Do you love your neighbor?

In Leviticus 19:17-18 said

"17 - You must not hate your fellow citizen in your heart. If your neighbor does something wrong, tell him about it, or you will be partly to blame. 18 - forget about the wrong things people do to you, and do not try to get even. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. I am the Lord."

the love your neighbor thingy is actually known to be the famous second greatest commands in the new testament (Matt19:19, 22:39, mark 12:31, 33; Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14). It calls us to love and care for our neighbor as much as we love and care for ourselves. The new testament, especially the parable of the Good Samaritan, clarifies who our neighbor is. A neighbor is "anyone with whom we come in contact, who has a need, and whom we can help"

so.. in other words... everyone is actually our neighbor... do we really care for others?

Blessings....

Too often we interprete God's blessing as being for our on benefit. Abraham was blessed by God, but he was blessed to be a blessing to others. Through God's selection of Abraham, all the nations of the world would come to know the Lord - Jesus Christ. This is a model for our mission... when we receive the goodness of God, we need to share it..

The Temptations...

as written in both Genesis 3:6 and 1st John 2:16, temptation can be illustrated as follows:

1) Wanting to please our sinful selves
2) Wanting the sinful things we see
3) Being too proud of what we have

wanting a better life or successful life is not wrong.. but the motives behind such things need to be straighten out.

Consuming Fire

heard a great song last week .. would like to share with you....

the singing style really reminded me of my brothers - Samuel and Peter....

Tim Hughes - Consuming fire


Verse 1:
There must be more than this
Oh breath of God come breathe within
There must be more than this
Spirit of God we wait for you
Fill us anew we prayFill us anew we pray

Chorus:
Consuming Fire
Fan into flame
a passion for your name
Spirit of God fall in this place
Lord have your way
Lord have your way with us

Verse 2:
Come like a rushing wind
Fill us with power from on high
Now set the captives free
leave us abandoned to your praise
Lord let your glory fall
Lord let your glory fall
(repeat chorus)

Are you a SLAVES?

interesting verse i read today..... in 2 Peter 2:19 "For people are slaves of anything that controls them"

this is so true about us these days... we are easily attached to something so much that we cannot get out of it or need to get into it everyday. Love, Money, Jobs and even the Internet!! we are just like what happened in Lord of The Rings's smigle ' My Precious'... totally obsessed with a thing...

so .... can we get out of it??

i was once addicted to internet forum.. where i was there.. browsing and finding something to do almost in my waking hours... i lost all my interest in other things... God, my interest, my work, and even my life... this eventually causing my relationship too.. because i am too concern with my forum rather than my family and friends who care for me.

still remembered one day.. an arguement broke out between me and boyfriend ... i am so concentrate on looking at my forum that i ignored him calling me...without realising... he is angry of course, and i am sad.

that was the breaking point of my life where i started to think: why am i letting him feels that way.. why this is more important than him? suddenly i realised that i obsessed with such things.. this actually proved one thing: we tends to put our priority wrong. we tends to slow down and reflect on what we have done and if this is all correct.. especially in God's eyes...

as what the bible says: Matthew 6:21 "Your heart will be where your treasure is" "因为你的财宝在哪里，你的心也在那里。"


So, what is your treasure in life at the moment?

神是信实的!

人的不信,不能废掉神的信实. 神永远是信实的. 对一切信主的人,主绝不叫他们所信的落空...

这里有一个网站是收录了很多家庭从失败,破碎当中走出来的见证..这些家庭,在一般人看来已经是没有希望的了..不过..就是因为认识耶稣而找回了盼望..只因为信是信实的! "God loved us, and through his grace he gave us a good hope and encouragement that continues forever" (2 Thessalonians 2:17)

http://www.goodtv.com.tw/templates/heaven.phtml#

你想不想来认识这位真神呢?

Having a new life in Christ

When we believe Jesus Christ as our saviour, our old self died, nailing together - on the cross with Jesus. Through this salvation, we now have a choice to live a new life. We now have a choice not to sin, not to follow our own self desire, but a choice to do what is right. Our new life brings the true knowledge of God. (Colossians 3:10).

As a born-again Christ, Paul told us this: (Colossians 3:12-15)
'Show mercy to others, be kind, humble, gentle, and patient. Get along with each other and forgive each other. If someone does wrong to you, forgive that person because the Lord forgave you. Do all these things; but most important, love each other. Love is what holds you all together in perfect unity. Le the peace that Christ gives control your thinking, because you were called togher in one body to have peace. Always be thankful.'

yes.. some may find this too perfect to follow, or too impossible to do. I was once like that when I was younger. saying is one thing, but doing it might be another. but now I totally understand what this is all about. Doing what God teaches us to do is not about following rules and regulations. but about loving God. without having focus on God and loving God as our heavenly father, this is totally impossible.

I am a hot tempered person. People who know me will agree with me :P I am quicked to get angry when things get tough, or not working according to my way. But since I renewed my life and focusig my life in Jesus, I find it easier to think of others when things go wrong. The focus is not about me anymore, but about the problems or issues that happened. I find myself more compassionate to others and this eventually making me not loosing my temper. What happened to me is not because I developed some sort of tolerence or weak self pity heart to others, but because I love God and also others. The reason is: because whenever I think of them, I know deeply I might also offended, hurted others in the past. So there is no reason why I should not forgive, or loose temper to that person. I am too just a normal human beings full of imperfections.

Be Joyful Always...

there are so many things that happened in this world.... people changed from being friendly, kind, loving into selfish, self centred life... probably because of the hurt they been through, the unwelcome - hostile reaction is reacted when love or concern is showed to a person.

still .. Paul teaches us in Philippians to be joyful. He mentioned 'joy' more than 15 times in this 4- chapter book.

One most touching ending of this book is this: (Philippians 4:11-13)

" I know how to live when i am poor, and I know how to live when I have plenty. I have learned the secret of being happy at anytime in everything that happens, when I have enough to eat and when i go hungry, when I have more than I need and when I do not have enough. I can do all things through Christ, because HE GIVES ME STRENGTH"

It is comforting because we know that Jesus is giving us the strength to go on with life, to be joyful and facing whatever circumstances we have at the moment.

May you find strength in Jesus Christ too!

The battered Body

Life can be so tiring sometimes, with all that happens around the world, the unfortunate incidents, the unfair rumours and treatments to people... with all that is going on, it might be cause some serious damage to ones life, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. We might never really knows if what we said or comment will have such great impact to a person. Even the slightest comment might cause a person to demorale, to be low self esteem or to become withdraw or isolate themselves.

I still remembered I once have a friend who is so fragile that if she heard someone gives bad comment about her, she cried immediately..

What is the motive behind such comments? It is a REAL concern to that person? It is a REAL care and love we are trying to show? or if this is just another juicy gossip or story we would like to get to know.... sometimes, the latter is actually our REAL intentions. we just wanna find out.

To me, this really feel like a battered body.. Violently beaten emotionally by those who said they are concern, they care...

Even with all this unpreventable problems... we should still remind ourself one thing: that God himself actually knows about all these. He is watching us and going through with us, with His promise in Isaiah 40:29

He gives strength to those who are tired and more power to those who are weak. Even children become tired and need to rest, and young people trip and fall. but the people who trust the Lord will become strong again. They will rise up as an eagle in the sky; they will run and not need rest; they will walk and not become tired.

Life in this world won't be a smooth sailing at all, but at least, we know where we can gain our strengths to live through such storms. Hope you will found such strength too!

Great souls are grown through struggles and storms and seasons of suffering....

Building up Not tearing down...

sometimes.. it is so easy to get into critic mode, to judge and to looked down on people who faces some difficult times. we might think we are better or we will react better in their situation.. however, most of the time we are thinking as an outsider.. as a person without experience... .. the funny thing is .. when somethings actually happened to us later.. we might actually be weaker, or childish in the way we handle those situations.

so, as in Galatians 5:22 to 6:6 ..we should be compassion and understanding to others, 用爱,温柔的心,扶助 .... “最要紧的是彼此切实相爱，因为爱能遮掩许多的罪”（彼前4：8）

A comforting fact about life....

it's really been an amazing journey to life... growing up and having such opportunity to be alive, be able to see, feel, hear, walk, talk....

as in Galatians 1:15.. this is very comforting. God knows us and view us as person even from the moment we were conceived. He already had a plan for us... this really shows how we are cherished as a human being, no matter how good or imperfect we are in the eyes of others....