The LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.” But Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears about it, he will kill me.” The LORD said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.’ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate.” 1 Samuel 16:1-3

Stress is part of our everyday life and a certain level of it is beneficial to our health. However, the concern comes when stress turns into anxiety or depression. Ever wonder how the rest of America is feeling these days as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic?

Failure is an important topic because so many of us are driven to succeed more from a fear of failure than by the call of God on our lives. This is partly because in this nation we have a “black and white” view of success and failure that makes failure unacceptable. The following are points each of us need to understand to enlighten us with the biblical view of failure.

There is so much to tell about the person of who I am and the formation factors that shape the story of my soul. There are some parts too dark, too painful and too vulnerable to be written in print. These portions I have confessed to God in intimate conversations and received healing from God the Healer. This is an assignment paper I wrote in Bible School in 2000.

But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it." Here Cain is warned by God that sin has a force working outside or external of his internal desires. Sin itself acts as a force that is longing for him with the ultimate consequence of death.

I’ve been involved in pastoral ministry for over 30 years, and I have a desire to help everyone. But, I have learned the hard way that I cannot help every person who attends our church or who comes to me for input. The following are ten kinds of people I have identified that are so entrenched in certain habit patterns that I cannot help them advance to the next level unless they make the necessary shift in their attitude or behavior.

Christ followers are not to fear what the world fears (see Jeremiah 10:2) and are not to be conformed to this world system (Romans 12:1,2). Whenever a global crisis breaks out the church is called to discern the times, know what to do, and function as the salt of the earth and light of the world.

There are certain seasons in my life when ministry and other responsibilities are so difficult and my schedule so demanding that I feel like I am doing violence to my soul. (It’s as if I were taking a knife and intentionally sticking it into my body.) As I analyze what I do and how I feel during these seasons, I have come up with several ways I have done violence to my soul. (Whether or not these seasons can always be avoided is not the point of this article.) The following are ten ways I do violence to my soul. (By “soul” I am referring primarily to my emotions.)

Many people in the church are so emotionally incapacitated due to father or parental wounds they do not have a healthy view of any authority in their lives. When someone comes to Christ these emotional issues don’t automatically go away. Unless someone intentionally points out these areas and aids a person in repenting of their mistrust of authority, most with these wounds will have a hard time receiving correction from any form of spiritual authority. Satan will even plant seeds into the minds of Christians regarding blame shifting (blaming others for their own sins and failures, and not taking personal responsibility) when their pastor preaches a strong message involving correction for sin, or when a spiritual authority has to give them correction. Some get angry and might even leave the church.

If you’re new to blogging, you’re probably on a steep learning curve at the moment. Maybe you tell yourself that things will get better when you’ve been doing it longer. There won’t be so much to learn. You’ll have systems in place soon and everything will run smoothly. Sadly, I think this is a myth. I’ve been using and designing for the Internet for about 15 years, and it keeps changing.

Here we are again. It is the end of yet another year. And who can forget 2009? There has been many buzzwords in the year. Here are a couple Mr. Bilson remembers like H1N1 and global economic crisis/recession, Michael Jackson, Vancouver 2010 Olympics, Transformers, Tiger Woods.... But there were other things that stood out as well. Mr. Bilson took on quite a journey this year. 2009 began with life in the valley of the shadow of death. There is nothing like wearing that heavy black blanket the seems to constantly weigh down and draining every sort of joy out of you until there is not much left... It was too heavy to lift off so some help is always in order. Thank you Jesus... who truly takes all our burdens. It started to lift off in the middle of the year. Let's trace when...

I love to ponder the possibilities and creative ways we can please God and serve others. I love to reflect on how things are, and “what if” we changed them. How can we further align ourselves toward His Most Excellent Ways. These are observations and ponderings can be purposeful to challenge existing paradigms, while firming up Kingdom foundations. Many of these are happening all around us, but what if they were not just the exception, but were consistently happening. What will Father do as His children grow up in becoming more like Him? My prayers are to continually stimulate possibility thoughts towards ways that bring forth His Kingdom through our lives.

Each year begins with numerous New Year decisions or resolutions.  But, they do not lost even for weeks.  So, I thought of having “New Intentions” that is applicable for day-to-day life.  These are not ‘New’ but ‘basics’ we often forget or neglect.  It is more like code of conduct for my life.  I share this, because it may be useful to some of you.  As there are twelve months in a year, I have listed 12 intentions that could be picked up and focused during each month.

Why can't we be real before God? Tell Him what we feel, confess to Him if we are perplexed or confused, share with Him our fears and dreams, and ask Him to show us which way we should proceed, all the while expressing our confidence in His love, wisdom and power. What is going to succeed, an honest and sincere cry for help, or a pronunciation of the right words without any conviction behind them? The Bible is so very true when it says that we do not receive because we do not ask (Jas.4:2). Is it not silly of us not to receive the things God wants to give us just because we would not ask? How 'poor' we can be because of a silly understanding of being positive!

In our humanity, we find a ‘false richness’ in the many things that surround us. We find our fulfillment in the words of encouragement from our friends; we lust for pleasure and comfort; we run after things that we think really matter; we find ourselves in the secular game of being fashionable and relevant and ‘well-put-together’. In his words Jesus asks us to embrace our poverty. We are the frail and worn, the weak and needy, the sick and wanting, the hidden and poor. Through our unique walks of life, we encounter our own poverty. We are the poor, not the rich. When Jesus speaks of poverty, He does so to imply that on our own we are capable of little. We are vulnerable to weaknesses in our flesh, weakened by the gross sinfulness of the world, and powerless to fight the attacks of the enemy. On our own we do not amount to much. At the end of the day, we are possessors of nothing.

Frank Teo Kong Guan was called home to be with the Lord on 11th December 2008. He was the Training Consultant with South Asian International Fellowship in Singapore, a member of South Asian Connection and part of the SAIF Church Pastoral Ministry Team. This whole eulogy is written by Frank Teo's sister Teo Jin Lee. "The past two days has been a tremendous revelation for me about this person I have called my brother for my entire life. The testimonies from various people have given me new found love, respect and admiration for my brother and for the work he has done that has touched the lives of so many people….he has emerged larger then life to me. We are here not to mourn his passing but to celebrate Guan’s life. Guan is how he has always been called by his family.  I will try to do justice to the various facets of his life. Please celebrate with me Frank Teo Kong Guan’s life."

The year 2008 is done. Never to come back. The clock has ticked. The bells have rung. Time flies even before you can think of it! Just when you thought you had time,  a year is gone.  “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day” wrote William Shakespeare years ago. Maybe you struggled a lot in the past year. There was debt. There was accident. There was illness. There was disappointment. There was a lot that went wrong. Now here you are peeking into 2009. You are hoping against hope for something new this year. You see, hope is what kept many Jewish prisoners alive in the Nazi camps. Many died for simply lack of hope.