Today's Scripture Reading

[drifter]

 

[drifter]

 

[drifter]

 

[drifter]

 

[drifter]

 

[drifter]

 

[Psalm23]

[You are encouraged to freely share the message with others as the Lord leads but please note that nothing on the message must be used for profit!]​

Today’s Scripture Reading [December 26, 2010]


In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. [John 1:1-3; 14. KJV]

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It’s that time of the year!​

“Christmas is that time of the year when even the most level-headed of us succumb to panic buying. We become guilty of making rushed purchases of items that turn out to be pointless and impractical, and which neither we nor the people we give them to would want to keep.

To have a better Christmas, go against the frenzied flow, and think calmly. Why buy something for yourself or a loved one because it seems “seasonal”, or trendy, or is most prominently displayed in the store? Why purchase meaningless trinkets for colleagues or neighbours? Instead, invest in what will last and be treasured.

For yourself or those clearest to you, consider gifts of beauty and value which could become treasured possessions. Or give the gift of a memorable experience. For those less near and dear, choose consumables they can use up (thus preventing clutter), or practical items that they can truly use.

While ringing in the new, do clear out the old. Anything you don’t want, but which is in too good a condition to be discarded, should be sold to interested buyers or given to charity. If you get any more meaningless presents this year, just add them to the list of things to clear out before next Christmas!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------​

Does the above message look familiar to you? If you are a regular reader of the Straits Times, especially in the Classified Advertisement Section (CATS), you couldn’t have missed this message. Although the message sounds like a message written by a religious writer, it was actually a secular message appeared in the CATS advertisement just few days’ ago. What surprises me is that the CATS of the Straits Times is all about encouraging people to sell and to buy goods and services of all sorts and it is the most unlikely place the message of this nature could just appear in it. I certainly want to give high credit to the writer who wrote this message. As we all know, this is what ‘Christmas is all about' – “buying something for yourself or a loved one because it seems ‘seasonal’, or trendy!” It couldn’t be more timely for this message!

Over the last few of my posting, I have shared my thoughts about Christmas and in particular, giving some reasons from biblical perspective why we should avoid celebrating this event. You may have become restless, or have felt a sense of unpleasantness after reading those postings but, as you can see from the above message in the CATS, there are people who are very concerned about indiscriminate spending in this time of the year. Giving the rosy economy – for now – we tend to forget the bad times of the past. Over the last few days, especially on the eve of Christmas, there were celebrations after celebrations all over the world. Yes, the world loves Christmas but they hate Christ! The Christmas events that people are celebrating have nothing more than to distort the real story of the birth of Christ. Many people, Christians and non-Christians, are proclaiming at this time of the year some of the messages that we often heard in some of the Christmas songs such as “Joy to the world”, “Hark! The herald angels sing, Glory to the new-born King”, but the truth is that Christ is seldom at the center of the heart of the people even though they proclaimed those words. Instead, food, drinks, games and funs, and of course gifts are the very purpose of the celebration. As one pastor has candidly put it – at this time of the year, many of us are trying hard to find out what to buy for people who have already got everything, the answer , he added, is simple and obvious: we should not buy them anything for them because they have already got everything!

Let’s pause and think about the actual scenes leading up to Jesus’ birth in biblical terms. The birth of Christ is simply the fulfilment of one of the prophecies as foretold in the Old Testament - a Saviour to be born into this world to redeem the fallen human race. From the very first day of Christ’s birth, He was doing all that were needed to save the world; He was preparing Himself from the very beginning of His birth to travel to the cavalry to face one of the cruellest form of executions of death by hanging on the cross so that we can be redeemed to His Kingdom. But in human terms, this very reason for the birth of Christ is sadly distorted, even sometimes by the church! You might have just participated a celebration yesterday or few days’ ago and you are still in an intoxicated state of hung-over from drink you took. This message that you are reading may come just ‘too late’ for you. But take comfort because it’s never too late to repent when we really think that something is not right. Your salvation is not at stake. However, you must prayerfully go to the Bible and seek God’ direction and ask God what He has to tell you about Christmas. To begin with, try to look for the word Christmas in the Bible. It’s never there! It was simply coined out many years ago, and over time Christmas has become synonymous with shopping, spending, and stress. Even secular CATS message above clearly reflects this sad state of Christmas and it is no exaggeration what this time of year meant. In many retail stores around the world, the sales just in the month of December are more than total the sales of the previous few months. We must therefore try to recapture the spiritual of the birth of Christ and not let the excesses of shopping and entertainment overtaken us that we lost completely of our identity of who we are - the children of God - and that Christmas has nothing to do with the birth of Christ but a purely pagan religion which is now being grossly exploited by retailers. I read the following story about a woman who was out Christmas shopping with her two children, and you too may have the similar encounter yourself while shopping with your children or your friends:

“After many hours of looking at row after row of toys, and everything else imaginable, and after hours of hearing both her children asking for everything they saw on those many shelves, she finally made it to the elevator with her two kids.

She was feeling what so many of us feel during the Christmas holiday season. Overwhelming pressure to go to every party, every housewarming, getting the perfect gift for every person on one's shopping list, and making sure no one on the card list and those who sent a card is forgotten.

When the elevator doors opened there was already a crowd in the car. Exasperated, she pushed her way into the car and dragged her two kids in with her and all the bags of stuff. When the doors closed she couldn't take it anymore and stated, "Whoever started this whole Christmas thing should be found, strung up and shot."

From the back of the car everyone heard a quiet calm voice respond, "Don't worry, we already crucified him." For the rest of the trip down the elevator was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.”

There are many versions or stories of who actually started Christmas and no one can really tell with absolute certainty how Christmas came about. But there is one truth that we all cannot deny. Christmas is not started by you nor me, neither the people of this generation. Though we are not the one who started it, neither can we be the one to stop it, the best that we could do for ourselves is to stop celebrating this event of Christmas which is nothing more than a pagan event and is synonymous with shopping, spending and fun. Instead, we must dedicate this season of the year to truly worship Jesus, our Messiah, our God, just like those wise men who came from the east to worship purely Jesus (Matthew 2:1; 11). Jesus does not need any gift from us but His demand of us is simple: Worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). While the world has no room for Jesus, we must leave pretty of space in our heart to accommodate our Saviour and let Him be at the centre of our heart. The life history of Jesus, His birth, His death, His resurrection and His ascension to the heavenly Kingdom must be remembered by us every day, and we should not let the celebration of Christmas, Good Friday, nor Easter Day be the only time of our remembrance. In fact, Jesus reminds us to only remember Him of His death during the Last Supper with His disciples with these words: This is my body which is given for you; this do in remembrance of me (Luke 22:19), and nothing in the Gospel tells to remember about His birth. Sadly, the world has done ‘exceedingly well’ in promoting the birth of Christ under an assumed pagan festive even of Christmas! The birth of Christ does not need to be celebrated. By all mean, we must remember the wonderful work of our Lord Jesus and we must remember His love, His teachings, His laws and more importantly His Lordship and His Diety that He and only He is God. And what better way to remember our Lord Jesus' love, teachings, laws then to simply follow His frequent reminder to us: Repent of our sins because it is only through our honest and sincere repentence that we can be saved!

 

[commoner]

if jesus did not born on christmas day, then you need to question what tradition is true and what tradition is false.

if you question what tradition is true and false, you need to question the authencity of the bible.

when you question the authencity of the bible, then you will be questioning whether there was a historical jesus which no credible historian take note of this "miraculous" man,,,,,,,,,

 

[drifter]

if jesus did not born on christmas day, then you need to question what tradition is true and what tradition is false.

if you question what tradition is true and false, you need to question the authencity of the bible.

when you question the authencity of the bible, then you will be questioning whether there was a historical jesus which no credible historian take note of this "miraculous" man,,,,,,,,,

bro ....you are faster then me ...hahaha

 

[drifter]

the rising and setting of the sun was once attributed t helios and a flaming chariot . earthquakes and tidal waves were the wrath of poseidon. if religions countinued to promote pious myth as absolute fact , scientific progress would halt, and mankind would be doomed to an agnorant future of senseless holy wars, much lke what we see today. holy wars were still making headlines " my god is better then your god " . luckly, science has now proven those gods to be false idols. soon all god will be proven to be false idols . science has provided answers to almost every question , man can ask . they are only a few questions left ,and they are the esoteric ones , what are we doing here ? what is the meaning of life ?which man has been askng since the begining of time .
religions has stood by while science picked away at religion bit by bit , debunking so-called miracles . modern miracles belongs to science ....computers , ipad , iphone ,vaccines,space station, genetic manipulation....even the divine miracles of creation . matter from nothing ...in a lab . these are the science we tell our children . these are the miracles we herald as proof that science will bring us the answers. headlines in newspaper carried science's miracles everyday . who need god ? science is god ! faith does not protect you , intelligence protect you . how long has it been since someone walk on water ? " god " is a haullcuination , a delusion cruth for those who are weak . those ancient stories and fairy tales of immaculate conception , walking on water , talkng snake , staying inside a fish stomach alive for 3days , virgin birth and parting seas are no longer relevant in today world . god has become absolete . science has won the battle ! science has won by providing answers.

ask yourself ,why half the school in eroupean countries are not allowed to teach evolution . ask yourself why the US christains coaltion is the most influential lobby against scientific progress in the world , for example " cloning " . the battle between science and religions is still raging . science have left religions with little room to debate . if cloning human have been successful , religions have use " moral " as an excuse to stop scientific research for cloning .

christianity is just some kind of repackage " sun worship " ! december 25th is not even jesus birthday . it is the ancient pagan holiday of sol invictus -uncouquered sun-coinding with the winter solstice. its the time of the year when the sun returns , and the day start getting longer .conquered religions , often adopt existing holiday to make conversion less shocking . its called transmutation . it helps people acclimatize to the new faith . christianity did not only borrow only from the "sun worship " , the ritual of christainity is taken from the " god making " rite of euhemerus . the practice of " god eating " that is , holy communtion was borrow from the aztecs . even the concept of christ dying for you sins is arguably not exclusively christian. the self-sacrifice of a young man to absolve the sins of his people appears in the earliest tradition of the quetzalcoat . very little in any organizes faith is truly original . every religion have heaven as a reward and hell as punishment . religion are not born from scratch . they grow from one another ...so drop your religion now !!!!!!

 

[drifter]

Understanding "God's Plan"

If you are a Christian, you are extremely familiar with "God's plan." This is the way that Christians traditionally explain things like amputations, cancer, hurricanes and car accidents.

You can see how pervasive "God's plan" is by looking in Christian inspirational literature. For example, if we look in the book A Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, i find this remarkable paragraph in Chapter 2:

Because God made you for a reason, he also decided when you would be born and how long you would live. He planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death. The Bible says, "You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book!" [Psalm 139:16]
There is also this:
Regardless of the circumstances of your birth or who your parents are, God had a plan in creating you.
Under this view of the universe, God plans everything. Take a moment and think about what Rick Warren said. Rick said, "He planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death." Let's examine one simple implication of this statement. What this means is that God pre-planned every abortion that has taken place on our planet.

If you think about this implication for a few moments, you will begin to realize how impossible "God's plan" is. If the concept of "God's plan" is true, you can first of all see that God wants us to be aborting children. Every single abortion is planned by God, so God must be doing it for a reason. Second, you can see that both the mother who requests the abortion and the doctor who performs it are blameless. Since it is God who planned the abortion of the child (God chose the "exact time" of the death, according to Rick Warren), the mother and doctor are simply puppets who are fulfilling God's plan. You can also see that all the Christians who are fighting against abortion are missing the point. They are actually fighting against God's plan, and their fight is completely futile. God is the all-powerful ruler of the universe, and his plan is for more than a million children a year to die in the United States through abortion. Each one of those abortions was meticulously planned by God, so fighting against abortion is a totally wasted effort.
If you are a Christian, what you are thinking is, "God does not intend for us to perform abortions!" But if you believe what Rick is saying, then you are obviously incorrect. God is actually the direct cause of every abortion on earth. If you find that notion to be uncomfortable, I would agree with you. Unfortunately, that is the logical outcome of God's plan.

In order to better understand God's plan, let's look at one of the biggest global events that humans have ever witnessed: World War II. According to Encarta:

The human cost [of WWII], not including between 5.6 million and 5.9 million Jews killed in the Holocaust who were indirect victims of the war, is estimated to have been 55 million dead—25 million of those military and 30 million civilian.
In addition, according to Encarta:
61 countries participated in WWII
1.7 billion people participated in WWII
75% of all human beings alive at the time participated in WWII
World War II was obviously a major disaster -- perhaps the most horrific event the world has ever seen. It is safe to say that nearly every human being on planet Earth prayed to God that this war would end.
And don't forget Adolph Hitler. He was evil incarnate, and Hitler is well known for the atrocious things he did. It is interesting to look at Adolph Hitler in the context of prayer, and understand how Christians try to reconcile an all-loving, prayer-answering God with such a hateful man.

What I would like you to do right now is to consider this statement: "Hitler is part of God's Plan." Think about what Rick said:

He planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death. The Bible says, "You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book!" [Psalm 139:16]
Rick also says:
God never does anything accidentally, and he never makes mistakes. He has a reason for everything he creates. Every plant and every animal was planned by God, and every person was designed with a purpose in mind.
If God has a divine plan for each of us, then he had a divine plan for Hitler too. It is when you stop to think about it deeply that the contradictions hit you.
For example, simply think about what "God's plan" would actually mean. Since God is an all-powerful being, God's plan would, of necessity, need to be all-inclusive. Hitler and WWII would fit as one tiny piece in a supreme plan of massive proportions. Under an all-encompassing plan like this, the 60 million people who died in WWII all died for specific reasons -- each death had meaning -- and each death would have rippled through the world causing countless side-effects, also all part of God's plan. God's master plan would include everyone and everything, including Hitler and WWII.

Now let's imagine that you say a prayer in this sort of universe. What difference does it make? God has his plan, and that plan is running down its track like a freight train. If God has a plan, then everyone who died in the Holocaust died for a reason. They had to die, and each death had meaning. Therefore, Holocaust victims could pray all day, and they would still die. The idea of a "plan" makes the idea of a "prayer-answering relationship with God" ridiculous. Yet Christians attach themselves to both ideas, despite the irresolvable contradiction.

Think about what God's plan means for you personally. If the plan happens to say that you will get hit by a bus tomorrow, or that terrorists will blow you up, or that you will be shot in the head four times, then that's what will happen. It would be the same with any disease. If you contract cancer this afternoon and die three months later, that is God's plan for you. Praying to cure the cancer is a waste. God plans for you to die, so you will die. He has pre-programmed the exact time of your death. There is nothing you can do to change the plan -- no amount of prayer will help -- because your death will have meaning and your death will cause side-effects that are also part of the plan.

Who will you marry? You actually have no choice in the matter. God has pre-planned your wedding in minute detail. Rick Warren says, "God knew that those two individuals [your parents] possessed exactly the right genetic makeup to create the custom 'you' that he had in mind. They had the DNA God wanted to make you." Therefore, your spouse was pre-chosen by God for you so that you would create the children who are a part of his plan. You also have no choice in the number of children you will have -- God has pre-planned their births.

In addition, this sort of universe means that Hitler is blameless. Hitler was not "evil," because Hitler had no free will at all. Hitler was simply an actor forced to play his role in God's plan. God planned for millions of people to die in the Holocaust -- he planned their deaths in exact detail according to Rick Warren. Hitler had to kill those people. Hitler was God's puppet in making that those millions of deaths happen right on schedule.

In the same way then, every murderer is blameless. Since God has planned each of our deaths in exact detail, murderers are actually essential to God's plan. Why do we punish them? We should be rewarding them for doing their God-planned duty. What if you get raped tomorrow and get pregnant? God did that because he planned the exact time of that child's birth and death. God actually pre-planned your rape, and the rapist was God's puppet. Rather than hating the rapist, we should celebrate God's plan.

Do you believe that murderers and rapists should be rewarded? Do you believe that Hitler was sent by God to kill millions of people in the Holocaust? Do you believe that God is the direct cause of every abortion on this planet? Do you believe that you have no choice in your spouse or the number of children you have? If you are a sane individual, then probably not. But that is what you are saying when you state that Hitler or cancer or anything else is part of "God's plan."

The statement "It is part of God's plan" is one of those meaningless palliatives that, when you sit down and think it through using your common sense, makes no sense.

Understanding the illusion of religion

If you are a Christian, you have probably believed in God's plan your whole life. There's a very good chance that you own a copy of Rick's book -- it has sold over 20 million copies. Chances are you read chapter 2 of Rick's book and nodded your head "Yes!" through the whole thing.

But now, if you are a normal, intelligent human being, you can see that what Rick proposes is impossible. If God has "planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death", what that means is that you have absolutely no free will. Humans have no control over anything. We are simply puppets executing the plan. It also means that prayer is absolutely pointless.

So, on the one hand you have a religion that says, "God has planned the days of your life in advance." On the other hand that same religion says, "Pray to God and he will answer your prayers." One of those two statements must be false. In fact, both of them are wrong.

Understand the illusion simply by using your common sense. As soon as you think about it, you will begin to see what is actually going on.

 

[drifter]

There are no "atheists"

It is time for us to recognize as a society that there is no such thing as an atheist. Let me help you understand why this is the case.

Do you believe in Leprechauns? Probably not, because Leprechauns are imaginary. Yes, there are lots of books, movies and fairy tales dealing with Leprechauns. People talk about Leprechauns all the time. Leprechauns even have a popular brand of breakfast cereal. But that does not mean that Leprechauns exist.

We know that Leprechauns are imaginary. Why? Because there is no evidence for their existence. Despite all the publicity Leprechauns get, normal people dismiss storybook creatures like Leprechauns as myths, and rightly so.

If you do not believe in Leprechauns, what are you? Are you an aleprechaunist? Of course not. You are normal. People who do not believe in Leprechauns are completely normal.

As discussed throughout this book, there is no evidence for God's existence either:

God has never left any physical evidence of his existence on earth.

None of Jesus' "miracles" left any physical evidence either
God has never spoken to modern man, for example by taking over all the television stations and broadcasting a rational message to everyone.

The resurrected Jesus has never appeared to anyone.

The Bible we have is provably incorrect and is obviously the work of primitive men rather than God.

When we analyze prayer with statistics, we find no evidence that God is "answering prayers."

Huge, amazing atrocities like the Holocaust and AIDS occur without any response from God. And so on…

has presented dozens of different proofs showing that "God," as popularly conceptualized by the world's religions, is imaginary. Therefore, people who do not believe in God are the same as people who do not believe in Leprechauns. They are rational, objective observers of the world around them. People who do not believe in God are normal.
It has come time to openly assert this. When a person refuses to believe in a god who, based on the evidence that we can see all around us, is imaginary, that person is completely normal. The way to begin this transition is for us to honestly and openly discuss the fact that God is imaginary in the public forum.

The new name is "Rational"

In just the same way that we don't use the word aleprechaunist to describe the people who do not believe in Leprechauns, we should not need the word atheist. We should be able to say, "I am a normal person" and be done with it.

The problem is that, in America today, if you say, "I am a normal person," what everyone assumes is that you mean, "I am a Christian." Currently we are a minority, and as long as we are a minority we need a name.

It is time to choose a new name for those of us who know that all human gods are imaginary. There are two good reasons for picking a new name. First, the word atheist is overloaded with extraneous meaning right now, most of it negative. Second, there is no reason to define ourselves as the opposite of theists because theists are delusional. The word "atheist" gives theists way too much credit.

The new name that I would like to propose is Rational Person. As in:
Chris: What religion are you?
Norm: I am a Rational Person. What are you?

Chris: I am a Christian. What do you mean, you are a Rational Person. What do you believe?

Norm: Rational People know that all human gods are imaginary.

Chris: Imaginary?! You must be joking! The Lord Jesus is as real as...

And so on.
The reason I think that Rational Person (or just Rational) is a good name for us to use is because of the dictionary definition of the word "rational":

Having or exercising the ability to reason.
Of sound mind; sane.
Consistent with or based on reason; logical: rational behavior. Rational People are of sound mind. We are sane. We have the ability to reason. We display logical, rational behavior. We are not delusional. Therefore, Rational is a very appropriate name .

 

[wrcboi]

bro drifter can u separate ur answers with diff colours...easier to differentiate...bro tanwahtiu used to do that...till the invisible man planned his disappearance....lol

 

[drifter]

bro drifter can u separate ur answers with diff colours...easier to differentiate...bro tanwahtiu used to do that...till the invisible man planned his disappearance....lol

paiseh ...i dont know how to use the colour ink ....:p

 

[wrcboi]

just go to the big capital A between the Sizes icon and the icon...click that and off u go

type here

 

[wrcboi]

just go to the big capital A between the Sizes icon and the icon...click that and type in between

 

[Psalm23]

[You are encouraged to freely share the message with others as the Lord leads but please note that nothing on the message must be used for profit!]​

Today’s Scripture Reading [December 26, 2010]


In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. [John 1:1-3; 14. KJV]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------​

It’s that time of the year!​

“Christmas is that time of the year when even the most level-headed of us succumb to panic buying. We become guilty of making rushed purchases of items that turn out to be pointless and impractical, and which neither we nor the people we give them to would want to keep.

To have a better Christmas, go against the frenzied flow, and think calmly. Why buy something for yourself or a loved one because it seems “seasonal”, or trendy, or is most prominently displayed in the store? Why purchase meaningless trinkets for colleagues or neighbours? Instead, invest in what will last and be treasured.

For yourself or those clearest to you, consider gifts of beauty and value which could become treasured possessions. Or give the gift of a memorable experience. For those less near and dear, choose consumables they can use up (thus preventing clutter), or practical items that they can truly use.

While ringing in the new, do clear out the old. Anything you don’t want, but which is in too good a condition to be discarded, should be sold to interested buyers or given to charity. If you get any more meaningless presents this year, just add them to the list of things to clear out before next Christmas!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------​

Does the above message look familiar to you? If you are a regular reader of the Straits Times, especially in the Classified Advertisement Section (CATS), you couldn’t have missed this message. Although the message sounds like a message written by a religious writer, it was actually a secular message appeared in the CATS advertisement just few days’ ago. What surprises me is that the CATS of the Straits Times is all about encouraging people to sell and to buy goods and services of all sorts and it is the most unlikely place the message of this nature could just appear in it. I certainly want to give high credit to the writer who wrote this message. As we all know, this is what ‘Christmas is all about' – “buying something for yourself or a loved one because it seems ‘seasonal’, or trendy!” It couldn’t be more timely for this message!

Over the last few of my posting, I have shared my thoughts about Christmas and in particular, giving some reasons from biblical perspective why we should avoid celebrating this event. You may have become restless, or have felt a sense of unpleasantness after reading those postings but, as you can see from the above message in the CATS, there are people who are very concerned about indiscriminate spending in this time of the year. Giving the rosy economy – for now – we tend to forget the bad times of the past. Over the last few days, especially on the eve of Christmas, there were celebrations after celebrations all over the world. Yes, the world loves Christmas but they hate Christ! The Christmas events that people are celebrating have nothing more than to distort the real story of the birth of Christ. Many people, Christians and non-Christians, are proclaiming at this time of the year some of the messages that we often heard in some of the Christmas songs such as “Joy to the world”, “Hark! The herald angels sing, Glory to the new-born King”, but the truth is that Christ is seldom at the center of the heart of the people even though they proclaimed those words. Instead, food, drinks, games and funs, and of course gifts are the very purpose of the celebration. As one pastor has candidly put it – at this time of the year, many of us are trying hard to find out what to buy for people who have already got everything, the answer , he added, is simple and obvious: we should not buy them anything for them because they have already got everything!

Let’s pause and think about the actual scenes leading up to Jesus’ birth in biblical terms. The birth of Christ is simply the fulfilment of one of the prophecies as foretold in the Old Testament - a Saviour to be born into this world to redeem the fallen human race. From the very first day of Christ’s birth, He was doing all that were needed to save the world; He was preparing Himself from the very beginning of His birth to travel to the cavalry to face one of the cruellest form of executions of death by hanging on the cross so that we can be redeemed to His Kingdom. But in human terms, this very reason for the birth of Christ is sadly distorted, even sometimes by the church! You might have just participated a celebration yesterday or few days’ ago and you are still in an intoxicated state of hung-over from drink you took. This message that you are reading may come just ‘too late’ for you. But take comfort because it’s never too late to repent when we really think that something is not right. Your salvation is not at stake. However, you must prayerfully go to the Bible and seek God’ direction and ask God what He has to tell you about Christmas. To begin with, try to look for the word Christmas in the Bible. It’s never there! It was simply coined out many years ago, and over time Christmas has become synonymous with shopping, spending, and stress. Even secular CATS message above clearly reflects this sad state of Christmas and it is no exaggeration what this time of year meant. In many retail stores around the world, the sales just in the month of December are more than total the sales of the previous few months. We must therefore try to recapture the spiritual of the birth of Christ and not let the excesses of shopping and entertainment overtaken us that we lost completely of our identity of who we are - the children of God - and that Christmas has nothing to do with the birth of Christ but a purely pagan religion which is now being grossly exploited by retailers. I read the following story about a woman who was out Christmas shopping with her two children, and you too may have the similar encounter yourself while shopping with your children or your friends:

“After many hours of looking at row after row of toys, and everything else imaginable, and after hours of hearing both her children asking for everything they saw on those many shelves, she finally made it to the elevator with her two kids.

She was feeling what so many of us feel during the Christmas holiday season. Overwhelming pressure to go to every party, every housewarming, getting the perfect gift for every person on one's shopping list, and making sure no one on the card list and those who sent a card is forgotten.

When the elevator doors opened there was already a crowd in the car. Exasperated, she pushed her way into the car and dragged her two kids in with her and all the bags of stuff. When the doors closed she couldn't take it anymore and stated, "Whoever started this whole Christmas thing should be found, strung up and shot."

From the back of the car everyone heard a quiet calm voice respond, "Don't worry, we already crucified him." For the rest of the trip down the elevator was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.”

There are many versions or stories of who actually started Christmas and no one can really tell with absolute certainty how Christmas came about. But there is one truth that we all cannot deny. Christmas is not started by you nor me, neither the people of this generation. Though we are not the one who started it, neither can we be the one to stop it, the best that we could do for ourselves is to stop celebrating this event of Christmas which is nothing more than a pagan event and is synonymous with shopping, spending and fun. Instead, we must dedicate this season of the year to truly worship Jesus, our Messiah, our God, just like those wise men who came from the east to worship purely Jesus (Matthew 2:1; 11). Jesus does not need any gift from us but His demand of us is simple: Worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). While the world has no room for Jesus, we must leave pretty of space in our heart to accommodate our Saviour and let Him be at the centre of our heart. The life history of Jesus, His birth, His death, His resurrection and His ascension to the heavenly Kingdom must be remembered by us every day, and we should not let the celebration of Christmas, Good Friday, nor Easter Day be the only time of our remembrance. In fact, Jesus reminds us to only remember Him of His death during the Last Supper with His disciples with these words: This is my body which is given for you; this do in remembrance of me (Luke 22:19), and nothing in the Gospel tells to remember about His birth. Sadly, the world has done ‘exceedingly well’ in promoting the birth of Christ under an assumed pagan festive even of Christmas! The birth of Christ does not need to be celebrated. By all mean, we must remember the wonderful work of our Lord Jesus and we must remember His love, His teachings, His laws and more importantly His Lordship and His Diety that He and only He is God. And what better way to remember our Lord Jesus' love, teachings, laws then to simply follow His frequent reminder to us: Repent of our sins because it is only through our honest and sincere repentence that we can be saved!

 

[commoner]

psalms 23 run out of inspirations and keep posting old stuff,,,,,

let me try on todays message for you guys....

in the beginning was the word,,,,,,,, like ABCD,,, just a word,,,,,

and before the word, there is an idea for the word,,,,,

before there is an idea for the word, ther must be a brain,,,,,

before there is a brain, there must be a sperm and an ovary,,,,

before there is a sperm and ovary, there must be a lan jiao and CB,,,

KNN so many befores,,,,, sorry hor,,,,,, who or what is before god?

OF COURSE the mother and father of god that gives birth to triplets called father (YwHW), jesus (immanuel as in bangkok) and the holy goh,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

[Psalm23]

[You are encouraged to freely share the message with others as the Lord leads but please note that nothing on the message must be used for profit!]​

Today’s Scripture Reading [January 2, 2011]

And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. [Luke 21:34-36. KJV]

When the new year 2010 began, it began with some really bad events. Just hardly two weeks into 2010, a huge earthquake rocked the island nation of Haiti which caused more than 1 million people homeless and killed more than 230,000. Over the next few months into 2010 after the Haiti earthquake, we read also several natural calamities, among them were a volcanic eruption in Ice that caused the Europe’s air-transportation system to come to complete halt, earthquakes measuring up to 7 Richter scale occurred in several countries, severe flood occurred almost every continent, drought in many countries causing severe food shortage. We also see heavy snowing last month that is so serious causing tens of thousands of flights have to be canceled. Several people died because of the extreme cold. These are only some examples and there were many bad events that when unreported.

Is Mother Nature is fighting back? Is Mother Nature so fed up with us? Or Is God using these events to warn us? We cannot deny, indeed Mother Nature is truly at war with her most formidable opponent – humans. Just a case in point, in this year we saw two man-made calamities and they could serve a wake-up call for us that we must not continue to abuse and misuse the earth. Sadly, as history has proved it, they could hardly be a lesson to us because human just don’t listen. These two man-made calamities of the BP oil leaks that has caused irreversible ecological damage to the Gulf Coast of unprecedented scale and the Hungary toxic sludge due to cracks in a reservoir well because of irresponsible mine owners are clear indication to us that human are just simply incorrigible when it comes to the use, abuse and misuse of the gifts from the Mother Nature. Scientists, environmentalists, and even governments themselves admitted that the changing nature of our the global environment is largely caused by too much consumption of energy, oil in particularly, irresponsible farming techniques, pollution due to industrialisation, etc. But the worst news that we have heard is that in spite of the admission of our failures to perserve our earth and that the factors that cause the destruction of our natural environment are almost all made-man, there is no firm agreement as to what need to done to restore our earth; rather there are intense disagreements among major industrialised countires as each one is trying to push away the responsibility to others.

Added to the 'unsolvable' problems that we are facing, there are going to have plenty more uncertainties. In fact, the only constant that we are going to face is uncertainty. Even we are living through seemingly prosperous times now, the fear of unemployment, financial collapse which has nothing or very little to do with Mother Nature will never go away. The mood among many nations is one of almost frantic and perplexed worry about their survival and to add further to this uncertainty is the fact that we don’t even know who is controlling a nation. Many of the Wikileaks documents clearly shown us that what we see, what we hear is indeed very different from what is really taking place in the world of international politics. The politics of deception has finally been revealed by those documents – thanks to Wikileaks – and really there is nothing we can do as an ordinary people to improve situation. No one really knows who is controlling the world but the Bible is very clear – the present world is ruled by the prince of darkness, Satan (and of course his angels). Nonetheless, the best we could hope and pray for is that 2011 will be different from 2010 for all the good reasons – God will withhold these bad events and human will start to realize that fighting against Mother Nature is going to do us great harm. We must therefore ask God that those people of authority will come to seek Him and to rule according to His laws. The big question is: Will we learn the lesson that the Mother Nature is fighting back? Will people of authority are willing to seek God and ask for His wisdom to rule the nations according to His percepts? I believe you know the answers better than anyone else!

Giving the current state of uncertainty, we must continue to take heed "lest [our] hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and the cares of this life, that the day come on [us] unexpectedly" (Luke 21:34). This is a warning that us that we are not to allow ourselves to become distracted by the world and its cares and concerns that we miss the signs of the approaching end because it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth (Luke 21:35). From these verses, we are told that majority of mankind will be so distracted by the world events and miss the signs and to stand before Him. Thus, if we watch and pray always and do our best to live according to the way of God in every aspect of our lives - if we believe in God's promises to us of salvation and escape, we may be "counted worthy" to be spared the sore trials of the last days. This also suggests that if we watch, we will see the signs and not be caught off guard and snared. In our ‘watching’ we must not be passive spectators but as active doers of His Word. This requires us to completely commit ourselves to seeking first the Kingdom of God and the attitudes and attributes that make up God's righteousness. It is by seeking His righteousness (not man’s righteousness), seeking to live right according to His Word, His Law (not just simply obeying the law of the land in which we live in), and example (that only Jesus is worthy for our imitation, and not famous celebrities or wealthy people) - that we may, by faith in the grace of God through Christ Jesus, be accounted worthy of escaping all these things. God cannot change or grow us. We need to do this ourselves but He has promised us that His Spirit will help us if we are willing to change and to grow grace in Him (Philippians 4:13; Hebrews 4:16). We will reap whatever we sow (Galatians 6:7), so we need to sow righteousness to reap salvation. Conversely, if we sow evil we will have to pay for our evilness and we must be prepared to face the judgment of the Great White Throne. This is the judgement of all judgments and it will only take place once and for all mankind. There is no appeal after the judgment. You can, by the grace of God, to seek pardon if, and only if you were to repent of your sins right now and be saved from the judgment!

As we start our new year, we are one year closer to the year than it was in 2010, we must be prepared to expect the unexpected. Anything could happen to us and we must be prepared for any eventuality. We must put our hope, our trust and our faith in our Lord Jesus. I pray that the following message can be a blessing to you, and regardless of what our situation now, we all need a strong spirit to withstand the trials and tribulation - which are going to take in various "forms, shapes and sizes" -that all of us will face, sooner or later. Let us seek Him right now while He can be found!

To Make Our Spirit Strong​

(Author Unknown)​

Our Father knows what is best for us,
So we try not to complain….
We always want the sunshine,
But He knows there must be rain.
We love the sound of laughter….
And the merriment of cheer,
But our hearts would lose their tenderness
If we never shed a tear.
Our Father tests us often,
With suffering and with sorrow,
He tests us not to punish us….
But to help us meet tomorrow.
For growing trees are strengthened….
When they withstand the storm,
And the sharp cut of the chisel….
Gives the marble grace and form.
God never hurts us needlessly,
And never wastes our plain,
For every loss He sends to us….
Is followed by rich gain.
And when we count the blessings,
That God has so freely sent,
We find no cause for murmuring….
And no time to lament.
For our Father loves His children,
And to Him all things are plain….
So He never sends us pleasure,
When the souls deep need is pain,
So whenever we are troubled,
And so many things go wrong….
It is just God working in us,
To make our spirit strong.​

 

[wrcboi]

finally....the opening speech for the year by Rev Psalm.....rofl....

hmm...wondering wheres prof tanwahtiu???