The Power Source
December 15, 2007
Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized ?in the name of Jesus Christ.? And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off-for all whom the Lord our God will call. –ACTS 2:38?39
Approximately two thousand years ago, Peter and the other apostles proclaimed the truth that is at the very heart of the lighthouse ministries. The gift and ministry of the Holy Spirit is the most important truth any believer can receive.
The great evangelist Dwight L. Moody knew this well. "One day in New York-what a day!" he once declared. "I can’t describe it. I seldom refer to it. It was almost too sacred to name. I can only say God revealed Himself to me. I had such an experience of love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand.
"I went to preaching again. The sermons were no different. I did not present any new truth. Yet hundreds were converted. I would not go back where I was before that blessed experience if you would give me Glasgow."
Basic Chinese Pinyin Rules
December 14, 2007
* Make sure you set your browser encoding correctly to read Chinese words in this article. Chinese Simplified GB2312 is recommended. Please find detail instruction from this page: http://www.learn-chinese-language-online.com/read-chinese-online.html
Talking about Chinese Pinyin rules, let’s start by looking at the following different scenarios:
1. Tone Mark Placement
The tone mark is placed over the vowel if there is only one vowel, e.g. wo, or on the main vowel of a syllable where they are two or three vowels, e.g. hao.
1.1 Syllable with one vowel letter, tone mark is always placed over the vowel letter. For examples:
笔 bǐ ( pen ) , 山 shān ( mountain )
车 chē ( car ), 信 xìn ( letter )
1.2 Syllables with two or three vowel letters: If the first vowel letter is a medial , e.g. “i”, “u”, or ” ü “, the tone mark is placed over the vowel letter after the medial.
For example:
学 xué ( study ) , 贵 guì ( expensive)
小 xiao ( small ) , ? lüè ( strategy)
1.3 If the first vowel letter is not a medial, the tone mark is always placed on the first vowel letter.
Happy Talk and 3 Simple Secrets to Happiness
December 13, 2007
What is the one thing you want more than anything else for the people you love the most? If you had a magic wand what would you grant your family and friends? What is it that everyone wants?
To be happy!
How can you make other people happy until you are happy? How can you be happy?
Lester Levenson, creator of The Sedona Method, discovered the key to happiness. He searched for 47 years and nearly died in the process but he did find it. Do you want to know what it is?
Lester had a breakthrough after much soul searching and found out how to be happy only after reviewing his entire life. He spotted a common pattern, one that was present in every happy moment.
Whenever he was feeling love towards another person he felt happy. And whenever he felt any other feeling he was not happy.
Test this principle for yourself. Think of a time when you were blissfully happy. Did you feel loving at that time? This works for me every time. Is this easy or what? Simply amazing!
Fruit-Bearing Christians
December 12, 2007
This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. JOHN 15:8
Can you imagine the fruit of six million lighthouses across America praying for, caring for, and sharing Jesus Christ with their neighbors, friends, and family?
I can imagine it, but there was a time when I couldn’t have. Early in my Christian life, I had little faith as I prayed for one particular person. But, by God’s grace, this person received Christ. Then my faith grew, and I could pray for two who received Christ. The more I understood the attributes of God and recognized His blessing on my witness for Him, the more I could trust Him for greater fruit. Later, as our Campus Crusade for Christ staff grew in number and as we trained more students and laymen, we began to pray for millions to receive Christ. God honored our faith and prayers with many millions of recorded decisions for our Savior in more than 182 countries. Now we are helping to train millions of Christians on every continent. We are associated with thousands of Christian organizations and churches of all denominations. Now I have the faith to pray for a billion souls to receive Christ. As I have come to know our Lord better, I have learned to trust Him more.
Have You Neglected This Righteous Cause Of God?
December 11, 2007
As believers, we have a responsibility to care for those who have been left without a bread winner, which begins with the responsibility of caring for our own family and relatives who may be in distress.
1 Timothy 5:8 But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
An infidel is a person who does not even acknowledge God. So what does that say about someone who doesn’t take care of his own family in need?
Helping the poor and needy is the only Christ like response there is in dealing with widows and orphans and people that are tragically left without a bread winner.
James 1:27 “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the father is this; to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world”.
God is deeply concerned that the poor and needy receive justice and deliverance. This should be high on the agenda for anyone seeking to honor God and receive His divine blessings.
A Defense of Cultural Intelligence
December 11, 2007
When humans set off to address fundamental issues about what and how life is to be, two important questions exercise the conscience though a middle-ground question could arise from these two. One question is: ‘how do we make humans the measure of all things for now and for things that are to come?’ The other question is: ‘how do we make nature the measure of all things for now and for things that are to come?’
The first question submits the direction of nature to the boundless will and self-determination of humans. The second question submits the drift of human development to the divine instructions of nature. The first question leads to an individualized culture - a state of affairs that lifts personal will and determination to the status of culture. The second question leads to a cooperative culture, the culture of sharing. These two different questions bring about the mystery in humans and dismiss the point that human nature is of a determinate form. Moreover, the questions are at the core of some of the confusion and conflict between two cultures, one largely individualized, and the other largely cooperative. Unresolved confusion and conflict could lead to war. A moderate position can be seen, which combines ingredients of both the first and second questions with the hope of generating a balance.
Believing is the Absence of Doubt
December 10, 2007
You’ve heard the expression, “Just believe it and it will come.” Well, technically, that is true, however, ‘believing’ is not just thinking that you can have it; it is also feeling that it is possible. When we believe that we can “have it,” that means we have no doubt in receiving it.
In the formula for Deliberate Attraction:
(1) Identify Desire
(2) Raise the Vibration (feeling)
(3) Allow it
the allowing of your desire can come to you very quickly providing you have no resistance to receiving it.
Resistance = Doubt
When you remove the ‘doubt’ that you can have what you want, you are allowing and that is how it can come to you.
Tools for allowing:
There are a number of tools, techniques and strategies that can help you remove the doubt (resistance). Here is one that I like best.
Ask yourself this question:
“Is there anyone on the planet doing or having what you desire?”
For example, if your desire is to attract your ideal client, or your ideal relationship, then you could ask yourself: “Is there anyone on the planet who has attracted their ideal client?”
Teamwork in Ministry: Pauls Sense of Partnership in the Gospel
December 9, 2007
In the pursuit of his Christian ministry, the Apostle Paul had a keen sense of teamwork, teamwork with God and with his brothers and sisters. This awareness he expresses by using compound Greek words that begin with the prepositional prefix, sun-. With an object in the dative case, sun means “together” or “with.” This same prepositional prefix has carried over into English, occurring in such words as “symbiotic,” “symphony,” “synergy” (the Greek sun-, represented by sym- or syn-). What follows is a brief survey of the words Paul employed to express this sharing of ministry. You will discover that such sharing continues among 21st-century Christians.
Paul calls us “co-citizens” and “joint heirs” and says we will “co-reign.” Because we are bound up with Christ, we share in His city, His inheritance, and His rule. But we also share the expectation of these future blessings with each other. Because of this, we “co-rejoice.”
Meanwhile, the struggle continues, and we “suffer together.” To endure such suffering, we “co-console” each other, and we live and die together.
But through it all, we are “co-workers.” Paul says that he and his associates are “God’s coworkers,” an amazing testimony both to the condescension of God–willing to stoop so low to work with the likes of us–and the corresponding elevation of Christians.
Reflections After The Tsunami Tragedy
December 8, 2007
Over the last few months hundreds of thousands of people have reached out with genuine concern and hard cash towards the people of SE Asia. The tsunami was no respecter of a person’s religion in an area where Muslims and Christians, Hindus and Buddhists, have been killed or traumatised. Our respective religions are an integral part of our self identity but so is the common spirituality that we share as human beings. Surely now is the time to reach out in a new way, with the same love and respect, in order to get to know one another better. Integral to this process is getting to know more about our different religions and learning how to honour each one. We need shared sacred space to help do this.
Anglican Christians throughout Britain in particular are ideally placed to help facilitate such a process, primarily because we already have buildings in every community, sacred spaces set apart for communal use, our ‘parish churches’. I see this as part of the unique ethos of Anglicanism. One of my own churches has the prophetic words from Isaiah above its main entrance: ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples’. This is our way of saying ‘Welcome’ in addition to the religious objects from other faiths that adorn the church and the copies of their holy books available in the sanctuary. In addition, prayers from all faiths are used regularly in our Christian worship. After all, Paul made it quite clear in one of his letters that Christians are meant to be committed to ‘the fellowship of reconciliation’ (2 Corinthians 5).
Business Ethics
December 7, 2007
There is much talk today about ethics in business - as there should be, but there should be more than talk; there should be a high moral code for all executives who are responsible to both their customers and their shareholders.
I have been the president and CEO of one publicly owned company and also was president of another that was responsible to customers who traded equities. This carries a high responsibility to all concerned. You have to be more than worried if you do something wrong because you will go to jail. You must have the desire to try to always do your best for everyone who works for you as well as all the customers or investors that deal with your company.
Ethics is supposed to be either black or white, right or wrong, but today it is many shades of grey. If any company does shady business you can be sure it starts at the top and filters down because the president is the one who sets the example for the actions of the entire company. This is as true for actions of our elected officials as it is for corporations or individuals. We have had some pretty sorry examples of that in Washington.
