Letting it Go and Never Give up

I was emailed an article "Let it Go" by TD Jakes a 2 days ago. You can find many copies of it throughout the internet blogs, especially used for starting the year, 2006, 2007, and even 2010.

This morning I was reading Brennan Manning's "The Signature of Christ" Chapter Ten "The Courage to Risk". It ended with a quote of Winston Churchill, "Success is never final; failure is never fatal. It is courage that counts.". It was Churchill telling us "Never, Never Give up!".

Are they contradictory? One says 'let go' and the other say 'don't give up'.

When statements are seemingly contradictory on the surface, then the answer to break the contradiction lies a level below. Dig one layer deeper. Break it up. We have to find out what is it that we are to let go and what is it that we are not go give up.

What to Let Go? The Uncontrollable Bad/Pains that we Felt
Jakes tell us to let go the past hurts, anger, wrong relationship, addiction, bad attitude, judging others, depression, stresses ... i.e. all things that are bad. In Manning's book, one key thing that we need to let go is our pride or ego or for the Chinese, our face. Our fear of loosing face, stops us from trying new things. Fear of failure prevent us from fully trusting Jesus Christ and venture out with Him.

A way to help us change our feeling and making the letting go easier is to change our thinking.  The lost of our job could open up a better opportunity for us and so we don't have to hate the boss or the company that terminated our employment. We can let hatred go. We can be reminded by Churchill's "Failure is never fatal". We can be reminded by Paul exhortation in Rom 8:28 'all things work for good to those that love God" or in 1Thes 5:16-18  ¹⁶Be joyful always; ¹⁷pray continually; ¹⁸give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. This leads us naturally to the love of Jesus.


What Not to Give up? The Good & Significances.
Hence, Manning encouraged us to take courage and risks to live life fully trusting in the sufficiency of the love of God. It is better to try and fail than not to try at all. The detours, the hurts, the betrayals, are but the paths where we can experience and taste the love of God for us.

Loose our Pride and On with the Love of Jesus
Forget about loosing face and jump in into the love of God and come out with experiential knowledge of His love. We can love more and do more because we have tasted His love and know that He is fully trustworthy. We can learn by experience and agree with Paul, 2 Tim 1:12, I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day, and in Eph 3: 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Always have a balanced view of things. Don't just go off in a tangent.

For a related post on Let Go and Let God ... see Let Go & Let God - Spiritual or Just Plain Lazy?

After posting note: A friend added "Cherish what you have" besides the pursuing. So we may want to summarize as

1. Letting the beyond our control bad feelings go.
2. Cherish the good that you have.
3. Never give up on the significant better that you are building.

He also questions what is bad ? Bad could actually be good and good can actually be bad.
It is a counselor's job to help us see the good in the bad so that we may be comforted and the 'danger' in the good that we may not go overboard.

For Believers, we will follow the morale standards of the Bible to define right and wrong. We have to be careful that the Bible places a high standard on us - the journey and the objectives are to be righteous all the way. The ends cannot be used to justify the use of unrighteousness means.

The Gospel According to Jesus

The reason for this title of "The Gospel According to Jesus" is that there are many views of the Gospel over the years. Questions like below have many debatable answers:

1. What is the requirement for salvation?
   Some says just believe in Jesus. Others add repentance from sins, baptism by immersion, speaking in tongues and belonging to a particular true church etc etc. 
2. What is a truly saved Believers? How should a true believer behave?
   Some says we must have work of faith. Others say God's grace is sufficient. Some insists on following the Laws and accused those who said grace alone is sufficient as cheap grace and lawlessness.
3. Will we ever loose our salvation?
   Some say yes. Some say never. Some say maybe and only under very special conditions.

To answer those questions above, it is best to go all the way back to Jesus Himself. In John 17, the prayer of Jesus to the Father, provide very clear answers. This can be used as the foundational structure to link up all other verses.

Here is mind-map of Chapter 17 organized into 8 truths about Jesus and the Believers.

Q1 The Requirement for Salvation or How to Have Eternal Life?

Point 1 above, John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Point 2 above tells us that Jesus came into this world to let the the world know that He is the sent ONE (the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed of GOD) from the Father. His work is to let the world know about the true God as the loving Father. This point is further supported that the Believers' Oneness has the purpose to show the world that Jesus is sent from God. So, we may conclude that Eternal Life comes from knowing and believing Jesus as the one sent from God, representing God, and making God known to us. Eternal life comes from knowing Jesus and knowing God, the Father.

Notice this agrees fully with the many verses like the 10 ones below. There are of course many more.

1. John 3:15,16,18  Believe in Him, the name of the only Son of God, the Light.
2. John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life
3. John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. 
4. John 6:35 “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
5. John 6:40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” 
6. John 6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. 
7. John 8:24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”
8. John 9:38  He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
9. John 11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 
10. John 11:27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

Notice too, that the verses above, do not have repentance in them or in the context. The key requirement for salvation is not repentance but knowing and believing who Jesus is. Repentance without Jesus is no use - it does not give you eternal life; because eternal life is about knowing Jesus and the Father. Repentance is just telling us we know we are dirty and we want to change. But we don't know the power yet to change.

Then, is there no need for repentance? Repentance can come after knowing Christ. From knowing Christ and His words, we know the wrongs and we will repentance. Nevertheless, if anyone want to repent and then receive Christ as the Savior, that is indeed very good. There are many ways that lead one to know the very truth - Jesus as the sent One of God. Some found Jesus in times of needs. Some in sickness. Some in bereavement. etc. We don't have to limit ourselves and others to a particular way to know Christ. We just preach Jesus as the sent one from God to save us.

The shortest and most effective prayer of salvation is given in

• Luke 23:42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.”
• Luke 23:43 And Jesus said to him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” 
  (one may argue that v41 was his admission of sins and repentance. But repentance without Jesus is void)

In John 16:7-11, the Holy Spirit convict the world of 3 things sin, righteousness and judgment. The sin that the Holy Spirit convicts is "not believe in Jesus" (v8). The main sin of man is the rejection of Jesus. We don't know our God. The Holy Spirit will point us to Christ.
The Holy Spirit does not convict us from other kinds of sins. Our awaken conscious, our own spirit, re-birthed by the Holy Spirit, will convict ourselves of our other sins against the Words of God. The only sin that will not be forgiven is the sin against the Holy Spirit and it the sin of the rejection of Christ.

Q2 What is the conduct of a True Believer? What is his identity?

1. True believers belong to the Father and are given to Jesus (pt4 of mind map ).
   
2. True believers have Oneness:
   Firstly, oneness with one-another just like Jesus & His Father. We are to love one another. John 3:11, 23, 4:7,11, 12, 13:34-35.
   Secondly, oneness with Jesus and with the Father - Perfectly One.
   Thirdly, oneness in the Father's Love. We love with the love of Jesus 1John 3:23
   
3. We are in the world but NOT of the world. We belongs to Christ & the Father. Hence, the world that does not know their God will dislike us.
   
4. We are sanctified in the Truth of God's Words. The is the Growth to the Image of Christ.
   We are to receive and keep the Words of God.
   We will then experience the Joy of His and His Words.
   We will want to obey the Laws not just physically but in the spirit. The love of God and the Christ in us will cause us to surpass the requirement of the Law. We keep the laws naturally because of our new character. If we reject the Laws, then we are actually reject the giver of the Laws and we need to question ourselves whether have we truly believe and accept Jesus.
   
5. God is glorified in us through our works as in Jesus. John 17:4,10
   When we accomplish the work that Jesus give us, we glorify God.

Q3 Is our salvation secured?

Who is holding who? John 17:11,12,15 tells us that it is Jesus and the Father that are keeping us. Jesus does not loose the people v12. John 10:28-29. There are triple emphasis there, Jesus' hand, Father's hand, Jesus+Father=One's hand!

Peace - Biblical View

Grace, Mercy and Peace are found in many of the greetings in the Bible. We have covered
'Grace' in

• "Grace is Unmerited Favor" - This Common Definition is Wrong,   
• Grace - Wrong Definition leading to Shameful Behavior,  
• Degree of Grace - From Grace-less to Ultra-Grace
• Grace - God's Loving Power for You to become Your Very Best
• Grace Based Doctrines
• Salvation of Tripartite Man - The Details 
• Spirit Soul Confusion and 2 Types of Defeats 

In the above posting, we said that the way to discover the meaning of word is to do the following:

How to Judge the Correctness of a Definition?

1, Substitute the definition for term in the sentence/verse where the term is found.

2. Do it for all occurrences of the term in all the verses. 

So, I did a search for the word peace G1515 in the NT, and propose a meaning for the word peace in a table shown below (a subset for illustration only):

(I actually used Excel to do this. I can sort and highlight)

Here then is my summary of the definition of Peace.


Peace is 

1. Harmony - close relationship among people, and with God. It is unity of differences of uniqueness. We are different and yet we live in harmony with one another respecting and appreciating our differences. This will include reconciliation of relationship.
   
2. Rest and Freedom from or absent of fear, sickness, worry, pressures, conflicts, wars, the negative things.
   
3. Satisfaction and contentment as result of completion as in Luke 2:29. 
   
   
4. A good thing/power or influence or tangible thing from God and of God. That we can give and take back as in Mat 10:13.
   
5. There is degree of peace, since peace can be multiplied. There is some peace and more peace and full of peace.
   
   If this is the case, how can we have more peace?
   
   The answer in focus on the giver of and the Peace Himself-Jesus Christ as in
   
   Phil 4:7-9 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.9 Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.
   
6. There is the peace of world and there is the peace of Christ as in John 14:27.  Phil 4:7 They are in panic but you are all calm even you don't understand how can you be that way. The mind who stay on Christ will have the peace. Then you will have breakthrough solution.
   
7. Not just passive absent of fear but a positive presence of courage. To go on a mission as in John 20:21, Acts 15:33. 2Tim 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
   
8. Overcoming the tribulation and pressures as in John 16:33. Not escaping. But overcoming in the midst of it and coming out victoriously.
   
9. Peace is the fruit of the Spirit. It is an attribute of Character.  Gal 5:22, Jam 3:18, 2 Tim 2:22
   
10. Power of sanctification as in 1 Thes 5:23. Much strife, quarrels and blames come from lack of harmony. The power of peace is able bring recompilation and harmony.
    
11. Orderliness & Clarity of mind vs confusion as in 1 Cor 14:33 ; refer point 7 above.
    

In short, Peace is the power to overcome chaos, fights, fear and panic and bring harmony and rest in midst of all the waves. It gives the confidence and the courage to move forward. It gives assurance of hope.

May you have peace in the midst of all the activities and pressures in your life. Let your mind be focused on Christ.

The Golden Rule for Success - The OT Version

I have in many previous posts share the Golden Rule for Success - Mat 6:33 See BJ#1 The Golden Rule for Business Success  (Mat 6:33) But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Here is a similar one in the Old Testament:

Joshua 1:8 (King James Version) This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

 

We can see the 'Be-Do-Have' in the above verse.

1. Be - Internalization of the Law

The Law is summarized by Jesus in Mat 6:33 as "the Kingdom and its righteousness". We must be fully identified with the Law or the righteous of His Kingdom. This done by confessing and meditating on it day and night. Unless we are full of His thoughts, we cannot be like Him. Believers who do not read the Bible could not understand what he is in Christ. Do not know the thinking and feeling of Christ. They will not be able to be like Christ.

2. Do - According to All written
Once we internalized the values and mindset of the God, as taught through His Law, we can naturally act out those values and mindset. This part emphasize DOing and ACTing OUT of the internalized values. It also emphasize "according to ALL" and not subset. We cannot cheat a little. Integrity and trust are such that a little off is not longer acceptable. Once we break a trust, just once, we actually loose all the trust we build in the past. Unless it is 100%, anything less, even 99% is not trustworthy. People could not decide this time whether is belongs to the 99% proven or the 1% failure. Big failure tends to come from the little details - just a little bit off. Josh 1:7 tells us to be bold in doing all precisely, not to the right or to the left. It takes boldness to follow the Law exactly.

3. Have - Prosperous Way & Good Success 道路就可以亨通，凡事顺利。
The outcome for walking in the Law of God is naturally good flow of abundance and success. The original Hebrew word translated success is H7919 is prudence or wise. The Chinese translation is closer in meaning to the Hebrew. It says the ways will be smooth and opened flow without any obstruction. What you think and you will get. Whatever you can visualize, you can achieve it. The Laws of God is actually the Laws of Success for men. How did we get deceived that the Laws are restrictions for our freedom and keep us from the good life???

While God has surely promised abundance and success for all of us, it takes us to respond to His promises, by trusting in His ways, and following His righteous ways precisely, not omitting the details, and then receiving His promised abundance and success.

What says saved believers don't need to follow the laws? If we are truly saved, it is only natural that we follow the laws, and possess the success that bring glory and satisfaction to God. God's grace is to enable us to do the things that we formerly could not and do the things that we should - to be just like Him.

The Progression of our Faith - From Pre-believers Seekers to Believers

In the story of the Healing of Man Born Blind in John Chapter 9, we can find 3 types of people.

John 9: ¹⁶Therefore said

1. some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. 
2. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?
   And there was a division among them.
3. John 9:38 And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.

Type 1 Pre-Believer: My Way or No Way.

These group of people have their own fixed mindset about how God is like and should behave. If God does not do it our way, it is not God. Guess who is God? It is us!
If he does not think like us, he is a heretic, a false prophet, a false teacher. How many of us falls into such a trap?
When we prayed to God to help us, do we specify the exact way God should follow to help us? How often we miss God because we are only looking for God in our specified way.
We can be specific in our goals as the Fourth Dimension preacher David Paul Cho Yong In taught us. But we should not be specific in the how.

For this group of people, we need to tell them to allow God to be God. Let God works in His own ways. We are to humbly observe and acknowledge and hopefully believed as in type 3.


Type 2 Seeker: Let the Evidence Speak - Challenging present dogma

This group is able to question the present thinking framework. Could we be wrong? Sinners don't do miracle is a believe held about God. This believe is subject to challenge as well as we know that devil can also do miracles. Miracle alone does not proof or disproof God. It is a necessary but insufficient condition. But this is a different topic. The key issue here is this group of people allow their favored belief to be question - God don't work on Sabbath.

Type 3 Believer: I Believe.
After examination of the evidences, the group is willing to make a commitment to belief and worship God.

Our belief in Jesus Christ may go through these 3 stages of ignoring, considering, and acceptance. Don't be discouraged when our sharing of the gospel fall on deaf ears. May be we can proposed a challenge that they examine their own world view so that they can move to type 2 and then hopefully type 3 acceptance of Jesus.

From Be-Do-Have to Be-Do-Have-Share

I covered "Be-Do-Have" in the past two posts below;

• Be-Do-Have" of Grace Based Doctrine 
• Be-Do-Have Repeat and Grow

I find the above is too self-centered and would propose to add a share to become

Be-Do-Have-Share

After we have, we should share it out with others.

We can share:

1. what we have - the wealth and resources gained. That is too easy. It is just giving 'fish'.
2. what we have learned so that others can learn on their own to have. This is a bit more involved. It is teaching them 'how to fish'.
3. motivating others to fulfill the calling of their life. To know his identity, his being through your own experience and sharing of your have's.  I must quickly add that a person calling is not just about full-time ministry as a missionary or pastor. But be what God makes you to be - be in any profession or works and excel in it. It is about expanding your influence in your unique sphere of work, family and social life for God.

Be Graceful in Our Criticism

If one was to read through the posts of the internet about people and their beliefs, we can find that the distinguished quality of a Christian, sadly to say, is not love, but a critical spirit of criticism. We are so quick to quote a verse, a statement, a clip of video, a paragraph from a book, and condemn the author and speaker as a false teacher, preacher, prophets preaching lies, doctrines of the devils, heretics, etc, etc. All in the name of truth. In the name of rightly dividing the words. In name of arresting lies at its source. We are so afraid that others may be easily misled, whereas we are smarter and we don't.

There are many criticisms against the Word of Faith preachers like EW Kenyon, Hagin, Copeland, etc. Against grace preacher like Joseph Prince,  Watchman Nee, etc. Against more seeker-friendly like Rick Warren etc Against evangelist like Billy Graham etc. Against the Calvinist preachers. Against the Armenians preachers etc. It is not that I am agreeing fully with the above list of preachers and doctrines, but that we should do a better job of pointing out where the error is, where is the truth (mostly ignored), and refrain from labeling and attacking the people. We are taught to judge. We know how to take the nutrients and spit out the bones or toxin. It is not uncommon to find that the very people who are being criticized as false, are also preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, of salvation through Jesus Christ by faith in Him and are bringing many people into the Kingdom of God. How one is saved will make for a full discussion by itself. I will address it in future if I have not already done so in my postings here. But in this post, I wish to present some guidelines for graceful criticism. I need to quote this by someone great person "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity."

Again, one can spend much time debating what is the essential minimum of the Gospel of Christ. But here is the proposed framework:

1. Present a higher level framework or model of the truth
2. Say what is the right truth of the saying (this will help us to be less critical emotionally)
3. Say what is the wrong part of the saying
4. Don't attack the person. Just stay on the saying.
5. Please remember to check the context of the saying. Did we quote the saying out of context? 
6. Abstain from imposing your opinion as to the intention of the speaker. We are no God and we do not know the intention of the speaker. Stay on the saying.

Coming back on the 'Grace' Preacher.

The essential for most Christians is "Salvation is by Grace through Faith in Christ Jesus"(Eph 2:8-9). The differences come in the subsequent phase of sanctification. Some forgot that we need grace too, in this sanctification process. An in-depth discussion of this is given in  Degree of Grace - From Grace-less to Ultra-Grace.

The sufficiency of Christ's death on the cross to save from our sins is very very important. The only part we play is our humble acceptance of Christ's redemption work for us. We don't add any more to a completed work of Christ. We just receive and trust Him and go on for it. Our salvation is not dependent on us and we could not spoil it is a great assurance to those being abused by some Church leaders who use fear to drive their members to participate in church activities and tithings. Our salvation is based on Christ and not on us. Christ salvation is not just for paying the penalty of sins, removal of sins from our life, but most important of all, a new birth, a new creation in Zoe (God's kind) Life. Without the rebirth of the Holy Spirit into God's kind of life, we cannot have an intimate relationship with God and we do not have the attributes of Godly life. We have new godly attributed life, we are righteous and can, therefore, walk in righteousness. Grace is the empowerment for us to do the things we could not formerly do (in our sinful nature) but now we are able to do - the righteous and godly things that glorify God. While we don't have to follow the Laws to be saved, yet our lives should have conduct that surpasses the requirements of the Laws. The Laws become a minimum checklist mirror for us reflect and tell us our new godly life.

While we are not saved by work, we are saved for good work. Most grace preachers quote Eph 2:8-9 but forgot about the immediate subsequent verse 10 which says "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them". How is God glorified? Through our conduct in this life. We are called to be salt and light to the world. Matt 5:16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. 

How can we live out this Christ live within us? By faith is shown in obedience and good work. 1Thess 1:3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what James tried to point out that faith(internal) without work(external expression of inward faith) is dead. James 2:17.

The potential error of grace preachers(e.g. Joseph Prince) is the neglect of emphasizing the obedience of good work of faith. Work tends to be taken as work of the flesh and then condemned (see Fleshy Work & Spiritual Work).  

There is also the neglect of the time element of growth. Complete is mistakenly taken as already arrived rather than complete, completely equipped, with Christ within, to begin this new life of GROWTH into the maturity of Christ (Full Image of Rom 8:29). A durian seed is not a durian fruit. Both are complete durian except one is the seed of potential and one is an end result fruit of a grown durian tree. A seed is complete. Plant it and it will grow to a tree and bear fruit.  An incomplete seed will not grow. Like a fertilized egg, given the right temperature and time, it will hatch to become a chick. An unfertilized egg is incomplete and no matter how long you put at the hatching temperature, no chick will come out of it.


This process of growth will include discipline, training, trials, testings to build up one's Christ's like character. While Christian life may not be a bed of roses, it is a journey of overcoming victories with Christ within and along with us. I recalled a preacher said that Billy Graham, with all the accomplishments, can only say "It is all the grace of God". Grace is not needed if all we want to do is sit at home. Grace is only needed when we move out in faith to answer the calling of God. It is work of faith and of grace that brings glory to God and to ourselves! Because God works through us. We become the heads and not the tails. God help us and we share in His glory. It is all grace, from the beginning of salvation to sanctification to glorification. Praise and thanks to God for saving us and using us to be part of His great work.


A summary of Grace doctrine in the mind-map format:

How Close should the Connection be?

Paul is very seeker friendly - Connect first to their culture and bring Christ in.

 
1 Cor 9:19 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.

22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

The question is how close do we want to get? 

How can we bring Christ in after the connect?

A young lady went to Hong Kong to do missionary work among the addicts and triads member. See Jackie Pullinger Telling the story. There was a book about her work - Chasing the Dragon. She is the shining light in the darkness and God is glorified. 

Hudson Taylor adopted Chinese cultures, dressed, eat, lived like the Chinese to reach out to the Chinese.

I could not remember the name of the preacher I read years ago about him trying to preach to the slaves without success until he sold himself as a slave.

So, do we need to be become a prostitute to reach out to the prostitute? Do we need to be a thief to reach out to thieves? Do we need to be a drug addict to reach out to the drug addicts? Where is the boundaries? How can we live in their environment, adopting their cultures, without compromising the gospel - the very reason for us to reach out to them in the first place?

We need to use wisdom based on the Bible and guided constantly by the Holy Spirit as the danger and pressure for us to compromise is great. It is not for any to go to such extreme environment.

Can we become slave to save the slaves? There is nothing evil or prohibition for one to be a slave in the Bible.  However, becoming prostitute and thieves are prohibited in the Bible. Crossing the boundary that Bible set up is not wise but extremely dangerous. People in bondage cannot help those in bondage to break free. So, joining the prohibited vocations and sub-cultures to preach the gospel message is a lie and deception. We can go and experience in the sub-culture to understand and connect, but we cannot adopt those prohibited by the Bible. Because the pressure and temptations are high, it is better to do as a team. It is of God's grace and Jackie's watchfulness and alertness that she can go into the dangerous and dark cultures and be the shining light there.

Be wise. We are call to connect and shine with Christ and not to connect and become the same as them loosing our light.

Know Your Season of Life

Have a very good and inspiring message by Ps Emily Tan in the morning Mandarin Service.
Here is mind-map of the message in English for those who may have missed this good message.

 

You may also want to read Our Calling of Life - Destination or Journey?

Partake the Good and Convert the Poison - How to Handle What People Say

Someone email me the following by a famous priest cum author:

Why is it important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top?

It’s important because it's the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved.

Partake the Good and throw away the poison.

Statement like the above could be misleading.

Learn the main teaching and throw away with non-essentials.

The Good: must be alone with God to listen to God.

The Non-Essential: Mountain Top. The Real Meaning: An undisturbed place.

You do not need to go the mountain top to be alone with God. May be a toilet will do. In the Car alone while driving will do. In the midst of busy activities, taking a cup of coffee alone. The key criterion is a No-Disturbance environment for some time.

Good to have longer time. But don't wait for a long long time for a longer time opportunity. Keep your quiet short-appointments with God all through the day. Practice the sense of the presence of God. (God is with you all the while even when we are not aware. The key is be aware of His presence).

Don't wait for the day to take leave to go to the mountain-top and then listen to God. If you go to Bk Timah hill top, you will disturbed by the visitors there.

A Pastor told his congregation that they should take a bottle of water and go to a lonely place to pray for 2 hours a day. After a some time, some one finally ask "Why bring the bottle of water?". Pastor answered "To drink when thirsty". The bottle of water does not have any spiritual attributes that add to the effectiveness of prayer.

Hope you can laugh at this and be aware of the times we confuse the non-essentials as essentials.

Understanding Laws & Salvation with Statistical Analysis

We don't need to follow the Laws (the set of moral laws including 10 commandments) for our salvation because our salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Yet if we are truly born again with the new spiritual life in us, we will naturally follows and exceed requirement of the spirit of the Laws (not just the letters).

So, if we are truly saved, our conduct and lifestyles will reflect, at the minimum, we are following the Laws. Not only will we not steal our neighbors' things, we bless them with good things so that they can also live well like us. Looking from external, we can say that saved believers follow the Laws. It then become a simple yardstick to test whether one is saved from his external actions. Taking it further, typical of statistical analysis, which could only present correlations but NOT cause and effect, we make the statistical conclusions that true believers and performance of the Laws are positively and strongly correlated, r=0.9 (leaving the 0.1 for the times we sin). Being human, we will make the conclusion that you need to be saved, like the believers, by following the Laws.

Performance on the Laws for salvation is actually a statistical correlation but not a cause-effect relationship. The true cause for salvation is actually by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. It is outside of the domain of the work of the Laws!

Looking at this from the simple logic.

This is the fallacy we tend to commit:
Monkey eats Banana.
Man eats Banana.
Therefore Man is a Monkey. (Some people believes this is so!)

It is observed that :
Christians follow the Laws.
X follows the Laws.
X must be Christians (saved)
In reality, all types of religions want to follow the laws or good works for salvation, except true Christianity. True Christianity is relationship to God through Christ by faith and not by good works. Eph 2:8-9.


Looking at it from the Parent-Child point of view.
Parent loves their Child no matter what. Parents love their baby even when the baby was very difficulty. Parent's love is not dependent on the Child behavior. But Parent want their Child to do well and live well and not live in sins. The Child needs not follow the Laws to get love. But the Child living in a healthy and sin free life is good for the Child and makes the Parent happy because the Child is doing well.

Hope I make the relationship between Laws and Salvation clearer. If not, please post your comment to simplify it. Thanks.

If Adam knows I-Ching, he would not have sinned

As I continued in my deeper study and interpretation of the Classic Chinese Classic, I-Ching, I continued to be amazed by its teachings. See also Chinese Classics and the Bible.

Today I just finished the 40th Hexagram 40解 Freed – Get with Decisive Actions.
Here is a short summary of what it teaches.

Summary of the Teaching of 40 Freed:

I. Freedom is obtained by

1. quick decisive actions, not impulsive actions, of breaking free from dangers
2. staying away from danger
3. seeking the interests of the masses, and
4. forgiving others.

Freedom is about being freed to do good and righteous things and bringing blessings to all. see From "Freedom From" to "Freedom For" & In

II. The additional teaching from the 6 Stage-Lines are: (This is really studying by "precept by precept and line upon line ....!")

  1. Differences are harmonized. No Issue.
  2. Straight wins against the crooked. Righteousness brings good fortune.
  3. Show-off brings regrets.
  4. Stay away from bad companies and have trustworthy true friends.
  5. Wise and objective(prejudices free) thinking keeps the office-politics away.
  6. Get rid of the bad and rebellious influences to stay free. Fire the bad leader.

Of course, Adam could not have benefited from the study of I-Ching for I-Ching was compiled after him. Here are a few teachings that impressed me (It is exactly the same as the teachings of the Bible).

Freedom is not about doing anything that you like. Freedom is about keeping away from dangers and temptations! Adam and Eve should stay away from temptations.

Freedom is also about forgiveness. In the original Chinese text, the pictorial commentary states that "Wise men forgive wrongdoing and pardon sins". If we want to be truly free, we must forgive others who have wronged us. Otherwise, we will be in bondage of bitterness and hatred. We could not be free then.

Freedom requires us to rid our minds of prejudices and biases so that we can be objective and think clearly. We will not be fooled by the bad companies, the people who play political games, and the rebellious people.

Freedom is also about taking decisive actions as early as possible to rid the community of such bad influences.

Compare with the Bible:

I.1-2 1Pet 2:16  Live like free people and do not use your freedom as an excuse for doing evil. Instead, be God's servants.

I.1-2 Gal 5:13  For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

I.3 1Co 9:19  For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.

Defintion for Freedom:

Freedom, as illuminated by the I-Ching and biblical wisdom, can be defined as:
The capacity to act decisively and righteously, guided by wisdom and compassion, to liberate oneself and others from bondage to sin, prejudice, and harmful influences, thereby fostering harmony, forgiveness, and purposeful service to the common good.

This definition integrates key themes:

• Decisive action (not impulsivity) to overcome danger.
• Moral clarity (free from bias/temptation).
• Forgiveness (breaking chains of resentment).
• Service to others (freedom for, not from).
• Harmony (ordered by virtue, not chaos).

Both traditions agree: True freedom is not license but liberation for love and justice.

See also What is Freedom?

For more, see Chinese Classics and the Bible

Building Successful Family & Organization according to I-Ching

As I continue my work in interpreting the Top Classics of Chinese Wisdom, the "I-Ching", I am constantly amazed by the teaching.

Let's take the common topic of family. There is a hexagram in I-Ching that is called exactly by the name "Family" or more precisely "Members of Family". It is hexagram 37 家人.

Hexagram 37 of I-Ching is about “Family“. (See the complete list.)
The teaching is summarized as follows:

• Ladies are in charge of family or home affairs. Men are responsible for external affairs, the career and business.
• Each member of the family must know and play their roles well so that the whole family can prosper in wholeness. Subsequently, the society will be at peace.
• Disciplines are the responsibilities of parents. They can get help but can not outsource to grand parents, maids or teachers completely.

Wisdom from the Stage Lines:

1. Orderliness brings leisure.
2. Play your role well.
3. Discipline must be exercised strictly.
4. Shared Goals and Harmonious Family brings great blessings
5. Extend your concept of family to organization and to society.
6. Trust is the glue that brings continued blessing.

The steps for building successful family and of organization are clearly layout. Trust begins with order, execution of the right roles, monitoring for conformance, ensuring shared goals, extending the family boundary into workplace and succeeds with propagation of trust.

Journey of Life - Victory or Defeat?

Let's begin with the mind-map below:

The life we are living now is the sum result of the past decisions we made. The decisions we made were based on our thinking and values that we experienced and acquired. Our beliefs influence our thoughts, then our words, then our actions. Continued and repeated actions bring forth a habit. A set of habits make our character. Our character determines our destiny of our life be it a glorious one or a defeated and troubled one.

We cannot change the past, but we can make wise decision now to influence the outcomes of our future.

Working Backwards
So, if our desired destination of life is success and victorious, then we must work backward all the way to the basic beliefs we have. What do we belief actually determines the our becoming. If we learned the truth then we have freedom and success. If we believe in lies, then we end up in bondage and suffering.

Re-examine Our Beliefs
What are our beliefs? What are our world views? On what basis do we know we have the truth and not the lies? For Christians, our answers must be the Bible as written words of God and of Truth. We also need the Holy Spirit to be our guide and to make the Words come alive so that we can be lead and know the right things to to do for the situations of life that we meet.

Practice makes Perfect
Knowing without putting in practice results in nothing. Practice begin with meditating on the Words and revelation by the Holy Spirit. This is follow by verbalizing of our understanding by writing or speaking out. Then we must have a plan of actions for execution. Actions need to be repeated often to form a habit that we do without needing the reminder and the effort. However, we must put in the effort first before it becomes an effortless and automatic thing. In the process of execution, we discover our lack of understanding, or we make errors so that we can go back to the drawing board again to learn from the Bible and the Holy Spirit.

Unintentional Learning
In our daily contact with others, internet, TV programs and commercials, we are constantly bombarded with all kinds of concepts that we acquire almost without effort. The subtle messages get in into our mind. Hence we need frequently to re-examine our beliefs, biases, assumptions, prejudices etc against the Bible and Holy Spirit. We need to prune our thoughts in our mind and throw out the lies accumulated. Read John 15 about pruning by the Father so that we can produce more fruits.

It is not Lack of Blessings but Plain Disobedience
We often blame God for our failures or lack of blessings. But the truth is actually either our lack of knowledge of the Word of God or our failure to put them into practice. We give excuses instead of simple obedience by faith. God give promises to us. But God promises are realized in our lives through our obedience. Some are easy. Some takes time to develop. Getting things are easy. Building Godly character and producing the fruit of the Spirit take time. Patience can only be seen in meeting up with difficult and nasty people. Boldness is shown in meeting threatening circumstances.

See also

1. Know Your Season of Life and  
2. Christian Transformation & Growth -The Unified Model
3. Where is Our Confidence? 
4. Five Habits for Effective Christian Living
5. Our Calling of Life - Destination or Journey

Freedom and Responsibility

In last week Bible Study Group meeting, we discussed Galatians 5 Freedom & Fruit. Some of the key learning are:

1. By faith, we received Jesus Christ who freed us from the bondage of sin to enable us to love and glorify God.
2. Freedom comes with responsibility - we have to be responsible for the outcomes of the choices we made.
3. "Faith working through love" - Faith in Jesus and working out the Christ in us through love.
4. Be Spirit centered and focus on the fruit of the Spirit of love, joy, peace etc rather than focus on not sinning. Focus on self and trying not to sin will lead to defeat. Focus on the Spirit and the fruit instead.

We tend to fight for Freedom and at the same time we don't want to be held accountable for the outcomes. Freedom without accountability only leads to negligence and destruction. We are so quick to blame others, the society and the government, for the errors we made or for not stopping or helping us to fix our errors! We consider all forms of rules as restriction to our freedom but in truth, the rules are there to help us take better care of ourselves.


True freedom is not without responsibilities and rules. 

True freedom has two aspects:

1. Ability to act for Good: is the ability and rights to do the right things. 
2. Freedom from Bondage: not be in bondage by bad things such as drugs or lusts. 

We are freed to do good and be truly alive in health and strength. We don't waste time in thinking about how not to sin but go after the fruit of the Spirit, things that are beautiful and build others up.

10 Kingdom Laws for Business Success

In a recent overseas mission trip, I have the opportunities to share the "10 Kingdom Laws for Success" to many young professional and entrepreneurs that are believers on 3 separate meetings. The original posting Kingdom Laws & Principles is too much to share in a 1-2 hour session. A shortened version in Chinese is shared and it is available here.

This post is the English version of the "10 Kingdom Laws for Business Success".

Understanding Work is a Ordained & Not a Curse

1. Work is Ordained by God. Gen 1:28, 2:15
2. Work happened before Sin & Curse. Gen 1:28,2:15 comes before the Curse in Gen 3:17-19.
3. Work is Worship. Hebrew Avodah = Work = Worship =Serving
4. Work is Our Calling Eph 2:10
5. The Curse of Work has been removed by Jesus. Work is stress-free & joyful. Gal 3:13, Col 1:20.
6. Work is not Worry. God provides when we sleep.
   Ps 127:2 . Just following the Kingdom Principles and have worry free & fruitful work.

The 10 Laws are:

1.   The Golden Law - Righteousness brings success
2.   Law of Parallel Universes - Begins in Spirit
3.   Law of Execution - Walk the Talk
4.   Law of Harvests- Sowing and Reaping
5.   Law of Seasons -  Watch & Ride the Cycle
6.   Law of Reciprocation Change begins with you
7.   Law of Greatness - Servant Leadership
8.   Law of Perseverance To Mission & Values
9.   Law of Amplification Growth with Care for Details
10.   Law of Humility - Learning & Renewal

1  The Golden Law - Righteousness brings success
    Spiritual Health brings True & Total Success.  Mat 6:33
    God is in charge - Righteousness is Gain. Quality in Character & Quality in Offering (competence and performance) are both important. Between the two, Character comes first; Character over Competence. Venture Capitalists invest in people of Character.
    Prov 23:5 Chase Money and it will fly away. This is the negative way of expressing the Golden Business Rule.

2  Law of Parallel Universes - Begins in Spirit

•     What is seen is influenced by the things unseen Heb 11:3.
•     Things seen is originated in the Unseen - From the Dream / Vision
•     Get your calling and vision from God
•     Inside determines outside
•     Intrinsic Motivation is better than Extrinsic Motivation
•     Have a Mission & Vision - Unique Customer Value Proposition

3  Law of Execution - Walk the Talk

•     Doing realize the Vision. Mere talk does not. Remember to execute your plan.
•     The Wise and the Foolish Builders - Matthew 7:24–27
•     Hear + Do build strong & lasting thing
•     Pro 14:23  Work brings profit, but mere talk leads to poverty!
•     Joh 13:17  If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them
•     We must close the gap between knowing and doing.

4 Law of Harvests- Sowing and Reaping.

•     Invest to Gain -     Luk 6:38; 2Co 9:6-8
•     You sow what you have; You get what you sow
•     Hence, You sow what you need
•     Invest in
•       tithes & offering to the Lord
•       people in needs;e.g. widow, poor, etc.
•       business
•       See the values of generosity
•     It is also know as the Law of Proportional Returns: the more you give the more you get

5  Law of Seasons -  Watch & Ride the Cycle

•     Watch the Opportunity & Timing - Ride the Trends - Ecc 3:1-8
•     Be watchful - Observe the changes and trends
•       Strike at the Right Time
•       Be at the leading edge and not the 1st mover bleeding edge
•     Be Agile & Ready to act
•     God provides the Growth and Set the Timing & Man does the Following of the laws of nature, the seasons & timing  established by God.

6   Law of Reciprocation Change begins with you

•     You changed 1st to cause others to change     Luk 6:37
•     Law of Empathy- Do on to others what you want to receive.
•     Reaction is a multiple of the Action
•       Newton's Law is Reaction = Action
•       Kingdom Law is Do good and Receive Better

7  Law of Greatness - Servant Leadership

•     Lead by Serving - Mat 20:26
•     Serve your staff to serve your customers who repay you with $$$
•     People follow your actions rather than your words
•     How to become Great in influence
•     Leadership is about
•       1 lead at the front with shared mission and vision
•       2 serve from the back with as example and support
•       3 coach in the middle with encouragement & correction

8 Law of Perseverance To Mission & Values

•     Perseverance in righteousness Law#1 ; Luke 18:1–8
•       Don't take short-cut, cut-corners due to pressure
•       Plans/Methods can and should change,
•       but the Purpose-Mission & Values remains
•     Stick to your Vision to accomplish it
•       Once the goal has been set, it must be pursued with a burning desire. The desire must be maintained and sustained with discipline - Fred Smith

9  Law of Amplification Growth with Care for Details

•     Growth & Scalability
•  Get it right before you scale or multiply
•  take care of the details
•  unless there is character transformation, greater responsibility will show forth greater weakness
•     Faithful in Little leads to faithfulness in large - Luk 16:10
• Warren Buffet, "In looking for someone to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. But the most important is integrity, because if they don't have that, the other two qualities, intelligence and energy, are going to kill you."
•     Law of Promotion - Luk 16:11-12
•     Strength or Defect get magnified with time and growth
•     Also known as Law of Fidelity or Honesty

10  Law of Humility - Learning&Renewal

•  Glory goes to those that are humble - ever learning & contributing. Mat 5:5
•  Renewal is
•       prepare for the future
•       ride the changes
• Learning
•       New capability building
•  I Ching #15 謙 Humility - means:
• “have it” - resources, ability. If don't have them, there is nothing to be humble about.
• “don’t show it” and
• “use it”. When the situation calls for it and if you have it, humility requires you to use it to help and not to hide it!
• It is not passive but quiet aggressive actions without drawing attention to self.
• 6 stage lines provides additional teachings of:
•         1. develop humility
•         2. let your action do the talking
•         3. accomplished and yet don’t claim credit but give credit
•         4. do more good things
•         5. do corrective actions to remove bad things
•         6. expand humility to others that they may have it too

How to Pass through Dangers?

From my study of I Ching, I have been discovering new perspectives on the key Christian values. I have discussed some of them, like Humility is Forceful Too and Waiting in the mean-time.

Here is another discovery of overcoming danger and temptations. In I-Ching Part 33 29 坎 The Pit /Danger – Be Watchful & Righteous This hexagram represents danger and the pit. The way to prevent us from falling into the pits and to get out of the pits if we ever fall into one, is to stay to the path of righteousness - of honesty and integrity. It is often our own greed that causes us to fall into the pits and dangers. The way to long term successful living, wealth and health is still the golden rule for business Mat 6:33 Seek first the Kingdom and its rules and all the rest, the resources, will follow you. Be the magnet that attracts and not the chaser that chases after the wind Proverb 23:5.

The teaching is:  

Eternal Security Arguments again

Some friend sent me articles that "exposed the errors of famous so and so" and asked me my views. 

Here is my respond.

The articles are just some of many many that debate between the "Eternal Security - One saved always saved" doctrine of Calvinist vs. the "Conditional Security - You could loose your salvation if you continue in sin" doctrine of the Armenians.

Conditional Security followers argues that Eternal Security people give people a license to sin since there is not more punishment for sins. This argument implies that people don't sin because of fear of punishment. If you remove the punishment, people will sin. In this case, sinful nature is still with the people. It is the punishment that keep them from not sinning. If the sinful nature stills remain with them, that would mean they are not saved. Christ's death is to pay for the punishments of our sins and Christ's resurrection and sending of the Holy Spirit is to give us a new nature (God's sinless nature) that we will not only don't sin but will love to do good things because love is in our new nature of God - the Zoe Life in us (Christ's life in us).

How then can we explain a saved and born again with God's nature Christian still commit sin? We then have to understand the tripartite nature of man. Man is of the spirit, soul and body. Before salvation, our spirit is separated(dead) from God. After salvation, our spirit is rebirth and connected to God with the Holy Spirit coming into our spirit. However, our soul (mind) and body remains unchanged (our body will be changed, new heavenly body when Christ come again ). The unchanged mind and body with our passions in them still remain unchanged. Hence, there is a process of growth, called Sanctification, where our mind is to be renewed with the Word and Spirit of God, to rule over our body so that our body can be instruments for righteousness rather and sin. The process of Sanctification, where the inner man grows up to rule the mind and body requires discipline or training or exercises in the Word and Spirit and Action or work of faith by the body.

The typical error in the "Eternal Security" camp is the ignoring of this process of growth. They claimed they are mature already in Christ when they are first born! They misinterpreted Bible verses about "we are complete in Christ" and hence there is no need to grow. An apple seed is a complete seed in Apple. If you plant it, it will grow up into an apple tree and produces lot of apples. If the apple seed is incomplete, then either it cannot grow, die prematurely, or don't produce apples. A fertilized egg is complete as a chicken. Given a right temperature and incubation period of 21 days, it will become a chick. An unfertilized egg is incomplete and even given the right temperature and time, it will never become a chick.

Both camps at least agree on the starting point - One need to believe and receive Jesus Christ as Savior in order to be saved. Jesus is the only way to salvation.

They differs in the process of growth. Common errors committed by believers are:

1. Relying on Jesus for salvation and then rely on self-effort for Christian Growth. They only appropriate the Grace of God for salvation. The truth is that God's Grace (God's power for living the lives we should) is not just for salvation but for sanctification (make holy) as well.

2. Relying on God to do everything and then just don't do anything or do your own thing waiting for God to lead. They called the people is group 1 as legalistic and work of the flesh. But the truth is God and Man has their part to play. God initiatives and Man follows.  see Fleshy Work & Spiritual Work and God Initiates & Man Follows and Let Go & Let God - Spiritual or Just Plain Lazy?

Work could be of the flesh, but Work could of Faith as well. Read James - Faith without Work is dead! see Bible Study - James 2:14-2:24 Work Actualizes the Inner Faith . In 1Th 1:3  remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

We rely on the Grace of God to live out God's unique calling of life. We are saved for God glorying work. Read Eph 2:8-10 Saved by Grace for walking out God's good workmanship in Christ.

Always have a balanced view of things and hold both extremes in view. God is both LOVE and JUST. Either extremes is wrong.

Lastly, on the security of our salvation, on whom do you place your trust in maintaining your salvation ? On God or yourself?

John 10:29  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

Tough Decision Making - Loyalty vs Righteousness

Right or wrong decision is easier to make when the issue does not involve your friends.

For friendship, do we hide or bend the truth?
Even God faces this issue. God is all love and God is all just.
How does God solve the issue of man's sin?
For justice and truth, God has to punish man for his sin.
For love, God has save man from his sin.

God maintains the truth and justice with love by sending His own son to die for man's sin. This give us the clue to solve this balance of Truth and Love.

The rule is starts with truth and ends with love or

to package truth in love. 

Truth should always be the foundation of decision making.

However, the way we go about presenting it have to be done in love.
Love should incorporates truth for truth is the eternal thing. Truth has to incorporate love because love the binding force for any relationship.

For the love of my friend, I need to show him the reality and yet I must do it in such a way that he accepts and changes. So while the first intention is to show him the truth, I need to approach him with love and gain his trust to hear the truth from me. He must be sure that my concern is for him and not to condemn him.

We tend to be too fast to point out someone's error before we gain his respect and trust. So we normally get a defensive reaction and a rejection instead. This defeats the very purpose of sharing the truth which is for his benefits.

Without the trust, the good intention is misinterpreted as an attack.

Is Telling the Truth a Betrayal?
Coming back to address the issue of loyalty and betrayal. When we are exposing the wrong doings of our friends, are we betraying our friends? What are the criteria of judging? I think there are two criteria?

1. At whose benefits? My, Friends or Others.
2. Truth or Lie?

We then have the following combination:

1. truth that benefits me (at friend's expense)..Betrayal (Juda's betrayal of Jesus)
2. truth that benefits my friend.......................true friend (must do in love)
3. truth that benefits others...........................justice (e.g. injury of others caused by your friend. There must be wrong-doing by your friend)
4. lies that benefit me (at friend's expense)......betrayal of friend
5. lies that benefit my friend...........................still call lies and is wrong.
6. lies that benefit others...............................Contradiction 

 The above classification is a start. I think I need to reflect on it to get greater clarity.

See also Kindness 1st then Truth 2nd