Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite

If a commission by an earthly king is considered an honour, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?
(David Livingstone)

A true scoffer asks spiritual questions that are not sincere with the aim of contorting the truth. There is no use arguing with them but we must answer briefly their contentions so they will not think there are no answers, and therefore be wise in their own conceits

A true scoffer asks spiritual questions that are not sincere with the aim of contorting the truth. There is no use arguing with them but we must answer briefly their contentions so they will not think there are no answers, and therefore be wise in their own conceits

A true scoffer asks spiritual questions that are not sincere with the aim of contorting the truth. There is no use arguing with them but we must answer briefly their contentions so they will not think there are no answers, and therefore be wise in their own conceits

Those grounded in the fundamentals of Christianity - Christ's shedding of his blood, his death, burial and resurrection, and only those who are convicted and sincerely repentant to Christ of their sins and have Christ's righteousness imputed on their account, and will be truly saved from the wrath of God

A truly saved individual will understand very well that s/he who is begotten of God cannot be touched by the evil one (1 John 5:18), because we are sons and daughters of the Living God

A Charismatic's and Catholic's belief on tongues, healing and assured material prosperity are contrary to Christ's teaching. This makes Charismatics and Catholics more prone to evil attacks and it follows that they are the ones who are susceptible to devil and demonic possession

Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners

Originally, it was called the New Age Movement. But it progressed to such an endemic state that it is now termed the New Spirituality.

The New Spirituality demands that the person who practices it do so in order to break out of the earth's karmic cycle and reach enlightenment, so that they themselves, being enlightenment can act as a guide to those on earth who are still unaware of their potential.

They believe that when a person dies, he gets what he deserves in his next life. In short, that's reincarnation.  Every death leads to another reincarnation and if the person was wicked in his last life, he will re-appear on earth as a suffering entity such as a worm or a poverty-stricken person. In order to break out of this cycle, a person of karmic belief must practice medication so as to reach enlightenment. Through meditation or mantra, he strives to attain enlightenment.  He believes there is an entity in space or one of the planets which is actually part of him.  This he describes as the perfect part. On earth, he is still imperfect. To reach his perfect part, he needs to medicate regularly so much so that through meditation, he opens himself to the perfect part, and hence achieves perfectness.  Once perfectness is achieved, he becomes a god. And no longer subjected to the earth's karmic cycle.

One of their main beliefs is the kundalini force.  This force is a light energy coiled at the bottom area of the spine.  As enlightenment is reached, the kundalini uncoils and awakens itself and exhibits itself from the 7 opennings of the human body, known as the 7 chakras.  The top chakra, the highest chakra, is the third eye, located above the centre of our two eyes.  It seems that if kundalini is able to reach the third eye, enlightenment is achieved.  That means the obtained the God-Consciousness. It also means they have themselves become god.

Since every living entity is able to become god, they are convinced that God is in everything. That means God is in the planets, in space, in the trees, even in the rocks, in a generalised term, God is the universe.  The Creator is the same as the created.  That is pantheism.

As believers, we need to know the New Spirituality that seems to have pervaded the mindsets of much of the population in the WORLD.

Believers need to be cautious as The New Spirituality incorporates the apparently innocent idea of Positive Thinking. Traverse through all the secular book stores and you will see shelves upon shelves of material lined with the theme of Positive Thinking. As believers, Positive Thinking should not be part of our vocabulary. Rather if we encounter adverse situations, we ought to pray and request our adversities be removed, "if the Lord will". We have the sublime assurance from scripture that the Lord will not suffer us to be tempted beyond that which we are able to withstand.

Our Lord Jesus said that 'Many shall come in my name saying I am'.  'I am' has always been a term for God and to declare yourself 'I am', you are declaring that you are God, and this is exactly what Satan desires.  From the very beginning, in the Garden of Eden, he told Eve that if she ate of the fruit 'ye should be like gods'.

It sometimes promotes contemplative prayer used by mystics. Contemplative prayer is very similar to Buddhist meditation involving relaxing the body and taking in deep breaths, and at the same time visualise yourself breathing in God's forgiveness and breathing out your sins, whilst blanking out thoughts in your mind. In effect it follows the words of Morton Kelsey, an Episcopalian priest: 'stop the flow of talking going on within you'. What's wrong with contemplative prayer? The inner quietness produced in the mind is wholly different from the outer quietness derived from sitting in a quiet room or next to a brook. Thoughts must be switched off because 'thoughts are the enemy of mysticism'. To switch off one's thoughts, contemplative prayer proponents propose repeating a word (eg 'Jesus') for 15 minutes and dwell on that word only, as an object of concentration. This is no different from Christ's warning not to chant mantras. When a true follower of Christ prays, he must NOT switch off his thoughts. His appreciation of Christ's work and His atoning blood comes from the heart (so to speak) and is manifested in thoughts. Blanking out thoughts can lay open an area where fallen angels can cast their influence. This is the reason why many who indulge in contemplative prayer will eventually become panentheist (meaning 'God in all'), which is a doctrine of devils. It is also the reason why hypnotism (which involves clearing of the mind) is a danger to true believers. Many new agers who want to tap into the knowledge of spirit guides, whom they believe to be benevolent angels, employ contemplative prayer as a way of emptying the mind so that spirit guides can speak to them. Little do they know that spirit guides are fallen angels disguised as angels of light who offer positive but unscriptural counsel.

On the same note, believers cannot engage in yoga. Yoga cannot be separated from its Hindu origins. In fact, yoga is more dangerous than contemplative prayer because it is contemplative prayer PLUS the aim to achieve a God consciousness, a recipe for demon control of an individual (eg Hitler). Again as mentioned earlier, Yoga invokes psychic-energy/prana/life-force to the seven chakras of the astral body. The first chakra (pronounced 'sho-kra') is located at the base of the spine. When psychic-energy moves up from the base of the spine to the seventh chakra, which is located at the forehead, Self-Realisation and a union with God is achieved. The yoga practitioner is then likened to a god, which is the same thing Eve desired when Satan convinced her : 'Ye shall be as gods'.

Through yoga, as with contemplative prayer, Ayurvedic texts claim that one will hear inner voices (obviously the voices of fallen angels). These voices give positive but unscriptural counsel.

Old Evengelicalism originally means adhering only to the Bible as the only Word of God. New evangelicalism (NE) has a Charismatic and Roman Catholic flavour. It emphasises unity of all churches (including churches with false teaching) and those involved in NE are doctrinally weak. NE promotes 'there is no hell' concept, contemplative prayer, Sacramentalism, Mariolatry, anti-Trinitarianism, Positivism, and the Kingdom-Now concept (social works that are needed NOW to clean up the earth to create a type of Millennial environment before Christ's second coming). Kingdom Now philosophy gives the back seat to old fashioned preaching on sin and Christ's atoning blood.

Even back In 1969, Dr Charles Woodbridge, issued this warning,
"The New Evangelism advocates TOLERATION OF ERROR. It is following the downward path of ACCOMMODATION TO ERROR, COOPERATION WITH ERROR, CONTAMINATION BY ERROR, AND ULTIMATE CAPITULATION to error!" (The New Evangelism, 1969, page 9 and 15).

New Evangelist focuses on God’s love and not His justice. They say God’s love is unconditional. While it is true that forgiveness displays God's unfathomable love, it is however NOT UNCONDITIONAL. Remember the Lord’s words: 'He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father...' John 14:21

While New Evangelist ascribe traditional believers to that of phariseeism, their labelling of others ironically makes them the same as they call others. And their labelling is ultimately incorrect. Because phariseeism is self-righteousness. Phariseeism is to supplant the Word of God with man-made traditions. Those who adhere to doctrine prescribed by the Lord Jesus are not Pharisees but are obedient children of God.

I end by saying that it is with the utmost irony that Satan, who desires to be like God and to sit on God's throne.......will NOT be able to do so BECAUSE......that very throne will be given to true believers, who were in the past sinful and were as filthy rags.  Jesus promised true believers that they shall sit on the throne WITH HIM.  Not only that, true believers will be handed the task of judging angels.  That is very infuriating to Satan. God seems to be making a mockery of Satan when he gave what Satan desired to true believers, who do not not deserve such immense privilege in the first place. It is like God saying to his adversary 'since you desire so much to sit on my throne, you will not have it, instead human believers will be given what you want because it was humans that you deceived from the beginning of creation'.

I believe that if you want to use a devotional, the best is ‘Daily Light’ which are passages taken straight out straight from the bible. No human opinions are inserted into it.

Even "Our Daily Bread", while being spiritual when it debuted, are now filled with shallow gospel truths. So there might be an implicit danger in user "Our Daily Bread".

I prefer to refer to Independent Baptist's website because they are very strict on doctrinal issues.

A very safe website to go to is http://www.wayoflife.org/. It answers a lot of questions. It also publishes a very scriptural encyclopedia called the 'Way of Life Encyclopedia'.

For the refutation of 'The Message', see http://www.wayoflife.org/files/e0a72042f922e2b8493e66d99bf3fff3-693.html

I also go to www.AnswesinGenesis.org. Although www.AnswesinGenesis.org does not contend for the whole faith because they only stress on the first 11 chapters of Genesis, they have useful books you can purchase. Also I surf to the famous chick tracts comics (often given to unbelievers). Unfortunately, www.chick.com is construed by some govts to be a porn website. So you would need to go thru a proxy. Go to www.kproxy.com, or www.anonymouse.com. Type in www.chick.com and it'll get u there.

For a stepping stone to other scriptural websites, go to http://www.biblebelievers.com/. You will see Other Links at the top right and u can browse these links at your leisure.

I find listening to scriptural christian sermons extremely inspiring. Download these MP3 files from http://audiosermons.org/. A better way perhaps is to go to itself and choose the preachers you would like to hear.

For David Cloud's audio sermons see http://www.wayoflife.org/audiosermons/

For a semi-conservative down-to-earth preacher go to http://www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?SpeakerOnly=true&currSection=sermonsspeaker&keyword=Trevor^Hammack. He watches sports on tv, attends secular music concerts' but when it comes to doctrine, few can uphold him.

Also a VERY GOOD AND SAFE SCRIPTURAL SERMON DOWNLOAD SITE is Dr Vernon Mcgee from http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/thru-the-bible-sunday-sermon/listen/ (YOU WILL GAIN MUCH LISTENING TO HIS SCRIPTURAL SERMONS).

Do not purchase books or CDs from common 'christian' shops. You will only get charismatic and new age material and their music collection is rock-and-roll Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). To buy brethren, baptist or presbyterian recommended books online, go to http://www.ritchiechristianmedia.co.uk.

Be very STRICT when reading christian literature too. Do not read Rick Warren. Max Lucado, Kenneth Copeland, Rob Bell, Pastor Price and other false teachers. These people (like Rick Warren) teach that separation from the word is non-essential. So they conclude that by making the church similar to the world and incorporating rock music and watering down the basis of the gospel, more people of the world will attend their churches. Rob Bell is even worse. He is one of the apostates who does not believe in hell. He just cannot imagine that a God of Love can consign people to hell.  He concentrates on God's love (Read his book 'Love Wins'). But he conveniently forgets about God's justice.

Personally since young, my mother always told me time and time and time to read books that are sound and scriptural. She also wanted me to tell her what I was reading. This has been ingrained in me OVER AND OVER AND OVER since childhood. And because of this, I'm able for the most part to discern truth from error. It is not that I know everything but at least she has grounded me in very important fundamentals. When I read a book, I can for most of the time discern that it is HERETICAL. And if it is heretical, I THROW THE BOOK AWAY.

Remember we live in an age of apostasy, we live in the last days, so we must be aware of what we read and hear.

When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee. Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;  Deuteronomy 8:10-14

We can know that we are walking in the Spirit if our lives are showing forth the fruit of the Spirit which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22,23). Being filled (walking) with the Spirit is the same as allowing the word of Christ (the Bible) to richly dwell in us (Colossians 3:16).

You were called to freedom, brethren, only do not use your freedom as an occasion for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

This shows that love is the all-encompassing lifestyle of one who bears the fruit of the Spirit, is led by the Spirit, and walks by the Spirit.

"If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law." In verse 14, "If you love your neighbor, you fulfill the whole law." Therefore, loving your neighbor and being led by the Spirit (or walking by the Spirit) are almost synonymous.

Almost. But there is a crucial difference which should make us very grateful that Paul taught what he did about the Holy Spirit. If all we were ever told was, "Love your neighbor," we probably would have set about trying to do it by ourselves and would have turned love into a work of the flesh. We know this happens because of 1 Corinthians 13:3 where Paul says:

If I give away all that I have and if I deliver my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing.

Nothing! Listen carefully now. This is utterly important for your life. Yet it is understood by so few. It is possible to undertake the most sacrificial acts imaginable for other people and still not please God. Give away all your goods and your own life, too, and come to nothing in God's eyes. It is possible to be eulogized by the world as the greatest philanthropist or the most devoted martyr and still not please God. Why? Because what pleases God is walking by the Spirit and being led by the Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit! The great problem in contemporary Christian living is not learning the right things to do but how to do the right things. The problem is not to discover what love looks like but how to love by the Spirit. For Paul it is absolutely crucial that, if we came to life by the free and sovereign work of the Spirit, we learn to walk by the free and sovereign work of the Spirit.

Five Steps Toward Walking by the Spirit

Let me conclude by mentioning five things that I think we must do so that it can be truly said that we are walking by the Spirit.

1. Acknowledge

First, we must acknowledge from our hearts that we are helpless to do good apart from the enablement of the Holy Spirit. As Paul says in Romans 7:18, "I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing." What did Jesus mean when he said in John 15:5, "Without me you can do nothing"? Of course we can do something without Jesus: we can sin! But that's all we can do. So, the first step of walking by the Spirit is: admit this fact and let it have its devastating effect on our pride. We cannot do anything pleasing to God without the constant enablement of the Spirit.

2. Pray

Second, since it is promised in Ezekiel 36:27 that God will put his Spirit within us and cause us to walk in his statutes, pray that he do it to you by his almighty power. Many of you know the glorious, liberating experience of having an irresistible desire for sin overcome by a new and stronger desire for God and his way. And as you look back, to whom do you attribute that new desire? Where did it come from? It came from the merciful Holy Spirit. Therefore, let us pray like Paul did in 1 Thessalonians 3:12 for that chief fruit of the Spirit: "Now may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all men." And let's pray like the writer to the Hebrews did in Hebrews 13:21,

And now may the God of peace . . . equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in you that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ.

If it is God alone who works in us what is pleasing in His sight, then above all, we must pray. "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me" (Psalm 51:10).

Father please watch over me and my family and give me peace.

3. Trust

The third step involved in walking by the Spirit is faith. We must believe that since we have come under the gracious sway of God's Spirit, "sin will no longer have dominion over us" (Romans 6:14). This confidence is what Paul meant by "reckoning ourselves dead to sin and alive to God" (Romans 6:11). We simply count on it that the Spirit who made us alive when we were dead in sin wills our holiness and has the power to achieve what he wills. You may remember in one of my sermons on prayer I said that one of the things we believers can pray for with undoubting faith that God will do it is our sanctification, which is the same as being led by the Spirit. The reason we can is that we know that God will cause his children to be led by the Spirit. And the way we know this is because of Romans 8:14, where Paul says you can't even be a child of God unless you are led by the Spirit. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God." If you are a child of God, you have a solid and unshakable promise that God will give you victory over those powerful desires of the flesh. One word of caution: do not prejudge the timing of the Holy Spirit's work. Why he liberates one person overnight but brings another to freedom through months of struggle is a mystery concealed for now from our eyes.

4. Act

The fourth step in walking by the Spirit after you have acknowledged your helplessness without him, prayed for his enablement, and trusted in his deliverance is to act the way you know is right. Notice: this is not step number one. If this were step number one, all our actions would be works of the flesh, not fruit of the Spirit. Only after we have appealed for the Spirit's enablement and thrown ourselves confidently on his promise and power to work in us, do we now work with all our might. Only when we act with that spiritual preparation, will we be able to say with Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:10,

By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me.

Or in Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (see also Romans 15:18, 19). A person who has acknowledged his helplessness, prayed for God's enablement to do right, and yielded himself confidently to the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit has this astonishing incentive to do righteousness, namely, the confidence that, whatever righteous act he does, it is God almighty who is at work in him giving him the will and the power to do it. It is a sign of hasty prejudice when a person says, "Well, if the Spirit is sovereign and I can't do any good without his enablement, then I may as well just sit here and do nothing." There are two things wrong with that statement: it is self-contradictory, and it is unbiblical. It is a contradiction to say, "I'll just sit here and do nothing." If you choose to sit in your chair while the house burns down, you have chosen to do something, just as much as the person who chooses to get up and save himself and others. Why should you think the one choice any more inconsistent with the sovereignty of God than the other? And such a statement is also unbiblical because Philippians 2:12 and 13 says,

Beloved, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (get out of the chair, the house is on fire!) because (not "in spite of" but "because") God is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

It is a great incentive, not discouragement, that all our effort to do what is right is the work of almighty God within us. At least for myself, I am greatly encouraged when the going gets rough that any effort I make to do right is a sign of God's grace at work in me. "Let him who serves serve in the strength which God supplies, that in everything God may get the glory" (1 Peter 4:11). To God be the glory!

5. Thanksgiving

The final step in walking by the Spirit is to thank God for any virtue attained or any good deed performed. If without the Spirit we can do no right, then we must not only ask his enablement for it but also thank him whenever we do it. Just one example from 2 Corinthians 8:16. Paul says, "Thanks be to God who puts the same earnest care for you into the heart of Titus." Titus loved the Corinthians. Where did that come from? God put it in his heart. It was a fruit of the Spirit. So what does Paul do? He thanks God. And Titus should, too. Thanks be to God who puts love in our hearts!

"If we live by the Spirit, then let us also walk by the Spirit." Let us acknowledge from our heart that we are unable to please God without the Spirit's constant enablement. Let us pray for that enablement. Let us trust confidently in the Spirit's power and promise to give that enablement. Then let us do what we know is right. And having done it, let us turn and say with all the saints, "Not I, but the Spirit of Christ within me." Thanks be to God! To him be glory for ever and ever! Amen.

Without spiritual food and training we become spiritually "stunted" as were the Corinthian Christians Paul reprimanded. For Scripture: 1 Corinthians 3:1-2 "I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly--mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready."

Christians without proper food and training will experience a rough spiritual childhood, and become
ready targets for Satan's attacks. He can persuade them to become like the millions of lukewarm Christians the Apostle John described in Revelation to the Church in Laodicea: "Because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth."