Sunday, June 7, 2009
Anyone (like Barack Obama) entertaining ideas of western democracies establishing friendly relations with the radicals of the Islamic world should watch this video.While watching the inflammatory rhetoric of the speaker, remember that this is not a Jihadists from Iran but a professor from Kuwait - a country with every reason to be grateful to the USA for liberating it from the tyranny of Saddam Husseins invasion.
Close
The Way You Look At Things
Way You Look At Things
One day a father and his rich family took his son to a trip to the country with the firm purpose to show him how poor people can be. They spent a day and a night in the farm of a very poor family. When they got back from their trip the father asked his son, “How was the trip?”
“Very good Dad!” replied his son.
“Did you see how poor people can be?” the father asked.
“Yeah!”
“And what did you learn?”
The son answered, “I saw that we have a dog at home, and they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of the garden; they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lamps in the garden; they have the stars. Our patio reaches to the front yard, they have a whole horizon.” When the little boy was finishing, his father was speechless.
His son added, “Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are!”
Our outlook on life depends on the way you look at things. What others may think as riches, others may want.
The most important things in life are your friends, family, health, good humor and a positive attitude towards life. If you have these then you have everything!
One day a father and his rich family took his son to a trip to the country with the firm purpose to show him how poor people can be. They spent a day and a night in the farm of a very poor family. When they got back from their trip the father asked his son, “How was the trip?”
“Very good Dad!” replied his son.
“Did you see how poor people can be?” the father asked.
“Yeah!”
“And what did you learn?”
The son answered, “I saw that we have a dog at home, and they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of the garden; they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lamps in the garden; they have the stars. Our patio reaches to the front yard, they have a whole horizon.” When the little boy was finishing, his father was speechless.
His son added, “Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are!”
Our outlook on life depends on the way you look at things. What others may think as riches, others may want.
The most important things in life are your friends, family, health, good humor and a positive attitude towards life. If you have these then you have everything!
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Hamas, In Their Own Words
Hamas is a terrorist organization in which it is determined to eliminate the Jews, Christians, and America. Obama administration approved $900 million aid to rebuild Gaza using a UN NGOs that uses Hamas members as employees. Obama also approved a fast track immigration of refugees from Gaza to the US most of which are Hamas members. No one is hearing about this in US libral pro-Islamic propaganda.
Sharks In Your Life
Sharks In Your Life
p/s: Nice for sermon illustration
The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades.
So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste.
To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price.
So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste.
The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish. So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan? How Japanese managed to keep the fish fresh?
To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish are challenged.
Have you realized that some of us are also living in a pond but most of the time tired & dull, so we need a Shark in our life to keep us awake and moving? Basically in our lives Sharks are new challenges to keep us active and taste better….. The more intelligent, persistent and competent you are, the more you enjoy a challenge.
If your challenges are the correct size, and if you are steadily conquering those challenges, you are Conqueror.. You think of your challenges and get energized. You are excited to try new solutions. You have fun. You are alive!
Recommendations for us:
1. Instead of avoiding challenges, jump into them. Beat the heck out of them. Enjoy the game. If your challenges are too large or too numerous, do not give up. Failing makes you tired. Instead, reorganize. Find more determination, more knowledge, more help.
2. God didn’t promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but he did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears and light for the way.
3. Disappointments are like road bumps, they slow you down a bit but you enjoy the smooth road afterwards. Don’t stay on the bumps too long. Move on!
4. When you feel down because you didn’t get what you want, just sit tight and be happy, because God has thought of something better to give you. When something happens to you, good or bad, consider what it means. There’s a purpose to life’s events, to teach you how to laugh more or not to cry too hard.
5. No one can go back and make a brand new start. But anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
p/s: Nice for sermon illustration
The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades.
So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste.
To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price.
So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste.
The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish. So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan? How Japanese managed to keep the fish fresh?
To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish are challenged.
Have you realized that some of us are also living in a pond but most of the time tired & dull, so we need a Shark in our life to keep us awake and moving? Basically in our lives Sharks are new challenges to keep us active and taste better….. The more intelligent, persistent and competent you are, the more you enjoy a challenge.
If your challenges are the correct size, and if you are steadily conquering those challenges, you are Conqueror.. You think of your challenges and get energized. You are excited to try new solutions. You have fun. You are alive!
Recommendations for us:
1. Instead of avoiding challenges, jump into them. Beat the heck out of them. Enjoy the game. If your challenges are too large or too numerous, do not give up. Failing makes you tired. Instead, reorganize. Find more determination, more knowledge, more help.
2. God didn’t promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but he did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears and light for the way.
3. Disappointments are like road bumps, they slow you down a bit but you enjoy the smooth road afterwards. Don’t stay on the bumps too long. Move on!
4. When you feel down because you didn’t get what you want, just sit tight and be happy, because God has thought of something better to give you. When something happens to you, good or bad, consider what it means. There’s a purpose to life’s events, to teach you how to laugh more or not to cry too hard.
5. No one can go back and make a brand new start. But anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Prayers and effects on health and diseases?
As a health care professional, this article published in Christianity Today website this month (May 2009) is very interesting to me.
In this article, the authors looked at the effects of Christian prayers on the health and disease outcomes of patients.
Click here to read the article:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/may/27.43.html?start=1
What the authors did were to analyze many of the studies that had been done before; and I am surprised that there are so many studies on such issue! Click here to view a table of some of the studies analyzed by the authors:
http://home.comcast.net/~gregfung/summarytable.html
From that table itself, you can see the effects of prayers from many of these studies were at best, inconclusive; with some favored positive outcomes after patients received prayers; others no; still others - negative effects!
This article is a real honest discourse, and its findings may surprise you. It is worth your time to read.
What I've learned personally from this article is that: let's treat prayers with a sense of reverence and awe, remembering we are entering into conversation with the Holy God.
Let's not treat prayers as some sort of magical wand that you swing around and zap! you got your desired results. That's plain selfishness.
Let's not treat God as a vending machine as alluded in the article.
Let's not be presumptuous and let's be very very careful of what you promise to your patients, to your relatives, to your friends!
Let's not reduce prayers into some sort of formula or routine to be chanted.
Let's treat prayers with some degree of mysticism, knowing that God cannot be fully known by our limited human understanding. Our God is a sovereign God, and He does what He pleases. Let's be careful lest we elevate our position to a little god, usurping His throne in our hearts.
In the very first place, I personally don't agree with some of these studies, especially in the STEP study as described in the article. I don't agree the way the study was conducted - randomizing some patients to receive prayers, with some do not. As an evangelical Christian, that's ethically not right; no one should be deprived of prayers. This study should not have been done at all.
As described in the article, God cannot be subjected into scientific research.
C.S. Lewis, as described in the article, said it quite humorously:
"Simply to say prayers is not to pray; otherwise a team of properly trained parrots would serve as well as men for our experiment."
In conclusion, I echo what the authors said:
"In all this, we discover that our obsession with whether prayer works is the wrong question. We know prayer works. The real question is, are we prepared for God's answer?"
For those who like intellectual treatise, you can also go to the authors webpage where they described in more details some of the articles that they have analyzed (but that's more technical). Click here:
http://www.intercessoryprayerstudies.com/
Enjoy your reading.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
20 Ways To Wake Up Your Quiet Time
This article is from http://www.navpress.com/magazines/archives/article.aspx?id=1.103.9
20 Ways To Wake Up Your Quiet Time
Pam Farrel
Behind closed doors, many of us yawn through our quiet times. Somehow, our routine time with god slowly and quietly degenerates into a boring, predictable rut. As spiritual cataracts grow over our sleepy eyes, we may grow disinterested and frustrated. Such seasons demand a fresh view of the creator. Like any good relationship, quiet times with god need a little variety. Instead of rolling over and hitting the snooze button, try one of these ideas for your next quiet time.
Note: Below are the few that I find helpful. For full article, click on the link above to access the article.
WRITE A LETTER TO GOD about your life. Give it to a friend to mail hack to you in three months. In the letter, talk to God about the areas of your life that are bothering you. Write about how you'd like to grow and what attribute of His you'd like to see more clearly.
WRITE OUT AND PERSONALIZE Scripture by inserting your name into promises relevant to your life or current struggles. For example, I would personalize Ps. 84:11 in this way: "No good thing does God withhold from Pam when she walks uprightly." Many of the Bible's promises come to life and seem more powerful and relevant when personalized in this way Spend some time meditating and praying over verses that you personalize. I once copied a set of verses and strung them together as a personalized love letter from God's heart to my own. I have it framed and hanging in my room. Those personalized verses help me keep a trig view of God.
GO ON A PRAISE WALK. Thank God for everything you see. Take the opportunity to look closely at God's creation, praising Him for His creativity and the beauty of the world He's crafted. After hiking for a while, find a quiet spot to read one of the many psalms that describe His creation. Isaiah 40 and Genesis 1 are two other chapters that will help you focus your heart and mind on God's creative character.
SPEND YOUR ENTIRE TIME WITH GOD SINGING and praising Him. Church hymnals and books of choruses are great resources to enliven your quiet time with personal worship. You might even try creating a song of your own!WRITE OUT a Phil. 4:8 list. What is lovely to you, worthy of praise, excellent, etc.? Hang the list in a place where you tend to be grumpy, such as above the washer and dryer or on the dashboard of your car for that frustrating commute!
PRAY IN A POSTURE you don't normally use. Try praying on your knees, prone, or standing with your face to the heavens and your hands raised in worship. It's amazing how simply changing your posture before God can change your attitude and help you experience Him in new ways.
PRAISE JESUS FROM A TO Z. For example, "Jesus, You are amazing ... Jesus, You are beautiful...." This activity will challenge you to think deeply about who Jesus is and why you love and serve Him. As you praise Jesus using each letter of the alphabet, spend some time meditating on each word you use to describe Him. Thinking deeply about Him is more important than racing through each letter of the alphabet as fast as you can.
WRITE OUT YOUR PRAYERS TO JESUS. You might write them in a journal, or purchase special stationery for these precious letters, as you might do if you were sending a letter to someone you have fallen deeply in love with. At the end of the letter, sign your name, just as you would a normal letter. Something powerful and deeply intimate happens when you record your thoughts and prayers in a letter to Jesus.
REREAD THE NOTES OF THE SERMON from the previous week. If your pastor is doing a series and you know what Scriptures he'll be addressing next, read ahead in the passage to be covered next Sunday. This will prepare you to think more deeply and listen better during the next sermon, as well as helping you remember and apply truth. Find a verse in the text that has helped you grow, and write a note to your pastor thanking him for his sermon and insight on the passage.
READ YOUR FAVORITE HYMN. Spend some time meditating about each of the hymn's verses and its overall message. Find the passage in the Bible that the hymn was based upon, and think about how the hymn describes and reflects that truth. Spend some time researching how and why the hymn was composed. What were the circumstances? Your pastor or worship leader might know about a particular hymn's origin. Your Christian bookstore may also carry books that detail the history of certain hymns. If you're able to locate such information, think about how the hymn reflects the author's response to God during his or her circumstances.
SPEND A PERIOD OF TIME FASTING from food, TV, or a hobby to spend more time with God. If you're able, combine your fast with a day at a quiet retreat center, the beach, the mountains, or even tucked away in a library to reflect upon God's Word and His hand in your life.
HAVE A QUIET TIME WITH ONE OF YOUR CHILDREN or grandchildren. This would probably include reading a passage from the Bible out loud. You can give children a powerful peek into your relationship with Christ by inviting them to share your regular time with God. As you ask them questions about what they see in the passage, you'll teach them to think more deeply about God's Word. Their responses and observations may surprise you, stretch you, and enrich your own perspective.
WRITE ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD from a different point of view. Think about how someone else would describe your walk. For example, my teen son might say, "My mom has a radical walk with Jesus. She really got pegged (convicted) by this verse." Several friends from the mission field explained how this activity helped them communicate the parable of the sower to the tribe they worked with. In their translation work, they described the seed that grew as the one that fell on "mulchy" soil. In that tribe, the best heart is one that resembles a compost pile. When you consider your walk and God's Word from the perspective of another, you will think differently, cross cultural barriers, and gain a fresh view of god.
MEMORIZE ONE OF THE PRAYERS of the Bible, such a Mary's prayer in Lk. 1:46–55. Then act the prayer out as a soliloquy.
WRITE OUT A LIST of theological questions you'd like answered. Choose one and begin researching it. "God, what is in your heart toward women?" was a question I had that led me on an exhaustive study of all the women in the Bible, and all the verses with the words woman and women in them.
ABIDING DAILY
Remember, the purpose of all these ideas is to enhance your relationship with God and your intimacy with Him during your quiet time. The goal is to abide ever more in Him. As Fern Nichols, the founder of Moms In Touch, says, " If you seek to abide in the vine daily, you never know what day He might choose to change you life forever." Enjoy the adventure!
20 Ways To Wake Up Your Quiet Time
Pam Farrel
Behind closed doors, many of us yawn through our quiet times. Somehow, our routine time with god slowly and quietly degenerates into a boring, predictable rut. As spiritual cataracts grow over our sleepy eyes, we may grow disinterested and frustrated. Such seasons demand a fresh view of the creator. Like any good relationship, quiet times with god need a little variety. Instead of rolling over and hitting the snooze button, try one of these ideas for your next quiet time.
Note: Below are the few that I find helpful. For full article, click on the link above to access the article.
WRITE A LETTER TO GOD about your life. Give it to a friend to mail hack to you in three months. In the letter, talk to God about the areas of your life that are bothering you. Write about how you'd like to grow and what attribute of His you'd like to see more clearly.
WRITE OUT AND PERSONALIZE Scripture by inserting your name into promises relevant to your life or current struggles. For example, I would personalize Ps. 84:11 in this way: "No good thing does God withhold from Pam when she walks uprightly." Many of the Bible's promises come to life and seem more powerful and relevant when personalized in this way Spend some time meditating and praying over verses that you personalize. I once copied a set of verses and strung them together as a personalized love letter from God's heart to my own. I have it framed and hanging in my room. Those personalized verses help me keep a trig view of God.
GO ON A PRAISE WALK. Thank God for everything you see. Take the opportunity to look closely at God's creation, praising Him for His creativity and the beauty of the world He's crafted. After hiking for a while, find a quiet spot to read one of the many psalms that describe His creation. Isaiah 40 and Genesis 1 are two other chapters that will help you focus your heart and mind on God's creative character.
SPEND YOUR ENTIRE TIME WITH GOD SINGING and praising Him. Church hymnals and books of choruses are great resources to enliven your quiet time with personal worship. You might even try creating a song of your own!WRITE OUT a Phil. 4:8 list. What is lovely to you, worthy of praise, excellent, etc.? Hang the list in a place where you tend to be grumpy, such as above the washer and dryer or on the dashboard of your car for that frustrating commute!
PRAY IN A POSTURE you don't normally use. Try praying on your knees, prone, or standing with your face to the heavens and your hands raised in worship. It's amazing how simply changing your posture before God can change your attitude and help you experience Him in new ways.
PRAISE JESUS FROM A TO Z. For example, "Jesus, You are amazing ... Jesus, You are beautiful...." This activity will challenge you to think deeply about who Jesus is and why you love and serve Him. As you praise Jesus using each letter of the alphabet, spend some time meditating on each word you use to describe Him. Thinking deeply about Him is more important than racing through each letter of the alphabet as fast as you can.
WRITE OUT YOUR PRAYERS TO JESUS. You might write them in a journal, or purchase special stationery for these precious letters, as you might do if you were sending a letter to someone you have fallen deeply in love with. At the end of the letter, sign your name, just as you would a normal letter. Something powerful and deeply intimate happens when you record your thoughts and prayers in a letter to Jesus.
REREAD THE NOTES OF THE SERMON from the previous week. If your pastor is doing a series and you know what Scriptures he'll be addressing next, read ahead in the passage to be covered next Sunday. This will prepare you to think more deeply and listen better during the next sermon, as well as helping you remember and apply truth. Find a verse in the text that has helped you grow, and write a note to your pastor thanking him for his sermon and insight on the passage.
READ YOUR FAVORITE HYMN. Spend some time meditating about each of the hymn's verses and its overall message. Find the passage in the Bible that the hymn was based upon, and think about how the hymn describes and reflects that truth. Spend some time researching how and why the hymn was composed. What were the circumstances? Your pastor or worship leader might know about a particular hymn's origin. Your Christian bookstore may also carry books that detail the history of certain hymns. If you're able to locate such information, think about how the hymn reflects the author's response to God during his or her circumstances.
SPEND A PERIOD OF TIME FASTING from food, TV, or a hobby to spend more time with God. If you're able, combine your fast with a day at a quiet retreat center, the beach, the mountains, or even tucked away in a library to reflect upon God's Word and His hand in your life.
HAVE A QUIET TIME WITH ONE OF YOUR CHILDREN or grandchildren. This would probably include reading a passage from the Bible out loud. You can give children a powerful peek into your relationship with Christ by inviting them to share your regular time with God. As you ask them questions about what they see in the passage, you'll teach them to think more deeply about God's Word. Their responses and observations may surprise you, stretch you, and enrich your own perspective.
WRITE ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD from a different point of view. Think about how someone else would describe your walk. For example, my teen son might say, "My mom has a radical walk with Jesus. She really got pegged (convicted) by this verse." Several friends from the mission field explained how this activity helped them communicate the parable of the sower to the tribe they worked with. In their translation work, they described the seed that grew as the one that fell on "mulchy" soil. In that tribe, the best heart is one that resembles a compost pile. When you consider your walk and God's Word from the perspective of another, you will think differently, cross cultural barriers, and gain a fresh view of god.
MEMORIZE ONE OF THE PRAYERS of the Bible, such a Mary's prayer in Lk. 1:46–55. Then act the prayer out as a soliloquy.
WRITE OUT A LIST of theological questions you'd like answered. Choose one and begin researching it. "God, what is in your heart toward women?" was a question I had that led me on an exhaustive study of all the women in the Bible, and all the verses with the words woman and women in them.
ABIDING DAILY
Remember, the purpose of all these ideas is to enhance your relationship with God and your intimacy with Him during your quiet time. The goal is to abide ever more in Him. As Fern Nichols, the founder of Moms In Touch, says, " If you seek to abide in the vine daily, you never know what day He might choose to change you life forever." Enjoy the adventure!
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