persecuted for righteousness

Matt 5:10 - "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
how righteous are we? how much are we willing to stand up for righteousness? are we righteous enough to be persecuted? in our open society like singapore, where religious tolerance is quite high, there isnt persecution. or not, maybe we just dont let others know about Christ enough. but lets talk about being righteous.

Matt 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...
if you are this kind of righteous person, then you will surely be persecuted. Jesus was. people take advantage of righteous people, people like to step on them and ridicule them, i'm guilty of that. people will hate being in your presence, because you thirst for righteousness and they want to do the wrong thing. you're a 'spoilsport' and a 'killjoy', but you're standing up for righteousness. people hate the truth, people hate goodygoodies. but we're asked to be righteous, and to be a positive influence.

vulgarities, lustful desires, skipping classes and so on. it happens around me all the time; i'm quite uptight about people swearing around me, but i havent done anything about my classmates openly talking about skirts and all. its time i start ;) and i'm not expecting a positive response from them, because i'm going against whats natural for them, whats natural for all of us. but living fish swim upstream, dead fish get washed to the bottom- its going to be hard but it will happen. and when my classmates get irritated because they cannot 'express themselves freely', i know i've done my work :)

and i exhort you, my reader, to preserve this world and be a shining light for all to see, that you may be courageous and upright enough to allow yourself to be persecuted. its not about being cool or making the gospel sound like the old testament. its not about having a 'nice God that allows you to passively sin because he understands'. its a standard of righteous that all men, saved or not must live up to. and when you get mocked for playing an angel, rejoice, because great is your reward in heaven, because all the great prophets before you have been persecuted.

who wouldnt like to live in harmony? but the truth would upset everything. nobody likes the real truth, until they have tasted it.

is satan omnipresent?

God is omnipresent, he knows all about us, and hangs all around us and in us. so is satan omnipresent? he does seem to be everywhere tempting us all the time.
no, he's not. but he does know what goes on around the world and in you. that is because he has his minions. think of it like an army, if i were a country and i sent my troops to invade another country, then the news headlines would be something like Jawn invades ________. technically i wasnt there, but im giving orders to my little fellers and they're telling me everything thats happening on the other side.

thats as good as being omnipresent right? i mean after all he is still able to tempt and poke fun at us.
but nah, with the Holy Spirit, we can renounce satan and tell him to 'get thee behind me!'; James 4:7 tells us "...Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."
WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS MY FRIEND. and we are more than conquerors! Romans 8:37 says "we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." so put on your armour of God and fight!

of imagery and revelation

if the bible was written as a hoax, by a man, or a group of any size, they'd be genius. they would take shakespeare and make him look like a techno song lyric writer.

Numbers 21:4-9; for muslims/jews, this is also in the Torah (ba-midbar), it reads:
21:4 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!"
6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.
8 The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

this also happens to be an imagery of Christ: the world is plagued by sin, and we will die from it if we do not repent. and it would be this same sinfulness that drives us to hell, and that causes us to put Jesus up on that cross and to kill an innocent man. and despite our defiance, the merciful God gave a way out, His own Son, nailed to a cross. so that anyone who looked to Him would find eternal salvation. and not just salvation, but blessings and prosperity. how cool is that!

another instance is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. by rabbinic decree, matzah (the bread eaten during the feast of unleavened bread) must be striped, pierced, and burned (to look bruised). strangely this is the same picture of Jesus, Isaiah 53:5 "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."

really, very, awesome.

the charismatic movement

honestly i don't see whats the big deal about the charismatic movement. theologically, they arent "wrong" because the very thing that conservative theologians say is biblically wrong is a grey area of the bible! (the only thing i disagree about is the public speaking of tongues) in fact i can't really support either side because they both have really good arguments. very dumb arguments- with the amount of time they spend trying to find out who's right, they could've reached out to many.

which is precisely what the charismatics and pentecostals are doing! they've started to ignore the theologians (who, in having studied the bible so much, have forgotten that the bible teaches unity, overlooking non-essentials, and humility) who make it a point to shoot down the biggest and fastest growing outreach group. i dare say that i would use "get thee behind me, satan" even to a fellow brother who has succumbed to pride, and just a need to be 'right'.

i just learnt that adrian (a classmate of mine) converted some time back [which brings the number of christians in my class to 4] in one of city harvest's cell groups. initially he was scared off by the tongues (i would be too, which is why i disagree with tongues), but recently he started going again, and he converted. knowing him personally, i feel that he's not one of the people that would convert on the first few times; he'd probably just go to learn a bit more about christianity and maybe for the sake of shutting his friend up.

but, for some reason, the Holy Spirit works mightily in churches like city harvest and newcreations. i believe, its how everybody is empowered by the Holy Spirit. now God alone can move a person to accepting Christ. not knowing the 4 spiritual laws by heart, not being full of apologetics, not forcing christianity down someone's throat. it might help, but it sure wont get you straight there.

as a sidenote, i would say that i prefer listening to charismatic preachers sometimes than my own pastor. but my question is, what can i do to be this filled with the Spirit, that i can reach out to others this effectively?

convicted to know His Word

Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight. -Acts 20:7
i assume that Paul was teaching, because if you read in contacts this kid fell asleep listening to him. (and people dont talk on and on if they're having a conversation. people talk on and on if they're preaching or praying)
so what, when paul decides to talk longer he can? i mean like people usually take a few days to write an hours sermon man, so i assume he can keep teaching at will. and how does he do that? man, i want to have Word knowledge like paul. paul wasnt even one of the people that hung around Christ everyday and yet he knew God so much!
gah. im gonna read read read my bible so i can know God so well that i can go on and on about Him. woot.

Acts 21:20-26 talks about how paul went and got himself 'purified' following jewish customs, even though earlier on they decided that circumcision was unnecessary. paul here made it a point not to make a big hooha about the non-essential things, and that's really admirable because everyone nowadays seem to be focusing on finding the 'right' doctrine instead of the more important things. so. peace brothers, im hungry.