Mr Psalm 23, pls tell God to let me win today's $1.5 million Toto Draw...
won't work................God is as real as Harry Potter...................
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Today's Scripture Reading
- Thread starter Psalm23
- Start date
won't work................God is as real as Harry Potter...................
i'm sick of people praying to God about everything that's wrong instead of doing something about it. religion is for those who cannot rely on themselves , i’m sick of seeing thousands of educated people cram into some goofy looking building to worship a fictitious being .if religion wasnt around we would probably be 1,000 years more advanced and hardly any religious wars (jews and muslims) . 'religion' is a political ideology, nothing else. as a lot of other political ideologies it claims to be 'tolerant' and 'peacefull' of all mankind, while in reality this only applies to those that agree with, or conform too, its political agenda. 'religion' hates, condemnes and alienates those that don't agree with its politics.every religion is complete nonsense.religon the accepted insanity
when they die do they REALLY think your going somewhere? have they ever seen god?... has anyone? are they scared of death? one of the best ones Heaven and Hell. just some more nonsense made up by some scared people who didn't want to accept the fact that this life is all there is and that once you're dead that is that. the concept is for cowards. how can there be one god when there are so many religions? it all brain washes you.religion is true to the ignorant, false to the wise, and useful to the powerful .
Religion, especially Christianity and Islam, is a parasite of this world. i cannot believe that we are in 2011 and people are still believing and living their lives according to this age old bullshit which has brain washed people for centuries. if you want to believe in or worship someone or something ...believe in and worship yourself!! Live your life for NOW, because when it's over there's no goi...ng back and there certainly isn't anything waiting for you in some imaginary 'afterlife'. fucking wake up! if there were no religion, there would be about 80% less wars, and people could live their lives without fear of persecution and especially without fear of whether or not their 'god' would allow them into his or her kingdom after they die. i long for a world without these bullshit manipulative lies! FUCK RELIGION!
one major reason why all opressive religions should be destroyed: life is about growing and evolving, this is a natural fact. when a person is subjected to religious beliefs, they are held back by some one else's opinion. that's like trying to stop a tree from growing, you allow it to exist, but try to halt it's growth to a fixed point. that goes against nature. the tree may still try to grow, but it might turn out all warped and uneven looking. this is what happens to people on the inside when you push a limited belief system on them.
i will never respect a belief system that uses fear to recruit people, nor will I respect those who support it. a message to Christians and other religions: "Save your shallow threats for shallow people or cease existing. this world no longer needs you or your beliefs." i have seen religious bullshit turn loving families into raging enemies for too long.
when they die do they REALLY think your going somewhere? have they ever seen god?... has anyone? are they scared of death? one of the best ones Heaven and Hell. just some more nonsense made up by some scared people who didn't want to accept the fact that this life is all there is and that once you're dead that is that. the concept is for cowards. how can there be one god when there are so many religions? it all brain washes you.religion is true to the ignorant, false to the wise, and useful to the powerful .
Religion, especially Christianity and Islam, is a parasite of this world. i cannot believe that we are in 2011 and people are still believing and living their lives according to this age old bullshit which has brain washed people for centuries. if you want to believe in or worship someone or something ...believe in and worship yourself!! Live your life for NOW, because when it's over there's no goi...ng back and there certainly isn't anything waiting for you in some imaginary 'afterlife'. fucking wake up! if there were no religion, there would be about 80% less wars, and people could live their lives without fear of persecution and especially without fear of whether or not their 'god' would allow them into his or her kingdom after they die. i long for a world without these bullshit manipulative lies! FUCK RELIGION!
one major reason why all opressive religions should be destroyed: life is about growing and evolving, this is a natural fact. when a person is subjected to religious beliefs, they are held back by some one else's opinion. that's like trying to stop a tree from growing, you allow it to exist, but try to halt it's growth to a fixed point. that goes against nature. the tree may still try to grow, but it might turn out all warped and uneven looking. this is what happens to people on the inside when you push a limited belief system on them.
i will never respect a belief system that uses fear to recruit people, nor will I respect those who support it. a message to Christians and other religions: "Save your shallow threats for shallow people or cease existing. this world no longer needs you or your beliefs." i have seen religious bullshit turn loving families into raging enemies for too long.
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hey, I am another newbie here, just interesting be in this group, sorry I actually do not have any good idea on this topic!
eh...........Drifter..............i thought u r christian ???
anyway, people believe in man-made religions becoz of human desire to exist forever...............in a daydream paradise called heaven............
it's just their wishful thinking only.......................those ignorant fools...............
anyway, people believe in man-made religions becoz of human desire to exist forever...............in a daydream paradise called heaven............
it's just their wishful thinking only.......................those ignorant fools...............
if we can believe god, allah with no requirement of science proof or evidence, then we can believe the existence of Odin, zeus, su mukong, santa claus and the easter bunny as well.
i wont state the whole fact of existence is by chance and im a supporter of pantheism, but i cant relate what an almighty conscious would bother with human being or exhibit basic primitive humanistic behaviour like jealousy, anger and love. these are feelings that are basic to human nature, not with the being that create the whole universe, it know far better than that. perhaps, we serve our purpose by our existence.
i wont state the whole fact of existence is by chance and im a supporter of pantheism, but i cant relate what an almighty conscious would bother with human being or exhibit basic primitive humanistic behaviour like jealousy, anger and love. these are feelings that are basic to human nature, not with the being that create the whole universe, it know far better than that. perhaps, we serve our purpose by our existence.
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psalm23 is a typical singaporean eudcated in singapore education system, where the thinking are commonly boxed and self-censored. and probably his humanistic outlook is held back by his own instilled fear to disobey an entity of his own imagination that constantly keep him on a 24x7x365 surveillance. but really, we do really go for a book written by people 4000-2000 years ago who think the world is flat and burn all religious heretics?
a test case scenario; a helicopter landed in an amazon or african remote outland with primitives that have no connection to the outside world. what will they think of the pilots? they will consider him as a god and in their primitive records, it will be written as ;'god came down in a glorious loud bird, and wore shiny clothes and helmet, giving them salvation and words to abide by."
reflect on this, and how most religions come about. are people so stupid enough to carry on their stupidity or would the subsequent generation of the amazons who had exposure to modern technology and outside world, look back and laugh at their ancestors who mistaken a pilot and his helicopter for God?
go and ponder.
a test case scenario; a helicopter landed in an amazon or african remote outland with primitives that have no connection to the outside world. what will they think of the pilots? they will consider him as a god and in their primitive records, it will be written as ;'god came down in a glorious loud bird, and wore shiny clothes and helmet, giving them salvation and words to abide by."
reflect on this, and how most religions come about. are people so stupid enough to carry on their stupidity or would the subsequent generation of the amazons who had exposure to modern technology and outside world, look back and laugh at their ancestors who mistaken a pilot and his helicopter for God?
go and ponder.
when people realize that there's no such thing as even a soul...........a self............or an identity.............
then they'll realize there's no such thing as religions..................
then they'll say.................GOD is my DOG...................
then they'll realize there's no such thing as religions..................
then they'll say.................GOD is my DOG...................
bro , siao ar ...me christain ? everyone in this forum knows i hate all religions ....especially christains ..
welcome to this forum ...if you are christain ..then just stay in your church and dont come here to preach your stupidity ...if you are not christain ....join us for whacking those delusion ppl ..
u had defended the faith of Buddhism before, therefore, i consider u to be the with the rest of the religion fanatics.
brudder....................Buddhism telling people there's no such thing as religions lah................
so how can you say i'm a religious fanatic ???
you should say i'm an anti-religion fanatic !
then velly velly good lah.................
only wishful thinking fools will believe in religions when there's no such thing !
if they say people who believe in jesus will go to hell................
all christians will say.................GOD is my DOG !
born-again Christians eh.....................
they're like people that woken up from the Matrix and then decide to go sleep again................
to indulge in their wishful thinking of heaven............
Today’s Scripture Reading [August 21, 2011]
Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD. [Jeremiah 9:23-24. KJV]
Boasting seems to be in every body’s blood. It is in mine, and it is in yours. The difference is the extent or the degree to which we all boast and often it is of our achievements, our wealth, our health, our might. I remember on one occasion I was invited to a dinner and one of the guests who was from overseas was a world-class soccer player. In fact, his team came out second in one of the world-cup events. When I met him, I saw him hanging a World Cup silver medal. He was so proud of his team’s achievement even though it was won several years ago that he still worn the medal wherever he went even he was traveling on the airplane. Certainly, this man needed to be recognized after all how many soccer players could really be awarded with a World Cup medal but when we boast and brag about our achievements, we may find ourselves walking against our godly way of living which God has instructed us to live. Boasting or bragging is one of the call-up images in our minds of someone thumping his chest, saying, "Look at me! Aren't I something! What I have achieved is no mean feat!” As believers, when we glorify we must be careful because all our glories and achievements belong to God and all must be given to Him and no one else.
In another real story that I knew about was a very wealthy businessman who owned a large conglomerate of companies. One of my friends was working as a senior PR officer for him. To show recognition to his employees’ contributions, he would hold an annual company dinner for all his employees. My friend, being in the PR department would help him to draft the speech that he would deliver during the company dinner. My friend told me that if you really knew exactly his very personal character, you could literally ‘vomit’ after you have heard of his message. What my friend meant was this, the message that he delivered to the employees was to simply impress the employees and other invited business guests. He would boast of how loving, kind and generous he himself was and the whole message was simply so hypocritical and unreal that you could leave the dinner with a deep feeling of nausea. His message was simply incompatible with his true character. Like all stories we hear, they might or might not really be true or exactly the way it was made out to be and we all must listen to all ‘third-party’ stories (including mine here) with a ‘pinch of salt’ because we know that, for some reasons, sometimes the story-tellers could just simply bad-mouthing others people. Nonetheless, the only thing we can do ourselves is just to make sure we, ourselves, mean what we say, and say what we mean because Jesus really hates hypocrites (Matthew 23:13) and boastful people.
The question you may be asking is: Is it sinful to boast and brag? In James 4:16, we are warned that to rejoice in our boasting is evil, it thus implied that boasting in God’s eye is sinful. Additionally, there are many verses in the Bible that tell us that God is not pleased when we boast (Proverbs 20:14; Proverbs 25:14; Proverbs 27:1; Psalm 94:4; Jeremiah 9:23; Romans 1:30; James 3:5; Ephesians 2:8-9; 1 Corinthians 4:7.) After all, what can we boast other than our knowledge, our skills, our riches, our wealth, our power, our authority? As someone has observed, you can build the fastest car but you can create a tiny ant which is one of the most fascinating and interesting insects of the natural world. For example, ants have wonderful sense of direction. They can travel great distant and yet they can find their way back to their nests; they are one of the most social animals of the natural world and have the nature or rather God-given instinct and abilities to organize into groups to increase their chances of survival. We often look to great men for wisdom but King Solomon has told us that we don’t need to look far enough and by examine the social behaviour of ants, we can learn much about the danger of being a lazy and an idle person (Proverbs 6:6-11). The tiny ant can teach us many life-survival lessons that are in fact taught by some management gurus who charged expensively for their courses.
We must be warned that one of the greatest hindrances in our walk with God can be success which will inevitable give us the desire to boast. These successes creep into the most innocent hearts and can even transform the most humble man into the most proud man. When our success becomes our source of significance whether they are our skills, our wealth or our might, they can compete against our Lord for glory, and this is really tragic because all glories belong to God and no one else! Furthermore, as we can see in Jeremiah 9:23-24, we must not let our achievement to be the source of our happiness. Rather, only by knowing God can then be the source of our happiness. If we want to be happy and stay happy, we must know and understand God personally in three key areas: His lovingkindness, His justice and His righteousness. As long as we recognize this, we can’t help but to see God as our source of happiness because no one on this earth could have greater lovingkindness, greater justice and more righteousness than God.
Over the last few days, you all must be heard, read or watched the debates and the forum of presidential candidates who are eyeing for the office of the President of our country. Our very own presidential debates have indeed reminded me of the U.S. presidential election where candidates were debated live on their TV networks. The final message to the voters from each of the candidate was simply this: “I am the best of the best! You are going to repent for the next six years if you vote other candidate other than me as your president!” If this is not boasting and bragging, frankly I don’t know what boasting is. One really has to be ‘thick-skin’ to make such declaration! Like Singapore, while debates are not constitutionally mandated, it is often considered a de facto election process in the U.S. for many decades. Without exception, all debaters will try to impress and boast the audience (or voters in the case of political elections) of their knowledge, their promises and sending out the final dictum that only they know what is the best of the industry, for the environment, for the society, or for the country (as in the case of political debates).
The message from Jeremiah 9:23-24 is not to condemn people who are knowledgeable of the things of the world, who are rich or who are entrusted with power and authority. But rather, we are cautioned by the message that we must not boast them to glorify ourselves. We see in the Bible, they were many people of God and they were knowledgeable like King Solomon, they were rich like Job and Abraham, and were powerful like King Josiah and King David. As we listen to the presidential debates and some of us here may feel like having some goose-pimples after listening to their declaration of their ‘capabilities, abilities, integrity, honesty, etc’ it boils down to what we want of ourselves. We can’t control what others want to boast or declare but we must make boasting and our declaration on our God’s righteous characters. Such boasting and declaration must be part of our daily witnessing and let people know about our God because true happiness can only come from knowing God.
Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD. [Jeremiah 9:23-24. KJV]
Boasting seems to be in every body’s blood. It is in mine, and it is in yours. The difference is the extent or the degree to which we all boast and often it is of our achievements, our wealth, our health, our might. I remember on one occasion I was invited to a dinner and one of the guests who was from overseas was a world-class soccer player. In fact, his team came out second in one of the world-cup events. When I met him, I saw him hanging a World Cup silver medal. He was so proud of his team’s achievement even though it was won several years ago that he still worn the medal wherever he went even he was traveling on the airplane. Certainly, this man needed to be recognized after all how many soccer players could really be awarded with a World Cup medal but when we boast and brag about our achievements, we may find ourselves walking against our godly way of living which God has instructed us to live. Boasting or bragging is one of the call-up images in our minds of someone thumping his chest, saying, "Look at me! Aren't I something! What I have achieved is no mean feat!” As believers, when we glorify we must be careful because all our glories and achievements belong to God and all must be given to Him and no one else.
In another real story that I knew about was a very wealthy businessman who owned a large conglomerate of companies. One of my friends was working as a senior PR officer for him. To show recognition to his employees’ contributions, he would hold an annual company dinner for all his employees. My friend, being in the PR department would help him to draft the speech that he would deliver during the company dinner. My friend told me that if you really knew exactly his very personal character, you could literally ‘vomit’ after you have heard of his message. What my friend meant was this, the message that he delivered to the employees was to simply impress the employees and other invited business guests. He would boast of how loving, kind and generous he himself was and the whole message was simply so hypocritical and unreal that you could leave the dinner with a deep feeling of nausea. His message was simply incompatible with his true character. Like all stories we hear, they might or might not really be true or exactly the way it was made out to be and we all must listen to all ‘third-party’ stories (including mine here) with a ‘pinch of salt’ because we know that, for some reasons, sometimes the story-tellers could just simply bad-mouthing others people. Nonetheless, the only thing we can do ourselves is just to make sure we, ourselves, mean what we say, and say what we mean because Jesus really hates hypocrites (Matthew 23:13) and boastful people.
The question you may be asking is: Is it sinful to boast and brag? In James 4:16, we are warned that to rejoice in our boasting is evil, it thus implied that boasting in God’s eye is sinful. Additionally, there are many verses in the Bible that tell us that God is not pleased when we boast (Proverbs 20:14; Proverbs 25:14; Proverbs 27:1; Psalm 94:4; Jeremiah 9:23; Romans 1:30; James 3:5; Ephesians 2:8-9; 1 Corinthians 4:7.) After all, what can we boast other than our knowledge, our skills, our riches, our wealth, our power, our authority? As someone has observed, you can build the fastest car but you can create a tiny ant which is one of the most fascinating and interesting insects of the natural world. For example, ants have wonderful sense of direction. They can travel great distant and yet they can find their way back to their nests; they are one of the most social animals of the natural world and have the nature or rather God-given instinct and abilities to organize into groups to increase their chances of survival. We often look to great men for wisdom but King Solomon has told us that we don’t need to look far enough and by examine the social behaviour of ants, we can learn much about the danger of being a lazy and an idle person (Proverbs 6:6-11). The tiny ant can teach us many life-survival lessons that are in fact taught by some management gurus who charged expensively for their courses.
We must be warned that one of the greatest hindrances in our walk with God can be success which will inevitable give us the desire to boast. These successes creep into the most innocent hearts and can even transform the most humble man into the most proud man. When our success becomes our source of significance whether they are our skills, our wealth or our might, they can compete against our Lord for glory, and this is really tragic because all glories belong to God and no one else! Furthermore, as we can see in Jeremiah 9:23-24, we must not let our achievement to be the source of our happiness. Rather, only by knowing God can then be the source of our happiness. If we want to be happy and stay happy, we must know and understand God personally in three key areas: His lovingkindness, His justice and His righteousness. As long as we recognize this, we can’t help but to see God as our source of happiness because no one on this earth could have greater lovingkindness, greater justice and more righteousness than God.
Over the last few days, you all must be heard, read or watched the debates and the forum of presidential candidates who are eyeing for the office of the President of our country. Our very own presidential debates have indeed reminded me of the U.S. presidential election where candidates were debated live on their TV networks. The final message to the voters from each of the candidate was simply this: “I am the best of the best! You are going to repent for the next six years if you vote other candidate other than me as your president!” If this is not boasting and bragging, frankly I don’t know what boasting is. One really has to be ‘thick-skin’ to make such declaration! Like Singapore, while debates are not constitutionally mandated, it is often considered a de facto election process in the U.S. for many decades. Without exception, all debaters will try to impress and boast the audience (or voters in the case of political elections) of their knowledge, their promises and sending out the final dictum that only they know what is the best of the industry, for the environment, for the society, or for the country (as in the case of political debates).
The message from Jeremiah 9:23-24 is not to condemn people who are knowledgeable of the things of the world, who are rich or who are entrusted with power and authority. But rather, we are cautioned by the message that we must not boast them to glorify ourselves. We see in the Bible, they were many people of God and they were knowledgeable like King Solomon, they were rich like Job and Abraham, and were powerful like King Josiah and King David. As we listen to the presidential debates and some of us here may feel like having some goose-pimples after listening to their declaration of their ‘capabilities, abilities, integrity, honesty, etc’ it boils down to what we want of ourselves. We can’t control what others want to boast or declare but we must make boasting and our declaration on our God’s righteous characters. Such boasting and declaration must be part of our daily witnessing and let people know about our God because true happiness can only come from knowing God.
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Today’s Scripture Reading [August 21, 2011]
Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD. [Jeremiah 9:23-24. KJV]
Boasting seems to be in every body’s blood. It is in mine, and it is in yours. The difference is the extent or the degree to which we all boast and often it is of our achievements, our wealth, our health, our might. I remember on one occasion I was invited to a dinner and one of the guests who was from overseas was a world-class soccer player. In fact, his team came out second in one of the world-cup events. When I met him, I saw him hanging a World Cup silver medal. He was so proud of his team’s achievement even though it was won several years ago that he still worn the medal wherever he went even he was traveling on the airplane. Certainly, this man needed to be recognized after all how many soccer players could really be awarded with a World Cup medal but when we boast and brag about our achievements, we may find ourselves walking against our godly way of living which God has instructed us to live. Boasting or bragging is one of the call-up images in our minds of someone thumping his chest, saying, "Look at me! Aren't I something! What I have achieved is no mean feat!” As believers, when we glorify we must be careful because all our glories and achievements belong to God and all must be given to Him and no one else.
In another real story that I knew about was a very wealthy businessman who owned a large conglomerate of companies. One of my friends was working as a senior PR officer for him. To show recognition to his employees’ contributions, he would hold an annual company dinner for all his employees. My friend, being in the PR department would help him to draft the speech that he would deliver during the company dinner. My friend told me that if you really knew exactly his very personal character, you could literally ‘vomit’ after you have heard of his message. What my friend meant was this, the message that he delivered to the employees was to simply impress the employees and other invited business guests. He would boast of how loving, kind and generous he himself was and the whole message was simply so hypocritical and unreal that you could leave the dinner with a deep feeling of nausea. His message was simply incompatible with his true character. Like all stories we hear, they might or might not really be true or exactly the way it was made out to be and we all must listen to all ‘third-party’ stories (including mine here) with a ‘pinch of salt’ because we know that, for some reasons, sometimes the story-tellers could just simply bad-mouthing others people. Nonetheless, the only thing we can do ourselves is just to make sure we, ourselves, mean what we say, and say what we mean because Jesus really hates hypocrites (Matthew 23:13) and boastful people.
The question you may be asking is: Is it sinful to boast and brag? In James 4:16, we are warned that to rejoice in our boasting is evil, it thus implied that boasting in God’s eye is sinful. Additionally, there are many verses in the Bible that tell us that God is not pleased when we boast (Proverbs 20:14; Proverbs 25:14; Proverbs 27:1; Psalm 94:4; Jeremiah 9:23; Romans 1:30; James 3:5; Ephesians 2:8-9; 1 Corinthians 4:7.) After all, what can we boast other than our knowledge, our skills, our riches, our wealth, our power, our authority? As someone has observed, you can build the fastest car but you can't create a tiny ant which is one of the most fascinating and interesting insects of the natural world. For example, ants have wonderful sense of direction. They can travel great distant and yet they can find their way back to their nests; they are one of the most social animals of the natural world and have the nature or rather God-given instinct and abilities to organize into groups to increase their chances of survival. We often look to great men for wisdom but King Solomon has told us that we don’t need to look far enough and by examine the social behaviour of ants, we can learn much about the danger of being a lazy and an idle person (Proverbs 6:6-11). The tiny ant can teach us many life-survival lessons that are in fact taught by some management gurus who charged expensively for their courses.
We must be warned that one of the greatest hindrances in our walk with God can be success which will inevitable give us the desire to boast. These successes creep into the most innocent hearts and can even transform the most humble man into the most proud man. When our success becomes our source of significance whether they are our skills, our wealth or our might, they can compete against our Lord for glory, and this is really tragic because all glories belong to God and no one else! Furthermore, as we can see in Jeremiah 9:23-24, we must not let our achievement to be the source of our happiness. Rather, only by knowing God can then be the source of our happiness. If we want to be happy and stay happy, we must know and understand God personally in three key areas: His lovingkindness, His justice and His righteousness. As long as we recognize this, we can’t help but to see God as our source of happiness because no one on this earth could have greater lovingkindness, greater justice and more righteousness than God.
Over the last few days, you all must be heard, read or watched the debates and the forum of presidential candidates who are eyeing for the office of the President of our country. Our very own presidential debates have indeed reminded me of the U.S. presidential election where candidates were debated live on their TV networks. The final message to the voters from each of the candidate was simply this: “I am the best of the best! You are going to repent for the next six years if you vote other candidate other than me as your president!” If this is not boasting and bragging, frankly I don’t know what boasting is. One really has to be ‘thick-skin’ to make such declaration! Like Singapore, while debates are not constitutionally mandated, it is often considered a de facto election process in the U.S. for many decades. Without exception, all debaters will try to impress and boast the audience (or voters in the case of political elections) of their knowledge, their promises and sending out the final dictum that only they know what is the best of the industry, for the environment, for the society, or for the country (as in the case of political debates).
The message from Jeremiah 9:23-24 is not to condemn people who are knowledgeable of the things of the world, who are rich or who are entrusted with power and authority. But rather, we are cautioned by the message that we must not boast them to glorify ourselves. We see in the Bible, they were many people of God and they were knowledgeable like King Solomon, they were rich like Job and Abraham, and were powerful like King Josiah and King David. As we listen to the presidential debates and some of us here may feel like having some goose-pimples after listening to their declaration of their ‘capabilities, abilities, integrity, honesty, etc’ it boils down to what we want of ourselves. We can’t control what others want to boast or declare but we must make boasting and our declaration on our God’s righteous characters. Such boasting and declaration must be part of our daily witnessing and let people know about our God because true happiness can only come from knowing God.
Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD. [Jeremiah 9:23-24. KJV]
Boasting seems to be in every body’s blood. It is in mine, and it is in yours. The difference is the extent or the degree to which we all boast and often it is of our achievements, our wealth, our health, our might. I remember on one occasion I was invited to a dinner and one of the guests who was from overseas was a world-class soccer player. In fact, his team came out second in one of the world-cup events. When I met him, I saw him hanging a World Cup silver medal. He was so proud of his team’s achievement even though it was won several years ago that he still worn the medal wherever he went even he was traveling on the airplane. Certainly, this man needed to be recognized after all how many soccer players could really be awarded with a World Cup medal but when we boast and brag about our achievements, we may find ourselves walking against our godly way of living which God has instructed us to live. Boasting or bragging is one of the call-up images in our minds of someone thumping his chest, saying, "Look at me! Aren't I something! What I have achieved is no mean feat!” As believers, when we glorify we must be careful because all our glories and achievements belong to God and all must be given to Him and no one else.
In another real story that I knew about was a very wealthy businessman who owned a large conglomerate of companies. One of my friends was working as a senior PR officer for him. To show recognition to his employees’ contributions, he would hold an annual company dinner for all his employees. My friend, being in the PR department would help him to draft the speech that he would deliver during the company dinner. My friend told me that if you really knew exactly his very personal character, you could literally ‘vomit’ after you have heard of his message. What my friend meant was this, the message that he delivered to the employees was to simply impress the employees and other invited business guests. He would boast of how loving, kind and generous he himself was and the whole message was simply so hypocritical and unreal that you could leave the dinner with a deep feeling of nausea. His message was simply incompatible with his true character. Like all stories we hear, they might or might not really be true or exactly the way it was made out to be and we all must listen to all ‘third-party’ stories (including mine here) with a ‘pinch of salt’ because we know that, for some reasons, sometimes the story-tellers could just simply bad-mouthing others people. Nonetheless, the only thing we can do ourselves is just to make sure we, ourselves, mean what we say, and say what we mean because Jesus really hates hypocrites (Matthew 23:13) and boastful people.
The question you may be asking is: Is it sinful to boast and brag? In James 4:16, we are warned that to rejoice in our boasting is evil, it thus implied that boasting in God’s eye is sinful. Additionally, there are many verses in the Bible that tell us that God is not pleased when we boast (Proverbs 20:14; Proverbs 25:14; Proverbs 27:1; Psalm 94:4; Jeremiah 9:23; Romans 1:30; James 3:5; Ephesians 2:8-9; 1 Corinthians 4:7.) After all, what can we boast other than our knowledge, our skills, our riches, our wealth, our power, our authority? As someone has observed, you can build the fastest car but you can't create a tiny ant which is one of the most fascinating and interesting insects of the natural world. For example, ants have wonderful sense of direction. They can travel great distant and yet they can find their way back to their nests; they are one of the most social animals of the natural world and have the nature or rather God-given instinct and abilities to organize into groups to increase their chances of survival. We often look to great men for wisdom but King Solomon has told us that we don’t need to look far enough and by examine the social behaviour of ants, we can learn much about the danger of being a lazy and an idle person (Proverbs 6:6-11). The tiny ant can teach us many life-survival lessons that are in fact taught by some management gurus who charged expensively for their courses.
We must be warned that one of the greatest hindrances in our walk with God can be success which will inevitable give us the desire to boast. These successes creep into the most innocent hearts and can even transform the most humble man into the most proud man. When our success becomes our source of significance whether they are our skills, our wealth or our might, they can compete against our Lord for glory, and this is really tragic because all glories belong to God and no one else! Furthermore, as we can see in Jeremiah 9:23-24, we must not let our achievement to be the source of our happiness. Rather, only by knowing God can then be the source of our happiness. If we want to be happy and stay happy, we must know and understand God personally in three key areas: His lovingkindness, His justice and His righteousness. As long as we recognize this, we can’t help but to see God as our source of happiness because no one on this earth could have greater lovingkindness, greater justice and more righteousness than God.
Over the last few days, you all must be heard, read or watched the debates and the forum of presidential candidates who are eyeing for the office of the President of our country. Our very own presidential debates have indeed reminded me of the U.S. presidential election where candidates were debated live on their TV networks. The final message to the voters from each of the candidate was simply this: “I am the best of the best! You are going to repent for the next six years if you vote other candidate other than me as your president!” If this is not boasting and bragging, frankly I don’t know what boasting is. One really has to be ‘thick-skin’ to make such declaration! Like Singapore, while debates are not constitutionally mandated, it is often considered a de facto election process in the U.S. for many decades. Without exception, all debaters will try to impress and boast the audience (or voters in the case of political elections) of their knowledge, their promises and sending out the final dictum that only they know what is the best of the industry, for the environment, for the society, or for the country (as in the case of political debates).
The message from Jeremiah 9:23-24 is not to condemn people who are knowledgeable of the things of the world, who are rich or who are entrusted with power and authority. But rather, we are cautioned by the message that we must not boast them to glorify ourselves. We see in the Bible, they were many people of God and they were knowledgeable like King Solomon, they were rich like Job and Abraham, and were powerful like King Josiah and King David. As we listen to the presidential debates and some of us here may feel like having some goose-pimples after listening to their declaration of their ‘capabilities, abilities, integrity, honesty, etc’ it boils down to what we want of ourselves. We can’t control what others want to boast or declare but we must make boasting and our declaration on our God’s righteous characters. Such boasting and declaration must be part of our daily witnessing and let people know about our God because true happiness can only come from knowing God.
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