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Written by Max
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Wednesday, 25 August 2010 23:24 |
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I’m allergic to coconut milk, coconut cream, and other similar coconut derivatives. But sometimes a good curry is just too enticing. A little bit can’t kill me, right?
I think we often have a similar approach to dealing with sin. Yeah okay, I know it’s a big stretch, curry and sin... but hear me out. Sometimes when the negative effects aren’t so obvious or immediate, we think we can take a little bite of sin (or curry) and get away without too much damage. Only after we take that bite, we begin to regret our actions.
Obviously, the consequences of sin are much more serious.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
We are all spiritually allergic to sin. The effects aren’t always physical or particularly obvious, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there and they aren’t serious.
Dr Max prescribes two remedies:
1. Know your opponent…
Reading the Bible helps us to discern what is right and wrong according to God’s standards. You can’t avoid sin if you don’t even know what it is.
2. …and then run for your life!
“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.” (Ephesians 5:3)
“But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.” (1 Timothy 6:11)
The Bible doesn’t tell us to reduce our intake of sin. It doesn’t tell us just to abstain from sin. It tells us to FLEE from sin, which means to run in the total opposite direction and pursue what is good and pleasing in God’s eyes.
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Cheesespread Donations to Y-Care |
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Written by Frances Dong
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Friday, 06 August 2010 11:37 |
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Hey guys,
Just wanted to let you guys know that your donations of cheesespread is greatly appreciated by Y-Care. We've donated a total of 80 jars! Yayyy!
And here is what happens to those jars of cheesespread.
I give it to rugby football players. KIDDING.. that's a student. He didn't mind taking the awkward photo.
Just a reminder to give your actual donations to Jacky!
Thanks guys!
Frances
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Written by michael
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Thursday, 15 July 2010 16:30 |
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So the football (read: soccer) world cup just ended. How many of us followed it? I myself do not follow soccer as I prefer to play it, but I can imagine the fervour of spectators, the elation of a goal and the incessant buzzing of vuvuzelas. Now don’t get me wrong. I get emotional watching the State of Origin too. But this elation and fervour is emotional.
In the soccer world cup, the goal for teams is to win the tournament and gain the glory of victory. For everything else, there’s MasterCard! ...Just kidding. As Christians we are called to run the race – the marathon – that we may reach the goal and gain the prize; by His grace alone, eternal life in heaven. Heaven is a place of endless bliss, happiness and contentment. Heaven is a place where there is no darkness and no sadness. Heaven is where we can spend the rest of eternity with God.
How can we keep our eyes on the goal?
We must live in the now and in the world, but not live FOR the now or be OF the world. We must affix our eyes on the prize that God has promised us. And we know that He will deliver, for ‘the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands eternal’ (Isaiah 40:8).
Quite often you will find that things of the world distract us. Exams; busy work; people around us; Facebook – these are some of the distractions that tug on our collars every day, pulling us away from God.
So we have our eyes on the goal, but how do w e keep striving and running the race?
We recently held a Praise and Worship Night – and this was a great opportunity for empowerment and spiritual revival, but how do we maintain this spiritual fervour and elation? These one off events can be a great opportunity for a huge surge of hype, but it does die down after a while if we do not maintain it. This is where our personal relationship with big-fella (a.k.a. God) comes in.
How often do you make best friends by meeting them once at a party and having an awesome time with them, and then not contacting them at all until months later when you see them again? Never. Our relationship with God is crucial to the marathon. Yes, He has promised the prize, but only those who truly, wholeheartedly believe in Him and walk in faith will gain it. We must continue to become closer and closer with God every day.
How can I become closer to God every day?
In short – devotion. We can go to church every week for Youth and Sunday Service to learn about God and His teachings, but if we don’t know Him personally, when His son Jesus Christ comes back, he’ll say “Who are you? I do not know you.” Devotion, in layman’s terms, involves reading God’s Word (the Bible) and praying. Praying is like talking to your best friend. If you do not communicate with God, how can you say (or sing) that He is your best friend?
Keep your eyes on the goal – eternal life with God.
Learn about God’s Word on weekends and try to read the Bible every day.
Pray and talk to God every day. He’s your best friend, right?
Peace out,
-Michael
PS: QLD Maroons 5 in a row!
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Maintaining positive Christian friendships |
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Written by Jacky Yau
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Friday, 02 July 2010 23:01 |
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I am a big fan of the Friends situational comedy series. Possibly the six randomest funniest characters outside of Japanese animation. And in my opinion, it teaches a lot of important lessons, like how a guy with a name like ‘Chandler Muriel Bing’ can still be a success in life if he has the right friends around him. Or how an Italian-American actor with a low amount of commonsense can still be fulfilled in life if he has the right friends around him. Or how a parentally-dependent socialite who has a social stigma as a runaway bride can make it on her own with no work experience or training can create for herself a great career if she has the right friends around her. So really, the most important lesson to be learnt here is that friends account for a great deal of how our life experience turns out.
But on the other hand, through very careful scrutiny of the series, there are a lot of negative aspects that I don’t approve of at all. Littered among the series are examples of schadenfreude, the German term for being happy in someone else’s misfortune, critically nitpicking anybody’s small flaws and imperfections, gossiping and lying to and about one another, and just general counts of mean, angry and embarrassment-causing behaviour. Someone accidentally bleaches their teeth to a blinding whiteness? Make as many jokes about it in thirty seconds as possible. Someone reveals one of your humiliating secrets to your other friends? Retaliate and do the same thing to them.
While it is at heart a television series and the fictional quality of it is there, there’s no denying that society’s definition of friendship includes a little bit of negativity, a little bit of joking around and making fun of each other is apparently the norm. I think that as Christians, we make a big effort to behave in a ‘Christian’ manner to non-believers. We believe that this is part of the evangelistic mission in passively expressing the faith through our observable behaviour.
Something I think is worth considering is whether we use as much attention in acting ‘Christian’ around our actual Christian friends. I can’t comment on the sum of all Christian friendships and how similar or different they are to secular friendships, but I can say that we don’t always go out of our way to avoid the negative aspects and interactions of society’s definition friendship seeping into our Christian friendship networks. The casual insults, undermining confidence, and occasionally groundless arguments for the sake of venting are still in our circles, and whether we realise it or not, they do not constitute a ‘Christian’ friendship, though the relationship between Christian friends should be the birthplace for such a concept, not the relationship between a Christian and non-Christian. Sadly, it’s not always a topic of discussion, and in my opinion, we should be equally conscientious in maintaining positive interactions with our Christian friends as with our non-Christian friends.
I don’t think it’s necessary to make these Christian networks all positive and heartwarming every single second, but we should make ourselves aware that society has a massive influence on our interpersonal interactions, and that what we see on TV and in movies, or read in novels and manga (let’s face it, we are an Asian youth) changes the way we think about how friends can and should interact. It’s more than just making the effort to be a positive influence to our non-Christian friends out there, we also need to make the effort to hold back on those negative influences to our Christian friends, whether we’re at youth, church or just out having fun.
Jacky
P.S. Sorry about the cheesy title for this post, I couldn't really think of a good witty title that wasn't misleading.
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Written by Frances Dong
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Tuesday, 08 June 2010 16:54 |
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Written by Simon Lan
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Sunday, 06 June 2010 20:57 |
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So we’ve all read the verses such as “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…” from Luke 6:27 and “But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” from Matthew 5:44. But in real life loving your “enemies” can be a difficult task, whether it’s in the workplace, at school, at university, even sometimes within the family.
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States (according to my education and not Wikipedia) who successfully led his country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, as well preserving the Union and ending slavery, displayed a great open-mindedness in this area. He said “The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.”
It’s such an encouraging point of view, as well as a good place to start. He is also quoted for saying “I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.” Jesus once said in Luke 6:32 "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.” Challenge yourself to demonstrate the love of Jesus to someone who cannot give it back, and experiment on how your life and mindset can be altered by this attitude.
Have a great week :)
Good luck for exams, and remember Jesus everyday!
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