Wow… its been 9-10 months since the last post. A lot has happened and been really busy. Thought it might be good to start writing again. Our house is nearly finished…hopefully we can move in October. Getting more expensive and little costs here and there creep in. But thanks to God for his provision and hopefully the ability to sustain.
Also, been in a new job working as a professional property buyer for PBC Realty. Enjoying it, but its been a really BIG learning curve and with the Aussie market flattening out the last 8 months due to interest rates and global uncertainty… I haven’t achieved the results I wanted. Last month was a good month so hopefully, we can keep it going. With Reserve Bank dropping interest rates a quarter of a percent it should start stimulating the economy again.
Life is good, however, presents is challenges every now and then. Trusting God to bring me through this time and in some ways still finding my footing again with the direction He is leading me. Got to learn to follow better and not let distractions affect.
That’s all for today… maybe look at adding more comments again soon… and maybe not in 9 months time.
Sharon and I just want to wish all our family and friends a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We wish everyone will be safe over these holidays and look forward to a successful new year.
Well… today I finally signed off on your plans for our new house. Its exciting stuff… but a little scray too as we’re about to take on a nice “FAT” morgate. But you’ve got to be in the market to win this game of life and the God has truly blessed us in ways that we would not have imagined.
It’s a fantastic start to our lives. Not many people are priviledge to have an opportunity to own a home nowadays… especially now since homes are so expensive. In the papers, our area (Acacia Ridge) went up 12.2% last quarter… so I’m pretty happy about that and considering I got it $13k under the asking price.
I’m hoping that the builders can put the foundation down before Christmas, so that the rest of the house can be built faster. Now got save up some extra cash for the all the luxury bits.
The house should turnout really good if we’ve made the right colour selections… but I think we aren’t too much off the mark. The only major issue is getting the house to value up. Hopefully the valuer will be favourable.
Wow! It’s an exciting time for Sharon and I, as both of us have new jobs. I’ve already started working in my new job at PBC Realty working as a Buyers Agent. I believe that this is a great opportunity to grow and take on new skills. Working with my friend and boss, Ambrose is an honour and priviledge and also PBC Centre bosses Gordon and Janny. They are all generous, intelligent and amazing people. Now I just got to deliver. Hahaha….
So if you are looking for some help getting into property, have a chat with me, I may be able to help.
Also good news. My beautiful wife Sharon got a job working with American Express Corporate Travel. It was truly a blessing from God as she was even shocked herself! She’ll be starting on the 7th of January.
So 2008 is going to be a very exciting year for us!
The website is finally back up. Some had files been deleted but somehow managed to get back together quite painlessly. Its another story with The Worship Hub and Hopebookshelf. I’ll have to look into those later. (sigh)
After a long anticipated wait, our congratulations to our dear friends Lillian and Wenan on the birth of their beautiful daughter Elise. I hear Wenan is already looking for suitable husband already for her.
For pictures you can see: http://lillianchee.spaces.live.com/
THE words and actions of Jesus have long been exploited and bastardised by politicians of all colours.
No other spiritual leader’s teaching has been so used, and abused, as political fodder.
By the religious Right, Jesus has been depicted as a conservative who detests gay people and hip-hop.
By the Liberals, Jesus has been painted as a tree-loving pacifist. And probably a vegetarian.
Neither view seems to be based on what he actually said and did.
Jesus of Nazareth said His kingdom was not in this world. But the philosophy he preached transformed world political systems.
Political analyst Tod Lindberg, in his new book, The Political Teachings of Jesus, sees the man from Nazareth as a profound thinker and a man of great political insight.
He says his teachings are the “unacknowledged bedrock” of the modern world and the basis of democracy.
Under Jesus’s philosophy, everyone has free will to choose their destiny. It is the ultimate democracy.
Lindberg deliberately examines Jesus political teachings of universal freedom and equality separate from his religious teachings. He says the political teachings deserve attention, whether or not they have the force of divine law behind them.
He proclaims the simple genius of the Golden Rule — do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.
It is the ethical core of Jesus’s teachings. Lindberg says the philosophy offers a coherent account of how to live in the world.
More importantly, it is a “revolution in the idea of freedom”.
Observing the rule requires us to see others as our equals deserving of equal rights and dignity. It requires us all to be part of a community of goodwill.
“By assuming the other’s equality, you win for yourself recognition of your own equality voluntarily, with no government imposition,” Lindberg says.
He points out that there are variations of The Golden Rule in other religious philosophies.
But they are generally stated negatively — don’t do to someone else what you don’t want done to you.
Jesus’s philosophy is positive. And, Lindberg says, offers a greater range of possibility for mutually beneficial interaction than any other philosophy.
Lindberg examines other teachings of Jesus, including the parables and the Beatitudes.
In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, for example, the obedient elder brother is jealous of the wayward son who is accepted back into the family.
The political lesson, Lindberg concludes, is the danger of resentment, since resentment erodes the community goodwill.
Lindberg says the Sermon on The Mount, also known as The Beatitudes, is the most influential piece of preaching ever because it summarises the most important elements of the teaching of Jesus.
Jesus says that so long as ordinary people stand up for right and do not retreat before those who seem to have more power, righteousness will prevail.
Jesus talks of a kingdom organised not from the top down, but from the bottom up. Superficialities, such as worldly success, are no indication of true worth.
Jesus directs people to look within themselves to discover their true obligations and he remonstrates against those who think they have complied with the law merely by following its letter.
Obery Hendricks, in the book The Politics of Jesus, says Jesus always treated the peoples’ needs as holy.
He gave a voice to the voiceless and exposed the workings of oppression.
“To say that Jesus was a political revolutionary is to say that the message he proclaimed not only called for change in individual hearts, but also demanded sweeping and comprehensive change in the political, social and economic structures,” Hendricks says.
“Christianity is about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, protecting the most vulnerable.”
Benjamin Franklin said a true follower of Jesus would love wisdom, justice and freedom. To be a Christian would be to live dangerously, but honestly.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said the name of Jesus was not so much written as ploughed into the history of the world.
“He is the only soul in history who has appreciated the worth of man,” he says.
An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support – John Buchan
IN 1960, Time magazine declared God dead. Half the world seemed officially atheist and the rest were expected to soon join.The tables have obviously turned.
Now, only about 2.4 per cent of the world’s population is considered atheist, according to the World Almanac, and the numbers are dwindling.
Meanwhile, spirituality is experiencing a global resurgence.
In his book The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World, historian and theologian Alistair McGrath examines where the atheist dream went wrong and explains why faith is destined to play a central role in the 21st century.
Interestingly, he also makes it clear that, despite a resurgence in faith, Western Christianity has not recovered from a faith crisis of the ’60s.
McGrath says the origins of atheism lay primarily in a protest against the power, privilege, and corruption of church institutions — beginning with the French Revolution and ending about the time of the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
The atheism that swept across Europe in the 19th century and dominated most of the Western world in the 20th century was encouraged by a cerebral Christianity with its emphasis on cold doctrines, which might have engaged the mind but left emotions and imagination untouched.
Atheism envisioned a glorious future for a humanity freed from outdated dogmas and moral restrictions, with the unlimited potential of scientific advancement and the human imagination. Humans could not only be good without God, but they could be much better.
God was chased out of heaven by Marx, banished to the unconscious by Freud and announced by Nietzsche to be deceased. Well, not quite.
McGrath, a lapsed atheist, documents what he says are the philosophical inconsistency and moral failures of atheism, especially when it acquired political power, for example in the guise of communism.
But he also documents religion’s “failures of imagination” and complicity with oppression that often fostered an environment in which atheism could thrive.
Atheism proclaimed science was God. But scientific advances often coincided with moral confusion and environmental disaster.
Science was expected to reveal a universe that was random and mechanical. Instead, science uncovered even more layers of intricate order that suggested an intelligent design.
The discovery that the universe began with a creation-like Big Bang around 13 billion years ago encouraged the argument for a creator as the first cause of nature.
The discovery that the fundamental laws of nature contained constants that appear to have been fine-tuned so that the cosmos would eventually yield intelligent life, lent new credence to the design argument for God’s existence.
Quantum theory made the cosmos seem more like a thought than like a machine.
Modern science tells us the that our universe cannot sustain itself, that it’s dependent on something outside of itself, and that our universe had a beginning.
We are seeing not a battle between God and science, but a discovery of God in science.
The German physicist Max Born, who pioneered quantum mechanics, said: “Those who say that the study of science makes a man an atheist must be rather silly people.”
Einstein said the world was like a well-constructed crossword puzzle. “You can suggest any number of words, but only one will fit all the facts,” he said.
Science can’t “observe” God. But we can all observe a universe that yields evidence of either God’s handiwork, or an amazing accident.
The evidence has to point one way or the other. And scientific discoveries of this past century clearly show that our universe is no accident, that there is an intelligent designer behind it all.
Albert Camus said death was philosophy’s only problem. One of atheism’s great failings is that it cannot offer any comfort in the face of death.
David the Psalmist said we could not hide from God. Ever. Anywhere. We either faced him in this life or the next — one way or the other.
Source: Herald Sun, January 02, 2005
Just celebrating 1 year of marriage. We can add a notch to our wall. We celebrated dining out at a nice restaurant called Mondo Organics. www.mondo-organics.com.au. Unfortunately, Sharon had tummy problems and wasn’t able to eat. What a shame! I was stuffed cause I had to finish her main. If you’re looking for a nice place to eat… we wouldn’t hesitate recommending
Mondo.
Sharon also made a wonderful dinner made up of sushi, salt-pepper calamari and home-made ice lemon tea.
Rachelle, my little persistant sister in Christ, passed me this DVD from Surf City with visiting prophet Bernard Blessing. All I can say is that if you haven’t seen it… you need to. He has an amazing story and testimony. It was so good that both Sharon and I were crying. But its not just all heartache, but its just really inspiring to see how God is now using him as an advisor to presidents and people of influence in over 32 countries around the world, even the US.
It was funny, cause after watching, I was trying to get mum to watch as well. She said “People can listen to this stuff… but if its NOT life changing then what’s the point?”. I agreed but said you watch for first half hour and if its not good then you don’t have to watch the rest. Mum ended up watching the whole lot and was deeply touched.
I’ve order 5 DVD sets to pass around. So if you want to be next in line give me a buzz.