2010年9月30日星期四

2010/9/26 ~ 10/2 讀經進度

靈糧全餐晨禱進度
□26 詩 Psalms 87 提多書Titus 1:10~16 耶 Jeremiah 13,22
□27 詩 Psalms 88 提多書Titus 2:01~08 耶 Jeremiah 23~24
□28 詩 Psalms 89 提多書Titus 2:09~15 王下 2 Kings 22~23
□29 詩 Psalms 90 提多書Titus 3:01~07 代下 2 Chronicles 36:1~8
□30 詩 Psalms 91 提多書Titus 3:08~15 但 Daniel 1~2
□ 1 詩篇Psalms 87:01~07 路Luke13 但Daniel3~4
□ 2 詩篇Psalms 88:01~18 路Luke14 但Daniel5~6

2010年9月27日星期一

天父不做甚麼

天父差遣祂的兒子耶穌來到，耶穌大可以告訴我們：「我只做父所做的事。」然而，有一件事是耶穌做了，而天父不做的 ─ 就是禱告！無論我們怎樣全心的向神委身，禱告和祈求仍然是必須的。我們必須為世界禱告，這是服事的一部份！神怎樣叫耶穌禱告，也同樣叫我們禱告。有代禱的人，才能完成神的工作和行在祂的旨意上。那些只去作工但從不代求的人，不是與神同步，只是瘸著腿與祂同行。-布永康

2010年9月21日星期二

Jeremiah 29:11

A few weeks ago I was studying extremely hard for my very first college test. I didn't know how hard the test was going to be or what was going to be on it, so I studied everything. I prayed and felt VERY prepared. The test didn't seem very hard and it was only 60 questions, so I had confidence that I did well. Like every human out there, I quickly forgot to thank God or pray to Him after the actual test..

After taking the test last week, I received my grade today. An 83. I fell into sadness and grief because I really felt like I deserved a much better grade for all the work and effort I put into it. But the sad part wasn't even that I got an 83, but it was the fact that my friend, who barely studied, got an 85.. Right when I found out she got a higher grade than me without putting any effort into studying, I was complaining to God inside my head, "THIS IS SO UNFAIR!". Resulting in an even more sad Tina..

I didn't know what else to do with my depressed emotions, so I took them to God. As I was in prayer, I cried because it was a time at which I could completely let loose and let God take it all. I felt that I was useless, worthless, and stupid. As I was thinking those thoughts, God spoke to me through a verse - Jeremiah 29:11. It says, "For I know the plans I have fr you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Wow. It really hit me right in the face. Still this moment I don't know why I got an 83, but I realized that whether it was a 100 or a 50, my reaction still has to be a thankful heart. I need to be thankful towards God. I once heard this from somewhere: You don't need to be thankful for the situation that you're in, but you need to be thankful towards God. AMEN!

Praise God, for He is ALWAYS there.
-Tina

信心-隱藏的保險絲，通過它，天上的能力就能臨到地上

耶穌說：「你們若有信心，像一粒芥菜種。」(太17:20)這樣的信心是否太渺小呢？信心不是一種聳立，可讓人可看見和抓著的東西。它像是隱藏的保險絲，但是通過它，天上的能力就能臨到地上。神使用大小不同的保險絲，我們不論在何處，隱藏在心裡的態度是與神連上的關鍵─「我不是對你說過，你若信，就必看見神的榮耀嗎?」(約11:40)

2010年9月20日星期一

勇氣

世間最危險的人，就是不計生死的人。人都有一死;很少人真正活過。

我們越不去救自己，就越能成為英勇戰士。聽聽柴斯特頓（G.K.Chesterton)怎麼提到勇氣：勇氣的定義是自我矛盾的。意思是，有強烈的生存意志，但卻隨時有犧牲的準備。

被敵軍包圍的士兵，如果要突圍，就必須結合強烈的求生意志及不怕死的精神。

他必須以極度輕忽生命的精神奪回生命;他必須渴想生命如水，卻又飲死如酒！

《我心狂野》

【太】10:39得著生命的，將要失喪生命；為我失喪生命的，將要得著生命。

Matt 10:39"Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. "

2010年9月18日星期六

2010/9/19 ~ 9/25 讀經進度

休士頓靈糧之家

靈糧全餐 晨禱進度

□19 詩 Psalms 80 歌羅西書 Colossians 2:16~23 耶 Jeremiah 26

□20 詩 Psalms 81 歌羅西書 Colossians 3:01~11 耶 Jeremiah 7~8

□21 詩 Psalms 82 歌羅西書 Colossians 3:12~17 耶 Jeremiah 9~10

□22 詩 Psalms 83 歌羅西書 Colossians 3:18~25 耶 Jeremiah 14~15

□23 詩 Psalms 84 歌羅西書 Colossians 4:01~09 耶 Jeremiah 16~17

□24 詩 Psalms 85 歌羅西書 Colossians 4:10~18 耶 Jeremiah 18~20

□25 詩 Psalms 86 提多書 Titus 1:01~09 耶 Jeremiah 35~36

2010年9月7日星期二

Faith and faithfulness 伴侶一起禱告，能讓婚姻更滿意

伴侶一起禱告，能讓婚姻更滿意

Faith and faithfulness

By THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT
From The Economist

Praying for your partner stops you strayingINFIDELITY is rampant in nature. Birds, mammals, amphibians and even fish all cheat if the conditions are right, forcing mates to remain perpetually vigilant. People are no different. Although cheats are publicly condemned, or in some cases impeached, infidelity is common and public disapproval does little to dissuade the sinner. The disapproval of God, however, is a different matter, and a new study suggests that prayer can indeed guide people away from adulterous behaviour.

Frank Fincham at Florida State University and his colleagues knew from looking at past studies that couples who attend religious services are more likely to be satisfied with their marriages and less likely to be unfaithful than those who do not, but they did not understand why. Speculating that the act of praying might itself cause romantic relationships to become more resilient, the team set up an experiment to explore prayer and fidelity.

The researchers recruited 83 undergraduates who reported both being in a romantic relationship and praying at least occasionally. Participants were given a survey that is used by psychologists to measure levels of infidelity on a nine-point scale (with nine being highly unfaithful). The survey instructed them to think of the person that they were most attracted to besides their partner and then asked questions like how aroused they felt in that person's presence, how emotionally intimate they had been with him or her, and how physically intimate they had been. In a second survey, participants were asked to state how strongly they agreed with statements like "my relationship with my partner is holy and sacred", by rating levels of agreement on a nine-point scale (with nine indicating very strong agreement).

Following the survey, the participants were randomly assigned to one of four daily activities: praying for the well-being of their partner, engaging in undirected prayer, thinking about positive aspects of their partner or reflecting upon their day. Participants did as they were asked for four weeks, and kept written logs of what they were praying (or thinking). At the end of this period, the team again measured infidelity and how sacred the participants felt their romantic relationships were.

Dr Fincham and his colleagues report in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that although all participants had similar infidelity ratings, averaging 3.5, to start with, at the end those ratings varied considerably between the four groups. People who had prayed for their partners averaged 2.4, significantly lower than their initial scores, whereas those who thought positively about their partners or considered their day both showed ratings of 3.9—significantly higher.

Be careful what you pray for

What struck the team as particularly intriguing was that participants asked to engage in general prayer showed an average rating of 3.2, a value much lower than they were seeing for the other two control conditions. This hinted to them that the mere act of praying increased fidelity. In fact, things were more complicated than that. Four participants in the "undirected prayer" group had, without prompting, decided to pray for their romantic partners on a daily basis. When Dr Fincham and his colleagues took this into account, and shifted the scores of these specific participants to the "prayer for partner" group, they found that those who prayed for partners showed an average infidelity score of 2.5, whereas those who engaged in undirected prayer had an average infidelity score of 3.6. Undirected prayer, then, did not seem to make much difference.

Scores reflecting participants' views of how sacred their romantic relationships were changed during the four-week period as well. Values at the start of the study were much the same among all participants, averaging 3.2. However, by the end of the study, those who had prayed for their partners showed stronger beliefs that their relationships were sacred than those who had just had positive thoughts about their partners, with average scores of 3.7 and 2.8 respectively. Dr Fincham suspects that the act of praying about romantic partners leads people to view their relationship as something sacred and not to be damaged. This, he argues, is the force that is reducing infidelity in the study.

Yet even with these findings, the team knew that a crucial limitation of their work was that all of the data were self-reported by the people doing the praying. To know for certain whether praying for romantic partners strengthened relationships, they needed to go further. In a follow-up experiment they therefore asked 23 undergraduates who had romantic partners, and who stated that they prayed at least occasionally, either to pray for their partners daily for four weeks or to think positive thoughts about them every day for the same amount of time.

At the end of this period, participants came to the laboratory with their partners and, while being videotaped together, were asked to describe the short or long-term future of their relationship. The videos were then presented to five trained research assistants who were unaware of the goals of the study. They were asked to rate the level of commitment that the participants demonstrated towards their partners during the interaction on a scale of one to seven (with one indicating a participant who was "not at all committed" and seven indicating "extreme commitment").

The team found that those who prayed earned scores that were significantly higher, averaging 5.3, than those who had thought positively, who averaged 4.6. This suggested that what participants had reported about themselves in the first study accurately reflected how prayer affected their romances. Thus, whereas other animal species must resort to constant vigilance to reduce the risks of infidelity, humans (or at least those who have a faith) have an extra tool in the box: religion. Indeed, people worried about potentially cheating spouses may find praying together a better safeguard against adultery than checking mobile-phone bills and scrutinising credit-card receipts—and one that builds trust, rather than destroying it.

佛羅里達州立大學的Frank Fincham和他的同事從過去的研究得知，常去宗教機構的伴侶會對婚姻較為滿意，不貞的機會也低。但他們不知道原因，便決定進行這方面的研究。

他們找來83位大學生，這些大學生都表示自己有伴侶，也至少偶爾會禱告。受測者會先接受對伴侶不忠實程度的測驗（9分為最不忠實），接著再就「我與伴侶之間的關係既聖潔又神聖」這個說法評分（9分為非常同意）。

測驗完畢後，受測者會隨機分為四組，分別進行下列四項每日活動：為伴侶祈禱、祈禱但不指定主題、想想伴侶的優點、反思今天的生活。四星期後，受測者會再次接受前述兩項測驗。

受測者在第一次測驗時，不忠實分數平均為3.5，而第二次測驗時，四組人的分數差異相當大。為伴侶祈禱為2.4分，想伴侶優點和反思一日生活的兩組人皆為3.9分。受測者對這段伴侶關係的神聖性評價也有所改變，第一次測驗時平均為3.2分，而第二次測驗時，為伴侶祈禱會比想伴侶優點的人高，分別為3.7和2.8分。

不過，研究者知道這些資料都是來自受測者。為了確知祈禱能否強化伴侶關係，他們再次找來23位有伴侶、至少偶爾祈禱的大學生，將他們分成兩組，一組每天為伴侶祈禱，另一次則是每天想伴侶的優點。

結果顯示祈禱組分數高得多，平均為5.3分，思考優點組平均則為4.6分，表示為伴侶祈禱確實會影響伴侶關係。擔心另一半偷吃的人或許會發現，一起祈禱會比檢查手機帳單更好──祈禱可以建立信任，而不是破壞信任。（黃維德譯）

2010年9月5日星期日

Tina's Testimony

I’ve been a Christian since I was 9 years old and this is my first official testimony. I was baptized with my mom and my dad and being the youngest in the family, I did what they did. So even though I’ve been a Christian for 9 years, I really haven’t known Christ for that long. At such a young age, I didn’t know why I was attending church, reading the Bible, singing songs, etc. As I grew older and started to be more familiar with this person named Jesus Christ, I began to grow this curiosity of understanding more and more. I’m not those kinds of people that went through a traumatic past and knew Christ that way. I’m a normal girl whose life was perfectly laid out for by my parents and never had to go through suffering. In other words, my life felt perfectly fine with or without Jesus. At times I’d attend conferences, my fire would burn strongly for God, and it’d just disappear soon after the conference. I didn’t know what it meant to live a lifestyle and have a relationship with Jesus Christ. This Summer I recently attended a conference at Dallas called the Jesus Culture Conference. A session in this conference we had to worship God, not with any instruments, but with our spirit. As we went forward closer to the stage, he asked us to close our eyes and ask God, “How much do you love me?” I continued to ask God over and over again and 2 images popped in my head. One of those images was of my mom, and God said, “More than you could ever imagine”. I knew that my mom loves me, God was telling me that He can love me like that, but MORE. That made an impact because it was the first time that I had direct contact with God instead of ‘hearing about Him’. I truly believe that God is continuously working through our lives, even though we don’t know it at the moment. This whole Summer I never took any vacations to go anywhere and instead, I stayed in Houston taking summer classes and attending a lot of church activities such as Friday Kids Bible Study, Sunday School, Friday night Youth Bible study, Sunday Church, Tuesday Thursday Saturday morning prayers, helping out with Chinese School, Wednesday prayer meeting, as well as offering a tenth of my income. As you can see, every single day I was serving the Lord, which I have learned to appreciate. Even though this felt like a huge burden in the beginning of the summer, I quickly fell in love with the mornings I went to the prayers. Not only did I get so much closer with a few of the adults but I got closer to God. Once you’re forcing yourself to get up at 5 am and go read the Bible for a few weeks, it actually becomes pretty interesting on studying God’s personality as well as evaluating my own. A few weeks ago, my family and I were talking about financial issues worrying about how I was going to be able to pay for rent, food, and everything else. Since I’ll be going to school, I can’t work as much as I’d want to pay for these things. The next day my financial aid money, money from the government, completely came through and God definitely gave me much more than I had expected. I was only expecting about 1 or 2 thousand in return but in the end, God gave me a total of $4,096 in return just for this semester. Along with this, God has made sure that all of my classes at UH were right next to each other, instead of running around lost in the heat. God saw me stressing out about college and worrying about these little things and laid it out for me. He has really provided more than enough, and I believe in testifying that I believe He did this for me by offering more than a tenth of my offerings up to Him. To me offering my money is a huge sacrifice since, if you didn’t know, that I am very stingy with my money. But this verse came to mind as I was praying to God one night when He told me to offer up MORE than 1/10 because He gave me more than what I expected. Hebrews 13:5 “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” I believe, without a doubt, that God feels everything that I’m feeling and He rewards those who follow closely by Him. Although of course, sometimes God doesn’t always give us what we want, but even then, it’s important to learn that we must continue to praise Him. Everything I do isn’t to make my employer pay me more or so that I can brag to my friends, but instead, I’m doing everything to glorify God’s kingdom. In Matthew 6:33 it says “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Here’s what I’ve concluded: God loves us SO much and he wants to give us EVERYTHING we desire, but in order to give us what we want, He wants us to seek him whole-heartedly first and foremost above all things, such as money, relationships, and our time.