A crazy little thing called trust: Max Jeganathan on the cries of his motherland, Sri Lanka:
Thirty-seven years earlier, a different unruly mob stormed my family’s home just a few kilometres away. Back then, it was a government-sanctioned gang that tried to kill me and my father and burn down our home. Today it’s an anti-government mob that chased the country’s former leader out of office and out of the country. Sadly, for the country of my birth, not much has changed since my family was thrown out of it in 1983. Today’s crisis in Sri Lanka is simply the latest chapter of suffering in a sad history of genocide, war, war crimes, false starts and government ineptitude. These are no new problems. These are the same old problems with new victims. “When sorrows come, they come not as single spies but in battalions.” Shakespeare’s words summarise Sri Lanka’s lamentable history perfectly.
(For more info, do click the link https://saltandlight.sg/news/a-crazy-little-thing-called-trust-max-jeganathan-on-the-cries-of-his-motherland-sri-lanka/ – by Max Jeganathan; 22nd July 2022 – inside Salt & Light)
Tenacious Grace – How We Become and Stay One?
“In this era, our status as redeemed saints is complete, but our experience of redemption is partial”; It’s the participatory dimension of our inherited gift of salvation (and countless facets of this gift, like Christian unity) that explains the New Testament’s teaching on grace and works. The New Testament teaches that we are saved by God’s grace alone (Ephesians 2:8–9), and that works are necessary to our salvation (James 2:24).
(For more info, do click the link https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/tenacious-grace – by Jon Bloom; Staff Writer 17th July 2022 – inside Desiring God)
Our Old/Young Earth – Arguments for Billions of Years:
“I do not think the Bible tells us or intends to tell us the age of the earth or the age of the universe.”
But are these continents actually moving apart at that rate? Long-term precise satellite “measurements of the relative positions of North America and North Africa document a current spreading rate of approximately 1 inch per year, a value in remarkable agreement with the radiometrically determined rates.”
“The most natural reading of the Bible’s introduction points to a young earth.” The use of Hebrew yôm (meaning day) with the refrain “there was evening and there was morning” (Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31), along with the mention of light and darkness, day and night, and the one-week structure strongly, suggests that the communicator of this revelation was portraying the equivalent of 24-hour
(For more info, do click the link https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/our-old-earth & https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/our-young-earth – by Wayne Grudem, Professor, Phoenix Seminary & Jason DeRouchie, Professor, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; 7th July 2022 – inside Desiring God)
‘In Faithfulness You Have Afflicted Me’
But can we derive hope, as the author of Lamentations did, not merely from God’s promise to faithfully deliver us from our afflictions, but from what God will faithfully accomplish for us through our afflictions?
(For more info, do click the link https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/in-faithfulness-you-have-afflicted-me – by Jon Bloom, Staff writer, 29th June – inside Desiring God)
5 Stages of Building a Successful Team:
In this place, we literally can learn to play and plan and work and enjoy each other all at the same time. Why? Because whether we’re talking about companies, sports teams or families, each group is functioning at a much higher and more effective level. Here, we’re making good, hard decisions that have to be made to be able to make the company more functional and more profitable, to be able to make the sports team better winners and more successful or to make the family not dysfunctional, but more functional.
(For more info, do click the link https://charismamag.com/relationships-life/446788/ by Ford Taylor on Relationships 27th June 2022 – inside Charisma Magazine)
Is Discipleship More Challenging Today? Five Modern Hurdles to Ministry:
“The only doorway to the kingdom of Christ is through acknowledgment of personal villainy.” Life–on–life discipleship takes hours, days, months, and even years of commitment. It requires sustained scriptural focus. It takes single-mindedness and intentional relationships – qualities more easily attained without a constant barrage of stimuli, whether for entertainment (Netflix, YouTube, TikTok), human connection (Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook), or information (podcasts, TED talks, articles – yes, I see the irony).
(For more info, do click the link https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/is-discipleship-more-challenging-today – by Matt Reagan; Guest Contributor, 24th June 2022 – inside Desiring God)
“Spirit of God, fall afresh on us”: Rev Edmund Chan on the demystification of revival:
The defining mark of the church is not size. It is the spirit of the living God falling on them! We cannot engineer revival. We can only respond in faith to the promise of God.
(For more info, do click the link https://saltandlight.sg/faith/spirit-of-god-fall-afresh-on-us-rev-edmund-chan-on-the-demystification-of-revival/ – by Rev Edmund Chan 22nd June 2022– inside Salt & Light)
Do Not Fear to Leave This World:
Perhaps you will feel the same discomfort I felt overhearing saints of old speak of death. “He who does not prepare for death is more than an ordinary fool. He is a madman,” began Charles Spurgeon. “Agreed,” said the good Doctor Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Men seem to ignore the plain fact that “the moment you come into this world you are beginning to go out of it.”
But this fact need not spell doom and gloom for the Christian, Spurgeon responded. “The best moment of a Christian’s life is his last one, because it is the one that is nearest heaven.”
(For more info, do click the link https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/do-not-fear-to-leave-this-world – by Greg Morse 15th June 2022 – Staff Writer, inside Desiring God)
Find a Storm to Stir You:
The Greek for “stir up” means “to provoke” or “to agitate;” The same word is used just one other time in the New Testament, and it’s used (surprisingly) to describe the “sharp disagreement” that arose between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark (Acts 15:39). There’s a kind of sharpness in the imagery. Shake one another, unsettle one another, upsets one another – with a holy interruption – until love spills over and good works spring to life.
(For more info, do click the link https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/find-a-storm-to-stir-you – by Marshall Segal 12th June 2022 – inside Desiring God)
How Did Jesus ‘Make Disciples’?
Making good fishermen is a long, involved process, as they knew all too well. It requires teaching and training over time. Not only hearing, and internalizing, clear words of instruction and direction but also watching a master fisherman at work – and catching the unspoken rhythms and patterns of his craft.
(For more info, do click the link https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-did-jesus-make-disciples – by David Mathis (2nd June, inside Desiring God)
When Your Marriage Hurts – Healing the wounds and travelling light:
Ponder the various hurts you may have accumulated in your marriage life. She criticised you in front of your family members. He forgot your wedding anniversary. She neglected your needs in favour of your newborn child. She compared you with her colleague’s husband. He did not help with chores around the house.
It is a laundry list of hurts – intentional or unintentional.
(For more info, do click the link https://family.org.sg/FOTFS/Blog/Marriage/when-your-marriage-hurts.aspx by Chan Swee Fen, 25th May 2022– inside FAMILY FOCUS/BLOG)
How to Have Healthy Expectations in Marriage – Communicating well and showing grace:
Let’s not be shy about admitting it. Marriage is hard. Often, it’s made even harder by the one thing that floats beneath the surface, only surfacing in the midst of quarrels.
Expectations.
Whether said or unsaid, expectations, when unmet, can leave couples feeling dissatisfied, disillusioned, and disappointed with marriage life. Expectations allow you to uphold certain standards, but grace allows for flexibility when one party doesn’t meet them.
(For more info, do click the link https://family.org.sg/FOTFS/Blog/Marriage/how-to-have-healthy-expectations-in-marriage.aspx by John Lim, 20th April 2022 – inside FAMILY FOCUS/BLOG)
Retired Pentecostal Pastor: Will Jesus Return in This Decade?
Much of the time, when people think of biblical prophecy they are most concerned with the personal and practical implications of the “mystery” (a previously undisclosed truth or reality) of the “snatching away” or “gathering together” of the saints of God (living and dead) in what is popularly called the “rapture.” Rather than worrying more about being “left behind,” committed disciples can rest in this future hope and holy assurance.
Could Jesus Return to Earth this Decade?
In a previous article, I asked the question of whether or not Jesus will return in this decade. We affirmed that we do not know and we cannot even be sure that this definite, future event will occur in our lifetimes—let alone in this decade (Matthew 25:13, NIV).
(For more info, do click the link https://www.charismamag.com/spirit/revival/52170-retired-pentecostal-pastor-will-jesus-return-in-this-decade & https://www.charismamag.com/spirit/supernatural/52197-could-jesus-return-to-earth-this-decade – by Gary Curtis (16th & 19th May 2022, inside Charisma Magazine)
The Pillar in the Pews – How the Church Upholds the Truth:
God wants men and women everywhere to hear, believe, and enjoy the truth — the truth about God, about grace, about the cross. And under that truth, he has placed a chosen pillar, a buttress he himself designed and constructed for this global and eternal purpose: the church.
(For more info, do click the link https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-word-of-god-is-worth-the-work – by Marshall Segal (13th May 2022), Staff writer, inside Desiring God)
The Word of God Is Worth the Work:
In Bible reading as well as mountaineering, many would like the experience of heart-skipping beauty without working their quadriceps to jelly. We often would prefer, say, to drive to the summit of Romans 8 without traversing the rocky fields of reasoning, and climbing the alpine slopes of argumentation, and patiently tracing the winding paths of logic in Romans 1–7. We want the thrill of spiritual feeling without the labor of spiritual thought.
(For more info, do click the link https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-word-of-god-is-worth-the-work – by Scott Hubbard {Editor} – 5th May 2022, inside Desiring God)
The Sees Family – Part 1 & 2:
When the Sees were featured by The Straits Times about how they feed 8 kids on $300 a week, some netizens commented that the children were so “deprived" and "poor thing”. The Sees family shared their stories of how they can find the joy in life really that doesn’t cost much.
The netizens found it “very impressive” how the parents raised their children to be independent.
(For more info, do click the link https://saltandlight.sg/family/were-not-poor-were-rich-in-family-time-eight-kid-single-income-family-has-no-tuition-helper-or-car & https://saltandlight.sg/family/our-family-relies-on-god-parents-of-eight-kids-were-once-at-risk-of-being-childless/ by Priscilla Goy – 22nd & 29th Apr 2022)
“Come, Holy Spirit:”
For many Christians today, that brief prayer is often connected with heightened emotions, unguided –spontaneous experiences, and an intense expectation of God’s nearness. Something unusual and powerful is about to happen.
Inviting the Spirit to come, however, is no new phenomenon. Christians of all persuasions have sincerely spoken or sung these words for centuries. Which raises a few questions –
If God is present everywhere, isn’t the Spirit already here?
Should we even be praying to the Holy Spirit?
And what exactly are we asking the Spirit to come and do?
We’re going to seek to answer those questions, specifically as it relates to the gatherings of the church. How are we to think about the Holy Spirit’s presence and our engagement with him?
(For more info, do click the link https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/come-holy-spirit – by Bob Kauflin {Pastor, Louisville, Kentucky} – 23rd Apr 2022, inside Desiring God)
The Love in His Grief – How the Spirit Respond to our sin:
You’ve done it again. Your conscience begins to stain. Here it is: that sin you vowed – you prayed – never to repeat. You feel the desperate urge to flee from yourself. You wonder, Does God feel the same?
(For more info, do click the link https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-love-in-his-grief – by Greg Morse {Staff Writer} – 18th Apr 2022, inside Desiring God)
Joel News International:
UK and India: Oceans apart a mother and son pray for a miracle:
People often talk about the power of prayer, from the mundane to the magnificent. Patrick Gilbert’s story definitely falls on the side of magnificent. It reads like a film-script and what lies at its heart are two people, oceans apart, who prayed for a miracle.
(For more info, do click the link https://mailchi.mp/joelnews/jni-1143?e=947657d957 by Joel News International – 10th Oct 2019)
South Asia: Buddhist monks turn to Christ:
Global Disciples has a big vision - to see the least reached and unreached people groups of the world have the chance to encounter the Gospel. One way the ministry works towards this vision is by training national leaders in how to share the Gospel.
Algeria: Woman's healing brings village to Christ;
A woman in a village in Algeria had been very sick for quite some time. Her husband had taken her to many doctors and specialists and had even tried witchcraft and sorcery, but she remained unchanged.
(For more info, do click the link https://mailchi.mp/joelnews/jni-1132?e=947657d957 – by Joel News International – 7th Feb 2019)
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