Disconnected as in I feel like a stranger in church. I don't know anybody there. Even as I try to serve the ministries, people there are so socially disconnected and not willing to make friends.

Most single guys there are self righteous, they always think they r right, if you cross them, they just dun friend you. Egoistical to the core, they are. No wonder they are single.

I did not overlook both the theories, in fact, these theories did not come into consideration for me at all. It was you who brought up the theories with hopes to persuade me in that i shouldn't be bothered in how my tithes are being utilized (when the fact is obvious, it could be abused). I don't remember that i dragged the Holy Spirit into consideration as well but since you mentioned Continualism then I might as well talk in the same context as you so that you can understand better where I am coming from.

I'll never know whether it was the Holy Spirit talking to me or not, in fact, I don't think even think the Pope could swear in the name of God that the voices he hears in his head is the Holy Spirit or the Devil that is talking to him, he just needs to have faith that it was the Holy Spirit and hope for the best. The Holy Spirit is not a being, it's a manifestation hence it does not possess the likeness of men, it's an intuition, a feeling, a "hunch". It signals you when something is not right.

Have your pastor ever suggested to you that whenever you are in doubt, pray and eventually an answer will come to you? If you do not have an inner peace then do not proceed.

I'm sure you have been through this experience before and do you hear voices in your head which you are sure it's the Holy Spirit or you just suddenly feel that it's right to do what you have in mind? It's a feeling of "you know it's right". That's the Holy Spirit, it's a manifestation, something intangible, something cannot be seen. You require "faith" to believe in the Holy Spirit. Believing in the things unseen.

Do not give in because you fear because fear comes from the Devil. That I can assure you.

With that in mind, I can now answer your question.

1) how can I be sure that it was not the Devil that is asking me to stop tithing?
- very simple and you don't require 50 days of silent meditation to get an answer. when the facts are presented to you right in your face telling you that the tithes is now subject to the question of being abuse for certain particular individual gains and you feel uneasy. do you think it's the Devil who tells you to stop and start looking for another "shepard"? if that is your understanding then your idea of the Devil isn't all that bad.

- if we already feel uneasy during tithing and we are compelled to continue because we fear we may anger God then i need to confirm with you if we are referring to the same God. My God doesn't care if i tithe or not and He still stood by my side during my lowest point of life and lifted me up. My blessing is not a consequence of the monetary contribution I make to the church.

2) the bribery question
- your hypothetical question does not make sense and it's a bad example because it's requires you to question your morality rather than anything else. your moral obligation suggest that you should/must bribe to save the kid. there's nothing religious here. The decision is in your hands, the Holy Spirit or the Devil doesn't care whether the boy lives or die or what decision you choose. You make that decision based on your conscience and eventually you will choose to bribe because you fear the social repercussion against you if you didn't not.

The problem with many Christians nowadays is because they do what the general public think it's right but the biggest compelling force is fear. Pastors occasionally inflict fear subconsciously into the minds of people telling that if they don't tithe then prepare to go to hell when they die. People generally is afraid of death and the unknown so to many 10% is not a big amount so they rather pay that 10% than risk facing the unknown, they got "nothing to lose" and they have in mind, "if the tithe is abused, it's the pastor to answer, not me" but little that they know, they are the ones contributing to the abuse.

Tithes must come willingly, if it's given with so many qualifications, it's not a tithe, it's an obligation.

How do you think the City Havest scandal come about?

If we have the duty to spread the goods news then aren't we also have the duty to make sure that we don't feed the wrong shepard.

Let me make a daring assumption, can i say that the pastor you go see every Sunday morning is in fact the Devil himself? You won't know, you just believed that he's not because he's in a church. You don't hear voices in your head telling you "your pastor is not the Devil" but you have the feeling in you that you know he just isn't.

That's my point.

Not to say, we don't want to preach to the malay but we're forbidden by law to do so.........

I think you have not grasped the reality of Great Commission, Great Commission true aims is to preach to all the world until Jesus came. Look at China, during the great revolutions, how many Chinese Christians were persecuted? How many goes underground?

Also please read what Jesus told the Apostles what would happened before His return back to earth.

1 thing just remain love one another, open your heart to other. Just because you don't feel it that way doesn't mean everyone must be the same.

You are not suited for big church, you should aim for smaller church

oo;; Not sure why did you posted from the forum conversation but it seems that Kan misunderstood the word, "continuationism".

Duh . I have no such desire to. It is your conversation with him. I am just curious why the post here? What is it that you want to show us?

you are delusional............claiming to be prophet and god tell you to kill that is not God, that is Satan

Proven everyone is correct about you, you're delusional beyond hope. You better go and have check up at Tanjong Rambutan hospital

Survive? got closed down i heard and claiming one self to be prophet And to add, 95% of the posts spammed by you.  

Not very nice to say this bro.

There are sites that mirrors / crawls / indexes forums for their own purposes.

For example our thread is also found: http://boardreader.com/s/LYN%20Christian%2...ship%20V10.html

How is this a miracle?

Is this all you can elaborate? Or you only have punch lines? You should ask yourself the same question.

Yes thanks for your understanding. This is what De Luffy has been missing my point.

Yesterday I was at church, and Pastor Chris delivered yet another sermon, which makes my eyes roll. He said serving would heal us from our pains. As what you've said, if serving takes our eyes from the problem, then what's differentiate serving from going to the gym and work your body out until you can't lift your hand? Many people go for under distractions, like I know a school friend who is suicidal but he goes to the gym and works very hard to forget his problems, he work so hard, one day, he accidentaly tore his muscle, when he could not go to the gym, his hands were trembling for him to cut his own wrist.

So in the same sense, a dude relying on gym to distract him from his problems, is no different from those guys I know who serve 110% at church to forget about their own problems. The problem is still there, they are just not taking it head on. Not figuring why is there the problem in the first place. As I know one dude at church, he is a socially awkward guy, he speaks openly about jumping down from a high rise building or other means of suicide. But you know what? When the members all hear, nobody took action, just sat there during gathering and ignored him. I reported this to the leadership, they just tell me to not take him seriously. Instead, they think by putting him into serving ministries, will heal him from his problems. Apa ini man? What happen to us lately?

Have we turned into a community of uncaring and uncountable brothers and sisters towards each others?

Then there's that borderline between forgivesness and having a big disagreement with the church?

Does forgiveness mean, being a YES MAN? Become one of them? Just drop all my assertions and believes and values for the sake of being submissive to the leadership of the church? Even though its eating up my soul? Agree with them and shut my mouth?

I had an interesting discussion during bible study 2 years ago, when a long serving christian at a prominent church in Damansara Heights, was part of the treasury committee in charge of funding the new building (apparently in bukit jalil). He told us that he had a big fight with the church, because he felt the church funds wasn't able to fund the new building and the funds could be use better for other ministries such as helping the poor. But everyone at the committee was a YES MAN. They approves the project. And you've read the papers, that church in many years struggled to build that new facility, and put the church into debt. Many years it was delayed. The dude who disagreed with them, left the church. Even today, people question the waste of money use to build this white elephant because they only use the building once a month.

And I haven't even bring up City Harvest.

Somehow at yesterdays sermon, the pastor missed the mark by 1000 miles. Yes I agree with him, the great commission, he wants to expand the church to 15000 people, wants to do church planting and want the church to be a blessing to the unbelievers, want to be a community light house, salt and light of the earth !

But what about looking inward? He talks about church planting and expansion but this cannot be achieve if he keeps on stretching the cell groups. Do you know what he calls the cell group? SMALL GROUP ! Now he's like making our cg size 3 to 7 people. I heard of the saying, WORK HARD and PLAY HARD. What's wrong with having a 20 person cg? Where's the diversity? Where's the comaderie? Instead I having to go to cg meeting every friday night, and only meet up with 3 people sitting at a sofa. It feels more like shrink therapy than a cg session. And you know how the cgs r instructed to conduct the cg session? Every friday, my cg leader would come up with very thought provoking questions aftern the sermon, end up heated debate among the few of us. Then I feel like I am being indoctrinated, 3 vs 1, to come back to the "good" side. I can only say without love, the church won't win the hearts and minds of its congregation. We may just say yes to them, but we all be like a robot and just take instructions, things are not going to be implemented right.

The cg groups have already been stretched thin, and the pastor still want to multiply. Is he dreaming or what?

When I mean stretch thin, I mean not the work nor the commitments we are all taking. In fact, we would be glad to take up more and more serving at the church. But please don't take away the fellowship of the cg, for goodness sake. Why multiply the cg every 2 years? Before I even have the chance to blend and connect with others, they are already in the other cg. Shouldn't we deserve to have some fun at church, some laughter, some friendship?

Instead of having to come to cg lonely? No chinese new year dinner or celebration, we just come every friday are debate.

Forgiveness doesn't mean agree everything with the church. And how far do we submit, before the damage is done? The kind of damage that City Harvest have done. If anyone were to question the church policies, that person is regarded as a rebel, an argumentative and divisive persona and a distruptor who doesn't understand the bible.

THE TWO ASPECTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Essential Aspect for Life

The Spirit has two aspects - the essential and the economical aspects. Essential means relating to the essence, necessary to the constitution and existence, hence, of life and being. The essential aspect is that the Spirit would come into us, bringing us the divine essence to be our life and life supply. By this aspect we may live and have our being in God to express God. Man was made by God to have God’s life and to express God. This aspect of the Spirit fulfills that intention.

The Economical Aspect for Power

Economical means pertaining to the economy, necessary to the out-working of God’s household administration, hence, of power and work. The economical aspect is that the Spirit would clothe us with power so that we do God’s work of preaching the gospel, shepherding the young ones, perfecting the saints, and building up the church. Man was redeemed and regenerated to become partners of Christ in building up His church according to God’s economy. This aspect of the Spirit fulfills that requirement.

THE INWARD FILLING OF THE SPIRIT FOR LIFE

In John 14:16-17 Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter…even the Spirit of reality…shall be in you.’’ In John 16:7, He said further, “If I go I will send Him (the Comforter) to you.’’ Before the Lord’s death, He promised the troubled disciples that He needed to go to the cross in order for the Spirit of reality to be sent. The Spirit of reality was to be in the disciples to bring to them all the divine realities of the Father and the Son. This was fulfilled on the day of resurrection according to John 20:19-22, “When therefore it was evening on that day, the first day of the week…Jesus came and stood in the midst…He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.’’ By the breathing in, the disciples received the Spirit of reality into them for life and life supply, since the Spirit is also the life-giving Spirit.

In Acts, the disciples continued to experience the inward filling. Acts 13:52 says, “And the disciples were made full of joy and of the Holy Spirit.’’ The Greek word used here is pleroo meaning filling inwardly to fullness. With the inward filling, we have joy as one of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23).

THE OUTWARD FILLING OF THE SPIRIT FOR POWER

In Luke 24:49 the Lord Jesus said, “I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you…until you are clothed with power from on high.’’ In Acts 1:4-8 He also said, “Wait for the promise of the Father…you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.’’ He talked about the promised Spirit of power after His resurrection, before His ascension. Although the disciples had already received the Holy Spirit to be their life and life supply, they still needed the power of the Holy Spirit to work for God. In order to preach the gospel, they needed to bind the devil and loose the sinners, they needed boldness, and they needed various manifestations of gifts. Therefore, they must wait for the clothing of power by the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

This was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost according to Acts:2:1-4, “And when the day of Pentecost was being fulfilled…they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.’’ The Greek word used here for “filled’’ is pletho meaning filling outwardly. They were empowered by the outward filling. Right after that, they went out to preach the gospel with boldness and power. We all need this type of experience in our daily church life.