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Month: February 2016

Hyper Grace And Kabbalah

Going through the several sermons of one hyper grace teacher with special emphasis on numerology and the hidden meaning, and the constant reminder to his followers that he is the only anointed one or among the select few with the given knowledge from God to the “true” meaning of Scripture, I am sure that Kabbalah mystical teachings are now being introduced in bits and pieces here and there to the hyper grace followers.

http://www.gotquestions.org/Kabbalah.html

By claiming to be the only anointed one or among the select few with the given knowledge from God to the “true” meaning of Scripture over the clear teachings of all before him, he has proclaimed that the Holy Spirit had taught no one over the centuries on the right doctrine and all were in error till he comes on the scene now to teach the “real” thing. How preposterous !

You may ask whether the whole false doctrine is an immaculate conceived deceptive plan or plain innocent error.

I believe it is the former. Whenever such hyper grace teachers build a certain “truth” with only one or two Scriptural verses, any serious Bible reader will notice the contradiction with the whole counsel of the Word of God. And whenever such error is pointed out, I have noticed that not only the subsequent counter-argument is terribly weak because it throws up even more error, but it also exposes a desperate attempt to make good the “truth” as biblical. So when we see such desperate attempt to fill up a pit by digging another pit with every subsequent weaker counter-argument, we know the false teacher is fully aware of the deliberate error he is introducing.

So why is the hyper grace teacher deliberately introducing error being fully aware it is against clear Scriptural teaching ? All for the sake of gain which the Bible called the Balaam’s error.

It is so interesting to learn from this Balaam’s story that despite knowing God was going to judge him through the word of a donkey, yet it did not deter Balaam from continuing his evil work for the sake of gain and he was eventually judged.

2 Pet 2:1-3,14-16.
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep… They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! 15 Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, 16 but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

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Another Enterprise Project

As documented in my book, The Coming Economic Flood, that as I did not know how to prepare for the coming economic crisis, the best preparation was to fulfill the Manifesto of Christ in sharing the gospel in word and in deed. As I went about galvanizing churches to share the Good News into unreached villages by meeting basic needs as a necessary bridge to entering these villages, I realized that the church clergy themselves were in need. And the quickest way to be self sustaining is to have farms breeding goats, chicken and cultivating rice and vegetables.

Some years ago, I introduced the EM (Effective Micro-organism) technology into such farm experiment. And I never expect it to be so successful today – truly by the grace of God for His tremendous blessing along the way.

The use of EM technology was initially used as an alternative to pesticides and fertilizers but it was expanded to treat water and to control the odor of waste in the farm.

http://www.em-la.com/what_is_the_em_technologyyy_en.php?idioma=2

Praise the Holy Name of our Lord God for His tremendous blessings.

IMG_6481 IMG_6482 IMG_6484

Putting On Christ

When we believe in Christ, His righteousness is imputed on us. Legally, God sees us as righteous in Christ because of His perfect atonement for our sins.  And He will continue His workmanship in us in training us to conform to Christ.

Rom 8:30.  And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

There are two kinds of response to this training of putting on Christ or dressing up as Christ.  One is the sincere response of a true believer while the other is the insincere response which will put justification in Christ in doubt in the first place.

One is the hyper grace way. It is simply a wolf putting on the sheepskin of the Lamb of God and pretending to be a sheep. The wolf does not want to change his wolf ways and yet he enjoys pretending to be a sheep.

The other is the true grace way. One day, the wolf seriously want to be a sheep giving up his wolf ways. (This response to turn from its wicked ways is Repentance.) Yet it is a tough journey for he is still a wolf after all. But he can be a transformed wolf one day becoming truly a sheep in every sense and loving the sheep. The good kind of pretense is that the wolf starts by acting like a sheep living among sheep.

CS Lewis said this about pretense, “There are two kinds of pretending. There is a bad kind, where the pretense is there instead of the real thing; as when a man pretends he is going to help you instead of really helping you. But there is also a good kind, where the pretense leads up to the real thing. When you are not feeling particularly friendly but know you ought to be, the best thing you can do, very often, is to put on a friendly manner and behave as if you were a nicer person than you actually are. And in a few minutes, as we have all noticed, you will be really feeling friendlier than you were…”

But the wolf will realize very soon that he is not alone in this journey of the good pretense.

The Christ Himself, the Son of God who is man just like you and me, will actually be his side to turn his pretense into a reality.

You may suspect it is the conscience of the wolf helping him. If it is conscience, very soon, the wolf will realize he will get back to old comfortable ways he is familiar. And many “wrong” things the wolf does, his conscience will actually tell him it is perfectly okay because he is a wolf after all.

CS Lewis said this about the good pretense turning into reality with Christ at our side, “For you are no longer thinking simply about right and wrong; you are trying to catch the good infection from a Person. It is more like painting a portrait than like obeying a set of rules. And the odd thing is that while in one way, it is harder than keeping rules, in another way it is far easier. He is turning us into the same kind of thing as Himself.”

He is ‘injecting’ His kind of life and thought into us, turning us from real wolves into real sheep at the end of the day.

Convocation Speech At A Local University In 2010

A convocation speech in which I shared about entrepreneurship and extolling the virtue of applying the Pareto Principle to achieve contentment in life to the young graduands who were about to enter the next important phase of their lives.

Pro Chancellor or President
Graduands
Ladies and Gentlemen,

A very good afternoon to all of you.
First of all, I would like to thank Professor XXX and the University for this privilege and honour accorded me to give this convocation address.

I am delighted to be here to join you in this joyous occasion. I would like to congratulate you, the graduands, on your convocation. All your hard work has paid off today.

Congratulations !

Let us also recognize and thank all, especially your parents and lecturers, who have made sacrifices to help you in one way or another to achieve this important milestone.

A few of you may choose to continue your studies but many of you are about to enter this new phase of life which is the start of your career. I believe all of you have already given much thought about the possible direction to take.

Entrepreneurship is much encouraged today as the path to take and the benefits are well expounded and proven. Your training in this University has put you in good stead to be an entrepreneur in technical disciplines.

Allow me to share my personal journey to give you a head-start on this particular path and also to share one or two principles which have served me well all these years.

I realized early in my career that there is always opportunity to find an optimal cost effective and superior solution to a need, be it a product or service and make a profit in the process. Personally, I look at two approaches all the time.

One approach is to find a new superior product or service altogether, and the other is finding better value to offer in the entire value chain of making the product or providing the service.

For the former, it involves innovation of new products or services. For the latter, we know in every business organization, there is always these same necessary activity functions such as research and development, design, sales and marketing, production, customer service and distribution; and the entrepreneur can always strive to find better solution to enhance better performance in all these activity functions in the entire value chain of making the product or providing the service.

I believe everyone can have a shot at entrepreneurship by looking at these two approaches.

I will suggest working for a corporation for a start. With the experience gained in working in a particular activity function, it will be easier for you to search for superior performance in this particular activity function you are familiar with.

I tried the latter approach first by looking at the distribution activity function. Early in my career, I was employed in sales. After working several years in the sales and marketing function and with the experience gained, I was asking myself whether a local new company could provide better value add service in the distribution function for the foreign American or European enterprises willing to venture into Asia. Two or three decades ago, it was much easier just to be a pure distributor of American and European companies in Asia, but I preferred the company I intended to build in Asia would be part of a global partnership with foreign enterprise. I changed the simple distribution or agency model into a hybrid model of passing off the local company as a de-facto branch of the foreign enterprise in Asia. But in essence, it is still very much a locally majority or minority owned company.
The traits of an entrepreneur have been much discussed but there is one which I would like to stress here. And that is belief in the competitive edge or superior value one sees in the innovative product or service while others cannot. That is, the entrepreneur is a non-conformist.

When I was trying to promote my company as an one-stop provider of various products in one catalogue buying from various Japanese suppliers in the early 90s. The skeptics would discourage by telling me that the major customers would not be so dumb as not to buy directly from the Japanese suppliers. My belief was that the major customers would prefer to work with an one-stop supplier who could provide all products in one catalogue. It might seem to defy logic but it worked. I went on to build a global brand name in partnership with a foreign enterprise.

I have ever produced semiconductors and other electronic components under my own brand name without any capital investment in factory by outsourcing the manufacturing to foreign factories. Again, skeptics would say that no customer would buy semiconductor chips with unknown brand given the stringent qualification process. Again I proved them wrong.

For the former approach of innovation, one can look at licensing technologies from the universities here where there is a lot of research in various fields.

The world today is facing major problems in such areas as energy, environment and health care and we need innovative solutions in these fields. Our government has availed many opportunities in the form of grants to encourage both research and commercialization of ideas in these areas. That opens vast opportunities for all who wish to embark on this path of self employment. The jobs today are no longer “iron rice bowl” so to speak, and so entrepreneurship offers this opportunity of long term self employment as long as the enterprise built is a viable concern into the far future. One can also have the satisfaction of bringing tangible benefits to mankind.

Two years ago, I tried this innovation approach by licensing solar cell technology from a local university to make enhanced solar EVA films used in solar cells. I have yet to divest any equity in my firm with an initial paid up capital of $ 150,000 through a grant from Spring Singapore and a loan from a listed company . The firm now has commercially produced products just ready for adoption by the market.

There is one principle I would like to share which will serve you well into the future. Though we learned this principle in engineering, it could be applied to time management and even relationship. And that is the Pareto Principle or 80/20 rule.

It roughly states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In business, 80% of the business will come from 20% of the customers. To try to increase a further 10% of the business from the majority of the balance 80% of the customers will expend a lot of your time and energy if every customer demands the same attention of your time and energy. And that is not very wise time management and your health and relationship will suffer as a result.

This principle should serve as a daily reminder to focus 80% of our time and energy on the 20% of our work that is really important. Don’t just work smart; but work smart on the right things.

You can also apply this principle to your personal finances. You will find 20% of the expense items make up 80% of your total monthly expenditure. It will be prudent management to trim the expenses of these 20% expense items. It is not wise to feel good just for a brief moment telling people that you stay in an expensive posh condominium or posh car if you are struggling and feeling the insecurity all the time about the mortgage or hire purchase. With the trimming of these big expense items, you will then have the extra to be generous in many other ways such as giving an allowance to your parents, or buying treats and gifts for your loved ones or those less fortunate. Remember Contentment, not Greed, will always bring you joy and peace in your lives.

I wish you success in your every endeavour. Thank you.

Pareto Principle

In the Bible, we read of how the judges and other heroes of faith gathered information, considered the possibilities, weighed the information, considered the trade-offs and opportunity costs, and then carefully made their decisions.

As we seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness first, many things will be given to us including wisdom which He will give generously when we ask. Matt 6:33; James 1:5.

Today, by the grace of God, I see some proven wisdom principles as the common grace of God and they are easily articulated and shared. I believe the Pareto Principle is one such wisdom principle which we will do well to adhere by doing first things first.

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80–20 rule, states that approximately 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Or more easily understood is that 20% of the causes produces 80% of the results.

The management consultant Joseph Duran popularized this principle and attributed it to an Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto.

This principle can be applied to many sciences and even many facets of life.

As a student, I studied only the 20% of the topics of each subject which are really important and true to form, 80% of the exam questions came from these 20% topics.

Later when I worked as a sales representative, I concentrated my sales effort on the 20% of the customer base which gave the company 80% of the sales and I consistently met or exceeded the job expectation.

Even in my marital relationship, I always remember to do those 20% most important stuff which will greatly please my spouse 80% of the time.

By doing the first things first, I will have sufficient time to perform most critical tasks without being overwhelmed or burned out.

I realized that I consistently met or exceeded the expectations through adhering to the Pareto Principle without having the pressure and consequent stress to excel to the very top.

When I graduated with second class honours (upper division), I was awarded one of the most prestigious postgraduate scholarship without being denied such opportunity by those who obtained first class honours.

When I started my career in sales, I did relatively well and by the age of 29, I was made the general manager of a branch office of a USD 1 billion Spanish conglomerate in Asia.

By adhering to the Pareto Principle for all tasks and decisions, we will have proper time management to perform most without the need to sacrifice other important facets of life.

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Predictably Irrational Behavior

You will notice that many will rush to buy their residential properties or cars during the good economic times and end up driving the prices exorbitantly high.

But when there is an economic recession, you will find prices so depressed and yet there is hardly any buyer.

There were 5 economic recessions in 1985, 1991, 1997, 2001 and 2008 in the last 25 years averaging one recession every 5 to 7 years. Should not one buy his first residential private property or car at the next downturn to take advantage of lower prices, saving more and taking a lower loan mortgage ?

I have seen this predictably irrational behavior for the last 25 years of many people buying their properties at the peak.

Perhaps they buy because of the confidence of holding on to jobs during good economic times. But the mortgage loans taken are usually of 25 to 30 years’ duration. They will still face the possibility of losing their jobs in the next downturn while the principal sum of their mortgage loan is relatively untouched because the first few years of mortgage installments go to paying interest.

I believe the main reason for such predictably irrational behavior is more of greed or covetousness  – the fear of losing out on good deals to others.

I started my career in 1985 and many of my peers were able to save enough to buy their first residential private property in 1994 after saving up the initial deposit of 20% or more. Most bought their first property between 1993 to 1996 at the height of the property boom taking a 25 year mortgage loan.

I decided to wait till the next downturn which happened in 1997. Because I waited out, while my peers would be paying on interest for their mortgage, I would be saving up more money.

So when the prices had gone down by 30 to 50% in 2001, I was able to purchase my residential property without taking any mortgage loan as I had saved up to 50% of the peak price in 1996.

While my peers continued to worry over their mortgage loan over the entire repayment period of 25 to 30 years, I have one less worry.

Should the private property prices stay high and I really miss the chance of owning a private residential property, I will not lose any sleep because I am more than content to have just a roof over my head in public housing.

Contentment indeed brings great gain while covetousness only bring anxiety as illustrated in the above example.

Will China Suffer A Hard Landing ?

If the incredible cement usage in China over 3 years is true,  it is impossible to replicate the same usage over the next few years to generate the same growth rate.   Compounding the problem is the fact that there is a lot of wasteful construction of ghost towns and cities which will haunt the whole economy very soon.  What is more worrisome is the fact that the construction industry probably hire 200 to 300 million migrant workers and it will be impossible to seek job re-structuring for this big pool of employment should the construction industry go into deep depression.

Update:  Perhaps this will be a good reason to accelerate the construction of One Belt One Road project to absorb the over-capacity and capital.  But it will pose a grave threat to the current shipping route via the Straits of Malacca. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/24/how-china-used-more-cement-in-3-years-than-the-u-s-did-in-the-entire-20th-century/

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Can A Christian Lose His Or Her Salvation ?

The debate on the eternal security of a Christian and the possibility of a Christian losing his or her salvation has never been conclusive for clear Scriptural references have been put forth in support of both position.  A better re-phrased question to ask is : How is a Christian justified by faith ?

I believe the crux lies in repentance.  Repentance and saving faith are two sides of the same coin.  Though the Greek word for repentance, metanoia, means a change of mind, the Bible is very clear that repentance involves fruit or deed in line with it. Luke 3:8-14; Acts 26:20; Acts 3:19. In Acts 2:38, we are told to repent and be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, and then to receive the Holy Spirit.

So a true believer changes his mind from rejection of Jesus Christ into full acceptance of Him as his personal Savior and Lord. And a true change of mind will result in a changed life. 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 5:19-23; James 2:14-26.

But even this repentance is the work of God in our lives starting from disbelief changing into knowledge with God pulling us and then to wisdom when He opens our eyes. Eventually convicting us to make that decisive response of following Jesus as our Savior and Lord.

A Christian is not pre-disposed to sin anymore. Though he sins occasionally due to temporary weakness or strong temptation, his life is overall walking right with God. A good example is King David. 1 Kings 15:5 clearly explained that : For David had done what was right in the eyes of the Lord and had not failed to keep any of the Lord’s commands all the days of his life—except in the case of Uriah the Hittite. When his sin was pointed out, his immediate response was to realize his sin, feel godly sorrow and seek God’s forgiveness. That is the overall life of a regenerate believer.  (For full clarity, read the whole epistle of 1 John.)

An unregenerate believer or a professing believer is one who is overall indifferent to sin. You will notice his chronic sinful behavior. You will notice most, if not all, his decisions are worldly and not according to the instruction in the Bible.

(1 Cor 6:9-10.   Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.)

Another good example is Lot. Though he lived in Sodom and seemed to compromise at times, and even hesitated to leave Sodom before it was destroyed,  the Bible told us in 2 Pet 2:8 that he was tormented by the lawless deeds he saw in the city.

A regenerate believer will be distressed by sin. That is why the hyper grace gospel is so dangerous. From the onset, the false gospel downplays sin altogether and actually trivializes the tremendous perfect sacrifice of Christ our Lord for the atonement of sins. Heb 10:26-29.

A true believer is a new creation and he will love and obey the commandments of God as the fruit in line with repentance.

Gal 6:15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

1 Cor 7:19. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.

There is no question over the clear distinction between regenerate and unregenerate believers.   That leave only this last doubt.  Can a regenerate believer ever walk out of faith himself by returning back to a life of sin again ?

Let’s look at the parable of the prodigal son for a possible insight.  The younger son came to his senses acknowledging his sin and repented.  He went back with so much gratitude for the unconditional love of his father that he was prepared to start over without the privileges of son-ship.   Would he betray the trust of his father a second time and return back to the far country of reckless living again if his repentance was unequivocal ?

The Letter And The Spirit (Intent) Of The Law And Sacraments

Matt 23: 23-24

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”

The Pharisees followed the law to the letter meticulously. Yet when they come to the more important aspects of the law in showing justice, mercy and faithfulness to others, they were indifferent.

They were meticulous in straining out the gnat in their tea through their teeth but they were simply indifferent to swallowing the camel. That was the analogy par excellence given by our Lord.

The Lord did not condemn them for practising the law to the letter but reprimanded them for ignoring the more important spirit (or intent) of the law.

Likewise today, there are many churches who practice their tradition and sacraments to the letter without truly understanding the spirit or intent of them.

They will insist that water baptism has to be immersion and not sprinkling; or the Lord’s Supper has to be served with unleavened bread and real wine.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the lawyer wanted to put Jesus to the test and asked what he should do to inherit eternal life. And he answered the question himself by stating the summary of the law in the 2 greatest commandments.

After Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, He wanted the lawyer to answer for himself who was the true neighbour, or who was truly obeying the law to the spirit.

The priest and the Levite in the parable followed the law to the letter by avoiding a possible dead person while the Samaritan broke everything in the law to the letter. Yet the lawyer himself ascertained that the Samaritan was truly the neighbour by obeying the law to the spirit.