Ephesians

Lost - John Piper

2011-09-28T21:35:00.000+08:00

Lost from AsiaLink HistoryMaker on Vimeo.

What's more important to you? The Gifts? or the Gifter?

2011-09-22T22:01:00.000+08:00

Hi Guys, hope this video is a good reminder for us! Let's look to the Gifter, not the gifts.

Rethinking Spiritual Growth

2011-06-12T20:26:00.002+08:00

The gospel has me reconsidering the typical way we think about Christian growth: spiritual measurements and maturity; what it means to change, develop, grow; what the pursuit of holiness and the practice of godliness really entails.

Let Grace Kill Your Natural Instinct

In his 2008 movie The Happening, writer, producer, and directorM. Night Shyamalan unfolds a freaky plot about a mysterious, invisible toxin that causes anyone exposed to it to commit suicide. One of the first signs that the unaware victim has breathed in this self-destructing toxin is that they begin walking backwards—signaling that every natural instinct to go on living and to fight for survival has been reversed. The victim’s default survival mechanism is turned upside down.

This, in a sense, is what needs to happen to us when it comes to the way we think about progress in the Christian life. When breathed in, the radical, unconditional, free grace of God reverses every natural instinct regarding what it means to spiritually “survive and thrive.” Only the “toxin” of God’s grace can reverse the way we typically think about Christian growth.

It's What We Do

When it comes to measuring spiritual growth and progress, our natural instincts revolve almost exclusively around behavioral improvement.

But what’s at the root of this good and bad fruit? What produces both the bad and good behavior Paul addresses here?

A Matter of Belief

Every temptation to sin is a temptation, in the moment, to disbelieve the gospel–the temptation to secure for ourselves in that moment something we think we need in order to be happy, something we don’t yet have: meaning, freedom, validation, and so on. Bad behavior happens when we fail to believe that everything we need, in Christ we already have; it happens when we fail to believe in the rich provisional resources that are already ours in the gospel. Conversely, good behavior happens when we daily rest in and receive Christ’s, “It is finished,” into new and deeper parts of our being every day.

Colossians 3:5-17 provides an illustration of what takes place on the outside when something deeper happens (or doesn’t happen) on the inside.

Going Backward for Progress

In Philippians 2:12, when Paul tells us to, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” he’s making it clear we’ve got work to do—but what exactly is the work? Get better? Try harder? Clean up your act? Pray more? Get more involved in church? Read the Bible longer? Clearly, it’s not a matter of whether or not effort is needed. The real issue is Where are we focusing our efforts? Are we working hard to perform? Or are we working hard to rest in Christ’s performance for us?

He goes on to explain: “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (2:13). God works his work in you—which is the work already accomplished by Christ. Our hard work, therefore, means coming to a greater understanding of his work. In his Lectures on Romans, Martin Luther wrote, “To progress is always to begin again.” Real spiritual progress, in other words, requires a daily going backwards.

The Work of Belief

Christian growth does not happen by working hard to get something you don’t have. Rather, Christian growth happens by working hard to daily swim in the reality of what you do have. Believing again and again the gospel of God’s free, justifying grace everyday is the hard work we’re called to.

This means that real change happens only as we continuously rediscover the gospel. The progress of the Christian life is “not our movement toward the goal; it’s the movement of the goal on us.” Sanctification involves God’s attack on our unbelief—our self-centered refusal to believe that God’s approval of us in Christ is full and final. It happens as we daily receive and rest in our unconditional justification. As G. C. Berkouwer said, “The heart of sanctification is the life which feeds on justification.”

Growth in Grace

2 Peter 3:18 succinctly describes growth by saying, “Butgrow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Growth always happens “in grace". The truest measure of our growth is not our behavior, it’s our grasp of grace–a grasp which involves coming to deeper and deeper terms with the unconditionality of God’s love. It’s also growth in “the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” This doesn’t simply mean learning facts about Jesus. It means growing in our love for Christ because of what he has already earned and secured for us and then living in a more vital awareness of that grace. Our main problem in the Christian life is not that we don’t try hard enough to be good, but that we haven’t believed the gospel and received its finished reality into all parts of our life.

Take the Focus Away from You

Gerhard Forde insightfully (and transparently) calls into question the ways in which we typically think about sanctification and spiritual progress when he writes:

Am I making progress? If I am really honest, it seems to me that the question is odd, even a little ridiculous. As I get older and death draws nearer, I don’t seem to be getting better. I get a little more impatient, a little more anxious about having perhaps missed what this life has to offer, a little slower, harder to move, a little more sedentary and set in my ways. Am I making progress? Well, maybe it seems as though I sin less, but that may only be because I’m getting tired! It’s just too hard to keep indulging the lusts of youth. Is that sanctification? I wouldn’t think so! One should not, I expect, mistake encroaching senility for sanctification! But can it be, perhaps, that it is precisely the unconditional gift of grace that helps me to see and admit all that? I hope so. The grace of God should lead us to see the truth about ourselves, and to gain a certain lucidity, a certain humor, a certain down-to-earthness.The more I focus on my need to get better the worse I actually get. I become neurotic and self-absorbed. Preoccupation with my performance over Christ’s performance for me makes me increasingly self-centered and morbidly introspective.

The more I focus on my need to get better the worse I actually get. I become neurotic and self-absorbed. Preoccupation with my performance over Christ’s performance for me makes me increasingly self-centered and morbidly introspective.

It Truly Is Finished

By all means work! But the hard work is not what you think it is; the hard work is washing your hands of you and resting in Christ’s finished work for you. Progress in obedience happens when our hearts realize God’s love for us does not depend on our progress in obedience.

The real question is: What are you going to do now that you don’t have to do anything? What will your life look like lived under the banner which reads, “It is finished"? Answer on Facebook.

Read the full article here

Behind the Scenes

2011-06-08T12:13:00.003+08:00

Most people judge by a person’s exterior. God is more impressed by the unseen.

Samuel received a gentle rebuke from God when he was trying to discover which of Jesse’s sons he should anoint as king: “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).
People might be impressed by actions, but God is far more interested in what goes on behind them. We read, “The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed” (1 Samuel 2:3) and, “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit” (Proverbs 16:2).

God is interested in your motivation

When you’ve come to the end of your life, you’ll receive an appraisal based not so much on your achievements as your motivation. God is looking for more than success. He’s interested in the secret motivation of his individual servants: “Each one’s work will become manifest…because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Corinthians 3:13–15).

Well done

You can have a great career, you can bask in the praise of men, but nothing will ever compare with the “Well done” that comes from God. Imagine being praised by God! That prospect must be one of the most exciting in the entire universe! Surely it is your highest desire: to live to please God and, at the end, to hear his words, “Well done, good and faithful servant … Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21).

I have had some exciting days. I remember the day I was saved. I remember the day I got married and the days when our children were born. I remember tremendous, exciting days in my life, days to treasure. But there will never, ever be a day to compare with the day when I hear God say, “Well done.”

The final curtain call

When the curtain rises for the last time, there will be a great turning around. Jesus said, “So the last will be first, and the first last” (Matthew 20:16). The people who wanted and received their acclamation from men will be disappointed when they meet God; those whose hearts were truly seeking after righteousness will be rewarded.

Taken from here.

Automatic ‘A’ from God

2011-06-05T10:19:00.000+08:00

My friend Steve Brown tells a story about a time his daughter Robin found herself in a very difficult English Literature course that she desperately wanted to get out of.

She sat there on her first day and thought, “If I don’t transfer out of this class, I’m going to fail. The other people in this class are much smarter than me. I can’t do this.” She came home, and with tears in her eyes, begged her dad to help her get out of the class so she could take a regular English course. Steve said, “Of course.”

No threat of failure

So the next day he took her down to the school and went to the head of the English department. Steve remembers the event in these words:

She (the head of the English department) looked up and saw me standing there by my daughter and could tell that Robin was about to cry. There were some students standing around and, because the teacher didn’t want Robin to be embarrassed, she dismissed the students saying, “I want to talk to these people alone.” As soon as the students left and the door was closed, Robin began to cry. I said, “I’m here to get my daughter out of that English class. It’s too difficult for her. The problem with my daughter is that she’s too conscientious. So can you put her into a regular English class?” The teacher said, “Mr. Brown, I understand.” Then she looked at Robin and said, “Can I talk to Robin for a minute?” I said, “Sure.” She said, “Robin, I know how you feel. What if I promised you an A no matter what you did in the class? If I gave you an A before you even started, would you be willing to take the class?” My daughter is not dumb! She started sniffling and said, “Well, I think I could do that.” The teacher said, “I’m going to give you an A in the class. You already have an A, so you can go to class.”

Later the teacher explained to Steve what she had done. She explained how she took away the threat of a bad grade so that Robin could learn English. Robin ended up making straight A’s on her own in that class.

Jesus guarantees us an A

That’s how God deals with us. Because we are, right now, under the completely sufficient imputed righteousness of Christ, Christians already have an A. The threat of failure, judgment, and condemnation has been removed. We’re in—forever! Nothing we do will make our grade better, and nothing we do will make our grade worse. We’ve been set free.

Knowing that God’s love and approval of you will never be determined by your performance for Jesus, only by Jesus’ performance for you, will make you perform more and better, not less and worse. In other words, grace mobilizes performance; performance does not mobilize grace.

If you don’t believe me, ask Robin!

Taken from here

True & Better

2011-06-02T13:36:00.000+08:00

What's the whole bible about?

^{Luke 24:25-27}
²⁵And he said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! ²⁶ Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" ²⁷And beginning with Moses andall the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

True & Better from Peter Artemenko on Vimeo.

Another Day Without the Return of the King

2011-06-02T06:25:00.001+08:00

Recently, there was a prediction of the end of the world which like all others failed. What should we learn from this episode?

A good word in season from Mike Wittmer:

Even those who interviewed him didn’t take him seriously. One anchor closed her segment on Camping with a knowing smirk, “Let’s hope he’s wrong.”

That’s where all who love Jesus must disagree. We are the first to say that Camping’s aim and method were wrong. No one can predict when Jesus will return, and Camping’s convoluted and implausible argument for May 21, 2011, was not particularly promising. We were right to declare that Camping was wrong, but we also should have wished that he wasn’t.

Christians should feel a twinge of sadness every night when we turn in to bed, for we have lived another day without the return of our King. The Lord’s Prayer includes the line, “May your Kingdom come soon” (Luke 11:2). As far-fetched as Camping’s prediction was, his spectacular miss should prompt us to reassess our deepest longings. Will we only scoff at his delusion, or will we also remember that we should want our Lord to return?

Perhaps we aren’t excited for Jesus’ return because we’re too easily pleased with the present. As one preacher said, “It’s hard to pray, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ when your kingdom has had a good year.” Thank God for the good life you presently enjoy, but don’t allow his current blessings to distract you from the Christian’s prayer: “Our Lord, come!” (1 Corinthians 16:22).

Taken from: here

Glorifying God in All You Do

2011-06-01T08:13:00.001+08:00

“Live to the glory of God!” Christians throw this out because we’re lazy and we love bumper stickers. There’s always that one guy who’s saying, “Glorify God, brother!” But what does that even mean? “Glorify God.”

The Question

Paul says if you want to be a good missionary, if you want to love your city, if you want to see people get saved, if you want to see lives get changed, if you find yourself in friendships and working relationships with people who totally disagree with you and their sexuality and their spirituality and their life is not about Jesus and the Bible, then the one question you have to keep asking is, “Will this or will this not bring the most glory to God? Will this glorify God?” And if you don’t know what the answer is, then you look to Jesus.
Without Jesus, we quite frankly wouldn’t have any clue how to glorify God because all we’d have would be abstract principles. We have to look to Jesus, otherwise, we don’t know how to glorify God.

This means you gotta read your Bible a lot and really be loving and learning about Jesus to know how to be a good missionary who lives in a culture that isn’t about Jesus. Live in that culture in such a way as to honor and glorify God in all things, including food and sex and drink and work and friendship and power and money and all of it.

“Glory” ≠ “Happiness”

Some of you, then, will say, “Well, this Christianity just isn’t working. I’m not healthy, wealthy, and wise. It’s not working. How am I supposed to glorify God? How am I supposed to praise God? How am I supposed to thank God for my cancer? My unattractive demeanor, my unemployment, my flat broke life? How am I supposed to be happy, praise God in all circumstances? Are you nuts? ‘Glorify God at all times.’ Broke. Unattractive. Single. Fired. Sick. Dying. Glorify God. Oh yeah, that’s great. That looks great on the bumper sticker. Try doing that. It doesn’t work.”

Actually, it does. If your religion is about glorifying God when you’re rich, then when you lose your money, you curse God. If your religion is about glorifying God when you’re healthy, then if you get sick, you curse God.

Jesus was murdered, and he glorified God.

“Come to Jesus, and he’ll take away all of your suffering,” they say. Are you kidding me? Didn’t you see what they did to the guy? He got beaten. He got executed. They murdered him. It may not go well for us. They may treat you like Jesus. It may not be that great. We worship a guy who died in his early 30s. We may not have a long life. We may not make a ton of money. We may not have a hot spouse. We may not raise some cute kids.

It may not go that great. It may be really hard. You may miscarry. You may get divorced. You may get cancer. You may get fired, I don’t know. You say, “Well, how am I supposed to glorify God?” You can, because Jesus did.

Now, some of you are saying, “I don’t want to glorify God, I want to be happy. I don’t want to get crucified. I don’t want to be broke. I don’t want to get cancer. I don’t want to be divorced. I don’t want to be a virgin. They make movies about people who are virgins, and they’re comedies. I don’t want that. That’s not what I’m shooting for.”

We are far too easily—and cheaply—pleased.

When it comes to living for God’s glory or our happiness, we tend to pick happiness and that’s when we sin. Sin is when we look at our options and say, “I can either glorify God or choose what think I need to be happy. I will eat a whole chocolate cake. I will drink light beer and I will get naked. I’ll be happy. I’m not gonna glorify God. I’m gonna be happy with a chocolate cake, the six-pack and the naked person. That will make me happy.” That’s why we choose sin.

C .S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory, says it this way,

Our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We’re half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition. When infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum, because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

That’s the truth. Jesus Christ takes away sin and gives us God.

You could have God! But you chose light beer?
You could have God! But you chose nudity?
You could have God! But you chose gluttony, folly, and rebellion?

Lewis says we’re too easily pleased. We’re like Esau, who traded in his birthright for a bowl of porridge.

This Is Our Deepest Joy

I know some of you here are going, “But I want him to give me a car!” It’s not a sin to have a car, and I hope he gives you a car. I hope he gives you a car with rims. But I’ve got something better than a car: Jesus will give you God. Others say, “But I wanted Jesus to give me a spouse.” I hope he does give you a spouse. I’d love to see you get married. But whether or not he gives you a spouse, I got something better than a spouse: God.
Jesus gives us God. God is our highest treasure, our greatest delight, our deepest joy. Our most profound happiness is that God loves us, that God knows us, that God cares for us, that God has given himself to us and that we get to live for his glory. Not that we have to, but that we get to. We get to finally do the singular cause for which we were made: to glorify God.

Taken from: here

Do what your hearts says?

2011-05-31T00:46:00.003+08:00

Princess Diana once said, “Only do what your heart tells you.”
This is a creed believed by millions. It’s a statement of faith in one of the great pop cultural myths of the Western world. It’s a gospel proclaimed in many of our stories, movies, and songs.
It states that your heart is a compass inside of you that will point you to your own true north if you can just see it clearly. Your heart is a true guide that will lead you to happiness if you can just tune into it. We are lost, and our heart will save us.

This sounds so simple and liberating. It’s tempting to believe.
Until you consider that your heart has sociopathic tendencies.
Think about it for a moment. What does your heart tell you?

No need to answer. Your heart has likely said things today that you would not wish to repeat. As Jesus said, “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matthew 15:19).
No one lies to you more than your own heart. It’s true. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

If our hearts are compasses, they are like Jack Sparrow’s. If our hearts are guides, they are Gothels. They are not benevolent, they are pathologically selfish. If we only do what our hearts tell us we will pervert and impoverish every desire, every beauty, every person, every wonder and joy. We will try to consume them for self-glory and self-indulgence.

Our hearts will not save us. We need to be saved from our hearts.
That’s why Jesus did not say, “Let not your hearts be troubled, just believe your hearts.” He said, “Let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1).

Our hearts were not designed to be gods, they were designed to believe in God. And we are never happier than when we do. The fallen human heart rejects God, believing it can “be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). Jesus came to pay for that horrific, treacherous sin in full and to give us new hearts (Ezekiel 36:26).

That means, in this age, Christians have the strange experience of living with two hearts. And both speak to us. One we must reject and the other we must trust. We must be discerning. We know the corrupt heart is speaking when it says, “Believe what I promise you and you will be happy.” We know the new heart is speaking when it says, “Believe what Jesus promises and he will make you happy forever.
Therefore, only do what your heart tells you if it is telling you to believe in Jesus

Taken from: here

Nice wallpapers

2011-05-22T11:16:00.001+08:00

Here are some nice wallpapers for you to use on your own computers/laptops/iphones ( Go to the link and select the smaller resolutions for your iphones, instructions are found at the link).

Find out here: http://www.challies.com/resources/favorite-desktop-wallpapers

What not to wear?

2011-05-21T17:15:00.001+08:00

How do I choose what to wear? A question that I believe all of us will ask ourselves. Read on.

1 Timothy 2:9

⁹ I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, ¹⁰ but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.

Is It Becoming or Unbecoming?

Kosmio is the descriptive form of the Greek noun kosmos (to put in order, trim, adorn, or decorate), which is related to our English word cosmos—the universe. The Greeks regarded the universe to be an ordered, integrated, harmonious whole. Kosmos is the opposite of chaos. So when Paul told women that their adornment should be kosmio, he meant that like the universe, all the parts should be harmoniously arranged with the other parts. It should be “becoming”—that is, appropriate or fitting.

First and foremost, your clothing ought to be becoming, fitting to, and consistent with your character as a child of God. But it also ought to be becoming to your body type, becoming to your femininity, becoming to your husband, becoming to the other clothes you are wearing, and becoming to the occasion and place you intend to wear it. There’s a tremendous amount of guidance in that small word, becoming. It challenges you to evaluate your clothes, shoes, purses, makeup, and hair from multiple angles as part of the harmonious, integrated whole of your life—to line up the seen with the unseen and the temporal with the eternal. It challenges you to bring a cosmic perspective to bear on your everyday decisions.

Is It Decent or Indecent?

So in that dressing room trying on that skirt, take time to sit, bend, and stretch in front of that mirror, and ask yourself, Is this skirt decent? Does it do what it should do? Does it properly cover me up? Does it showcase my underlying nakedness—or exalt the gospel of Christ?

Is It Moderate or Excessive?

The final thing to ask yourself about clothing is whether it is moderate or excessive. Paul uses the Greek word sophrosunes. It means “of a sound mind; curbing one’s desires and impulses, self-controlled, temperate.” The word indicates that our adornment should be reasonable and not crazy. We ought to rein in our impulses and avoid extremes in fashion, hairstyles, and makeup. We also ought to avoid spending crazy amounts of money or stuffing our closets full of crazy quantities of clothing. We ought to govern our wardrobe choices with a sense of moderation, simplicity, and self-control.

These are just excerpts from the post, read the full thing here.

I remember reading at one place where the author says, it's one thing to dress attractively, it's another to dress to attract.

So are you dressing for Him? or for others/yourself?

How would you answer?

2011-05-20T00:20:00.000+08:00

This is a good question for us to think!

Read and think about what you would say, u can leave your answers at the comments or cbox.

I'll reveal his and my answer next week, in the meantime, keep thinking.

You’re reading your Bible on the train, and you get chatting to the guy next to you. And as you quietly pray that God would give you an opportunity to share the gracious, salty words of the gospel, your new friend says, “You know, I don’t mean to offend, but to be honest I’ve never really understood why people read the Bible and go to church and all that. I’m a Christian, but to me it’s about the life you live, and how you treat people. Respecting others. Being ethical. But studying the Bible just seems to lead to disagreements and arguments.”

Now you are somewhat surprised to find such an engaging and articulate person sitting next to you, but this is a scenario, and people are like that in scenarios. In a flash of inspiration, you realize exactly what you should say next. “I think you’re right — people have lots of opinions about what it means to be a Christian, and sometimes they argue about it. But I read the Bible because I figure that if anyone really knows what it means to be a Christian, it would be God. And this is his book.”

Thus comes the key moment. There are only three more stops before you have to get off the train. In the brief time that remains, what can you say next that will help your friend to understand the gospel?

You swallow a little nervously and say, “Actually, one of my favorite passages in the Bible describes in a nutshell exactly what it means to be a Christian. Do you mind if I show it to you?”

So here’s the question, and the point of the scenario: which Bible passage would you turn to? And how would you explain briefly from it what a Christian is?

It would need to be a passage that said something about who Christ is, and what God has done for us in him. It would need to say something about the response that the gospel calls for — what it means to become a Christian. And it would need to be fairly simple and straightforward to understand at first reading, so that you could read it easily with a friend and point out the main points without fuss.

1 Peter 3:15 says that we should always be ready to do this; that is, to make a defense to anyone who asks us for a reason for the hope that we have. Here’s a chance to get ready (if you’re not ready already).

Where would you turn, and what would you say?

(In my next post, I’ll tell you where I would turn.)

Taken from here

All I Have is Christ - An Animation

2011-05-16T01:02:00.000+08:00

All I Have is Christ - An Animation from Grace in Cranberry on Vimeo.

All I have is Christ
I once was lost in darkest night
Yet thought I knew the way.
The sin that promised joy and life
Had led me to the grave.
I had no hope that You would own
A rebel to Your will.
And if You had not loved me first
I would refuse You still.

But as I ran my hell-bound race
Indifferent to the cost
You looked upon my helpless state
And led me to the cross.
And I beheld God’s love displayed
You suffered in my place
You bore the wrath reserved for me
Now all I know is grace.

Hallelujah! All I have is Christ
Hallelujah! Jesus is my life
Now, Lord, I would be Yours alone
And live so all might see
The strength to follow Your commands
Could never come from me.
Oh Father, use my ransomed life
In any way You choose.
And let my song forever be
My only boast is You.

© 2008 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI), by Jordan Kauflin

This reminds me of one of our early Church Fathers, Polycarp who himself is a disciple of John the Apostle.

Polycarp - A Martyr for Truth
Polycarp's greatest contribution to Christianity may be his martyred death. His martyrdom stands as one of the most well documented events of antiquity. The emperors of Rome had unleashed bitter attacks against the Christians during this period, and members of the early church recorded many of the persecutions and deaths. Polycarp was arrested on the charge of being a Christian -- a member of a politically dangerous cult whose rapid growth needed to be stopped. Amidst an angry mob, the Roman proconsul took pity on such a gentle old man and urged Polycarp to proclaim, "Caesar is Lord". If only Polycarp would make this declaration and offer a small pinch of incense to Caesar's statue he would escape torture and death. To this Polycarp responded, "Eighty-six years I have served Christ, and He never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?" Steadfast in his stand for Christ, Polycarp refused to compromise his beliefs, and thus, was burned alive at the stake.

Feeling enslaved to the TV and internet

2011-05-14T13:37:00.000+08:00

Find yourself spending too much time on the internet or TV? Or do your parents think you spend too much time on them? See the video for answers on what to do about them!

Winston Smith - Feeling enslaved to the TV and internet from CCEF on Vimeo.

Which cell group would you prefer?

2011-05-12T22:38:00.001+08:00

Is this your ideal cell group? Or not? What would you prefer?

7 Marks of a Right Heart

2011-05-10T10:32:00.003+08:00

1) A right heart is a NEW heart (Ezek. 36:26)

It is not the heart with which a person is born—but another heart put in them by the Holy Spirit. It is a heart which has new tastes, new joys, new sorrows, new desires, new hopes, new fears, new likes, new dislikes. It has new views about the soul, sin, God, Christ, salvation, the Bible, prayer, heaven, hell, the world, and holiness.

2) A right heart is a BROKEN and CONTRITE heart (Psalm 51:17)

It is broken off from pride, self-conceit, and self-righteousness. Its former high thoughts of self are cracked, shattered, and shivered to atoms. It thinks itself guilty, unworthy, and corrupt. Its former stubbornness, heaviness, and insensibility have thawed, disappeared, and passed away. It no longer thinks lightly of offending God. It is tender, sensitive, and jealously fearful of running into sin (2 Kings 22:19). It is humble, lowly, and self-abased, and sees in itself no good thing.

3) A right heart is a heart which BELIEVES on Christ alone for salvation, and in which Christ dwells by faith (Rom. 10:10; Eph. 3:17)

It rests all its hopes of pardon and eternal life on Christ’s atonement, Christ’s mediation, and Christ’s intercession. It is sprinkled in Christ’s blood from an evil conscience (Heb. 10:22). It turns to Christ as the compass-needle turns to the north. It looks to Christ for daily peace, mercy, and grace—as the sun-flower looks to the sun.

4) A right heart is a PURIFIED heart (Acts 15:9; Matt. 5:8)

It loves holiness, and hates sin. It strives daily to cleanse itself from all filthiness of flesh and spirit (2 Cor. 7:1). It abhors that which is evil, and cleaves to that which is good. It delights in the law of God, and has that law engraved on it, that it may not forget it (Psalm 119:11). It longs to keep the law more perfectly, and takes pleasure in those who love the law. It loves God and people. Its affections are set on things above.

5) A right heart is a PRAYING heart

It has within it “the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba Father” (Rom. 8:15). Its daily feeling is, “Your face, Lord, will I seek” (Psalm 27:8). It is drawn by an habitual inclination to speak to God about spiritual things—weakly, feebly, and imperfectly perhaps—but speak it must. It finds it necessary to pour out itself before God, as before a friend, and to spread before Him all its needs and desires. It tells Him all its secrets. It keeps back nothing from Him. You might as well try to persuade a person to live without breathing, as to persuade the possessor of a right heart to live without praying.

6) A right heart is a heart that feels CONFLICT within it (Gal. 5:17)

It finds within itself two opposing principles contending for the mastery—the flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. It knows by experience what Paul means when he says, “I see a law in my members warring against the law of my mind” (Rom. 7:23). The wrong heart knows nothing of this strife. The strong man armed keeps the wrong heart as their palace, and their goods are at peace (Luke 11:21). But when the rightful King takes possession of the heart, a struggle begins which never ends until death. The right heart may be known by its warfare, quite as much as by its peace.

7) A right heart is HONEST, UNDIVIDED, and TRUE (Luke 8:15;1 Chron. 12:33; Heb. 10:22)

There is nothing about it of falsehood, hypocrisy, or image-acting. It is not double or divided. It really is what it professes to be, feels what it professes to feel, and believes what it professes to believe. Its faith may be feeble. Its obedience may be very imperfect. But one thing will always distinguish the right heart. Its religion will be real, genuine, thorough, and sincere.

Read the full article here

A Biblical Theology of Food

2011-05-04T00:13:00.003+08:00

This is an interesting article about food. What does the bible teach us about FOOD?

More Than Fuel

Food reminds of our dependence on other people. We are tied into a network of farmers, traders, shopkeepers, cooks, families, traditions of gastronomy. Above all we are dependent on God. We are finite beings who need sustenance to sustain us. We need to ‘refuel’. Except that food is so much more than fuel. Think of all your favourite foods: steak and potatoes, thai green curry, crumble and custard... It didn’t have to be this way.

Biscuits would have sufficed to sustain our lives. But God is ridiculously lavish in his creativity and generosity. God’s first act after creating humanity was to present us with a menu: the fruit of all the trees in the garden. Every meal is an opportunity to receive God’s good gifts with thankfulness. Perhaps we need to refresh the practice of saying ‘grace’ before meals as an expression of our dependence and God’s generosity. Food is an opportunity for human creativity and generosity in the image of the Creator.

Food-Gone-Wrong

But food is also at the heart of our rejection of God. The very first act of rebellion was an act of eating. Ever since, our relationship to food often goes wrong because our relationship to God has gone wrong. We find comfort in food instead of refuge in God. We use food – or avoid food – to make ourselves desirable so others worship us. Our fractioned relationships and greed means many in our world go without food. We over eat. We under eat. Food is integral to our humanity so it’s no surprise to find that our brokenness shows up in our relationship to food.

Against this backdrop of food-gone-wrong, God promises a feast. Again and again in the Bible salvation is picture as a feast with God. When God leads the Israelites out of Egypt, the leaders of the people are invited up on Mount Sinai to eat and drink with God (Exodus 24:9-11). The rescue from slavery in Egypt – the defining act of Israelite identity – is itself commemorated in a meal, the meal of Passover. At the high point of Israelite history, in the reign of Solomon, we are told ‘the people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand on the seashore; they ate, they drank and they were happy’ (1 Kings 4:20). Even when things begin to unravel, God promises another meal on a mountain, ‘a feast of rich food for all people’ (Isaiah 25:6-8). On this occasion death itself will be on the menu for God will swallow it up. This is an eternal feast which no-one need ever leave. Jesus provides a foretaste of this feast when he feeds the 5,000. Here is a feast which need never end. Indeed there’s more food at the end than there was at the beginning. It’s a pointer to the fulfilment of God’s promise: that one day we will feast forever in his presence.

There's Something Bigger Here

So the meals of Jesus represent something bigger. They represent God’s coming world. But at same time they give that new reality substance. They’re the real thing in miniature. Food is stuff. It’s not ideas. It’s something you put in your mouth, something you taste, something you eat. And meals are more than food. They’re social occasions. They represent friendship, community, welcome.
Our invitation to the feast of God comes at a price: the precious blood of Jesus his Son. We are outsiders, enemies, excluded. But Jesus takes the judgment we deserve. He becomes the ultimate outsider. Pushed out of the world onto the cross. Forsaken by his Father. As a result we become insiders, friends, included. The invitation goes out to all.
So it’s not accident that at the heart of what it means to be the church is a meal. Jesus told us to remember him not in a pattern of words, but in a meal.

Article from here.

Why Rules Alone Never Work

2011-05-02T21:45:00.004+08:00

Your eternal salvation isn’t dependent on performance or effort. Well, not your performance anyway...

We Christians are a dull bunch. Tie a string around your finger if you have to, but whatever you do, remember this: spiritual performance inventories are futile. Luther knew this, and the Apostle Paul backs him up:

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them." - Gal 3:10.

In the last post, we discussed a Theology of the Cross versus a Theology of Glory. A Theology of Glory is dependent on human-made efforts toward salvation. A Theology of the Cross recognizes that the Christian’s only hope lies in the offense and foolishness of the cross.

Punishment, Reward and the Surprise of Grace

Punishment and reward is intuitive. If you finish your homework, you get a gold star. No homework, no star - or worse - stand in the corner. Law is the default of the human heart; it’s grace that takes us by surprise. God in his grace says, “I make sinners righteous." This just doesn’t compute to our sensibilities. In response, the human heart is always inclined to hold out for just a little bit of God-pleasing spiritual performance. The problem is, God requires perfection but still we try to better ourselves before the face of God.

Do your best, God does the rest?

So what do we make of spiritual thriving and works? Conventional thinking says we know we’re unable to fulfill the law of God but at least we’ll give it a good try. And when we fail...well...”do your best and God does the rest." Ironically, in all our striving, we only make things worse.

For the Christian then, following the law isn’t something we achieve through effort, but in receiving Christ’s perfection credited to our account. This gift though seems too much like a demeaning sort of charity.

What this means, of course, is that secretly we find doing it ourselves more flattering to our self-esteem - the current circumlocution for pride. The law, that is, even the law of God, "the most salutary doctrine of life," is used as a defense agains the gift. Thus, the more we "succeed," the worse off we are.

Spiritual points-keeping just won’t do. Only in our giving up on the approval-through-works game can we truly rest in the assurance of Christ’s perfection for us and respond appropriately in heart changed obedience.

Read the full article here.

Why Bad News Is Good News: Luther On Death And Resurrection As Life

2011-05-01T23:44:00.000+08:00

Human economy or God's economy?

Martin Luther knew something about economics. Well, God’s economics anyway. It goes something like this: you can’t pay your way into heaven, and it was wrong of the Pope and his cronies to say so. The Christian life is all of grace and nothing of personal sacrifice or performance. These are the big ideas that frame Luther’s 95 theses. But honestly, a long gripe against the Pope kind of makes for a dull read.

The glory story = Jesus plus

The Good News of the gospel is nonsensical until we tell the truth about the Bad News of our sin. And especially about our efforts to add to God’s one-way love to us. People much prefer spiritual advice over the stark truth that spiritual aspirations meant to earn God’s favor ought to be put to death. God doesn’t massage our egos by giving us tips for sin management. He attacks sin and puts it to death, in Christ. Our refusal to face this death - and the personal disequilibrium that comes with it - is what Luther calls the glory story.

Death and resurrection: the circular Christian life

This pattern of death and resurrection isn’t just a Christian conversion event. Death and resurrection isn’t just physical death and a celestial hope. Instead, death and resurrection is a pattern for all of life. Sin is put to death and God raises us to new life. Repeat, repeat, repeat...

Read the full article here

Holiness and Sanctification

2011-04-24T22:10:00.001+08:00

Holiness and Sanctification

This is an excerpt from the biography of Robert Murray Mccheyne by John Piper

Chalmers said that glimpses into the dark room of the heart alone give no good prospect. Instead, he said we should

"take help from the windows. Open the shutters and admit the sun. So if you wish to look well inwardly, look well out. . . . This is the very way to quicken it. Throw widely open the portals of faith and in this, every light will be admitted into the chambers of experience. The true way to facilitate self-examination is to look believingly outwardly."

Ten Looks to Jesus for Every One Look at Self

McCheyne had written that down in a class and underlined the last sentence. So it is not surprising to hear him give his own counsel in similar terms: "Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely . . . . Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in his beams. Feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in love. And repose in his almighty arms."

This was the basic strategy in the pursuit of holiness. And he knew that the battle would have to be waged all the way to the end. He said to his people, "When a soul comes to . . . Christ, it is not made perfectly holy all at once. 'The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day [Proverbs 4:18].'" He was often distressed by his own lack of holiness. But he knew that the battle would be won only in the gospel way of looking ten times to Jesus and "being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another" (2 Corinthians 3:18).

So when McCheyne spoke what are probably his most famous words, "The greatest need of my people is my own holiness," he meant not only that they need a pastor who is morally upright, but that they need a pastor who is walking in constant communion with Christ, and being changed into Christ's likeness by that constant fellowship.

For a sermon about him or the transcript of it. Click here.

A Great Debt, Who Can Pay?

2011-04-23T12:03:00.000+08:00

A Great Debt, Who Can Pay?

Harry Ironside used to tell about a young Russian soldier. Because his father was a friend of Czar Nicholas I, the young man had been mde paymaster in one of the barraks.

The young man meant well, but his character was not up to his responsibility. He took to gambling and eventually gambled away a great deal of the government's money as well as all of his own.

In due course the young man received notice that a representative of the czar was coming to check accounts, and he knew he was in trouble.

That evening he got out the books and totaled up the funds he owed. Then he went to the safe and got out his own pitifully small amount of money. As he sat and looked at the two he was overwhelmed at the astronomical debt versus his own small change. He was ruined! He knew he would be disgraced.

At last the young soldier determined to take his life. He pulled out his revolver, placed it on the table before him, and wrote a summation of his misdeeds. At the bottom of the ledger where he had totaled up his illegal borrowings, he wrote: “A great debt! Who can pay?” He decided that at the stroke of midnight he would die.

As the evening wore on the young soldier grew drowsy and eventually fell asleep. That night Czar Nicholas I, as was sometimes his custom, made the rounds of the barracks. Seeing a light, he stopped, looked in, and saw the young man asleep. He recognized him immediately and, looking over his shoulder, saw the ledger and realized all that had taken place.

He was about to awaken him and put him under arrest when his eye fastened on the young man's message: “A great debt! Who can pay?”

Suddenly, with a surge of magnanimity, he reached over, wrote one word at the bottom of the ledger, and slipped out.

When the young man awoke, he glanced at the clock and saw that it was long after midnight. He reached for his revolver to shoot himself. But his eye fell upon the ledger and he saw something that he had not seen before. There beneath his writing: “A great debt! Who can pay?” was written, “Nicholas.”

He was dumbfounded. It was the Czar's signature. He said to himself, “The czar must have come by when I was asleep. He has seen the book. He knows all. Still he is willing to forgive me.”

The young soldier then rested on the word of the czar, and the next morning a messenger came from the palace with exactly the amount needed to meet the deficit. Only the czar could pay, and the czar did pay.

We compare [God's righteousness] with our own tawdry performance, and we ask the question: “A great debt to God! Who can pay?” But then the Lord Jesus Christ steps forward and signs His name to our ledger: “Jesus Christ.” Only Jesus can pay, and He did.

Taken from

Good Friday Prayer

2011-04-23T00:32:00.000+08:00

A Prayer to share with u all:

Blessed Lord Jesus,

Before thy cross I kneel and see
the heinousness of my sin,
my iniquity that caused thee to be ‘made a curse’,
the evil that excites the severity of divine wrath.

Show me the enormity of my guilt by

the crown of thorns,
the pierced hands and feet,
the bruised body,
the dying cries.

Thy blood is the blood of incarnate God,
its worth infinite, its value beyond all thought.
Infinite must be the evil and guilt
that demands such a price.

Sin is my malady, my monster,

my foe,my viper,
born in my birth,
alive in my life,
strong in my character,
dominating my faculties,
following me as a shadow,
intermingling with my every thought,
my chain that holds me captive in the empire of my soul.

Sinner that I am, why should the sun give me light,
the air supply breath,
the earth bear my tread,
its fruits nourish me,
its creatures subserve my ends?

Yet thy compassions yearn over me,

thy heart hastens to my rescue,
thy love endured my curse,
thy mercy bore my deserved stripes.

Let me walk humbly in the lowest depths of humiliation,
bathed in thy blood, tender of conscience,
triumphing gloriously as an heir of salvation.

From the Valley of Vision

Does it please God?

2011-04-23T00:24:00.000+08:00

One question I think we can always ask ourselves at the end of the day or certain acts of service is this "Does it please God?"

How do we know if it pleases God?

Some areas to think about:

1) Did I put in my best effort? Not, whether did I perform the task well or not.

2) Am I more concern about how people will think of me regarding it? Or am I more concern how God looks at me regarding it?

3) How have my own quiet time and prayer life been? Have I neglected Him and treat my service more important than Him? Have I learnt to trust myself more than what God can do through me?

4) Why have I performed this task? Out of selfish ambition? Out of obligation? Out of recognition?

5) Will I be bothered if no one ever finds out about it or thanks me for it?

11 Ways to Find Your Idols

2011-04-14T00:21:00.001+08:00

Find your idols

Idols are sneaky. They tip toe past our brains, set up shop in a corner of our heart, and begin to grow. Most of the time we don’t even notice because we’ve fallen in love with the idol—it’s become part of what drives us and makes us (momentarily) happy.

Recently Jared Wilson blogged about 11 diagnostic questions that David Powlison asks to find people’s idols. I just sent everyone in my community group this list of questions because I want to help build a culture of asking deep heart level questions, applying the Gospel to life, and seeking Christ together.

Here are the questions:

What do I worry about most?
What, if I failed or lost it, would cause me to feel that I did not even want to live?
What do I use to comfort myself when things go bad or get difficult?
What do I do to cope? What are my release valves? What do I do to feel better?
What preoccupies me? What do I daydream about?
What makes me feel the most self-worth? Of what am I the proudest? For what do I want to be known?
What do I lead with in conversations?
Early on what do I want to make sure that people know about me?
What prayer, unanswered, would make me seriously think about turning away from God?
What do I really want and expect out of life? What would really make me happy?
What is my hope for the future?

Taken from here.

Reflections on Men Xun 09/04/11

2011-04-11T00:43:00.010+08:00

Hi all,

Some thoughts on what we learnt on sat:

Malachi 2:17- 3

他来的日子，谁能当得起呢？他显现的时候，谁能立得住呢？

因为他如炼金之人的火，如漂布之人的硷。

1) Isn’t it a wonder that when Jesus first appears, he’s seemed to be very well-liked. Until, He shows the Pharisees that they aren’t as holy or righteous as they thought they are.

Until we realized that nothing we do, will do or should do can save us, we will not go to Christ. No one can stand His judgement, not me, not you, only Christ can. Trust in what He

has done to pass the judgement.

2) Fairness and Grace

I remember once; listening to a sermon by R.C. Sproul, explained the meaning of grace to his students.

When I was a professor in the college I was teaching, I used to start the term, telling the students when they’re supposed to pass up their assignment and if they fail to meet their deadlines, they will get 0 marks for it.

In the first week, out of my class of 50, 45 of them handed up on time, and 5 of them were late. “Please prof, this was our orientation week, we didn’t have enough time to complete it, please let us hand up tomorrow, we promise we wouldn’t let it happen again” ‘Alright, but only this time ...’ I replied.

On the 2^nd week, 40 of them handed up on time. Now the students explained that they had to choose their extra circular activities (aka. CCA) and they haven’t had time to complete the assignments. ‘Ok ..., but this is the last time’ I answered them. “Thank you professor, we love you” The class sang in unison in response to my answer.

On the 3^rd week, only 25 assignments were handed up. ‘John, where’s your assignment?’ “No prob, prof, I’ll hand up tomorrow” I took out my note book and began writing. ‘John, 0’I announced to the class. ‘Mary, where’s your work?’ “I’m sorry professor, I haven’t been able to complete it, I was too busy” she replied. ‘Mary, 0’.

“This isn’t fair” someone shouted in the class. ‘You all want fairness?’I asked. ‘Tom, you didn’t passed up your work on time last week, 0 for you. And you Jane, you didn’t either, 0. Now who wants me to be fair?’

We dare not pray for His justice, but only more of His grace for us everyday.

Share what you learned this lesson too!

Quietness before God

2011-04-11T00:23:00.004+08:00

“People today are afraid to be alone. This fear is a dominant mark of our society. Many now ceaselessly sit in the cinema or read novels about other people’s lives or watch dramas. Why? Simply to avoid having to face their own existence. . . .

No one seems to want (and no one can find) a place of quiet — because, when you are quiet, you have to face reality. But many in the present generation dare not do this because on their own basis reality leads them to meaninglessness; so they fill their lives with entertainment, even if it is only noise. . . .

The Christian is supposed to be very opposite: There is a place for proper entertainment, but we are not to be caught up in ceaseless motion which prevents us from ever being quiet. Rather we are to put everything second so we can be alive to the voice of God and allow it to speak to us and confront us.”

Francis Schaeffer, “Walking through the mud,” in No Little People (Downers Grove, 1974), pages 86-87.

I have calmed and quieted my soul. Psalm 131:2

Taken from here.

Jesus plus nothing equals everything –The Gospel–

2011-04-09T11:02:00.010+08:00

Jesus plus nothing equals everything–the gospel– is daily becoming for me more than a theological passion, more than a cognitive reality. It’s becoming my functional lifeline! And it’s this rediscovery of the gospel’s power that is enabling me to see that,

Because Jesus was strong for me, I am free to be weak;
Because Jesus won for me, I am free to lose;
Because Jesus was Someone, I am free to be no one;
Because Jesus was extraordinary, I am free to be ordinary;
Because Jesus succeeded for me, I am free to fail.

Read the whole post here: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tullian/2011/03/03/im-addicted/

In her book Because He Loves Me, Elyse Fitzpatrick writes about how important remembrance is in Christian growth:

One reason we don’t grow in ordinary, grateful obedience as we should is that we’ve got amnesia; we’ve forgotten that we are cleansed from our sins. In other words, ongoing failure in sanctification (the slow process of change into Christlikeness) is the direct result of failing to remember God’s love for us in the gospel. If we lack the comfort and assurance that his love and cleansing are meant to supply, our failures will handcuff us to yesterday’s sins, and we won’t have faith or courage to fight against them, or the love for God that’s meant to empower this war. If we fail to remember our justification, redemption, and reconciliation, we’ll struggle in our sanctification.

Christian growth, in other words, does not happen first by behaving better, but believing better–believing in bigger, deeper, brighter ways what Christ has already secured for sinners.
Preach that to yourself everyday and you’ll increasingly experience the scandalous freedom that Jesus paid so dearly to secure for you.

Read more here.

When Sin Plays Dead

2011-04-09T10:55:00.000+08:00

We’ve all been tricked by sin’s craftiness, haven’t we? How many times have you sheathed your sword, convinced sin was finished, only to suffer a violent retaliation a few hours later? How does that happen, and what can you do to stop it?

1) Killing sin is not covering it up. You may appear successful at covering up your sin. You can easily deceive your friends, family, and pastors. For awhile, you may even deceive yourself(Jer. 17:9). But hiding sin is not killing it—you’ll reap what you sow (Gal. 6:7).

2) Killing sin is not internalizing it. When you stop your tongue, body, hands, eyes and ears from sinning, don’t make the mistake of assuming you’ve killed sin. Stopping the action ispart of the process (as we noted last post), but binding your hands is not the same as keeping your heart (Pr. 4:23). Sinful actions are driven by sinful attitudes (James 4:1-2)—you must kill both.

3) Killing sin is not forsaking some sins while tolerating others. Don’t imagine you’ve slain sin when you merely forsake one glaring sin while you tolerate others.

4) Killing sin is not repressing it. Some people repress sin with drugs and alcohol. They drink themselves into oblivion or take drug-induced trips away from reality. But there are evenChristians who suppress their guilt with movies, music, and worldly entertainment. They find distractions to eclipse the misery sin brings. If that doesn’t suit them, some will even consult counseling professionals who attempt to manage the person’s guilt by elevating his self-esteem.

Kill your sins God’s way, or die sin’s way. Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.

Read the full post here.

Is God dissappointed? Part 2

2011-04-09T10:49:00.001+08:00

This is the 2nd part to a question that was asked some time ago:
http://bpgc-ephesians.blogspot.com/2011/01/is-god-dissappointed.html

Dr. David Powlison - Does God get upset when we disobey? Part 2 from CCEF on Vimeo.

Taken form: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2011/03/15/does-god-get-upset-when-we-disobey/

“Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace.” - Jerry Bridges

Smartphone Apps: Fighting Fire with Fire

2011-04-09T10:39:00.003+08:00

John Piper:

Why should we think of the Facebook app threatening the Bible app? Why not the Bible app threatening the Facebook app, and the email app, and the RSS feeder, and the news?

Resolve that today you will press the Bible app three times during the day. No five times. Ten times! Maybe you will lose control and become addicted to Bible! Again and again get a two-minute dose of life-giving Food. Man shall not live by Facebook alone.

I’m serious. Never has the God’s voice been so easily accessible. The ESV app is free. The OliveTree BibleReader app is free. And so are lots of others. Let the Bible threaten your focus. Or better: Let the Bible bring you back to reality over and over during the day.

You can read the whole thing here.

Taken from:http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2011/02/21/smartphone-apps-fighting-fire-with-fire/

Don't stop praying!

2011-04-06T23:49:00.002+08:00

The song in the background is "Be Thou My Vision"

May we pray more! Let's bother Him more, for He desires us to do so.

Free Wallpaper for April

2011-04-06T23:37:00.000+08:00

Hi All, some free wallpaper for this month!

More to be found here

The Three R's: Why Christians Sing

2011-04-02T23:19:00.000+08:00

Christians sing together during corporate worship gatherings. Colossians 3:16-17 helps us understand why. Paul tells us that worshiping God together in song is meant to deepen the relationships we enjoy through the gospel. This happens in three ways (or three R’s):

1. Singing helps us remember God’s Word.

Paul says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in your richly…singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” The “word of Christ” mostly likely means the word about Christ, or the gospel. Songs whose lyrics expound on the person, work, and glory of Christ tend to stay with us long after we’ve forgotten the main points of the sermon.

2. Singing helps us respond to God’s grace.

While no one is exactly sure what “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” refers to, we can at least infer some kind of variety in our singing. No singular musical style captures either the manifold glories of God or the appropriate responses from his people.
We’re also told to sing with “thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Singing is meant to be a whole-hearted activity. Emotionless singing is an oxymoron. God gave us singing to combine objective truth with thankfulness, doctrine with devotion, and intellect with emotion.

3. Singing helps us reflect God’s glory.

Doing “everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,” implies bringing God glory. Worshiping God together in song glorifies God for at least three reasons. First, it expresses the unity Christ died to bring us. Second, because all three persons of the Trinity sing (Zeph. 3:17; Heb. 2:12; Eph. 5:18-19). Finally, it anticipates the song of heaven when we’ll have unlimited time to sing, clearer minds to perceive God’s perfections, and glorified bodies that don’t grow weary.
Worshiping God in song isn’t simply a nice idea or only for musically gifted people. The question is not, “Has God given me a voice?” but “Has God given me a song?”
If you trust in the finished work of Christ, the answer is clear: Yes!
So remember His Word, respond to His grace, and reflect on His glory.

Bob Kauflin is a pastor, songwriter, worship leader, and author of Worship Matters. Bob serves as the Director of Worship Development for Sovereign Grace Ministries and blogs at www.worshipmatters.com. He and his wife, Julie, have 6 children and an ever growing number of grandchildren.

Taken from: The Three R's: Why Christians Sing

Video Games Aren't Sinful, They're Just Stupid

2011-03-10T00:48:00.000+08:00

This is post is primarily aimed for guys, but girls you too can watch the video.

This speaker (Mark Driscoll) says video games are stupid! Why? Watch the video and see.

Guys, let's fight for what will last and what truly matters!

What Does It Look Like to Receive the New Testament for the First Time?

2011-03-06T00:36:00.003+08:00

Take 10 short minutes to see this video. Look at their gratitude at the Bible and pray that God will give us the same.

Before the throne of God above

2011-03-04T14:17:00.004+08:00

Would like to share a song with u all. It's called " Before the Throne of God above"

This songs talks about God's Throne and answer questions like:

How can Christian approach God's throne?

How can Christians stand before God? By what can we present to God?

What do Christian do when their guilt makes them run away from God?

Listen to this song!

Before the throne of God above

I have a strong and perfect plea,

A great high Priest whose Name is Love,

Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on His hands,

My name is written on His heart.

I know that while in heaven He stands

No tongue can bid me thence depart,

No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair

And tells me of the guilt within,

Upward I look and see Him there

Who made an end to all my sin.

Because the sinless Savior died

My sinful soul is counted free,

For God, the Just, is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me,

To look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there, the risen Lamb,

My perfect, spotless righteousness,

The great unchangeable I AM,

The King of glory and of grace.

One with Himself, I cannot die,

My soul is purchased by His blood.

My life is hid with Christ on high,

With Christ, my Savior and my God!

One with Himself, I cannot die,

My soul is purchased by His blood.

My life is hid with Christ on high,

With Christ, my Savior and my God!

Free Wallpaper for March

2011-03-04T13:59:00.001+08:00

Hi all,

A much delayed post!

Here are several wallpaper for March! Some previews below:

Personally, i like the 3rd one. What about u guys?

Download the larger resolution ones and find several more here:
http://www.challies.com/resources/free-desktop-wallpaper-calendars-march-2011#more

When God Forgets

2011-02-04T10:41:00.000+08:00

This is a repost from: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2011/01/22/when-god-forgets/

Good verses for us to mediate on:

“Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!”—Psalm 25:7

"求你不要记念我幼年的罪愆和我的过犯；耶和华啊，求你因你的恩惠，按你的慈爱记念我。" - 詩篇 25:7

“Do not remember against us our former iniquities; let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low.”—Psalm 79:8

"求你不要记念我们先祖的罪孽，向我们追讨；愿你的慈悲快迎着我们，因为我们落到极卑微的地步。" - 詩篇 79:8

“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”—Isaiah 43:25

"惟有我为自己的缘故涂抹你的过犯；我也不记念你的罪恶。" - 以賽亞書 43:25

“I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”—Jeremiah 31:34

"我要赦免他们的罪孽，不再记念他们的罪恶。" - 耶利米書 31:34

“For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”—Hebrews 8:12

"我要宽恕他们的不义，不再记念他们的罪愆。" - 希伯來書 8:12

“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”—Hebrews 10:17

"以後就说：我不再记念他们的罪愆和他们的过犯。" - 希伯來書 10:17

On a side note, a good book to read would be this. It's about Psalms 51, mediations on Sin and Mercy.

Wallpaper for Feb

2011-02-02T08:23:00.003+08:00

Hi all,

Just came across some wallpaper that i might be good for u all to consider having:

Below are 4 previews, there're more on the website! Go there to take a look!

Is God dissappointed?

2011-01-28T00:20:00.007+08:00

Is God disappointed?

Dr. David Powlison - Does God get upset when we disobey? from CCEF on Vimeo.

Is God disappointed? Yes.

Is there forgiveness? Yes.

Romans 5:20b "... But where sin increased, grace increased all the more"

Does God care about Good Works???

2011-01-22T01:32:00.003+08:00

This is a good video:

It's about 6+ mins. Watch on!

Godless, Godliness

2011-01-21T00:24:00.010+08:00

2 Timothy 3:1-5

" ¹ But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. ² People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, ⁴ treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. "

Fantastically faking it

Let the significance of this for your church, your small group, your marriage, and your own soul wash over you. Our capacity for deceiving others, even deceiving ourselves, is great.

You can be a lover of self, and it has the appearance of godliness
You can be a lover of money, and it has the appearance of godliness
You can be proud and arrogant and it looks like godliness
You can be ungrateful, unholy, and slanderous, looking like godliness

We could say it another way:

You can be a lover of self, and it looks like selflessness
You can be a lover of money, all the while giving the appearance of generosity
You can be proud and arrogant and it comes across as humility
You can be ungrateful and unholy and it can masquerade as gratitude and holiness

And so on.

Read more on this website: http://theresurgence.com/2011/01/05/godless-godliness

Taken? Forsaken? Expectant?

2011-01-20T21:00:00.008+08:00

This is a short clip taken from Taken.

Take a look at this scene. The story is about his daughter who was kidnapped while in Paris. He's on the phone with the kidnapper, whom he has no idea about his identity.

Why this clip?

When we see how the father promises to find the kidnapper no matter what, we know he will keep his word. Which he did, in the end.

What does it mean for us?

Jesus said these at John 14:1-3

¹ “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. ² My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

Know for certain that He is coming back, if we are able to see a movie and believe that a character will do what he promises, will we not trust more in our Saviour who has proved Himself to us?

Eagerly wait for His coming

It’s been said that some Christians are so heavenly-minded that they are no earthly good.

On the other hand, it’s also the case that some are so earthly-minded that they are not fit for heaven.

- Justin Taylor

How can i be sure I'm saved?

2011-01-19T10:57:00.006+08:00

One question that Christians will always ask themselves:

How can i be sure that I'm saved?

Read on and find out:

If we think the Bible teaches universal salvation, we may arrive at a false sense of assurance by reasoning as follows: Everybody is saved. I am a body. Therefore, I am saved.

Or, if we think salvation is gained by our own good works and we are further deluded into believing that we possess good works, we will have a false assurance of salvation.

To have sound assurance, we must understand that our salvation rests on the merit of Christ alone, which is appropriated to us when we embrace Him by genuine faith. If we understand that, the remaining question is, "Do I have the genuine faith necessary for salvation?"

Again, two more things must be understood and analyzed properly. The first is doctrinal. We need a clear understanding of what constitutes genuine saving faith. If we conceive of saving faith as existing in a vacuum, never yielding the fruit of works of obedience, we have confused saving faith with dead faith, which cannot save anyone.

The second requirement involves a sober analysis of our own lives. We must examine ourselves to see whether the fruit of regeneration is apparent in our lives. Do we have a real affection for the biblical Christ? Only the regenerate person possesses real love for the real Jesus. Next we must ask the tough question, "Does my life manifest the fruit of sanctification?" I test my faith by my works.

Taken from "Rejecting False Assurances" by Ligonier Ministries (used by permission).

Taken from:http://www.jesus.org/following-jesus/repentance-faith-and-salvation/how-can-i-be-sure-im-saved.html

Wallpaper

2011-01-17T22:45:00.002+08:00

Hi all,

Wallpaper available for u all to use:

http://theresurgence.com/series/wallpapers

For those iphone/ipod users:

http://theresurgence.com/2009/11/01/scripture-wallpapers

Obessed with Facebook?

2011-01-15T10:20:00.008+08:00

Since we are on a media fast, let us ask ourselves these questions:
1. Are you spending more time with the computer than with people?
2. Do you set boundaries on how long you use the computer? And if you do, do you find that you can’t abide by your own boundaries?
3. When people ask you about how much time you're spending on the computer, do you lie to them about it?
4. When you first see the media fast do you feel that unable to live without the computer/internet? During the media fast, do you have urges to go online (e.g. facebook) that you have to keep under control?

Be warned, this are signs of addiction to the internet!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are we too obessed with facebook? Take a look at it below:

Via: Online Schools

And a second article to read:
From: http://www.challies.com/technology/700-billion-minutes

Seven hundred billion minutes. That’s how much time Facebook’s 500 million active users spend on the site every month. 700,000,000,000 minutes. Let that one sink in for a moment. Every month we spend the equivalent of 1.3 million years on Facebook; the equivalent of nearly 18,000 lifetimes. More than half of us login every single day; we average 130 friends. And we spend vast amounts of time on there.

Facebook now offers 900 million different objects or pages for us to interact with—groups, events, community pages, and so on. We upload over 3 billion photographs every month (which means we’re uploading millions every hour).

Do you know what really blows my mind about all of this? Facebook is only 7 years old. Most of us have joined in only the past 2 or 3 years. The growth charts are out of this world:

So think about this one. Four years ago most of us did not use Facebook at all. And today we are using it compulsively. A recent study of media habits found that about 1/3 of women between 18 and 34 check Facebook before they even go to the bathroom in the morning; 21% check it in the middle of the night; half of them admit that they are addicted to it. Meanwhile the older generations, those in their 40’s and 50’s, are also migrating to social media; they now represent the fastest-growing population.

But again, 4 years ago most of us did not use it at all. We may have heard the name, but it was just a name. Today it’s a way of life. What’s important to think about is the fact that Facebook is not a site that offers us a better way of doing what we were already doing. It’s not like most of us were on another social media site and we then migrated once Facebook came along (with young people being a possible exception; many of them migrated from MySpace to Facebook). For the majority of us, Facebook is a new thing. Those 700 billion minutes are not minutes that we’ve taken away from other online pursuits. They are minutes that we’ve taken away from real life. Studies show that time spent interacting online comes at the expense of face-to-face relationships and about at a 2:1 ratio. So every hour we spend on Facebook comes at the expense of 30 minutes talking to a person face-to-face. 700 billion minutes are costing us 350 billion minutes of face time. And all of this for something we were living very well without just a few years ago.

This all begs the question: what are we actually doing with our Facebook time? Is what we do there significant enough that it merits the time we dedicate to it? What are we accomplishing with all of those minutes? What do you accomplish with your share of those 700 billion minutes?

A while back I suggested that we might be able to tell what our idols are by looking in our pockets and seeing what we need to have with us all the time. We can also tell what our idols are by seeing where we are spending our minutes and our days. There is clearly something about Facebook that has captivated us, something about it that has drawn us in. For many of us, it is now the place where we live our lives—18,000 of those life times every month.

True Freedom?

2011-01-13T17:12:00.004+08:00

One re-post of an article from: http://theresurgence.com/2011/01/12/freedom-from-fear

So what's the Christian understand of freedom? Read on, especially on the 5 points and also on how Christian find obedience hard, essentially, that is driven by fear!

We cannot underestimate the importance of freedom in our lives. Freedom is one of the top reasons Jesus came to earth: “For freedom Christ has set us free...” (Galatians 5:1).

But what does freedom mean?

What freedom isn't

The ability to do what we want. This certainly would be freeing, but God is not calling us to do whatever we want. We can’t escape his moral law and somehow think there won’t be consequences.

The ability to do as we ought. We are now free to do the things we were created to do. But this definition still lacks because we are gold mixed with impurities. Yes, we have the power to do as we ought, but we don’t ALWAYS do right because sin is still residing in us.

An emotional expression during the music portion of a worship service. Freedom in this definition is raising hands, waving a flag, or singing loud. While I applaud anyone who can be uninhibited when the congregation is singing, this is a silly definition of freedom — not very compelling.

True freedom

Freedom is no longer having to obey fear; fear is no longer our master. We are uninhibited to be bold, to step out in faith, to risk. Irreligion produces fear because the weight of guilt and having to trust in yourself is too much for our fragile souls. Religion produces fear because we are afraid we haven’t done everything right; that the slightest error may restrain the hand of God’s blessing.

Enslaved by fear

Christ has set us free from fear. The importance of this cannot be overstated because fear is our biggest slave master; and here are our top 5 greatest fears (adapted from Marcus Buckingham):

The Fear of Death — we have a need for security
The Fear of Being Alone — we have a need for community
The Fear of the Future — we have a need for clarity
The Fear of Chaos — we have a need for authority
The Fear of Insignificance — we have a need for respect.

“Religion produces fear because we are afraid we haven’t done everything right; that the slightest error may restrain the hand of God’s blessing. ”

Think of how these fears guide our life! Our hearts respond to every one of these fears in different ways, and each individual responds to one fear more than others (for instance, I am more afraid of insignificance than I am of death). Our response is often driven by unbelief, which leads to captivity.

Fear in the every day

Some of us are so afraid of death we become overly obsessed about health, germs, and safety, consequently choosing who we will help based on security and not based on love.

Others of us are so afraid of insignificance any criticism feels like an attack and we lose relationships when people challenge us.

Jesus bought our freedom

Redemption from this captivity is part of Jesus’ main work. If we examine those five fears with the eyes of faith, we can see Jesus is the answer to them all:

He is our security, even in death, because Jesus took away condemnation in death.
He is our community — he promises never to leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5)
He is our future — he controls the future and has prepared a place for us
He is our authority — all authority on heaven and earth is his (Matthew 28:18). He is accomplishing all things according to his plan.
He is our significance — Jesus alone validates and justifies our life.

Repentence

2011-01-12T02:15:00.004+08:00

Hi all, a post on repentence.

Q. What is repentance unto life?

A. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism, #87.

Two observations:

One, the motive for repentance is not only sorrow for sin but also a sense of the mercy of God in Christ. We have zero motivation to repent unless we see the mercy of God awaiting us. Not the slap of God but the embrace of God. Repentance is not just turning from sin; it is also turning to God with a bright hope in his mercy.

Two, the outcome of repentance is not a restored status quo, getting back to “normal,” getting back to where we were before we sinned. The outcome is new obedience, unprecedented obedience, perhaps unheard-of obedience. Newness of life.

True repentance is hope-inspired and newness-creating.

Taken from: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/rayortlund/2011/01/04/what-is-true-repentance/

One little thing i might add, repentance is that which we have to / will do everyday of our lives till the day we die or when Jesus returns. So don't give up when you see yourself failing, we will only stop sinning when Jesus removes our sin totally from us.

It is not sinning that ruins men, but sinning and not repenting, falling and not getting up again. - Matthew Henry

Sheeps

2011-01-08T00:26:00.003+08:00

Hi, came across this interesting article that i thought would be good for me to share with all of you. Enjoy!

Sheep: "This time it's personal"

Throughout Scripture, sinners in general, and God’s people in particular, are described as sheep. And those God sends to lead them are equally frequently called shepherds. Today we will look at the character of the sheep, and tomorrow at the character of the shepherd. We start with the sheep because the key to leading as a shepherd is in understanding the nature of sheep.

I pastored for 12 years in the Scottish Highlands. During that time, I was surrounded by sheep: sheep on the roads, sheep on the mountains, sheep on the beeches, sheep in my yard. O, yes, and sometimes sheep in the shepherds' fields. My study on the Isle of Lewis was 12 inches away from a field full of sheep. Sometimes at night I would look up from my computer and see many pairs of luminous green eyes staring at me through my window! I got to know sheep pretty well. What did I learn?

1. Sheep are foolish
I don’t know what sheep would score in an animal IQ, but I think they would be close to the bottom of the scale. They seem to only know how to do one thing well – eat grass (and produce more grass-eating sheep).

It's possible to know little, yet not be foolish; but not if you are a sheep. They are so irrational. You watch them as they pause in front of a stream. They know they can’t jump it or swim it. So what do they do? They jump in anyway!

2. Sheep are slow to learn
Every shepherd will tell you countless stories about how sheep can be taught a very painful lesson, and yet fail to learn the painful lesson. A sheep may get caught in barbed wire trying to break through a fence. And the next day it will try it again, and again,…

3. Sheep are unattractive
Some animals may not be very bright, but make up for it with grace and elegance in their movement and actions. But sheep are so awkward, so lacking in agility and dignity. Although some shepherds may tell you differently, to most outside observers sheep are dirty, smelly, and ugly.

4. Sheep are demanding
Ever watch a lamb suckle its mother? Almost as soon as it is born, it is violently sucking its mother’s udders. And that insatiable demand never leaves them. They demand grass, grass, and more grass; day after day, and night after night. (Do they ever sleep?) And when snow is on the ground, they aggressively demand food from the shepherd. Just listen to them bleat if their troughs are empty even for a short time. And watch the life-or-death stampede when the shepherd appears.

5. Sheep are stubborn
Have you ever tried to move a sheep? It’s like trying to move an elephant. Ever watched a shepherd try to manoeuvre a sheep into a fold or a dip-tank. It’s like trying to wrestle with a devil. Half a dozen sheep invaded my garden once. I thought it would be easy to hustle them out the wide gate again. But it was as if an electric shield (visible only to sheep) stretched across the gap. I could get them to go anywhere and everywhere, but through that gate.

6. Sheep are strong
I’ve watched the most macho of men beaten by sheep. You look at their skinny “arms” and “legs” and think “easy.” Next thing you are flat on your back or face down in the dirt. I’ve been flattened by running sheep. It was like getting run over by a tank.

7. Sheep are straying
Perhaps the main reason Scripture chooses sheep to characterize us, more than any other animal, is because of its well-deserved reputation for straying (Isa. 53:6) and getting lost (Lk. 15:3-7). So many times I was out in the middle of nowhere when I would come across a sheep – miles from anyone and anything - and totally unconcerned. I would look up on a cliff and there was a sheep out on a lethal ledge. Other times, when fishing miles from anywhere, I would come across ditches and bogs with the decaying remains of a wandering sheep, and I’d think, “How did that get out here?”

8. Sheep are unpredictable
If you travel along the roads of the Scottish Highlands you will soon learn to expect the unexpected. You look ahead on a quiet piece of long straight road with no cars. You spy sheep in the distance on the side of the road. They watch you driving along towards them. Hundreds of yards pass. You are almost level. Well, they aren’t going to cross the road now, are they? Screeeeeech! Well, what do you know!

9. Sheep are copycats
OK, bit of a mix of metaphors here, but I think you get my point. When one sheep decides to start running, they all decide to start running. If you were able to ask one, “Why did you start running?” it would say, “Well, because he started running.” The next would say the same. And the next one. And when you got to the last sheep he would just say, “I dunno.”

10. Sheep are restless
It always puzzled me how little sheep slept. I would be in my study at midnight, look out, and there they were still eating grass. And no matter what time I arose in the morning – 3am or 5am – they would still be eating grass.

Other times, there would be a beautiful summer evening when everything was still and quiet and you would come across a field full of sprinting sheep (usually due to the Scottish midges – look it up on Google).

I once heard that for sheep to lie down they need freedom from fear, freedom from friction with others, freedom from hunger, and freedom from pests and parasites. From what I’ve seen, that combination is very rare.

11. Sheep are dependent
Some animals can cope and thrive without any close supervision. Not sheep. They are very dependent on their shepherd. They cannot live without him (or her).

12. Sheep are the same everywhere
I’ve been in a number of different countries in my life and enjoyed the many cultural differences. But sheep are the one constant - in character if not in looks. The American sheep is the same as the African sheep (see 1-11 above), which is the same as the Asian sheep, which is the same as...

The shepherd is a sheep
Well, of course, this is not a zoology lecture, nor an agricultural seminar. The sheep metaphor reveals the nature of the sinner, even the saved sinner, and hence the difficulty of the task facing the shepherd.

And the greatest difficulty of all stems from the fact that the shepherd is also a sheep! It might be easy for pastors to read this post and say, "Hey that sounds like my congregation!" But it also sounds uncomfortably too much like you (and me) as well doesn't it!

So how does a sheep-like-shepherd shepherd sheep?

That's one for tomorrow.

Taken from: http://headhearthand.posterous.com/sheep-this-time-its-personal

Luther: The 40-Year-Old Virgin?

2010-11-05T00:08:00.004+08:00

Read on about this 40-Year-Old Virgin called Martin Luther, a key figure in Church History.

This is a re-post from :http://theresurgence.com/2010/09/28/luther-the-40-year-old-virgin

If you want to read up on it, click on the link end.

Luther: The 40-Year-Old Virgin?

Justin Taylor » Family Marriage Home Dating Dead Guys Church History

View the Luther and Marriage series

Martin Luther never thought he’d get married. He lived in a big bachelor pad, a former monastery, with a cool name—the Black Cloister. Luther didn’t do much to attract himself to the ladies. He wrote, “Before I was married the bed was not made for a whole year and became foul with sweat.” Luther also had some serious digestive issues. He bragged, “If I break wind in Wittenberg they smell it in Rome.” He even thought his flatulence was a tool of spiritual warfare that could ward off the devil from his attacks!

Now before you think that Luther himself was an example of frat-boy “delayed adolescence,” just remember that God used him to change the church forever, start the Reformation, and each week his writing equaled about the length of one New Testament. He can be excused for having a stinky bed!

Heroic Reformer—and Still Human

Luther was a heroic reformer—a larger-than-life figure from church history. But he was also human. He wrote to his buddy Spalatin that he wasn’t immune to sexual desires, and in a sermon on Isaac’s marriage to Rebekah at age forty, he remarked—presumably from firsthand knowledge—that “to bear and to overcome [sexual desires] until the age of forty is truly a grievous and great burden.”

Luther may have been the original 40-year-old virgin.

A Bachelor Preaching About Marriage

So why didn’t he want to get married? He certainly urged others to do so. But when Luther got up each morning, he literally didn’t know if it would be his last day on earth. Pursuing a wife would likely mean creating a widow.

Even though he was a bachelor, Luther wrote and preached a lot about marriage. He accused the monasteries of being worse than brothels because of the sin he saw in forcing people to take vows of singleness and celibacy in a legalistic way.

The nuns inside the convents started secretly reading Luther on the importance of marriage. He was urging family and friends to help break them out—an act that could be punishable by death.

An Escape Plan

The nuns at Marienthron wrote a secret letter to Luther, asking for his help. They gave it to Leonhard Koppe, a 59-year-old merchant who delivered barrels of fish to the convent each night. When Luther got the letter, he came up with a plan.

In the early morning hours of Easter 1523, Koppe’s team of horses pulled a covered wagon filled with fish barrels through the gate of the convent and he made his delivery. But as his covered wagon pulled away from the convent, no one knew that the apparently empty fish barrels were carrying twelve runaway nuns!

One of them would become Luther’s wife.

To be continued.


Want to find out more about Martin Luther?
Go to this link: http://theresurgence.com/series/luther-and-marriage

Can Satan know what we're thinking?

2010-10-13T01:28:00.002+08:00

Here's an interesting question to think about:

Can Satan hear what we say and know our thoughts? Should we avoid praying out loud because Satan might hear us?

How would you answer this question?

Think about it, then click the link, to see the answer.

There's more answers to many more questions on the website. Do search for your answers there!

http://www.gty.org/Resources/Questions/QA189

Don't trade your infinite joy for something else that is less

2010-10-13T01:27:00.003+08:00

Watch this video, then, go to the link, to read the short article.

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased

http://theresurgence.com/2010/10/03/trade-in-your-mud-pies

Why fight?

2010-10-12T00:44:00.004+08:00

Hi all, this is a repost from a blog that i just read. I think it's helpful for us. Especially when we're thinking about our spiritual health.

Taken from: http://www.challies.com/guest-bloggers/transformed

Transformed!

Tim Challies
10/11/10
0

It is Thanksgiving in Canada today. And while I’m stuffing myself with turkey and other stuff, I’m turning the blog over to a guest blogger. Nancy Leigh DeMoss prepared this article, a look at the way spiritual change takes place in the life of the Christian. As it happens, I’ll be spending this coming weekend in Fort Worth with Nancy and her ministry for the True Woman conference.

*****

Recently I ran into a woman I had not seen for several weeks. I hardly recognized her. Her hair, normally blonde, had turned completely white. The transformation was dramatic. All it took was forty minutes and some bleach.

If only spiritual transformation were that easy. Just read a book, see a counselor, attend a conference, make a fresh commitment, shed a few tears at an altar, memorize a few verses … and, presto, out comes a mature, godly Christian.

To the contrary, the experience of many believers looks like this.

Commit. Fail. Confess.
Re-commit. Fail again. Confess again.
Re-re-commit. Fail again. Give up.

After all the struggle and effort, we tend to want a “quick fix”—a once-for-all victory—so we won’t have to keep wrestling with the same old issues.

In my own walk with God, I have discovered some helpful principles about how spiritual change takes place.

1. Deep, lasting spiritual change rarely happens overnight. It is a process that involves training, testing, and time. There are no shortcuts.

We hear of people being dramatically delivered from drug or alcohol addiction, and we may wonder, “Why doesn’t God do that for me? Why do I have to struggle with this food addiction, with lust, worry, and anger?”

Before the children of Israel could possess the Promised Land, they had to drive out the pagan nations that occupied Canaan. Ultimate victory was assured if they would “trust and obey,” but it would take time. “I will not drive them out in a single year,” God said. “Little by little, I will drive them out before you” (Exodus 23:29-30).

God is committed to winning the hearts and developing the character of His people. That requires a process.

2. Spiritual change requires desire. We must ask ourselves: Do I really want to change, or am I content to remain as I am? How important is it to me to be like Jesus? What price am I willing to pay to be godly?

Godly desires are nurtured by prayer and by meditation on Christ, who is the object of our desire. As I read the Scripture and gaze on the Lord Jesus, I find my heart longing to be like Him—humble, holy, compassionate, surrendered to the will of God, and sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit.

When our desire to be holy is greater than our willingness to stay where we are, we have taken a big step toward spiritual transformation.

3. Spiritual change flows out of an intimate relationship with Jesus. The more we love Him, the greater will be our motivation to obey Him and to make the choices that please Him.

The ultimate issue in life is who or what we worship. The process of true change takes place as we are weaned from our love and worship of self, pleasure, and this world, and our hearts become wholly devoted to Christ.

4. Spiritual change requires discipline. I can remember sitting in tiny, windowless practice rooms for hours on end as a college student, playing the same piece of music over and over again. I knew I would never reach my goal—to make beautiful music—without that rigorous discipline.

Discipline for the purpose of godliness is not the same as self-effort. Rather, it means consciously cooperating with the Holy Spirit—yielding to Him so He can conform us to the image of Christ.

The problem is, we want the outcome without the process. We want victory without the warfare.

It is futile to pray and hope for spiritual change, while sitting glued to a television set or neglecting the means God has provided for our growth in grace. Bible study, meditation, worship, prayer, fasting, accountability, and obedience are disciplines that produce a harvest of righteousness in our lives.

Spiritual change is brought about by the Holy Spirit, as we exercise faith and obedience. There were occasions when God promised to drive out Israel’s enemies for them. But sometimes He said, “You must drive out the enemy.” Sometimes God said, “I will fight for you.” At other times, He said, “You must fight.”

So which is it? Does God do the fighting, while we “rest in Him,” or do we have to fight against the enemies of our souls? According to Scripture, the answer is, Yes. “Work out your salvation … for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Philippians 2:12-13).

True spiritual change is initiated and enabled by the indwelling Spirit of God; it is all of grace, which we receive as we persevere in humility, obedience, and faith.

5. Spiritual change is possible (and assured) because of the new life we received when we were born again. According to God’s Word, at the point of regeneration, we became “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). For the believer, holy living is not a matter of trying harder, but of walking in the reality of a supernatural change that has already taken place.

Sanctification is the process by which the change God has wrought within us is worked out in our daily experience, as “we are being transformed into [Christ’s] likeness” (2 Corinthians 3:18). It is a life-long—and sometimes painful—process. But we have the confidence that one day the transformation will be complete and “we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

The Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment of Spiritual Dehydration

2010-09-27T02:12:00.006+08:00

This is a great post. Do take time to read it through, i think it's questions that we often ask.
See the treatment to it and apply it!

The Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment of Spiritual Dehydration
by C.J. Mahaney 9/21/2010 10:18:00 AM

Let me begin this post by asking you four direct questions about the condition of your soul right now:

Do you sense that your affections for the Savior have diminished recently?
Has your appetite for Scripture weakened?
Does your soul seem dry?
Does God seem distant from you?

If so, you are not alone. These struggles are common to even the most mature Christians—so common that Scripture anticipates them. But these are serious problems and must be addressed and not ignored. They don’t just go away over time.

So how should we respond?

Tucked away in the short (and often neglected) letter of Jude we find help and hope:

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. (Jude 1:20–21)

In these verses we find a command and three practical ways to obey the command.

The command

First, the command: "Keep yourselves in the love of God." This is our responsibility and it requires effort on our part. The good news is that Jude doesn’t leave us guessing. One commentator writes, “Jude did not leave his congregation in suspense about how to keep themselves in God’s love.”[1]

No, he does not leave us in suspense or wondering how to do this. In fact Jude wonderfully provides us with three means by which the reader can keep himself in the love of God.

1. Remind yourself of the gospel (“building yourselves up in your most holy faith”).

The “most holy faith” is the gospel. And the first way we keep ourselves in the love of God is to grow in our understanding of the gospel and to remind ourselves of the gospel each day. There is no more effective way to keep yourself in the love of God each day than to remind yourself of the gospel.

As you meditate upon the gospel, as you preach the gospel to yourself, as you receive the gospel into your soul afresh each day, your awareness of the love of God increases and your affection for the Savior grows.

So how much time do you devote each day to the strategic study, thinking, meditation, contemplation, reflection, and proclamation of the gospel to your own soul as a means of keeping yourself in the love of God?

Review the content of the gospel, rehearse the content of this “most holy faith,” and rejoice in the gospel each and every day. What a sweet assignment! And as we do this we are keeping ourselves in the love of God.

2. Pray in the Holy Spirit (“praying in the Holy Spirit”).

An awareness of God’s love cannot be sustained without prayer. Nor can a relationship with God be maintained or cultivated apart from prayer. So Jude commands us to pray. In dependence upon the Spirit, we pray to God the Father, through the Mediator he has provided in Jesus Christ.

We pray to God at the beginning of the day. We pray at structured times in our day. We pray spontaneously throughout the day. Prayer is not only a discipline it is a means of keeping ourselves in the love of God. This perspective will transform our perspective of prayer and our practice of prayer.

3. Await Christ’s return (“waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life”).

Waiting is not my preference. I don’t believe in lines! I try to avoid waiting in lines at the grocery store and I try to avoid traffic on the road. In fact I’d rather be moving in the wrong direction than stuck in traffic going in the right direction.

On the other hand, I don’t mind waiting 45 minutes for a table when I’m at a restaurant on a date with my wife. Why not? For the next 45 minutes I will look into the eyes of the woman I love with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. There’s a big difference between waiting in line at the grocery store and waiting 45 minutes to be seated when I’m at a restaurant with my wife.

As Christians we wait. But we await the mercy of our Savior that brings eternal life. Think about that! We do not wait for God’s judgment or condemnation. We do no wait for God’s wrath that our sins deserve! No, we are anticipating mercy. We anticipate mercy because Jesus Christ suffered as our substitute, receiving upon himself the wrath we deserve so that we receive mercy—mercy we don’t deserve. That is what we are waiting for.

As we anticipate the future our perspective of present circumstances will be transformed. It will keep us aware of God’s love. On the other hand, "Those who take their eyes off their future hope will find that their love for God is slowly evaporating.”[2]

So are you waiting with eager anticipation? How often do you think about Christ’s return (Titus 2:13)? How often do you think of the new heavens and the new earth (Revelation 21:1–4)? How often do you think of eternal life? And how often do you think about the mercy you will receive in light of the judgment that we so richly deserve?

This eternal perspective will keep us aware of God’s love.

Reminding, praying, waiting—this is how we remain aware of God’s love.

Kept

To be honest my grip upon God is sometimes weak. I don’t flawlessly keep myself in the love of God daily. I don’t. My love for Him fluctuates. But while my love for him is uncertain, His love for me is fixed. We keep ourselves in the love of God because God is keeping us in his grasp.

Both at the beginning of this short letter (v. 1) and near the end (v. 24), Jude reminds us that our safety is in the Father’s hold upon us and his preserving grace. As Puritan Richard Sibbes once wrote, “As we say of the mother and the child, both hold, but the safety of the child is at that the mother holds him.”

His grip never weakens.

When I neglect the means that He has given me to keep myself in the love of God, when my grip upon him weakens and my love fluctuates, His grip upon me does not weaken and never changes.

God promises to “keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (v. 24). This promise is an enormous assurance for our souls, and especially for those who feel as if their love for God has diminished. Receive this assurance provided from Jude: Our hearts may shift and change but God’s love for you is unchanging. May we keep ourselves aware of God’s unchanging love toward us in the gospel.

Conclusion

If we fail to attend to our hearts, if we fail to attend to our relationship with God, if we fail to obey this gracious command to “keep ourselves in the love of God,” the consequences upon our souls are inevitable. The consequences may not be immediately obvious, but a persisting pattern of neglect will become obvious in time.

So have your affections for the Savior diminished? If so, ask yourself these questions from Jude:

Am I preaching the gospel to my own soul each day?
Am I praying with any level of consistency?
Am I eagerly awaiting Christ’s return and am I longing for heaven?

---------------------------

For more on this topic see C.J.'s recent sermon "Jude: A Call to Contend," at Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, MN (Sept. 12, 2010).

---------------------------

Notes:
[1] Tom Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude (NAC), p. 474.
[2] Tom Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude (NAC), p. 484.

Post taken from: http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/Blog/post/CJ-Mahaney-Spiritual-Dehydration-Jude.aspx

Day of Atonement

2010-09-19T17:59:00.003+08:00

Hi all,

yesterday (18/10) was the Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement where the priest would sacrifice lambs and sprinkle it's blood to atone for the sins of the people.

Saw this video online and thought it would give us a deeper understanding of Christ being the sacrificial lamb.

The Sacrificial Lamb from SourceFlix on Vimeo.

Acts 8:31-35

³⁰Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked.

³¹"How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

³²The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
"He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
³³In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.

³⁴The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" ³⁵Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

quote on discipline.

2010-09-19T01:04:00.002+08:00

Hi all,

i happened to see this quote posted by others after men xun today. Thought it'll be a good summary to our lesson.

If, then, you would deal wisely with your child, you must not leave him to the guidance of his own will...You do not let him decide what he shall eat, and what he shall drink, and how he shall be clothed. Be consistent, and deal with his mind in like manner. - J.C. Ryle,

Christianity, A Peace-Fueled Battle

2010-09-16T22:58:00.004+08:00

Hi all, just read a really good blog and thought it'll be good to share with you all. It's not very long... hope it'll deepen your knowledge!

Christianity, A Peace-Fueled Battle

Paul told Timothy, “Wage the good warfare” (1 Tim 1:18; cf. 6:12). A few verses later the apostle lauds the value of “a quiet and peaceful life” (2:2). Jesus told his disciples in Luke’s Gospel to count the cost and likened considering discipleship to considering war (Luke 14:25–33). Yet the opening and closing announcement of Luke is that of peace (Luke 2:14; 24:36).

Evidently Christianity is war and peace. Both.

Some of us tend to view the Christian life as peace without war. An illustration may help make the point. On April 20, 1945, days before his suicide, Adolf Hitler celebrated his 56th birthday with a tea party. Quietly and safely stowed away in the Reich bunker with a ceiling 18 feet thick, he was “seemingly unaware,” one writer says, “of the war raging around him.” Two days later Hitler announced that he would never be leaving the bunker. Like the dictator, some of us live, sipping tea, unaware of the war raging around us.

Others of us tend to view the Christian life as war without peace. Five months before Hitler’s death, Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda was sent to the Philippines and ordered to slow the enemy’s advance and not surrender under any circumstances. Onoda was buried so deep in the jungle that he never got word when the war ended in late summer 1945. Thinking that the news leaflets dropped into the jungle announcing the war’s end were allied propaganda intended to trick him, Onoda remained in the jungle. Until 1974. Taking pot shots at civilians, engaging with police, and stealing food from farms, Onoda was unfazed by the repeated attempts to convince him that the war was over. He only surrendered—30 years having passed—when his former commanding officer, Major Taniguchi, was flown in to order Onoda to lay down his arms. Like Onoda, some of us live, tense and frenetic, unaware of the peace that has been announced.

Hitler denied the real war he was in. Onoda denied the real peace that had come. The same two imbalances show up in Scripture. Second Peter and Jude combat those who declare peace without war by wrongly teaching grace to be a license for sin. Galatians and Colossians combat those who declare war without peace by wrongly re-enslaving believers with a “Jesus-plus” mindset.

Healthy Christianity requires deep awareness of both the war we are in and the peace that has come.

But how do they fit together?

By understanding that the gospel’s announcement of peace is not a denial of, but the fundamental weapon in, our war against sin. The gospel of peace lets us sigh—not yawn, but sigh. And (counterintuitively) it is in the wake of this sigh that true spiritual tenacity ignites. The only way to successfully engage in Christian battle is the assurance that the war is, in the most important sense, already over. It’s been decided. The peace treaty has been signed. And the weapon with which we now wage war is our cross-bought peace. Christianity is peace-fueled battle. All struggling divorced from gospel peace is counterproductive, like struggling in quicksand.

“Just war” theory says that we must sometimes go to war in order to secure peace. The gospel is the reverse. Peace has been secured so that we can now do real battle in the greatest war of all, the war against sin, Satan, death, and hell. In Adam we were at peace with sin and at war with God, a war that cannot be won. In Christ we are at peace with God and at war with sin, a war that cannot be lost.

In the gospel our eyes are opened to our sinfulness, against which we must declare war. But in the gospel our eyes are also opened to the Christ-won peace that transforms what would otherwise be a futile struggle against sin into a strenuousness that is, through faith, strangely relaxed.

Which is how Paul himself put it to Timothy. “Wage the good warfare, holding faith” (1 Tim 1:18–19). “Fight the good fight of faith” (6:12).

Dane Ortlund (PhD, Wheaton College) is Senior Editor of Bible at Crossway Books in Wheaton, Illinois, where he lives with his wife, Stacey, and two boys. Dane blogs regularly at Strawberry-Rhubarb Theology.

Taken from: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2010/09/15/christianity-a-peace-fueled-battle/

Are Christians Meant to Feel Guilty All the Time? - Repost from elsewhere

2010-07-11T00:16:00.006+08:00

Are Christians Meant to Feel Guilty All the Time?

This is a excerpt/summary of what is posted by another christian blogger; Kelvin DeYoung. Do click on the link to read more.

"How do we feel guilty? Let me count the ways.

We could pray more.
We aren’t bold enough in evangelism.
We watch movies and television too often.
Our quiet times are too short or too sporadic.
We don’t give enough.
We could use our time better.
We could live some place harder or in something smaller.

Here’s the tricky part: we should feel guilty sometimes, because sometimes we are guilty of sin. Moreover, complacency as Christians is a real danger, especially in America.

But yet, I don’t believe God redeemed us through the blood of his Son that we might feel like constant failures.

So why do so many Christian feel guilty all the time?

1. We don’t fully embrace the good news of the gospel. We forget that we have been made alive together with Christ. We have been raised with him. We have been saved through faith alone. And this is the gift of God, not a result of works (Eph. 2:4-8).

2. Christians tend to motivate each other by guilt rather than grace. Instead of urging our fellow believers to be who they are in Christ, we command them to do more for Christ (see Rom. 6:5-14 for the proper motivation). So we see Christlikeness as something we are royally screwing up, when we should it as something we already possess but need to grow into.

3. Most of our low-level guilt falls under the ambiguous category of “not doing enough.” Look at the list above. None one of the items are necessarily sinful. They all deal with possible infractions, perceptions, and ways in which we’d like to do more.

4. When we are truly guilty of sin it is imperative we repent and receive God’s mercy. This underlines one of the great dangers with constant guilt: we learn to ignore our consciences. If we are truly sinning, we need to repent and implore the Lord to help us change.

As a pastor this means I don’t expect that everyone in my congregation should feel awful about everything I ever preach on.

Faithful preaching does not require that sincere Christians feel miserable all the time. In fact, the best preaching ought to make sincere Christians see more of Christ and experience more of his grace.

Deeper grace will produce better gratitude, which means less guilt. And that’ s a good thing all the way around.

Dug Down Deep

2010-04-02T22:54:00.012+08:00

Watch this cool video below!

This video was based on this book, Dug Down Deep by Joshua Harris.

What is this book about? Theology, the study of God. One statement that he made that I thought had impact was this "We're all theologians. The question is whether what we know about God is true."

Isn't this true? All of us have our idea of what God is/should be/will be/should have been, that makes us theologians, we have our idea about God. But are these notions true? People who see no value in studying the Word of God seriously make serious errors about their understanding of God, man, sin and Christ.

And for those who think such things are boring? Have you tried studying theology and looking at what it means for your life? Try studying it, don't just think that it's a dry topic, full of head knowledge stuffs. You might be surprised at what you will be able to get out of it.