Meditations

Posted by: thaishin | April 8, 2012

Hallelujah April 2012

Hallelujah, Jesus is risen and our Lord is alive!!!

Remembering our Lord’s cross April 2012

Isaiah 53:3-6

3He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

5But 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.

6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

kjv

I ever met a non believer that knows that he is a sinner even though he has not accepted Christ yet. It takes a certain insight into yourself/myself to know that you/I are/am a sinner. Insight into oneself is to be aware of and observes the facts about your thoughts/feelings. One can only conclude that nothing good can come out of our natural thoughts/state. Without Christ, it is more probable that our thoughts are negative than positive. Without Christ, it is more probable that our thoughts/speech are critical than builds up. Without Christ, it is more probable that we are more selfish than giving. Without Christ, it is more probable that we are ungrateful than grateful. Without Christ, it is more probable that we are proud than humble. Without Christ, we are more probable to be less secure than feel secure. Without Christ, we are more probable to complain than to give thanks. Without Christ, we are more probable to self pity than to glorify God. Without Christ, we are more probable to be a pessimist than a realist optimist. Without Christ, we are more probable to be ruled by our feelings than principles. Without Christ, we are more probable to want to be loved than to love. Really, can Christ do so much work in us? Yes, He can if only you are willing to say yes I want to be changed by Jesus and start reading the bible.

2 Comments

Posted in thoughts | Tags: complain, critical, Feelings, insecure, insight, negative, pessimist, proud, self pity, selfish, thoughts, to be loved, ungrateful

Posted by: thaishin | March 12, 2012

New brakes for front wheels

My toyota corolla already has a mileage of around 64k. In my most recent trip to the auto shop, they estimated the lininings of the front brake disc to be around 3 mm and they advised me to change the brakes. I got an estimate from them and they quoted me a price of 169 USD after discount. Their normal price is 189 USD. A second shop is running a promotion of the same type of brake job costing 99.99 USD. Upon further enquiry, they say my corolla is using ceramic disc and cost 10 bucks more for the job. So I went for the second offer. The normal price for the second shop is 169 USD. In addition, both shops also advised to clean and align the rear brakes. That cost 55 USD for the first shop and 32.99 USD for the second shop. If not adjusted, the rear brakes is not able to grip the wheels as well and the front brake will wear out faster.

The standard brake job from the second shop offers the following:
1) install new brake pads
2) resurface rotors
3) inspect brake components
Warranty: Lifetime parts warranty on brakes shoes and disc pads. 12 month, 12k miles labour warranty.

This is first time changing the front brakes since buying the car. I was told the rear brakes are still in good condition.

2 Comments

Posted in Driving | Tags: ceramic disc, disc brake, Driving, front brake, warranty

Posted by: thaishin | March 8, 2012

Trimming Down

One of them did not accept my facebook friend’s request but he’s still posting in facebook. The other did not call back after I left a phone message having called him twice. The other did not write back my emails to him. These are real people that I have met face to face and have interacted with personally for a period of time. One of them is a church friend. Another a former neighbor and the other a friend I met in primary school. So I find myself trimming down my email contacts.
Sounds depressing. But it’s ok. It is a fact of life that we lose some friends as we journey on in life. Sometimes we do not know why they left and do not want to be contacted. I will still say hi to them if I met them again but to pursue deeper roots I don’t think so.
Could it be me? Maybe I could be a better friend but I have to admit I am not a very relational kind of person. But again in this life, how many true friends can we have? Or could it be because of changing circumstances? Then what has changed? But fact is they left without a word and it hurts.

6 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: Relationships

Posted by: thaishin | February 23, 2012

Loss of holiness

In my last post, I was talking about say this to mean that. When you say A to mean B, you are using part of the subconscious mind to verbalise the thought. The bible says that words are many, sin is not absent. How much more when you say A to mean B, you are sinning more. The problem with say A to mean B is this, sin is not absent and what’s worst is we will find it difficult to concretise it again. We are not able to recall and point to the specifics of the sin we have committed. As this happens, we are not able to confess our specific sins to Jesus and probably will remain unconfessed. As long as sin is in us, we lose our holiness. With sin and without holiness, God does not hear our prayers.

PS: I use the phrase sin accumulates in my first version of my post which I have since corrected – reference to the first comment by Harry

4 Comments

Posted in Sin | Tags: Sin, specific, subconscious, unconfessed, without holiness

Posted by: thaishin | February 6, 2012

Say this to mean that

As parents, we are important examples through which our children may see Christ-likeness. The other major environment which shapes my son’s behaviour is school. We have placed him in a christian school in the hope that he may be exposed to christian culture.

I am exposed to american culture a bit and also to american christian culture by listening to the christian radio program. I am concerned for my son that he does not understand absolute principles. When I say A, I mean A. When I mean B, I say B. But within the broader american culture, when they mean A, they say B to mean A. We live here in america and one day my son is going to work here and maybe marry here, he will have to say B to mean A. But I am concerned for him because I want him to learn absolute. I want him to say A to mean A also in addition to being able to say B to mean A.

In one incident, he was saying something to me. With a change in phonetics, he meant it a different meaning, perhaps in a disrespectful way. When I confronted him by asking him if he meant A. He said no. After much talking to him and later in time, he subtly admitted that he meant A by saying B. Whenever there is subtleness and it is disrespectful, I will always have to confront him so that when he say B to mean A, he will have to say A to mean A to me or at least admit his fault even if it is by saying B to mean A to me.

7 Comments

Posted in Parenting | Tags: concern, culture, Parenting, phonetics, subtleness

Posted by: thaishin | January 12, 2012

God speaks directly to the heart

Sometimes we harbor sin in our heart and the sin is hidden from us in our consciousness. Maybe it is masked by the pride in the heart so much so that we do not see it. Then God speaks through circumstances and rebukes us and we need to ask why because we do not know that we sinned in the first place. I guess for non believers, they don’t ask why because they think it is pure conincidences. For believers who believe that nothing happens by chance, we need to ask why and God will answer. For me, it was through a vehicle with a slogan printed on its body, God tells me specifically what is wrong in my heart and it was timely too as I was questioning in my heart why a certain event happened. He is interested in my heart and He rebukes me. Then be ready to repent when He shows you the secret sin in your heart. At least that’s what happened to me.

1 Comment

Posted in Sin | Tags: coincidence, heart, hidden sin, Sin

Posted by: thaishin | December 28, 2011

Does Satan hear your thoughts?

I know that God hears our prayers if we utter our thoughts to him in our mind because God looks at our hearts. A thought came to mind, is Satan also able to hear the thoughts in our minds even before we utter it in our mouths? The thought can be scary because Satan can cater his attacks on us. Satan prowls around like a roaring lion as stated in James. So is he waiting to pounce on our stray thoughts and wrestle our thoughts to his advantage or he just tempts us with temptations and hope that our will go his way? If he is able to read our thoughts, we have to continually confess our sinful thoughts to God through Jesus. Even if he is not able to do so, we still have to continually confess our sinful thoughts to God as it arises in our minds because we are told to be holy just as He is holy. Any of you with scriptures to address this question?

1 Chronicles 21: 1-2

¹ Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. ² So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, “Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then report back to me so that I may know how many there are. -niv

¹And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

²And David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring the number of them to me, that I may know it.

-kjv

It seems in 1 Chronicles 21:1 that Satan worked on David’s heart, provoked him into action. So we can imply that God’s peace was absent from David’s heart and he was provoked into action. Scripture did not say Satan was able to read David’s thoughts.

Matthew 16:23

²³But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. -kjv

²³ Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” -niv

Here Jesus is tempted by Satan through Peter to fill him with human concerns but it never says Satan read Jesus’s thoughts.

Our thoughts arise in our mind and heart naturally. Satan is not able to control our thoughts/will just as God does not want to control our thoughts/will. But the battle with Satan starts in the thought front, and he throws attacks at us through words outside of mind/heart and hopes to gain some foothold in our thoughts/mind/heart. Still, it does not answer the question, is Satan able to hear our thoughts. My guess is that he can’t but it does not matter as long as we rely on God’s word for our defense against him. It does not matter to Satan also as long as he can gain a foothold in our hearts.

4 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: Read, Satan, thoughts

Posted by: thaishin | December 25, 2011

Happy Birthday Jesus

My Lord and my God, may the whole world celebrate your first coming and anticipate your second coming!!