Life, Travel, GRACE

Confusion not only happens in “mid-life crisis” as perceived by norm. It can occur to anyone, at any age and at any time. Sounds dangerous huh. We will at least face some confusion in our stages of life. Confusion of character and ambition at teen period; balancing career and family at adulthood; handling crisis with teenager and mending decreasing physical prowess at mid life; retirement and the list goes on. Apparently, confusion is a normal experience. The end of the confusion will be clarity and direction. It’s like going thru a tunnel and you will see the light at the end. Two issues are categorized as confusion starter: calling and major life issues. Calling and vocation Of all the activities man involved, job takes the biggest portion of the time. In early stages, man will focus on his job and career. As he settled down, job satisfaction starts to fray. Confusion arises. Some men stay in low paying job. Some regret the job they’ve taken. Therefore the easiest remedy is job chang...

We have thus far covered two dangers men face – the danger of loss and the danger of sin. The third danger is the danger of freezing. As men grow older, they tend to refuse from changing. In other words, men are freezing in their own thinking. Freezing in Thinking Patterns and habits are developed in early stage of men’s life. As they advance to later years, what have become habitual will remain. Little effort will be made in order to change these patterns or habits. Men are freezing in their thinking pattern. They are prone to refuse new idea. They are not open-minded and teachable. Firstly, we need to analyze and identify if one self will get angry at the new ideas or change (especially from the younger one). This is the symptom of freezing. Not only that, new idea will be viewed negatively. It is crucial to open up one’s mind and learn to adapt the change. Living in this current k-economy and globalization world, it will be foolish if we do not adapt with the ongoing changes. For ex...

Just as disease requires remedy and cure, so as our sin. The antidote of sin begins with detection. Early detection takes place if we allow God to search our heart and know our thought (Psa 139:23-24). Confession comes when we allow God to come into us. Once we know we have sinned, immediate action needs to be taken. Cleansing takes place with confession. This results in forgiveness (though our salvation is assured). Having known that mistake or sin, it’s time to eradicate it from our life. Some preventive measures need to be taken. Therefore, confession needs to be accompanied by repentance. To quote from the author, repentance is a conscious attitude of regret, a changing mind of the mind or a turning from sin to God. This however, requires effort. Of course, we need to set our heart right such that to achieve purity of heart. We need check and balance – accountability. Pro 17:17 and Gal 6:2 shed some importance of practicing accountability. The whole process however consists of re...

God detests pride. Pride first starts from our heart. We feel good when we’ve achieved something. It makes us proud. Have we forgotten that our achievement is from God? It is true that God allow us to experience heartbreak or disappointment in order to break the bonds of pride in us. Pride invades our life as we see it through our personhood, success, possession and position. Often we view personal success on the basis of personal achievement, wealth and possession accumulation. This is a subjective judgment and no one can tell how good is good enough. The Bible reminds us wealth is temporary as compared with God’s eternity love. All the things that we have – wealth, possession, position, etc- are from God. Instead of feeling good and showing off to others, let’s use these gifts to honor God. Let God searches our heart and we should be humble under his mighty hand for pride causes us to fall and bring disgrace.

No men never have anger. At some point anger can be beyond control and lead to sin. Three levels of anger have been identified: misdirected anger, the gray middle road of anger and explosive anger. Anger disrupts relationship and causes tension. Immediate solution would be forgiveness. The bible has so much examples on anger. God’s wrath towards sin. Jesus anger response in the temple. But in your anger do not sin. The wise will not give to anger. To overcome the anger pattern in life, first admit that you have problem with anger. Share your problem with close friends (accountability). Ask feedback and support from family and friends. Finally, ask God to change you.

Conflict forms part of our daily life. We engage into conflict usually to get our idea or opinion accepted. In other words, we are warring for victory. Unresolved and repeated conflict can be source of our sin. Gal 5:19-21 lists several roots of conflict: discord, dissension, jealousy and factions. As mentioned by the author, conflict is one of the evidences of sinful worldliness. Doesn’t the bible teach us to be at peace with others? Conflict results in war and division. And to the extreme, murder. It also leads to anger, breaks friendships and relationships. After all, conflict hinders spiritual growth and maturity. To get out of conflict, first confess to God. By identifying major conflicts in one’s life, one needs to seek forgiveness and reconciliation. Learn to guard our tongue too – it hurts and causes conflict when it’s not properly utilized.

Men get tempted everyday and none can escape sexual temptation. Sexual temptation starts in mind indeed. Input from audio and visual engage with our weak flesh. It really depends how we respond that determines the outcome. But God always provides a way out. Principles learned in dealing sexual temptation are daily communion with God as well as commitment for winning the lost. Nevertheless, a deeper relationship and committed accountability serve as check and balance in men’s life. Not to forget a defensive prayer. Proverbs 7:6-27 illustrates a good example on how a man can guard himself from falling into sexual temptations. Self-control is important as we are bearing the image of God. How can we shine if we are not setting a barrier with sexual sins? Persistently guarding our mind - it’s not that easy as it says though. Avoidance is another measure and finally guard what we see, hear and read. We can do all these with God’s help.

Throughout the bible, man after man was succumbed to sin. Sin is perceived to prey its victim unexpectedly. Believers are often plagued with lack of commitment and discouragement of sins. To quote from Jerry White, the key to overcoming these problems resides in the crucified life as summarized in Gal 2:20-21. Our old selves have been crucified. We are no longer under bondage of sin. However, we do keep sinning due to influence of this sinful nature. Note that sin (singular) and sins (plural) bear a different context here. Indeed, we are not slaves to sin. Imagine you are pardoned from punishment of jail (i.e. we are free). Even though you are free, choice of living as slaves is there. Therefore, we need to count ourselves dead to sin, to be completely free from sin bondage. We have the immeasurable grace of God. Our response: serve righteousness – in the Spirit.

After studied the nature and types of losses men will encounter, it is prudent to search and know the antidote. Ultimately, we place our future/path to God in every circumstance. Just as Paul regarded his achievements as useless and baseless, he placed his motivation in knowing Christ and experiencing the power of it. Yet he did not deny the importance of his achievements. It is how we respond to circumstance that matter. We can indeed control our response. The antidote of loss is choosing to grow. Growth in character, choices and as a training ground. Loss, is therefore God’s purpose for us – “harvest of righteousness”. He wants us to grow in the fruit of the spirit. He wants us to know that God is in control. He wants us to acknowledge our frailty and humanity. He wants us to choose to live in Him. Indeed, He will not forsake us.

Personal confidence is mystery (as quoted in the book). We agreed that confidence is self-reliance which give us positive feeling for resolving life's problem or ego. Self confidence is shaped from childhood, particularly from the influence and encouragement of our parents. Consequently, our personality is matured and has built up our confidence level. Other contributing factors are competence, education background and experience. No matter what the source of confidence, it all depends on the flesh. When we loss confidence, where should we go if not back to our Father. Disappointment will come if we focus on our own achievements and abilities. Is not God give us all these? To quote from the author, we regain confidence by putting our confidence in God. He wants to root our confidence in His love and grace.

We discovered that identity and position are somehow related. When you have position, your identity is there. However, you still have your identity even if you don't have the position. We usually address ourselves the phrase "I am a ......" Yup, you are what you are. Those temporary identities have been embedded into our life. Even the bible referred the people with certain identity. As the worldly identity is temporary, we will eventually loss it. One day we will said we used to be somebody. But our identity in Christ Jesus should be permanent. And this is a great gain. Lets build and grow our identity as children of God, ambassador, the chosen people. For this will not be taken away. And it is important for each of us.

We had one of the 61 members joined the discussion. He's not a believer though. We started off with types of influence. Indeed influence is pervasive and multifaceted. Our personhood as who we are promote influence. People exert their influence thru their wisdom and counsel, performance, position, knowledge, power and wealth. What will be the consequence of having these influences loss? People will not come to us at least. Not to mention we are not heard. We examine the influence of our previous PM. As we know, his advice in recent issues was not taken seriously. Simply because he's no longer in power. Nevertheless, the most valuable influence is the influence of person. There's a saying life changing life. This is reflected in Heb 13:7. As influence is temporary (and somehow is vulnerable), use it as a gift from God to bring benefit to others and glorify Him.

We were discussing about loss of position last week. It seems like none of the members had experience loss of position (maybe most of us still young, haven't tasted the achievement of life?). Anyway, our response should be positive when we face loss of position. We should accept it as God's decision. He is doing wonderful thing for us. He has plan for us indeed. It could be a time where we can grow towards Him. Sometimes, "maxing out" will be a danger for us. At some point we will try very hard to get the position. But we may end up not getting it. It's how we deal and face this loss that's matter. Position is important but it is temporary. God gives and takes. We should place our value and identity on God alone....

1 Sam 15 -> Saul lost his kingship. He disobeyed God's command. He begged for forgiveness....trying to fix thing back. It's too late. Gen 39 -> Joseph lost the trust from his master. He submitted to God. And he was blessed. These two examples from the bible clearly described how men respond to loss (in this case with immediate effect). Our society put their motivation rooted in desire and fear. Desire for wealth accumulation, fear of losing etc. These two, however, can be wisely use together with love - a biblical way. Desire to be holy, fear of God and of course love is the greatest of all. We should prepare ourselves how to face loss of motivation. As the principle applied, love should encompass in our response and action. It is however not easy to apply when the real difficulty arises. Peer support somehow will play a role. Our response should be trusting and submissive to God's authority. Not forgetting desire to be with God and fear of God's command. Our mo...

We started off with the first danger that each of us will face: the danger of loss. Each one of us will face loss (or losses) in one of our life stage. Be it loss of your love one, job, motivation, influence etc. Our response to loss somehow will either build our character or destroy us from growing. The group members agreed that different stages of life have different potential or probable loss. Student may feel the loss if they fail the exam. Worker may feel the loss if they do not get employed. And the list goes on. We shall see how can we learn from the response of Saul and Joseph when they encountered loss (1 Sam 15 and Gen 39).

As we live our life in this fallen world, we are exposed to all sort of "dangers". Danger brings different meaning and experience to each individual. But the danger which we fear the most are the ones we do not see until it is too late. No doubt satan brings good disguise until the victim slowly entrapped into sweet temptation. Each one of us have dreams. Our dreams somehow change along the course of life. Most of the members felt that perspective and dream change as we follow Christ. Dangers come in whether we know it or not. If we are not aware, dangers will destroy our dreams. The members believe the prominent danger that Christians are facing is danger of dream. Christians tend dare not to have big dream (big dream for spiritual work). This could be due to biblical values which have molded the perspective of each Christians. Martin Luther did have a big dream. There are five dangers to be explored: danger of loss, danger of sin, danger of freezing, danger of witdrawal and...

The MU Nav will be having a series of bible study based upon a book titled "Dangers Men Face" by Jerry White. The objectives of the study are to explore and equip ourselves for the future dangers that we might encounter, so that we can have positive response which will bring glory to God. Among the dangers which everyone will face are danger of loss and danger of sin. The study begins with the introduction of the "danger".