Blog | JC’S MANIFESTO

Archive by category "Blog" (Page 29)

Discipleship Is Not An Option

Discipleship is never an option for a Christian. Jesus has to be our personal Savior and Lord as well. He had laid down the terms of following Him in Luke 14:26, 27 and 33.

²⁶“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. ²⁷Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.³³So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

On the surface, these 3 terms – surrendering all relationship, self ambition and possessions – seem terribly harsh. The rich young ruler walked away sadly from our Lord because he could not give up all his possessions. Luke 18:18-25. If he could not surrender his possessions to Jesus, Mammon was still his god and entering heaven was hard for such rich people.

But if we see this life as the training period we have to go through under the tutelage of the Spirit of our Lord and surrender all relationship, self ambitions and possessions, we can eventually understand all this discipline, though painful at times, will yield in us the fruit of righteousness. On the contrary, when we seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness first, all these things will be added to us. Matt 6:33.

It is a paradox. When you give up, you have it. But when you refuse to give up, you lose it.

He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. Matt 10:39.

Scripture exhorts us to endure trials or suffering as discipline from God to train us in righteousness. Heb 12: 7-11. NIV.

Scripture further adds that we ought to rejoice in suffering for it produces hope in the end.

Rom 5:3-5

³Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

By surrendering to the terms set by our Lord to be His disciples, He is actually protecting us.

If any mishap happens to our family and loved ones and we have truly surrendered them to the sovereignty of God, there will be no devastating hurt as we know eventually all are appointed to die once and after that comes judgment.

If we lose our job or business and we have truly surrendered to the sovereignty of God, there will be no crushing damage to our self esteem as we believe contentment with godliness is great gain and we are content with just food and lodging.

If we lose all our possessions which anyway have belonged to our Lord when we have surrendered, what other material loss can devastate us ?

Rom 8: 18

¹⁸For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

The coming glory will fulfill every good human aspiration. That is the Christian hope.

The Reasons For The Economic Woes Today

Leaving aside the sure fulfillment of biblical prophecy concerning the judgment on Babylon, the political and financial system we know today as mentioned in Rev 18, let’s be sober to look at the hard economic facts today. There is simply an exponential explosion of sovereign debt without the accompanying industrial expansion.

These reasons given in the Zerohedge article have always been my argument (http://www.zerohedge.com/…/2016-07…/brexit-crisis-capitalism):

1. Replacing stagnant real growth and income (and thus taxes) with debt.
2. Replacing investment in real-world productivity with speculation (i.e. financialization)
3. Replacing “everyone must have skin in the game” free-market capitalism with protected, privileged Elites crony capitalism in which the few benefit at the expense of the many.
4. Replacing local, decentralized democracy and ownership with central planning.
5. Using “extend and pretend” financial trickery to mask insolvency, impaired assets/ collateral and non-performing loans rather than address the debt overhang directly via write-downs and liquidations of impaired assets.

Fasten your seat belt. The ride has not ended with Brexit. More of the same are coming – Grexit, Departugal. Italeave. Fruxxx. Czechout. Oustria. Finish. Slovlong. Latervia. Byegium.

As this irresponsible fiscal madness has crossed over the threshold of keeping the budget deficits of all major blocs under control, the system will implode at some point in time.

Prayer Of Jabez

1 Chron 4: 9 -11

Jabez was more honourable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.” Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.

Common sense tells us that it will be too far-fetched to believe we can unlock the secrets of success through just a prayer chant making God into a genie and not a Sovereign God as a result.

An honourable man has these qualities and God will surely entrust true riches to such a person who fear Him also. Luke 16:10-11.

1. Honour. It is defined as honesty, fairness or integrity in one’s beliefs and actions. We must develop a pure sense of honesty, integrity and fairness in every aspect of our lives. Titus 2: 11-12

2. Humanity. It is defined as the quality of being humane; the kind feelings, dispositions, and sympathies of man; especially a disposition to relieve people in distress, and to treat them with kindness and tenderness. Prov 19:17; Ps 41:1-3

3. Perseverance. It is defined as steady persistence in a course of action, especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles or discouragement. James 1:2-4;12; 5:11

First Indonesia Youth Conference, Batam 22-25 June 2016

The theme is Preparation For The End Times.

Praise the Lord for the good turnout with many youths participating from other regions including Jakarta.

Praise and thanks be to God for the spiritual and physical blessings bestowed on Alfa Omega Ministry convicting the leaders to share and bless other churches as well.

By the grace of God, timing cannot be more timely for me and my senior pastor to share about both the spiritual and physical preparation for the end times preparing them on the right priority for their lives ahead as we see the market turmoil and lawlessness today.

Practical skills will be taught by my senior pastor on a day trip to another island as part of the physical preparation as we must come out of the god-less Babylonian system.

Testimony (11)

Since my first vision of 9/11, I had been waiting upon the Lord in prayer and diligent study of the Scripture. I believed all along that God would reveal to me the message, and with this second vision (in late 2004), I was certain that He had called me to share a message about the coming collapse of the global financial system. As I did not graduate from any seminary, or have any leadership position in the local church, there was hardly any network to call upon to share the message. I believed God would then open the doors for me.

Before I could go on the road to share the message, I was struck with excruciating pain at the coccyx, commonly known as the tail-bone, in 2006. I could not sit down at all. If I just sat down for a moment, I would feel excruciating pain. The whole year was spent seeking specialist treatment and therapy. Yet the pain did not diminish, and I was literally standing all the time while being awake. The specialists told me that the wear and tear of my tail-bone came much too early, and there was no surgery to rectify it at that time. I have learned to pray for all circumstances, and prayer in this instance was not only my first option but also the only option. I learned to bear with the pain as time went by. I believed God would heal me, as I still had a message to share. He answered my prayer one year later. I was completely healed of the pain. Hallelujah ! All thanks and praise to God and Christ my Lord.

Extracted from my book, The Coming Economic Flood

Testimony (10)

I married at a young age, but my first son came seven years later in 1994. I had two more children in 2003 and 2004 by the grace of God. They are miraculous answers to our prayers. My wife was suffering from endometriosis and was advised by her gynecologist to be pregnant again in order to be fully cured of that condition. She had an earlier operation to remove the cyst (in 2002), but it grew back again. She was already thirty-eight, and pregnancy risks were heightened. However, the female gynecologist was both famous and a Christian and she encouraged us to try the in-vitro fertilization (IVF) program.

I reluctantly agreed to the IVF program, though I knew in my heart it would not work. I told her that God would answer my prayer instead of going through that program, if God so willed. (I was not disputing the fact that God could answer the prayer of childless couples through the IVF program, but I discerned it would not be the case for me. We had this trust in God.) We did the intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) procedure twice considering our near hopeless condition, but to no avail.

My eldest son and I prayed fervently for my wife’s healing and God did heal her when she was pregnant again – naturally ! Praise and thanks be to God !

Though my wife’s medical condition and the arrival of two more children somehow consumed much of my attention, the blessings of God answering my prayer cemented my faith in God, and He was definitely getting my whole attention.

Extracted from my book, The Coming Economic Flood.

Why Keep Contending Against False Gospel And False Christology

Acts 20: 26 – 31

²⁶Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, ²⁷for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. ²⁸Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. ²⁹I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; ³⁰and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. ³¹Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.

Jude 1: 3 – 4

³Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. ⁴For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

2 Tim 2: 15

¹⁵Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

Eph 4: 14

¹⁴so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

James 5: 19 – 20

¹⁹My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, ²⁰let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

The contention for truth against a different Jesus and a different gospel is of paramount importance because it concerns eternal life and death. But overbearing contention for any whim and fancy of tradition or matter of conscience is a different matter altogether and it belongs to an unrighteous critical spirit instead.

We are most uncharitable as Christians if we do nothing to bring back brothers who have wandered from the gospel truth and do not do our best to save their souls from death.

http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=WL6YPLNX

The Beginning Of The Birth Pains

Jesus our Lord mentioned the following signs which will precede His coming in Matt 24:

False Christs.
Wars and rumors of wars.
Famines.
Earthquakes.
Persecution leading to many falling away.
Many false prophets leading many astray.
Lawlessness will increase.
The love of many will grow cold.

Yet these are merely the signs of the beginning of the birth pains.

Throughout the history of the last 2000 years or more since Jesus ascended to heaven, such signs have been observed anyway. So how can we be certain we are staring at the beginning of the birth pains ?

Can exponentially increased instances of these signs be considered conclusive proof ?

Firstly, it is interesting to ponder why Jesus our Lord called the beginning of the end times as birth pains. At the onset of labor in child birth, pain caused by uterine contractions will intensify in magnitude till the baby is born. The intensification of labor pain is a good illustration of the sudden escalation or exponential occurrence of calamitous events.

Secondly, the sudden-ness of the escalation of an event in an exponential fashion seems to mirror the sudden-ness of His coming that our Lord Jesus had talked about that many will still be caught unawares. Mark 13:35-37; Luke 21:34-35; 1 Thess 5:3; Prov 29:1.

The exponential function is lingering at the bottom for the most part of the time and then suddenly it shoots up to the top. That sudden turn will usually catch many unawares because for the most part, the event has remained dormant.

Habakkuk 2:3

For the vision is yet for the appointed time;
It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
For it will certainly come, it will not delay.

Dr Albert Bartlett was the president of the American Association of Physics Teachers in 1978. In his seminal presentation, “Arithmetic, Population and Energy”, he mentioned this famous phrase “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is the inability to understand the exponential function”.

In his lecture, he was trying to explain that within a finite system, modest annual growth at a certain percentage cannot continue indefinitely. In the example of oil usage, the human race may be caught unawares when modest annual growth of the use of critical resources like oil due to population growth can result in sudden escalation of depletion in a relatively short period of time. The logic is simple and irrefutable. And when this critical stage of depletion of oil happens, for example, we will face an apocalypse.

Today, we face this scenario of exponential depletion of all critical resources.

And also the exponential increase of fiat monetary supply without corresponding industrial productivity expansion will result in a collapse. We have seen the increase way past the inflexion point of the exponential curve.

Get ready for the fulfilment of the judgment of wealth mentioned in Rev 18 when the kings of the earth (governments), merchants (global MNCs and all SMEs) and those who make their living by the sea (major seaports cum financial centres) will weep when God judges.

– extracted from my book, The Coming Economic Flood.

The End Times Apostasy Of A Different Gospel And A Different Jesus

2 Cor 11:4. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

Gal 1:8-9. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

Matt 24:24. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

The coming apostasy that our Lord had warned has come with a vengeance with the church readily accepting doctrines of a different gospel as well as a different Jesus.

The hyper grace reformation brings a different gospel while the new apostolic reformation brings a different Christology.

The main false Christology taught today is that Jesus left aside His divinity while He was incarnate on earth. Why is there this necessity for the new apostolic reformation prophets to preach this peccability belief ? (http://www.gotquestions.org/could-Jesus-have-sinned.html) It is due to misplaced zeal to promote that mere man like us can perform miracles similar or exceeding those performed by Jesus as long as one is filled by the power of the Holy Spirit since Jesus was also mere man without His divinity when He was on earth.

In my opinion, due to the possibility of false christs and prophets to perform great signs and wonders and possibly deceive the elect, the only way to determine whether one is from God or from the enemy today is the test on the correct doctrine of the gospel and Christology.

We must bear in mind that these false prophets today are deceitful workmen who can disguise themselves very well as apostles of Christ with their mouths even full of biblical wisdom all the time. 2 Cor 11:13-15.

So listen carefully to their core teaching on the gospel and Christology.

(Un)conventional Wisdom

All wisdom comes from God. The wisdom God has given us generously is meant to be shared with fellow believers.

At exceptional times like recession, certain decisions made against conventional bias are necessary to stay afloat in business.

I would like to share on two business strategies which make a difference in recession times – turning a disadvantage into an advantage; and risk pooling which is a mathematically proven stratagem.

Strategy Of Turning A Disadvantage Into An Advantage

When every competitor sees a disadvantage in certain business situation and reject or walk away, we can triumph through accepting the challenge of the disadvantage and turn it to our advantage.

After the 9/11 terror attack on New York World Trade Center, the dot com bubble burst and the world plunged into recession. All over the world, the factories were cancelling orders. I was working for a global distributor of electronic components as the chief executive in Asia then. I allowed all cancellation knowing that the customers would bully us by not accepting deliveries anyway. I tried cancelling the same with our suppliers at the same time otherwise I might end up with a lot of inventory booked at higher prices in case there would be price erosion due to the recession. The group CEO and the board of directors of this NASDAQ listed company thought I was rash to allow such cancellation causing a huge drop in order backlog. The bigger competitors of ours faced the same dilemma but they refused to allow cancellation from the same customers.

Over the next few months, I received the main bulk of the orders back from our customers at lower prices but I also got lower prices from our suppliers who were keen to keep their factories going. The customers simply kept rescheduling the orders retained by our competitors which were booked at higher prices as compared to ours.

We had the best sales performance in this particular recession year as a result of this unconventional decision.

Strategy Of Risk Pooling

Risk pooling is a known concept in controlling inventory. Instead of having several warehouses in several countries to service the customers better but running the risk of having the wrong inventory in the wrong country all the time, it is better to pool all inventory in one location and service all countries. Today, the logistics capability of delivering to the doorstep by the courier services is efficient, fast and relatively cheap. Even for sea freight, any delivery within Asia can be accomplished in one week including custom clearance.

Risk pooling has the advantage of reducing inventory carried in total in all locations and enables sharing of the same inventory across all locations. It also enables savings in using less human resources to manage multiple warehouses and the rental cost as well.

I have one centralized warehouse in Singapore servicing Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Southeast Asia with satellite sales and marketing offices in all these countries as opposed to our competitors having an office cum warehouse in each Asian country. As a result, the delivery performance of my company is consistently above 98% while the rest of the bigger competitors are at 90% giving us a place to be competitive against the much bigger competitors.

Category: Blog