"Bet you didn't know the Sith Lords were a veritable cadre of Iron Chefs in the kitchen. By harnessing the power of the Dark Side, they've made these cookies well-nigh irresistible. Can't you almost smell the scent of fresh-baked cookies, wafting through the airlock...."
John 14:12-14
12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Jesus assures them that I will do whatever you ask in my name (v. 13), a theme that will be repeated throughout the farewell discourse (15:7, 16; 16:23-24, 26; cf. 1 Jn 3:22; 5:14-15). Praying "in Jesus' name" does not refer to some magic formula added to the end of a prayer. It means to pray in keeping with his character and concerns and, indeed, in union with him. The disciples, through their union with Christ, are taken up into his agenda. This agenda, as throughout his ministry, is to bring glory to the Father (v. 13). This verse has been understood by some Christians to be a blanket promise that Jesus will give them whatever they want. Such idolatry of the self is the very opposite of eternal life. "Whatsoever we ask that is adverse to the interests of salvation, we do not ask in the name of the Savior" (Augustine In John 73.3). Rather, the promise is made to those who will pray in Jesus' name and for the glory of the Father. As such it is a great promise for the advance of God's purposes in oneself, in the church and in the world.
Ecc 4:7-10:
Again I saw something meaningless under the sun:
There was a man all alone;
he had neither son nor brother.
There was no end to his toil,
yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.
"For whom am I toiling," he asked,
"and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?"
This too is meaningless—
a miserable business!
Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!
Psalm 118:24,29 (NLT)
24 This is the day the Lord has made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!
His faithful love endures forever.
Few of Eliot Spitzer's peers will miss his style now that he has been felled by scandal. Disdain for the governor's bellicosity was the one thing that united both parties in New York's fractious state government. His successor is Lt. Governor David Paterson — Spitzer's diametric opposite. With his mellow voice, humor and self-deprecation, Paterson has become a popular speaker in New York's political circles. "He has a winning personality," says State Senator Bill Perkins, a Democrat whose 30th District seat Paterson used to occupy. "He's very funny, very witty, and he makes an effort to not just get the job done but to make people comfortable."
This is our God, the Servant King
He calls us now to come follow Him
To bring our lives as a daily offering
Of worship to the Servant King...
Coach Grant Taylor at Shiloh Christian Academy has never had a winning football season. His car breaks down frequently, his house is falling down around him, and he and his wife are unable to have children. When he overhears school parents plotting to have him fired, he reaches a crisis point and prays. The turning point for Coach Taylor is shortly after an intensive time of prayer. An older man who walks the halls of the school praying for the students shows up unexpectedly in the coach's office with a message of encouragement. The timing of that message overcomes the Coach's reluctance to change focus.
Psalm 22:30-31
Posterity will serve Him;
future generations will be told about the Lord.
They will proclaim his righteousness
to a people yet unborn—
for He has done it.
5 When the Lamb broke the third seal, I heard the third living being say, “Come!” I looked up and saw a black horse, and its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. 6 And I heard a voice from among the four living beings say, “A loaf of wheat bread or three loaves of barley will cost a day’s pay. And don’t waste the olive oil and wine.”
See, the former things have taken place,
and new things I declare;
before they spring into being
I announce them to you."
"Hmm... I suspect... it's a non-deterministic memory synchronization timing issue."
"Aww. The underlying software framework must have a problem. So not my program."
"Duh! It's the compiler itself!"
"That's not a bug - it's a feature!"
"Hardware fault? Maybe the hamster inside died..."
Thomas Mumba loved to sing in the church choir and dreamt of recording a CD of gospel music.
At 23 he did not drink or smoke. He preferred to spend his time worshipping his Lord.
His mother Justina hoped his future would be far from the mines that pockmark the landscape of Zambia's Copperbelt.
"I wanted him to become a pastor, or a reverend," she said, "because of his good morals. People loved him very much."
Instead, Thomas lies buried near the gates of Chambishi mine, which is run by NFC Africa Mining, a Chinese state enterprise. [read more...]
"Instead, train yourself to be godly. 'Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.' This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it.
11-14Get the word out. Teach all these things. And don't let anyone put you down because you're young. Teach believers with your life: by word, by demeanor, by love, by faith, by integrity. Stay at your post reading Scripture, giving counsel, teaching. And that special gift of ministry you were given when the leaders of the church laid hands on you and prayed—keep that dusted off and in use.
15-16Cultivate these things. Immerse yourself in them. The people will all see you mature right before their eyes! Keep a firm grasp on both your character and your teaching. Don't be diverted. Just keep at it. Both you and those who hear you will experience salvation.
Last Saturday, I was invited to meet a bunch of secondary kids. These great kids were actually on some character-building programme as they were deemed problematic by their teachers.
After being through a similar growing up experience with these kids, I dare say that the problem doesn’t lie in the kids. The real problem is the adults or the people who are in authority.
Not only do they not take the time to listen and understand these kids, they are haste in their judgement to label these kids who do not seem to “flow” with the mainstream as problematic.
Being misunderstood and condemned, naturally these kids would rebel or show dis-interest in their studies... [read more]
"Wouldn't it be nice if time on the job and tickets punched translated neatly into superior performance? Then finding great Presidents would be a simple matter of weighing résumés. Take a Democrat like Bill Richardson — experienced in Congress, in the Cabinet, as a diplomat and governor — and have him run against Republican Tom Ridge, a former soldier, governor and Director of Homeland Security, with the winner chosen by a blue-ribbon commission of all-purpose elders. The Danforth-Mitchell commission, perhaps, or O'Connor-Albright. But it has never worked that way, which is why Lincoln's statue occupies a marble temple on the Mall in Washington, while his far more experienced rival William Seward has a little seat on a pedestal in New York City. "Experience never exists in isolation; it is always a factor that coexists with temperament, training, background, spiritual outlook and a host of other factors," says presidential historian Richard Norton Smith. "Character is your magic word, it seems to me — not just what they've done but how they've done it and what they've learned from doing it."
...
Was it Franklin Roosevelt's experience as governor of New York that gave him the power to inspire in some of the nation's darkest hours? Or was that gift a distillate of his dauntless battle with polio? To a keen student of human nature, all of life offers lessons in how to lead, inspire and endure. Lincoln's ability to apply useful lessons from his motley experiences was among his most striking traits. When Ulysses Grant explained his grand strategy to defeat Lee by attacking on multiple fronts, Lincoln immediately thought of a lesson in joint operations learned years earlier on the farm. "Those not skinning can hold a leg," he said approvingly. For other temperaments, no amount of schooling, no matter how specific, will do. Richard Nixon served as a Congressman, Senator and Vice President; he watched from the front row as Eisenhower assembled one of the best-organized administrations in history. When Nixon's turn came, though, his core character — insecure, insincere, conspiratorial — led him to create a White House doomed by its own dysfunction.
Experience, in other words, gets its value from the person who has it. In certain lives, a little goes a long way. Some people grow and ripen through years of government service; others spoil on the vine. At the same time, the value that voters place on résumé is constantly shifting. James A. Baker III is an authority on this. In 1980, he managed the campaign of his well-credentialed friend George H.W. Bush, under the slogan "A President we won't have to train." But the public mood was sour on Washington, and victory went to an outsider, Ronald Reagan, who had never served in Washington. Eight years later, the mood was stay the course, and Bush's experience as Vice President was his ticket to victory. Then the atmosphere turned again, and in 1992 the public demanded someone new. Baker, a former Secretary of State, still believes that a candidate with credentials should certainly tout them, but in the end, "there's no such thing as presidential experience outside of the office itself." The quality we ought to seek "is leadership."
The Church cannot forfeit her rightful place and role in the marketplace where she must be able to extend her influence beyond the walls of the church or it will be seen as irrelevant.
For too long the Church has been confined and conforming to the world, it is time that the Church demonstrates the power and presence of God in engaging and transforming the world. If this isolation continues, the Church will eventually lose her God-given authority and inheritence as the head and not the tail.
One by one they came, far as your eyes could see.
Each life somehow touched by your generosity.
Little things that you had done, sacrifices that you made,
They were unnoticed on this earth
In Heaven now proclaimed.
MONTEREY, California -- Psychologist Philip Zimbardo has seen good people turn evil, and he thinks he knows why.
...
He spoke with Wired.com about what Abu Ghraib and his prison study can teach us about evil and why heroes are, by nature, social deviants.
Wired: Your work suggests that we all have the capacity for evil, and that it's simply environmental influences that tip the balance from good to bad. Doesn't that absolve people from taking responsibility for their choices?
Philip Zimbardo: No. People are always personally accountable for their behavior. If they kill, they are accountable. However, what I'm saying is that if the killing can be shown to be a product of the influence of a powerful situation within a powerful system, then it's as if they are experiencing diminished capacity and have lost their free will or their full reasoning capacity.
Situations can be sufficiently powerful to undercut empathy, altruism, morality and to get ordinary people, even good people, to be seduced into doing really bad things -- but only in that situation.
Understanding the reason for someone's behavior is not the same as excusing it. Understanding why somebody did something -- where that why has to do with situational influences -- leads to a totally different way of dealing with evil. It leads to developing prevention strategies to change those evil-generating situations, rather than the current strategy, which is to change the person.
...
Wired: You've said that the way to prevent evil actions is to teach the "banality of kindness" -- that is, to get society to exemplify ordinary people who engage in extraordinary moral actions. How do you do this?
Zimbardo: If you can agree on a certain number of things that are morally wrong, then one way to counteract them is by training kids. There are some programs, starting in the fifth grade, which get kids to think about the heroic mentality, the heroic imagination.
To be a hero you have to take action on behalf of someone else or some principle and you have to be deviant in your society, because the group is always saying don't do it; don't step out of line. If you're an accountant at Arthur Andersen, everyone who is doing the defrauding is telling you, "Hey, be one of the team."
Heroes have to always, at the heroic decisive moment, break from the crowd and do something different. But a heroic act involves a risk. If you're a whistle-blower you're going to get fired, you're not going to get promoted, you're going to get ostracized. And you have to say it doesn't matter.
Most heroes are more effective when they're social heroes rather than isolated heroes. A single person or even two can get dismissed by the system. But once you have three people, then it's the start of an opposition.
So what I'm trying to promote is not only the importance of each individual thinking "I'm a hero" and waiting for the right situation to come along in which I will act on behalf of some people or some principle, but also, "I'm going to learn the skills to influence other people to join me in that heroic action."
Isaiah 40:10-11
See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power,
and his arm rules for him.
See, his reward is with him,
and his recompense accompanies him.
He tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young.
It's especially encouraging because I believe it came as a reply to my prayer to God yesterday evening regarding some relationships that I've been working on to build.Proverbs 27:19
As water reflects a face,
so a man's heart reflects the man.
Matthew 10:29-31This reminds me of a very beautiful old song that I read about ten years ago, when I first became a Christian.
29Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. 30And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
His Eye Is On The Sparrow
Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,:)
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me!
[more...]
What I like about this video is that, she’s 4 years old who sings like a 4 year old. A song that is not dumb down but to her ability and expressed like a child, not an adult.
There’s more to kid’s spirituality that mets the eye because we can unconsciously impose adult-like spirituality as standards for kids. While we like what we see in this one, this video shows us just a glimpse of kids spirituality.
...
Outwardly they may jump around and appear distracted, but kids has their way of expressing it. It may not be the way we expect them to. We have a lot to learn about our spirituality as children of God. Lessons in authenticity, trust and a soft heart.
"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.
During the worship services, it is difficult to have the time to pray for many of you. So what I want to do in this entry is to ask you to let me have your prayer requests and needs. I will set aside time on Wednesday (20 February) at around noon to pray with you.
If you are comfortable about it, you can make your prayer points as specific as possible and even leave me your actual name. If not, just leave your initials (real or otherwise in a not so obvious way).
Either you are from Singapore or anywhere in the universe, I will pray along with you.
Paul is another funny guy. Paul boasted about his weaknesses! The list is so long, I was very impressed. And the weirdness thing was that he did not complain about it or pity himself, like I would. I would go, "why am I so unlucky. why do bad things keep happening to me. God, what are you doing. Why didn't you prevent these bad things from happening?"
The Archbishop Rowan Willaims, Head of the 80m Anglican Communion worldwide, provoked outrage when he suggested on February 7th that the adoption of elements of Islamic sharia law in Britain was "unavoidable". This underminded further his authority in trying to bring unity to the Communion which has been divided over the issue of homosexuality between the liberals and the conservatives in the Communion.It gave me pause, 'cos given my natural personality, to be honest, I very much prefer to go along with the majority opinion... to lie low if there's public debate and battle among the Christians and the secularists ('cos I've been of the opinion that church and state should be separated.) 'Cos Jesus said to Caesar's representative, "My Kingdom is not of this world..."
This also weakens the position of the state church which has been seen by the increasingly secular Britain as privileged yet irrelevant. By trying to extend religious rights that Christians enjoy to the Muslims, it actually upsets the secularists further. They are already calling for a smaller official role of the church in Britain. At present 25 bishops sit in the House of Lords.
I personally believe that Christians have to find their voice in society like anyone else, without any advantage over non-Christians. To demonstrate our faith and the greatness of our God, we have to reflect God's greatness in our lives. This means that Christians have to raise the bar in our performance in the classroom or in the workplace, wherever God puts us. There is a greater need for us to shine for Jesus in the world in order to attract people unto Him. Whilst the classroom continues to be a fertile ground for harvest, I believe that the marketplace is where the biggest battle for souls is fought. The challenge is immense; serving God, not money. The key is living out the Gospel with the help of God.
I count myself privileged to be playing this dual role of serving in the church and actively engaging people in the world (in the marketplace). Christians can no longer afford to be marginalised and silenced in the market place. Our voice should become louder and louder based on merits; and actions speak louder than words. When people in the world, who are seeking the truth, see Christians succeeding by living out Jesus' principles, they will be attracted to Jesus. The Word of God in [Prov 29:2] "When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice...." will come true. [read more...]
Galatians 5:1Amen!
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
