The 'curse' of modern life

Study : US students suffer from internet addiction.

American college students are hooked on cell phones, social media and the internet and showing symptoms similar to drug and alcohol addictions, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of Maryland who asked 200 students to give up all media for one full day found that after 24 hours many showed signs of withdrawal, craving and anxiety along with an inability to function well wihout their media and social links.

But it seems to be an affliction of modern life. In one extreme example in South Korea reported by the media, a couple allegedly neglected their three months daughter, who died of malnutriction, because they were on the computer for up to 12 hours a day raising a virtual child.

[The Sunday Star dated 25 April 2010]

This 'curse' or addiction are essentially terms that have been applied to those that spend excessive amounts of time online at the expense of and to the detriment of other aspects of their lives.

So this 'curse' is real and to avoid this addiction why not get addicted to JESUS instead. Because only Jesus can fill any vacumn that you have in your life.

We should then cultivate the habits of growing in the Lord through the following :-

The Habit of Prayer as in Romans 12:12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

The Habit of Study as in James 1:25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.

The Habit of Fellowship as in Hebrews 10:25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Through all this habits, we can spent our time more fruitful and at the same time grow closer to be Christlike.

A Piece of Clay

Are you willing to be shape by God?
In Psalm 139, David describes God as fashioning his tiny body together in the darkness of his mother's womb. [verse 13]

Genesis 2:7 records the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Even as God have shaped us since we are in our mother's womb, let us continue to submit to Him, as he mould us daily in our walk with Him - like clay in the hand of the potter.

We need to regularly read the Bible and pray for the Holy Spirit to help us understand what it says? Nothing is more important than spending time with God each day to allow him to shape us into the person he wants us to be. There is no short cut to spiritual intimacy; ever Christian needs to cultivate a lifestyle of persistent prayer and intimacy with God.

Jeremaiah 18:6 "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

How is your health, spiritually?

Spiritual health is not determined by how we look, but by how we live. It is not enough for us to talk about faith, we must live out our faith. The Lord calls us to be people of inner substance, not just outward appearance - thus we are to demonstrate the reality of His presence in us by an attitude of humility.

Psalm 139:23-24 records "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Even as we ask God to search us, we need to humble ourselves as God reveal to us our attitude and behavior that need to be change.

Firstly, do not harbor any BITTERNESS, as bitterness only consumes the vessel that contains it. Secondly, avoid clinging to critical attitudes, and thinking too highly of oneself.

Mark 7:21-23 "For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' "

If we allow God to controls our inside, then we will be genuine on the outside.

Warnings !!!

The law of the wise is a fountain of life, to turn one away from the snares of death. - Proverbs 13:14

God has provided us with "warnings" for our protection. The book of Proverbs is filled with warnings about evil and it encourages us to seek wisdom. In Proverbs 13, the principal author Solomon, provides God's instructions for His people to deal successfully with the practical affairs of everyday life.
verse 1 - advices us to heed the instructions and rebukes of our father while verse 3 reminded us to guard our mouth. Verses 7 to 11 cautious us not to occupied ourselves with materialistic things and avoid dishonesty.

In Joel 2:12-17, God used the prophet Joel to encourage His people to pay attention to the warning light on their spiritual life. Prosperity had caused them to become complacent and negligent in their commitment to the Lord. Their faith had degenerated into empty formalities and their lives into moral bankruptcy. So God sent a plague of locusts to ruin crops in order to get His people's attention, causing them to change their behaviour and turn to Him with their whole heart.

First John 1:9 reminds us : "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

TO AVOID GOING WRONG, FOLLOW GOD'S LEADING.

TO BUILD A GODLY LIFE, LET GOD BE THE ARCHITECT AND HIS WORD THE BLUEPRINT.

The Pursuit Of Happiness

Everyone is looking for happiness, and people follow many avenues trying to find it. They look for it in money, fancy cars, self-improvement programs, parties, luxurious homes, or promoting a cause.

That's a wrong list. The right one is found in Matthew 5. Jesus taught us that deep and lasting happiness comes from being right with God. He said we are blessed, or happy, when we are :
Poor in spirit - recognizing our desperate need for God.
Mourning - realizing the awfulness of sin and being genuinely sorry for it.
Meek - demonstrating self-control, even when we are mistreated.
Hungry and thirsty for righteousness - longing to be holy and pure.
Merciful - showing mercy to others, just as God shows mercy to us.
Pure in heart - being single minded and sincere in our devotion to Christ.
Peacemakers - sharing the peace Christ offers, and promoting peace with one another.
Persecuted - being willing to suffer for Jesus' sake.

Looking for happiness? Follow Jesus' way.
[Extracted from Our Daily Bread written by Dave Branon]

HAPPINESS DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU ARE, NOT ON WHAT YOU HAVE.

Training For Life

Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. - 1 Timothy 4:7

Spiritual fitness takes much more than a relaxed approach to live a God-honoring life. In a culture marked by false teaching, along with extreme forms of self-indulgence and self-denial, Paul wrote : Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. [1 Timothy 4:7-8]

Our bodies and our minds are to be dedicated to God and prepared for His service (Romans 12:1-2). The goal is not spiritual muscle-flexing but godliness - a life that is pleasing to the Lord. Vigorous study of the Word, focused prayer, and bodily discipline are all part of the process. How well we train greatly affects how well we run our race of life.

GODLY EXERCISE IS THE KEY TO GODLY CHARACTER.

[Extract from Our Daily Bread - written by David McCasland]

Can You Hear God ?

John 10:4 .... and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.


Hebrew Chapter 12, verses 14 - 16 listed three main things that causes us to be separated from God - Bitterness, sexually immoral and godlessness. These three things causes us to be unholy; and when we are unholy, God cannot be near us and be with us. Leviticus 19:2 reminded us ..."Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy". Without holiness we cannot see the Lord and hear Him. [Hebrew 12:14]
If a Christian cannot hears from God, his life is without power.

If we are to hear God speaking to our hearts through His Word, we need to pull away from the noise of the crowd. Only when we learn to be quiet can we really understand what it means to commune with the God who cares for us.

To hear from God we need to be HOLY as God can only be found in HOLINESS.
To hear from God we must acknowledge that God is Almighty, thus we need to be HUMBLE.
To hear from God we need to have a HUNGER for HIM.

Psalm 66:18 If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened;

Proverbs 15:29 The LORD is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous.

Proverbs 28:9 If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are detestable.

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

TO HEAR GOD'S VOICE, TURN DOWN THE WORLD'S VOLUME.
GOD SPEAKS TO THOSE WHO ARE QUIET BEFORE HIM

Web of Relationship

Mark 12:30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

Spiritual maturity and success in Christian life are not results from how much we know about biblical facts and principles. It comes from loving one another in the same way Christ loved us. God made it clear that we can do this only if we 'abide' in Him [John 15:7]. This means we must stay close to Him through prayer, and that we will obey His commands [v10].

Our web of relationship must first extend to God [i.e vertically] and then to others [horizontally].
How do we extend our relationship to God, if not through prayer and communion. Relationship is build through conversation.

Prayer is the soul of man talking to God.

It should consist of at least four parts - A,C.T.S.
Adoration - Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker [Psalm 95:6]

Confession - Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD "— and you forgave the guilt of my sin. [Psalm 32:5]

Thanksgiving - Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. [Philippians 4:6]

Supplication - I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone. [1 Timothy 2:1]

As our fellowship with the Lord in prayer and reading of His Words strengthen, this will extend our relationship towards our fellow brethens [1 John 1:3,7]

WHEN CHRISTIANS DRAW CLOSE TO CHRIST, THEY DRAW CLOSER TO ONE ANOTHER.

Fear of God

Ecclesiastes 7:17-19 Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool— why die before your time? It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. The man who fears God will avoid all extremes. Wisdom makes one wise man more powerful than ten rulers in a city.

The first of our five Rukun Negara principles is to believe in God. Apparently, many have not fully lived their pledge. When we pledged that we believe in God, do we realise the enormity of those three little words? We go through life living for the here and now and are just overly concerned about material things but give little thought to our afterlife and the eternal.

When we believe in Him, we obey all His teachings faithfully. We also acknowledge the sovereignty and supermacy of God in all things. There are hypocrites who claim to believe in God. They pledge one thing but live their lives in opposition to what God wants.

A healthy fear of God will deter one from doing evil even when no one is watching.

Dr. C. I. Scofield defines 'fear of God' as 'reverential trust with a hatred of evil'. Fear of God means piety. It is used to expressed our religious duty towards God.

Job 1:1 In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.

Let us pray that God will teach us to fear Him. Psalm 86 : 11 Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. While Proverbs 15:16 reminds us "Better a little with the fear of the LORD than great wealth with turmoil." and Proverbs 19:23 The fear of the LORD leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble.

This thing called LOVE

Love - it's such a simple word yet it means a lot of different things, and varies from one person to the other. It has no age limit. People discover it at any age.

To a child, love could just be a cuddling from his parents or his loved one. But to the teenages, love could be spending time with his or her love one. To the elderly, love is everything.

A love that has stood the test of time is one built on trust, loyalty and respect.

Whatever love means to you, it does not matter. For love is universal.

But to God, love is sending His Son to died for our sin as John 3 : 16-18 recorded "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

1 John 4:9-15 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.

LOVE IS THE DOOR THROUGH WHICH WE PASS FROM SELFISHNESS TO SERVICE.

TRUE LOVE IS AN ACTION, NOT JUST A FEELING.

HAPPY VALENTINE to all lovers, couples and everyone.