Dear..
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
James 4:7-8
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
James 4:10
James 4:7-8 is a favorite working verse for me. It is a verse that encourages us to be counter culture or more correctly, counter carnal. The fallen us processes decisions and reactions by its impact on our self interest. To be able to be like Christ, to move from self to selfless, we must consciously in all circumstances, turn to God and learn to look from His perspective. Our Spirit man must come to the fore, the carnal natural man recede into oblivion. The willingness to submit to God can only come from a daily walk that seeks after Him always. The attitude of letting go and letting God has to be nurtured, it is unnatural to us, the seed of the fallen first man, Adam.
"Hold tightly what is eternal; hold lightly what is temporal."
( from "Recipe for success," RBC Ministries)
Often, we come to our Lord in prayers and supplication, expecting Him to answer our prayers. But have we subconsciously taken on the role of master to our Divine God, giving Him our specifications, rather than taking time to be still, to know His will?
God will lift us up His way, not ours.
Lately, the hint of a rerun of the Asian crisis of the 1990s is starting to dawn on many. Christine Lagarde, the Chief of IMF just yesterday spoke about the need for the world to be ready for this possibility. Is she relishing a reprise of the highhanded role IMF played in the last Asian crisis, but maybe with her arms crossed hovering next to a subdued China President Xi Jin Ping, instead of her predecessor Michel Camdessus with the late Indonesian President Suharto?( http://ipezone.blogspot.sg/2007/09/flashback-camdessus-suharto-pic.html)
The still very feisty ex Malaysian PM, Dr Mahathir will have another field day hoisting his theory of a Western conspiracy to undermine the resurgent Asians, who looked set to replace the morally corrupt, debt addicted West.
Liquidity, as in wads of cheap monies from Uncle Sam's printing machine gone amok, has started to reverse course. Will the hollowing out of easy monies that fueled the Asian property mania, leave a strewn of debt ridden individuals in its wake. The Asian crisis of the 1990s was a corporate led debt binge, when many borrowed cheap US dollars to fund their megalomaniac aspirations. This nascent mini Asian crisis is inclined more towards the individual level, where many after the subprime crisis, fled to the perceived safety of brick and mortar, after the tumultuous and torrid affair with purveyors of financial alchemy and their toxic wares.
Yield, a financial term that will soon be the catch word for many who were once enamored with its lows, but now have every reason to dread its rise. The yield on the US ten years long bond has moved up from 1.8% to 2.8%. It is starting to hurt mortgages in the States, and it will begin to hurt the rest of us in Asia and the the world, when local interest rates move up in tandem. How long can governments push back the stampeding fleeing droves of foreign funds and even domestic savers from bolting? How much more will the Central Banks deplete their foreign reserves in the futile attempt to defend their currencies from speculative attacks?
Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Matthew 4:8-9
Moving from finance to spiritual matters, the word "yield" is an act of submission.
In financial parlance, the term yield to maturity (YTM) means the annual return on a compounded basis that one receives per annum, if one holds a bond to its maturity.
Yield to mammon (ytm), is this not what many of us are subject to till the day we breathe our last?
Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.
Psalms 31:5
Yield to call (YTC), the annualized return till the day the issuer of the bond decides to call back the IOU, and redeem his debt.
Yield to Christ (ytc), will you submit when Christ calls?
'.....saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me:nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
Luke 22:42
To be a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must be willing to be disciplined.
I used to think that disciplining is a response from God to our ill behavior. But it is much broader. God will discipline us even when we think we are doing right in His eyes. For fact is, we are continuously being perfected. Understand this truth, then can we not just persevere but move forth boldly riding on the power of the Spirit of God residing in our hearts.
God blesses
Eng Hieang
28 Aug 2013
Apocalypse again??
' The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city,
and it shall be a ruinous heap.'
Isaiah 17:1
End of the world only God knows. But for the many asset rich, cash poor heavily indebted individuals, the days of being weaned off a diet of low interest rates is near.
Western intervention in Syria looks inevitable. And history has shown that it will lead to an inflammation of Arab resentment which eventually will be directed to their half brother, the Israelites. Natural shale gas there might be aplenty, but an energy crisis from a Middle East conflagration might be what is needed to kickstart the necessary infrastructure development to put natural gas in the forefront of US energy security.
The Americans have every reason for starting a Mid East war. But in playing with fire, they could literally light the match that will ignite the piles of paper monies awashed in the world. There has been a precedence, in the last stagflation of the late 1970s/ early 1980s, where the world also witnessed the last major Arab Israel conflict back in 1978.
Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because thou hast forgotten me, and cast me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.
Ezekiel 23:35
Would a major downturn in our property market when interest rates moved up significantly be what is needed to turn many back to God??
No comments:
Post a Comment