Rooted build up in Him

16 June 2007 – Rooted build up in Him

Colossians 2:6-7 (NLT)

And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.

Col 2:6-7 (NIV)

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

In the Bible Study today, I have read the Scripture that we should be rooted and build up in Christ! What is meant by rooted? How can we build up in Christ? This is the problem that we should study today.

At first, what is meant by rooted? Rooted, as you know, plant all have roots right? So what is the matter about saying we should be rooted? Let me put it like this, did you see a tree stayed at the garden of my house today has gone to the garden of my neighbor’s house tomorrow? Even if you see that, you have to consider a factor that you are in a sweet dream in that moment. The meaning of rooted in this Scripture is that we should ‘plant’ ourselves in a house of God and ‘suck up’ the ‘nutrients’ that the church provided.

In other words, we should stay in the house of God and be planted yourself in it to learn what God wanted you to learn! It is important that we should find a particular church which is primary for us. We shouldn’t have been a ‘jumping crickets’ of churches. We should have a specific church for us to learn the word of God.

Secondly, by doing the first thing, it should have no doubt that we can build up ourselves in Christ, we can strengthen in faith! You only can understand the objective of a church if you are a consistent member of the church, you can only know the direction of a church going if you are planted in a church. Thus, you also will be improved in terms of Spiritual life, experiencing growth to spiritual maturity!

As we understand these two points, we will have a mindset that we can be grow strong in faith and become a faithful servant and sons and daughters of God! As faith can move the mountain, and make a difference!

Franco

All about Self-Control

15 June 2007 – All about Self-Control

Colossians 1:11-12

We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light.

What is all about in the Bible? That people can pass it from generation to generation, century to another century? What is really inside it, what is the inspiration of God inside it? Well, bible is all about two things in main:

(1) The mirror of self attitude

It is undeniable that when we read bible more, the more we knew that we have sinned. As the bible not only tells us to do the right things, but to do the things right.

2 Tim 3:16-17

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

(2) A path for us to know more about the Author (God)

When you read the editorial works of an Author, no matter in what type of literature masterpieces, as you read more, you will understand the author more. As the author will express himself and show his characteristics through his hands. It is the same with God, when we read bible more, we will know him more, and unsurprisingly, we will ripen the fruits of the holy spirit:

Galatians5:22-23

..the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives:

love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

I started to read bible this year, planning to complete the whole bible in the end of this year. I realized that I have come to the level that I have more understanding from the beginning. We will improve, as long as we start to work hard.

I make the conclusion by finalizing with two questions, do you want know your creator more? Do you want to make yourself be a person with better attitude? If the answer is yes, in no doubt, start practicing to read the bible, and at the end apply it into our daily lives!

Franco

Worry-Free Attitude

14 June 2006 – Worry-Free Attitude

Philippians 4:6-7

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

It is quite common and unavoidable that we humans like to worry things around us. Have you noticed that? Taking an example, a person worry of the food he cooked whether delicious or not, worry about when he is driving, worry about his work, worry about his study, etc. There are tons of things to worry for us, that will lead us to serious frustration and depression.

Reminiscing what had I said last few days, it is the attitude that matters! Everyone has an attitude, which greatly influenced his or her personality. If one has a indifferent attitude, then one will end up becoming a lazy and sloppy personality; If one has an attitude of self-centered, then one will end up becoming a selfish and unkind person. If someone has a worry-bounded attitude, then his life will become full of pessimistic view and frustration.

God has taught us to free from worries! Of course, he will sure teach us how to do when he told us not the do something (obvious huh..?). He told us to pray about everything instead of worrying, which does not give help to the particular thing but give disadvantages to the people who is worrying. Tell God what we need through praying, he will listen to our prayers of faith! Prayer is powerful, it is my self experience! For many times after we have pray for something, it ends up with that God had listened to our prayers and make the best preparation for us.

Time for a tiny testimonial:

For your information, I have been offered to study at Singapore in the campus of National University of Singapore (NUS). After we applied for the campus, we have prayed for it everyday and every night, and the result has come out to be optimistic! When I come to applying my accommodation of my hostel in NUS, we have prayed to God that he will prepare a good place for us, and guess what, God has provided not my first choice, not my second choice, not my third choice, but instead they(NUS) provided me a room which is far away from my faculty, kinda upset huh? Indeed, for the first moment I knew that. But due to the opinion of seniors, they said this place is definitely amazing and possess a quite nice environment, good in traffic, filled with convenient facilities. Thanks to the Lord!

So, why should we worry about things around us? God has prepared everything for us which are the best for us, though sometimes not what we wanted, but it definitely the best for us! Think about it!

Franco

Fight for God-Determined Perfection

13 June 2007 – Fight for God-Determined Perfection

Philippians 3:12

I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.

Everyone has an unique plan that made by God, everyone of us do not come to the Earth merely by coincidences and “accidents”. It is destiny of God who brought you here, you are being chosen to be born in this time and in this generation, then you must live like this generation, think like this generation, and furthermore make an impact out of it!

In Paul’s letter to people in Philippi, he emphasized that he does not think that he has reached ultimate perfection. What does he mean by perfection? Of course, it includes our personality, our spiritual growth and spiritual health only, isn’t it not including the achievement that we had made? How about our work? How about our study? Indeed! Whatever we do, we must press on to possess that perfection that God has determined for us!

We have an ultimate destiny that God wanted us to achieve. Just spend some time for some examples:

• What is the destiny of Moses?

The destiny of Moses is to lead the Israelites to escape out of Egypt and became their leaders, but he cannot make it to Land of Canaan that the Lord wanted the Israelites to enter.

• What is the destiny of David?

David’s life plan is to replace King Saul to become the King of Israel, which is fully respected among all Israelites. We fight the battles that we never lose, in God’s hand, he put his hope in God, he puts his life in God. He became a wonderful psalmist too! But he was not chosen to built a temple for God.

• What is the destiny of Solomon?

Solomon inherits his father’s place to conquer the Israelites with wisdom, power, glory, wealth, and fame! He also has chosen to build the temple for the Lord!

Now do you clearly get what is meant by the destiny? We all have a divine plan from the Lord, he wanted us to achieve things that we can do and we can achieve, so that His will will be fulfilled. One thing that we ought to keep in mind, is that we might made mistakes sometimes, we should learn it from mistakes, and what should we do?

Phil 3:13-14

I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

Notice that it is the heavenly prize that we receive, so we have to run the race, and guess what? WIN THE PRIZE!!!!

Servant of Servants

12 June 2007 – Servant of Servants

1 Kings 12:7

“If you are willing to be a servant to these people today and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your loyal subjects.”

Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, who inherit the position of the King of Israel, had made a wrong mistake for his position matters. He made himself a cruel ruler, an unreasonable leader and a selfish king! The main thing that causes the supporters of Rehoboam left into two tribes, i.e. Judah and Benjamin is because he is not willing to be a servant to his servants!

How can this be reasonable by saying servant of servants? How can servants be loyal to a servant? In 1 Kings, the old advisor of King Solomon advised Rehoboam to be a servant to those people. How can a respectful and a king full of pride become a servant to others? Impossible! This is what we thought often normally, we often raise ourselves up to a position that is higher than anyone, and refuse to be kind with the people under us, the workers and subordinate will start expressing their unsatisfactory to their boss which at the end refuse to follow the boss.

But if the story is the other way round, if the boss lowered himself among the subordinates, the subordinates will find their boss very kind person and in no words, they are willing to be a loyal subjects of the boss! It is just the difference of the attitude, which leads to different endings. This is the lesson that we ought to learn in life today.

Philipians 2:3-5

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

What is meant by the same attitude that Christ Jesus had? Or I put I like this, what is the attitude of Christ Jesus? He is a humble man, a gentle man; he did not utter a word of complaining when he was being humiliated and tortured. Though he was God, but he did not think an equality to God that people should honor him everywhere he went.

Mark 10:45

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Can you see that even God himself comes to serve people? Doing such not only for us to see, but he wants us to make him as an example to the people outside, your friends, colleagues, subordinates, parents, leader and all people around you. Once you make yourself low to others, others will become loyal subjects of you! At the end you are being honored back again! Without any argument!

Franco

Power of Love - Compassion Endures

11 June 2007 – Power of Love - Compassion Endures

Songs of Solomon 8:6

For love is as strong as death,
its jealousy (compassion) as enduring as the grave.
Love flashes like fire,
the brightest kind of flame.

In bible we have learnt about many teachings about God’s word, and it is unsurprisingly to know that the whole bible is teaching us about love one another, not only among brothers, among sisters, but of parental love, and love of spouse too. When I come in touch with the Songs of Solomon, I personally gave a comment on this book which is the most erotic book in the bible.

Indeed, it is not a bad thing after all; at least we can see that God really supports us to have a sex life, which is holy under his view, among married couples. The people who are having conversations in the Songs of Solomon are newly married couples, which their words are like nectar and very “disgusting” in another manner. (in Chinese, it is very 肉麻)

Songs of Songs 7:7-9

You are slender like a palm tree,
and your breasts are like its clusters of fruit.
I said, “I will climb the palm tree
and take hold of its fruit.”
May your breasts be like grape clusters,
and the fragrance of your breath like apples.
May your kisses be as exciting as the best wine,
flowing gently over lips and teeth.

From this I learnt that love is really no value, the power of love is great, even greater than death. Indeed, it is like what it says; you can die for someone because you love him/her, just as Jesus died for us 2000 years ago. Love is like a fire, burn with compassionate, which is enduring! If anyone would buy love with a price which causes him all his wealth, he will be scorned and humiliated, plus he will find himself unqualified to buy this, as true love cannot be bought by mere wealth.

So, what do we do now? Start practicing love, as it is a life lesson, which a child starts learning, and seniors still learning then. Be compassionate with the person your love, no matter what it means.

Franco

Enthusiasm

10 June 2007 – Enthusiasm

Ephesians 6:7

Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.

Enthusiasm gives a meaning of a strong feeling of excitement and interest in something and a desire to become involved in it. In this bible reading today, I discovered the heart of a servant, which ought to respect the master, but work wholeheartedly, in other words, enthusiastically. We should be compassionate to become a servant, which can illustrate the worker in a company who is under a leader. It is important that we should have this kind of attitude, with compassion, our hearts will be keeping burning with the fire of motivation, and thus enthusiasm grow in the instant.

In the present society, it is very common to find out that there are many workers who did not enjoy their occupations, which treat them like a misery and torture, if it not the essentials to earn money, they won’t suffer like this. Why is this situation happening? Is it because their bosses treating them bad? No, in fact, most of the time, bosses are innocent; Is it the factor of their colleagues, with bad attitudes? It could be a factor, but it is not the major one. So, what is the major problem really existing?

The answer is most of the time we cannot deal with ourselves; it is the matter of self attitude. If your attitude is right, nothing can stop you from doing what you liked to do. On the contrary, with incorrect attitude, you will start getting bored and getting phobia of works. Hence, attitude is important for all of us!

Things do not change with the flow of time stream, but things change at the moment our thinking changes! This is the main emphasis of the attitude of one. Attitude can make us the different person we used to be, from worse to best! Get our focus on our attitude, rather than our surrounding circumstances, and sooner or later, you will find your work to be enjoyable, even if you are a worker! Making a difference in your office!

Franco