19
13 A foolish son is his father's ruin

ch 23
22 Listen to your father, who gave you life,
and do not despise your mother when she is old.

ch31
17 "The eye that mocks a father,
that scorns obedience to a mother,
will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley,
will be eaten by the vultures.

I think that we should listen to our parents. God will be pleased if we do.
Bad parents? You think that if we decide to obey our parents then God will MAKE our parents say wise things to us?

Con

2005-04-05T23:03:00.000+10:00

There is a large body of people out there that do not believe in Evolution.

I was taught evolution at high school and I knew it as fact.

There is a claim that there is no evidence for evolution. Is this true? Natural selection cannot yield new species?

idle?

2005-03-21T22:48:00.000+11:00

I haven't been completely idle...
http://www.johnankerberg.org
prepare yourself for attacks on Christianity

Like that book about the one eared artist and his "code". I like movies. BUT. Let's boycott this one.

hmmm

2005-03-02T07:22:00.000+11:00

according to buddhists all christians should go to heaven?
according to christians all buddhists will be going to hell?

Being a Christian

2005-02-11T08:45:00.000+11:00

A little busy and lazy lately, I would like to share with you a Flash movie instead. This has been taken from the Dong Haeng website. Very touching! Don't forget to turn up the speakers! (Although the song is in Korean, I think)

&lt;br&gt;

Seven

2005-02-08T21:50:00.000+11:00

What's so special about the number seven, one my ask. What does seven mean? How important is the number?

The book of Genesis suggest that God had in mind that right from the beginning, seven is some important number. In Gensis 2:3, "He blessed the seventh day and set it apart as a special day ...". In Psalms 119:164, it reads "Seven times each day I thank you."

Of course, we cannot forget the famous line where Peter asks Jesus whether forgiving a brother seven times is sufficient, and Jesus replies "No, not seven times, ... but seventy times seven." (Matthew 18:21-22).

It's suprising how after we understand the conveniences of the metric system, we have never successfully, in any time in human history, managed to suggest a replacement for our seven day week.

While we should not distort the big picture by seeking to find justifications for every little detail in the bible, does the number seven have a significant representation in any way?

C2

2005-01-23T23:24:00.000+11:00

1 Worship no god but God.
2 Don't worship idols.

Don't these two seem like the same thing?

I think the first one is easy to understand. ie don't worship jupiter or mars and friends etc.
The second one uses the word idols...
I remember something about not making God into an idol, and worshipping God that way. It is kind of like worshipping some other god.
Some people believe that by doing good things, God will let them into heaven whether they know Jesus or not. maybe some people believe that if they be obedient, then God will rain money on them. hehe

People ask, why does God do this, and why doesn't God do that. Well...
just be careful not to make God into an idol.
(and read the bible :) )

Doc

2005-01-03T20:48:00.000+11:00

I was having dinner with a doctor last week. He was an aussie guy about 50 yrs old. I forgot how but we started talking about religion. He had the view that every religion had the same good natured teachings.

I set out that night to explain to him how Christianity is uniquely different. Along the way I realised that he had so many misconceptions about the Christian faith.

He knew a little about Catholics. From experience, that means that he has a lot of wrong ideas about Christianity, hehehe. (Especially people who know a little bit and then proceed to use their intelligence to make up the rest of the story)

Anyway, the night's discussions turned out to be very good. He asked a lot of questions as I explained to him the uniqueness of Christianity. I think by the end of the night, we had dispelled a lot of misunderstandings.

"Very Logical”, “Very interesting" was his response.

:)

13 - An Unlucky Number?

2004-12-30T08:07:00.000+11:00

There are so many people out there that think some numbers are lucky and some numbers that are unlucky. In the Chinese culture, anything that has a '4' in it is just bad -- it means death. Generally anything that has an '8' in it is good -- it means fortune (except in the case where you have a '5' in front of the '8' which would mean fortune is going away). Other complications aside, '13' is the infamous unlucky number in Western culture. You go into lifts in buildings and you will often see that the 13th Floor is removed from the lifts.

On a plane trip back home from New Zealand, I was sitting next to a boy that was part of the tour group I was with. A young intelligent boy. Good memory and high adaptability skills were just two of his many qualities that slowly revealed to me during the trip back home. We were playing with the toys that were in the Children's toy pack that was given to him by air-hostess (and mind you, those games do really kill a lot of time!). After a while, we came across to a packet of cards. We started playing Big2 and since only me and him played, I had to tell him to deal 13 cards for each of us before we could start playing. He began telling me that '13' is an unlucky number and insisted that he had to deal '14' cards before he became lucky again (obviously, he was not aware of the Chinese superstitution :P).

I asked him why he thought '13' was unlucky. He told me a few reasons of which I now do not recall, but one of them was that Jesus had 12 good apostles, and it was the 13th apostle that betrayed Jesus, so 13 is a very unlucky number. Of course, I did tell him that Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus was one of the twelve (Mark 3:16-19 NIV).

After finding a succesor of Judas for the group of 12 apostles (Acts 1:26), Paul is like a "13th" apostle chosen and called by God to preach his Good News. Paul has done many things to serve God.

We should serve God in whatever we do. As Christians, we are all that "13th" apostle of Christ. What is so bad about '13' then? No one can serve two masters. As the Creator of everything that we see and everything that we don't see, God has everything planned. It is not the number that gives us that luck, it is God who gives us everything. So why believe certain numbers are cursed or bring us luck?

The Da Vinci Code, Fact or Fiction?

2004-12-29T01:17:00.001+11:00

Fiction

Avoiding religion

2004-12-28T22:44:00.000+11:00

Politics and Religion are topics to avoid at work.

My boss, two other colleagues and I were having dinner in a noise restaurant in Newcastle, UK. One of the colleagues was new to the team. He had just joined our company and his first day on the job was in England.

After ordering dinner, he asked me what my hobbies were. I didn't really have any hobbies (sad). I love watching movies. But I don't think that's a hobby. In the end, I told him that I did evangelism. He was quite surprised and almost thought that I was joking. The rest of the night turned into a night about religion. hehehehe...

The colleague who had asked me the question was a member of the Bahá'í Faith. I knew nothing about the faith. He was really friendly and explained in detail all the questions I had asked. From what I gather, their faith consists of a god, and all the other religions actually worship this same god, unknowingly.

The other colleague believe seemed to believe that religion and the church is bent on controlling people's minds. Earlier in the week, this colleague and I were on the same flight to the UK. During the flight, I somehow managed to talk to him about religion (I don’t remember how). I found out that he had recently finished “The Da Vinci Code”. That novel has an evil and devious way of twisting the facts, and turning people against Christianity.

My boss contributed also. He said that he is fine the way he is now. He did not need religion, and he did not need any gods.

As for Jot, he remained mostly silent, gathering information, and preparing for the new mission he had been presented with.

You can avoid politics? Can you avoid God?

A Tribute

2004-12-24T07:57:00.000+11:00

If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.
Happy moments, praise God.
Difficult moments, seek God.
Quiet moments, worship God.
Painful moments, trust God.
Every moment, thank God.

Feeling Green?

2004-12-13T10:25:00.000+11:00

Being a Christian means that one should live his life like Christ. Of course, the life of Christ is just the ideal and that no one will be able to live up to and match 100%, but one must bear in mind that a Christian should strive to live in a way that resembles Christ as much as possible. A transformation may be a way of seeing this process, and when we reach Heaven, our transformation will be complete.

However, living like Christ does not mean to do good things like how some people perceive Jesus to be. That is not the main point of living like Christ. Living like Christ means that, with faith in God, we should live our lives in accordance to God's will, "... yet not my will, but yours be done." (Luke 22:42). We should not live for ourselves, but we should live for how God wants us to live.

Part of my personal transformation is that I seem to be more environmentally aware lately. Maybe the current drought situation in some way has some influence, but environmental news appeal to me in a different way to before. Before, it only seemed to appeal to me as some good deeds about a bunch of people going around the world in a boat stopping Japanese killing whales; however now I feel that it is a concern to me, not that this means I'll have to hop onto that boat as well to stop people killing whales, but it makes me think what I should do in my part to help conserve an ailing world.

While in Genesis 1:26-28, we are told that God has given us 'dominion' over the world, it does not mean that we are free to use or abuse the creation as we see fit. We still have to rule the world according to God's will and purpose as all creation belongs to God. We are told that we are to 'work' God's creation and 'take care of it' (Gen 2:15).

Being environmentally aware is just one example in my transformation process to live more like Christ.

Jot ..

2004-12-13T10:12:00.000+11:00

My co-blogger Jot.. will be working overseas for two weeks. I don't know whether he will have time to share with us his devotional thoughts whilst he is working abroad.

Prayers for him that God will be with him to keep him safe while he is overseas.

gods

2004-12-06T20:31:00.000+11:00

After Church on Sunday, I went to Flemington for lunch. Usually, after eating, I would stand around and wait for my mother as she goes and buys stuff at the shops. Today there was a woman handing out leaflets about some persecuted people in China.

She spoke in Mandarin. I understood about 20% haha. Then she found out that I operated better in Cantonese so we continued in Cantonese.

Actually, her job was to tell me about the persecution, but I managed to drag her off the topic. I had nothing better to do then to wait for people so I asked her if she had a religious belief. She said something. I didn't really understand. Partly because of my limited familiarity with Chinese beliefs and partly because her Cantonese was not too fluent.

She said something about Fa Lun(?) stuff I think. I don't know what it was called but I gathered that she believes in some sort of god? I told her that I was a Christian, and that I believed in God. She was happy to hear that. She said that it is good to have a faith. Good to believe in something. I disagreed with her and asked her if it was good to believe in the wrong thing.

I told her about the God that I believed in. She was happy and said that she believed that there are many gods and they are all in existence together. Amongst the gods was the Christian God. Then I told her that God said that there is no other gods, and that he was the only God. She thought that I didn’t know what I was talking about and told me a story about a boy. She said that there was a boy who learned music. His music teacher was really good at music, and the boy thought that he was the best. The woman then explained to me that the little boy was wrong, and that just because he knew only one good teacher, it did not mean that there were no other teachers that were could be better. She went on to tell me that my god was not at the top and that there was bound to be some god greater than mine.

I told her that the God that I believed in was that God at the top. That top God she was talking about was the God that I believed in. She said I didn’t understand.

Amen

2004-12-02T14:04:00.000+11:00

While I was attending a recent church service, I ocassionally hear someone from the audience shout out "Amen" while the preacher makes a teaching. I never knew what "Amen" really meant. To me, "Amen" was a word used to "sign off", "log out" or merely say goodbye to God at the end of my prayers. Until recently, I found out that "Amen" comes directly from Hebrew, and it means "surely, indeed, truly". With this definition in mind, the word "Amen" has a number of major uses within the bible.

An agreement or affirmation
An endorsement of Praise or Prayer
The Truthfulness of Inspired Documents
The Faithfulness of God
Spoken by Christ

Read all about it here.

In fact, Jesus has been described as "The Amen" at Revelations 3:14 to reflect that he is the firm, certain, sure, steady, trustworthy, established word from God.

Amen!

Messy

2004-11-24T23:44:00.000+11:00

I’m a little confused

I’ve been reading a catholic website where it answers questions by its critics. One bit talked about salvation. It said that we are not guaranteed salvation, cos if we were, then it doesn't matter how much bad things we do, we'll still go to heaven. The site contains certain passages that confirm their belief.

I was also reading Christian website that claimed that we are guaranteed salvation. The churches I go to teach: "once saved, always saved".

Both true Christians and true Catholics love God. They both believe that salvation is through Jesus.

If God loves both Catholics and non catholic Christians. God loves all man too, I think. But I know that not everyone is going to heaven.

Do you have to believe that you are guaranteed salvation to be saved? What if you don't believe that God guarantees you salvation?

I think we have Holy Spirit. Now. And Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit will stay with us and not leave. If we are willing to give up our desires and if we are willing to desire God's desires, then we have the Holy Spirit and our desires will be fulfilled by God.

How can we lose eternal life? We can lose it if we no longer desire God's desires. How can that happen if you had the true desire for God in the first place, and if God is there to make sure that your desire's are fulfilled?

God's will vs. Free will

2004-11-21T23:09:00.000+11:00

God loves us. He wants to give us freedom. While we are His creation, He surely does not want us to resemble robots in any way. He gives us the freedom of choice. But of course, we know that our ability to do evil, to go against God's will are some of the 'by-products' of God's love for giving us the freedom to choose.

Being responsible Christians, we would want to lead a life and try and walk closer to God each and everyday. While we are sinners, we would want to try and do things that will please Him. Being the children of God, God has plans for us to do certain things for Him. With this in mind, we would not want to act in a way that will go in contrary with God's will.

So, where is the line drawn? How do we know that we are acting in accordance with God's will, and when is our free will merely just selfishly satisfying ourselves first?

Take laziness for example, it may not sound detrimental at all. But what is laziness? Isn't it just selfishly letting go of everything that you are supposed to do, which may include letting go of God's will as well, and satisfy yourself ahead of anything else by letting yourself relax and not care about anything? On the note of putting yourself first then, aren't you sinning then?

What about decisions that we make in life? If we make decisions that are selfish in nature, where we may not take into account of what others would feel, is that going against God's will?

Some may say, we are sinners, God will just forgive us. But surely, that is just being irresponsible and say that we can do what we like, which is completely wrong if you submitted yourself to Christ. So what is the right choice?

NEO Near

2004-11-20T01:20:00.000+11:00

Near Earth Objects

The Earth's atmosphere protects us from most NEOs smaller than a modest office building (40 m diameter, or impact energy of about 3 megatons). From this size up to about 1 km diameter, an impacting NEO can do tremendous damage on a local scale. Above an energy of a million megatons (diameter about 2 km), an impact will produce severe environmental damage on a global scale. The probable consequence would be an "impact winter" with loss of crops worldwide and subsequent starvation and disease. Still larger impacts can cause mass extinctions, like the one that ended the age of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago (15 km diameter and about 100 million megatons).

( NASA Ames Research Center http://128.102.32.13/impact/intro_faq.cfm )

Have you seen Armageddon or Deep Impact? They are movies about humans discovering an asteroid a few days before it hits earth. They are big enough to “end life as we know it”. Imagine that you are the president of the US and a big rock is going to flatten your country in a few day’s time. Imagine that the news is now available to the public. Life is ending in a few day’s time.

What’s the probability that tomorrow, some astronomer (:P) at NASA finds that an unidentified asteroid is heading for Earth? I don’t think you can attach a probability to that. There is just too much unknown stuff out there in space.

"There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

Luke 21:25-28 NIV

What the Hell?

2004-11-15T22:43:00.000+11:00

What is hell like? Is there fire in hell? I’m not sure if there is fire in hell.

People often ask why nice and good people go to hell. God must be cruel. What if you don’t get the opportunity to hear about God?

A lot of people don’t like the “Christian religion” because they hate the idea that whoever doesn’t believe in what Christians believe in will go to hell. I kinda understand them. It’s like saying: “Believe in what we believe in or else you will go to hell!” (muhaha) I am afraid that a lot of them don’t understand why we would make that claim.

The following, I think, is the claim that non-Christians are disgusted to hear: People who reject God go to hell; People who reject Jesus as their LORD and master go to hell; People who reject Jesus as their Saviour go to hell.

I’m not sure that hell is really a punishment. It’s more like a consequence.

On the day we die, either we will have made up our mind to submit to Jesus as the rightful ruler of our life or we have decided to ignore and reject Him (we will not talk about those who have not heard of God here). This decision clearly reflects what our hearts desire, and so, when we die God gives us exactly what we desire.

For those that choose to submit to Jesus, God allows them to stay with him for eternality. On the other hand, for those who desire to have God out of their lives, God grants them their desire and God abandons them forever.

“What is so bad about a place without God?” you may ask. The answer is this. God is the source of all Love and Everything that is Good. A world without God is a world without all Love and Goodness.

Back to all the fire now. There must be a lot of wood or gas or something in hell (probably not…). Hell is described as a fiery furnace. It is also described as a dark place. We then know that hell is not a comfortable place. Imagine in a place where you can’t see anything because it’s so dark. Or inside an oven. There sure is going to be “weeping and gnashing of teeth”. That’s what it’s like to be in a place without all Love and Goodness. A place that God has left.

Does what I say help? Or is it leading people astray…

What would we look like when we are in Heaven?

2004-11-13T10:18:00.000+11:00

I was watching a TV series last night and there was a scene where a little young girl has learned the news of the death of her parents. She asked questions like will her parents be in Heaven and whether they will recognise her when she is all grown up and eventually enter Heaven as well?

Questions that will most probably be raised some time in our walks of Christian life will be:

"What would we look like when we are in Heaven?";

"If I die as a 20 year old, would I look like a 20 year old in Heaven, and If I die as a 60 year old, would I have a wrinkly face when I reach Heaven?"; and

"What about babies then, will they just be crawling eternally?"

However, is this the right mode of thinking? I have no authority to say its wrong, but it doesn't sound logical. If that's the right way of thinking, I just don't see why people are not dying 40 years earlier so that they could have a 20 year old look and have a better figure in Heaven that will last forever. I'm not trying to suggest in anyway with any intentions that we should all die now to have a better look, but that's just not the way things work. So Live On, and Read On!

Lets focus on two ideas:

God is not restricted by time. A thousands years in our eyes could well only be a flash in God's eyes. So if time is not a restriction to God, then would the concept of age, which is a concept that relies on time, relevant in Heaven at all?
The focus is on the Spirit. Jesus told Nicodemus that "No one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit." (John 3:5) Everyone will be physically born (that is, born of water), but Jesus emphasises that you have to be Spiritually reborn in order to make yourself eligible to enter Heaven. So the importance is not on our physical selves, but our Spiritual selves thats more important.

So what does that mean? Does that mean 'physical' is only an earthly concept, and there is no such concept in Heaven? Or more correctly, the concept is known in Heaven but is obsolete, or just irrelevant in Heaven? Does that mean we wouldn't have some "physical" body in Heaven and we'll just be "floating spirits" in Heaven?

Well maybe not just floating spirits. There should still be some kind of 'shell' or body where our Spirit will stay, but a better shell, call it "super-physical" (I am very creative aren't I? :P). But this something "better" is something that we cannot visualise with full understanding. Let me explain why I think this 'super-physical' concept may exist:

In Genesis, we are told that we are like God and we resemble Him (Gen 1:26). We know that our wisdom is no where near comparible to that of God's wisdom, so obviously, we can't be like Him in that respect. So that leaves us with the physical characteristics that we all have in common that could really compare and resemble God.
Further, our physical bodies are described as 'tents' on earth and when it is time for it to be torn down, 'God will have a house in heaven for us to live in, a home he himself has made, which will last for ever' (2 Corinthians 5:1).

We know that God has something wonderful in store for us, but we just wouldn't know how great it is by just using our wisdom and eyes to try and visualise how good it is. It's like trying to imagine what a sky scrapper looks like when all you have seen in your life is a straw hut.

Any other views on this?

Near

2004-11-09T22:19:00.000+11:00

The kingdom of God is near.

How often do you think about that? Do you even think that it's true?
I saw on the news that terrorists will sooner or later get hold of a nuclear device. I think 99.99% of people will believe that terrorists will get hold of a nuclear device before the kingdom of God comes. What do you think? ( do you see the irony?)

When a nuclear device finally detonates in your city, it's going to be too late. Too late for those who have not repented. Too late for those who have not turned away from their faithlessness. I know that there are many out there who have said " i want to enjoy more of my life before i turn to god".

Do you find it surprising that a lot of the parables that Jesus tells actually refer to these people?

Do you have friends or relatives that will not be joining you in the kingdom of God? What are you doing about it?

Will you be in the kingdom of God on that day? What are you doing about it?

The Jigsaw Puzzle: Part II - Sorting out the like colours

2004-11-06T21:07:00.000+11:00

(A Continuation from The Jigsaw Puzzle: Part I - Prelude)

The gift of God finally came to me. God sent a girl into my life. A young, intelligent, pretty looking girl. Being an ethical blogger, I believe that at this point, rather than to continue and build up a climax but end it with disappointment, I should be honest to tell you folks that this story doesn't develop into a sweet love story. haha!

She seemed like God to me. I do not mean that she had the power to perform miracles. Nor was it that she had the authority like God to rule anybody (well I hope she doesn't try to rule anybody! :P). She seemed like God to me in the sense that the relationship between me and her almost mirrored the relationship that I had with God at the time. I always knew of this girl's existence through my network of friends during my high school years, however throughout these years, I only knew of her existence and nothing more than that she is just some friend's friend. It was after hearing the name for several years, that I finally actually get to know who she really is when I met her in person. Just like God, I always knew His existence, but I have never actually had the opportunity to well and truly know God Himself personally.

Being introduced to this wonderful young lady was like my first handshake with God. She began just like my other friends who asked whether I was a Christian. However hearing my "model" answer, she didn't give that usual shrug, nod, or "oh" that I was used to seeing; she actually bothered looking into this 'problem' that I had, offering to find a way to help me find that answer that I always have been procrastinating about. God finally wanted me to know. He offered me the opportunity to walk the journey to see what it takes to be a Christian.

One of the first problems that was brought to attention was to obtain some form of human justification of all those stories that I have heard back in Sunday School. All the stories that I have heard, such as Jesus feeding thousands of people with a few fish and a couple loaves of bread, Jesus walking on water, Jesus dying on the cross and coming back to life were snippets of stories that always stayed in my mind. But after so many years of learning science, I have begun to develop questions of how all this can be scientifically justified? Then the next question was, how do we know all this is true? Is all this historically accountable? Was there really this guy who actually did all of this?

I guess I have a simple mind. Naive may be a term that one may use. But I do thank God for not clouding my mind with too many things to consider. I only wanted a logical answer. I didn't give those who wanted to help me discover a hard time by making them show me evidence to support what they have said. One may say that sounds too risky to believe in anything you hear in such a dangerous world today, all those cults out there trying the best they could to control your life, but I wasn't really worried about that. I have developed many reasons justifying that it wasn't worth the worrying. Firstly, I didn't get answers from any organised bodies, but merely my friends, so if they wanted to cheat me, they had a million other ways of cheating me into doing something rather than to use God's name! Secondly, questions that were answered came from totally unrelated friends. Most importantly, they all pointed towards the same answer! Thirdly, I wasn't conned into doing anything. I wasn't being forced. I ask a friend a question, I get an answer, then we both get on with life. No obligation. Most importantly, I initiated the conversation, so if there was any conning involved, I would have been the first one to con myself into all this!

Basically, I took up the view that I'll accept any logical answer until proven wrong or false; unlike those who starts off taking everything as false and requiring all evidence to convince them that it is true. I just believed that my Christian friends had no reason to lie, so why would they keep me from the truth?

Most of my answers were cleared by now. God has built the foundation in me. It was time to begin the visible constructions ...

-- To Be Continued --

Fruit

2004-11-04T23:36:00.000+11:00

Peace is a fruit too
It's a gift of the Holy Spirit if you didn't already know.
I was driving home late tonight. Raining. No cars on River Rd ( remind you of something?... http://jotland.blogspot.com/2004/10/his-life-or-mine.html#comments)

No.. no cute possums in this story.
I had been at a friend's place. We were discussing God and how much my friend had been growing in Christ. I was filled with Joy, and driving home, I was filled with peace.
Now usually, at night with no cars in sight, I'd be driving pretty fast but not tonight. Even thought the speed limit is 50 on River Rd, the generally agreed speed limit for motorists is about 75. I was crawling along tonight,.. at about 50something. Just before entering River Rd, I was thinking about cops. I thought about the chances of being caught. My sister has often warned me about cops on River Rd, but don't recall having ever seen much.

I was recalling how my sister would sms me and tell me that there were cops at the Xth intersection. I alway seem to miss them though... Tonight, I didn't have to be on the look out for cops. I was being a good boy.

As I approached the bit where the road slopes steeply down, I was still crawling along, enjoying the rain outside. My head lights carelessly reflected the shiny letters P O L I C E off the side of a police wagon as it slowed down, about to enter River Rd.

I need this fruit more often

Respect

2004-11-02T13:06:00.001+11:00

We should respect other people and their decisions, right? And we respect other people's believes too?We must if we are to win them over from Satan...
But we should have no respect for other people's gods right? Do you think that Jesus respects those other gods and statues...?

What would Jesus say to those people who are leading His sheep too hell? Should we take on the same attitude that Jesus would take?

Gary of SHUM

2004-11-01T18:58:00.000+11:00

People often ask me what kind of people we meet at SHUM. Not many people think about what homeless people are like. I guess it is easy to take on the view that homeless people are just homeless, dirty, want your money and failures of society. hmm yeah some.

Gary was brought up in a foster home. He's thirty something now. He said he had been living on the streets since he was 14. He's never worked before, and don't have much education. Gary was different from most people that I have talked to at SHUM. He didn't say much. I spent the whole of that night talking to him about God, Sin , and Jesus. I am pretty sure he's heard it dozens of times, but I doubt that he really understood. The whole time he had a pleasant smile on his face. He didn't say much at all and I always wondered if he caught hold of any of what I said.
My tactic was to ask him questions. Questions, the answer to which I had given moments before. I noticed that he'd always smile and say " umm... I don't know." I adapted to that. I would say things like " God created the whole world." and then straight away ask him "What did God do?"
mean?
I hope he learnt something... Something about God. I continued to say heaps and ask heaps. So happy :D
He had a brand new bible which he was very proud of. He seemed very happy when I asked him to read Mark. He agreed to read it by next SHUM... unfortunately I won't be there... hope he finds someone to share his reading with. Hope that he has read it!

The Jigsaw Puzzle: Part I - Prelude

2004-10-31T07:49:00.000+11:00

Prior to becoming a Christian, I never rejected God. I always knew He was there. I knew His existence. I knew He did marvellous things on this earth, but that was about it. I used to carry the attitude where if I knew Him, and He knows me, we are both cool. Where the good times, I may occassionally thank Him, if I remember Him; and if its bad times, I would most likely just sit on it and don't dwell on it. Probably only once or twice (yes, literally just once or twice in the past 20 odd years), would I only pray to God for help. I would say, what has passed cannot be changed, nothing can be done, time to look ahead. But thank goodness, at least I never blamed God for anything.

Every now and again in life, I would occassionally get asked a question: "So Ivan, are you a Christian?" My response gets quite akward. I don't know how to answer that question. Luckily, I have not been raised in a community where I would be persecuted if I give the wrong answer, so I have never seen the need to give the appropriate answer in the appropriate circumstances; so naturally, I honestly reply that I do not really know whether I am a Christian. I would blurt out that I have been to church when I was young, went to Sunday School, and that I knew that God did marvellous things on this plannet. I always thought that one can satisfy himself by answering his own question based on these pieces of information that I have given him.

But many who have asked me this question then in effect just gives me either a shrug, a nod, or merely say "oh", and move on to another topic. They merely ask out of instantaneous curiosity. They do not express an opinion on whether I am a Christian or not. Why is it that they do not give me a decisive answer? Is it because the people who ask the question themselves don't even know what it takes to be a Christian? Is it because they would expect that if a guy who says they go to church, went to Sunday School, knew who God was, they would naturally answer yes rather than giving an akward answer "I don't know"? Are they using the term Christianity synonomously with the term "religious"? Well I do not eliminate the possibilities of these situations at all.

Well, maybe I shouldn't be decisive in saying that they merely ask out of instantaneous curiosity. Some may want to help, but they may not even know the answers themselves. Some may live in fear, and think that it will be best probably just to leave it here and avoid all the dirty work. Leave it all to the pastors and the more experienced people to fix this guy up who gave some weird answer.

I always wanted to find out a decisive answer, but I always gave myself excuses. I always thought, God knows I am here, if He wanted me to know, He would let me know. I never actively searched for the answer, and sadly, this has really been the case for the first 20 years in my life.

All until one day, my gift from God finally came ...

-- To be Continued --

Marriage Humour

2004-10-27T09:50:00.000+10:00

(Disclaimer: definitely not a serious blog entry worth putting too much thought into it. It's a light hearted one only)

I have received an email forward today, and inside it, there was a section on Marriage and I quote it below:

In the beginning, God created earth and rested.
Then God created man and rested.
Then God created woman.
Since then, neither God nor man has rested.

So its all women's fault now? HA! If women caused trouble right from the beginning, so men should have lived on his own? But can men live without women? Don't think so. Look at all the crazy things that men could do for the woman they like!

Besides, God has told us that "a man leaves his father and mother and is united with his wife, and they become one" (Genesis 2:24), so "Man must not seperate, then, what God has joined together." (Mark 10:9)

So gentlemen, keep chasing your (respective) chicks; Ladies, accept the love. But on that note, its no excuse to spread your risks and place your bets on several different people! ;) haha

Wrongly Saved

2004-10-23T01:45:00.000+10:00

Those who turn to Christ Jesus as their Lord and Saviour will be saved.
What if you read the bible wrongly? Will you still be saved if you have Jesus as your Lord and Saviour? What if, on top of having Jesus as you Lord and Saviour, you also believe in other stuff that are wrong? like the mormans or the God witnesses.. and lots others.

What happens when these people pray to God?

Half Scottish, Half American Indian

2004-10-20T22:44:00.000+10:00

Terry carried the body of his cousin home at seven. The head was a mess. A bullet had blasted through it. This was in America. 40yrs ago ( Terry is half native American and apparently they are still being hunted today)... Shortly afterwards his father took his family to Australia.

Terry started telling me about the rituals that he and the Indians believe in. he was defending himself against me when before I made any comment. I wasn’t going to anyway… Then he moved on to tell me about the flaws in Christianity. He mentioned how Christians are always disobeying the ten commandments. I didn’t answer his question. I asked him if he thought that the bible is false. He said that he didn’t think it was false.

We didn’t talk much more about God. I just sat and listened to him talk about his problems. And I got to know him better. Pray that he comes back next week to SHUM. I ran out of time this week.

23 Years of Jotting

2004-10-18T01:45:00.000+10:00

Day on which I was born. Nothing special today. Church in the morning as usual. Lunch with family. Dinner with family.
Still beautiful, I must say.

Why do people put so much emphasis on birthdays? who was the first person to celebrate a birthday. Who invented giving gifts on birthdays. I don't think birthdays existed before the existence of calendars.

Passover was the topic at church today. somewhere in Exodus. The Passover is kinda like a birthday. You still need to celebrate it every year. You don't slaughter lambs and spill blood though... But you make gifts (offerings ) to God. God wanted them to remember how he killed the first-borns. He wanted them to remember how God rescued their whole race from a superpower of their time.

The Israelites had taken on the Egyptian way of life. God commanded them to re-order their lives. Passover was to be at the first month of their calendar. It was to remind them forever and ever that God was their Saviour.

Did you realise that Jesus died at the first day of the Passover ( was it the first day?)? Instead of Killing a lamb without defect, they killed a man without defect. Instead of Saving the Israelites, God Saved the World.

Pain transfer

2004-10-13T22:49:00.000+10:00

I don't know what to think.
Adrian said that as he was being tortured, he asked Jesus to take the pain away, and he felt nothing. He was smiling and joking with his torturers. I am talk not of the torture of the mind but of the flesh. Wrists and ankle bound. Higher and higer voltages flowing throught the body.
Like a lot of the people we see at SHUM Adrian has an amazing story to tell.
I don't know if i believe but I know he will not lie.
Jesus came to save sinners. He came to save those that will turn to Him and leave their evilness behind. Adrian was a sinner. He commited the most horrific and terrible CrimeS in the eyes of our society. Yet when I thought about it. In God's eyes he was still just another sinner. Not much more sinful then us. He's sinful nature just happened to manifiest itself in crimes.
He's super natural experience with torture was amazing. That however, was no where near as amazing as his turning to God, and following Jesus Christ.
From talking to him. I can feel his passion for obeying God. I can feel his passion for rejecting Satan.
I am a sinner too.
There is something to be learnt from Adrian.

Fall

2004-10-11T23:33:00.000+10:00

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age,if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
Hebrews 6:4-6

It's really hard for some one that has eternal life to give it up. It's even harder for them to get it back.

If you are unsure that u have eternal life, good you haven't lost it! you just don't know how to get it. You can still gain it.
If you have eternal life now, Great! You better keep it!

God - A Day in a Life of a Yo-Yo

2004-10-10T21:23:00.000+10:00

Imagine that you try to be a good friend. You try and be with your friend when they need you the most. When they shout out, you will always be there for them and give them support. When they are stuck with an assignment and is up 3am in the morning, you get on msn, you are the first one to chat with him/her to encourage him/her that you'll be there always to support them. She completes her assignment, and she goes offlines without even telling you. You don't hear from her for a long while.

Soon after, your friend faces dilemas. She doesnt know how to decide on many life-affecting questions. The first person she chooses to call has always been you. Being a good friend of hers, she knows that you would pick up the phone, and will always be there to guide her. Even if you do not give her the answer, she'll feel comfortable. She's always delighted that you are always there. She finds her sense of direction, and she hangs up on you in all of a sudden.

In your friend's heart, she believes that you are a really close friend, but only on a selective basis.

You realise after a while, that your friend only calls you whenever she's in need for support or guidance. Whenever you see her, she is always unhappy. But after comforting, she leaves. Then you don't know what happens. You can only assume that whenever she doesn't find you, she is happy.

Even worse, although she claims you to be her close friend, she has never ever even tried to take an opportunity to find out who you are really like. You only find out from her other friends, that all she says about you is, that you know she's busy, and that you would understand her position for not spending time to understand you better.

Is this one-way care really a good friendship? Is it a friendship at all? Who on this world would show care and support when they do not get any care or support in return? Who would offer such love?

God.

Many claim that they have a special, unique, personal relationship with God. They would turn to God whenever they are in fear, when they need support, and they try and reach out for help. God helps them. When they are guided through these hurdles in life, they forget about Him. They throw Him out when they are happy, and they pull Him in when they are in need, just like a yo-yo. They feel they have a good relationship with God, but doesn't any relationship require at the very least, a two-way communication?

Do you have a personal relationship with God? Are you a good friend who care about the one who loves you unconditionally, or do you neglect Him?

"Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up; and its faith, hope, and patience never fail."
(1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

Two ways to live - a deceptive title

2004-10-08T20:23:00.000+10:00

Many who do not have a full understanding of Two Ways to Live will often be deceived by its name. In this blog, I have no intentions of challenging any part of this evangelistic tool, but I am really only intending to point out how people often get the wrong message.

When people are asked The question, that do they:
(a) Want to continue leading their own life; or
(b) Choose to submit their lives to live in Christ
People would automatically see themselves being placed at Y-intersection, to choose their path for their future. This is where people hesitate and become scared.

In the process of consideration, one would most likely think, if I choose (a), I just continue on with my life. They often think, nothing is wrong with what I have currently, and most importantly, I know what my "way of living" is like.

Conversely, if we choose the latter, to take the new way of life, people begin to ask self-centred questions like: "How different will life be? Would it improve my situation? Or even, what will God do for me? Will He finish my homework? Will He pay off my mortgage?" This really suggests that they really dont appreciate the fact that God is our creator despite that they say they understand that God is our ruler. They fail to see in perspective what God, with His ultimate authority and more importantly His love, has done for us, in sending Jesus Christ to die in our place. It is not what God will do for us that is at issue, it is what God has done for us!

Then there are others who would ask questions like: "So what do I have to do or how would I have to change my way of life to live in Christ?"

The way of life, or the things in future that you have to do is where people misunderstand the whole idea of Two ways to live. Rather than seeing the importance of each element in 2wtl, many misunderstand it to be a little "story" to put them into perspective, so they could start to improve their lives and be good people. They believe the things that they have to do in order to live "correctly" include: having a commitment to go to church, pray, read the bible, charity etc.

They totally misunderstand the point that no matter what "good" things you do, it will not save them. It must be drawn to one's attention that when we always say good and bad qualities in this context, we seem to magically assume we know this standard of good and bad. However, it is God's standard of good and bad that we are concerned with here. So, are we really doing ourselves anywhere near justice if we even try and believe we can work out what God's standard is? Don't think so.

Christianity is not a focus on do, but it is a focus on done: What Christ has done on the cross for you. It is really your faith in believing in what Christ has done for you that grants you your new way of life, its not a way that you could walk yourself. We are told in that "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works [religious efforts and accomplishments], lest anyone should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9)

For all you non-Christians out there that see this, I thank God for giving you this opportunity. Living a new life doesn't require you to do, but to believe in what has been done for you. So if there is no physical committment required, and all that it is required from you is to have faith in believing that Christ has died in our place for our sins, what have you to lose but to try out the new way of life? Besides, its Free and that's the only way to live in the truth. That's the only way to live in reality.

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Ricky

2004-10-05T23:37:00.000+10:00

Another month of SHUM (Surry Hills Urban Mission).

Today I had the opportunity to talk to Ricky. He knew a bit about Christianity. He knows about God. He knows God is there. He knows that God is creator. He knows about sin. He knows what Jesus did.

He thought that he can go to heaven if he is good and does good things. Hopefully, he now knows that that's not the case.

Ricky wants to hold on to his own Crown though. He is 20yrs old and says he's still young.
He said he will turn to Jesus later. He said he needed get more out of life and enjoy a bit more before turning to God. He thinks that a Christian life is all about praying and going to church everyday. He is equating Boring with Holy.

I think he has been preached to many times before, though he pretends to be ignorant. Thanks to God we have been able to clarify the picture tonight. I hope that our words will make him think and rethink.

I find it really hard to tell people that there is an urgency to turn from sin. Even I, think that it is unlikely that my world will end tomorrow. and christians have been preaching that the end is near for two thousand years.

The Key to Life

2004-10-04T02:55:00.000+10:00

You have the key, you know how to get in.
What do you have to do next? Open the door!
You have Jesus Christ, you know how to get to God.
What do you have to do? Have faith!

I have a gift for you.
How do you get it? Put your hand out
God has a gift for you.
How do you take it? Have faith!

(Stole the idea off Jot. I am sure he doesn't mind. I'm acknowledging him here at least :P)

A Perfect World?

2004-10-01T20:41:00.000+10:00

From Genesis, we learn that God is the creator of the universe right from the beginning (Genesis 1:1). After taking six days of creation, "God looked at everything he had made, and he was very pleased" (v. 31). From this, it has been suggested that God has created the perfect world as God was pleased from what His own creation. Many would agree that it was only when man disobeyed God and ate the fruits of the tree of knowledge that made the world imperfect, when sin has entered into the world.

In chapter 3, the snake, being the cunning animal our Lord God has made, has tempted Eve to disobey God and eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. What baffles me is, if God really wanted to create a perfect world, then why create the snake to tempt man?

One may argue that God wants to give us freedom of choice, autonomy, so that we do not act like "machines", to let us determine what is right and what is wrong? However, does freedom of choice necessarily mean that you have to determine what is right and what is wrong?

Suppose we take the tree of knowledge and the snake out of the picture. Man could still have a choice of eating fruit from tree A, or eating fish from the river. There still is choice, freedom to do what we like, without the need to determine right and wrong.

So why is there a need for the tree of knowledge? Is it there so that human beings could have power over the fish, the birds, and all animals, domestic and wild, large and small (Genesis 1:26), so that we could seperate ourselves from the other living things? However, if we have not eaten the fruit, humans would not have had the knowledge to understand what is right and wrong, in order to make them any more different than the other living things on earth.

The tree of knowledge aside then. We know that we sin when Satan works on us to tempt us to act against God. So, why is there Satan, why create the snake to tempt man?

Are there answers to these questions? Or is it that sometimes we just may not be able to work out how God thinks: "My thoughts, says the Lord, are not like yours, and my ways are different from yours." (Isaiah 55:8)

Grateful

2004-09-29T09:33:00.000+10:00

I had my graduation ceremony yesterday. It was relaxing. I got to sit there for about 2hrs thinking about nothing. What a nice break from all the work around me!

Near the end of the ceremony, the chancellor dude reminded us to thank all those people who had contributed to our success. It was at that moment that I remembered God ( not that I forgot about Him). As he continued, on our behalf, to thank the parents, academics blah blah... I sat there thinking about how much God had shown me and How much he had helped me through the most stressful times.

Thanks God! ALWAYS

Names

2004-09-22T14:05:00.000+10:00

In the bible, God gives people names and the names hold meaning. It also gives an indication of their past or of their future.

http://www.20000-names.com/male_hebrew_names_02.htm
What does your name mean?
... IVAN, IOAN, IAN, IBAN, IONNES: gift from God

Thanks God

Enemies

2004-09-22T13:06:00.000+10:00

The Bible keeps talking about enemies.
War with them and victory over them.

Give us aid against the enemy, for the help of man is worthless.
With God we will gain the victory, and he will trample down our enemies.
- Pslam 108:12,13

Do you have an enemy?
If not:
"I'm my worst enemy " (from somewhere)
Surely there are people out there today who
hate Christians have declared war on them.

Jokes aside, Who is my enemy?

Non Opposing Prayers

2004-09-19T18:30:00.000+10:00

Thanks for the Great comments!

When we pray, we tell God about the things in our lifes, not that he doesn't already know. He knows completely. When we ask for things, he already knows our needs. Whatever happens, God has already planned it, and it is perfect.

Do we still pray For things?
Do we say " Dear God please give me this... " or " Dear God, please make this happen..."

The purpose of prayer is not to change God's mind. Who can?!

...(Moses? i remember that God was about to do something to punish the people, and then Moses pleaded and saved the people from God's wrath) :D

I know

2004-09-18T13:38:00.000+10:00

I Believe in God.
Do you Believe in God?

or

I Know God.
Do you Know God?

or

I Have Faith in God.
Do you Have Faith in God?

Which one sounds more convincing?
Are any of them wrong?

Life in Darkness

2004-09-17T20:48:00.000+10:00

Earlier on in the evening, we had a blackout for around an hour or so. Normally when a blackout occurs, people would start to frantically head for the torches and the candles. The most obvious reason why people search for light is that they are fearful of living in the dark. The feeling of insecurity: no light, no electricity, no food, no water!

However, instead of searching for light this time, I sat back and relaxed for once. One reason was because I felt lazy! :P But more importantly, I was thinking, what light would you need when you know you have God as your guiding light inside you?

With that in mind, it makes me think how wonderful God has been in bringing us light. He has given us wisdom so that we could extend light into night time. (Of course, I don't mean that God brings light only in this form when I said He is our guiding light). Imagine life without light during night time. How inconvenient would it be? What would life be like?

Read Psalm 27 (NIV from biblegateway.com)

Opposing Prayers

2004-09-14T23:47:00.000+10:00

I found out, while chatting with a friend today that we were praying for opposite things. I was praying that an event will happen and my friend was praying that the event will not happen.
What happens when 2 persons pray to God but they pray for the opposite things? I guess you can say that since they are opposites, then one of them may turn out to be the will of God and the other one may not.
Or you can say that one is more righteous than the other and so the more righteous one will get what he wants. ( This one is unlikely..?)

For example: there is a job (one position). Both person A and person B prays that they will get it.

If God gives B the job does that mean that he is not listening to A? does it mean that he is listening to B??? is A less righteous? B more?

Question Time - Two Ways to Live

2004-09-14T01:24:00.000+10:00

Jot has raised an interesting point. Many evangelistic talks often place not enough emphasis on the fact that after you believe in Jesus Christ dying in our place for your sins, we have to submit our lives to Him to live a 'new' life. Many non-Christians would subsequently have the attitude where they think: "Yeah, Nice information you have told me. Lets get back to our lives now" despite the fact that they believe in Christ dying for us.

I understand that its really the part of the process where its up to them to save themselves, it is a road to discovery. However, if they are reluctant to walk the road to discover themselves, what is it that we can do to encourage them to walk down this path? Is there a way where we could place more emphasis on this 'new' way of living? Is there more that we could do on top of our prayers for them? How can we structure the way we spread the Good News to challenge them to this new way of life?

God - A Personal Relationship?

2004-09-11T22:56:00.000+10:00

Not-really-devoted believers of God are always reluctant to speak about God. They claim it is a "personal relationship", something private and should not be discussed and that the conversation should move on. However, you realise that they do not turn to God, whether to praise for the wonderful things our Father gives us, or some do not turn to Him when they feel feared.

Others that are also arguing for this "personal relationship" go against the idea of sharing thoughts on how the bible should be interpreted and says that no one should ever tell another how to interpret the bible. Reading the bible is a "personal relationship" where God personally speaks to us. True. But sadly, learning more, you realise that they either have not picked up The Bible and made an attempt to read it, or the last time they read the Bible was before time existed?

"They claim that they know God, but their actions deny it. They are hateful and disobedient, not fit to do anything good." (Titus 1:16)

A Playground Analogy

2004-09-11T22:28:00.001+10:00

Being Christians, we should always attempt to draw ourselves closer to God, and we should offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him (Romans 12:1).

Leading a Christian life is like children being led into a playground by their father. The father tells his children that they are allowed to play within the perimeters of the playground and are not to go elsewhere. Then he goes away and leave his children to play at their leisure, but he has told the children that he will come back to pick them up later in the day.

The father has not set down a concrete perimeter that they are to play within. A majority of the children have problems with the confined space. However there are some who challenge the area that they are confined to and begins to expand the perimeters of the playground outwards. And there are others who gets lured by the lollypop man and starts to leave the playground.

Being a good Christian, we listen to God's word and we try to lead our lives "within the confined space in the playground". Then there are Christians who "challenge where the boundary of the playground is" and tries to bend the rules set out in the bible. Finally, the weaker Christians who cannot pass the test of temptation gets lured away by Satan.

Be content, and don't run out of the ring! Be strong and don't let your fellow Brothers and Sisters leave either! Bring the lost ones back!

Good People

2004-09-11T19:41:00.000+10:00

I usually take walks at night (my pathetic attempt to do exercise). I always pass this corner where the station is and lately I was unfortunate enough to step into something when i walked pass that corner. ... yuk.... (dog stuff)
Well I was quite annoyed and walked away saying stuff ...
A few days later I walked pass the corner again. And yep my foot was in it again. And again I walked away saying things..

I was thinking, what can I do to express my annoyance. After the walk, I came to the conclusion that nothing really could be done (appart from the extreme).
I also thought: what inconsiderate people there are out there. letting their dog do their business on a piece of ground that is used by so many people every day.
In the end I asked myself what I should feel as a christian. There are so many inconsiderate ppl out there and there is no way to tell them (or teach them).

Some things we have no control over. Even very small things. How should we feel? What do we do?

Now when I take my walks around that corner, I keep my eyes on the ground.
Smart?
Only thing I can do

Tears in Heaven?

2004-09-10T20:13:00.000+10:00

Sometimes I have a feeling of frustration when I see non-Christian friends, as I feel really sorry that they could not share the unconditional love that God offers us (yet). However, what gets more heartbreaking is when you hear some of them deny the existence of God, especially when you feel helpless in not being able to bring them closer to God.

A heartbreaking feeling exists even when we are faced with only a few close friends. Imagine how much more pain and sorrow our Father in Heaven, Who gave life to all these people, would have to bear when they deny His existence?

Yet, "for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). He loved the world so much that He offered us a gift that we humans never deserved: sending His own dear son to die for our sins and offering us eternal life.

God has not given us up. We should not give our non-Christian friends up either! Radiate yourselves for "No one lights a lamp and covers it with a bowl or puts it under a bed. Instead, he puts it on the lampstand, so that people will see the light as the come in" (Luke 8:16).

Question Time - Faith

2004-09-09T16:49:00.000+10:00

In a discussion with my friend, we were trying to determine whether 'Faith' is:
(1) A binary function: That is, to have faith, or to not have faith? or,
(2) A varying factor: Where you can have no faith, little faith, and more faith.
Of course, if we take the latter idea, no one except God would know whether there will be an upper limit to this spectrum.

Does this in a way then, relate to the idea of seeing whether a Christian is strong or weak? Again, one may ask how strong and weak will be defined? Who defines it?

Please share your thoughts and help me on these matters! Thanks.

Faith

2004-09-09T14:26:00.000+10:00

Trying to spread the Good News to non-Christian family members may sometimes pose problems. The foremost problem is their questioning of the depth and scope of your understandings. They begin to question your authority and fail to continue to listen to the Good News.

In a way, this is similar to the situation when Jesus was back in his home town, where Jesus said: "A prophet is respected everywhere except in his own home town and by his relatives and his family" (Mark 6:4). People in Jesus's home town still questioned His ultimate authority as the Son of God.

Although Jesus was not able to perform any miracles at his home town, he still managed to place his hands on a few sick people and healed them (Mark 6:5). From this, we are reminded that although we may not be able to have a strong and big influence on our family members that do not have faith when we spread the News, we should never neglect the small influences that we could make.

They may not have faith. But you should not lose faith!

Read Mark 6:1-6 (NIV from biblegateway.com)